Regular yoga exercises strengthen the body. Yoga for the body - what does science say? Causal body

Yoga trains the body and mind. All yoga exercises for beginners are designed to train all muscles. The workout will take only 30 minutes of your time, will help the body gain flexibility, relieve pain and give peace.

The result is a balanced and healthy body, beautiful appearance muscles, lower risk of injury. These workouts for beginners increase energy levels and are great when the body feels tired, stressed, or depressed.

Beginners want to cope with daily stress, relax and give rest to a tired body.

The Sivananda Yoga program is based on five principles that improve physical fitness, develop flexibility and mental well-being through:

regular classes;
deep breathing;
relaxation;
healthy eating;
meditation and positive thoughts.

Lesson for Beginners

The various yoga poses and the specific order in which they are performed are so beautifully designed that the body gets rid of stress and the muscles and joints gain mobility and flexibility.

Asanas systematically work to stretch and contract the muscles of the body, relieve tension and lead to a deep sense of relaxation.

Introduction to Yoga

Below are the elements of a yoga class for beginners, including the health benefits of each exercise. It is best for beginners to learn yoga asanas under guidance experienced teacher. When training your body at home, the book “Yoga. A Guide for Beginners and Experts" (edited by Sivananda Yoga Center), which will provide valuable assistance in home practice. Yoga according to the book takes approximately 30 minutes. It is important to remember that in yoga you do not need to compare your flexibility with the ballerina working next to you; in it, the first place is not the ideal execution of the pose, but:

feeling of stretching;
deep breaths;
feeling of balance and rejuvenation.

Pre-relaxation

Beginners lie on their back in a relaxation position (Shavasana) and breathe deeply. Then they begin active rest, in which they either tense or relax individual parts of the body. It helps:

calm the mind;
relieve body tension.

The optimal start to every yoga session.

Forward bends

The pose is stretching bottom part back and hamstrings. This is done for a minimum of 30 seconds, a maximum of 3 minutes. When returning to tadasana, straighten up slowly to avoid dizziness.

Stand up straight. Feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent for a more stable position, and slowly tilt your upper body until your knees rest.
You can touch the floor with your hands or grab opposite elbows.
Once your body becomes more flexible, you will be able to straighten your knees, but remember to always start and finish the exercise calmly.

Lie face down on the floor, place your palms hip-width apart, fingers facing forward.
Knees and feet shoulder-width apart, top part feet lie on the floor.
Using the strength of your arms, lift your hips off the floor, lifting your torso and extending it upward. Press your heels to the floor.
Look straight ahead or look slightly upward.
Hold in this position for 30 seconds and lie down on the floor.

Lie down on the mat. Place your palms in front of you.
Raise your buttocks up until your knees leave the ground. Legs remain straight.
The torso and arms form a straight line.
Hold the position for 30 seconds to stretch the muscles in your hips and shoulders.

Stand up straight with your knees slightly bent so that you can see your toes.
Arch your back and stretch right hand down beyond the left ankle or as low as possible.
Direct left hand reach toward the ceiling and try to keep your shoulders in line with your left arm.
Look up and gently stretch along with your left arm.
This exercise opens the chest and collarbones.
Hold the position for 30 seconds and repeat on the other side.

Stand in Tadasana.
Place your arms along your body.
Gently lean forward, keeping your back straight and bringing your hands closer to your toes.
Hold the position for 30 seconds.

This is a great yoga position for adding flexibility to your torso and back. One of the benefits of yoga is that it helps relieve back pain. Camel pose is perfect for this.

Get on your knees, hands along your hips.
With your right hand, grab your right ankle. The thighs are perpendicular to the floor, the lower leg lies on the floor.
Arch your back and move your torso forward slightly to reach and grasp your left ankle.
Tighten your buttocks and round your back again to open up your chest more.
Hold the pose for 30 seconds (or less if you feel your back is straining too much).

Rest

Between yoga exercises, beginners should rest on their back, in the so-called “corpse pose,” breathe deeply and feel positive effect from previously completed positions.

This yoga exercise stretches the entire back of the body, increases the flexibility of the lumbar spine and improves overall posture. In 30 minutes a day, beginners increase the flexibility of all muscles. This asana provides a complete massage of the internal organs and helps eliminate diseases such as constipation.

