The most common form of yoga: Hatha-Yoga
Hatha-Yoga is the really most common form of yoga in the US and many other western countries. The word “Yoga” can be translated with “union”. The words “Ha-Tha” mean “sun/moon” and refer to the oppositeness. In Hatha-Yoga the opposites body and mind or spirit are brought together and should form a union. Like the two sides of a coin are also opposites – but they still belong together.
Balance of body, mind and feeling
So the goal of Hatha-Yoga is to form a balance of your body and your mind. The ideal outcome is a balance and harmonious interaction of all components that constitute us as human beings: our body, thoughts and feeling. This balance is of course not static, rather it is always a little different. On a day we are very centered… on the following day again in considerable disorder, which must be corrected. One of the ultimate goals of yoga is to always lead us to that center, that relatively balanced state of being.
How yoga can help you to get a boost
Interest in Hatha-Yoga in the Western world is definitely so great because the majority of the people having a strong imbalance of body, mind and emotions. What dominates most of the time is our mind! Most of us are working almost one hundred percent rational. The body has become an appendage – the vehicle that only chauffeurs us all over the place. A machine whose only job it is to work well. If we look at it and deal with him from time to time, then it is mostly to keep that vehicle operational so it can serve the intellect as long as possible.
Make yourself feel comfortable
Only ten percent of our body – the mind or our thoughts – mostly claim all of our available energy. The other ninety percent we usually become conscious of only if we suffer from pain. With Hatha-Yoga you try to spread your awareness to your entire body. A matter of HathaYoga is to really feel yourself. And what that Form of yoga can give us in the end is to feel home in that vehicle that we call body or person (including thoughts and feelings).
Feelings and thoughts become clearer
The emotions, another element of the complex energy system we call human, are often out of control with most of the so called “civilized people”. Hatha-Yoga also provides relief here. Through physical exercises we re-gain a feeling for our bodies and become more grounded ultimately. The breathing and relaxation exercises carried out in Hatha-Yoga have great power to calm you down. If you start your day with Hatha-Yoga, your emotions will not get off track so easily.
Even your thoughts can be clarified doing Hatha-Yoga because you are trained to concentrate on one thing only. And if you lower your mental activities during the relaxation exercises to a minimum, you create the basis for taking problems calmly and dissolving them in a kind of unattached manner.
In the next article you will learn about what you need to get started with yoga.
~Read the next part of this series~
~ Your Yoga for Beginners Team ~
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