Essay On Yoga Lifestyle

Attending a bunch of yoga classes every week? Wearing tight yoga pants and, every time you get a chance, flinging silk scarves made in India around your shoulders? If I say "Namaste" when I greet someone, or "Om Shanti" when I leave, does that make me a yogi?

While all of the above choices are perfectly in line with the newly-born and rapidly expanding yoga culture, yoga lifestyle means something entirely different. It has nothing to do with the style of yoga people practice, their style of clothing, the type of work they are involved in, or anything else that is externally imposed by fads and culture.

Yoga lifestyle is about one 's internal values: What moves or motivates a person to do what they do? Yoga lifestyle is also about the process: How one goes about performing their daily actions. That person can be an artist, a carpenter, a construction worker, a plumber, a car mechanic, a yoga teacher,

What moved the young woman to hug the boy? What moved the gang of young teenagers to applaud this event?

Many yoga masters and spiritual teachers have defined yoga as "perfection in action". A perfect action means "an action that benefits someone and harms no-one". It is an action rooted in non-violence and compassion coming from a deep source within. When we are living our life in accordance with this principle, we are living the yoga lifestyle.

Non-violence, which stems from compassion, is thought of as the most important yoga principle. It 's called "Ahimsa" in Sanskrit and applies to everything: our deeds, words, and thoughts. Gandhi dedicated his life to Ahimsa. He was a great yogi and a wonderful example of the yoga lifestyle.

There are four more yoga principles of social conduct: truthfulness, non-stealing, faithfulness, and non-greed; and five rules of personal conduct: mental purity, contentment with what we have, accepting suffering as purification, self-study, and surrendering of