Resumo de Light On Yoga - B.K.S. IYENGAR

Yoga is no longer a mysterious word in the west. Many subgurus have invented their own weird systems of Yoga. The author of the present book under review is one of the most outstanding teachers of Yoga. He has taught eminent persons like J.Krishnamurthi and Yehudi Menuhin.
Yoga is not a system of exercises or callesthenics. It is not something to be grabbed on the way in our lives of fast pace , fast food and instant gratification. (Remember the hyperventilating CEO screaming into his mobile ? I want it urgently, as of yesterday?)
According to Yoga, the energy (and well-being) of the body is sustained by the constant flow of ?prana? ? an extremely subtle form of the universal energy ? through channels called naadis. It is said that there are 720 million naadis in the human body!! Prana is similar to KI in acupuncture and other systems of the East Asian countries.
Yoga does not involve vigourous or violent muscular movements. It is a way of systematically maintaining the body and its parts in certain formalized postures called aasanas, strictly conforming to to delicate, detailed instructions. And the proper ways ? many are given ? of breathing. Rigourous and absolute purity of mind AND food are the unrelenting requisites of the Yogic way of life.
Two hundred important postures ? aasanas ? are described in detail by the author. As per the author?s curriculum given at the end of the book, the practice of these postures takes at least 300 weeks ! To the uninitiated many of these aasanas may look like acrobatics or impossible contortions. Frankly, a few may even get frightened looking at some of the photos! But there is far more than meets the cursory glance behind it all. The first benefit of practicing the aasanas is that the body is energized. The various organs are cleansed and toned. The mind too begins working efficiently and smoothly. Stress, the bane of modern living, is reuced largely. (It can be completely eliminated too depending on how much one puts in. ) Many physical ailments can be cured by practicing specific aasanas.
For those who want to move higher, there is pranayama, the sdience of breathing. (Afterall your everyday head shrinker or hypnotist starts with the command ? breathe in and and out, slowly ,, ?)Pranayama involves breathing in prescribed ways. There are seven principal charkas ?energy - centres in the human bodylying along what physically corresponds to the spinal column, starting from the base and gradually spaced up till the the top most point, the crown of the head. By judicious and skilful practice of pranayama, the ?divine? energy dormant at the base , gradually begins to move up till it reaches the last charka at the top of the head. This is the culminating stage when the Practioner is said to attain the supreme Realisation . According to tradition this process evolves only through the grace of the guru, or the Divine.
The book under review is a veritable compendium on yogic postures, replete with full details and photographs. Lest the uninitiated misunderstand, the author has propounded the true nature of yoga in the opening chapter before proceeding to the purely physical aspects. At the risk of repetition it must be pointed out that yoga is not a set of mechanical movements of the limbs.
At the end of the book there is a useful index listing out various ailments that can be cured by applying specific postures.

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