Tag: International day of yoga

REACHING BEYOND THE EGO-PERSONALITY

The desire to transcend the human condition, to go beyond our ordinary consciousness and personality, is a deeply rooted impulse that is as old as self-aware humanity. We can see it at work in the magically charged cave paintings of Southern Europe and, earlier still, in the Stone Age burials of the Middle East. In both cases, the desire to connect with a larger reality is expressed. We also encounter that desire in the animistic beliefs and rites of archaic Shamanism, and we see its flowering in the religious traditions of the neolithic age—in the Indus-Sarasvati civilization, and in Sumer. Egypt, and China.

But nowhere on Earth has the impulse toward transcendence found more consistent and creative expression than on the Indian peninsula, the civilization of India has spawned an almost overwhelming variety of spiritual beliefs, practices, and approaches. These are all targeted at a dimension of reality that far eclipses our individual human lives and the orderly cosmos of our human perception and imagination. That dimension has variously been called God, the Supreme Being, the Absolute, the (transcendental) Self, the Spirit, the Unconditional, and the Eternal.

Diverse thinkers, mystics, and sages—not only of India but from around the world—have given us a plethora of images or explanations of the ultimate Reality and its relation to the manifest universe. All, however, are in agreement that God, or the Self, transcends both language and the mind. With few exceptions, they are also unanimous in making three related claims, namely that the Ultimate:

1. is single– that is, an undivided Whole complete in itself, outside which nothing else exists;

2. is of a higher degree of reality than the world of multiplicity reflected to us through our senses; and

3. is our highest good (nihshreyasa; Latin: summum bonum), that is, the most desirable of all possible values.

Additionally, many mystics claim that the ultimate Reality is utterly blissful. This bliss is not merely the absence of pain or discomfort, nor is it a brain-dependent state. It is beyond pain and pleasure, which are states of the nervous system. This goes hand in hand with the insistence of mystics that their realization of the transcendental Identity is not an experience, as ordinarily understood. Such adepts simply are that Reality. Therefore, in connection with this highest accomplishment on the spiritual path I prefer to speak of God- or Self-realization as opposed to mystical experience. Other terms used are “enlightenment” and “liberation”.

India’s spirituality, which goes by the name of Yoga, is undoubtedly the most versatile in the world. In fact, it is hard to think of any metaphysical problem or solution that has not already been thought of by the sages and pundits of ancient or medieval India. The “sacred technicians” of India have experienced and analyzed the entire spectrum of psychospiritual possibilities—from paranormal states to the unitive consciousness of temporary God-realization to permanent enlightenment (known as sahaja-samadhi, or “spontaneous ecstasy”).

The methods and lifestyles developed by the Indian philosophical and spiritual geniuses over a period of at least five millennia all have one and the same purpose: to help us break through the habit patterns of our ordinary consciousness and to realize our identity (or at least union) with the perennial Reality. India’s great traditions of psychospiritual growth understand themselves as paths of liberation. Their goal is to liberate us from our conventional conditioning and hence also free us from suffering, because suffering is a product of our unconscious conditioning. In other words, they are avenues to God-realization, or Self-realization, which is an utterly blissful condition.

God, in this sense, is not the Creator God of deistic religions like Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, Rather, God is the transcendental totality of existence, which in the nondualist schools of Hinduism is referred to as brahman, or “Absolute”. That Absolute is regarded as the essential nature, the transcendental Self, underlying the human personality. Hence, when the unconscious conditioning by which we experience ourselves as independent, isolated egos is removed, we realize that at the core of our being we are all that same One. And this singular Reality is considered the ultimate destination of human evolution. As the modern yogin-philosopher Sri Aurobindo put it:

We speak of the evolution of Life in Matter, the evolution of Mind in Matter; but evolution is a word which merely states the phenomenon without explaining it. For them seems to be no reason why Life should evolve out of material elements or Mind out of living form, unless we accept the Vedantic solution that Life is already involved in Matter and Mind in Life because in essence Matter is a form of veiled Life, Life a form of veiled Consciousness. And then there seems to be little objection to a farther step in the series and the admission that mental consciousness may itself be only a form and a veil of higher states which are beyond Mind. In that case, the unconquerable impulse of man towards God, Light, Bliss, Freedom, Immortality presents itself-in its right place in the chain as simply the imperative impulse by which Nature is seeking to evolve beyond Mind, and appears to be as natural, true and just as the impulse towards Life which she has planted in certain forms of Matter or the impulse towards Mind which she has planted in certain forms of Life…Man himself may well be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose conscious co-operation she wills to work out the superman, the God.

Or shall we not say, rather, to manifest God?

The idea that the impulse toward transcendence is a primary and omnipresent, if mostly hidden, force in our lives has been vocalized by a number of eminent transpersonal Psychologists, notably Ken Wilber. He speaks of this force as the “Atman project”.
Development is evolution; evolution is transcendence…and transcendence has as its final goal Atman, or ultimate Unity Consciousness in only God. All drives are a subset of that Drive, all wants a subset of that Want, all pushes a subset of that Pull – and that whole movement is what we call the Atman project: the drive of God towards God. Buddha towards Buddha, Brahman towards Brahman, but carried out initially through the intermediary of the human psyche, with results that range from ecstatic to catastrophic.

The impulse toward transcendence is thus intrinsic to human life. It manifests itself not only in humanity’s religio-spiritual search but also in the aspirations of science, technology, philosophy, theology, and art. This may not always be obvious, especially in those areas that, like contemporary science, are anxious to deny any associations with metaphysical thought, and instead pay homage to the twin idols of skepticism and objectivity. Nevertheless, as perceptive critics of the scientific enterprise have pointed out, in its passionate quest for knowledge and meaning, science is merely usurping the supreme place that was once accorded to religion and theology.

