Saturday, November 3, 2007

Qigong and Yoga : Practical And Spiritual Aspects

I learned my first lessons on Yoga when I was less than ten years old. Among few basic lessons, father taught me how to sit and breath quietly. I must have been an overactive kid :) .

Last month I participated in a couple of training sessions on Qigong. The sessions were focused on understanding the basic concepts and how to start benefiting from what I feel is an interesting approach to fitness.

However, there are some religious views with reservations regarding Qigong and Yoga exercises (having been developed within a context based on different philosophical views).

Personally, I think that practicing such exercises for the health benefits that have been widely studied and generally recognized (for instance by international bodies like the World Health Organization, but as I understand only as complementary practices and not as alternatives to traditional medicine), is just part of a wide range of practical benefits that most people pretty much already approve of that were the result of efforts based on different philosophical views.

In this article I shall try to explain my view on this point.

 

This article is divided into two sections:

- The Practical Side

- The Philosophical Side