Japa and Ajapa Japa 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.

Japa and Ajapa Japa for Everyone: Overview and Sadhana Capsules describes the practice and process of jopa, repetition of the mantra So Ham, which is the natural sound of the breath. Awareness of breath and sound leads to a calm relaxed state of mind. The culmination is ajapa japa which is not a practice, but a state when the mantra repeats itself spontaneously and without effort.

The sadhana capsules provide ways to integrate the japa practice 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.