Today, the metaphysical roots of science are rendered visible especially by quantum physics, which undermines the materialistic ideology that has been the creed of many, if not most. Scientists for the past two hundred years. In fact, avantgarde physicists like David Bohm and Fred Alan Wolf have formulated broad quantum-physical interpretations of reality that converge in many respects with traditional Eastern ideas about the structure of the world: The universe is a single and ultimately unimaginable- sea of energy (“quantum foam”) in which differentiated forms – things – appear and disappear, possibly for all eternity. Gary Zukav writes:

Quantum mechanics, for example, shows us that we are not as separate from the rest of the world as we once thought. Particle physics shows us that the “rest of the world” does not sit idly “out there”. It is a sparkling realm of Continual creation, transformation, and annihilation. The ideas of the new physics, when wholly grasped, can produce extraordinary experiences. The study of relativity theory, for example, can produce the remarkable experience that space and time are only mental constructions!

It is clear from the work of such creative scientists as those mentioned above that science, like every other human endeavor, harbors within itself the impulse toward transcendence. Rightly, John Lilly called science a “simulation of God”. What Lilly meant by this phrase is this: We humans try to describe and understand ourselves and the world that apparently surrounds us. In doing so, we create models of reality and programs by which we can maneuver in our conceptualized, simulated worlds. All the while, however, we are pushed – or pulled – to reach beyond our models and programming, beyond our mind.

If we look upon science and technology as forms of the same impulse toward transcendence that has motivated India’s sages to explore the inner universe of consciousness, we can see many things in a radically new perspective. We need not necessarily regard science and technology as perversions of the spiritual impulse, but rather as unconscious expressions of it. No moral judgment is implied here, and we can simply set about introducing a more comprehensive and self-critical awareness into the scientific and technological enterprise. In this way, we can hope to transform what has become a runaway obsession of the left brain into an authentic and legitimate pursuit in service of the whole human being and the whole of humankind.

In Rabindranath Tagore’s delightful work Gitanjali, there is a line that sums up our modern attitude, which is one of dilemma: “Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed”. We feel ashamed and awkward because we feel that the pursuit of spiritual freedom, or ecstasy, belongs to a bygone age, a lost worldview. But this is only a half-truth. While certain conceptions and approaches to spiritual freedom are clearly antiquated, freedom itself and its pursuit is as important and relevant today as it has ever been. The desire to be free is a timeless urge and concern. We want freedom, or abiding happiness, but we seldom acknowledge this deep-seated wish. It remains on the level of an unconscious program, secretly motivating us in all our undertakings—from scientific and technological ingenuity to artistic creativity, to religious fervor, to sports, to sexuality, to socializing., and, alas, also to drug and alcohol addiction. We seek to be fulfilled, made whole or happy by all these pursuits. Of course, we find that whatever happiness or freedom we gain is frustratingly ephemeral, and we take this as an incentive to continue our ritual quest for self-fulfillment by seeking further stimulation.

Today, however, we can take encouragement from the new vision embodied in quantum physics and transpersonal psychology, and boldly raise this urge to the level of a conscious need. In that event, the unrivaled wisdom of the liberation teachings of India and the Far East will assume a new significance for us, and the present-day encounter between East and West can fulfill itself.

(Excerpted from Yoga Tradition by George Feuerstein, Ph.D.) 

NEW YORK (TIP): The Consulate General of India, along with several socio-cultural organizations based in and around New York, organized International Day of Yoga (IDY) celebrations on June 21, 2015 at more than 50 places in and around the city. Thousands participated in these events with great pride and enthusiasm.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj represented the Government of India at the Annual  Event of Yoga (Summer Solstice) at Times Square and the Hindu Temple Society of North America, Flushing. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who has introduced a Resolution in the Senate in support of the IDY and Madhur Bhandarkar, Film Director, also participated and cheered up the participants at the Times Square where close to 20,000 people participated throughout the day.

With the support of the Consulate, the Art of Living Foundation (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar), Global Citizen Forum (B.K. Modi Group) organized a three hours program, including yoga, meditation, dance drama on yoga and finally East Meets West by  Bhappi Lahri and Judge M. Kelly, famous Jazz maestro. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, B.K. Modi, Judge Kelly, Bhappi Lahiri, Ambassador Arun Kumar Singh and Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser addressed the 2700 strong supporters of yoga at the auditorium. Similarly, Hindu Temple Society of North America organized a day-long yoga and related events. External Affairs Minister participated in the closing ceremony and released a book titled “Yoga-Bharat’s Invaluable Gift to the World” by Mr. V. Ravi Kumar Iyer. The Consulate had also organized yoga lecture-cum-demonstration at the airports of New York and New Jersey. Passengers practiced yoga while waiting in transit. Photos of these events are available on www.indiacgny.org

The State Senates  of New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Westchester as well as several City Councils have issued Proclamations and felicitation messages to support and commemorate the first International Day of Yoga. Several Senators, Congressmen, Mayors and Councilmen have sent their appreciation letters to the Consulate on the occasion.

Indian-American communities represented by several Socio-Cultural organizations including the Overseas Volunteers for Better India (OVBI) were wholeheartedly involved in these events. The Consulate was also supported by  Tech Mahindra, the leader in digitalization and business re-engineering for organizing these events.

Following the United Nations Resolution to declare International Day of Yoga on June 21 every year, the Consulate had been organizing yoga related various Curtain Raisers as well as yoga events in areas under the consular jurisdiction of this Consulate. Curtain Raisers were organized in Albany and Queens on June 9 and June 13 respectively. Yoga and related events would continue to be organized throughout the year at different places by this Consulate from time to time.

