YOGA promotes the full inner awakening of the Human Being. It prepares for the evolutionary changes that will take place at the physical, bioenergetic, emotional, concrete and artistic mental levels, and beyond the mind.
On the physical level:
Yoga practice gives a healthy, beautiful body, a feeling of well-being and joy of living.
On the mental level:
By strongly oxygenating the brain, Yoga practice brings concentration, discernment and serenity, reducing and even removing everyday stress, increasing the effectiveness of the mind and making fast, inspired decisions possible.
On the emotional level:
Yoga practice brings emotional issues back to their true size and develops the maturity to solve them calmly and with the least possible use of energy.
On the moral level:
Yoga practice develops the ethical and moral principles that are essential to the self-realisation of the SELF.
In other words, the five precepts (Yama) of the Yoga practitioner are:
Non-violence
Not lying
Not stealing
Not coveting
Not misusing sexuality.
The five qualities/observances (Niyama) are:
Purity (of thoughts, words and actions)
Joy
Perseverance
Study and Introspection
Self-surrender
(the practitioner offers all their actions to the Creative Principle).
These are the first two stages of the Yoga of Pátãnjali, who codified Yoga. According to this Master, who lived in the 3rd century BC, without practising Yama and Niyama the practitioner cannot go very far on this path. This is the true message for the practitioner of ancestral Yoga. Still, everyone will find in their practice whatever they are looking for. Those who only wish for a healthy, beautiful body will not reach Samádhí, the highest goal a yogin can attain.
