Like most people who are new to yoga, I started with a very limited view of the practice. When I began, I automatically associated the term “yoga” with just the series of postures that you move through to break a sweat and feel invigorated.
But the more I practiced yoga and the more I read about it — and especially as I began to learn about meditation — the more I came to realize that yoga is a whole lot more than just exercise and that the purpose of the practice is much greater than mere physical fitness.
I came to realize that the “yoga” that most people refer to as yoga is actually just one aspect of a much larger and all-encompassing system that purifies our body, mind, and spirit.
It was only once I encountered The Yoga Sutras, a classic book by the ancient sage, Patanjali, that I understood that the physical yoga exercises we ordinarily do in most yoga studios are just one ‘limb’ or step of the overall yoga system.
So let’s take a brief look at that system, so we can understand how the physical postures and movements relate to the system as a whole.
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