You are healthy, fairly happy, and well-settled in life. Yet, there is a vague vacuum, a nagging feeling that there should be more to life. This amorphous condition ails many, often unbeknown even to them, but is known in psychiatry and psychology, more so in the past few decades when at least one of the streams of psychology started looking beyond mental illness at enhancing life and happiness, if not imbuing life with meaning.

That stream is known as Humanistic Psychology-Transpersonal Psychology, which goes beyond the established Freudian and behaviorist schools. The most well known of the third school has been Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), an American psychologist who introduced a model of developmental psychology that has become well known not only in the field of psychology, but also in management and other human sciences. It describes five developmental stages, which are based on what Maslow calls human needs. Thus, his model is known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and depicted as a pyramid.

At the base of this pyramid is Physiological Needs, including food, water, air, and sleep. And then on to Safety Needs Social Needs and Esteem Needs. At the peak is the need for Self-Actualization. In between Esteem and Self-Actualization needs, Maslow also later acknowledged the needs for aesthetics and knowledge.

Point to be noted is that what the most enlightened, modern psychology is asserting lately has been addressed eons ago by the yogic sciences of India. Here we are, of course, talking about authentic yoga, which while possibly including body work or asana-pranayama as a foundation, is actually about encountering, examining, exploring, integrating and transcending the many levels, currents and crosscurrents of mind and consciousness.

Most of us routinely experience three states of consciousness, namely, sleep, waking and dreaming states. In meditation, even a novice has flashes of a fourth state, when you subjectively feel you had blanked out, but coming out it did not feel like sleep. Brain wave pattern using the electro-encephalogram will confirm that you were not sleeping, you were alert yet in a deep state of rest. In yoga they call the state Samadhi. It is better understood as pure consciousness –  you are conscious, not of anything outside or inside, but of consciousness itself. It is like the snake eating its own tail. Beyond time and space, samadhi is transcendence of our mundane experience. Perhaps the craving for this transcendence goads so many to experiment with drugs, in particular psychedelics. There is also bliss.

It is, however, important to note that there is a great difference between the terms Self-Actualization as postulated by Maslow and Self-Realization as in spirituality, with the former having to do with higher levels of fulfillment at the personality level, while still in relation to worldliness. Self-Realization has to do with that knowing of pure consciousness (or many other such terms), which is beyond, transcendent, or transpersonal. Maslow, too, in his later years, expanded his model to include the higher levels of human experience.

But the bliss and beatitude that we see and sense in depictions of a Buddha, Mahavir, Nanak, Jesus or Krishna seem many times more. That is because they have attained enlightenment  (often shown in pictures as a halo) where they are able to sustain the bliss, the transcendence, the pure consciousness alongside other three states of consciousness. Guru Nanak described it as ‘naam khumari Nanka chadi rahe din raat’.

A still higher state of consciousness is when pure consciousness experienced within is also witnessed as the stuff of which everything in the universe – animate and inanimate- is made of. I am That, Thou art That, All This is That – declare the three Veda mahavakyas, containing the highest knowledge uttered so simply yet profoundly. Science and spirituality are converging again because Quantum Theory too has reached the point where the source of all matter and energy is described as a vacuum, a nothingness that contains all the possibilities of everything that has ever existed or could exist.

Mystics and munis would rather say that it is Immanent God that permeates everything. As Pope Francis wrote this week in his encyclical (a controversial document because it calls upon the human world to combat climate change to save the earth),
“The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face.” The Pope quotes a ninth century mystical Muslim poet Ali-al-Khawas to bridge the gap between the creatures of the world and the interior experience of God: “The initiate will capture what is being said when the wind blows, the trees sway, water flows, flies buzz, doors creak, birds sing, or in the sound of strings or flutes, the sighs of the sick, the groans of the afflicted.”

Most of us, caught as we are in our daily struggles, transient desires, grasping at this and that, have no time and inclination to take the road not taken – not in these times of ever-present distractions of text messages and YouTube videos and many forms of instant gratification. But the untrodden path promises untold riches, and sublime experience beyond the reach of our ordinary mind and intellect. The mystic streams of major world religions offer the wherewithal to guide the seeker on the odyssey and shining examples in the many prophets and men of God who scaled the higher reaches of yoga and lived to tell the world.

What is Yoga?

Yoga is essentially a spiritual discipline based on an extremely subtle science which focuses on bringing harmony between mind and body. It is an art and science for healthy living. The word “Yoga” is derived from the Sanskrit root yuj meaning “to join”, “to yoke” or “to unite”. According to Yogic scriptures, the practice of Yoga leads to the union of individual consciousness with universal consciousness. According to modern scientists, everything in the universe is just a manifestation of the same quantum firmament. One who experiences this oneness of existence is said to be “in Yoga” and is termed as a yogi who has attained a state of freedom, referred to as mukti, nirv?na, kaivalya or moksha.

“Yoga” also refers to an inner science comprising of a variety of methods through which human beings can achieve union between the body and mind to attain self-realization. The aim of Yoga practice (sadhana) is to overcome all kinds of sufferings that lead to a sense of freedom in every walk of life with holistic health, happiness and harmony.

Brief history and development of Yoga

The science of Yoga has its origin thousands of years ago, long before the first religion or belief systems were born. According to Yogic lore, Shiva has seen as the first yogi or
?diyogi and the first guru or ?diguru. Several thousand years ago, on the banks of lake Kantisarovar in the Himalayas, ?diyogi poured his profound knowledge into the legendary saptarishis or “seven sages”. These sages carried this powerful Yogic science to different parts of the world including Asia, the Middle East, northern Africa and South America. Interestingly, modern scholars have noted and marveled at the close parallels found between ancient cultures across the globe. However, it was in India that the Yogic system found its fullest expression. Agastya, the saptarishi who traveled across the Indian subcontinent, crafted this culture around a core Yogic way of life.

