Most of us are aware today that yoga is linked with healthy, conscientious living, and that it provides an effective ways to release tension and stress in the body and mind.
Yoga is about health, strength, vitality, relaxation and peace of mind.
In practice, one could say that yoga is a discipline which continues to deepen and further one's ability to answer the question 'what is yoga' appropriately. For the sincere yogi, the horizon of the question itself is continually widening, there is a gradual and expanding insight into its meaning.Asana
Most people associate yoga predominantly with its asana tradition or yogic postures, and one hears of 'yoga and meditation' - as if the two are a separate practice. But of course this is not so, meditation is at the very heart of yoga. The practice of the physical postures or asanas is one of the yogic disciplines for purifying the body and mind. The postures strengthen the entire body, systematically stretching and toning muscles, ligaments, keeping spine and joints flexible, improving circulation, stimulating a healthy functioning of all internal organs and the entire nervous system.
The asanas are practiced in conjunction with a series of other yogic disciplines, including yamas moral restraints and ethics (e.g. non-violence, truthfulness), and niyamas the observance and cultivation of positive qualities (e.g. contentment, study of sacred texts). Further yoga disciplines include pranayama the regulation of breath, which enables an influence of control upon the body's nerve energies and upon the mind. Withdrawing the senses pratyahara is an essential discipline to still the mind, and for the practice of concentration dharana. These disciplines lead to the practice of meditation dhyana, and the perfection of meditation culminates in the experience of superconsciousness samadhi.