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Karma-Yoga: Italic textArjuna questions why would then he act as the most important thing is knowledge. Krishna said that one must act without attaching himself with the action and worldly affairs. "One cannot achieve freedom from action by merely abstaining from actions, nor one can attain samadhi simply by renouncing all actions." "Therefore do your prescribed work, for doing some work is better than doing no work at all. Without work it is not possible to even maintain the physical body." "Works in this world can cause bondage unless done with a sense of sacrifice. Therefore, O son of Kunti, perform your actions for the sake of sacrifice only, free from attachment." Yoga is an art or science that is a union between the body and mind of the body, mind and spirit. It is a state of consciousness which one uses to reach the state of union with the divine lord. Yoga is found in hundreds of techniques that follow four paths; Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga and Raja Yoga. Karma yoga is basically the path of action of selfless service that of course, places emphasis on selfless action and service. The basic principle that is propagated in karma yoga is the fact that we have to always work in harmony with the lord. Anything done against the lord is not productive and does not produce any results. When on the path of karma yoga, one no longer is egotistically motivated as you stop to maintain any obsessive desires related to the future. This is because once the feeling of compulsive or obsessive desire is eliminated from yourself; you tend to find it possible to live in the present, while you find it possible to plan for the future. Whatever planning you have for the future here has no connections whatsoever with the boundaries of the future. Usually, any desire you have in life is fulfilled mainly because of the results you anticipate from them. This means that you are propelled to reaching your goals only because of the results you anticipate from it. You are propelled to reach the goal only in anticipation of the results. However in karma yoga, you are not drawn to your goal for the results you expect from them. You learn to relinquish egotistic desires and thus become more open to practical aspects of inner guidance in your body. With this, you work with a cheerful and stress free attitude to reach your goal for you know that you are doing what you are best suited to do and are happy with yourself. Maintaining the right attitude is an important part of karma yoga. It is only jobs that are liberating or binding that are considered to be karma yoga jobs. To be successful in karma yoga, you only use your hands to work as your mind is always fixed on the feet of the lord and not on the consequences or results you anticipate on completing your job. With karma yoga, it is important that you have the right motive to your job. It is only pure motives that remain successful. Usually a person embarks on some work thinking of the fruits of the work. This maintains such a frame in the person that it is quite impossible to think of any work that has no reward. This is not followed in karma yoga as here, a job or work is fulfilled only with the intention of completing the work and not for the rewards that accompany it. Karma yoga places emphasis on you doing your duty to god, the inner teacher who teaches you how to handle the different circumstances of your life. With this, you tend to do whatever you do to the best of your ability. Whatever better ways you know of attaining your goal, has to be implemented in karma yoga. When you follow karma yoga, you don't hold back for fear of effort or criticism. You don't work sloppily just because there is no one watching you or because you don't like your job. You give your best to whatever work you do so that you get the maximum of good, and the least of evil. Karma and yoga ensures that you follow god's whims and desires in whatever you do. You don't do anything for your personal benefit; it is all done to satisfy the Lord. No job is inferior or superior to you as you see God in everything around you. And with this, you do whatever job you are doing, to your best capability.

Yoga Of Self-Control: Italic textKrishna teaches Arjuna the right way of doing meditation. "Let a man lift himself by himself. Let him not degrade himself. Certainly self is friend to the self and self is also the enemy of the self." "He who has controlled his self by his self, certainly his self is his best friend, but for him who has not conquered his self his self is his enemy" "He who has learned to control his eating and enjoyment, who performs his actions in a balanced manner, who maintains balance between his waking and sleeping periods, his yoga frees him for all his sorrows."

The Yoga Of The Supreme Being: Description of the three Gunas which has its roots in the heaven and foliage on the Earth. "Without pride and illusion, free from the impurities of attachment, always turned inwardly, freed from lust, and the sense of duality like happiness or sorrow, the undeluded attain the inexhaustible eternal position." Bhakti Yoga

Krishna explains Arjuna the meaning of Bhakti-Yoga. "Certainly knowledge is better than practice, but better than knowledge is meditation, superior to which is renunciation of the fruits of actions. Indeed after renunciation there is only peace." "Without any hatred towards all beings, friendly and compassionate, without any sense of possessiveness, without any egoism, equal in pleasure and pain and forgiving."

