Spiritual Yoga
To those who have been down in the dumps on account of their inability to do their work well when tired, irritable, or haggard, any type of refreshment can go with supplementary degrees of self-respect. In addition, those who have profited from Yoga will definitely be moved to help their relatives and associates in need. They might coach others and, in return get rewarded with appreciation due a to an instructor.
Techniques for experiencing higher states of consciousness in meditation initially had only a slight philosophical underpinning, and were unconnected with Samkhya doctrines. Such techniques were developed by the shramanic traditions and in the Upanishadic tradition. According to Gavin Flood, a sentence in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, one of the earliest Upanishads , is an early textual reference to meditation.Other scholars translate the sentence differently. The Buddhist texts are probably the earliest texts describing meditation techniques.
They describe meditative practices and states which had existed before the Buddha as well as those which were first developed within Buddhism. In Hindu literature, the term "yoga" first occurs in the Katha Upanishad, where it refers to control of the senses and the cessation of mental activity leading to a supreme state. Important textual sources for the evolving concept of Yoga are the middle Upanishads, the Mahabharata including the Bhagavad Gita , and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali .
The theory and practice of Yoga result in greater self-knowledge. This is not just that of the practical sort of knowledge concerned with methods and processes. They are specifically of a spiritual nature. They pertain to comprehending something about the nature of the Self itself.
In Indian philosophy, Yoga is the name of one of the six orthodox philosophical schools.
The Yoga philosophical system is closely allied with the Samkhya school.
The Yoga school as expounded by the sage Patanjali accepts the Samkhya psychology and metaphysics, but is more theistic than the Samkhya, as evidenced by the addition of a divine entity to the Samkhya's twenty-five elements of reality. The parallels between Yoga and Samkhya were so close that Max Müller says that "the two philosophies were in popular parlance distinguished from each other as Samkhya with and Samkhya without a Lord...."The intimate relationship between Samkhya and Yoga is explained by Heinrich Zimmer.
Hatha Yoga is a particular system of Yoga described by Yogi Swatmarama, compiler of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika in 15th century India. Hatha Yoga differs substantially from the Raja Yoga of Patanjali in that it focuses on shatkarma, the purification of the physical body as leading to the purification of the mind , and prana, or vital energy .Compared to the seated asana, or sitting meditation posture, of Patanjali's Raja yoga,it marks the development of asanas into the full body 'postures' now in popular usage. Hatha Yoga in its many modern variations is the style that many people associate with the word "Yoga" today.