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Is Yoga Meditation

This is a common question. No. No. No, is the simple answer. But it can be combined. Yoga in its purest form is a form of physical exercise. The combination with spiritualism came later. So, can it be? That is the real question. Asana is supposed to prepare the body for meditation by getting rid of restlessness or muscular tension. When I practice I will focus on 15 min meditation, 30 min yoga, and another 15 min of meditation. This allows me to turn my focus away from work and turn my focus inward, maybe transition with more energetic breathing to asanas, then wind down with a body scan and quiet savasana. I know it sounds strange. For me, I define myself as a realist. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t look inward to center myself. To provide a real grounding. A friend of mine. She was very dear (and still is) introduced me to it. Had we not been close I would have brushed her off without giving it much thought. An event that would have left me very unhappy in life. She introduced me to Kriya Yoga. She showed me at first and then I went on to teach myself from there. I executed the kriyas incorrectly, I began experiencing serious mental consequences, such as very basic psychosis; unsurprisingly, the book warned readers of this, which is why it also strongly advised seeking out a teacher before assuming this form of yoga. I am now a student of someone whom I consider has walked the path much, much further than I. My teacher advises against sharing these techniques. From personal experience, seeing to the fact the mental damage it had done to me while performing certain techniques without supervision of a teacher, I know it is wiser to not entice anyone to perform them. Kriya Yoga is considered yoga focused on creating mental action or “kriyas”. It is like creating a hurricane of mental power, and it becomes like fire, and burns through levels of thoughts. Paramhamsa Yogananda is famous for having introduced this form of yoga in the United States in the first-half of the 1900s. For what it’s worth, I can say I never knew I would be involved with the things I currently am regarding yoga and meditation.
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