During work today out of the blue, one of my colleague jabber on purpose of meditation, etc which lead him to question me on what is yoga. He defines yoga as "something we do to feed our spiritual self". I told him based on my understand and my own instructor words "Yoga means union of body, mind and spirit" which he ended up dismissing, stating yoga comes from the word "yoking". Since I ain't adept in Sanskrit and know going into a debate with this colleague typically will go no where, I decided to shut my mouth once he dismissed my definition of yoga. Truth be told, I understand that his definition is true, yoga does feed our spirit but what I disliked is how he "defined" yoga and asked me "Isn't that the purpose of yoga, you practice yoga right?" before dismissing my opinion of yoga and reinforcing his point on "yoga = food for spirit".
So being the kiasu I am, here is the definition of yoga from the web:
"Yoga are the physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that aim to transform body and mind. The term yoga is derived from the literal meaning of "yoking together" a span of horses or oxen, but came to be applied to the "yoking" of mind and body. - Wikipedia"
I actually debate a bit on should I post such a petty dispute since we all human have different definition on different things. However I decided to post this anyway since I did learn something out of this, which is the real Sanskrit meaning of yoga, which is yoking. I also wanted to post upon my reflection upon why I study yoga. Even if yoga means spiritual food, union of body and mind, etc, I practice yoga because I enjoy it and that alone is sufficient...
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