Ananda Yoga: Ananda Yoga classes focus on gentle postures designed to move the energy up to the brain and prepare the body for meditation. Classes also focus on proper body alignment and controlled breathing.

Anusara Yoga is a relatively new form of yoga (1997), which pairs strict principles of alignment with a playful spirit. Postures can be challenging, but the real message of Anusara is to open your heart and strive to connect with the divine in yourself and others.

Ashtanga (or Astanga) Yoga is the name given to the system of yoga taught by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. This style of yoga is physically demanding as it involves synchronizing breathing with progressive and continuous series of postures-a process producing intense internal heat and a profuse, purifying sweat that detoxifies muscles and organs. The result is improved circulation, flexibility, stamina, a light and strong body, and a calm mind. Ashtanga is an athletic yoga practice and is not for beginners.

Bikram Yoga is the method of yoga that is a comprehensive workout that includes all the components of fitness: muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular flexibility and weight loss. The founder, Bikram Choudhury, was a gold medal Olympic weight lifter in 1963 and is a disciple of Bishnu Ghosh, brother of Paramahansa Yogananda, (Autobiography of a Yogi). One of the unusual but most beneficial aspects of Bikram’s yoga practice is the 95-105 degree temperature which promotes more flexibility, detoxification, and prevention of injuries. This is the only yoga style that specializes in using the heated environment.

Hatha is an easy-to-learn basic form of yoga that has become very popular in the United States. Hatha Yoga is the foundation of all Yoga styles. It incorporates Asanas (postures), Pranayama (regulated breathing), meditation (Dharana & Dhyana) and kundalini (Laya Yoga) into a complete system that can be used to achieve enlightenment or self-realization. It has become very popular in America as source of exercise and stress management. The ideal way to practice the Hatha Yoga poses (asanas) is to approach the practice session in a calm, meditative mood. Sit quietly for a few moments, then begin the series, slowly, with control and grace, being inwardly aware as the body performs the various poses selected for the practice session. Do not overdo the asanas or try to compete with others. Take it easy and enjoy.

Integral Yoga: This traditional type of yoga combines postures, breathing exercises, selfless service, meditation, chanting, prayer, and self-inquiry.

ISHTA: Developed by South African teacher Mani Finger and popularized in the States by his son Alan, ISHTA (Integral Science of Hatha and Tantric Arts) focuses on opening energy channels throughout the body with postures, visualizations, and meditation.

Iyengar Yoga, developed by yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar more than 60 years ago, promotes strength, flexibility, endurance, and balance through coordinated breathing and poses that require precise body alignment. The poses are generally held longer than in other styles of yoga. In Iyengar, you slowly move into a pose, hold it for a minute or so, and then rest for a few breaths before stretching into another. Equipment like cushions, blankets, straps, and blocks to help the less flexible also distinguishes Iyengar from other types of yoga. Although Iyengar incorporates the traditional postures, or asanas, that make up the broader category of hatha yoga, the cushions and other props revolutionized yoga by enabling everyone — even the elderly, sick, and disabled — to practice. Because of its slow pace, attention to detail, and use of props, Iyengar yoga can be especially good if you’re recovering from an injury. Iyengar is still one of the most popular types of yoga taught today.

Jivamukti Yoga: Developed in 1986 by Sharon Gannon and David Life, the Jivamukti Yoga method expresses the spiritual and ethical aspects of the practice of yoga that have been disregarded or devalued in contemporary times. It is a vigorous and challenging asana form with an emphasis on scriptural study, Sanskrit chanting, vegetarianism, non-violence, meditation, devotion to God and the role that music and listening play in the practice of yoga. Life and Gannon currently operate a popular yoga studio in New York City.

Kali Ray TriYoga: A series of flowing, dancelike movements was developed by Kali Ray in 1980. The practice also incorporates pranayama (breathing exercises) and meditation. Kali Ray runs the TriYoga Center in Santa Cruz, California.

Kripalu is called the yoga of consciousness. This gentle, introspective practice urges practitioners to hold poses to explore and release emotional and spiritual blockages. Goal-oriented striving is discouraged and precise alignment is not as important as in some other traditions. There are three stages in Kripalu yoga. Stage One focuses on learning the postures and exploring your bodies abilities. Stage Two involves holding the postures for an extended time, developing concentration and inner awareness. Stage Three is like a meditation in motion in which the movement from one posture to another arises unconsciously and spontaneously.

