What Is Yoga?
Practicing yoga and meditation simply makes you feel good. It makes you healthier in body, mind, and spirit. Yoga allows you to connect with your inner self and tone your body. You feel better at the end of a session than before you started, feeling more relaxed, revitalized, and at peace. With consistent yoga practice, life runs more smoothly because you are tapping into your self-awareness and what is important to you.
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"A man of peace is not a pacifist, a man of peace is simply a pool of silence.

He pulsates a new kind of energy into the world, he sings a new song. He lives in a totally new way; his very way of live is that of grace, that of prayer, that of compassion. Whomsoever he touches, he creates more love-energy. The man of peace is creative. He is not against war because to be against anything is to be at war. He is not against war, he simply understands why war exists.And out of that understanding he becomes peaceful. Only when there are many people who are pools of peace, silence, understanding, will the war disappear."

Source:http://www.osho-tv.com
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WHAT IS MEDITATION?
Meditation is a journey deeper into your true self, your true home. Meditation is for everyone, whatever your spiritual path, Eastern or Western. Meditation is bringing your attention inward, and allowing your mind to settle into stillness. It is withdrawing your attention from the periphery of your consciousness into the center. Meditation is the mind's power to hold itself steady in the Light and in that Light to become aware of your higher purpose, your life's mission. Meditation is called the Science of Light because it works with the substance of Light. Visualization is the secret of all true meditation work in the early stages.

Meditation is the science of bridging between your personality and your soul, your eternal self. It's becoming one with all that is, dropping the sense of separateness and duality. Meditation is an experience of emptiness and of the impermanence of forms. Meditation is called a "practice" -- because it improves with practice. The more you practice, the better it gets. Meditation is like exercising an inner muscle.While prayer is often called "talking to God,"-- praising God or asking God for something, meditation is called listening to God -- deep inner listening. The goal in meditation is to still your body, emotions and mind, to integrate them with each other as a unit, and then align them with your higher self or soul. Achieving this stillness creates the energetic field for listening to your higher self and to God. From this can come an experience of inner peace and inspiration.


TYPES OF MEDITATION
The approach used in meditation can be of several types or combinations of types:

Concentration - steadying the mind and focusing energy and attention on an issue or task
Contemplation - reflecting on the deeper meaning of a seed thought (such as compassion)
Mindfulness - observing with detachment the contents of the mind and labeling sensations, feelings, thoughts in order to deepen wisdom and insight into the nature of reality
Receptive -inner listening to receive impressions and inner guidance
Creative - using the mind to build positive pictures and giving them life and direction with the thought energy of the mind (such as a visualization for healing)
Invocative - calling in higher energy (such as invoking the Christ or the Buddha)

Source By:http://www.meditation.com
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Ananda Marga: "Path of Bliss"

Ananda means "bliss" and Marga means "path."
So Ananda Marga means "Path of Bliss."
Ananda Marga is a global spiritual and social service organization founded in 1955 by Shrii Shrii Anandamurti (Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar). The mission of Ananda Marga is self-realization (individual emancipation) and service to humanity (collective welfare): the fulfilment of the physical, mental and spiritual needs of all people. Through its meditation centers and service projects around the world, Ananda Marga offers instruction in meditation, yoga and other self-development practices on a non-commercial basis, and responds to social emergencies and long-term social needs.

Source By:www.anandamarga.org/
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What is meditation and how does it help with stress relief?
The history of meditation goes back even further than that of Hatha Yoga, with its origins beginning around 3,000 B.C.E. Meditation evolved as a way for the ancient spiritual seers—known in India as Rishis—to gain direct knowledge of the nature of the Ultimate Reality. Today, meditation is recognized for its myriad health benefits, and is widely practiced as a way to counteract stress. Meditation brings together all the energies of the mind and focuses them on a chosen point: a word, a sound, a symbol, an image that evokes comfort, or one’s own breathing. It is typically practiced in a quiet, clean environment in a seated posture with the eyes closed.

As with yoga, a regular practice of meditation conditions you to bring the meditative state into your daily life. Holistic-online.com reports that “hormones and other biochemical compounds in the blood indicative of stress tend to decrease during (meditation) practice. These changes also stabilize over time, so that a person is actually less stressed biochemically during daily activity.”

Source By:http://www.helpguide.org
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