Model: Dr Gouri Lekshmy. Photo: Rinkuraj MattancheriyilThe coming years would offer a golden period for spirituality because changes would manifest to the individual as well as to the society. In the US, many universities are considering spiritual studies as main subjects of study. Even well known scientists have started to debate about spirituality and yoga.
The progress of spirituality needs economic growth because one cannot explain spirituality to a person who is hungry. Doing so would in fact be cruel. Only when one is fed well does one understand that there is something still lacking in life that is troubling the self.
Similarly, before attaining financial progress, one should create a spiritual foundation because it would be very distressing if peace is not attained even after attaining all things material. We need to strive for peace and health for the world. For that, each nation has to grow spiritually, politically and economically.
Photo: B. JayachandranYoga
Whatever a person can do in life is basically the projection of self realization. Yoga on the other hand, is all about changing the fundamentals of one's being. There is proof that yoga can change the basic functioning, chemistry and genetic makeup of the brain. Yoga is not a demonstration, it is a path, it is a means of attaining higher levels of existence.
The Karmic essence in you makes you select a uterus to manifest in the world. The interactions and environmental influences that you face after birth molds you into the individual that you are on a particular day. Your likes and dislikes are all because of automatic reflexes hidden in the body as memories. If these memories were not there, then one would not have been born. Memories denote something that has passed and if reflexes determine your behavior, it means that you are symbolic of the past. You are a sum total of the past.
You live today with the feeling that you loved or hated someone yesterday. You cling to memories to exit today. Like memory sticks, you need to carry memories when they are needed; when not needed, you need to cast them aside and keep them dormant. That is ideal.
Man, or woman, collects a lot of memories and based on them creates a personality around oneself. If one can break the limits of this solidification of memories, then one does not become an individual, but a presence, like god.
Model: Dr Gouri Lekshmy. Photo: Rinkuraj MattancheriyilYoga helps us to transcend the body. If you can continue in an asana for a minute without changes to your breathing or pulse, it means that your body is healthy and balanced. If the body can maintain that level then it would not be disturbed. When the body is free of afflictions, it has the energy to enquire about higher levels of life.
Everything in this world moves cyclically. Yoga makes changes to the body and its energy levels to help you break the cycle and attain freedom. However light your penance is, doing it regularly would allow you to see that it has created a kind of freedom in you. That would slowly help you to get out of the vicious cycle of life.
(Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev is the founder of Isha Foundation, a non-profit organisation which offers yoga programs around the world.)