Final rest

Reward for beginners at the end of 30 minutes of yoga. The fullness of the exercises is felt in 10-15 minutes of rest at the end of classes, by active rest(muscle contraction and relaxation), deep breathing and visualization.

There is probably no person who has not heard of such a word as “yoga,” but at the same time, not everyone is able to explain what it is. I would like to note that yoga is a unique, amazing practice that came to the world from the mysterious, enigmatic India, and as you know, this particular country brings health not only to the body, but also to the soul of a person, so it is worth realizing and understanding this .

It is impossible not to add that yoga allows you to learn how to breathe correctly, breathe correctly, and fully relax, but besides this, it allows you to forget about insomnia, and many people so often suffer from this illness.

Speaking in general about yoga, of course, you should understand that this is a special, unique way of life, which is famous for the fact that it will allow everyone to achieve enlightenment. Remember that if you want to do yoga, you will have to give up certain benefits of civilization.

After all, it is yoga that is different in that it forces you to rethink not only life principles, but also habits. If you want to do yoga, be prepared for the fact that now there will be a desire to give up everything bad and harmful; you can learn to control your feelings, acquiring not only mental, but also physical balance. Those people who regularly do this claim that they started life differently, and had no idea how their gray days went before.

Many people perceive yoga as a set of asanas, but if you want to do the same, then know that for you it will become simple gymnastics and nothing more, and therefore it will not be able to bring the desired effect. In this case, yoga will be a complex various exercises, intended to improve health, normalize the functioning of certain organs, etc.

A Brief History of Yoga

As for the history of yoga, naturally it is long and rich, because if you carefully study Indian seals, you will notice images of figures in yogic meditation poses.

Despite all the advantages that yoga has, many people still do not know what benefits it brings, but if you carefully study this issue, then all doubts will disappear instantly, instantly. We can safely say that even two months is enough and you will be able to feel favorable, positive and positive changes.

Such exercises are also famous for the fact that they will allow you to forget about chronic pain in certain sections of the spine, which is important. It is important to add that yoga is also different in that it treats all systems of the body, and these are not empty words. Of course, you should exercise regularly in order to achieve some results and effects, in which case you yourself will begin to notice how the body becomes flexible and plastic.

Attention: Remember that only yoga classes will allow a person to feel the real vital energy, gaining self-confidence, moreover, such activities will allow you to become calmer, less susceptible to both stress and other negative situations, and this is a serious advantage.

Contraindications to yoga

You need to understand that yoga can really be practiced by anyone who wants it, but, like any gymnastics, there are some contraindications that it is advisable to familiarize yourself with in advance so that such training cannot cause any damage or harm to your health.

For example, it is strictly forbidden to practice yoga if you have certain mental disorders, this includes schizophrenia, certain exacerbations of diseases of internal organs, so it is worth taking this into account;
If you are faced with a problem such as arterial or intracranial pressure, then you should forget about such activities; perhaps you also have various heart diseases;
You cannot do yoga if you have inguinal hernias;
In the case of certain heart diseases, especially after a heart attack;
One cannot help but add here joint diseases, various spinal injuries, and cancer;
If certain operations have been performed, then you should abandon such activities;
Accordingly, this must be done for influenza, colds, and fever.

Attention: Sometimes it happens that during yoga classes a person begins to feel unwell, his condition worsens, naturally, this cannot be tolerated, in this case, you should definitely stop training so as not to encounter serious health problems, moreover, a medical consultation will be required .

Now you probably understand that yoga will require systematicity, so try to immediately decide on the time of your classes; in general, it is generally accepted that you should start every morning with a yoga class, doing it for a couple of hours, but of course, the most optimal time for classes is evening.

In addition to the above, it is important not to forget that you should practice yoga strictly with an empty stomach, or, a few hours after eating, perform special exercises You can either on a slippery mat or on the floor, barefoot.

Many people do not take such activities seriously, later wondering why they could not achieve any results. Know that yoga always requires complete silence and concentration, which means that external sound sources should be turned off accordingly.

The moment you begin to perform certain exercises, you will definitely need to concentrate on the body, completely relax, forgetting about all the problems that may be bothering you, completely immersing yourself in the process of meditation. In general, know that asanas should be performed correctly, namely, slowly and smoothly, then you can feel every inhalation and exhalation, which is important.

