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history, schools, paths, and practice of yoga

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This is an analysis and description of the history, schools, paths, and practice of yoga.

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This posting traces the history, schools, paths, and practice of yoga. References are also provided to further validate the findings.

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Yoga as a philosophy and path of life:
Yoga is a spiritual discipline, path and religious practice that inform the majority of Indian religions. The history behind this path began with Aryan shamans, who created a path of ecstasy known as Yoga which maybe discovered in the first Yoga posture artifact in Mohen-da-jaro settlement, which was about 5,000 years ago (Marshall, John ,1931). The history of yoga originates from a religioius movement that internalized the symbolism of the Hindu ritual into the body and mind of Hindu culture during the 5th century B.C. There is mention of Yoga in the Bhagavad Gita where Arjuna is instructed in Bhakti Yoga, devotional Yoga, Kriya Yoga, discipline yoga, Raja Yoga, mental yoga, and Karma Yoga, Yoga of works. In the other Hindu works, Yoga is discovered in the Upanishads where contemplation, the symbolism of OM and the practice of meditation is outline. From these sources, the Yoga Sutras by Patajanli was created that outline the eight limbs of yoga, the meditative practices, the psychology of Yoga and the stages of enlightenment. Yoga was also involved in Tantrism movement from the Tamils where self-ecstasy technique known as Kundalini was developed to enhance enlightenment and spiritual enlightenment. Kundalini is the practice of raising energy from the base of the spine through several energy centers to the top of the head to gain Enlightenment. In the late 5th century, two religious movements namely Buddhism and Jainism separated from Hinduism and took away some Yogic practices. Thervada Buddhism took the meditative practices of mantra yoga, visualization, and vipasana meditation. Mantra meditation is the mediation on certain words through repetition and changing. In addition, Jainism took away more contemplative practices of mantra meditation and ecstasy techniques. As time went on, Yoga has manifested itself in the West through the Mahrishi Mahesh movement known as TM, Ashtanga Yoga, Iyenagar Yoga and other movements. In recent years, India has also produced spiritual leaders such as Ramakrishna and Gurudijeff.
Yoga as a discipline is divided into eight limbs of yoga and four paths of yoga. The eight limbs are contained in the four paths. The first limb is the ethical observances namely outward principles called Yamas and ...

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