The Origin Of Yoga

THE ORIGIN OF YOGA
Don Conreaux, Yogic Gongmaster

The purpose of yoga (meaning to bind) was called the 'raising of Mother Kundalini'(the life force at the base of the spine). Yoga had its origins in India in the Sat Yuga, the Age of Gold, over 26,000 years ago. This was a long peaceful age of abudance in which humans had plenty of time to search within.
The yoga of the raising of the Kundalini at this time blossomed organically, out of the intuition and spontaneity of the practitioner. The goal of the yogi was to ascend into the immortal realms of pure spirit, to imbibe the intuitional nectar of enlightenment, irradicate disease and find liberation from suffering. This was called Samadhi.
In 600 B.C., during the dark age of Kali Yug, signified by Iron, these practices were written down for the first time by Patanjali in India and thus gained a structure that evolved into various systems given out by contemporary Gurus. This structure was called the Eight Limbs of Patañjali's Yoga.
Ultimately, the students of yoga were to gain enough systematic knowledge of yoga techniques, that they could tap into the original or primal yoga of spontaneity, intuition, and creative freedom, a condition that modern yogic practitioners might refer to as Super-mind.
The seed mantra of yoga is AUM or OM. It is the sound of the Cosmos and is the sound that constitutes the Akashic Realms (the non-material etheric plane), the source of Samadhi. This universal tone of pure resonance is produced elegantly by the disc-shaped instrument called the Ancient Gong.

"AUM (or OM) is the Great Gong Tone of Life"
Dane Rudhyar
OM is the combined resonant tone of Life Force that fills the Infinite Living Universe. ONG is that tone impinging on Matter, creating the physical Universe which resonates like a gong from atom to galaxy. A Gong is a cosmic engine of power and is appropriately named after the sound that it makes. It is an instrument that releases this all powerful OM resonance which, although constituting all materiality, is not limited to finite manifestation. It produces Holistic Tones which have 'fullness' and to which the whole being responds.
By playing our body, mind and emotions as an organic gong, we are lead to the OM power of our Greater Self. Just as a gong struck repeatedly Gongongongongong..soon produces a continuous OM. By practicing Gong Yoga we are brought back to the source of greater health and mental balance, our True Selves.