Yoga lifestyle is a life of balance between “cleaning mind,& body” and “spreading the light”. Thus yoga lifestyle is about purifying the mind and keeping the body healthy. We have to be clean and pure to catch the light in the first place. Yoga lifestyle include certain principles and values, we refer to as the 5 rules of social conduct, the YAMAS;
AHIMSA = non-violence
SATYA = truthfulness
ASTEYA = non-stealing
BRAHMACHARYA = faithfulness
APARIGRAHA = non-greed
Swami Satchidananda on yoga lifestyle:
“When you do something, do it with one hundred percent of the mind. Don’t do it half way. Whatever you do, do it with full concentration. That is Yoga.
It’s not that you are just going into a corner, sitting with the spine erect and then doing some japa or some breathing and that is Yoga. My Yoga is everything. All that you do is Yoga. When you start doing something, do only that — one hundred percent that. ‘Yogaha karmasu kaushalam,’ the Bhagavad Gita says. That means perfection in your every action is Yoga.”
Not many people know it, but there’s a distinct difference between practicing yoga and living yoga. While plenty of people exercise yoga’s values on the mat several times a week or even on a daily basis, not everyone understands the benefits of bringing your experiences from class out of the studio and into the real world. In preparation for International Yoga Day on June 21st it’s crucial to consider how you can make yoga more than just something you do at the gym.
Embedding oneself in the yoga lifestyle can help to overcome grief, find yourself through a retreat adventure, or go on a detox, there are really endless possibilities to what one can achieve once the core values of yoga transcend into every aspect of one’s life. One of the major things that factors into this is one’s diet.
The yoga diet is one that provides healthy options to support yoga practice. It includes whole, fresh, organic, and natural foods and is praised as a way to cleanse the body of the chemicals and artificial products found in so many foods today.
Ashleigh Sergeant, Amber Zuckswert, and Nancy Goodfellow are three yogis who came to Costa Rica because they saw it as a place where they could truly embrace the yoga lifestyle. Costa Rica’s rich jungles, and picturesque beaches make for a perfect environment to establish oneself and really pursue inner peace.
The Costa Rica News is proud to take part in International Yoga Day 2016. Join us for a day of free yoga offered by Costa Rica’s most favorite teachers through online videos: Free Facebook Event
We are running a daily competition on Instagram follow @TheCRNews to find details of competition.
Header Photo Credit: Kadri Kurgun