Yoga is widely considered as an “immortal cultural outcome” of the Indus Saraswati Valley Civilization – dating back to 2700 BC – and has proven itself to cater to both material and spiritual uplift of humanity. A number of seals and fossil remains of Indus Saraswati Valley Civilization with Yogic motifs and figures performing Yoga sadhana suggest the presence of Yoga in ancient India. The seals and idols of mother Goddess are suggestive of Tantra Yoga. The presence of Yoga is also available in folk traditions, Vedic and Upanishadic heritage, Buddhist and Jain traditions, Darshanas, epics of Mahabharata including Bhagawadgita and Ramayana, theistic traditions of Shaivas, Vaishnavas and Tantric traditions. Though Yoga was being practiced in the pre-Vedic period, the great sage Maharishi Patanjali systematized and codified the then existing Yogic practices, its meaning and its related knowledge through Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.

After Patanjali, many sages and Yoga masters contributed greatly for the preservation and development of the field through well documented

Fundamentals of Yoga

Yoga works on the level of one’s body, mind, emotion and energy. This has given rise to four broad classifications of Yoga: Karma Yoga where we utilize the body; Jn?na Yoga where we utilize the mind; Bhakti Yoga where we utilize the emotion and Kriya Yoga where we utilize the energy. Each system of Yoga we practice falls within the gamut of one or more of these categories.

Every individual is a unique combination of these four factors. Only a guru (teacher) can advocate the appropriate combination of the four practices and literature. Yoga has spread all over the world by the teachings of eminent Yoga masters from ancient times to the present date. Today, everybody has conviction about Yoga practices towards the prevention of disease, maintenance and promotion of health. Millions and millions of people across the globe have benefited by the practice of Yoga and the practice of Yoga is blossoming and growing more vibrant with each passing day.

Traditional schools of Yoga

The different philosophies, traditions, lineages and guru-shishya paramparas of Yoga led to the emergence of different traditional schools. These include Jn?na Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, Patanjala Yoga, Kund? a? lini Yoga, Ha?ha Yoga, Dhyana Yoga, Mantra Yoga, Laya Yoga, Raja Yoga, Jain Yoga, Bouddha Yoga etc. Each school has its own approach and practices that lead to the ultimate aim and objectives of Yoga.

The widely practiced Yoga sadhanas are: Yama, Niyama, ?sana, Pr?n?y?ma, Praty?hara, Dh?rana, Dhy?na, Sam?dhi, Bandhas and Mudras, Shatkarmas, Yukt?h?ra, Mantra-japa, Yukta-karma etc. Yamas are restraints and Niyamas are

observances. These are considered to be pre-requisites for further Yogic practices. ?sanas, capable of bringing about stability of body and mind, “kuryat-tadasanam- sthairyam”, involve adopting various psycho-physical body patterns and giving one an ability to maintain a body position (a stable awareness of one’s structural existence) for a considerable length of time.

Pranayama consists of developing awareness of one’s breathing followed by willful regulation of respiration as the functional or vital basis of one’s existence. It helps in developin awareness of one’s mind and helps to establish control over the mind. In the initial stages, this is done by developing awareness of the “flow of in-breath and out-breath” (sv?sa-prasv?sa) through nostrils, mouth and other body openings, its internal and external pathways and destinations. Later, this phenomenon is modified, through regulated, controlled and monitored inhalation (sv?sa) leading to the awareness of the body space getting filled (puraka), the space(s) remaining in a filled state (kumbhaka) and it getting emptied (rechaka) during regulated, controlled and monitored exhalation (prasv?sa). Praty?hara indicates dissociation of one’s consciousness (withdrawal) from the sense organs which connect with the external objects.
Dh?rana indicates broad based field of attention (inside the body and mind) which is usually understood as concentration.

Dhyana (meditation) is contemplation (focused attention inside the body and mind) and Samadhi (integration).

Bandhas and Mudras are practices associated with Pranayama. They are viewed as the higher yogic practices that mainly adopt certain physical gestures along with control over respiration. This further facilitates control over mind and paves way for higher Yogic attainment. However, practice of dhy?na, which moves one towards self-realization and leads one to transcendence, is considered the essence of Yoga Sadhana. karmas are detoxification procedures that are clinical in nature and help to remove the toxins accumulated in the body. Yuktahara advocates appropriate food and food habits for healthy living.

General Guidelines for Yoga Practice 

A Yoga practitioner should follow the guiding principles given below while performing Yogic practices:

BEFORE THE PRACTICE

• Sauca means cleanliness – an important prerequisite for Yogic practice. It includes cleanliness of surroundings, body and mind.
• Yogic practice should be performed in a calm and quiet atmosphere with a relaxed body and mind.
• Yogic practice should be done on an empty stomach or light stomach. Consume small amount of honey in lukewarm water if you feel weak.
• Bladder and bowels should be empty before starting Yogic practices.
• A mattress, Yoga mat, durrie or folded blanket should be used for the practice.
• Light and comfortable cotton clothes are preferred to facilitate easy movement of the body.
• Yoga should not be performed in state of exhaustion, illness, in a hurry or in acute stress conditions.
• In case of chronic disease/ pain/ cardiac problems, a physician or a Yoga therapist should be consulted prior to performing Yogic practices.
• Yoga experts should be consulted before doing Yogic practices during pregnancy and menstruation.

