Is There More To Yoga Than Stretching?

[vid]

welcome to the club

I have a question if you don't mind answering. Is there really more to Yoga than simply stretching?

Certainly dont mind answering. It is a body of experiences. Yoga comprises of eight practices. Usually a practitioner proceeds in order. Most of us jump straight to the fourth practice, Asana, and most of us exit after doing just that.

First four practices: Accessible easily and available to all, lots of guidance available around the world

Yamas: Ethics in life
Niyamas: Recommended behavior in life
Asana: Physical exercises (this practice is what is known around the world and practiced most commonly- Bikaram, Hatha, flow, various other names)
Pranayama: These are various breathing sequences which cultivate the subtler energies (Kundalini, Chi) and train the practitioner to control them. This is what one may call as entering into the esoteric path.

Next two practices: Harder penance, fewer masters to guide along these lines.

Pratyahara: I find this practice close to what Gurdjieff calls non-identification. Bi-focal nature of consciousness. A more advanced degree practitioner would not be effected by sensory perceptions. Powers typically manifesting as yogi transcending pain, environment, sometimes exhibiting original thought.
Dharana: This is the ability to maintain un-interrupted self awareness and heightened concentration. To hold a thought for as long as one desires. Time scales of months if not years.

Last two stages, I barely even understand
Dhyana: This is a stage of mind expansion. I dont really know what this is and I wont try to explain it.
Samadhi: I dont know what it is.

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Little commentary:
I think the goal of Yoga is to bring mind to such a state of peace that one has uninterrupted union with higher energy. Where body, mind, and all external influences cease to effect the consciousness.
What I find missing in Yoga discourse is what are the possibilities when one gets to such a state. But I suppose to ask that question is considered heresy since its mere theory for the inquirer. Only them in Samadhi have the potential to perceive?
Yoga is but one path, which I have partially experienced.

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i also think that like food and language, each part of the world found its own way to connect.



Yoga sutras of Patanjali.

[vigilance]

welcome to the club

I have a question if you don't mind answering. Is there really more to Yoga than simply stretching?

Some would say that that is the minor part of yoga. You should check out the the yoga sutras of patanjali, example:

1.1 Now, instruction in Union.
1.2. Union is restraining the thought-streams natural to the mind.
1.3. Then the seer dwells in his own nature.
1.4. Otherwise he is of the same form as the thought-streams.
1.5. The thought-streams are five-fold, painful and not painful.
1.6. Right knowledge, wrong knowledge, fancy, sleep and memory.
1.7. Right knowledge is inference, tradition and genuine cognition.
1.8. Wrong knowledge is false, illusory, erroneous beliefs or notions.
1.9. Fancy is following after word-knowledge empty of substance.

[Wildfire]

When I practiced kung fu we were taught the levels of energy work.
1. Reiki (aparently nothing beats it)
2. Chi gong
3. Tai chi
4. Yoga
I focused mainly on chi gong but we had to do yoga everyday as part of warm up exercises and stretches. Yoga is much more than just exercise just like any of the other systems. Just like any esoteric ritual like the LBRP for example. You can do just an exercise or just a stretch and that's as far as it goes. But when you put your consciousness into it and get into a meditative state while doing yoga or any exercise it enhances it exponentially. By doing it this way the gurus of India and Tibet are able to achieve levitation. Not an easy feat at all. When I do any such work I imagine myself in my own temple and visualize the universe before me. So the key to this meditation is visualization. The stronger you can visualize it the better it is for you. Maybe in a few years of sacred daily practice we can all do it. There are certain things (alchemical elixirs) that you can take to hasten your journey into the full enlightenment state.

[Andro]

When I practiced kung fu we were taught the levels of energy work.
1. Reiki (aparently nothing beats it)
2. Chi gong
3. Tai chi
4. Yoga

Aren't Kung Fu, Chi Gong and Tai Chi Chinese, while Reiki is Japanese and Yoga is Indian/Hindu?

visualize the universe before me

Why?