Let Yoga Show you the way to Calmness and Good Health

The aim of any true spiritual path, including something seemingly physical like yoga, is to raise our awareness to allow us to directly perceive the spiritual dimension. To be spiritual means to recognize one’s spiritual identity and recognize the transcendental essence of everything around us. Additionally, it means to see that we are all parts and parcels of God and to respect each other in that light. That is one of the goals of Yoga. But how can we be convinced that there even is a God?

This comes through a reawakening of our higher sense of awareness and the perception of our spiritual identity. It is through the process of yoga and following the pathway of Sanatana-dharma that we can reach this higher consciousness and comprehend exactly who we are. The Yoga-sutras of Patanjali form the basis of yoga practice. However, yoga itself is a deep and serious practice, and there are a number of types of yoga that can be practiced…

The four main types of yoga with varying yoga positions:

Jnana-yoga is the pathway of intellectual growth and understanding the nature of reality. Karma-yoga is the pathway of right action, detachment from the fruits of one’s deeds, and dedicating our activities to a higher, spiritual purpose. Raja-yoga or Astanga is the pathway of inward meditation and the achievement of higher states of consciousness through various different practices. Bhakti-yoga is the pathway of raising our consciousness, developing our love and devotion for God and decreasing our attraction for aspects of the temporary material world.

There are many other types of yoga, but they are typically considered branches of these four paths.

However, in the early stages, yoga is, essentially, a tool for controlling the flickering nature of the mind, and for promoting the growth of one’s finer qualities and expanding one’s awareness from material to spiritual consciousness. It is taught that Yoga is the process of calming the activities of the mind, which include imagination, misconception, memory, sleep, and perceived knowledge. When these are stabilized, then it can be called yoga, which offers the opportunity for the practitioner to become fully aware of his own essential and fundamental nature. Yoga is the attempt to realign our individual Selves with the Supreme Self, God.

When you make progress in yoga you can feel the unwanted burdens of the mind melt away, such as anxiety, anger, greed, envy, discontent, hate, etc. Then other qualities like blissfulness, peacefulness, tranquility, and contentment will be experienced. These are qualities sought by all and are among the many things that can be achieved through yoga, at least on the elementary level. As you continue to progress, you may enter into the deeper levels of understanding and transcending the mind and gradually go so far as to realize your own spiritual identity and what your relationship is with the Absolute. Becoming free from material life and reclaiming one’s spiritual identity is the goal of all types of yoga.

But despite all these benefits, many people find it difficult to follow this path. This is simply because they lack the motivation to exercise. But once you start performing Yoga on a regular basis, it will itself keep you motivated. The benefit of feeling motivated by Yoga practice is what makes Yoga unique among health maintenance systems.

Yoga can become a lifestyle because there is no real discomfort involved

Why do most diets fail? Why do most exercisers quit? Lack of motivation is usually the reason for exercise and diet failure. People already know they ought to walk more, eat better, drink more water, and exercise, but they must maintain their level of motivation without “burning out.”

In Yoga, positive energy is all around the classroom. Positive energy creates motivation to exercise and creates strong visions of success. The next step is to believe the powerful visions of success, which form a mental picture. Some people are afraid to be successful. Maybe they inherently feel a lack of self-worth, but Yoga also works on improving one’s self-esteem. It is normal for people to feel apprehensive about change, but change is often one of the keys to success.

So we can say that consistency acts as the key as far as the benefits of yoga are concerned while we are in the process of learning yoga positions. We can’t derive benefits from yoga if we are not consistent with our routine. If we fail to be consistent, then it is difficult to derive positive results and yoga can’t be blamed for it. To stay motivated, a beneficial technology is hypnosis i.e. Hypnotherapy.

Hypnosis therapy has proven to be extremely effective in getting and keeping us motivated. Self hypnosis is based on the formula of auto suggestion and visual imagery, and it works on a deeper unconscious level than one can imagine. Motivational self hypnosis engages with your unconscious mind, and urges it to positively alter your sense of self-image and self-perception.

Unbeknownst to us, our unconscious is largely responsible for how we think and react; if we train it to think along more positive lines, your subsequent behavior will change as well. You will feel motivated to understand the incredible potential that lies within us, and by using a hypnosis program you can tap into that potential. Through gentle affirmations such as “I can do it” along with powerful visual imagery, self hypnosis programs can retrain your mind into believing that anything is possible, and nothing is impossible. This means that yoga combined with hypnotherapy can help us to move towards success more quickly.

Alan B. Densky, CH started his hypnotherapy practice in 1978. He offers a wide range of hypnosis CDs & DVDs for all aspects of self-improvement and yoga training, including hypnosis for exercise motivation.