Health and Happiness - A by-product of yoga

"Health and happiness are only the by-products of yoga."

 

-B.K.S. Iyengar

 

Mr. Iyengar and even Prashat Iyengar often write or have talked about how health and even happiness are not yoga but the by-products of yoga.

 

This may seem strange to read for many as one of our main goals in life is to be healthy and happy.

We see the impressive asanas (postures) in books and magazines so that at the surface it appears to be only physical. And if you look good, you must be happy right?

 

What then is yoga if not to bring health and happiness?

 

Mr. Iyengar says that the physical level is not the end and aim of yoga.  We must not stop at the by-product, see what more it can give.

 

He says we hold inside of us many precious jewels and yoga penetrates deeper within to areas that can not been seen, but only felt.

 

At first the practice builds physical strength and stability, helping to clean the outer and inner body.  Continued practice of yoga brings the mind inside, moving the outer mind that is easily distracted to the inner mind, the consciousness or as Mr. Iyengar says to the divine seat of the self. 

 

In an interview in Russia he says that "Yoga helps to transform the instinctive intelligence to become intuitive intelligence." and that "here all actions begin from the soul or the self and not from the agent of the self like the body, the mind."

 

 



"Yoga helps to transform the instinctive intelligence

 to become intuitive intelligence."

 

Namaste.

Pamela Nelson

www.plnyoga.blogspot.com

plnyogastudio@gmail.com