Folks, it is vital that each of us find the techniques that work for us individually and practice them diligently. The techniques have little benefit if we practice them every so often with a distracted mind. Also, it is far better to dedicate ourselves to a handful of postures that we find personally beneficial than it is to have an entire repertoire of moves that may impress our friends, but that we don't really understand.
I'd like to take a moment to share an excerpt from the book The Mystical Science of Kriya Yoga by Goswami Kriyananda:
Strengthening the Life-Currents
Any time the prana current is strengthened in the body, two things occur:
1) Strengthening the current causes an increase in self-awareness. All yogic postures are ultimately directed toward increasing your self-awareness. As your self-awareness increases, you will become more aware of your body, taking better care of it. This will cause you to become more aware of your mind, and you will then also take better care of it.
2) Ultimately, this causes the energies to ascend to higher chakras. This ascendency brings about higher awareness thus assisting in a more balanced self-awareness within your total being. Self-awareness assists in awakening greater balanced self awareness.
The primary concern of most people is with body beautiful and a healthy body. For most people, the concept of self-awareness may not be meaningful for quite some time. It should be understood, however, that the idea of a healthy body is definitely important. The person who is not concerned with his physical body will never truly become concerned with his brain. If a person is not concerned with his brain, he will never be concerned about his thoughts. If he is not concerned about his thoughts, he will never become concerned with what lies beyond thoughts... thus, the importance of the initial stage.
These are the stages of evolution in which we attempt to influx our energy back in order to make our vehicle more aware. At the the same time the energy fluxes back, it rises producing more self-awareness, and more balanced self-awareness. As we become more aware, we become more self-aware and we gain greater balanced self-awareness. We become more aware of how to live. We move from insanity to sanity. It is a movement from simple passion to compassion, from compassion to wisdom. Ultimately, this is the purpose of the yoga postures.
Find techniques that are meaningful to you. Explore them. Understand them. Practice them diligently. And you will find greater joy in the practice.
Shanti,
S.