What is Yoga?

You try for yourself and see what works best for you. You will have your own answers on what is Yoga.

Yoga may become for you just a substitute for gym exercises. Or you may discover what is behind Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, all 8 limbs of it (we will discuss details in more specific articles), etc.

8 limbs of Hatha Yoga and more...

Note: practical and efficient here - doesn't mean we will limit ourselves to asanas (poses) practice. There are many more useful, working tools in Yoga: from simple stress relief, proper diet, proper relaxation and breathing, etc. ...to Pranayama, Kundalini rise, Bandhas, Mudras, Mantras, Meditation, and so on. We will cover all these here, in the articles of the project. This way you may learn in details what Yoga is really about, what it can bring to you... and, sure, you can always stay just with wonderful balanced harmonious physical part of Yoga if that is what you [only] feel comfortable with. - This still will give you a long list of benefits. See article on "Benefits of Yoga" for details.

Yoga in Sanskrit

- Yoga means union. Union between what and what? union with what? - You will eventually find your own answers. And just to give you an idea, as some food for thoughts the following is my point of view.

Yoga is union with what?

It is union of your body and your consciousness. That happens through mindful practice of poses, breath, etc. See article on "How Yoga Works?" for details. To put it simple - Yoga by construction have to be practiced mindfully. And a simple, down to earth, explanation of "why?" - it is because Yoga is another level of sophistication in comparison to relatively primitive gym exercises.

And then there is another level of union - it is union of you as you used to think about yourself and deeper, true you. Union with everybody and everything. It comes with Bliss Consciousness rising in us. This is something we will discuss much more in connection to meditation and "advanced" aspects of Yoga. They are advanced because they are beyond of just another "physical exercise", the way Yoga perceived by many. Advanced here doesn't mean "hard to do", in fact, those parts of Yoga (meditation in particular) can be practiced by anyone, even very ill people, or senior people...
In any case - you decide what is Yoga for you. If all you want from Yoga is physical aspect - that is fine! You will profit already from that a lot!

Reference By: Yoga-from-a-to-z.com/what-is-yoga.html