Senior Yoga Teacher, Vani Shukla returns to introduce us to the "Principles and Benefits of Yoga Practice" - a journey towards self-awareness, inner peace and balance. Vani commenced with the very basics: correcting the "strine" pronunciation of Yoga "Yow - (as in "row"-a-boat" - Gar" to "Yo-ga" - with a shortened "o" and "u" as a very basic first step towards showing some credibility in our understanding of Yoga.
"Yoga" comes from the Sanskrit root - "Yuj" meaning to unite or join "individual consciousness" with "universal consciousness".
Vani then introduced us briefly to the "8 Limbs of Yoga" known as Ashtanga Yoga. As with the limbs of the human body, the 8 Limbs of the Ashtanga - must also grow together: Limb 1 - Yama; Limb 2 - Niyama; Limb 3 - Asana (Physical postures); Limb 4 - Pranayama (Breathing practices); Limb 5 - Pratyahar (Control of senses); (Limbs 6 & 7 - Dhana and Dhyana (Meditation practices); Limb 8 - Samadhi (The "Balanced state of Being"). Under Vani's expert guidance, we then - very briefly - put the Ashtanga into practice in what little time remained.
Expanding Horizons
Principles and Benefits of Yoga Practice - Vani Shukla
Senior Yoga Teacher, Vani Shukla returns to introduce us to the "Principles and Benefits of Yoga Practice" - a journey towards self-awareness, inner peace and balance. Vani commenced with the very basics: correcting the "strine" pronunciation of Yoga "Yow - (as in "row"-a-boat" - Gar" to "Yo-ga" - with a shortened "o" and "u" as a very basic first step towards showing some credibility in our understanding of Yoga."Yoga" comes from the Sanskrit root - "Yuj" meaning to unite or join "individual consciousness" with "universal consciousness".Vani then introduced us briefly to the "8 Limbs of Yoga" known as Ashtanga Yoga. As with the limbs of the human body, the 8 Limbs of the Ashtanga - must also grow together: Limb 1 - Yama; Limb 2 - Niyama; Limb 3 - Asana (Physical postures); Limb 4 - Pranayama (Breathing practices); Limb 5 - Pratyahar (Control of senses); (Limbs 6 & 7 - Dhana and Dhyana (Meditation practices); Limb 8 - Samadhi (The "Balanced state of Being"). Under Vani's expert guidance, we then - very briefly - put the Ashtanga into practice in what little time remained.
- Duration:
- 38m
- Broadcast on:
- 08 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
[bell] [piano music] [piano music] [piano music] You're listening to Expanding Horizons, in the broadcast of the Unitarian Church of South Australia, a home of progressive spirituality and free religious thought and action since 1854. The views expressed in these podcasts are those of the speaker and are not intended to represent the position of the church itself or of the worldwide Unitarian Universalist Movement. For more information, visit unitariansa.org.au [piano music] Overthinker. I'm an overthinker. I will chew upon my insides swivel scenarios through my mind become transfixed by all these question marks that trip my heart as it crawls so weirdly from behind. I'm an overthinker. So sensitive to suggestion, so much feeling to store, and yet all I want to do is breathe, hold peace, and relax just a little more. I'm an overthinker. I paint pictures in my mind of all these worries that seem so distinct but never seem to show up in real time. I'm an overthinker. And it hurts to think, don't you know, when all I can focus on is these thoughts spiking darts through my bones. I'm an overthinker. Maybe not so simple to understand, but I will love, care, and protect you. Just don't stop holding my hand. [piano music] Please stand if you're able. [piano music] [piano music] [piano music] Thank you. Let us be grateful for the love in our lives, among family and friends, and among this group that meets here. Let us be grateful for the opportunities that we have to support and love others. Yet it's not always easy. Let us have discernment in what we offer and how we offer our gifts to others. And for those who go through trials, let there be peace in their hearts as problems are resolved. Problems are always resolved. Let us be at peace. So may it be. Now I'll ask Jenny to come forward with three short pieces from an ancient work, probably at least 2,000 years old, quite famous in Hindu circles, the yoga sutras of Patanjali. Life cannot be known by the mind. Its secrets cannot be learned through the mind. The proof is the ceaseless strife and contradiction of opinion among those who trust in the mind. Much less can the mind know itself, the more so because it is pervaded by the illusion that it truly knows, truly is. Here in truth, the whole secret of yoga, the science of the soul, the active turnings, the strident vibrations of selfishness, lust and hate are to be still by meditation, by letting heart and mind dwell in spiritual life, by lifting up the heart to the strong, silent life above, which rests in the stillness of eternal love and needs no harsh vibration to convince it of true being. The purpose of life, therefore, is the realising of that prophecy, the unveiling of the immortal being, the birth of the spiritual from the psychical, whereby we enter our divine inheritance and come to inhabit eternity. This is indeed salvation, the purpose of all true religion in all times. There is much in that. Now, I'll invite Margaret to play some of my favourite music from the French composer, Eric Sarti, Jim not did the number three or tras. