21/06/2020
Yoga is not merely a set of physical exercises, it is also a process of witnessing, becoming watchful with more awareness.
During this pandemic period health experts are advising people to practice Yoga at home to offset the growing level of anxiety. There are also predictions of rise in post-traumatic stress after the world is declared corona virus-free.
Some people living alone might be feeling a forced sense of solitude. We have to look at it differently. This period of quarantine and isolation is not exactly loneliness.
In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali gave a term, Kaivalya to denote the state of ultimate aloneness. When we sit down in the morning to start the first step of Yoga - Atma Yoganushasnam, bringing discipline to mind and body - that moment creates a powerful energy field wherin for the first time, we meet our true self.
For some, this meeting could be painful, because it shows us a mirror that can reflect our inner state. However due to a natural tendency we have been avoiding looking into this mirror, because we love to live in a crowd, just to avoid the feeling of emptiness that exists in all of us.
Yoga is the bridge that connects chaos to nothingness. It is the seed in us that can help cultivate tremendous awareness, turning us into brilliant flame of individuality.
To become pure gold has to pass through fire. Yoga is the fire which prepares us for bodily strength and absolute consciousness. It is a total methodology, a science to transform the chaos within into a blissful state of perfect being.
In Patanjali's words the first step is to create total order within like a crystallised centre. Yoga postures are just tools for centering of the mind-body mechanism. through postures, Patanjali says once can remove chaos and bring in harmony.
Secondly Yoga is not a therapy. It is a discipline to bring about a balanced state of health. Yoga transforms our goal oriented, result-oriented mindset so that we live in the here and now in this very moment.
If we are able to tell the body to remain in that particular posture, the mind too will follow silently. According to Patanjali, it is because the body and mind are in total synchronicity and the centering has happened.
Patanjali says - Yoga is the means to lift the veil. We see things as they exist around us, it gives us the vision to discriminate - that we are not just the body or the slave of the mind. Yoga therefor takes us from an external periphery to a state of inner communion.
- Inspired.
Video Courtesy - Rukmini Vijaykumar