DURING THE PRACTICE

• Practice sessions should start with a prayer or invocation as it creates a conducive environment to relax the mind.
• Yogic practices shall be performed slowly, in a relaxed manner, with awareness of the body and breath.
• Breathing should be always through the nostrils unless instructed otherwise.
• Do not hold body tightly, or jerk the body at any point of time.
• Perform the practices according to your own capacity. ·It takes some time to get good results, so persistent and regular practice is very essential.
• There are contra-indications/ limitations for each Yoga practice and such contra-indications should always be kept in mind.
• Yoga session should end with meditation/ deep silence / ?h?nti pa?ha.

AFTER THE PRACTICE

• Bath may be taken only after 20-30 minutes of practice.
• Food may be consumed only after 20-30 minutes of practice.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

A few dietary guidelines can ensure that the body and mind are flexible and well-prepared for practice. A vegetarian diet is usually recommended, and for a person over 30 years, two meals a day should suffice, except in cases of illness or very high physical activity or labor.

HOW YOGA CAN HELP

Yoga is essentially a path to liberation from all bondage. However, medical research in recent years has uncovered many physical and mental benefits that Yoga offers, corroborating the experiences of millions of practitioners. A small sampling of research shows that:

• Yoga is beneficial for physical fitness, musculoskeletal functioning and cardio-vascular health.
• It is beneficial in the management of diabetes, respiratory disorders, hypertension, hypotension and many lifestyle related disorders.
• Yoga helps to reduce depression, fatigue, anxiety disorders and stress.
• Yoga regulates menopausal symptoms.
• In essence, Yoga is a process of creating a body and mind that are stepping-stones, not hurdles, to an exuberant and fulfilling life.

He is considered “The Father of Modern Yoga. Certainly, one of the most influential yoga teachers of the 20th century and is credited with the revival of hatha yoga.

While under the patronage of the Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnamacharya traveled around India giving lectures and demonstrations to promote yoga, including such feats as stopping his heartbeat. He is widely considered as the architect of vinyasa, in the sense of combining breathing with movement. Underlying all of Krishnamacharya’s teachings was the principle “Teach what is appropriate for an individual.”

Some of Krishnamacharya’s students include many of yoga’s most renowned teachers: his son T.K.V. Desikachar (born 1938), Indra Devi (1899-2002), K. Pattabhi Jois (1915- 2009), and brother-in-law B. K. S. Iyengar (1918-2014).

“Yoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity. This evolution includes all aspects of one’s being, from bodily health to self – realization.”

“Yoga means union-the union of mind with consciousness, and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the way of maintaining a balanced attitude in day to day life and endows skill in the performance of ones’ actions.”

“The light that Yoga sheds on life is something special. It is transformative. It does not change the way we see thing; it transforms the person who sees.”

“Yoga is like music. The rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind, and the harmony of the soul create the symphony of life.”

Iyengar was the founder of the style of yoga known as
“Iyengar Yoga” and was considered one of the foremost yoga teachers in the world. He was the author of many books on yoga practice and philosophy including Light on Yoga, Light on Pranayama, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and Light on Life. Iyengar was one of the earliest students of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. He has been credited with popularizing yoga, first in India and then around the world, with his headquarters in Pune. His use of yoga aids like ropes and blocks during asana practice was innovative.

Iyengar was awarded the Padma Shri in 1991, the Padma Bhushan in 2002 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2014. In 2004, Iyengar was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.

Sri K. Pattabhi Jois  (1915-  2009)

Gurubhai of BKS Iyengar, he developed the popular style of yoga referred to as Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga or Ashtanga Yoga, which has been popular in the West. In 1948, Jois established the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute  in Mysore. In his book “Yoga Mala” he recommends staying 5-8 breaths in a posture, or, staying for as long as possible in a posture. Breathing instructions given are to do rechaka and puraka (exhale and inhale) as much as possible.

Swami Sivananda was a Hindu spiritual teacher and a proponent of Yoga and Vedanta. Born Kuppuswami in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, he studied medicine and served in British Malaya as a physician for several years before taking up monasticism. He lived most part of his life in Rishikesh.
He was the founder of the Divine Life Society, and author of over 200 books on yoga, Vedanta and a variety of subjects. Some of his main disciples went on to start worldwide yoga movements.

He was a disciple of Sivananda Saraswati, and founder of the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres and Ashrams. He established the Sivananda Yoga Teachers’ Training Course, one of the first yoga teacher training programs in the West. His books The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga (1959) and Meditation and Mantras (1978) established him as an authority on Hatha and Raja yoga. Vishnudevananda was a tireless peace activist who rode in several “peace flights” over places of conflict, including the Berlin Wall prior to German reunification.

Harbhajan Singh Khalsa (later Yoga Bhajan) was born in 1929 into a Sikh family in Gujranwala district, in what is now Pakistan’s province of Punjab. He was a spiritual leader and entrepreneur who introduced Kundalini Yoga to the United States. He was the spiritual director of the 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization) Foundation, with over 300 centers in 35 countries. Under his influence, tens of thousands turned to Sikh way of life. He passed away in Espanola, New Mexico.

Satyananda Saraswati/Bihar School of Yoga (1923 -2009)

He was a sannyasin, yoga teacher and guru in both his native India and the West. He was a student of Sivananda Saraswati, and founded the Bihar School of Yoga in 1964 in Munger, Bihar. He wrote over 80 books, including Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha. In 1988 he  handed over the active work of his ashram and organization to his spiritual successor, Niranjanananda Saraswati, and left Munger.

Born in Calcutta and having a yoga empire in America, Bikram Choudhury has a yoga style name after him. Bikram Yoga is a system of yoga that he synthesized from traditional hatha yoga techniques  and popularized beginning in the early 1970s. All Bikram Yoga Beginning Series classes run for 90 minutes and consist of the same series of 26 postures, including two breathing exercises. Bikram Yoga is ideally practiced in a room heated to 40 °C (104 °F) with a humidity of 40%. All official Bikram classes are taught by Bikram-certified teachers.

