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text, the 'Yoga Sutras', are concerned with describing certain abstinences and observances, certain ways of behaving and methods of living that make attainment easier.

Yoga insists on non-violence, truthfulness (with the world and with ourselves) and non-covetousness. These are familiar virtues for many and often ones to be aspired to rather than practiced immediately (we are human, after all), but they do illustrate the need in yoga to ultimately transcend all that distracts us from the task in hand, the task of self-realization. This requirement to detach ourselves from all physical and emotional dependence is best summed up by the words of another venerable text, the 'Bhagavad Gita': Kill desire, the enemy of the soul. The 'soul' in question is the level of pure unlimited consciousness we seek to reach.

And so by adopting a method of living that seeks to unite rather than divide, understand rather than denounce, we not only make the practice of yoga that much easier; we also develop ourselves positively and help develop the world around us by our efforts. When such an outlook is coupled with other yoga observances such as contentment and purity, we also learn to be at peace with the world even if the world is not at peace with us. We grow and we find fulfillment and peace of mind, but a peace that is founded on reason rather than hope.

When all of the above is considered, we can see that yoga is not just about bending our bodies at yoga class. The physical disciplines of yoga are certainly beneficial and can happily be practiced with no thought to what else yoga offers; but it's when we learn to regard these physical disciplines as means to an end rather than ends in themselves that yoga comes into its own. Yet at each stage along the yoga path the benefits available to us are obvious and apparent. Yoga gives back to us what we put into it, and even if we put in a little, the little we will get back will benefit us no end. Such is the beauty of yoga.

Learn more about this author, Alwin Templar.
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