Yoga and Swami Vivekananda

The history of yoga is long and steeped in tradition. Contrary to what some people may believe, yoga was not developed as the newest way to slim down so they could fit into a smaller pants size.
The history of yoga goes back 5,000 years. It originated in India, and the first time the word yoga was found in written form was in the Rig Vada, one of the sacred texts used by Vedic priests. Yoga is a means of achieving spiritual enlightenment.
Originally, yoga techniques were passed down from teacher to student through word of mouth. These techniques had never been written down until the Indian sage Patanjali wrote down a systematic method of yoga in the Yoga Sutras. Patanjali is considered to be the father of yoga.
According to Patanjali, there are eight limbs of yoga, which lead to the ultimate goal of enlightenment.
Yama - abstaining from violence, stealing, lust, greed
Niyam - developing devotion, purity, studiousness, contentment, discipline
Pranayama - controlling the breath
Pratyahara - going inward and withdrawing attention from the outside world
Dharana - concentration
Dhyana - meditation
Samadhi - merging with the universal consciousness
The Swami Vivekananda added to the history of yoga by bringing it to America. In 1893, he addressed the Parliament of World Religions and discussed the path of yoga. As a result of his speech, it quickly began to blossom as a practice in many areas of the country. Yoga has since gained major popularity in the United States and many different styles including Hatha, Bikram, and Iyengar, are practiced by millions of people.
Knowing the history of yoga can help you, the practitioner, realize the richness that it has to offer. More than just a means of being fit and trim, yoga can help you live a healthy, whole, and empowered life.
Della Menechella is a yoga and fitness enthusiast who has been involved in fitness for over thirty years. Here website http://www.beauty-fitness-yoga-source.com/ is filled with practical information about how you can make yoga and fitness a positive part of your life.
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Laws of Life By Swami Vivekananda

1. Love Is The Law Of Life: All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore, love for love's sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.
2. Don't Play The Blame Game: Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.
3. Help Others: If money helps a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.
4. Uphold Your Ideals: Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.
5. Listen To Your Soul: You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.
6. Be Yourself: The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!
7. Nothing Is Impossible: Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin - to say that you are weak, or others are weak.
8. You Have The Power: All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
9. Learn Everyday: The goal of mankind is knowledge... now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man 'knows', should, in strict psychological language, be what he 'discovers' or 'unveils'; what man 'learns' is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.
10. Be Truthful: Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
11. Think Different: All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.
12. It's Your Outlook That Matters: It is our own mental attitude, which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.
13. Life is Beautiful: First, believe in this world - that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!
14. It's The Way You Feel: Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.
15. Set Yourself Free: The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

Swami Vivekanada's most renowned speech

Sisters and Brothers of America,It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to
rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. l
thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank
you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of the
millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.
My thanks,
also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates
from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well
claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud
to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal
acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all
religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the
persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am
proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the
Israelites, who came to the southern India and took refuge with us in the very
year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am
proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the
remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few
lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood,
which is every day repeated by millions of human beings:

"As the different
streams having their sources in differentplaces all mingle their water in the
sea, so, O Lord, thedifferent paths which men take through different
tendencies,various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to
Thee."

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies
ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world, of the
wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita:
"Whosoever comes to Me, through
whatsoever form, I reach him;all men are struggling through paths which in the
end lead to Me."Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism,
have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with
violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization,
and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons,
human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time has
come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of
this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions
with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons
wending their way to the same goal.
..This speech was delivered by Swami Vivekanda At The World's Parliament of ReligionsChicago, 11th September 1893

Inspirations from Swami Vivekananda

Arise, Awake and Stop not till the Goal is Reached.

Be brave! Be strong! Be fearless! Once you have taken up the spiritual
life, fight as long as there is any life in you.

Even though you know you are
going to be killed, fight till you “are killed.” Don’t die of fright. Die
fighting. Don’t go down till you are knocked down......Swami Vivekananda

To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean”, says the persevering soul; “at my will mountains will crumble up”. Have that sort of energy, that sort of will; work hard, and you will reach the goal....

Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better....Swami Viveknanda

Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.” Tell this to everyone—“Have no fear.”
...

Take up one idea.Make that one idea your life , think of it ,dream of it,live on that idea.Let the brain, muscles,nerves,every part of your body,be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone .This is the way to success,the way great spiritual giants are produced...

We are responsible for waht we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions,it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present action.So we have to know how to act....

Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself...

Go on saying, “I am free.” Never mind if the next moment delusion comes and says, “I am bound.” Dehypnotize the whole thing.

It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thought make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light. First, believe in this world -- that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you are not understanding it in the right light. throw the burden on yourselves!

Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin ? to say that you are weak, or others are weak...Swami Vivekananda

The weak have no place here, in this life or any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death....Swami Vivekanada