Bikram Choudhury made claims starting 2012 that the postures of his yoga practice, were under copyright and that they could not be taught or presented by anyone whom he had not authorized. But the United States Copyright Office issued a clarification that yoga postures  could not be copyrighted in the way claimed by Bikram.

In another controversy, at least five women were suing Bikram Choudhury with allegations including sexual harassment and sexual assault.

Though spelt yoga in English, the Hindi-Sanskrit pronunciation is yog. Every schoolboy in India knows the meaning of yog as ‘to add’. But here we are talking about  the meaning of yoga as “to join” or “to unite” from the root yuj.

Although yoga as philosophy and system was codified by Sage Patanjali around 200 BC, it is much older, its references are found in Vedic literature.

To understand the spiritual dimension of yoga, here we will confine ourselves to the definition of yoga by Patanjali himself and two widely known  and quoted fragments of verses in Bhagavad Gita.

First, Patanjali. In the very second of his 192 sutras, he says,

It means, yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind or thought impulses. In other words, you are doing yoga in order to achieve a stillness and clarity of mind. But many meditators take it to mean consciously and forcefully trying to stop thoughts. That is difficult to achieve. What does work is creating the right conditions allowing the mind to settle down. In Indian spirituality mind is often compared to a monkey, difficult to control. But lead the monkey to a bunch of bananas, and it will settle down. So it is with the mind. Lead it with meditation  towards the source of happiness within (the Kingdom of God is within you, said Jesus), and it gravitates towards that and thoughts subside, eventually leading to the yogic state of samadhi.

In a later sutra, Patanjali also lists five things that cause klesha or obstacles in achieving a state of yoga. These are: ignorance, I-ness, desire, aversion and attachment. And he suggests ways to be rid of them.

Now Gita.

In this verse, Lord Krishna is advising Arjuna to perform action while established in yoga, or dwelling in union with the Divine, and at the same time renouncing all attachments. He is advising Arjuna to remain in a state of equipoise in both success and failure. This is Karma Yoga philosophy that leads to equilibrium or equanimity of mind. When all our actions are performed while dwelling in Divine in this manner, we truly start living the ‘Work is Worship’ philosophy. One common misinterpretation of this verse is: never desire the fruits of action. It is wrong because results are inevitable. Action begets reaction. It is the worrying about the desired results that causes anxiety.

Yoga again is central to this statement of Gita.

It simply means, ‘yoga is skill in action’. Even the reverse may be true. Skill in action is yoga.

The full verse ending in Yogah Karmasu Kaushalam says: One who is equipped with equanimity in this life discards both merit and sin. Therefore remain established in yoga; yoga results in perfect action.

This is where Krishna starts addressing Arjuna’s inaction – almost a catatonic state. The warrior prince is bedeviled by doubts arising from concerns about fighting and slaying his uncles and cousins. Krishna argues that if one performs svadharma with equanimity, one doesn’t have to constantly ponder whether an action will beget merit or sin. We begin to detach ourselves from the results or fruits of our actions, we will also not get attached to merit and sin.

Interestingly, Indian philosophy for long was considered renunciatory and escapist, for which partly to blame was this simplistic understanding of Gita: Karam karo phal ki ichcha mat karo. Imagine, the sermon of Gita is given on a battleground, the acme of action!

You may think this is spiritual mumbo-jumbo, and ask, “What is in this for me in practical terms?”  Well, one can show ‘yoga is skill in action’ translating as increased efficiency and improved productivity. Yes, since the 1950 there have been umpteen research studies on meditation’s psycho-physiology  and the effects of regularly experiencing the meditative state (yoga)  on everyday life.

What is well established by now is that meditation slows down the metabolism while mental alertness instead of reducing  (as seen when one is  drowsy) is actually enhanced. This unique state of consciousness called restful alertness is different from the three states of consciousness, which we normally experience, namely sleep, dreaming and wakefulness. And it washes away tension and stress. As a result, quality of sleep improves. There is relief in psychosomatic diseases like high blood pressure, ulcers, and migraine. Brain waves (as graphed by EEG or electroencephalogram) become more coherent and synchronous. More energy, ability to concentrate and a positive attitude all add up to improve efficiency and in turn productivity. The overall quality of life becomes better.

From the various forms of meditation, Transcendental Meditation or TM as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi ruled the roost for a few decades. Lately, mindfulness is finding favor in the corporate world as well as hospitals and health centers in America. Mindfulness comes from Buddhism if not the Buddha himself and has been popularized in our time by France based Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When you’re mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience.

As you can see, there is no religious symbolism, no belief system involved here. It is as secular as you can get. So is yoga.

If you have been practicing yoga asana for some time, some of these tips won’t be new to you. For the neophyte, certainly the advice will come handy.

PREPARATION: Best time to practice asanas is in the morning. Finish your ablutions, have a bath, and practice before breakfast. Wear loose, comfortable clothes. No shoes or belts. Best is to buy a sticky yoga mat (costs $10 onward) though a folded soft blanket will do too. The surface to do yoga should be neither too soft, nor too hard.

YOGA STUDIO: In America, most neighborhoods have yoga studios, with varying price structures. Shop around. Look at lineage if any. Prefer one belonging to a larger organization, solid affiliation or certification.

SELF-LEARNING: It is best to learn yoga from an experienced teacher or yoga master. At the same time, one can argue that while the results you  get from yoga practice may be profound and far-reaching, and its effects on the body-mind system subtle, the practice of asanas itself is not rocket science. You can learn on your own.

