Yoga, The Greater Tradition

In Yoga The Greater Tradition, by David Frawley, he talks about the different types of yoga and how they help our daily lives. He also talks about the five different primary yoga paths. The first is Jnana Yoga( the yoga of knowledge); second, Bhakti Yoga( the yoga of devotion); third, Karma Yoga( the Yoga of service); fourth, Raja Yoga( the royal yoga); and lastly, Hatha yoga( the yoga of technique). Hatha yoga took up most of the book because inside of Hatha yoga there are four different types of techniques. Those techniques are Asana, Pranayama, Mantra, and meditation. "Asana is said to prepare the body for deeper yoga practices"( Frawley 58). It is the "seat" of yoga. "Pranayama is the term for our connection through the breath with the unlimited and inexhaustible universal life force"(Frawley 62). So basically Pranayama is the practice of how we breath. "Mantra is the most common tool of all yoga teachings. All yoga paths have their different Mantras( chantings or prayers)"( Frawley 89). "Meditation is the most commonly thought of form of yoga"( Frawlye 72). Meditation helps discover what is within our selves.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. David Frawley did great research and he helped me learn a ton. I think my favorite section of this book would have to have been the Mantra section. Mantra was just very different for me and reading about it made me look at yoga in a whole new light. Just the thought of chanting things kinda weirded me out but after reading it I loved it.
A few of things i did not like about the book were how he set it up and how he wrote it. Frawley set the book up weird for me. If I had wrote it I would not have put it in the order he did. It was not that the book was out of order, it was more that it could have been set up in a better, easier to understand, order. He divided it into two different parts, and some of the things he put in one part I would have put in the other and vise versa. Frawley also wrote it in a very superior way. It was hard to understand. While I was reading it I had to keep a dictionary beside me so I could look up most of the words. He also did not word it in a usual way. It was all backwards, kind of like Yoda off of star wars, you kind of had to interpret what he was saying.

Yoga Weight Loss-Multimedia

In the video, Yoga for weight loss, by Tara Stiles shes demonstrates the different poses you can do to help you loose weight. "She came up with this exercise herself to help people after the holidays to loose five or ten pounds"(Stlies). Some of the positions she uses are downward dog, plank pose, a lunge, jump switch, high lunge, and chair pose. Combining all of these poses you will create a nice healthy non-time consuming work out.
As shown, yoga can help you in many different ways. I enjoyed this video because it was very helpful with actually letting you have a visual of what was being talked about. Stiles did a great job of explaining it and if you do the exercize with her you could actually tell that you were getting a nice workout in.

Stiles, Tara. "Yoga For Weight Loss." YouTube. Web. 11 May 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvdnMLc8ohg

Modern Yoga

* This is the Lotus pose that is mentioned*

In David Frawley's book, Yoga The Greater Tradition, Frawley talks about how every country has modernized yoga. "Over time yoga has become a movement of its own,related to, but often different from, classical yoga"(Frawley 25). The first major yoga guru to live in the United States was Paramahansa Yoganada, and he settled in 1920, but yoga was first introduced in 1893. When yoga was first introduced it was mainly a spiritual practice allied with devotion and meditation. Asana, the physical aspect of yoga, appealed to the outer-minded western audience. Asana became the face of yoga, and its most popular pose is the Lotus pose( as pictured). Yoga is more about how it benefits you physically now and many yoga teachers have forgotten its deeper, more spiritual meanings(Frawley 26).

I think that what Frawleysaid is very sad. Yoga is supposed to help you connect to other parts of you and, I believe, to God, but we have made it all about physical benefits. I did not know, though, that it was a spiritual practice. I'm glad that Frawley said something about it being spiritual because I learned something new. If more people new its real meanings and reasons they could probably get more out of participating in this practice.

Frawley, David. "Modern Yoga." Yoga, The Greater Tradition.2008.Print.

Pranayama: Developing the Power of the Breath

According to David Frawley in ,Yoga The Greater Tradition, " yoga teaches us how to develop more energy inside ourselves, one that doesn't require depending upon anyone external to receive it"(62). Being free from the bonding of other people and their support provides us with unlimited internal resources so that we can be truly happy. Prana is a yogic term for our connection through breath. Prana is said to be the vital energy that enables both the body and mind to function not only individually but correspondingly. The breathing exercises that one would do in a yoga class are an important mean of developing prana. For higher yoga practices one must have more energy, or prana. Frawley makes a great point when hes say, " Note that whenever we make an important effort in life, we usually take a deep breath first"(63).
I love how Frawley talked about breathing and yoga. I have always heard about how breathing is an important part of yoga but never really got why. Now I understand that it helps focus and center ones self to a point of relaxation. I especially loved how he said that we take a deep breath before we do anything important in our life. I never really thought about it until now but we do, and usually its to focus our minds on what to do and how to handle it.



Frawley, David. "Pranayama: Developing the Power of the Breath." Yoga, The Greater Tradition. 2008.print.