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Now, it is my pleasure to introduce Varnie Schuchler. She is an accomplished yoga teacher in Adelaide, and as I'm sure you'll hear from her, it's not just a matter of stretching on a mat on the floor, it's a way of life. Thank you for hearing your presentation. Thank you. So, before we begin, I'll just recite a prayer dedicated to my teachers. So, if you just want to join in the prayer, you can close your eyes, and whoever have been the best teacher for in your life, and you have learned some good lessons, you can just think about them. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Thank you for having me this morning. It's such a pleasure, enjoy to be here among all of you. I must say that I feel very peaceful and connected here, and I have been here before as well, but in a different gathering, but today I really feel connected and very good peaceful atmosphere here. I must say that Chris, you really create a very nice space for people to share these thoughts. It's a huge topic. I will try my best to be precise to the point and to explain you a little bit more about the principles and benefits of yoga. So, let's begin with the right pronunciation. Yoga has been written in modern language as yoga, and everyone, when we say yoga, it's coming as yoga. But the right pronunciation of yoga is just yoga. So, we don't go very long with "ga", we just say "yoga". So, we have the "a", but that "a" is very, very half, we call it half "a", actually. So, it comes as "yoga". But of course, when we don't have any half "a" in English language, so we just write "a", we have "a" or "a". So, this is like just "a", "yoga". It's not "yoga", so not like "a". And second thing I would like to say that I am Hindu, and I am a yoga teacher. So, lots of people think that I got into yoga practices because of my background or because of my religion. But that's not true. There are heaps of Hindus, like I say millions, that who doesn't know about the Patanjali Yoksutra? So, Patanjali Yoksutra is not the classical text of the religion. It's a classical text of the philosophy of yoga. So, we have six philosophies in Indian traditions, and yoga is among one of them. So, lots of people who practice lots of religious practices in Hinduism, they might not know about the yoga sutra. Even I did not know until I start learning properly about the yoga philosophy. So, it does look like that the Hinduism and yoga are like interconnected, but at the same time, they are like two sides of the coin. So, if they go parallel, the destination is same, but they are like two different parts. So, how I see as myself as a Hindu, that when I am more into the devotional path of yoga, then this religion comes into the play that I do certain warships and rituals and lots of stuff, but if I am on the path of meditation or, say, path of karma, yoga, path of action, so we have four parts of yoga, which I will be explaining you in next slides. So, in that scenario, actually, it comes more like an individual approach of me knowing the truth, or knowing the God, or knowing the universal energy. So, those parts cannot be very religious, looking like religious practices. So, I think I make it a little bit clear to you that it can be associated, or it can be just a separate path as well. And I think that is one of the reasons that mid-70s, 1970s, that when we have the facilities to travel abroad and we had the facilities to spread the wisdom of knowledge, it got more popular because then people started looking it not as religious practices while it's a practice of who we are, just knowing about who I am. So, let's begin our presentation with a little bit of introduction of yoga. So, yoga is an ancient, timeless practice, and why I have written here as timeless practice, because lots of text and details, if you say someone says 5,000 years since someone says 10,000 years, but does that really make any sense to us? It can be very old, it can be modern, it can be like, you know, of any time, but how much it is teaching to us in the present moment is what matters. So, I feel it's timeless, is the right thing to say because the science is like yoga, the science is like these deeper values cannot be put into the timeframe. They are just timelessly flowing, just like the rivers flowing, just like the mountains, just like the air. Can you give any time frame to the air you breathe? So, that's my feeling with that. So, that's why I have put as timeless practice that originated in India. Now, if we talk about that old ancient India, it had a big, big, hemisphere, like it was covering a big area of that ancient part of India. So, it was not just, if you see in the modern map, it will come as Pakistan, Afghanistan, it will reach until a little bit more further. This side it will come Nepal, Tibet, and this side, Yobhutan, and until Mayama, even the Bali has the Hindu religion there. So, it was spread in a quite big area. So, right, it's not just the current India, which I mean to say here, it's ancient India, which was actually a big part of that time. So, design the harmonize the body, mind and spirit. The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit word yuj, meaning to unite or join. So, if you say the word yoga, it's like in