After all, exclusively correct breathing It will be possible to properly relax the body and calm the mind, so do not forget about this, this is the main secret, the effectiveness of such exercises.

What should you not do when doing yoga?

Yoga, as a rule, is considered a calm and safe activity, it will help you cope with constant stress, and also strengthens the immune system, but you should not ignore the fact that you need to perform each exercise not only smoothly, but also with concentration.

Initial exercises for beginners

As for the first exercises, you can start them on your own, even without an instructor; such asanas are extremely beneficial, even if they are not performed quite correctly. Of course, there is no need to rush; try to tune in exclusively to the sensations of your body, performing the exercises gradually.

To perform this exercise as effectively and correctly as possible, you need to stand straight and, as you inhale, slowly raise your arms, stretching them up as far as you can. After the manipulations have been done, straight arms need to be pulled back behind the head, this will allow you to fully open chest. To enhance the effect, you need to raise bent leg, placing her foot on her thigh. This exercise is effective and useful, because it gives graceful posture, moreover, it seriously strengthens the spinal column.

Can be done next exercise which is called child's pose. In this case, you need to sit with your buttocks on your heels, and then begin to lower your body onto your hips, while stretching your arms forward. This exercise is necessary and effective, because it will relax your tight muscles, relieving tension from your neck.

To do this exercise, bend over with your hands, palms on the floor. Then raise your pelvis up, stepping back with your heels, and the weight should always be evenly distributed between the palms and feet, respectively, as a result, you can relieve tension from shoulder girdle, from the back.

For example, the stork pose is a good option. Where you should raise your arms up, bending down with an exhalation, thereby bending from the waist. This exercise improves body tone.

For execution this exercise, you need to lie on your stomach, holding yourself by both ankles, while inhaling, simultaneously lifting both the upper and lower halves of your torso. The exercise is effective because it will make your back straight and your arms slender, so it’s impossible not to appreciate it.

It is important not to forget that when practicing yoga at home, naturally, you need to perform certain exercises thoughtfully, slowly, this is the most important thing. Only in this case, there is an excellent opportunity to experience every movement as effectively as possible, enjoying it to the fullest.

Of course, you should never forget about thoughts when performing such exercises, this is explained by the fact that they will allow you to relax, take your mind off certain problems, making yourself much better than yesterday.

If something is not clear, you can always watch videos teaching these exercises, which will help you avoid making mistakes. Thus, after some time, you will remember all these exercises by heart, and accordingly you will be able to perform them without much effort, difficulty and difficulty.

Conclusion

Now you understand for yourself that yoga is truly a complex of serious, effective and safe exercise, allowing you to look at the world with completely different eyes, get rid of certain problems, creating a special harmony of soul and body.

In addition, now you know that yoga is the direct path to health; such training will allow you to get rid of the negative baggage that has been accumulated throughout your life, etc.

There are many wonderful exercises in yoga, but the downside of yoga is various spiritual practices that often lead to spiritual problems.

Flexibility is the ability of muscles and joints to operate through their full range. We are born with this ability, but in most cases we lose it as we age.

In the time of hunters and gatherers, people did every day required amount movements that supported flexibility and health. Nowadays we don’t need to move so much, on the contrary, many people are forced to spend half a day in sitting position.

Even if you're active, by the time you reach adulthood, your tissues have lost 15% of their moisture and become less elastic.

Over time, your muscle fibers begin to stick to each other, forming cross-links that prevent parallel fibers from moving independently. The risk of injury increases.

Gradually, our elastic fibers are bound by collagen connective tissues and become more and more stubborn and rigid.

Stretching slows down dehydration processes by stimulating the production of lubricating fluids in tissues. The cross-links in the muscles are stretched, allowing the normal parallel structure of the muscles to be restored.

What are we really stretching?

Most physiologists believe that increasing the elasticity of healthy muscle fibers is not the most important factor in increasing flexibility.

According to Michael Alter, author of the 1998 book The Science of Flexibility, individual muscle fibers can stretch up to 150% of their original length before breaking.

This ability to stretch allows the muscles to move over a wide range, sufficient to perform the most difficult asanas. This means that it is not the muscles that limit our stretching.

