Dharana for Everyone: Overview and Practice Capsules (The Second Chapter)

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Following its Golden Jubilee in 2013, which celebrated the conclusion of 50 years of yoga propagation, Bihar School of Yoga embarked upon the '2nd Chapter of Yoga Yoga is to be experienced and lived as a sadhana and lifestyle.

The series of Yoga for Everyone offers an overview of various branches and practices of yoga, and includes practice capsules for different groups and conditions.

Dharana for Everyone: Overview and Sadhana Capsules presents the sixth limb or anga of raja yoga. It is the stage of concentration where the ability is developed to hold one's focus on one object - be it an image, a sound, a thought. Following from pratyahara, the practices of yoga nidra, kaya sthairyam, antar mouna and japa are taken a step further to attain one-pointedness. The sadhana capsules present ways to integrate dharana into one's daily routine so that a wholistic yogic lifestyle can be lived and experienced.

Swami Satyananda Saraswati established the Bihar School of Yoga in 1963, in order to fulfil the mandate of his guru, Swami Sivananda Saraswati. The mandate Swami Satyananda received was to propagate the science of yoga and take yoga from "shore to shore and door to door". In the days of Swami Sivananda, yoga was far from the globally recognized and accepted word it is today. Yoga was considered a spiritual practice reserved for sannyasins and renuniciates who had renounced society and were seeking enlightenment. It was not seen as something that could be incorporated into society and practised by the general public.

When the Bihar School of Yoga was established, the philosophy, practices, applications and lifestyle of yoga as practical and scientific systems were unknown, even in Indian society. From the beginning, yoga training and propagation by the Bihar School of Yoga took the form of intensive residential programs, in which yoga was taught as a way to qualitatively enhance physical health, mental peace, emotional harmony. A sequence of progression in yoga was defined fifty years ago by Swami Satyananda, by giving systematic training first in hatha yoga, raja yoga, and kriya yoga, as bahiranga yoga, external yoga. Simultaneously, training in antaranga, internal, aspect of karma yoga, bhakti and jnana yoga was provided through the lifestyle and inspiration of the ashram environment.