Yoga

Yoga for positive health and personality Development:

The word Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit root ÿuj” meaning to bind, join, attach, and yoke, to direct and concentrate one’s attention on, to use and apply. It also means union and integration. Thousands of years ago, the great sage Patanjali summarized the whole philosophy and practice of Yoga into a set of 196 Yoga Sutras; and he compiled and codified all the knowledge that existed in his day on the art and science of Yoga in order to arrive at this treatise. The core of the Yoga Sutras is the eight-limbed path, which forms the basis for modern Yoga practice. These eight limbs are Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi. Today we know these 8 as Ashtanga Yoga. According to Patanjali, Yoga is a conscious process of gaining mastery over the mind.

Yoga is to promote positive health

 Yoga was anyway designed not as a system of medicine, but as a science of positive health. The practices of Yoga are all about the unification of the lower self with the higher Self; the union of the individual self with the universal SELF; and the integration of body, mind, and soul into a purified whole, including the integration of our inner and outer states of being. Yoga is a state of great steadiness at an emotional level; a balance of concentration and detachment at the mental level and homeostasis at the body level. It integrates the personality by bringing body-mind coordination in a well-balanced way. Yoga offers man a conscious process to solve the menacing problems of unhappiness, restlessness, emotional upset, hyperactivity, etc., in society and helps to evoke the hidden potentialities of man in a systematic and scientific way, by which man becomes a fuller individual.

 Yoga for personality development

 Personality development in an individual is a process that involves patterns of changes or movements that begin at conception and continues throughout his/her life span. Personality development is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. There are several dimensions that need to be integrated. The absence of any one dimension makes one’s personality incomplete and lop-sided. For a holistic personality, the following dimensions are required to be integrated.

• Physical dimension
• Intellectual/cognitive dimension
• Emotional dimension
• Social dimension
• Spiritual dimension

Each dimension has specific activities and processes which undergo certain changes. These changes normally take place in an orderly sequence, though there may be variations in their rate. It is important to note that all dimensions of personality are overlapping, interdependent, and intricately interwoven. A purely compartmentalized approach is not at all possible.