There are two main scientific opinions about what actually prevents us from touching the floor with our hands. The first school claims that it is necessary to increase the elasticity of connective tissues, the second school talks about training nervous system.

The role of connective tissue in the development of flexibility

Connective tissue makes up the majority of our body. It forms intricate networks that connect all parts of the body and divide them into individual anatomical structures: bones, muscles, organs, and so on.

Connective tissue. biology.about.com

In the study of flexibility we will only touch upon three types connective tissue:

Tendons. Serve to transmit force by connecting muscles and bones. Tendons have enormous tensile strength, but they are also quite sensitive to stretching. By stretching a tendon just 4%, it can be torn or lengthened so that it cannot return to its normal position.
Ligaments. The tendons can safely stretch a little more, but not by much. They bind the bones within the joint capsule and play an important role in limiting flexibility. It is generally advised to avoid stretching them: this can make the joints less stable and increase the risk of injury. This is why the knees need to be stretched very gently.
Fascia. This is the third type of connective tissue that is much more important for the development of flexibility. The fascia accounts for 41% of the total resistance to movement.

Let's apply this knowledge to one of the basic asanas - paschimottanasana. This is a forward bend in a sitting position. It stretches a chain of muscles that starts at the Achilles tendons, moves up to the back of the legs and pelvis, and then continues up the spine and ends at the base of the head.

MyGoodImages/Depositphotos.com

As a rule, during yoga classes this pose is simply fixed for some time - from 30 seconds or longer. While holding the pose, the instructor corrects the students and encourages them to breathe deeply and evenly.

This practice allows you to change the quality of connective tissue plasticity. Prolonged poses cause healthy, permanent changes in the fascia that connects your muscles.

If you hold the pose for a short time, a pleasant feeling of muscle stretching occurs. But this will not necessarily lead to structural changes that will increase flexibility.
Julie Gudmestad, physical therapist and certified Iyengar yoga instructor

The pose must be held for 90-120 seconds to change the underlying substance in the connective tissue. The base substance is a non-fibrous gel-like substance that contains connective tissue fibers - collagen and elastin. It is what stabilizes and lubricates connective tissues.

How the nervous system influences the development of flexibility

Along with stretching connective tissues, much of the work in yoga is aimed at engaging the neurological mechanisms that cause muscles to contract or stretch. One of these mechanisms is mutual (reciprocal) inhibition.

Every time one group of muscles (agonists) contracts, the autonomic nervous system function causes the opposing muscles (antagonists) to stretch. For thousands of years, yogis have used this mechanism to facilitate stretching.

To experience the principle of mutual inhibition for yourself, sit in front of a table and gently press the edge of your palm onto the tabletop. If you touch your triceps, located on the back of your shoulder, you will notice that it is tense. If you touch the opposite muscle - the biceps, you will feel that it is relaxed.

The same mechanisms work in paschimottanasana. When you tense your quadriceps muscles back surface The hips relax and you can deepen the pose a little.

Why you shouldn't stretch in jerks

Physiologists who recognize the nervous system as the main obstacle to the development of flexibility believe that the key to overcoming limitations lies in another function of the nervous system - the stretch reflex.

To understand what a stretch reflex is, imagine walking in winter. Suddenly you step on the ice, your foot starts to move away. Your muscles come into action, straining to bring your legs back into a stable position and regain control. What happens in your nerves and muscles?

Each muscle fiber has a network of sensors - nerve- muscle spindles. They go perpendicular muscle fibers by tracking how much and how quickly a muscle fiber lengthens.

Neuromuscular spindles. anatomytrains.com

As the fibers elongate, the muscle spindles sense stress. When stress occurs too quickly or continues for too long, the muscle spindles send out an urgent neurological SOS, activating an immediate protective contraction.

This is why most experts caution against jerking while stretching. They quickly stimulate muscle spindles, which cause reflex contraction and increase the risk of injury.

Slow static stretching also triggers the stretch reflex, but not as sharply. As you lean forward in paschimottanasana, the neuromuscular spindles in the hamstrings produce resistance, creating tension in all the muscles you are trying to stretch.

