Yoga as a Healing Art

Overview

We all want to be healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. In this multipart series: Yoga as a Healing Art, Rolf Sovik explores healing as a core element of both yoga philosophy and yoga practice. Presenting various points of view and offering wisdom from the scriptures (namely, the Yoga Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita), he explains the nature of pain and how yoga, meditation, breathing practices, and relaxation can help us heal. In addition, he offers practical ways of how we can understand and transcend our pain, so that we can reach the highest and best within ourselves.

4-Part Series

Article
The Goals of Yoga

How do yoga, meditation, breathing practices, and relaxation help us heal? The topic is a big one, which we will examine from many points of view as we move through this multipart series: Yoga as...

Article
From Pain to Enlightenment

We may be seekers of ultimate moksha, but that moksha has to begin with liberation from our pain. In the first installment, we looked at what the Bhagavad Gita identifies as the four goals of...

Article
Understanding & Transcending Pain

As we have seen in previous posts, struggling with pain has side effects. It elevates stress levels, magnifies painful symptoms, and leads to fear and discouragement. The nature of pain is to escalate when we...

Article
Self-Reflection: A Tool for Healing & Liberat...

Among the six darshanas (schools) of Indian philosophy, yoga provides the tools—postures, breath training, meditative methods, and self-reflection—to actively engage with inner life. As a result, yoga is described as a moksha shastra, a “liberation...