This year, we added a new component of Yoga Chakra, which was the combination of Hatha Yoga and Karma Yoga, Raja Yoga and Bhakti Yoga. After the Symposium we are having the Kriya Yoga and Jnana Yoga course. These three will conclude the new experience of Yoga Chakra, which we can have in our life and advance more than before. If I can be truthful to you and not diplomatic, I would say that we have practised not yoga, but physical exercises. We have not practised meditation, but we have tried to struggle with ourselves. We have not practised relaxation, because we fear to let go of the physical control, and there are people who react to the word ‘relaxation’. They become more tight.
If we sincerely look at how we have engaged ourselves in the yoga practice, personally and publicly, we will find that most of the emphasis of every teacher has been public exposition and not personal experience. That is the sad truth about the whole teaching of yoga. Even when people go back from this training, they will be teaching to the public what they have learned, for the ego is more important than the systems through which they can put themselves. This is an indication of the flaws of our nature and personality, as it does not allow us to go deeper into self-experience. We remain only at the surface.
It is like snorkelling. You see what is inside, yet you cannot go deeper, for the pipe is not long enough to allow you to go deeper. The pipe connecting us to air is the connection with the world. Connection with the world is incorrect. It has to be there, yet there has to be an understanding of when to withdraw and when to act. When you learn how to withdraw, yoga begins in your life.
The more you withdraw from your tension-filled engagements, the more ease, peace and relaxation you find, which allows your mind to look at itself. There has to be a balance in our external life There has to be the same emphasis given to personal experience as to teaching others. Teaching others fills the pocket. Exploring oneself fills the spirit. Both have to happen. I am not saying, ‘Don’t do this, or don’t do that.’ Apply your wisdom and know when to act and when to withdraw. That is the main learning in life. Since 2014, the whole focus is on experience. Let me make it clear as well, that experience is not something that everybody can have, as we have not cleared ourselves.
There are so many impressions, pratyayas, in the mind that if you watch the negative, you will not be able to handle it. People cannot handle the negative. Somebody asked a question, ‘Why don’t we look at the negative?’ Have you ever looked at the negative? Are you capable of looking at it? Until now you have been avoiding it. When you look at it, you feel disturbed. Nobody wants to look at the negative. Nobody wants to accept that it is there. There is always denial, saying, ‘The negative is not there.’ In that denial, there are always justifications, self-blame and blaming other people, and the whole thing creates a vicious circle. To confront the negative pratyayas is not easy for anybody. Even a psychiatrist cannot help.
Many people have experienced different types of trauma in their life, which have been suppressed and not released. Nobody can bring it out, not a psychiatrist, not any medicine, and not even gurus, for that matter. The strength to look at oneself has to come from you, not from outside. Therefore, Swami Sivanandaji always said, ‘Cultivate strength and cultivate the good in you.’ It may sound infantile, or to some it may be a philosophical statement; yet that is our lack of understanding. How to live life has just been explained in this simple sentence, ‘Be good and do good.’ When you apply this understanding to everything that you interact and deal with in life, will you be able to be good and do good even for a day? Not possible, because the awareness will dissipate. You will forget and normal behaviour traits will appear. Even that simple statement of being good and doing good is an impossible feat for many people. It becomes a nice idea, so if it is a nice idea, then do it and live it. The effort to constantly improve oneself should always be there. That is the attitude of a yogi, self-awareness and self-correction, not only practising this or that, but also observing and self-correcting.
In this Progressive Yoga Vidya Training, an effort was made to expose you to the pranic dimension, the pranamaya kosha. You are physically connected to annamaya kosha and we are connected to manomaya kosha. We are not fully connected to pranamaya, vijnanamaya or anandamaya koshas. We reach these two koshas, the sensorial and the sensual, the karmendriyas and jnanendriyas, raga and dwesha. There has never been any access to the pranamaya kosha, the pranic dimension. Just pumping breath is not enough, you need to explore the nadis, the flows, the chakras, the mudras which activate and balance them, the bandhas which activate and balance them, their impact on the body and prana.
Yoga is not physical practice. Ultimately, you have to connect with pranas, which become the vehicle through which you move to manomaya, vijnanamaya and anandamaya. Pranas also become the vehicle to ensure that your physical body maintains its optimum health and wellness, until its last breath. So, we have to focus on pranas.
Even in meditation, rather than focusing on the mind, you have to focus on prana. First, you have to know what your mind is. Remember that sentence of Paramahamsaji, ‘In your life, except you, everything else is the mind.’ Figure out which ‘you’ inside is free of the mind. What inside you is free of the mental influence? ‘Except you, everything else is the mind,’ so who are you? It is not an abstract question. It is not the question of jnana yoga, it is not the question of Ramana Maharishi, ‘Who am I?’ No. It is the cultivation of awareness of every moment that we live. Knowing that the moment is not going to come back, make the best of it and make the most of it, be happy in it, be content for the opportunity given to you to live that moment. Then you will realize, ‘Except you, everything else is the mind.’
I am not speaking of philosophy, but of a lifestyle which we can live and which can be lived. For practitioners of yoga, apart from practice, the focus also has to be on lifestyle, as it is the lifestyle which expresses the achievements and attainments of yoga. If I ask you, ‘What do you want in life?’ the majority will say, ‘Peace.’ Anybody in society will say, ‘Peace.’ Peace is not necessary; peace is the presence of happiness. If you are happy, you are at peace. When you are not happy, you are not at peace. Instead of searching for peace, begin to be happy. You won’t find peace in meditation. You won’t find peace in the Himalayas, in isolation, at the beach or in an ashram, not until you discover your own happiness. When you say that people are unhappy, you mean that they have lost their connection with their heart. When people lose the connection with the heart, they become unhappy. When there is connection to the heart, through anahata, people are happy, and with happiness comes peace.
Here is some advice: Do not look for happiness thinking, ‘If I go there, or go here, if I do this or do that, I will find peace.’ Try it. Try to meditate one day when you are not happy, but sad, and try to meditate one day when you are really happy and elated. See the difference of your own mind, your thoughts and nature. Happiness will lead to connection with other people. This connection with other people develops into kindness to other people. If you can understand this path, you will progress on the spiritual path. It is a progression; it is not an achievement, ‘I can achieve this by doing this.’ There is no achievement in yoga, there is only progression. You move from one point to another, to another, to another. It is like climbing steps. The foot which is on the step below does not move, until the foot on the step on top is fixed and firm. Only when the foot on the upper step is fixed and firm, will the other foot move and go to a higher step. Try climbing steps with both feet together, you will fall.
Just as you are careful climbing a staircase, you also have to be careful in spiritual life and in yogic life. There are people who like to play and flirt with yoga. It is their choice. Maybe you also like to play and flirt with yoga. It is your choice. At least I can ask you to be truthful and positive, constructive and creative, focused, committed and sincere. If you can follow that, you will be the winner.
29 October 2023, Progressive Yoga Vidya Training, Ganga Darshan, Munger