Yoga: Prehistoric Times
YOGA: PREHISTORIC TIMES
Yoga comes from the word “yoke”, meaning to link or union, is a healing system of theory and practice. It is a combination of breathing exercises, physical postures, and meditation that has been practiced for more than 5,000 years.
While yoga evolved as a spiritual practice in India, in the Western world, a part of yoga, known as Asana, has grown increasingly popular as a form of purely physical exercise. Some Western forms have little or nothing to do with Hinduism or spirituality, but are simply a way of keeping fit and healthy.
A survey released in May 2004 by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine focused on who used complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), what was used, and why it was used in the United States by adults age 18 years and over during 2002. The survey released states that Yoga was the 5th most commonly used CAM therapy. Yoga is considered a mind-body intervention that is used to reduce the effects of generalized stress.
In India, yoga is considered a spiritual practice that dates back to 5,000 years ago. In the West, Yoga as an alternative medicine has evolved from its founding philosophy into a form known as Yoga Therapy. In the UK, this has taken the form of a National Occupational Standard, (NOS) for the delivery of Yoga Therapy to clients with impaired health or compromised well being.
Because yoga invokes ideals of harmony, health and balance, it “fits” well in the environment of modernity. On the other hand, the acculturation of Yoga in America and Europe can be viewed as a welcome celebration of multiculturalism, promoting more open and tolerant cultural dispositions. The processes of commercialization may have debased the sacred practice.
As of today, Yoga becomes a word-of-mouth in every homes and work places as well. But did ancients from a long past Golden Age practice a prehistoric yoga? Did they have access to a deep wisdom and amazing knowledge that has now been almost completely forgotten or now only understood? Did some of the Ancients from prehistory encode some of their yoga techniques, mudras (hand gestures) and postures of power into statues and carvings?
The yoga of mudra is interpreted as being able to bring the physiological system in harmony with the cosmic forces and so form a magical microcosm through which the macrocosm can be represented, channeled, and utilized. The mudra in all its variations is, therefore, a traditional body pattern; an archetypal posture of performed occult significance.
We perform mudras in every action, every moment of the day. Each action is a symbol of our underlying mental and physical condition and results because of the various energy patterns forming within our being. These patterns determine our personality character and mannerism and expressions. Thus our every moment is an expression of our inner-nature. Consciously performing mudras allow us to become more aware of inner energy and to control it so that we make the most of each moment.
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As of now, I am on the process of finishing about mudras.
Here are some token of prehistoric yoga:
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Pazuzu–A demon from Babylonian myth, sometimes called Zu, who stole the tablets of destiny from the dragoness Tiamat. The tablets were recovered but won back by Marduk who conquered Tiamat. Pazuzu is a "wind" demon, who was normally shown with a grotesque face, four wings, bird’s legs, animal front paws and a scorpion’s tail. The king of the evil demons, Pazuzu was thought of as benevolent. Bronze amulets of Pazuzus head, worn to protect women in childbirth against the attacks of the she-demon
Lamashtu, were very popular in the late Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods.
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Does this ancient statue from Costa Rica show a useful posture or is it merely a mundane sitting posture? The pose is very similar but not identical to the one below.
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Reproduction of shaft-tomb figurine, by Soledad Garcia Baron and her brother Rodrigo, from San Antonio Tlayacapan. Lake Chapala Area Prehistory.
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Does the posture shown in this ancient carving from Columbia have any significance from the viewpoint of yoga?
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"One of the two oldest known bronzes statues in the world, it is a symbolical figure of Mu as the mistress and ruler of the whole earth. It was made in either Mu or in the Uighur Capital City over 18,000 years ago."
Courtesy of George N. Leiper
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Standing Buddha - Ho Phra Keo, Laos 17-18c. The statue displays a unusual mudra, called "looking at the Bodhi tree".
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Marble figurine from Akrotiri. 3rd millennium B.C.
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This Olmec Statue depicts a shaman in what is very similar to the Scorpion Asana of classical yoga.