Yoga for Meditation

Yoga is bodily gospel. (~Reaven Fields)

Yoga is a 26 millenniums-old Indian science for healthy living that gives one a better quality of life. Yoga for meditation is a union of the body with the big mind through the practice of asanas (steady and comfortable bodily postures) and observation on the breath. Modified, adapted and perfected over thousands of years, yoga for meditation has culminated into an unputdownable asset in today’s civilization of mindless stress.

Couple yoga with breathing techniques (pranayama) that modulate the rhythms in breath, and meditation (dhyana) for rejuvenating the mind, and one would experience the equilibrium that we were all born with.

The body needs effort to restore its dexterity; in contrast, the prerequisite for a mind to be more skillful is effortlessness. And nature has conditioned both effort and effortlessness to complement each other favorably through the practical science of yoga for meditation. Meditation yoga is a fast-track experiential transition from the gross level of bodily existence to the subtlety of the mind and the soul.

Meditation is stillness of the mind in harmony with the body-breath complex. It is the state of restful awareness. After letting go of bodily inertia through yoga asanas, a person optimally meditates to repose in the self, thus flushing out emotional garbage (impressions), mental chattering, and let go of past hurts, strengthen intuition, and uncover untapped creativity so that the body-mind complex can experience inner peace and outer dynamism- I call this the i-p-o-d!

Observe a year old baby’s graceful movements and you’ll know how instinctively and effortlessly it glides in and out of yoga asanas (postures). This is the best pointer of our inborn knowledge of asanas. Asanas equilibrate the body in a serene state of contemplation by drawing our attention to the breath- the epicenter of emotions. This is a preparatory stage of yoga for meditation.

Just as the clay pot must be baked well in order to receive and hold water in it, likewise yoga is a preparation for the climax of meditation. Consequently, meditation unburdens yesterdays or yester-year’s emotional clutter fermenting the mind. Thus with the newly-acquired clarity, a meditative mind takes long-sighted decisions versus a stressed and agitated mind that takes decisions that one more often regrets later. That’s why so many benefit by meditation in yoga.

The ever-elusive mind, previously scorching in past regrets or future apprehensions, is lassoed back to the only-real and inevitable present moment when yoga for meditation fuse together. This state of total focus and total relaxation going hand-in-hand is the most powerful survival toolkit yoga-asanas can give to today’s youth and professionals.

Awareness of the body’s real needs and sensitivity to the environment is the first evolutionary capability one develops through practice of yoga asanas with and for meditation. Asanas and pranayamas compound the richness of a person’s meditation experience in the same manner as an arrow which in order to travel forward must first be pulled backwards in a bow’s string.

Asanas practiced with mediation, a.k.a. yoga for meditation, pulls one out of the vicious cycle of mediocrity, and into an effortless play of all-round excellence, as experienced by many millions today. And such excellence-inspiring equanimity shows louder than words, because yoga for meditation is a means to the end and an end to the means by itself.

Yoga for meditation is a freeing experience.