Real Yoga

Whenever anyone studies, with some sincerity and even a small bit of loving discipline, Yoga guarantees the very best physical and mental health one could hope to achieve for each individual, considering his state of consciousness.

For instance, take two people of the same age and from the same type of background, it could even be two brothers, one of them will be predisposed to more emotional problems and the other may be influenced to ill–health due to either genetics or his unwise choice in living. Yet another who lives well and is fairly stable, although appearing in no need of health improvement, will be helped to a superior state of health as well as the two former examples.

Hatha Yoga itself, will gear the body up to its full capacity by regenerating nerves, musculature and the endocrine and glandular system. Mobility, at any age, will also become more agile and supple. Sleep will be enhanced and concentration on any given task will be also.

With all the people that study Hatha Yoga, virtually everyone reports a sense of new life and well being. This is just Hatha Yoga that brings about this phenomenal state.

The problem is that most people today expect immediate results, being raised in our quick–fix society they also expect the same results by taking a pill or some addictive drug. I think there are many cases of chronic illness with much pain, that seems to never cease no matter what one does. In these cases, other forms for a feeling of well–being may be resorted to.

I always suggest to a student that if they have time for an illness they have to try first and foremost natural therapies, such as Homeopathy, Ayurvedic medicine, Naturopathy, Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine (TCM), Body Alignment Technique, Bowen Therapy, Australian Bush Remedies, along with many others, before resorting to any kind of invasive therapy. Herbal remedies — or a natural approach — takes time to react (learn Hering's Law of Cure to understand the healing process). Homeopathy can be miraculous, and I have personally experienced and seen the magnificent healing power of homeopathy, in its speed and efficacy, while Rolfing and Rebalancing and Qi Gong may not work with everyone or every illness, but they should these and other natural healing modalities should be considered.

Apart from the unknown, as there are no guarantees in life, a well balanced functional life while practicing Hatha Yoga will enliven your whole system, making all the aforementioned unnecessary.

Now then when you add Pranayama Yoga to Hatha Yoga you employ the force of Pranic energy, or Chi force as it is known in China and other parts of Asia. This energy is utilized below the level of oxygen by sucking out every last vestige of the Psychic Energies of air itself. Add to this Kriya, which utilizes the primordial energy force of Shakti power, and you have yet another a pretty powerful additive to Hatha Yoga.

Understanding the principles of the mind, the ego and the Self, and at least intellectually understanding who You really are is to be found in Gnana Yoga, giving the adherent a clear and precise picture of what must be done in order to awaken to Self Realization. This Gnana Yoga allows the student to perceive with absolute clarity and with Spiritual Discrimination that the Ego Self is not real, not really you. Understanding that along with the Philosophy of Klesas has one realize Maya's powerful grip on the mind.

Now you add Karma Yoga to your everyday working world experience and you find joy in the doing. By letting go expectations for efforts and concentrating solely on the act of loving the doing, attachments to results are erased, thus allowing one to not be diminished in ones eager capacity for greed. This way your whole being is put into performing the act. Just imagine how much more you could do if you weren't thinking about reward, getting home from the job, and just as an example, a doctor performing an delicate operation, thinking about his own emotional or financial problems, will more likely miss some fine point in saving a person's life. The wonderful thing about Karma Yoga is that time ceases to exist as you are always in the NOW — there is no other place to be really.

Let's go on and add one of the sciences of Mudra Yoga to our routine — in my case it is Yantra Yoga. This is the one aspect of Yoga that gives the student a jet plane route to the Infinite. By balancing and harmonizing one's inner and outer nature with this science, the Atman has unfettered access to the like brain receptor. A perfect union of communication. Most people are out of balance; thus the mind is reading the direction the Atman wants for its own fulfillment in this lifetime; thus it gets a distorted view of the initial message. We are in school, and being out of harmony, wind up making wrong decisions, picking incorrect partners and generally speaking making the same mistakes over and over again. When the mind is balanced through Yantra Yoga, miraculous clarity ensues and the way to awakening to your True Self becomes SELF evident. This creates even greater health and vitality again as there is no need to make choices. The Atman — your Guru — now works directly through the mind.

Bhakti Yoga is not for everyone. So many people waste time in Yoga by practicing it. It is meant for closed up introverted people who have such a hard time expressing love and affection in life — thus they can become quite ill and mentally twisted because of it. In a spiritual sense Bhakti Yoga helps them to open the flood gates of love for a Divine Iseal. When this happens, it trickles down into their personal life also and a form of balance is struck, which in turn brings them and others a great deal of joy. In a further spiritual sense, joy, ecstasy and bliss are experienced.

Many of the Great Saints have been Bhaktis.

I have left out Ranja Yoga till last as it is incorporated in some of the other Yogas. Raja Yoga is the practise of Pratyahara — withdrawing in of the senses. This is the wonder yoga for people of great excitability and passion, as it takes all their outward excitation and turns that power inward to hopefully be controlled through Abhyasa (restraint) and center that concentrated passion on the divine within — the SELF.

All the other Yogas use restraint, and the most formal kind is used in meditation, where one's mental concentration is slowly developed to the point where the Seer, the object seen and the act of seeing unite in one great fusion of Light — this is Samadhi, the experience of which is indescribable — yet leaves one as a Sahaj.

Now isn't it strange that you enter in through the Yogic door an ordinary simple person, a Sahaja asleep to his own perfection, and then through time and unfoldement AWAKEN to realize the perfection of SELF and become a Sahaj once again. This is Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi. For those of you that have read The Portal will know what that means. For those of you that have not read it, but would like to learn more about the Gnana Yoga, you can read my book on my website — The Portal.

Articles by Swami Harinanda and Yogi Karmananda are © 2026 and are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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