Kundalini practice concentrates on awakening the energy at the base of the spine and drawing it upward. In addition to postures, a typical class will also include chanting, meditation, and breathing exercises.

Power Yoga is essentially yoga with brawn. It’s the American interpretation of ashtanga yoga, a discipline that combines stretching, strength training, and meditative breathing. But power yoga takes ashtanga one step further. Many of the poses (also called postures or their Sanskrit name, asanas) resemble basic calisthenics — push-ups and handstands, toe touches and side bends — but the key to power yoga’s sweat-producing, muscle-building power is the pace. Instead of pausing between poses as you would in traditional yoga, each move flows into the next, making it an intense aerobic workout.

Restorative Yoga: In a restorative yoga class you’ll spend long periods of time lying on blocks, blankets and bolsters – passively allowing muscles to relax.

Sivananda Yoga: Like Integral Yoga, this traditional type of yoga combines postures, breathing, dietary restrictions, chanting, scriptural study, and meditation. The popular TV yoga teacher Lilias got her start practicing Sivananda Yoga.

Svaroopa Yoga: New students find this a very approachable style, often beginning in chair poses that are comfortable. Promotes healing and transformation.

Viniyoga: This is commonly used as a therapeutic practice for people who have suffered injuries or are recovering from surgery. It is a gentle, healing practice that is tailored to each person’s body type and needs as they grow and change.

Vinyasa: Focuses on coordination of breath and movement and it is a very physically active form of yoga. It began with Krishnamacharya who later passed it on to Pattabhi Jois.

White Lotus Yoga: A modified Ashtanga practice developed by Ganga White which is combined with breathwork and meditation.

Sources: http://www.matsmatsmats.com/yoga/yoga-disciplines.html

Buddhism

Main article: Yoga and Buddhism

Yoga is intimately connected to the religious beliefs and practices of the Indian religions.^[39] The influence of Yoga is also visible in Buddhism which is distinguished by its austerities, spiritual exercises, and trance states.^[40][41]

Yogacara Buddhism

Yogacara (Sanskrit: “Practice of Yoga [Union]“^[42] ), also spelled yogāchāra, is a school of philosophy and psychology that developed in India during the 4th to 5th centuries. Yogacara received the name as it provided a yoga, a framework for engaging in the practices that lead to the path of the bodhisattva.^[43] The Yogacara sect teaches yoga in order to reach enlightenment.^[44]

Ch’an (Seon/Zen) Buddhism

Zen (the name of which derives from the Sanskrit “dhyana” via the Chinese “ch’an”^[45]) is a form of Mahayana Buddhism. The Mahayana school of Buddhism is noted for its proximity with Yoga.^[41] In the west, Zen is often set alongside Yoga; the two schools of meditation display obvious family resemblances.^[46] This phenomenon merits special attention since the Zen Buddhist school of meditation has some of its roots in yogic practices.^[47] Certain essential elements of Yoga are important both for Buddhism in general and for Zen in particular.^[48]

Tibetan Buddhism

Yoga is central to Tibetan Buddhism. In the Nyingma tradition, practitioners progress to increasingly profound levels of yoga, starting with Mahā yoga, continuing to Anu yoga and ultimately undertaking the highest practice, Ati yoga. In the Sarma traditions, the Anuttara yoga class is equivalent. Other tantra yoga practices include a system of 108 bodily postures practiced with breath and heart rhythm. Timing in movement exercises is known as Trul khor or union of moon and sun (channel) prajna energies. The body postures of Tibetan ancient yogis are depicted on the walls of the Dalai Lama’s summer temple of Lukhang. A semi-popular account of Tibetan Yoga by Chang (1993) refers to Dumo, the generation of heat in one’s own body, as being “the very foundation of the whole of Tibetan Yoga” (Chang, 1993, p7). Chang also claims that Tibetan Yoga involves reconciliation of apparent polarities, such as prana and mind, relating this to theoretical implications of tantrism.

