The Sri Yantra Aradhana forms the foundation of this ashram. This ashram is known as Bihar School of Yoga and as Vishwa Yogapeeth. Bihar School of Yoga is the academic aspect. It is the school where you come to learn yoga. After learning yoga, you go home and live your life. Vishwa Yogapeeth is the place where you realize yoga vidya. You realize the nature of yourself, you realize that it is possible to change, transform and overcome the dross of life and connect with inner and outer luminosity.
If you want to connect with your luminosity you have to work hard, not with the practice of asana and pranayama, but with the drive to change the negative into positive. Asana and pranayama are the physical yogas which will only give you physical benefits, not spiritual benefits. Fine-tuning the sattwic nature to overcome the tamasic will lead you to the dimension where you experience unity which is the purpose, aim and goal of yoga.
Vishwa Yogapeeth represents that commitment, drive, motivation and dedication to experiment and experience the totality of yoga vidya, the wisdom and knowledge of yoga. Bihar School of Yoga represents the sequential, linear, physical and psychological component of yoga which is what everybody is looking for and desiring today.
Yoga vidya few people desire. When you can’t reach the grapes because they are too high, you say the grapes are sour. Therefore, it is difficult for people to experiment and experience yoga vidya as it demands an awareness which is constantly aware, not in parts. It requires the ability to look at yourself objectively, it requires the wisdom to know the difference between the correct and incorrect and it requires the strength and the willpower to change the direction of the mind from self-orientated to divine-orientated.
Anybody who undertakes this journey in true sincerity will discover that we have really been given a lot by our creator, yet we are unaware of what we have been given. We need to grow up, just as a child identifies with toys when he is young and then comes out of the attraction of toys as the body and mind grow. In the same way, there is a need for our mind and emotions to grow, mature and become ripe – not to react but to act. In this manner step by step we will complete the journey.
7 February 2019, Basant Panchami, Ganga Darshan, Munger