Best Yoga Meditation Techniques Without Posing

When I heard about the possibility of learning yoga meditation techniques that didn't involve also learning complex poses, let's say I was more than casually interested. Here author Jill Lawson who writes in her blog Diets in Review.Com that there are four branches of yoga, and only one of them involves physical manipulation of the body to achieve enlightenment.

Best Yoga Meditation Techniques Without Posing

Photo by Shannon Keegan c/o Photos.Com.

When people think of yoga, the first thing that comes to mind is an image of someone doing a yoga pose on a sticky mat. But did you know that only one of the four main branches of yoga involves poses, and poses are just one fraction of that branch? This means that the yoga poses you are familiar with are a very small part of yoga.

If you study the origins of yoga, you will learn that yoga began as a way to reach enlightenment. Of the various methods, only one involved the deliberate and systematized use of the physical body. The others were centered on the path of selfless service (Karma yoga), love and devotion to God (Bhakti yoga), and the study of the intellect (Jnana yoga). In the fourth branch, Raja yoga, steps were taken to prepare the body (and the mind) for long hours of meditation for the purpose of attaining union with the divine.

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There are yoga meditation techniques that do not in fact emphasize physical body positions. I do know that I enjoy Raja yoga and derive great benefit from practicing yoga and meditation together. The practice and discipline necessary to achieve physical control over one's physical body also leads one on the more difficult journey to master one's mind and spirit. I'm just going to keep going.

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When I started doing asana, the yoga postures, I had a very strong feeling of many unnecessary things dropping away - especially tension and inadequacy.                      --  Patricia Sullivan