Yog and Pranayam

Many of you would have wondered why it is not "Yoga" and "Pranayama"... well the reason is I am an Indian and I know how to pronounce "Yog" and "Pranayam" without the adjunct "a" as the suffix. To cut a long story short Englishmen tried very hard to pronounce Yog as Yog but were not finding it easy so they conveniently added a "a" after it. Now since it has become such a hot culture in west that every one now thinks it is "Yoga" but in pure sanskrit and hindi it is "Yog". Even I do say it as "Yoga" and not "Yog" some time but now I am consciously make effort to pronounce it correctly.

OK lets leave that aside for now, the reason I posted this is as I have again started doing yog. By yog I mean mostly paranayam and little bit of asans (see a below) also.

I was aware of the pranayam from the days when I did the "Art of Living" basic course. From that time I am aware of how to do pranayam. I do sudarshan kriya (see b below) on Saturday and/or Sunday. The reason being it takes atleast 30 to 45 minutes to do the kriya.

I saw some videos from Baba Ramdevji and tried to put that in my routine, I just do kapalbhati, bhastrika, AnolomVilom pranayam. And yes the best one I like is Bhramari pranayam. The kind of quietness and clarity which Bhramari gives daily I have never experienced except for after doing long sudarshan kriya.

I think it is starting to have its calming/soothing effects on me already in 3 days... I will let you know about the details later when I have followed for couple of weeks atleast just to make that it is not my new found love for Bhramari is having its effect.

Coming to asans, I do suryanamaskar, sirsasan, sarvangasan, viprit karni and ardhmatsyasan with bhujangasan as the finishing asana in the order. I used to do them regularly and do not remember from where I got this knowledge to do various asan, may be it is something in my gene or may be I have seen my dad doing it in the house during my childhood.

Hopefully this enthusiasm of doing yog and asan goes for some months if not years... I would prefer it to do it continuously for years to come but who knows what is instore for tomorrow... :-)

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a - Note the use of "asan" instead of "asanas" again same reason.
b - sudarshan kriya is also one kind of pranayam which was taught in Art Of Living classes.