This is why improving flexibility through static stretching takes time: it occurs through slow training of the muscle spindles. You train them to withstand more tension before the nervous system reacts back.

How to Improve Your Stretch by Training the Stretch Reflex

Recently, neurological techniques have emerged in the West that train the stretch reflex, quickly increasing flexibility. One such technique is called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF).

To apply PNF to paschimottanasana, try the following:

lean forward slightly less than to maximum stretch;
Tighten the muscles of the back of your thighs, trying to press them into the floor;
hold the tension for 5–10 seconds;
then relax and try to deepen the asana.

When the hamstring muscles contract, tension is released from the neuromuscular spindles, so they send signals that further stretching is safe.

If you contract and then stretch your muscles in this manner, you will find that you are much more comfortable in the pose that you thought was your maximum stretch just a few seconds ago.

How breathing helps while stretching

The connection between relaxation, stretching and breathing is well known and accepted in both yoga and Western science. Physiologists explain this by the neurological dependence of movement and breathing, known as synkinesis - involuntary muscle contractions accompanying any motor act.

Let's look at this using paschimottanasana as an example. As you inhale, the muscles become stiffer, making it more difficult to stretch. The abdominal cavity fills with air like a balloon, making it difficult to bend forward.

Exhalation deflates the lungs and lifts the diaphragm higher into the chest. This frees up space in abdominal cavity, so it becomes easier to bend in lumbar region spine and tilt your chest closer to your hips.

In addition, exhalation relaxes the back muscles and tilts the pelvis forward. In Paschimottanasana, the lower back muscles experience passive pressure.

When your lungs are empty and your diaphragm is drawn into your chest, your back muscles stretch and you can bend into your deepest position.

Place your palms on your back and begin to breathe deeply. You will feel the muscles on either side of your spine tense as you inhale and relax as you exhale.

If you are careful, you will notice that each breath engages the muscles around your tailbone, at the very bottom of your back, gently moving your pelvis back. Each exhalation relaxes these muscles and frees the pelvis, allowing you to twist at the hip joints.

The Rigid Method for Rapidly Developing Flexibility

Maybe you have seen a photo of B.K.S. Iyengar in mayurasana (peacock pose) on the back of a student in paschimottanasana. Or a teacher standing on the hips of a student in baddha konasana (butterfly pose).

Mayurasana (peacock pose). Yoga Asanas Online

These techniques can be dangerous for beginners, but under the supervision of experienced instructors they are extremely effective and bear striking similarities to advanced Western flexibility training techniques aimed at rewiring neurological mechanisms.

Sometimes during stretching, a physiological response occurs that allows you to suddenly stretch much better than usual. For example, after many years of stagnation, you suddenly do the splits completely.

This is a neurological switch that suppresses the stretch reflex. While the stretch reflex causes tension muscle tissue, a switch known as the reverse myotatic stretch reflex, completely releases muscle tension to protect the tendons.

How does he work? At the end of each muscle, where it connects to the tendon, there are sensory bodies that monitor the load - the Golgi tendon organ. These bodies react when each muscle contraction or stretch puts too much pressure on the tendon.

Test yourself: lift your leg onto the back of a chair. If you can do this, you already have enough stretch to do the splits.
Pavel Tsatsoulin, Russian flexibility expert

However, using this mechanism is quite risky. To engage the Golgi tendon organ reflex, the muscles must be under extreme pressure in a fully extended position.

The use of such methods requires the supervision of an experienced teacher who can correctly align your skeleton and determine that your body is strong enough to withstand such stress. If you don't fully understand what you're doing, you can easily get injured.

Ancient techniques or modern science

A good teacher will definitely tell you that yoga is more than just stretching.

Yoga is a discipline that teaches us to perceive the world differently. So that we can give up our attachment to suffering.
Judith Lasater, physical therapist

According to Lasater, there are only two asanas: conscious and unconscious. In other words, what makes an asana a pose is awareness, not just a change in body position.

However, stretching is also important for progress in yoga, because the practitioner’s plastic body will allow him to better manage energy - prana. And there is no contradiction in using the analytical findings of Western science for in-depth empirical knowledge of ancient asanas.

Master B. K. S. Iyengar, probably the most influential yogi in Western Hatha Yoga, always encouraged Scientific research, advocating the application of strict physiological principles to improve the practice of refined asanas.

