By
[http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Elizabeth_Reninger/24043] Elizabeth Reninger
What
Is Yoga?
Yoga
is freedom. It is love. It is pure, radiant, unobstructed joy. It is
pure awareness, wide-awake and clear.
~
Richard Freeman, director of The Yoga Workshop, in Boulder, CO
Here in the United States, on the cusp of 2006, just
about everyone has heard the word "yoga." For many if not most, the
word conjures images of scantily-clad beings with expanding and twisting limbs:
a well-worn "scene" in health clubs, retreat centers, and yoga spaces
throughout the country. In other words, it brings to mind the practice of asana
~ sequences of physical movements and postures ~ which, as it turns out,
represent just a tiny slice of the entire "pie" that is the Yoga
Tradition(s) of the larger world (universe, cosmos). Now there's nothing wrong
with the practice of asana (I do it myself, and find it quite wonderful!), but
it might be useful to be able to place this particular aspect of yoga onto its
larger "map" ~ to have a sense of the tradition(s) from which it
arises and to which it returns, and to understand asana to be just one of many
possible entry-points into this vast and beautiful territory. So let's explore...