 How Bhagavad Gita is Yoga Italic textYoga has become increasingly popular in the west since about the 1960s. Everywhere you go now people talk about "yoga" but many have no real idea of what it is or how it works to benefit you. In this short article we hope to shed some light on the real meaning and purpose behind the yoga systems of ancient India, the mother-land of all yoga systems. Then we can decide if the popular Bhagavad Gita is just another book, or actually yoga that you can practice everyday. So what is yoga? Lets take a closer look at what yoga actually is according to the source of yoga - the Vedas. The term yoga comes from the word "yoke" or to connect. According to the authoritative ancient Vedic scriptures of India, yoga is dealing with the consciousness of the living entity. Consciousness refers always to a person, and that's important to remember as it will help you to understand all the other details. The idea is to "yoga" or "link" the consciousness of the individual with that of the greater universe and beyond. The whole system rests on the scientific realisation that the living entity is a distinct entity separate to the material body and mind. The yoga system should give a conscious realisation of this fact by it's process. Sometimes this process is totally mechanical as in the Hatha Yoga process, often using the breath to help, and later with meditation and focussed concentration. Whatever the process, the goal is to experience the reality of the living entity separate to the body as a conscious spiritual spark. So, why would one want this kind of experience and how can it benefit the individual living entity? Well, according to the ancient Vedas, which are accepted as the authority by all the leading practitioners of yoga throughout history, the goal of yoga is to link your consciousness with that of the supreme individual living entity or Supreme Personality of Godhead. To link our consciousness is not to lose our individuality, but to link in a relationship, just as 2 individuals in everyday-life would form a relationship in which their interests and desires may become the same, but they themselves remain individuals always. They can and will communicate their aspirations, feelings and emotions, but will still remain as individual entities, although the level of intensity of the relationship can increase unlimitedly. It is explained that this type of relationship with the Supreme Personality is the perfection of consciousness and results in the goal of yoga which is a never ending expanding loving relationship between the Supreme and the individual living entity or soul. As with any loving relationship, it does not end there, but continues, in this case - forever. So now that it is clear what yoga is, let us examine to see if Bhagavad Gita is yoga! Well, in the Bhagavad Gita, the main speaker is Krishna, who has been accepted by all authorised authorities in history as the Supreme Godhead. So to hear from Him as His friend Arjuna did in the Bhagavad Gita, is to begin to build and develop one's relationship with Him. This will certainly lead to developing a stronger connection and attraction to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore it must be concluded that just by hearing the Bhagavad Gita one gets a connection with the Godhead Krishna and begins to understand His desires and personality. Hence, Bhagavad Gita is Yoga, and probably the easiest system as it simply involves hearing and does not require any physical exertion or breathing restraint.

Jnana Yoga - Intellectually Becoming God-Conscious JItalic textnana Yoga is the yoga of intellectual inquiry, using the mind to come to the profound realization that our God-Self, the consciousness that we are in reality a manifestation of God, is beyond and behind our mind. However, we should not fall into the mistake of thinking that we can discover God through the use of the mind alone. To achieve Cosmic Consciousness, what can be called Self-realization, we must continually ask "Who am I", in other words, am I just this material body and material mind, or am I in fact an integral part of something greater. That something greater is considered by yogis to be God, the presence of which everything and everyone is made up, whether or not the individual realizes it or not. The purpose of Jnana Yoga is to come to just that realization, in a way in which the small mind cannot impose limitations.

One of the great features of yoga is that there is a yoga for every type of personality or character. For those who are contemplative, there is Raja Yoga, the yoga of meditation. For those who are very action oriented, there is Karma Yoga, the yoga of selfless service. For those who are very emotional and who are inspired by feelings of love for the Divine, there is Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of love. For those who like ceremonies and are inspired by them, there is Tantra Yoga, the yoga of forms. Finally, for those who are very physical, there is Hatha Yoga, the yoga of movement and the one which is best known outside of India.

However, there are still others who are driven by the need to understand and for them there is Jnana Yoga, the yoga of the intellect. This understanding takes the form of reading, understanding and accepting the message in the Hindu scriptures, which date back from before the Bible was written and which some sages believe gave inspiration to the writers of the Old Testament. These scriptures espouse the philosophy of Vedanta, the philosophy of the Vedic scriptures, the scriptures, which Hindus accept.