[quote_center]Yoga apps and online[/quote_center]

We know Baba Ramdev got his first surge of popularity when hundreds of thousands of people started practicing yoga following his instructions on his TV program on Aastha and other channels. Here in America with its DIY culture, many yoga studios and health clubs are offering online yoga classes that allow people to practice at home. Smartphone apps makes it still easier. Digital yoga lets beginners try it out away from strangers’ gaze, and without investing much. Yoga-gear giant Gaiam Inc has acquired the Yoga Studio app, which features 65 classes. It costs $3.99 but many other popular apps are free. While 60- to 90-minute classes are standard in a studio, online viewers often gravitate toward targeted workouts as short as 10-15 minutes. Adriene Mishler, an Austin, Texas,-based yogi, offers her classes free online at her YouTube channel, Yoga With Adriene.

DO NOT OVER-REACH: Remember the only sutra in Patanjali’s Yoga Darshana about postures is – sthira sukham asanam. A posture should be stable and comfortable. You aspire and move towards the final position of the posture, but if you can reach only halfway, that is fine then. With regular practice you will get there one day. Some yoga schools like Iyengar’s have props like cubical blocks and ropes as aids, but better not try them on your own.

[quote_center]A basic set of asanas[/quote_center]

If you can spare just 10-15 minutes a day for yoga practice, this is one set of asanas and sequence to follow: Vajrasana (legs folded, sitting on soles of feet), Paschimottanasana (sitting forward bend), Sarvangasana (shoulder stand), Halasana (plough), Bhujangasana (cobra), Shalabhasana (locust), Ardha Matsyendrasana (spinal twist), and  Pada Hastasana (standing forward bend). Finish with shavasana or copse posture. Mind you, the best known asana – shirsasana or the headstand – is discouraged by many masters these days.

SHAVASANA: You always end a session of yoga asanas with Shavasana, literally, the corpse pose. Many yoga classes may have an elaborate/longer version of the Shavasana. In the basic pose, you lie down on the back with legs stretched and about one foot apart; arms on the sides 6 inches away from the body; neck tilted to one side. Relax. Lie down in Shavasana after every asana or as and when you feel tired or strained.

BREATHING DURING ASANAS: One idea is to keep aware of breathing during asanas. And, of course, in some asanas, automatically you will feel like exhaling long and deep and pausing for a while before inhaling – that is the way to consciously do it too.

ANULOM VILOM PRANAYAMA: Thereare many elaborate pranayama (for example, Kapalbhati, which is Baba Ramdev’s favorite). Anulom vilom (alternate breathing) is the easiest and simple to practice. Sit erect in any meditative pose. Press your middle and ring finger on the left nostril and breathe out gently through the right nostril. Inhale through the right nostril. Now press down with the thumb on the right nostril and exhale through the left. Inhale through the left. Exhale through the right, and so on for about 5 minutes.

SURYA NAMASKAR: Surya Namaskar or the Sun Salutation is one of the most well-known yoga routines. As stand alone you can do a few rounds of Surya Namaskar when having limited time available. Best done early in the morning  for several health benefits. The routine consists of 12 sequenced forward and backward bending movements that stretch and flex the spinal column. It has a deep effect in detoxifying the organs through copious oxygenation and has a deeper relaxing effect.

COMPLEMENTARY/CONTRARY POSTURES: A forward bending asana should be followed by backward bending posture; a downward bending asana balanced by an upward bending.

Yoga must before meditation When overzealous meditators start doing long sittings, the experienced teachers dissuade them and strongly recommend first grounding the mind with asana and pranayama. It is not a crass thing to focus too much on the body. Being physically fit is important in spiritual pursuits too. In fact, the yogis and rishis of yore devised
asana/pranayama and even ayurveda so the spiritual aspirants stay healthy, physically and mentally. The higher chakra over-activation, caused by meditation without the grounding power of asanas and karma yoga can have deleterious consequences. I remember in the advanced residential courses I attended while in the Transcendental Meditation movement, each 20-30 minute meditation session was preceded by 10 minutes of yoga and 5 minutes of anulom vilom pranayama. Together this set was called a rounding. Depending on time available one could do 2-3 rounding in the morning and 2-3 in the evening.

Yoga has been growing exponentially – and organically -worldwide in the past few decades, but credit goes to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking the initiative to get United Nations to declare June 21 as International Day of Yoga to be observed every year.

The resolution in the UN General Assembly on Dec 11, 2014, endorsed by a record 177 members, recognized that “yoga provides a holistic approach to health and well-being, and that wider dissemination of information about the benefits of practicing yoga would be beneficial for the health of the world population.” The resolution invited all nations, UN and world organizations as well as civil society and NGOs to observe IDY to raise awareness of the benefits of practicing yoga.

The UN resolution followed Modi’s call during his address to UNGA on Sept 27 last year wherein he stated: “Yoga is an invaluable gift of India’s ancient tradition. It embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well-being. It is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and the nature.”

June 21 was suggested for yoga day because it is the Summer Solstice (longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere), and from the perspective of yoga, it marks the transition in the Sun’s celestial passage from north to south. This year June 21 falls on a Sunday.

Lauding Modi for IDY, the Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who himself had earlier lent support for a yoga day, said, “It is very difficult for any philosophy, religion or culture to survive without state patronage. Now, official recognition by the UN would further spread the benefit of yoga to the entire world.” Sri Sri and Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev (founder of Isha Yoga) are traveling around the world headlining events attended by thousands in the run up to the International Day of Yoga.