English, it's just like yoke. Yoke means unite, and that's actually the root word yuj means to unite. Now, that union, you can take it to the other, any level. For beginners, you can say it as mind, body, spirit. For advanced practitioners, you can say as individual soul to the universal soul or universal consciousness. Bhakti yoga, the path of devotional people wants to say God. So, it depends what path you are, and according to that, you can analyze that union word or to unite. It all depends on the depth of the practice or the understanding of the practice, like all these different names you heard about, like Kundalini yoke. So, for Kundalini yoke person, it's the union of Shiva and Shakti, like the masculine and feminine power uniting together. So, the union is a general word, but what path you are following, what practices you are following, what is your understanding is actually about that union is. So, that I leave it up to you what you want to understand with that word union or unite. Today yoga has evolved into various styles and making it accessible to all. Now, I started practicing professionally in 2003 onwards, and since then I have seen a huge transformation into the journey of yoga. Now, if I talk about that 20, 25 years back of the practices, yes, it was not very accessible to everyone. Lots of changes which happen in the modern yoga scenarios are not very positive. I personally don't like them, like practicing yoga sannas in hot room and all that. I think it's not a great idea, but what I like about the most in this whole transformation of 25 years of practices is that it have made it accessible to everyone, which are like you know for online sessions. Now people have busy days and they can't go to yoga studios, they have accessibility to do at least something to connect yourself, to connect with your breath at least through the online portal. So, like that we have evolved a little bit and made it accessible to everyone, which I think is a good positive development in field of yoga practices. Now going to my next slide, which is principles of yoga, also known as eight limbs of yoga or astanga yoga. Now, what you have seen as Patanjali yuk sutra, so when I said it's timeless practices, how it was thousands of years back is that there is only one teacher and one student. So, one teacher will teach the yoga sciences or practices only to one student at a time. And then when that student is completely prepared, the teacher will teach it to the other practitioner, and that practitioner will have their own students. So, that's how it used to be just one on one, that's it. And then what used to happen, they never used to write anything. It's just that because it's one on one, it's done and then that's it. So, there was no scriptures available for yoga sciences. So, Patanjali, sage Patanjali was the first codifier of yogic sciences, who prepared a format that okay, if this is what, then you do this and this and this and this. So, he was the first codifier of yoga practices. So, he was not the first inventor of yoga, but he was the first codifier who really coded and gave us a manual how you can do it. And since then it started spreading to the wider community and more accessible for more people. So, he said that there are eight steps or eight limbs of yoga practices. Unfortunately, in modern days, we have only stick to one or two limbs and we are not practicing the other limbs and that is one of the major reasons that people end up having injuries or any imbalance in their bodies. And then this yoga is not a great practice, but it's not true. Sometimes it can be the reason because we miss the other steps. So, let's discuss about those. So, because ashtanga, ashta means eight and anger means limbs. So, that's why in some script it's called ashtanga yoga, but in English it will be eight limbs. Now, one more thing is good to understand here about these limbs. So, these are not steps that you do one step at a time and then you do other step at a time. They are limbs. Now, if you imagine your whole body as one, all the limbs grow together, right? It's not that one ear, your right hand is gone up, other ear, your left hand gone up, not like that. When we grow, we grow all together. So, all these limbs need to grow together. So, it's not that you do just one practice at a time and you don't do the other practice. You try to grow all the limbs at the same time. So, first one you see as yama and nyama. Now, yama and nyama were not actually, I didn't have space so I couldn't write the English translations. They are nothing but our self-discipline and the social discipline. When I talk about the yama, so before Patanjali said anything about the physical postures, he said that we must fix our social behaviors with this yama like non-stealing, non-violence, non-hirting, not occupying which doesn't belong to you. So, first you have to actually control your social behavior. So, one of the good thing about the yoga sciences is that it is a science of make you a fit person to be in the society. It never asks you to renunciate and it never asks you to leave the world. It always teaches you how you can live well in this society. So, the yamas starts from the social behavior that you need to start correcting your social behavior by following truthfulness, by following non-violence, by following