1983 is an important year in the history of the Bihar School of Yoga and an important year in the life of our guru, Satyananda Paramahamsa. Born in 1923, he left his home in 1943, began his mission in 1963 and in 1983 he will direct his full energy to the propagation of yoga in every city, town and village, according to the injunctions of his guru. 1983 will climax with a mammoth yoga conference which will be held from the first to the seventh of November at Ganga Darshan. Yoga minded people from all countries will participate.
1983 is also an important year in the history of yoga. In documenting the growth and acceptance of yoga and tantra over the last twenty years, we have been continually amazed by the powerful influence yoga has exerted and by its acceptance at all levels of society. Yoga is being soaked up by the dry sponge of society, a society facing not only spiraling tensions and crises, but finding itself in spiritual ignorance, with no purpose or myth to follow. The resultant feelings of emptiness, hopelessness and despair are contagious and remain at subconscious levels, preventing us from experiencing real joy or satisfaction in our lives.
Many groups of people are today spreading the message of yoga and other meditative disciplines, especially in the affluent west, in an attempt to resurrect the inner balance necessary for the survival and evolution of the race as a whole. There are also many other charitable organisations, groups and clubs looking for a worthy cause to support. Indeed, there are a multitude of problems to be faced and solved, at all levels of society, however, it is vitally important that these groups and organisations become aware of the need for yoga in the world today.
Many clubs are directing time, money and energy towards medical problems, eye camps, supporting hospitals and so forth. A lot of energy is, therefore, being spent at the curative level rather than the preventive level. Time and money could he saved if we realised that yoga's main role lies not only in prevention, but in transforming our lives so that we have the requisite health and energy to apply ourselves productively and usefully in society. This applies even at the lower levels of society.
Apart from its, acceptance and spreading influence in the medical world, yoga has also been accepted by other areas of the scientific community and is being used as the basis for scientific research which promises to push our society toward a higher and better standard of living. Typical of the scientists who have realised the potential of yoga and meditation is Professor Brian Josephson of Cambridge University, Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 1973 for his work on superconductivity. At that time he was 33 years old, a prodigy whose scientific career seemed to have virtually no limits. Less than one year after winning the Nobel Prize he started to practise meditation and this led his research from physics to higher states of consciousness and the paranormal.
In an interview in 'Omni' July 1982, Josephson states that he had been fundamentally seeking new insights into the nature of reality and had reached a point where conventional physics was not offering the scope he wanted. He states that meditation allowed him to see that the discoveries in physics were not as important as he had thought... "Only then did the questions of mind and the development of consciousness come in to fill this gap." Apart from feeling that meditation has improved his perception in various ways, such as enabling him "to use intuition effectively", Josephson plans to use it as the basis for scientific research into intelligence and language.
In keeping up with the trends and developments in yogic research and breakthroughs, the Bihar School of Yoga Research Coordinating Centre has been systematically collecting, documenting and correlating thousands of research papers and experiences in yoga. We are putting a great deal of our own time and energy into a seven storey building at our Ganga Darshan ashram. This building, which should be nearly completed by the 1983 celebration, will house the research equipment which will enable us to do our own research and set yoga on the road to scientific validation and acceptability.
All individuals or groups interested in helping to spread yoga in the attempt to soothe present day suffering at a nation wide or world wide level should contact the Bihar School of Yoga. Organising camps or donations of time and money to this noble and worthy cause will support the propagation of yoga. May we all meet under the banner of yoga in November 1983, a turning point in the history of Bihar School of Yoga and a pinnacle in the life of our guru and inspirer, Satyananda Paramahamsa.