Yoga Lifestyle For Health And Happiness

What is yoga lifestyle? It is virtually impossible to separate philosophy of life from yoga. Progress in yoga depends not only on your efforts on the mat. Equally important is to consider what you do off the mat during the rest of the day. Each moment unfolds in your situations requiring your response. You may respond in a positive way or negative way. Even not responding is an action. Yogic lifestyle involves integrating your, mind body and soul to perform karma that takes you towards good health, peace of mind and ultimate freedom. Most of us are caught in the whirlwind known as human life;

A man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in their present or the future. He lives as if he is never going to die; and then he dies having never really lived.....Dalai Lama

Why to waste this precious life? For sorting our life's problems, coping with stress and taking care of health is a challenging task. This task becomes easier if we can take a holistic view of our life and adopt yoga lifestyle as a way of life.
Yoga lifestyle is based on universal truths or principles of good ethics and spirituality. These principles are as valid today as they were thousands of years ago. Yoga is not limited to yoga poses, pranayama or meditation only. Yoga is a way of life which can be easily incorporated in to your daily lives.
  As a beginner, you may find various facets of yoga philosophy difficult to understand.

• First we need to understand the various concepts of yoga lifestyle. All these concepts are closely integrated, one attribute complements others.
• Second step is to practice the action steps to realise our yoga goals.
• However, if any of the action steps do not conform to your established beliefs, leave it at that and proceed further. With sufficient practice you will find your way.

Yoga Lifestyle: Getting Started

Setting Chief Goal of Your Life

Without a definite aim there can be little progress. The chief goal of life has to be well defined. This will enable you to know your destination and enable you to channelise all your energies in a single direction. All your other material and spiritual/ yoga goals must align to this chief goal. Also remember that for a serious yoga practitioner the goal is already defined, realisation of union with the divine.

Selecting Your Yoga Path

Once you know your yoga goals, you have to select the path to be followed. Each person is having a unique temperament, health/ fitness levels and spiritual awareness levels. You need to chart your own yoga path under guidance of an experienced teacher. For adopting yoga lifestyle, you may choose to focus on hatha yoga, japa yoga, karma yoga or bhakti yoga. Your every action on any of these paths is interlinked. All your actions must be synchronised to achieve your gains with least effort.

Aim for Continuous Improvement

Yoga practice needs a disciplined approach and self control. Procrastination is its worst enemy. You have to force yourself for first 40 to 50 days to do yoga regularly till yoga practice becomes a part of your life. Make yoga as No. 1 priority in your life, even if do yoga for half an hour daily. Start yoga NOW and do it daily. Progress in yoga is slow. Regular practice ensures steady and continuous progress.

Introspect and Improve Life

Intense and continuous introspection can help you to first identify your limitations before you find fault with others. Be a continuous observer of your thoughts and actions. You need to improve yourself before setting out to reform the world.

Creating An Integrated Personality

You have to mould your life as per yoga lifestyle to become an integrated personality with solid character. The constant efforts to increase sattva guna, strong belief in positive values and practicing one's Dharma give rise to an inner integration. This integration results in better concentration of mind and meditation.

Practice Spiritual Living

Spiritual growth is one of the main aims of yoga practice. A spiritual person realises that whole cosmos is manifested closely inter related and interdependent. Spiritual living provides you with an austere yoga lifestyle where you do not waste energy on mundane issues and instead work for making significant impact in this world through your actions.

Simplify Life

We have lost the joy of living life while keeping up with the fast pace of modern life. Slow down a bit. When was the last time, you could spare free time to analyse where your life is heading? Review your needs and look around yourself how to simplify your life as per yoga lifestyle.

Realise Your Infinite Potential.

Each one of us is born with infinite potential but we forget this reality and get bogged down with multitude of problems many of which are just imagination of our mind. Our soul is a mirror image of supreme consciousness. Our senses and ego diminishes the light of soul limiting our power of awareness and discrimination. Pray to God, surrender to God and open your heart to let His infinite Grace nourish your soul. It is in your hands to open the door. God loves each one of us.

Freedom From All Fears

Fear is one of the most damaging human emotions which is propagated by lack of self confidence. Fear of any kind will sap your energy and reduce your working efficiency. Fear of loss of property, fear of death and fear of illness are some of the common fears. Once you start realising that everything in this world is being manifested as per Gods great design. Divine love will help to overcome all fears.

Let Go of Ego

Ego is how we perceive reality as we move around in this world. Ego is false and we have to realise our true inner self. Ego is this false self which creates an impression that it knows everything. All problems in life are seen and tackled as perceived by our ego. You need to let go of the ego but it will require tremendous effort to identify our ego and then to get over the ego. It means you need to understand our true self and see the world without passing through the prism of our ego.

Forget about Guilt Trips

Get rid of all guilt trips. Guilt is powerfully negative emotions that affect one psychologically. Do your best in a given situation and do not let other to make you feel guilty. Remember, nobody is perfect and you are bound to make mistakes. If you have positive attitude and your intentions are clear do not worry at all.

Overcome Fear Of Death

Most of the people carry a strong fear of death. Non living things never die. Whoever takes birth has to die. Worrying too much about life after death, or existence or non existence of soul takes away the joy out of living. Death is a certain phenomenon not in our hands, but living life to the fullest is in our hands.

Human Life Is Precious

Human body is an amazing but perishable gift given by God to you. You are lucky to get birth in the human form. You have finite time in this birth; do not waste your life by running after unreal things. Utilise this birth to work relentlessly for betterment of life and ultimately achieve salvation. Do not waste time. Engage in noble deeds.

Religion Or Spirituality

Practice of any religion without developing spiritually does not make any sense. Spirituality is also possible without following any religion. We can say that if God exists, He is there for whole cosmos. Therefore spirituality is universal. Spirituality can be our direct link to the creator, the supreme intelligence.

Selection of a Guru

You can learn yoga asanas and pranayama from a yoga teacher. But a Guru is required to assimilate the life concepts required for daily living. A Guru is an enlightened soul who will guide you in your quest to realise the divine. Selection of a Guru is must for faster spiritual progress. Till you find a Guru, get guidance from spiritual texts and epics written by enlightened souls to formulate your yoga lifestyle.

Get Inspired

Yoga lifestyle does not mean to put on robes of a monk and become a sanyasi. Dream high and achieve your dreams. Yoga practice will help you to understand the true meaning of life and provide you with the necessary discipline, strength and will power to live an inspired life.

Understand Maya Or Illusion

Maya is the illusory power which takes us away from God realisation. It means that we get attached to things, desires and physical world. We are in fact getting an illusion of permanence whereas nothing in this world is permanent. All this is transient. Only the energy of the soul is divine and permanent.

Search for Happiness

One of the chief cause of human suffering is due to unsatisfied desires. Happiness is possible when you have set clear well defined goals and your mind and body works in harmony to achieve these goals.

Seek and You Shall Find

How to find God? We are too small a entity to perceive the power or concept of God. God can be experienced only. Once you start on the path towards unification with the supreme creator, you will find your own path provided you have 100 per cent faith and determination.

Universal Brotherhood

Yoga philosophy believes that all persons are created equal and no discrimination must be made based on country of residence, sex, age or religion. The soul in all humans is derived from the same source and God wants us to work for common good.

Harmony

Yoga lifestyle provides perfect harmony between your mind and body. Maintain harmonious relations with your colleagues at work and family members at home. This will reduce your stress levels promote co-operation and improve efficiency.

Do yoga with complete faith and dedication to get the benefits. Adopt yoga lifestyle and lead an activelife.