Photo courtesy of Dave Bouskill, ThePlanetD.com
Last year, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared June 21 to be International Yoga Day at the United Nations General Assembly and 177 nations supported the resolution. Modi said, “Yoga is an invaluable gift of India’s ancient tradition. It embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well-being. It is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness within yourself, the world and the nature. By changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help us deal with climate change. Let us work towards adopting an International Yoga Day.”
WHEN I STARTED TO attend yoga classes in Toronto more than 20 years ago, I couldn’t bend my back. I remember trying in vain to do basic poses, like “downward dog,” but it was when I attempted cobra, a back bend, that I knew I was in trouble. I could not lift myself more than a few inches off the floor, while everyone around me were floating up in graceful arcs.
So, in the beginning, my yoga practise was almost purely physical. I went to a chiropractor for treatments and attended yoga class diligently, led by a tiny, exuberant Scottish man swathed in white, a member of the 3HO Kundalini organization. Eventually, my spine started to bend and I became much more flexible.
That was my introduction to yoga, an art-and-science that I had long wanted to do, and finally did. From then to now, my yoga practise has ebbed-and-flowed, but my commitment and interest has never really wavered. Over time, my practise deepened, and went through various phases, as I became more and more interested in the entirety of yoga — and not just the physical postures, the asanas.
Following the sudden death of my mother (1998), breaking up with my fiance (2001) and the death of my father (2004), I found myself in an intractable depression. It was yoga that helped get me out of it. Breathing and moving. By this time I was practising at Yoga Space in Toronto with a dynamic, caring and magical Flow Yoga teacher named Bibi.
Photo courtesy of Christine Lynes
Breathing & Dreaming of India
Already in my 40s, I decided it was time to finally start living my dreams. My first dream was to become a certified yoga teacher. I was the oldest and least flexible person in my yoga teacher training class, and I was one of the first to complete the program and graduate. It was during yoga teacher training that I had a powerful, cathartic experience (perhaps a kundalini experience) and suddenly felt compelled to go to India.
After 11 months of planning and saving, I flew to India on December 4, 2005 for six months of travel and yoga study / practise. By going to India, I manifested a life-long dream. (And in India, I started writing from my heart. Another life-long dream.)
You are the universe looking at itself. Dr. Pankaj Seth
Studying yoga in India was eye-opening to say the least. I realized that though I was deeply involved in yoga in Canada, I was swimming in a pond. In India, I discovered the ocean. The yoga ocean is a vast repository of wisdom and experience. And it’s (mostly) not about being flexible. Yoga is so much more than what is generally presented or understood in the west; it is so much more than a system of exercises. It is way to self-realization, to peace, to increased consciousness and connection. In India, while studying yoga, my mind opened up to ideas I never imagined.
What is Yoga? by Dr Pankaj Seth
In the context of the Indian civilization Yoga is a path to Moksha, or Self realization.
Moksha is itself one of the four aims of life, along with Dharma/Virtue, Artha/Prosperity and Kama/Enjoyment.
The Four Aims of Life
The Purusharthas, or ‘The four aims of Life’ is the over arching organizational scheme in Indic thought. There are teachings and texts for each of the four aims, such as the the Arthashastra, a voluminous text on statecraft and worldly wisdom, the Kama Sutra, Dharmashastras like the great epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, and Mokshasashtras like the Yoga Sutra. Depending on aptitude, individuals may be strongly inclined towards one or more of the aims at different times in their lives. Individuality is key here as not all humans will take the same path, and this makes for the great diversity seen in India within the worldly and spiritual spheres.
Self Realization
The theme of Yoga and self-realization is found in the earliest Indic texts, the Vedas and Upanishads and this becomes codified as the Yoga Sutra about 2,000 years ago, giving a well defined path and practices. Other, related paths were also developed and codified over this time, like Buddhism, Jainism, and later Tantra.
In the Bhagavad Gita different types of Yoga are mentioned, such as Karma Yoga (service), Bhakti Yoga (devotion) and Janana Yoga (knowledge), once again giving individuals a choice according to their aptitude.
The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali contains an eight-fold path, beginning with ethical considerations for the aspirant, and describes a stepwise praxis leading to meditation. This text does not list postures other than the seated meditation pose and the mention of postures familiar today occurs in later Yoga texts as an assistance to the practise of meditation.
The Limits of Thought
The Yoga Sutra begins with “The aim of Yoga is to still and thereby transcend thought.”
The Mundaka Upanishad, centuries before the Yoga Sutra gives a very good understanding of why this would be stated in saying “Self knowledge is of two kinds, historical and timeless. And thought cannot reach the timeless.” Therefore, Yoga/Meditation.
Thought in trying to derive ultimate self-knowledge seeks through constructing cause-effect chains the absolute beginning of the world, of which the individual is a part. Without knowing how it all began one’s self knowledge remains partial. But thought cannot reach what it frames as the first cause, its attempts being similar to chasing the horizon and which can never be reached. Therefore the transcending of thought is desired because it is too limited an approach to self-knowledge.
In this regard, the physicist David Bohm once asked, “If thought is only part of the whole, can it ever contain the whole?”
Shiva, God of Yoga, in Rishikesh, India
Consciousness
In the Yoga tradition consciousness is understood as the deepest aspect of reality, on which all sensory and cognitive phenomena depend, including the body. If consciousness were merely an historically arisen attribute of matter then the exploration of consciousness could not lead to an ultimate knowledge as the Yoga tradition asserts.
The Yoga tradition is opposed to the philosophy of Materialism, and Theism, both of which do take seriously the idea of ‘the first cause,’ the former mathematizing it as ‘the big bang’ and the latter anthropomorphizing as ‘God.’ The idea of God found in traditional Western theology, as the Creator apart from its creation does not exist in the Indian approach. In fact, the text ‘Yoga Vasistha’ says “If this God is truly the ordainer of everything in this world, of what meaning is any action?” Due to this, there is nowadays academic criticism of using the words ‘Religion’ and ‘God’ in talking about what in India is called ‘Dharma.’ Dharma is not the same as Religion.
Two kinds of knowledge
Dharmic epistemology sees two kinds of knowledge, Gyana and Vigyana. Vigyana is akin to Science, the method of measurement, thought and since it relies upon causality but invariably gets stuck at the ‘first cause’ it is understood as useful but limited.
While Vigyana is divided or dualistic knowledge, Gyana is non-dual knowledge, transcendent of measurement and thought and this is the goal of meditation in Yoga.
Self
It is easy to see that thought encounters immeasurability when it reaches for the first cause. The Upanishads say that three things are beyond measure, Atma/Self, Jnana/Consciousness and Brahman/Totality. These are all beyond measure because they are not external objects, they are all self. One cannot step outside of oneself, nor awareness, nor the totality. Knowledge of what is beyond measure can only be in the form of self-knowledge.
Meditative states if deep enough, give rise to a visionary self knowledge that Yoga points to, and the Chandodya Upanishad speaks of as “Tat Tvam Asi,” meaning “This is you.” You are the universe looking at itself.
Mariellen Ward is a freelance travel writer whose personal style is informed by a background in journalism, a dedication to yoga and a passion for sharing the beauty of India’s culture and wisdom with the world. She has traveled for about a year altogether in India and publishes an India travel blog, Breathedreamgo.com. Mariellen also writes for magazines and newspapers.
