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Yoga includes many components for a healthy lifestyle such as physical exercises, abstaining from tobacco, stress management and a low-fat diet. The aim of this study was to assess the nutrition of yoga practitioners and to compare it with international guidelines for a healthy diet. This study comprised 89 female yoga practitioners from Bulgaria. The nutrient intake was assessed by using a food frequency questionnaire based on the USDA National Nutrient Database. The relative intake of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, energy contribution of each nutrient, and the total daily energy intake and relative energy intake were calculated. The BMI of the yoga practitioners was near the lower normal limit (18.5 kg/m²). Only 3 practitioners were overweight. The yoga practitioners consumed small amounts of pork and beef and ~60% did not consume any meat at all. They consumed an average of 600 g of fruits and vegetables per day, which complies with the 400 g recommended by the WHO. Practising yoga helps to maintain normal weight which is one of the prerequisites for a healthy lifestyle. The nutritional assessment of the yoga participants corresponded with the recommendations of the WHO and the American Cancer Society Guidelines for a healthy diet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper undertakes the problem of perceiving and feeling the body in the process of acquiring the identity of a hatha-yoga practitioner. The process of becoming a "yogi" is connected with the practice of the work on the body and defining these practices, specific perception of the body, and feeling the body. Becoming a hatha-yoga practitioner is a process. I describe phases of this process in the paper: 1) The initial phase--constructing motives and first steps; 2) The phase of a fuller recognition of psychophysical effects and ascribing to them appropriate meanings; 3) The phase of a fuller recognition of spiritual aspects of hatha-yoga (quasi-religion). The relations between the mind and the body get complicated at the moment of meaningful engagement in yoga practice and defining body practice as mental practice, as well as spiritual. The work on the body can change the "Western" perspective of defining the body as a material element of human existence (the Cartesian vision) to a vision of treating the body as a spiritualized substance (the vision of Eastern philosophy). Such a change is not always possible if we hold on to the guidelines of other religions as own (e.g., the Catholic religion). Changes in the body and psyche have to be in such a situation defined differently, and also there have to be certain language descriptions of these changes (often acquiring guidelines of set languages formulas) in order to combine the statements of conventional religion with a new spiritual experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: The ancient Indian science of yoga is both an experiential science as well as a set of practices which are very suitable to be evaluated using conventional research methods. Despite the rapidly growing scientific literature on the effects of yoga and its applications, there has been no survey carried out to determine whether yoga practitioners are themselves aware of this research. Aims: The current study aimed at conducting a survey to document the beliefs about yoga as a science among its practitioners. Methods: The current survey was conducted chiefly on graduate students of Mumbai University as well as some of the staff. The study surveyed 972 respondents (with an average age of 26 years and a male-female ratio of 54.8:45.2), out of which 54.7 percent practiced yoga. Results: Among the yoga practitioners, 66.1 percent were aware of scientific research on yoga and 57.6 percent associated yoga with scientific research. Interestingly, 60.4 percent of yoga users were keen to have online yoga courses. Among those who did not practice yoga (45.3 percent), 45.0 percent had no intention of starting to practice yoga. Conclusion: The current survey, which is the first documentation of its type in India, showed interesting trends in beliefs about yoga as a scientific discipline among a predominantly young, educated, and urban Indian sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yoga is a word very commonly used in the world today and carries various connotations depending on its usage. It has been defined in various manners as an art and science, as well as the process of conscious evolution. All human beings can gain a lot from the bountiful dimensions of Yoga, which enables them to manifest their inherent divinity, the universal potentiality that lies dormant unless channelized. "All souls are potentially divine," said Swami Vivekananda and, indeed, they are. This article aims to elucidate the diverse dimensions of Yoga that include the dimensions related to Indian culture as well as those associated with health, therapy, society, education, and research. Various physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits attainable through Yoga are explained in detail, highlighting the multiple sub-dimensions of these major fields. Yoga, which emphasizes the universal, is a perfect foil to those human activities which glorify the personal. In short, it may be safely said that the practice of Yoga as a unified whole helps the individual shift from an "I"-centric approach to a "we"-centric approach. The beauty of Yoga is that these abstract principles become concrete by the daily practice of the techniques available in the integrated system. Once the "seed of Yoga" finds fertile soil, these concepts grow naturally, slowly but surely taking root in all aspects of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how Catholic yoga practitioners in Buenos Aires, Argentina view yoga practice. The relationship between Catholism and yoga is explained. The concepts of impurity and purity in yoga philosophy and its association with the Catholic concepts of sin, charity and human completion, among others, is also explained. An overview of the literature of bodily research on the social sciences is provided. Also tackled is how yoga allows practitioners to experience their own embodiment.

The article focuses on experiments which involved Shri Ramanand Yogi of Andhra, India staying in an air-tight sealed box aimed at determining his metabolic pattern. The researchers calculated his oxygen consumption under basal conditions. The results were compared to studies of two normal persons subjected to similar conditions.

