ed in the scientific community for many years now, with a major focus on its medicinal values leading to the healing of disease. In order to understand its many wonderful benefits, it is important to see just how Yoga influences these various levels. Mental, Physical, and Spiritual are the primary focus, and these areas are then incorporated in a various forms that have become a focal point for healing. It is in studying all of these areas, that scientists have witnessed the value of Yoga as benefit in attaining holistic wellness.Brief History of Yoga Although Yoga began in Indian prehistory, it is not considered a religion. Yoga does teach its followers to worship a god, guru or dogma. It is because of this that anyone can benefit from Yoga, no matter what his or her religious or philosophical beliefs. Two of the oldest Hindu scriptures, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, mention the importance of physical postures in the practice of meditation, and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a collection of aphorisms set down in the second century AD, details an Eightfold path of spiritual observance of which asana practice is but one part. Not until the turn of the first millennium were manuals even written on practices such as Hatha Yoga. But, for the most part, however, the yoga scriptures that do survive read more like skeletal outlines than full-bodied sourcbooks, and most of today’s Hatha Yoga wisdom has been orally transmitted over the centuries from teach to student . – B. K.S. lyengar states, " When your body mind and soul are healthy and harmonious, You will bring health and harmony to those around you and health and harmony to the world -not by withdrawing from the world but by being a healthy living organ of the body of humanity." Forms of Yoga The practice of Yoga encompasses many different forms--e.g. Karma, Bhakti, Jnana, Raja, Hatha, Kundalini and Tantra). As Sri Krishna Prem so eloquently stated, Yoga ...