It must, however, be firmly understood that Jnana Yoga is not just an intellectual exercise. We may learn about the omnipresence of God through the Vedic scriptures, but to actually experience the feeling of God, the aspirant has to perform some exercise that will transcend his limited intellect. This is done through meditating on the question "Who am I". The point of this exercise is eventually to come to the realization that "I" transcends the limitations of the body and is really a part and an expression of the universal "I", or God.

Thus, it can be seen that Jnana Yoga helps the aspirant by first appealing to his intellect, valuable for those who are very intellectually oriented, but then it helps the aspirant transcend his limited intellect by becoming aware of the Cosmic Intellect that forms and permeates everything. He focuses on the question of "Who am I" and by so doing, achieves the realization that the small I is really a part of the universal I. His intellectual exercises can be considered as the sugar, which coats the substance of his eventual God-Realization.

Raja Yoga Offers Mental Health Italic text We need to know how to build our health of mind and assume responsibility, as we must do for our physical fitness. Just as there are physical symptoms that can be corrected by self help by applying natural healing practices, so we are also well equipped to deal with any disturbances of our psychological state of being. But we must have knowledge about methods of self help.

Yoga as a system incorporates methods of self discipline to achieve and maintain physical health through Hatha Yoga. Many of the techniques are now common knowledge amongst exponents in the West. These Ayurvedic methods of self healing are embraced in what is called Yoga Chikitsa.

Raja Yoga extends to self care of our psychological being and includes simple emotional and mind training disciplines designed to help self confidence and independence by encouraging a balanced condition of the psyche.

Self help in these matters demands that to help our own emotions we must identify with our mental self and use our thoughts to effect changes. To help our own mind we must appeal to our own directing soul that can help create different patterns of thought. And when our soul is in danger, feeling damaged, hopeless and devoid of joy in living we must appeal to a higher energy of our own spiritual being and beyond.

Any healing effort to return to a state of wholeness or wholesomeness requires energy from a higher voltage power and battery source. We are provided with a means of raising our energy levels first, by our own use of our lifeline or breathing mechanism; when receiving assistance from a therapist or when communing directly with natural energies abundant in forests, bushland, seasides and outdoors.

There are basic exercises in sensitivity and awareness of our emotions and thoughts and exercises that assist the full development of our faculties. It is this fundamental self awareness that allows us to note any symptoms of disturbance before seeking to correct them.

Although the human psyche with its seven Koshas or layers of consciousness have been the basis of Indian and Asian thought regarding the whole person, the science of psychology is only in its infancy in the western countries. Here in western medicine the philosophy to use drugs for remedial physical ill health, is applied in prescribing psychiatric drugs to relieve inner mental and emotional states. But these artificial chemicals generally prescribed for mental conditions are capable of creating far subtler and yet more powerful inner damage to our being that can extend to self harm and suicide. We need to find alternative therapies to the mental illness that is now assessed as existing in one in four people in Australia.

Raja Yoga practices have been proven already over the centuries. We have this knowledge available and its methods are based on simple, reasonable disciplines that are designed to help us feel confidently seated at the control centre of our being, free to be receptive to healthy thoughts and feelings, free to create wholesome ideas and responses and free to enjoy life in a state of inner peace. This is a simple aim and has simple demands within reach of each of us if we have the will to be in control of our lives.

It begins not with effort, but with an attitude of relaxation and doing nothing but surrendering all activity. This is best applied lying flat on the floor until you find it comfortable, closing your eyes and maintaining stillness of your body, apart from the natural movement of easy respiration.

Together with this position is a mental attitude assumed - that is a surrender not only of a need for effort, but a surrender of your body weight to the floor. Learn to trust that you are safe in yielding to relaxation. Allow yourself to trust nature and its benign aim to restore and assist you to health. Relaxation is practised with no strain or effort or thought activity. You allow yourself to feel. Try it and see how you feel. You may choose to register your feelings and any thoughts that came in the period spent in relaxation as a reminder of how pleasant a self therapy it really is.

The next is to be able to sit still as a prelude to learning the art of meditation when you reach a state of mental stillness and your thoughts are no longer an enemy.

If you find you cannot keep your mind still - if you are anxious and fearful, restless and confused, or if you have unwelcome thoughts, your concentration is poor and faculties not as sharp as before; or if you are suffering strain and fatigue or depression you will certainly find that Raja Yoga will help you greatly and bring back to life your vital thoughts and ideas that motivate your life and its expression towards health and happiness.