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We believe healthy lifestyle education has far-reaching health benefits for people. At Executive Talent we offer a 6 week Stress Management & Mindfulness Program, A Yogic Approach, which can be tailored for the individual or for a group. For details of our program please contact us
Corporate Yoga Executive Talent partners with Yoga Vida to provide yoga classes. check out their website www.yogavida.com.au Yoga Vida offers classes in their studio, beach classes, in your premises, pretty much anywhere you can think of on the Sunshine Coast.
For those interested in learning more about the history and philosophy of Yoga you will find a brief article below introducing yoga by Suzanne Derok, M.Ed (USyd), Dip.ITYA. Suzanne facilities our Stress Management Program and is an experienced facilitator and yoga teacher.
A Short History of Yoga & Its Origins (c) by Suzanne Derok
What is Yoga? In modern times Yoga has been attached to a number of approaches from physical exercises, spiritual practice, through to heart pumping gymnastics creating lean body machines. Others have embraced it to be a definitive life transformation practice to enhance emotional, physical, mental and spiritual well being. Yoga is a familiar word to just about everyone nowadays. Yoga has been finding itself among the fastest growing global trends in modern culture today and continues to extend into every facet of modern life.
Historically Yoga was a deeply introspective spiritual practice in ancient India. Traditionally its teachings were developed to attain spiritual goals and were only transmitted from teacher to student in a personal way. It remained in this relative state for centuries until several influential Indian masters
began to appear and different systems of yoga began to emerge. As teachings of Yoga were systemised the focus shifted from individual spiritual practice to a philosophical system that prescribed a way of life. There were many such schools to emerge that played a role in the evolution of yoga.
An unprecedented rise in the shift of focus on yoga which emphasised simplicity,humility, and ethical restraints in favour of contemporary cultural shifts in the materialistic west have created a vast shaking up and mixing up of concepts. Thus it is important to identify the foundations upon which modern yoga systems are based. Three main philosophical traditions form an essential core within contemporary yoga.
Origins of Yoga
Despite a lot of research we still really know very little historically of the earliest beginnings of Yoga and its people. It is thought that Yoga originated in the Indus Valley about 5000 BC. It was mainly practiced by transmission from teacher to student in an oral tradition. These were mostly seers, and seekers of knowledge who lived simple lives in the forests. At the end of this period, called Vedic - meaning knowledge or wisdom - there was an evolutionary leap in yogic thought with the appearance of the Upanishads about 500 BC - Upa (approach, ni (near), shad (sit).
This period went beyond Vedic oral tradition to inquire into the deeper questions of existence such as How do I fit into the bigger scheme. It is this deeper inquiry of the Upanishads that defines the evolutionary path to the yoga we know today. Over the centuries Upanishads became the original vehicle for wisdom of all yoga traditions. It was about or during this time that Patanjali (200 - 500 BC) systemised yoga into the 8 limb path and wrote the Yoga Sutras. Sutra means - Su, thread - Tra (to transcend)
The 8 path are: Yama (Individual Behaviour)
Niyama (Ethics)
Asanas (Postures)
Pratyahara (Withdrawal of the senses)
Dharana (Developing Concentration)
Pranayama (Science of Breath)
Samadhi (Bliss/Union)
Patanjalis Yoga Sutras became the cornerstone in the system we know as classical yoga. Although much is not known about Patanjali, the man, it was during Patanjali's time that many types and schools of yoga began to flourish. Then a few centuries after Patanjali another evolution of yoga took an interesting turn.
Previous generations of yogis paid no particular attention to the body. They were more interested in contemplation to the point they could exit the body consciously, their goal to merge with formless spirit. During this practice it was common for yogis to neglect their physical bodies. The new breed of yoga masters created a system of practices designed to rejuvenate the body and prolong its life.
Modern Yoga comes to the west
Modern yoga is widely thought to begin with the Parliament of Religions in 1893 in Chicago. It was at that Congress that the young Vivekananda made a lasting impression on the west. In the following years Vivekananda travelled widely attracting many students to yoga. His enormous success in the west opened up the gates for other adepts from India, and the stream of eastern gurus has not ceased.
Since the early 1900's many yoga schools flourished. In the early years of western yoga movement was Pramahansa Yoganandra who arrived in Boston 1920. Five years later he established the Self Realization Fellowship which still has its headquarters in Los Angeles. He was well known for his book 'Autobiography of a Yogi'. There were other yoga master including Jiddu Krishnamurti, 1930 to 1986.
Yoga, in the form of Hatha Yoga, entered mainstream America when the Russian born Yogini Indra Devi opened her yoga studio in Hollywood in 1947. In the mid 1960's the western yoga movement received a big boost through Maharishi Mahesh Yogi largely because of his brief association with The Beatles and populirised Transendental Meditation (T.M.).
Also in the 1960's and 1970's many yoga masters, swamis, opened their schools in Europe and U.S. Most of them are active today, among them -
Swami Satyananda, ; B.K.S. Iyengar; Pattabi Jois
Yoga is enjoying unprecedented popularity in the 21st century in America, Australia and Europe though it has been practised for centuries in Asia.
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