a paragraph which is non-possisiveness. There are five in numbers and then the yama and the self-discipline that you have to discipline yourself as well before even you go to the physical postures practice. Those self-disciplines are like that keeping the cleanliness in your body, in your home, in your work, wherever you are, make the cleanliness, so that's called shawcha. We are again five in numbers, so we don't have that much of time to go with each and everything, but I just quickly tell you, so that self-discipline includes your cleanliness, your prayer, your self-study, your celibacy doesn't mean restriction of anything. It means just control and discipline to way of, you know, having your lifestyle. So, that is one of the self-discipline as well. And then it's called kap tapa, or tapa is the austerity means like you are into kind of a self-discipline where you have your wake-up time, you have your meal time, you have your sleeping time, how many hours you are sleeping, sometimes ten hours, sometimes just five hours, not like that. So, your tapa means austerity that you discipline your whole lifestyle. So, yama and yama are the two important, actually I would say the most important steps or limbs for practices because without purifying this behaviour which has natural things which are from the outside, like the family you are born of, the kind of situation you are grown, whatever has impacted, like conditioning of your mind. So, we have to first break that conditioning of our mind with self-discipline and social discipline so that we can take charge of our who really we are. Otherwise, most of the time we just keep saying, "Oh, this happened to me and I couldn't do that, that happened to me." I lost my parents when I was 17 years old. So, if I kept blaming that, "Oh my God, I just lost my parents, I cannot do anything." I would have not been here standing and talking to you. And also from a small town of India where education, where women are not encouraged to build up their careers, so you have to break all these scenarios and take a little bit charge of your life with these yamas and yamas to find out your path. Otherwise, we just become a bundle of our situations and this happened to me and that happened to me. So, that is what I like about the self-discipline, the importance of self-discipline and the social behaviour. And then we come to the third aspect which is our son or our physical postures. We are very well known about that part of bending the body and moving ourselves around, so that's the third part. Again, with the modern things, we have accessibility to practice for everyone. So, in a while, we will do it with all of us together. And then breathing exercise is very important because breathing, breath is regulating everything, your cardiovascular system, your respiratory system, your blood circulation, your nervous system, everything is regulated by the breath. So, why not take the full advantage of that breathing, which you are breathing right now? So, it's not just a simple breath, it's the source of the prana according to yoga philosophy. Prana means the vital force or energy. So, that's the vital force and energy which you are inhaling, which is your connection to the outer world, has a powerful tool to heal your emotional body, heal your energy body. So, more than your physical benefits, the prana-yam practices helps you to heal your emotional body, your subconscious mind, unconscious mind and also your energy body. So, prana-yam, breathing exercises is must if you are practicing the yoga path. The next comes apretya-hara or control of senses. This is again very much related to our modern lifestyle. The screen is scrolling. This morning I saw, of course, on the screen that every day average human being right now is spending six hours on the scrolling on the screen. It's crazy. So, I think pratya-hara is, we need it the most right now, controlling of the senses. We are so much influenced with the music we hear, oh this and then what we see outside all the time, plunged by our senses. So, also bringing your senses into the right direction, whatever goal you have in your life for a minister, it could be just, you know, about reading and about knowing the philosophy and for a yoga teacher, it's all about yoga, for a baker, it's all about bakery, for whatever it is, whatever is your passion. So, you just direct all your senses towards that passion, you know. If someone is very, very much into karma, yoga and they just want to put all their energy into selfless service, then your whole senses should be directed into that one goal. So, pratya-hara doesn't mean that you close your eyes and ears all the time. It means that you direct your senses into the goal of your life. And then comes dharna and dharna, six and seven steps, which are the meditation practices, very popular nowadays for our stress management and different therapeutic benefits. The dharna, six step means you choose the object of the meditation, you prepare the field of your mind to hold that object, and dharna means that you start meditating on that. And the last and the final limbs comes as samadhi. Samadhi is the two, what's here, some, plus adhi. Some means balanced and adhi means you're wisdom. So, it's not any, you know, you read in books and sometimes, okay, if I'm reaching to samadhi, I will get to see the colors and this will happen vibration in my body, no nothing happened like that. Samadhi, simple means that some means balanced and other means you're wisdom. So, when you're wisdom is in a balanced state, it is the state of your samadhi, means you have achieved the highest goal of yogic practices. A balanced state of being means, your emotions are in total balance, you get something, you get happy, you lose something, you get sad. So, all that becomes into the balance. You know how to create balance in within yourself. So, that is the final limb. Any questions here before I move forward? Can I just say, do you explain? Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm just trying to be as quick as possible. Are we on time, Minister? Okay, thank you. Now, benefits of yoga, as we already have discussed, that it works on all the aspects of our being, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Physical benefits, it improves flexibility. Now, if you see from the perspective, as we grow up, what you lose the most frequently is flexibility, right? For example, a 10 years old boy can lift in 10 kilos. Most of us here as well lift 10 kilos or 5 kilos, right? So, strength, we are not losing that much. But a 10 year boy who can do the flexibility, we can't. So, what we are losing as we are growing in the physical body is the flexibility. So, that sometimes fascinates me so much, that even the thousands years or back, the sages knew that what we will be needing, or what they were needing in that time, was the most important was to maintain the flexibility of the body, because that is what we lose very quickly as we grow up, more than anything else, more than our neurons, more than ourselves. What we are losing quickly is the elasticity of our muscles. So, that is really important to maintain that. And balance, posture becomes better with the practices. Your respiratory cardiovascular health is affected by practices. It helps to reduce chronic pain, tension and inflammation. And I see in my teaching career every day people coming and saying these benefits to me, so I can assure that, yeah, that happens. Even if you do it just five, five is a little less, but at least if you do 10, 15 minutes, just sitting on your chair, and if you do it for two weeks, you will start feeling the changes immediately. And that is, I think, another reason why yogic practices, especially the physical posture, got so popular, because the effect is just so quick, the results are just so quick, and in this fast paced, quick result lifestyle, if something is giving quick results, we really like it. So, one of the reasons I feel it's important, but going back to this slide, that don't forget the first and two yama and yamas, even if you are just focusing off reducing any of these pains and aches. Mental benefits, yoga for stress relaxation, reduces stress, anxiety, again medically proved, lots of researchers have been done, and they are quite self-proved as well, improves concentration for sure. And mental clarity, which I will see, which I actually realized in a couple of years, so I am a new owner of the business. Just three years back, I opened my own yoga studio at Henle Beach Road. That was the first time when I felt overwhelmed, because there were so many things to look after. I was not a business head person, I was just a simple yoga teacher throughout my life, and that was a big change, and I had no idea how to cope up with that, and this is where actually I felt that how much meditation practices help, because then I got more regular, more disciplined with my practices, and now, if I don't practice it even one day, I miss it. So, mental clarity is one of the most benefit, which I have actually recently realized myself, and for sure, emotional balance comes with that. Spiritually, I always tell my students, and it is on my website as well, that yoga ritual practice, which includes the physical aspect, it's not the physical practice, who includes this spiritual aspect. Do you get it? So, it's not physical practice, who includes this spiritual aspect, it's a spiritual practice, which includes the physical aspect. So, this is the very, very important aspect, because we all have difficult times in lives, we all go through with this, as already discussed about joy and concerns, journey, and we get these questions all the time by me, and how to find that answers is, I think, very important, for our peace, for our mind to be focused. So, yoga connects practitioner to a deeper sense of self, fostering inner peace, self-awareness, very important, and compassion. Regular practice leads to holistic well-being, promoting overall vitality, enhancing the quality of life for people of all ages and fitness level. Namaste. Thank you. So, we do five minutes practice, or, yeah, that's okay, alright. So, I will be very quick, won't take long, and then... [Music] We hope you've enjoyed this Expanding Horizons podcast. These podcasts are the intellectual property of the presenter. They can be used only with the express permission and appropriate acknowledgment of the presenter. This permission can be obtained by emailing admin@unitariansa.org.au. Please feel free to leave a comment or visit us on Facebook or Twitter by searching essay Unitarians or by visiting our website at unitariansa.org.au [Music]