Yoga is a comprehensive package for happy living. Yoga in India developed thousands of years ago and has been practiced since then. It is a method of uniting the mind, body and the soul. It provides a way to connect to the inner self or also called as the spiritual aspect of life. While practicing yoga, the primary thing that comes into play is seeking and becoming aware of the soul, the spirit or the energy within. Spirit here is the divine force that drives everything in life. It is the source energy or the divine energy which serves as a motivation and is responsible for whatever we think or do. Being aware of the power of this energy is called as spirituality. Yoga is a practice whose main aim is to open the gateway to spirituality.
Many tourists come to India to practice yoga at the various yoga and meditation retreats so that they can get in touch with their spirituality. Yoga for beginners is an excellent way to resort to the yoga mat and start your yoga journey and know yourself. When you go start becoming aware of yourself, you start to understand all the aspects of how you think and what you do. By creating awareness of yourself, you can understand in which aspects you need to change your life. This creates an option of consciously changing your mind and making it work for yourself for the better. Yoga invokes the spirituality and works to take the negativity out of life by controlling the mind and the environment. It empowers a person to the point that you gain such control on yourself that dealing with any life situation becomes easy. Yoga is all about spirituality but here is a list of some of the reasons why tourists love spiritual yoga and meditation retreats.
- Letting go: Every yoga practice in the yoga and meditation retreats begins with a sense of practicing gratitude. This is done to honour the presence of a higher power and displaying gratitude for that power. It teaches and reminds you to accept the fact that knowing the answers or meanings to all the present life situations and scenarios is not necessary. There is a higher power that is working for you at all times and it can provide you with all the required energy just if you tune to the infinite power of this divine energy.
- Receiving guidance: When you begin to seek for the answers within you start experiencing your soul talking to you. Chanting a mantra during a meditation class allows you tune in the positive energy of the mantra and receiving guidance becomes easy. The mind becomes quiet and a path is presented. The trick is to just listen to this voice in the right manner. Learning the art of meditation is important because of this reason itself. It lets you cut through the unnecessary chatter of the mind and helps you listen to your inner calling very easily. Mantra chanting is a way of creating positive affirmations that get embedded in the subconscious and start controlling the mind.
- Unknown and the unseen: Yoga expands the spirituality in a way that allows a person to easily know the unknown and to see the unseen too. The idea of this may sound very mystical and unreal at first but this is actually the extent to which yoga can empower a person. Some exercises like drishti in yoga enable a person to awaken the third eye or the point between the eyebrows. A person becomes capable of evaluating the consequences of any thoughts, words or actions in the future. Correct judgement and opinions come almost naturally to the person and a chance of making mistakes gets reduced to a big extent.
- Connecting with the source energy: Yoga establishes a connection with the divine energy or the source energy at play. There is more life than just thinking about personal goals, fantasies and desires. This connection helps to understand that there is a bigger picture and purpose of life in relation to other and the higher power. Once this connection is established a sense of security follows that prepares a person to face everything with a higher soul power. It is understood and known deeply that support will come even in the darkest and toughest times.
- Oneness: Oneness does not mean just uniting the mind, body and the soul. Oneness here means becoming one with the universe. The source has created everything, all other creatures and things in the Universe as one. Everything is related and we are all one. When this fact sinks deep, it is understood deeply that there is no duality in the universe. We are all one. Understanding this makes a person more accepting of almost everything that comes into the realm of that person. Contentment and gratitude flow in the heart and a respect for everything else in the universe comes into play.
- The power of present: Life is meant to be lived in the present moment with joy. It is very important to make life happen in the moment. People don’t actually realise that most of their mental blockages come from living in the past. Thinking about something of the past consistently that did not lead to good results attracts similar kinds of experiences in the present again. To make sure that your future happens the way you want, it is imperative to realise the power of present. Practicing yoga at the yoga and meditation retreats helps increase the awareness of living life in the present and understanding the importance of it.
- Go to the core: The reason why yoga and meditation are different than any other science is because it teaches to go deep to the very core of all problems. The principles of yoga and meditation go in depth and understand the root cause of why disease is there in the body. The other approaches searches for psychological causes first and the physical causes later. After understanding the root cause, yoga and meditation empower the person to come at peace on a soul level first so that the problems get eliminated themselves by healing the mind and body in conjunction. The ultimate goal of yoga and meditation is to promote overall wellness by promoting the mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing.
- Seek within: Yoga encourages to introspect more. With the overwhelming noise in the outside world, it is very easy to get distracted in today’s world. The power of going within and listening to your inner self helps to know what needs to be done to solve what kind of situation. The inner guide is always leading us towards positivity and light, listening to the voice inside helps to know if we are standing in our own way. Being aware is the very first step towards moving on the path of spirituality.
- Focus on your energy: The principle of like attracts like is extremely profound in yoga and meditation. The more a person focuses on positivity, the more that person will attract positivity in life and vice versa. The conscious implementation of positive choices in life will reap better and positive results.
Author Bio– Author Bio– Devakar Sandhu is a renowned yoga practitioner with more than 10 years of experience in yoga teaching. He holds a certification in 500-hour and 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training Course. He guides and suggests ways for lifestyle modification through yoga.