REAL YOGA

Yoga is deepening in its meaning today. It is not just acrobatics and physical maneuvers. We are interested in yoga because we are troubled physically by psychosomatic diseases but more by mental disturbances – tension, anxiety, fear, inability to meet situations of life etc.

Can yoga bring one to peace, confidence, clarity of life? Is one more interested in healthy mental and physical conditions ? Unfortunately the yoga teachers are teaching physical acrobatics like asanas, kriyas, bandhas etc. but besides bombastic talks on Atma, Brahma, Kundalini, they could not provide powerful experience of inner tranquility and insights.

The Yoga Institute, Santacruz, though 93 years old today has taught simple asanas, pranayama, Kriyas, mudras, etc. but has maintained in all the teachings the blossoming of natural experiences of inner calm, inner insight, inner understanding of life. Yoga should be understood correctly.

This is the campaign The yoga Institute has launched upon. The explanations and insights are backed by providing people these kind of experiences. So the Yoga Institute has modified traditional practices like meditation as conditioning exercises. Savasana or dead body pose as psychosomatic experience of great mental and physical relaxation and opportunities to possess intuitive insights into them.

The question before modern yoga teaches is:
1. Can one be in a peaceful state for half an hour without much thought?
2. Can one subtract and remove “I” in one’s conversation for five/six hours at a stretch?
3. Can one experience changes in state of consciousness without talking ? Can one understand his/her state of consciousness ?

Published in the Sept 2010 edition of Yoga & Total Health Magazine.