40 Interesting Facts About Yoga You May Don’t Know

Facts About Yoga

These are the list of least known yoga facts to the world. I have tried to include as many interesting facts as.

1. There are over 300 million yoga practitioners around the world according to the 2018 survey and the number is growing rapidly.
2. The two prominent divisions that come under yoga are asanas and dhyana.

• Asanas- popularly known as yoga exercise.
• Dhyana- various forms of meditation practices.

3. There are 8 limbs of yoga known as Ashtanga yoga. The yogis say that without the eightfold aspects of yoga there is no success in it. If there is no progress in yoga, you might have failed to implement any of the following principles in yoga. (Read also Ashtanga Yoga – The Eight Fold Aspects of Yoga)
4. Yoga is not merely a physical exercise as mostly misunderstood. It is a set of practices that leads one to attain freedom.
5. Yoga means union. It is unity with intelligence. It is the intelligence present in every creation. There are many interpretations of the term union. In a simple sentence, unity refers to realizing one’s own source.
6. Yoga had its origin in tantra techniques that date back to 10000 BC. It had its presence in Harappan Civilization.
7. Hatha yoga is one of the forms of yoga more popular in western countries.
8. There are only 84 classical yoga poses extracted and merged from a million yoga asanas.
9. There are only two effective meditation postures, Padmasana and Siddhasan according to Goraksha Samhitha. (Read also Why Is Padmasana Best Posture For Meditation?)
10. According to the Indian philosophical text, the first Yogi is Shiva, now worshipped as a Hindu deity.
11. In the case of Hatha yoga, there are more women practitioners than men.
12. There are more enlighten men than women even though enlightenment is beyond gender.
13. The religious practices of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism incorporated yoga into it.
14. The religions that had originated in ancient India have a close relation with yoga. I think denoting it as tradition suits better than denoting it as religion. These interrelated traditions came into existence because the pre-existed tantra was a broader discipline. Each tradition adopted its own sets of practices. Yoga existed before that.
15. Yoga says that your breath defines your life span. A person’s life span increases if that person could increase the duration of passive breathing. There is a comparison between the breathing cycle of tortoise and rabbit. The tortoise lifespan is more whereas the rabbit is less.
16. On a close study of yoga, it is the implementation of nature’s law in its refined form.
17. There is no fast result according to yoga. Things work gradually.
18. The inner energy Kundalini is the core aspect of all forms of yoga directly or indirectly. (Read also How to Safely Awaken Kundalini Energy?)
19. Yoga exercise works from inner to outer, unlike the other exercises.
20. Unlike other forms of physical activities that exhaust energy, yoga focuses on withholding and conserving energy.
21. The term energy in yoga is distinct from the energy in the physical term which is the outcome of work done.
22. One of the popular quotes in yoga is “control your breath; thereby you control your mind”.
23. The most difficult asana to perform at its fullest level is the savasana, ‘corpse pose’.
24. It is a common practice to end asanas with savasana. Yoga practitioner says yoga exercise without savasana at the end does not yield full benefits.
25. Yoga is becoming a growing business around the world with around 100 billion worth.
26. There are 7 major chakras in the human body and the 8th chakra lies outside the body.
27. Kundalini energy uses chakras to function. (Read also Chakras or Energy Centers in Man)
28. Kundalini remains as a conceptual entity for a person unless the person realizes it.
29. The different forms of yoga that are popular in the world are hatha yoga, kundalini yoga, kriya yoga, raja yoga, jnana yoga, and karma yoga. The first four forms are more popular.
30. Yoga works with the astral aspects of the body. The chakras, nadis, prana, and kundalini belong to the astral entities. The chakras, nadis, and prana have a physical correlation with the body.
31. There are around 72,000 yoga nadis in the human body including the major nadis such as Sushumna, ida, and Pingala.
32. The right practice of yoga makes a person wise. The person’s words are deep and convincing. It is not easy to win a debate with a yogi.
33. Yogi says “conquer your mind; the world is under your command”.
34. Slowing down the breath reduces mental vibration. The right decision comes from a calm mind.
35. The core aspect of asana is all about the breath. It purifies the body and makes it fit for the next level. The next stage of yoga is pranayama which entirely focuses on that.
36. Pranayama is a form of breathing practice to slow down the breath. It is one of the tools to control the mind in yoga. (Read also Simple Breathing Technique to Reduce Mental Vibration)
37. There were more than 1000 schools of yoga that existed in India. Each school has different techniques and approaches. It is similar to the specialization in the medical field. Despite distinct aspects, these schools have a common goal. 
38. Awakening kundalini doesn’t mean that one has reached the pinnacle. It is just the intermediate stage.
39. The oldest text that mentions yoga is the Rig Veda which is more than 5000 years old.
40. There is a famous quote about yoga in Bhagavad Gita “Out of many thousands of men, hardly one strives for perfection, out of many thousands of such men; hardly one knows Me in truth.”

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