Islam

The development of Sufism was considerably influenced by Indian yogic practises, where they adapted both physical postures (asanas) and breath control (pranayama).^[49] The ancient Indian yogic text, Amritakunda, (“Pool of Nectar)” was translated into Arabic and Persian as early as the 11th century.^[50]

Malaysia’s top Islamic body in 2008 passed a fatwa, which is legally non-binding, against Muslims practicing yoga, saying it had elements of “Hindu spiritual teachings” and could lead to blasphemy and is thereforeharaam. Muslim yoga teachers in Malaysia criticized the decision as “insulting”.^[51] Sisters in Islam, a women’s rights group in Malaysia, also expressed disappointment and said they would continue with their yoga classes.^[52] The fatwa states that yoga practiced only as physical exercise is permissible, but prohibits the chanting of religious mantras,^[53] and states that teachings such as uniting of a human with God is not consistent with Islamic philosophy.^[54]

Christianity

In 1989, the Vatican declared that Eastern meditation practices such as Zen and yoga can “degenerate into a cult of the body.” In spite of the Vatican statement, many Roman Catholics bring elements of Yoga, Buddhism, and Hinduism into their spiritual practices.^[55]

Tantra

Main article: Tantra

Tantrism is a practice that is supposed to alter the relation of its practitioners to the ordinary social, religious, and logical reality in which they live. Through Tantric practice an individual perceives reality as maya, illusion, and the individual achieves liberation from it.^[56] This particular path to salvation among the several offered by Hinduism, links Tantrism to those practices of Indian religions, such as yoga, meditation, and social renunciation, which are based on temporary or permanent withdrawal from social relationships and modes.^[56]

During tantric practices and studies, the student is instructed further in meditation technique, particularly chakra meditation. This is often in a limited form in comparison with the way this kind of meditation is known and used by Tantric practitioners and yogis elsewhere, but is more elaborate than the initiate’s previous meditation. It is considered to be a kind of Kundalini Yoga for the purpose of moving the Goddess into the chakra located in the “heart,” for meditation and worship.^[57]

Styles of modern day yoga

For those who are just beginning to practice yoga, selection of the most appropriate style can be a daunting task. While most yoga classes are rooted in the physical discipline to develop control of the body, there are a variety of styles with which to accomplish this goal. Currently, a variety of styles are taught in yoga classes. These are some of the most common forms: Ashtanga, Bikram, Hatha, Iyengar, and Vinyasa flow.

Goal of yoga

The goal of yoga may range from improving health to achieving Moksha.^[58] Within the monist schools of Advaita Vedanta and Shaivism the goal of yoga takes the form of Moksha, which is liberation from all worldly suffering and the cycle of birth and death (Samsara), at which point there is a realisation of identity with the Supreme Brahman. In the Mahabharata, the goal of yoga is variously described as entering the world ofBrahma, as Brahman, or as perceiving the Brahman or Atman that pervades all things.^[59] For the bhakti schools of Vaishnavism, bhakti or service to Svayam bhagavan itself may be the ultimate goal of the yoga process, where the goal is to enjoy an eternal relationship with Vishnu.^[60]

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga

The Vedic Samhitas contain references to ascetics, and ascetic practices known as tapas, are referenced in the Brāhmaṇas (900 B.C. and 500 B.C.), early commentaries on the Vedas.^[12] Even earlier, seals from Mature Harappan (c. 2600–1900 B.C.) contexts depict figures in postures suggesting “a form of ritual discipline” taken as a “precursor of yoga” by some commentators such as Gregory Possehl.^[13]

Techniques for experiencing higher states of consciousness via meditation were developed by the shramanic traditions and in the Upanishads. An early reference to meditation is made in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the earliest Upanishad (approx. 900 B.C.).^[14] The actual term “yoga” first occurs in the Katha Upanishad.^[15] The Buddhist texts are probably the earliest texts describing meditation techniques.^[16]

Important textual sources for the evolving concept of Yoga are the middle Upanishads, (ca. 400 B.C.), the Mahabharata including the Bhagavad Gita (ca. 200 B.C.), and theYoga Sutras of Patanjali (300 B.C.-200 B.C.).

[edit]Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Yoga is a series of both physical and mental exercies to help stretch, and relax the body, and develop flexibility

Main articles: Raja Yoga and Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

In Indian philosophy, Yoga is the name of one of the six orthodox philosophical schools.^[17][18] The Yoga philosophical system is closely allied with the Samkhyaschool.^[19] 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.^[20][21] 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….”^[22] The intimate relationship between Samkhya and Yoga is explained by Heinrich Zimmer:

These two are regarded in India as twins, the two aspects of a single discipline. Sāṅkhya provides a basic theoretical exposition of human nature, enumerating and defining its elements, analyzing their manner of co-operation in a state of bondage (bandha), and describing their state of disentanglement or separation in release (mokṣa), while Yoga treats specifically of the dynamics of the process for the disentanglement, and outlines practical techniques for the gaining of release, or ‘isolation-integration’ (kaivalya).^[23]

