The Connection Between Yoga and Meditation

The Connection Between Yoga and Meditation 

As a long time meditator and yoga teacher, I highly recommend that everyone learn how to meditate because our multi-faceted lives are driven by countless distractions. Meditation is a necessity. 

For some, meditation doesn't come easily. People want to try it, but when they sit down, they find that it is more difficult than they ever imagined. How hard can it be?! Muscles that we may not use, to be able to sit up straight may take time to develop. Maybe we even sit at our desks all day long. We know how to sit! People tend towards hunching and bending their backs over their computers.  A great spiritual master and warrior, Paramhansa Yogananda said that a bent spine is the enemy to self-realization. 

Yoga is a great way to prepare the body for meditation. Yoga is not only rejuvenating for the body but also the brain. Though, is that what most yoga classes are offering? From my experience, a lot of classes are designed to give people a work-out and some even a work-in, but never really mention the word meditation; nor do they spend much time in deep relaxation. 

One time, I attended a yoga class, in Palo Alto, at a very popular yoga studio. We practiced rigorous yoga for 90 minutes straight.  Then, we were given instructions to do the peacock pose; which is on our forearms, upside down, with our feet straight up touching the wall. For the last 15 minutes, we continued to do deep asana. After all of that, I was ready for a lengthy savasana. We were only given a couple of minutes before the instructor guided us out to sit up, bring our hands together and end the class with an “aum.”

In the teachings that I share, hatha yoga for higher awareness, I teach yoga to prepare for meditation. All of the asanas are designed in a routine to help the energy in our spine to be magnetically drawn upward, through pranayama, asana and mudras, to the brain, to awaken and lift our consciousness.  

Yogananda also said that getting in and out of a pose is just as important as being in the pose. We can engage in yoga practice to experience meditation in action because movement can be practiced as a meditation. For example: when inhaling, we raise our arms. While exhaling we lower our arms to our sides. We can do this, in a graceful manner or we can do it quickly without the breath. We can flop down on a couch, or we can do it with control, ease and grace. When we begin to slow our breath and begin to sync it with our movement, we become calm. Then, we become closer to single-minded purpose. By slowing down, we begin to accomplish more and bring our attention to the present moment. It helps us to strengthen our physical body, as well as our spiritual self to prepare for meditation.  

Meditation and yoga are interrelated. They  are both part of the Eight Limbs of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. They go hand and hand. They work together to untie our individual selves with our higher soul-self. One cannot be present without the other. As in yoga, we have asana. We need to be in the body to forget about it, in order to be in true meditation. 

In meditation we have dhyana, the ultimate stage of yoga-sustained concentration. In our physical practice of yoga, we learn how to control our energy by sending it out.  By holding a pose, we bring it inward and upward, while focusing our attention on our breath. Though truthfully, we are doing more than one thing at a time, which is not quite the definition of concentration. For in true concentration, we are only focusing on one thing at a time. 

Where the breath flows the mind and energy goes. In yoga and in meditation, we are raising our consciousness, if we do so, mindfully. With yoga, we are bringing the body to a point of stillness by helping to clear away the restless energy that we carry around- in preparation to become fully immersed in deep concentration, meditation. Yoga, like chanting, can help us to open our hearts and allow the energy to flow, as it is the doorway to higher chakras and higher consciousness.