Yoga is at least 5,000-year-old and one of the six systems of Indian philosophy. It was codified by Maharishi Patanjali in 200 AD as Yoga Darshan, containing 195 Yoga Sutras. The core essence of Patanjali is the eightfold path or Ashtanga Yoga containing observances and practices for the holistic growth of a human being – physical, moral, mental and spiritual. Yoga’s literal meaning of union (of individual consciousness with universal consciousness) lays out its higher reaches.

In today’s world, though, yoga to most people has come to mean the practice of asanas – physical postures, but Patanjali’s treatise has only one sutra about postures- sthira-sukham asanam (2.46), which translated from Sanskrit means: posture should be stable and comfortable. So where are the numerous asanas practiced in yoga classes coming from?

The answer is, they originate from the age-old Hatha Yoga tradition, one treatise for which is called Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

The modern revival of yoga can be traced to T. Krishnamacharya, who started teaching it from Mysore in 1924. Among his students prominent in popularizing yoga in the West were B.K.S. Iyengar (Iyengar Yoga) and K. Pattabhi Jois (Viniyasa Yoga). Another major stream of influence within India and and abroad has been Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh and his equally formidable disciples including Swami Vishnu-devananda (Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers), Swami Satyananda (Bihar School of Yoga) and Swami Satchidananda (Integral Yoga). In India lately, Baba Ramdev has taken his yoga-pranayama mix for curing ailments to every nook and corner of the country.

Yoga also received a fillip with the introduction of Indian spirituality to the West starting with Swami Vivekananda’s iconic address to the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893 in Chicago. Followed meditation movements of Yogananda Paramahamsa (‘Autobiography of a Yogi’; fame), TM guru Maharishi Mahesh Yoga, Swami Muktananda, Osho Rajneesh, Yogi Bhajan, and more recently Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. These too had a yoga component.

Today, yoga is practiced by an estimated 300 million people worldwide. In the western countries, you can find a yoga studio almost every few blocks. In the US, the number pf yoga practitioners is estimated to be over 30 million. A survey by the redoubtable National Institutes of Health (NIH)  reported that in 2012, nearly 10% of US adults and 3% of children participated in yoga, almost double than 5% of adults and 2% of children a decade earlier.

The purists can argue that in its current form, yoga has been reduced to a system of physical exercises. But the practitioners must be liking it, enjoying it and benefiting from it enough to continue to spend their time and energy and money on the practice. Besides, one can also argue that the asana practice, unlike gym workouts, does create a sense of peace and equanimity –  a meditative state in short. Interest is also kindled in practitioners about yoga’s other dimensions and its origins.

Yoga is part of India’s great heritage. UNESCO’s director general Irina Bokova, who met PM  Modi in Paris earlier this year, affirmed that yoga is in the list of elements to be considered by the Intangible Heritage Committee for inscription on UNESCO’s register. She also told an Indian daily that “UNESCO’s general conference in October will also look to endorse the International Day of Yoga”.

Modi launched a portal (www.Idayofyoga.Org) for the International Day of Yoga onApril 10 from Paris while addressing a gathering at UNESCO headquarters. The portal gives details of events and venues connected with the IDY, besides videos on individual yoga postures.

The Government of India has planned to celebrate the IDY in countries around the world, including United States. In Washington DC, on June 21, Embassy of India is organizing a day-long event at the National Mall in collaboration with various yoga organizations, practitioners, and community organizations. In New York, Times Square is the leading official public site for  IDY and dignitaries from the UN and Indian government are scheduled to attend the day long event. It is special because Times Square Alliance has been holding a mass yoga event on Summer Solstice for the last 13 years at the Crossroads of the World.

Undoubtedly, the global observance of the International Day of Yoga and related events will make  millions of people to become aware of the tenets of yoga, encouraging many to follow a yogic lifestyle, a life that is healthy and harmonious. In turn, IDY is an opening for the world community to realize human oneness, and move beyond war and strife towards peace and harmony.

How does a common man picture Yoga?  Thanks to proponents of Yoga, like Baba Ramdev, yoga is just pranayam and asanas. But, in fact, Yoga is much more than the asanas, though asanas are an important part of the Yoga.

My friend Parveen Chopra has written an excellent article on Yoga which our readers can find on page 16 of this edition (web Link –International Day of Yoga – A GLOBAL CELEBRATION). Tracing the history and concept of Yoga, he writes,” Yoga is at least 5,000-year-old and one of the six systems of Indian philosophy. It was codified by Maharishi Patanjali in 200 AD as Yoga Darshan, containing 195 Yoga Sutras. The core essence of Patanjali is the eightfold path or Ashtanga Yoga containing observances and practices for the holistic growth of a human being – physical, moral, mental and spiritual. Yoga’s literal meaning of union (of individual consciousness with universal consciousness) lays out its higher reaches.

“In today’s world, though, yoga to most people has come to mean the practice of asanas – physical postures, but Patanjali’s treatise has only one sutra about postures- sthira-sukham asanam (2.46), which translated from Sanskrit means: posture should be stable and comfortable. So where are the numerous asanas practiced in yoga classes coming from? The answer is, they originate from the age-old Hatha Yoga tradition, one treatise for which is called Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

Undoubtedly, the global observance of the International Day of Yoga and related events will make millions of people to become aware of the tenets of yoga, encouraging many to follow a yogic lifestyle, a life that is healthy and harmonious. In turn, IDY is an opening for the world community to realize human oneness, and move beyond war and strife towards peace and harmony.”

I feel tempted to use Mr. Chopra’s words, yet again, to conclude,” Undoubtedly, the global observance of the International Day of Yoga and related events will make millions of people to become aware of the tenets of yoga, encouraging many to follow a yogic lifestyle, a life that is healthy and harmonious. In turn, IDY is an opening for the world community to realize human oneness, and move beyond war and strife towards peace and harmony.”