Patanjali is widely regarded as the founder of the formal Yoga philosophy.^[24] Patanjali’s yoga is known as Raja yoga, which is a system for control of the mind.^[25] Patanjali defines the word “yoga” in his second sutra,^[26] which is the definitional sutra for his entire work:

योग: चित्त-वृत्ति निरोध:
( yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ )
- Yoga Sutras 1.2

This terse definition hinges on the meaning of three Sanskrit terms. I. K. Taimni translates it as “Yoga is the inhibition (nirodhaḥ) of the modifications (vṛtti) of the mind (citta)”.^[27] Swami Vivekananda translates the sutra as “Yoga is restraining the mind-stuff (Citta) from taking various forms (Vrittis).”^[28]

A sculpture of a Hindu yogi in theBirla Mandir, Delhi

Patanjali’s writing also became the basis for a system referred to as “Ashtanga Yoga” (“Eight-Limbed Yoga”). This eight-limbed concept derived from the 29^th Sutra of the 2^ndbook, and is a core characteristic of practically every Raja yoga variation taught today. The Eight Limbs are:

(1) Yama (The five “abstentions”): non-violence, non-lying, non-covetousness, non-sensuality, and non-possessiveness.

(2) Niyama (The five “observances”): purity, contentment, austerity, study, and surrender to god.

(3) Asana: Literally means “seat”, and in Patanjali’s Sutras refers to the seated position used for meditation.

(4) Pranayama (“Lengthening Prāna”): Prāna, life force, or vital energy, particularly, the breath, “āyāma”, to lengthen or extend. Also interpreted as control of the life force.

(5) Pratyahara (“Abstraction”): Withdrawal of the sense organs from external objects.

(6) Dharana (“Concentration”): Fixing the attention on a single object.

(7) Dhyana (“Meditation”): Intense contemplation of the nature of the object of meditation.

(8) Samādhi (“Liberation”): merging consciousness with the object of meditation.

In the view of this school, the highest attainment does not reveal the experienced diversity of the world to be illusion. The everyday world is real. Furthermore, the highest attainment is the event of one of many individual selves discovering itself; there is no single universal self shared by all persons.^[29]

[edit]Bhagavad Gita

Main article: Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita (‘Song of the Lord’), uses the term yoga extensively in a variety of ways. In addition to an entire chapter (ch. 6) dedicated to traditional yoga practice, including meditation,^[30] it introduces three prominent types of yoga:^[31]

• Karma yoga: The yoga of action
• Bhakti yoga: The yoga of devotion
• Jnana yoga: The yoga of knowledge

Madhusudana Sarasvati (b. circa 1490) divided the Gita into three sections, with the first six chapters dealing with Karma yoga, the middle six with Bhakti yoga, and the last six with Jnana (knowledge).^[32] Other commentators ascribe a different ‘yoga’ to each chapter, delineating eighteen different yogas.^[33]

[edit]Hatha Yoga

Main articles: Hatha yoga and Hatha Yoga Pradipika

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 (ha), and prana, or vital energy (tha).^[34][35] Compared to the seated asana, or sitting meditation posture, of Patanjali’s Raja yoga,^[36] it marks the development of asanas (plural) into the full body ‘postures’ now in popular usage.^[37] Hatha Yoga in its many modern variations is the style that many people associate with the word “Yoga” today.^[38]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga

Yoga (Sanskrit: योग, IAST: yóga, IPA: [joːgə]) refers to traditional physical and mental disciplines originating in India; to the goal achieved by those disciplines; and to one of the six orthodox (āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy.^[1][2]

Major branches of yoga include Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Hatha Yoga.^[3][4][5] Raja Yoga, compiled in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and known simply as yoga in the context of Hindu philosophy, is part of the Samkhya tradition.^[6] Many other Hindu texts discuss aspects of yoga, including the Vedas,Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the Shiva Samhita and various Tantras.

The Sanskrit word yoga has many meanings,^[7] and is derived from the Sanskrit root yuj, meaning “to control”, “to yoke” or “to unite”.^[8] Translations include “joining”, “uniting”, “union”, “conjunction”, and “means”.^[9][10][11] Outside India, the term yoga is typically associated with Hatha Yoga and its asanas (postures) or as a form of exercise. A practitioner of Yoga is called a Yogi (gender neutral) or Yogini (feminine form).

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga