Is Yoga a Holistic Science?

The body needs a natural lifestyle and basic conditions as proper nutrition, detoxification, exercise, inner harmony, and appropriate energy qualities to maintain its health and vitality, which is its natural state. Ayurveda also gives us guidelines about foods, natural herbs and a whole way of life, from ambient temperatures to the colors to seek balance according to the body type.

But besides this, holistic medicines indicate how the material body is constantly exchanging information with our thoughts, emotions and reactions to the outside world and a cold or critical condition are also, in most cases, a reflection of imbalance in our own lives. It comprises of a number of therapies, methods, habits, viewing health as integrated life and diseases as endogenous; it comes from within because it creates the illness or because it allows the entry of the disease when it weakens.

Yoga is such a preventive and a curative activity which gives us tools to be healthy and work to our full potential since yoga is fully backed by science. For this ancient tradition, the body is simply the material manifestation of our subtle energies. It is our vehicle to develop ourselves in the material world. Along with our minds, human beings have a body through which we can achieve a spiritual realization, and gradually achieve higher levels of consciousness that allow us to develop our true self, intuition and universal knowledge.

Yoga comes from the Sanskrit word which means ‘union’ because it is a tradition that unites our material, mental and spiritual being and this integration is our nature. Even when there is no spiritual call or a transcendent goal, it is also legitimate that yoga is perceived as a science that offers a number of techniques for physical health and inner balance, as the practice of yoga makes us see clearer the connection between our body and our psychological and emotional aspects. This holistic view of our being is an essential step in understanding that both our health and the life we ​​live are in our hands.

Our energy and its various manifestations i.e. physical, emotional, mental and spiritual ask us to give the body the means to heal naturally assuming the responsibility for our health and our well-being in different aspects of our lives to honor us and we seek to develop in a balanced way each of these energies which are in the universe and they are also in each of us actively.

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Yes, Yoga is a Holistic Science.

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Our energy is contained in various transitional bodies that we change every time we are born. These bodies are some more dense and more subtle, the only imperishable is our spirit or our pure consciousness. This aspect brings us to the existence and it is our nature, but it separates us believing an individual experience that comes from our physical body and what we know as our mind is a very complex metaphysical dimension. For this reason, yoga teaches us that as we work the body and mind in its various aspects i.e. vital, emotional, rational and intuitive, the spirit can be expressed more clearly in this life, although we continue with contents in a body and a mind no longer identify with them.

We need a strong healthy body and a mind capable of abating and concentrating, remember that one of the traditional definitions of yoga is to direct the mind to a point, along with other qualities such as positive thinking and the ability to transcend the ego to develop its vital, rational and intuitive abilities that lead us to other levels of consciousness.

Some Indian traditions speak of five bodies and others speak of three bodies. This is not a contradiction, but rather a conceptual difference, since the second body is itself composed of three bodies. Yoga gives us a number of practices to work with all the postures for cleaning and mudras and bandhas, for the physical body, pranayama exercises, recollection of the senses and concentration to the second body and meditation, which operates in the causal body.

We do not have to know the energy system or have spiritual inclinations to benefit from this system holistically. Say only as a psychological and therapeutic science, or integrating at least the dimensions of yoga that we feel comfortable practicing, we benefit greatly with these techniques. If we chose yoga as a lifestyle and discipline, every of the step is important so that there is a spiritual progress according to the yoga teachers, but experience tells us that in any case a little yoga, regardless of the style, gives us much. 

Since yoga is a holistic science, you can find many position as restorative to treat different disease and many yoga practices of yoga therapies. If you are willing to learn yoga therapies for better and fitter body, you should seek admission in a course of yoga therapy teacher training Rishikesh, India and experience the wonders of this ancient practice.