This week in yoga it was a fairly standard practice with Jason, where we did a variety of stretches for neck pain incorporated into our routine. The role of the body is important in yoga as it helps yogis connect to the divine, and reach higher states. The body is a portal, or tool if you will, that can help us reach the divine. We are all souls within a body that is a capsule holding our consciousness. There is one belief that when we leave  our bodies we can get reincarnated, or that our spirit moves onto the next plane of existence, what ever that may be. Doing yoga and spiritual practices might give us a taste of what is coming when we pass from this body to what ever happens next. Yoga opens the gateway to reaching the divine through the individual self (atman), and to reach a form of oneness with the universal consciousness, known as the brahman (Singleton 101).