10 Interesting Facts of Yoga

10 Interesting Facts about Yoga

Hey guys, How are you? I hope you are good. So everybody has heard about yoga or at least has an idea of what it is. Yoga is a very popular practice these days, and there are many benefits attached to it. In this article, we are going to be looking at some facts about yoga, not necessarily the history of yoga but more so just general interesting facts about yoga. So let's start with the first fact about yoga.

1. Yoga is one of the 4 ways to reach God in Hinduism or self-realization for others. The other three are karma (action) bhakti (devotion) and Jnana (which is self-inquiry). But we hear the word yoga, but what does that mean? The word yoga originates from yog in the ancient Indian language Sanskrit. It means to yog or bind and unite. So yoga is a system that sees the body, the breath, and the mind as a union of the multi-dimensional aspects of human beings. With the help of physical postures and breathing techniques, People strive to achieve better health happiness, and a higher level of consciousness.

 

2.  Regarding Hindu mythology, the Hindu god Lord Shiva is known as the first teacher of yoga as Yogeshwara or the lord of yoga. He guides his followers to master the art of yoga. What's interesting to note is that often you'll find it in pop culture and other general depictions. Lord Shiva is shown most commonly in the lotus pose this sitting pose in yoga is said to take the perfect beauty of the lotus flower. Lord Buddha is also depicted meditating in the lotus posture and this posture provides proper stability to the body, this posture is also helpful in proper breathing to make meditation easier.

 

3. The word Om or Aum consists of three syllables A sounds a, the U sounds ooo and the M sounds umm. That sound represents the primordial sound of the universe from which all other sounds originate. These syllables represent the past present and future and aum is chanted to invoke a connection to the energy in the universe around us.

 

4. Now guys have you ever heard of naked yoga? That's a thing. For anyone brave enough to bear all your assets you're not alone because this type of yoga is growing pretty quickly practicing yoga while naked originates from the very ancient tradition called Naga yoga. In which Naga sadhus would make being naked a part of their spiritual practice naked yoga is often said to deepen a person's practice and encourages appreciation and body acceptance. I'm sure those aren't the only thing that will be encouraging the same.

 

5. let me get in with the facts and talk about some of the health benefits of yoga. Yoga heightens the flow of energy throughout the body. As you know in our body there's a lot more going on in there than just blood flowing. Nadi's or energy channels are set to run through the body carrying the prana or the life force with them. There are 72,000 Nadi's and you can kind of look at them like esoteric veins that run throughout us and carry energy throughout our body the largest of them is the Sushumna which resides along the spine and provides the channel through which we're encouraged to send this energy to reach enlightenment.

 

6. Now if you're like me who's done yoga, maybe like once or twice normally. we just do it for the stretching and it's a good exercise. But there's a lot more to it than just stretching for those that want to explore that. The popularity of yoga in the mainstream lifestyle has become yoga that resembles gymnastics and stretching.  So that's the sort of yoga that I'm talking about and of course, as I mentioned there are a lot of benefits to doing that so why not right? However, the physical aspect of it all is just one portion of yoga on a whole meditation as well as pranayama which are the breathing techniques the chanting and living a life of purpose and kindness are also very much a part of yoga. 

 

7. Another next fact is not necessarily a fact about yoga but it's sort of related. So The swastika symbol didn't originate in Nazi Germany. This symbol was founded first in Hinduism. The clockwise swastika is the symbol of the Sun or the Sun God Surya in comparison there's also a counterclockwise swastika-looking symbol and that's called svastika symbolizing night as well as the goddess Kali. 

 

8. Now earlier in this article, I said that yoga is growing pretty fast around the world. But just how fast is growing well every single year that house is now there are 20% more Yogis. The number of Americans do Yoga in August of 2015 was estimated to be about 50 million and this number is increasing with every passing year as more and more people are starting to practice Yoga. But not just that outside of the United States, Yoga is experiencing a massive amount of growth. According to the International Yoga Federation, there are 300 million people practicing yoga worldwide and I mean it's a great exercise when I did yoga for the first time I was like wow I didn't know I had muscles in certain places. My body was hurting but it was like a good hurt.

 

9. Now we're almost done with this article got a couple more facts for you. As I just told you yoga is growing super fast and that makes it one of the largest growing industries right now. People who practice yoga in the United States have increased their spending by over 87% over the last five years and this momentum doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. One estimate suggests that over 10 billion dollars are spent by Yogis per year on average. This includes money spent on classes equipment clothing as well as going on a yoga retreat.

 

10. The United Nations also recognized yoga as a provider of a holistic approach to health and well-being back in December 2014. June 21st was designated as the International Day of Yoga and in 2015 around 35,000 Indians led by Mr. Narendra Modi (Hon. Prime Minister of India) performed yoga for 35 minutes at Raj Path in New Delhi and that event set a Guinness World record for the largest yoga class. The final number totaled 35,985 people. The second record that was set on that day was having 84 nationalities practicing yoga at the same time. 

 

So those are some general facts about yoga. You can see that there are a ton of benefits involved in it as well and it's growing super fast around the world. I hope you enjoy this article of mine. For more interesting facts stay in touch with my blogs. Stay fit & stay healthy!