Yoga is one of the six traditional schools in Indian philosophy, which has its roots in the more than 3000-year-old Vedic texts. It is a holistic system containing theory and practice that aims to support human development.  By delving into yoga practices, everyone can promote their health and improve their quality of life; learn to consciously regulate one's vitality and the contents of one's mind. With practice, the individual can wake up to notice one's own "normal unconsciousness", a state in which automated operating patterns and the environment often dictate our choices and the direction of our lives. By learning to use our ability to consciously recognize and control our reactions, we can balance our lives, gain new strength and energy.

Yoga has long been used as a key tool for spiritual development and purification in Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. However, it is not a religion, rather an experiential science. For millennia, the tradition of yoga has been transmitted orally from the teacher to a student. Around the beginning of our era, Patanjali, who was influential figure in India, wrote the first coherent and systematic presentation of the theoretical and practical aspects of yoga in his Yoga Sutras. KalpaTaru's yoga philosophy is based on Tarja Kallio-Tamminen's interpretation of Patanjali's in-depth collection of aphorisms that corresponds to today's knowledge and needs. An approach that respects tradition, but at the same time renews it based on first-hand knowledge and experience, is based on the trust that the great wisdom of nature is still available today to everyone who quiets down to reach for it.

A more practical foundation for KalpaTaru's yoga psychology, which supports self-awareness and inner growth, comes from the tantra tradition, which is closely related to yoga but harder to define in Western concepts, which emphasizes the control of inner energies and life force. Although all of us has our own path towards individualization and a wider understanding, the chakra symbolism that structures the human situation and the dynamics of internal resources helps shed light on the challenges that each person can face in the "school of life". In the Eastern tradition, a human being is basically seen as a multi-level complex whole, in the development of which physical, emotional and mental factors overlap each other. In this case, various disorders and conditionings that have proven to be harmful can also be worked on in many complementary ways. From the various forms of yoga and meditation, everyone can find a way of practicing that suits them.

 

The Comeback of Yoga Philosophy

In the following articles Tarja Kallio-Tamminen examines (in Finnish) the relationship of the new understanding of reality based on quantum physics to Indian philosophy, which has been focused on the phenomena of mind and consciousness for thousands of years, is examined (in Finnish). Along quantum mechanics, these mental factors no longer need to be excluded from material reality as there are real phenomena that cannot be reduced to the properties of particles moving in space-time.  

Aivot, mieli ja tietoisuus vedalaisessa ajattelussa. Futura 3/2007

Muodon ja materian leikki, Onko intialainen ajattelu sukua modernille fysiikalle? Teoksessa Tapio Tamminen (toim.) Guruja, joogeja ja filosofeja - Intian filofiaa. WSOY2008