Question: Is this your first trip to Australia?
Swamiji: No, the third one.
Question: When were your other trips?
Swamiji: 1968 and 1969.
Question: What brought you here?
Swamiji: This conference – the yoga conference of the International Yoga Fellowship.
Question: How did you first come to yoga?
Swamiji: I was born with yoga. I did not accept yoga as a different way of life.
Question: How important is it when practising yoga to maintain a positive attitude yoga?
Swamiji: Even if one doesn’t have a positive mental attitude, one will develop it though the practice of yoga. It is not the positive mental attitude that is necessary for yoga, it is yoga that is necessary for the positive mental attitude.
Question: What is the main message of yoga? What is the main purpose of yoga?
Swamiji: Better control of the mind and creativity.
Question: How can yoga increase knowledge of oneself?
Swamiji: By practice, by emulating it, by living it.
Question: How do you live it though?
Swamiji: There are methods of yoga, technical and practical, which you have to practise every day for some time so that you can develop the body and mind, and bring about a coordination between both.
Question: Our lifestyle is making us suffer more, and trust each other less. How can yoga change that situation?
Swamiji: Yoga is going to change that situation. The present picture is very dark, because the people who come to yoga arrive in very confused states of mind. Now that they have taken to yoga, in the course of time, their minds will evolve. As such all will change, and unity will come between man and man.
Question: Are there many world leaders, top politicians who practise yoga?
Swamiji: There certainly are. Of course, I don’t know everyone, but as far as I can say top leaders all over the world are aware of yoga. And even those who are not practising are convinced of the effective role of yoga in the mental make-up of man.
Question: Is yoga a religion?
Swamiji: No, it is a science, definitely it is a science. Of course, ultimately a man’s particular religion may accept yoga in the background of his own culture.
Question: But it does have spiritual overtones, doesn’t it?
Swamiji: Certainly, when the mind evolves, it becomes spiritual. Question: But there is no conflict between yoga and established religions?
Swamiji: There certainly should not be, just as there is no conflict between biology and Christianity. One is a science, the other a religion. As science is necessary for man, religion is also necessary.
Question: How can yoga be applied in everyday western life, say, for a businessman?
Swamiji: Just by practising. He must find some time for the practice of yoga, either in the morning or in the evening, as it may be convenient for him.
Question: When you said “Yoga can make a man more creative,” what did you mean by that?
Swamiji: The limitation of the mind must be removed. The mind has limitations. You see, in everyday society there are limited minds, there are unlimited minds, there are potential minds.
Question: So you mean that if a man did yoga very well and he wasn’t very good at mathematics, he could become a mathematician?
Swamiji: Certainly he could become a brilliant mathematician; he could become a brilliant scientist, a great swami, a very great.
Question: A composer of music?
Swamiji: That too.
Question: Do you think yoga has any political aspirations?
Swamiji: No, I don’t think so because yoga brings about an evolution of the mind, thereby transcending political ambitions. Political ambitions belong to the lower category of evolution, not the higher category of evolution.
Question: How can yoga be taught to all people internationally?
Swamiji: Oh, as a science; you can teach it in schools, in public institutions. You should have academics for it. That’s what you can do.
Question: Would you say that yoga is more of a physical thing than a mental thing?
Swamiji: No, it is a physical thing as well as a mental thing. After all, when yoga has to cater to the needs of the human being, it should cater to his physical as well as his mental needs.
Question: It has a very definite ritual about it. Is it a religious thing? I mean, are you a religious man?
Swamiji: I have a religion, but yoga doesn’t have a religion. Yoga is a science. Even as I study a science like biology, anatomy or physiology, likewise, I can study yoga also.
Question: But what about the ritual that goes with it? Is that absolutely necessary?
Swamiji: Not at all. Rituals depend on individuals.
Question: For instance, the colour of the clothes that you are wearing; why do you wear that particular colour?
Swamiji: This particular colour is the colour of a swami; it is the colour of a sannyasin. It means we are dedicated to a purpose which concerns and involves the evolution of the inner personality.
Question: Do you get any physical vibration from that colour?
Swamiji: Definitely. Purity, strength, and an undaunted will to live.
Question: Swamiji, why have you shaved your head?
Swamiji: I have shaved my head in order to facilitate meditation, to be more receptive at the time of communion with the inner self.
Question: How does shaving the head help you to do this?
Swamiji: This concerns the science of magnetism. When you have no hair, you receive a greater amount of cosmic energy in the brain. During the period of meditation this cosmic energy helps you to maintain the height of consciousness.
