Yogic practices aim at developing and strengthening immunity to those influences, from within and without, that might contribute to any sort of disintegration. They achieve this by bringing about an altered adaptability of the tissues forming the various organs and systems of the body. Yoga exercises, in short, recondition mind and body.
Yoga has an integrated approach to attaining and maintaining good health. You can therefore expect better results from regular yoga practice than you can from any system that places emphasis only on the signs and symptoms of disease, rather than on the less evident, but very important, underlying causes.
Yoga’s stretching, strengthening and meditative exercises are effective because they encourage full focusing on the movements and the body parts involved. Used as a door into your body-mind awareness, yoga can teach you many useful lessons for practical application to everyday living: how to conserve rather than squander energy; how to be alert to early symptoms of any departure from good health; how to detect habitual faulty postures and movements that may, in time, compromise optimum functioning; what your physical limitations are and how best to work with them.
Used as a therapy, Yoga is individually tailored to work from within each personality. The limitations of a particular body, a specific mind is taken into account, and is used as the basis for the development. The whole person - heart, intellect, and hand - should be developed simultaneously, as to prevent this leading to an imbalance in the personality.
Yoga is a practical aid, not a religion, and its techniques may be practised by Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists alike. Yoga is union with all.
(published with permission in writing from:http://freespace.virgin.net/ahcare.qua/index.html)
