Yoga, the invaluable treasure of India

YOGA
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Yoga, a term with which I have chanced to be familiar from my early life as I am one whose place of birth is somewhere within the subcontinent of India, has been and is still an enigma to me. I am from West Bengal and this part of the Indian territory is infamous for its secular bending of the mind. We are , perhaps because of our disposition of being naturally lazy, less formal in different spheres of life and we are religious to that proportion historically. Hence, if I am true to myself I must admit that we have learned to consider Yoga to be something great and for the sages only and that we should maintain some awful distance from it. We can claim our innocence to own such attitude towards Yoga as we have been taught that persons with expertise in Yoga are generally anything more than extraordinary and that they are beyond our reach.
Still I have turned to this mysterious subject as I have noticed one of the recent proposals of the government of India stating that Swami Ramdev may be requested to give lessons of Yoga to our paramilitary personnel, that is, to thousands of persons in the security and defense in order to free them from stress and strain.

Yoga is a Sanskrit word and this particular word means union. A section of people of the ancient India has a strong metaphysical bending of mind. They have an idea that with a specific set of mental and physical practices a man can be united with his creator, that is, with the eternal self. They had a belief that a man must motivate himself for this end. The philosophy of Yoga states that final and th greatest human wisdom may be achieved by an collective insight on physiology, ethics, psychology and spirituality which is possible to earn only through sincere, proper and regular practices of Yoga.

It is hardly possible to determine how old this practices are. The Harappan people(3300 to 1700 BC) might have such experiences because some seals found in the sites of the Indus Valley Civilization have engravings of male figures in meditation-like posture.
The Vedic period is also based on anticipation. In the Vedas, for the first time in the earliest religious scripture of India, that is in the Rik Veda prescription of Yoga has been noticed. The concept of has been well-exhibited in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishada, (one of the earliest Upanishadas). This philosophical exercises of the Upanishadas have been anticipated to be sometime in 400BC. References of Yoga have been marked in the Indian Epics, that is, in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, which are works of 5th to 2nd century BC. In the Bhagabat Gita (200 BC) and in the Yoga-Sutra of Patanjoli 200 to 100 BC.

Amritakunda (meaning Pool of nectar) is an ancient Indian text of the Yoga and this book has been translated into Arabian and Persian languages by the 11th century and there is reason to believe that Sufism owes much to the Yoga of India in its flourishing. The breath control and different physical postures practiced by the Sufis remind us the endeavors of the ancient Indian yoga.
Yoga has left deep marks even in the Jainism and Buddhism. Thus Yoga has deep relationship with different religious schools of the Indian soil.

Methods

Patonjoli, the high-priest of the Indian Yoga, has furnished eight steps of Yoga namely,
Yamas or eternal vows,
Niyamas or observances,
Yogasanas or yoga postures,
Pranayama or breath control exercises,
Pratyahara or withdrawal of the senses from distractions of the outside world,
Dharana or concentration on an object, place or subject,
Dhyana or the continuance of this concentration-meditation and
Samadhi or the ultimate stage of yoga meditation

Benefits
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The benefits of Yoga may be traced by the fact that our mind and body regularly influence one another. Yoga involves our mind and body simultaneously. This balances our nervous and endocrine systems that leaves noticeable impact on different systems and organs of our body. It is said that different diseases such as blood pressure, diabetes, indigestion, asthma, arthritis, fatigue of long years etc may be cured by regular practices of the Yoga. Yoga helps us achieve mental peace and enhance power of concentration and thus we reach to an equilibrium very close to nature.
Yogasanas (positions), Pranayamas (control of breathing) and Dhyanasanas(meditation) are the principal elements of practices to yield the best benefits.

In stead of conclusion
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I have the habit of respecting the endeavors of mankind. The Yoga has its roots in one of the ancient civilizations of the world. Human beings stand for noble reasons and
infinite faculties. Hence Yoga should not remain anything as limited to the Hindus of India. It has been observed that persons entrusted with the responsibilities of great and complex concerns undergo seasonal training of Yoga and live a tension-free life. As the modern life is full of uncertainty and tensions and stresses are to be faced daily at every step we should prescribe Yoga for each cross-section of the people irrespective of status, caste, creed,community, language, religion and nationalities. The operation has already started through the globe and this fruit is to be spread to every corner of the world. We have already a number of Yoga institutes all over the world and we have competent persons, very few in number although, who can train others so that health of the brain and also that of the mind may properly be taken care of.

Cautions
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Yoga is a combination of physical and mental exercises and it should be learned directly from a person who is an expert in this subject. In the absence of it an incumbent may face very serious problems, both mental and physical .

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