What is Yoga?

Would be good to add- for there to be an inside there must be an outside.

The human and yoga are more complex then many think.

The nervous system is so affected during childhood by its personal experience of the environment that it grows into a being with personal characteristic reactions, biological as well as emotional, that are unique for each personal experience.

Ignoring the importance of personal experience (to the outside world/environment) and its effects on the human nervous system one instant and forgetting inheritance in the next, we find ourselves agreeing with statement like this-

"The greatness or the smallness of a man is determined for him at birth, as strictly as its determined for a fruit, whether it is a raisin or an apricot. Education, favourable circumstances, resolution, industry, may do much, in a certain sense they do everything; that is to say, they determine whether the poor apricot shall fall in the form a a green bead, blighted by the east wind, and be trodden under the foot; or whether it shall fall and expand into tender pride and sweet brightness of golden velvet."
without being shocked by their contradictions.

Our ideas of human nature, character, and action are a collection of contradictory half-truths, held together by a thin veneer of beautiful but empty phraseology. There is no doubt that at conception it is very strictly determined whether the newborn offspring is going to be a human being or an apricot. Thereafter, favourable circumstances, resolution, and industry have, if we know how to use them, atleast as much importance as our inheritance, provided we have normal human structure. But no amount of industry or resolution on the part of the apricot will make the slightest bit of difference to its greatness or golden-velvety appearance for that matter, only favourable circumstances are neccessary. Passive, vegetative reliance on circumstances as a means of subsistence is a condition met only in children, people with arrested development and fixed infantile reactions, some self declared 'yogis' who want to run away from society or themselves.

So yes yoga is an inward journey-but also so much more than that. As how we sense,feel,react to others and the environment,while listening to our inner dialogue without letting thoughts,feelings,emotions such as 'this is rubbish,this is great,im angry,sad,happy,warm,cold,tense' control us so we can become more neutral observers. In fact the ancient yoga books ask 'what is the self? who are we?' We are the observer of our thoughts emotions and feelings.

Also many things can be describes as - a vast body of wisdom which provides a set of tools for human evolution/development/growth/transformation such as buddhisim,religon,kung fu etc

dhanurasana- you think when ever sex might happen with my partner I go through that list and more- you should try it for a laugh.