Maybe you are a believer and believe that the ancient techniques are enough to develop flexibility and reap all the benefits. But perhaps, by supplementing the wisdom of the East with the discoveries of Western science, you will be able to advance further in your practice.

« …I am well aware - based on several years of informal discussions about the material presented here - that my work may provoke very specific reactions in certain circles. Those who prefer hagiography to history, some Western apologists of the "traditional" systems of modern postural yoga, can easily dismiss this work as irrelevant or malicious, and its author as an academic interloper trespassing on holy ground.

Others who are hostile to the authority of modern traditions (or who are dissatisfied that everything has already been done in yoga) will revel in what they consider a much-needed exposure of a convenient but false myth.

Both of these responses are based on the assumption that my intention was to "overwhelm" the validity of modern yoga or to show that postural forms exist today as "illegitimate", "defective", "emasculated", "artificial" (etc.), in relation to the true meaning and authentic practice of yoga.

However, both of these reactions, in addition to distorting my position, are inadequate and undesirable because they suppress genuine and thorough reflection on the essence of modern yoga » .

Mark Singleton.

This book explores the rise of asana practice in contemporary transnational yoga. Today, yoga in the West is virtually synonymous with asana practice, and postural yoga classes can be found in almost every city in the Western world; their numbers are growing in the Middle East, Asia, North and Central America and Australia. Yoga "health clubs" are also enjoying a resurgence in popularity among affluent urban populations in India. Although exact statistics of practitioners are difficult to ascertain, it is clear that postural yoga is experiencing rapid growth. 1

Since the 1990s, yoga has become a multi-million dollar business, and high-profile legal battles have begun over ownership of asanas. Styles, sequences and the poses themselves are subject to franchising, copyrights and patents by individuals, companies and governments, 2 and yoga is used to sell a wide range of products from mobile phones to yogurt. In 2008, annual spending by yoga practitioners in the United States on yoga classes, yoga trips, and related products totaled $5.7 billion (Yoga Journal, 2008), a figure equal to approximately half of Nepal's GDP (CIA 2008).

However, despite the enormous worldwide popularity of postural yoga, there is little or no evidence that asanas (with the exception of a few seated meditation poses) were ever a core aspect of any Indian tradition of yoga practice - including and medieval, body-oriented hatha yoga - despite the numerous claims of many modern schools to their own authenticity (see chapter 1).

The primacy of performing asanas in today's transnational yoga is a new phenomenon that has no analogues in pre-modern eras. In the late 1800s, a revival of mainly English-language yoga began in India, and new syntheses of practical methods and theories emerged, primarily associated with the teachings of Vivekananda (1863-1902). But even in these new forms the asana practice so common today is absent.

In fact, Vivekananda and his followers clearly distanced themselves from the asanas, as well as other techniques associated with hatha yoga today, as inappropriate and unpleasant.

As a result, they continue to be completely absent from the initial manifestations of practical English-speaking yoga. In this work I began to explore the reasons why asanas were initially excluded from modern yoga teachings, and what changes they underwent to be eventually assimilated by them 3

How did it happen that from such unpromising beginnings, asanas have reached the present position where they are used as the cornerstone in the foundation of transnational yoga?

What were the circumstances that contributed to the exclusion of asanas from the attention of early modern yoga teachers, and on what grounds was their return possible?

At the time of Vivekananda's synthesis of yoga in the 1890s, postural practices were predominantly associated with the yogi (or, more popularly, "yogi"). The term meant in particular the yogis of the Natha tradition, but more broadly served to designate a variety of ascetics, sorcerers and street performers. Often he was confused with the Muslim "fakir", and therefore "yogi" symbolized everything that was false in some branches of the Hindu religion. The postural contortions of hatha yoga have been associated with backwardness and superstition, and thus many have felt that they have no place in modern scientific enterprises and yoga initiatives.

In the first half of this paper, I examine the image of the yogi as it appears in travel writing, scholarship, popular culture, and the literature of popular practical yoga, with the goal of understanding the specific status of hatha yoga at that time.

This will provide the necessary context for the second half of the study, in which I focus on the specific modifications that Hatha Yoga had to go through in order to cease being perceived as a harmful insect in the religious and social landscapes of India.

