Which of Yoga’s Pathways Do You Choose?

Yoga is over three thousand years old. It is a spiritual pathway, an exercise alternative, and a system of health. What you get from your Lincoln NH yoga class depends on two things: what you are seeking, and what part of yoga you want to integrate into your life.

Yoga as a spiritual path

Today, throughout the world, millions of people practice yoga as a spiritual path. Practitioners of yoga who choose it as a spiritual pathway seek to make their way into higher consciousness to connect with Divine Love. Through this pathway, they want to unite their mind, body, and emotions to fulfill this unifying purpose.

A yoga practitioner strives to live in a joyous and harmonious state, with mind, body and emotions attuned with one another and with Soul, the essence of who we all truly are. He or she seeks enlightenment, also known as the ability to live in higher consciousness connected with Divine Energy.

New age yoga seeks to direct the focus toward our experience on earth. Rather than denying the reality of our journey (by saying life is just an illusion we perpetrate on ourselves), new age yoga seeks to get its practitioners to step back from their involvement in life’s experiences enough so that they can see that their experiences, both good and bad, are necessary to their spiritual evolvement.

New age yoga promotes the idea that it is in contact with other beings that we can come to recognize and know ourselves, and realize the unity we share with all creatures. Once we connect with this unity, we can then participate in life from our perspective as Soul, learning and growing through our experiences. Through seeing ourselves as Soul, a spark of God, we are also better able to reach out to others in love.

Yoga as a physical pathway of exercise and health

Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and people from many other religions practice yoga asanas (physical exercises) for their ability to balance the body’s chakras, and increase muscle tone, oxygenation, and physical balance.

They are also attracted to yoga’s ability to quiet what Buddha called the ‘monkey mind,’ that part of us that insists on thinking thought after thought and not allowing Divine Inspiration into our being. This is a special boon to busy executives who are devotees of yoga, but also beneficial to all of us.

Physical benefits of yoga include:

• Increased muscle strength, tone and flexibility, leading to improved athletic performance
• Balancing of one’s metabolic system
• Improved breathing results in increased oxygenation in brain and body leading to increased energy, vitality and brain power
• Weight maintenance and oftentimes weight reduction
• Enhanced self-discipline
• Cardiovascular benefits.

Regardless of which of yoga’s pathways you choose to integrate into your life, the practice of yoga has innumerable benefits for your personal and physical growth, health, and recognition of joy. It has the potential to transcend religious differences and unite us all in love and health. What could be better than aspiring to be a fit and healthy vehicle for entry into a higher spiritual consciousness?