Yoga, though common in India for centuries, was once the preserve of obscure sects and hippies in the West. All that’s changed. Now, every town has Yoga teachers and studios. The Yamas and NiYamas have become a way of life and you may even find yourself bowing when someone greets you with Namaste. The popularity of Yoga has seen businesses […]
Biggest Yoga Brands
Yoga Nidra in Irish
Yoga has been paired with dogs, cats, cardio, food and strength training. Throw in Yoga for couples, bed Yoga, intimate Yoga, Baseball Yoga and quickly you get a sense that Yoga can be practised anyway you like. The benefits of Yoga are immense and because it is not a religious practise, it means it can be interwoven with the very […]
The Inner Tradition of Yoga – Review
I’m a sucker for books. Yoga books. Chinese Medicine Books. Books on spirituality, the mind, body, shamanism – TAKE MY MONEY! The end result being that I end up with a lot of books that I haven’t read yet. The Inner Tradition of Yoga, by Michael Stone was revised in 2018 and is one such book. I bought the book […]
Yoga Energy Theory
As one of the oldest belief systems in the world, it’s worth looking at the theory of Yoga and Hinduism and the basics of how energy operates. Strands of this theory can be found replicated in belief systems throughout the world and bear a striking resemblance to creationist theories the world over. Here, I attempt to give a bird’s eye […]
Yoga Basics – the five Niyamas
The Niyamas are a means of controlling our inner world. Which is ever more important in today’s fast paced life. They provide a set of guidelines that can help us navigate the line between the physical manifestations we see all around us and the subtle knowing within us that there is more to our life than material possessions. The Yamas […]
Yoga and the Chakras
Amidst the Instagram world of picture perfect poses, it’s easy to lose sight of the underlying meaning of Yoga and the Chakras. Immersed in class or our own practice, we start and finish with various asanas (postures) and it can become consuming to go deeper into a pose, to reach that bit further or to hold it a bit longer. […]
Yoga Basics – The Five Yamas
The pancha yamas (moral restraints) outlined by Pantajali in his Yoga Sutras comprise one of the eight limbs of Yoga. On a basic level they serve as a guide of what not to do – they Nayamas serve as a guide of “to do’s”. Both the Yamas and Nayamas were considered by Patanjali to be the ‘code’ that aspiring yogis […]
Prana
Prana can be approximately used in place of of the phrase ‘life energy’. The word itself comes from the ancient language of Sanskrit with a ‘Pra’ meaning ‘to exist before’ and ‘ana’ meaning ‘atom’. The phrase then can be taken to derive from ‘existing before an atom’, which can be further distilled to mean that which existed before the atom. […]
History of Yoga
New to Yoga and confused by all the styles, types, rules and limbs? Read on to get some clarity on the history of yoga and soon you’ll understand why you’re not the only one confused! The history of Yoga has evolved over time and is still on a journey. It it guesstimated to have first began as far back as […]
Swami Vivekananda speeches to the Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 1893
The following speeches were given by Swami Vivekananda during the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. They are significant because apart from being brilliant speeches in their own right, they helped bring about a renewed interest in Yoga and ancient hindu teachings in the West. Response to Welcome – 11th September 1893 Why we disagree 15th September 1893 Paper […]