International Yoga Day: Yoga isn’t just about asanas; it is skill in action and expression

Yoga, today, has somehow become associated with asanas alone. Asanas are actually a very minuscule part of yoga. There is so much more to it. Yoga unites all the loose ends of your existence; going back to the consciousness, and being established in the source. Yoga is the wave uniting with its depth.

The Bhagavad Gita says, “Yogah Karmasu Kaushalam”, meaning yoga is skill in action and expression. Yoga is the skill to live your life, manage your mind, deal with emotions, be with people, be in love, and not let that love turn into hatred. In this world everyone loves, but that love does not stay the same for long. It turns into hatred, sometimes almost immediately. Yoga is that skill, that perspective, that maintains love as love.

You could be watching a sunset or working in the office, or cooking and if you are doing these tasks out of joy and love, you are a yogi. The same action devoid of any love or care is not yoga. When you give yourself fully to the task with 100 percent sincerity and commitment, you are a yogi. It keeps your spirit alive, your energy high and brings you achievement!

If you want to be sane, sensitive, strong, and intuitive, you have to follow the path of yoga. It expands your awareness, sharpens your intellect, and enhances your intuitive ability. It is the emotional integration and spiritual elevation with a touch of a mystic element that gives you a glimpse of something that is beyond all imagination.

The science of yoga is not new to anybody in the world. If you observe any child, from the age of three months to three years, all they do is yoga poses. A baby exhibits all the qualities of a yogi - its postures, breathing patterns, perceptual ability, sharpness, and the ability to stay in the present moment. A baby exhibiting wonderment is a preface to yoga: ‘Vismayo Yoga Bhoomika’. The ‘wow’ we experience in life is a prelude to yoga. With time, we tend to lose our naturalness and intuitive ability. With yoga, we get back to our original nature. It means feeling the freshness of a child, to have simplicity, sincerity, a mind without fear, inhibition or arrogance.

It is the wisdom of yoga that transforms one’s attitude from arrogance to self-confidence, from meekness to humility, from the burden of dependence to the realisation of interdependence, and from a limited ownership to oneness with the whole.

Prejudice about religion, race, class, gender, educational status, and financial status is an issue we face today. All these different types of prejudice have clogged the mind and that’s how conflicts arise in society. Yoga helps us to reach out and resolve this conflict by spontaneously and naturally freeing our minds of prejudice.

Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, ‘Samatvam Yoga Uchyate’, which means equanimity in the mind is a sign of a yogi. It is the ability to remain centred in adverse situations. Yoga brings us back to our nature which is harmony and joy. While postures make the body healthy, pranayama and meditation take the mind deep within to the seer. When there is harmony within, the journey of life is calmer, happier, and more fulfilling and flows towards uniting with its very source.

The author is a humanitarian leader, spiritual teacher and an ambassador of peace. The views expressed are personal.

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