The object of study of this book is an essential but hitherto neglected aspect of the development of yoga.

Studies of modern yoga generally take into account the transition from Vivekananda's manifestation of yoga-without-asanas in the mid-1890s to the well-known posturally oriented forms that begin to emerge in the 1920s. The two major studies of the field to date, De Michelis (2004) and Alter (2004), have focused on both of these moments in the history of transnational yoga, but have failed to provide a satisfactory explanation of why asanas were initially excluded, and how Thus, they were eventually in demand again 4 .

This work is aimed at identifying the factors that initially influenced the formation of transnational yoga, accepted today, and determining, in a sense, the “prehistory” of the international asana revolution, which was fully promoted by B.K.S. Iyengar and others in the early 1950s.

This background includes research into international movements physical culture and the ways in which they influenced the consciousness of Indian youth at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries;

The quasi-religious forms of physical culture that swept through nineteenth-century Europe and made their way to India, where they shaped and filtered new popular interpretations of nationalist Hinduism;

Experiments that determined the special nature of Indian physical culture, which led to the reorganization of asanas as timeless forms of expression of Hindu exercises;

Western physical culture-oriented asana practices developed in India and found their way back to the West, where they merged and became identified with forms of "esoteric gymnastics" that had been growing in popularity in Europe and America since the mid-nineteenth century, independent of any contact with yoga traditions.

Posturally oriented yoga as we know it today is the result of dialogue between parareligious modern techniques body culture developed in the West, and the various yoga discourses of “modern” Hinduism that have emerged since the time of Vivekananda. Despite everyday appeals to the Indian hatha yoga tradition, modern posturally oriented yoga cannot really be considered a direct descendant of this tradition.

Hello, my dear reader, welcome to the reality of yoga, and this reality includes much more than just the visible physical world perceived by the senses, the physical body with its most ingenious life support system. The reality of yoga covers many levels of human existence, at which we have yet to become even a little more aware. It is for this great purpose that we will talk today about the structure of the entire structure of human bodies, about the purpose of the etheric, astral, mental and causal bodies, about how they influence each other and what is needed for them all to be healthy and for us to be happy.

Seven human bodies.

People often think that they are a body with arms, legs, head and all other visible and medically studied organs. However, in fact, any person, even if he does not realize it, has, in addition to the physical body, several others. Moreover, all these bodies are closely interconnected and strongly influence each other.

In classical yoga and isoterics they consider seven bodies:

1) Physical body, with which we are all more or less familiar, which is actively being studied modern science, and which allows the soul to manifest and act in the visible physical world.

2) Etheric body. Everything is energy, and even the physical body is simply the most dense energy (out of all other bodies). The etheric body is less dense and therefore cannot be seen with physical eyes, cannot be touched with hands, and in general cannot be proven by the senses. Those who have developed more subtle vision are able to see auras, which is exactly what they see in the etheric body. In principle, seeing it is not so important; it is important to understand that the physical body is a consequence of the etheric body and therefore if there are any disturbances and blocks in the etheric body, then the physical body will also hurt. The etheric body is often called the energetic body.

3) Astral body. All our emotions and feelings are possible only because we have an astral level of existence and astral bodies. This is an even more subtle layer of reality than the etheric one, which is also a huge multi-layered world in scale (when compared with the physical one), into which a person finds himself after the death of the physical body. The highest layers of the astral world are heaven, the lower layers are hell. Anyone who at least somewhat strives to perform has nothing to fear :)

Now the main thing is to understand and remember that each of our emotions, and especially all our feelings (a longer and more stable manifestation), have a strong influence on the astral body, and this body is closely connected with the etheric body, and if the feelings are restless, angry, tense, oppressive , compressing and limiting (positive feelings of joy and kindness expand consciousness, they are pleasant to experience, negative feelings, on the contrary, narrow and limit), then this will precisely cause a blockage in the channels of the etheric body, which will result in illness of the physical body.

4) Mental body. Body of thought. Any thought comes to a person precisely from the world of ideas - the mental world. This is also a layer of reality of incredible scale, even more subtle than the astral one. Few people reach it even after death, because most after the astral world are immediately born again in new bodies in the physical world. But at the same time, the mental plane always has a direct relation to each of us: some thoughts constantly come to us, all our emotional and sensory states are accompanied by the thought process, and the connection between thoughts and feelings is obvious!