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An interesting example of religious interplay between Hinduism and Islam in Medieval India specifi cally took place between yogis and sufi s. To a great extent, Indian culture throughout the medieval period is indebted to the role played by the yogis and the sufi s in the religious terrain. Th is paper outlines the procedures that helped launch the socio-religious dialogue between the Nath Panth and various sufi orders, and thus seeks to understand the shaping of the complex identities of devotional movements in Medieval India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yogic literatures are replete with examples of several unique mystical experiences in deeper states of meditation. These experiences have nevertheless remained largely untouched by the scientific community, possibly because of the extreme inexplicability of such states and the lack of sophistication in evaluating them. More amenable to scientific research, however, would seem to be the simpler states of awareness in meditation such as that of inner light perception. While a few studies have attempted to explore this state by objective means, the subjective experience of this state remains largely unexplored. The present study originates from an interesting sub-theme identified in an earlier study focused on interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of the experience of inner light perception among Vihangam Yogis. The original study found that the Yogis were very confident in differentiating their experience of inner light perception from other similar experiences. It was thus decided to use IPA to explore the clarity of the differences perceived by the Vihangam Yogis between these experiences. The present study reveals that the meditators could clearly differentiate the state colloquially termed "inner light perception" from (a) external light perception, (b) imagination and (c) dreams. The meditators gave detailed descriptions of their perception of the differences between these experiences, which suggests that the subjective state of inner light perception could be quite different from that of those experiences which the authors have termed differentials of inner light perception. The conclusion reached is that, in addition to further empirical study by means of the traditional modalities and measures, vigorous qualitative study of the subjective dimensions of the state of inner light perception is warranted, with this study indicating that IPA is especially effective in the latter regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the biography of Tenzin Gyatso, a Bhutanese scholar-yogi. Entitled "The Play of the Siddha," the biography provides a glimpse into the life of a Bhutanese scholar-yogi in the 20th century. It details the life of Gyatso, from a young student to being a scholoar. The author says the biography hints at the academic and yogi virtuosity of Bhutanese practitioners including Gyatso who excelled in the religious centres of his time in Tibet, yet dedicated to Bhutan.

The article focuses on a hypothetical religious debate between religious poet Kabir and religious personage Gorakh, who lived in India. According to them, a wise guru is a person whose speech is well-constructed, so that his followers recognize the truth. The guru is an extraordinary person who finds every word that leads to the truth. The yogis, yatis, tapis and sannyasis leave their houses and the Maya. They don't have any attachment with the world. They live in the supreme light and are dedicated to meditation. Only one extraordinary person makes people recognize the truth. The Brahmans execute many ritual acts. They dedicate themselves to make ritual offerings and acts. People do not know the secret of the absolute reality that is pronounced in the body. Without yoga, it will not arrive at people's hand. The serpent, Maya, takes hold of everything and eats it. If one does have the devotion to God in the heart, one does not have the firmness of the absence-of-passion. If one obtains that devotion, everything is obtained. Without devotion to God, everything goes away to the path of destruction.

This article distinguishes between two separate, but interrelated types of religious conversion processes; socialization and deconditioning. Socialization refers to the process by which the roles and norms of a group are learned. Deconditioning is a process where habitual and problematic ways of perceiving reality, resulting from initial socialization, are eliminated. Data from a participant observation study of residents in a Yoga ashram are presented to illustrate the nature of these two processes and their relation to one another. Socialization and deconditioning which influence individuals when they first come into contact with the ashram are described. Newcomers must both learn how to act in the ashram and how to make themselves available to experience an altered state of consciousness. Many of those having these experiences become motivated to live at the ashram and so must encounter socialization and deconditioning processes of a different sort. Data show that socialization processes are initially important for residents, but that deconditioning becomes more salient over time. Detailed descriptions are provided about how the yogic lifestyle and practices contribute to deconditioning and how residents describe changes in themselves over time. The data show that in the ashram socialization processes provide a context for and facilitate deconditioning and that these latter processes bring about changes in residents which are consistent with the stated goals of yoga. These observations are then compared to other typologies of religious conversion and it is suggested that religious groups vary in the extent to which conversion involves socialization and deconditioning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amongst the wide collection of literature on the Bengali Tantric Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyās, the works of Mukundadāsa (or Mukundadeva) and his disciples are counted among the most influential. Those Middle Bengali texts that are usually recognized as a group of the four main texts of Mukunda and his circle or followers are commented in the work Nigūḍhārthaprakāśāvali (NPV, 'The Array of lights on the hidden meanings') by various disciples of this line. The main goal of this paper is to shed light on some aspects of the religious experience in the regional Tantric tradition. As we may suppose, the descriptions included in NPV refer to some previous experiences of the authors (gurus) of the tradition and describe imaginary internal worlds of the body in the manner specific to that tradition, using various esoteric terms and describing also various kinds of religious discipline (sādhana). This means the presentation of the relatively poorly known and still not well-studied Bengali Tantra is expressed in the vernacular Bengali language (Middle Bengali, madhyajuger Bānglā). I will try to demonstrate how the image of the human body (and its imagination in this particular tradition) serves as the basis for the religious experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses various reports published within the issue, including one on the dimensions of yoga, another on the possible ill-effects of hyperthermia, induced by yoga practice performed at a high temperature, and another one on the beliefs of yoga practitioners about yoga as a science.