In the same way, learn to identify the heaviness of Yoga dog lethargy that will dissipate as you move, as opposed to true fatigue that tells you to Yoga dog stop and rest. How to Begin and Finish We often show you the full classical pose even though sometimes you might not be able to do it right away. In any event, just seeing it will give you the Gestalt, an idea of what you are aiming for, what you are starting out to do. Set the foundation, the part of you that touches the floor, carefully, and be aware of the details. To prepare for a pose, breathe in. Breathe out as you go into the pose, and breathe normally while holding the pose. Decide for yourself how long to hold the pose, and do not obsess about timing; your body will tell you. You can use a timer or your intuitive clock.
However the texts are not always favourable to yoga. Sometimes they prefer prayers and rites of worship to yoga (Feuerstein 1998; Matchett 2005). On the other hand the Puranas continually confirm the notion that holy men thanks to their ascetic techniques have immense magical powers sometimes even surpassing those of the gods. There is no agreement on the status of yoga, but the sign is still strongly connected to supernatural powers. But this is often in a negative way, where the yogi is seen as a daemonic sinister character.
G. Feuerstein The Yoga Tradition (1998) gives a brief overview of yoga in the Puranas. According to Feuerstein the Puranas are divided into the 18 Maha (Great) Puranas. Even if the word yoga is mentioned in many of the Maha Puranas, there is apparently very little knowledge of or contribution to yoga understanding to be found230. Some of them mention Patanjali’s eight-limb yoga, but often they show ignorance of the meaning of its notions. Often in order to gain recognition a religious community added philosophical elaborations to their text (Malinar 2009). This could be a reason for the author to briefly discuss the Yoga Sutra, which apparently had gained some status and acknowledgment.