Any feeling is an energy of a certain height that naturally attracts a thought of the same frequency into the human mind. And by allowing these thoughts to develop, a person can strengthen the feeling or, if he does not allow the thoughts to develop, switches them to another topic, then he can completely switch to another wave of feelings. That's how they work. Even if in this moment, came to the fore negative emotion accompanied by unkind thoughts, it would be very wise to say, for example: “I am always calm and friendly”. It’s also good to try to feel calm and friendly (you can be transported in your memories to some pleasant moment). In general, than faster man If he brings himself out of a negative state, the better it will be for all his bodies, including the physical. Relieving stress through alcohol or stronger intoxicants is not approved by real yogis.

5) Causal body. Causal body.

Our thoughts, emotions and feelings in the past became the causes of those actions, conditions, thoughts, feelings that manifest themselves in the present, at this moment, on this day. For everything in our lives, there is a spirit generated by us. And the seeds of these causes are stored in the causal body. All the characteristics of the human personality: how kind a person is, how greedy, whether he was born in favorable conditions, whether he is single or met a suitable spouse, whether he will have a job he likes, whether he will get sick, whether an accident will happen to him or whether he will live a long time, healthy life– all this is determined by the reasons inherent in the causal body. Those cause-and-effect relationships that have not yet emerged, but are only waiting their turn, are called samskaras- seeds of karma. In many ways, yoga deals specifically with working with karma and burning samskaras, since the seed that is burned by the fire of meditation will no longer be able to germinate. This is precisely what it is primarily intended for. To some extent, the causal body can be influenced by thoughts and feelings, but the number of seeds in it is so vast that those with a stronger intuition realize that such work can only be done by the most effective method. The most serious reason that prevents you from realizing your true Divine nature is also largely stored in the causal body. A person has forgotten that he is the Higher Self, he has forgotten his true self, and this is the reason why, from incarnation to incarnation, people are born with repeated amnesia about it. That is, everything goes in circles - a reason created in the past. It influences the present, projecting the same reason, which will subsequently affect the future, where there will also be the same reason. People have been trapped in this kind of trap for thousands of years. Bodies change, external conditions seem different, but in essence everything is about the same. Without serious yoga you can’t get out of this vicious circle.

6) Body of the soul. Spiritual body. When Limitless Existence, Limitless Consciousness, Limitless Bliss (Sat Chit Ananda, what we really are), decided to create this world, with all its layers and bodies, the first veil was the spiritual body, which made it possible to separate various souls from integrity . These souls, created in the image and likeness of Sat Chit Ananda, are perfect, pure, know their true nature and everything is fine with them (our real ones)...

When we realize ourselves as a soul, then everything is really good for us. It is from this level that all life looks like a funny game carried out through the five lower bodies, and it is precisely this level of awareness that yogis strive to reach. Until a person has achieved awareness at this level, he is a puppet of karma, samskar, he is influenced by his immediate surroundings, mood, weather... and when he has achieved... He can influence everything. Saints and great yogis are those who have achieved.

7) Body of the Spirit. If a soul has played enough in the worlds created by the Creator, it may want to dissolve its last body, and then it will plunge into the Spirit from which it was created. Perhaps there are some differences between this body and Sat Chit Ananda, even if so, it’s like comparing the heights of Elbrus and Everest, being at the foot. There is only one way to the top...and this is exactly it. And theory will not help you get through it; all of the above bodies need to be understood not theoretically, but through your own experience. .

The state of awareness at the level of the Spiritual body in yoga is called

In general, the gradation of bodies, their names and even their quantity may differ somewhat depending on the author, but the essence is the same everywhere as I described.

The conclusions are as follows:

The most important thing to do is to work on and quickly establish a connection with the body of the soul, realize oneself as souls and play on all planes consciously, emerging from the shameful state of puppets of emotions, thoughts and actions of the past.

While there is no full awareness of yourself as a soul, you need to carefully monitor your thoughts and feelings, in agreement - firmly with great determination to work on all habits that interfere

The easiest way to do this is through meditation.

My dear reader, meditate and be happy.