Cybéle Tomlinson - Simple Yoga

Copyright 2000 Cyble Tomlinson

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact: Conari Press, 2550 Ninth Street, Suite 101, Berkeley, California 94710-2551.

Conari Press books are distributed by Publishers Group West.

Cover Photograph Nancy Brown/ImageBank

Cover and book design: Claudia Smelser

Interior Photographs 1999 Philip Kakke

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tomlinson, Cyble.

Simple yoga / Cyble Tomlinson

p cm .(Simple wisdon book)

isbn: 1573241954

1. Yoga, HahaTherapeutic use. I. Title. II. Series.

rm 727.y64 t66 2000

613.7'046dc21

00020680

Printed in the United States of America on recycled paper.

00 01 02 rrd(nw) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to my grandmothers,

Eleanor Kingsley Lawford and Berenis Fleming Tomlinson.

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by Vimala McClure author of A Woman's Guide to Tantra Yoga

Yoga, a great body of wisdom from the East, made its way West as early as the mid-1800s, when the great Swami Vivekananda brought his system of Raja Yoga, which was based on the ancient sage Patanjali's eightfold path, from India to the United States and Great Britain. Since then Westerners have had a keen interest in yoga and all its practices, philosophies, and ethical principles. There are many different kinds of yoga, and in this book Cyble Tomlinson simply and effortlessly describes some of them, from ancient systems to modern versions that have sprung up in the West. She answers a beginning student's questions in a way that is easily understood and is true to the tradition from which this great philosophy of life has originated.

I recommend this book as a wonderful starting point for anyone who is unfamiliar with yoga philosophy and practice and would like to try it. Cyble has provided you with an ethical and philosophical framework and some postures that are perfect for a daily routine. You need seek no further; mastering the postures and the ideas behind them can easily form a yoga practice that you continue for life. I have found that changing up once in a while prevents boredom, and this book has helped refresh and revitalize my own practice. I use it, with my own book, in my yoga practice.

It is very refreshing to me to see that the author addresses issues of the disabled, the elderly, pregnant women, and children. The practice she describes here is not overly athletic, which is a great relief and something I also tried to achieve in my introductory book. I believe most people who want to start a yoga practice should begin with this simple routine, and continue with it for a long time before seeking anything more strenuous or complicated. The point of yoga postures is to put pressure on certain hormonal glands in the body to maintain hormonal balance and to keep the ligaments and muscles smooth, firm, and limber. All the postures in this book achieve these ends without overexerting the Western body, which is usually not accustomed to much stretching.

Cyble also talks about the importance of breathing, which is such an everyday part of our lives that we often forget about it or neglect to recognize its importance as a vital tool for cleansing our bodies and minds, restoring vitality and peace, and calming anxiety. The postures shown in this book are complete and can help your body and mind stay in balance for years to come. Many of them have been part of my own yoga practice for more than twenty-seven years. It is a wonderful comfort to approach your everyday yoga practice not as a chore to be done, but as a gift you are receiving from the Great Creator. In this receptive mode, gratitude fills you as you slowly and carefully, with full concentration, move through each sequence of breathing, moving, and relaxing. You will always emerge from your session filled with the gift of life-giving energy circulating through your body and peace permeating your being.

I urge you to read this book and give it a try. Commit to it for a month and see what happens. You will probably find that you bring more calm energy to your work, you have less need for sleep, you begin gravitating toward foods that nourish you, and people around you begin noticing something different, and good, about you.

This book is intended for people who are curious about yoga but don't know much about it. It is difficult to speak about yoga as any one thing: in fact, there are many different kinds of yoga, and they can vary quite widely in their approaches and their practices. But all yoga concerns itself with questions that have challenged human beings for a long time: How can we be truly, lastingly happy? How can we free ourselves fully from our suffering?

I have tried to present yoga in a simple way, giving you, the reader, a feeling for what yoga isand for what it can be in your life. I've also briefly described the kinds of yoga that are most common in the West, in the hope that you will feel inspired to explore this rich tradition on your own.

T he word yoga can conjure up an array of images: bodies twisting and contorting into impossible pretzel shapes, or long-haired Indian yogis sitting atop mountains, lost in a meditative trance. Some of us link yoga with hippies, and there is good reason for this association: yoga did, indeed, become more visible and popular in the 60s, when larger numbers of peoplemany of them youngin the West began to experiment with a variety of Eastern teachings.

Each of these associations paints part of the picture, but not all of it. Yoga can beand often isapproached through the body, especially in the West. And there are many postures, some of which are quite challenging, that make up the physical aspect of yoga practice.

But yoga is much more than just physical exercise: it also embraces the realms of mind and spirit. At heart, yoga is more about a whole way of being, one that is not limited to mountaintop ascetics who choose to give up their worldly ties but is equally available to the busiest Westerner. In fact, many of the most influential yoga teachers of our day maintain families, which is hardly possible while living in a cave or on a mountain! And though yoga may have seemed for a time to be a hippie thing, it has become increasingly mainstream, particularly since the early 1990s. It is an alive, evolving tradition that is evolving in ways that both reflect and respond to the needs of people living in the twenty-first century.

The Sanskrit word yoga has multiple meanings. Its root, yuj, can be translated as to yoke, to fasten, or to harness. Yoga is most commonly translated simply as union, though it can also mean discipline. It's often spoken of as the discipline, or process, of uniting mind, body, and spirit.

The origins of yoga are in India. It is believed to have existed in some form for as long as 5,000 yearsand possibly longer. Over time, yoga has branched off into a multitude of schools, making it a very rich and complex tradition with many different approaches and techniques. Enormous scholarly effort has gone into sorting out these various forms and understanding their differences.

What can be said about all forms of yoga, though, whatever their approach and methodology, is that their goals are the same. The real aim of yoga is to liberate human beings from suffering and bring us to a place of deep, lasting peace and limitless happiness. One of the contemporary scholars of yoga, Georg Feuerstein, describes yoga as the technology of ecstasy.