Question: One of the greatest problems facing our society is hypertension, stress and heart attacks. What help can yoga be in this?
Swamiji: I personally believe as I have experienced that for stress and strain there is no better remedy than yoga.
Question: Well, you know, an average businessman mightn’t like to wear the gear, shave his head and that sort of thing. How can he get into yoga in a way that’s acceptable to him?
Swamiji: He has to remain a businessman, but he must practise certain postures and other techniques while at home, and then he’ll get rid of his problems.
Question: Would you like to estimate how much it is going to increase his efficiency.
Swamiji: Well, it depends on how much practice he does. If the businessman, executives and administrators devote some of their time to the practice of yoga, even if they don’t develop efficiency, they can go a long way towards preventing stress, strain, nervous breakdowns, hypertension and so on.
Question: Do you think that we would have a better world if there was a movement amongst politicians to practise yoga?
Swamiji: Well, I believe that politicians must practise yoga. Thereby their consciousness will evolve, and they will be able to look at the problems of the world from a broader and more powerful angle.
Question: Which is more important, the mind or the body?
Swamiji: Both are important for each there. The mind is important, but the body carries it.
Question: Tell me, how much travelling around the world do you do?
Swamiji: Almost every month, sometimes to South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, India, others places.
Question: Who pays for your fares?
Swamiji: The world pays for my fares. I have got hundreds of thousands of good friends all over the world.
Question: You don’t have any financial problems?
Swamiji: I have no financial problems. I have no personal bank account anywhere in the world. I don’t own a penny. I have no money; I have no property.
Question: So when people want you to go somewhere they just send you a ticket?
Swamiji: Yes. From the other angle I am a beggar. I have no bank account of my own; I have no personal property of my own; I have no relatives.
Question: You have no wife.
Swamiji: No, not at all, never. I don’t need one.
Question: Why do you not need a wife?
Swamiji: Well, I don’t need one that is all. It is my personal mind. A wife is not the need of everyone. A wife is a social compulsion. Society has created a tradition, so everybody is following it. Tomorrow society will change, and then maybe many people would not like to have one.
Question: What about the economic problems some countries have, unemployment, and so on. Can yoga be of some help in solving these sorts of problems, mass problems?
Swamiji: I can tell you very frankly that I don’t know much about economics, but I know that yoga can bring about a great change in the mind, and then man can find the way for himself.
Question: You don’t think there is any conflict between yoga and traditional ethics?
Swamiji: No. Ethics has its own stand and yoga has its own. There cannot be any contradiction.
Question: I mean yoga, for example, wouldn’t encourage people to drop out of normal day-to-day life and lead the life of tranquillity but without working.
Swamiji: No, yoga believes in hard work, a disciplined mind and alertness of personality. Everything should be creative and not destructive. Yoga believes in the evolution of the human mind, the human body, one’s career and everything. So naturally it is never in disagreement with any religion or science.
Question: Swamiji, is the physical fitness aspect important with regard to yoga?
Swamiji: No, not necessarily. Even if one is physically unfit and takes to yoga, he becomes fit. Fitness is not important for yoga, but yoga is important for fitness.
Question: There are no strict rules about diet that come into yoga, are there?
Swamiji: No, not at all.
Question: How about if one of your devotees is a diabetic and he can’t eat a lot of rice?
Swamiji: He will eat something else which is good for him. He is not restricted. You see, yoga is also for sick people, and therefore the restrictions will apply according to the sickness. Yoga is also for people who meditate long hours on inner communion or awareness of their inner soul. There can be some restrictions then, because long hours of meditation can bring down the inner temperature of the body. If you eat a heavy diet when the inner temperature of the body is brought down, it will impair your digestive system.
Question: For the people who are listening here today who may doubt what you have been saying, would you suggest a quick little exercise that they could do right now which would convince them that yoga can bring about some changes?
Swamiji: Well, first of all they should practise an exercise known as surya namaskara. After that they should quietly sit down, close their eyes and concentrate on their normal and natural breath flowing through the nostrils for as long as they can manage. This is the exercise with which meditation begins.
Question: How long should they do that for?
Swamiji: Well, they can start with five minutes and work up to fifteen minutes.
Question: And what should someone who is a complete novice feel after that?
Swamiji: After that he will feel totally relaxed, as if he has come out of a mental crisis.
7 October 1976, Sydney Airport, broadcast throughout Australia by TV, radio and press, published in YOGA Vol.15, No.1 (January 1977)