1 yoga means union
In the Western part of the world, if you utter the word “yoga”, people think of impossible physical postures. This is a very distorted idea of what yoga is. Yoga is not about bending and twisting your body or holding your breath. It is a mechanism and a technology to get you to that state of experience where you see reality just the way it is .
The word “yoga” literally means “union”.
As you sit here, your idea and your sense and experience of who you are is very strong. You are here as an individual. But what the trees are exhaling right now, you are inhaling; what you are exhaling, trees are inhaling. In other words, one-half of your lungs are hanging out there . This is not just in terms of breath. Today modern physics is proving to you that as you sit here, every subatomic particle in your body is in constant transaction with everything else in existence. If this transaction stops, you will cease to exist. So, yoga means to know the union of existence by experience.
Modern science is proving to you that the whole existence is just one energy. The religions of the world have been saying for a long time that God is everywhere. Whether you say,” God is everywhere,” or you say “Everything is one energy”, we are talking about the same reality. It is just that a scientist has never experienced this and has arrived at it through mathematical deductions; a religious person has not experienced it-he but believes it because it is written somewhere or has been said by someone.
If you are such a hard nut that you are not willing to settle for deductions or belief systems, then you become a yogi. When you know the oneness of existence like you experience the five fingers of your hand, then we say you are in yoga.
2 Yoga signifies a complete path by itself
What yoga means is to move towards an experiential reality where one knows the ultimate nature of existence and the way it is made. Essentially, in the tradition, once we attach the word “yoga” to anything, it indicates that it is a complete path by itself. We’ll say “Hatha yoga”, but we will not say “Asana yoga”.
If it was just a simple practice or an exercise, you would approach it one way. If it was an art form or just entertainment, it could be approached another way. Today, people say “Recreational Yoga”,” HealthYoga” or people refer to it as an art form. They think they are doing a service to yoga by saying it is an art form. No. The moment you attach the word “Yoga,” it indicates it is a complete path by itself.
3 Yoga means to break the cycle of life
All aspects of physicality in the universe are cyclical. Planets are going around the Sun, the solar system is moving, and everything in the galaxy and cosmos is cyclical. The more you are identified with your physical system, the more cyclical you are. Your experiences and the process of life are cyclical. If you watch carefully enough, even the situations that you face in your life come in cycles.
If you are going in cycles, it just gives you an impression that you are going somewhere but you are not really going anywhere; you are going through the same thing again and again. Yoga means to open the circle and stretch it out like a straight line so that if you follow the line you will go somewhere-you are not going round and round. Many of you may have already experimented and noticed. Let’s say you might have been doing sadhana for a few years. If you just stop your sadhana for three months, you will see so many compulsions that you never imagined were a part of you, which have been gone for a long time, suddenly all became a part of you
These compulsions will suddenly come back if you just break the sadhana because nature is not going to release you so easily. You have to work at it and work at it; otherwise, you must be happy doing the circle. If you are not conscious, if your vision is too limited and can only see three feet in front of you, then it is all real. If you open up and see the whole circle and the way you are going, it looks like a circus. Definitely, you will not want it to continue forever and will want to do something about it.
4 yoga means liberating yourself from memory
Repetitive cycles of compulsiveness are happening because there are various types of memories in the system. There is a huge volume of memory-genetic memory, evolutionary memory, elemental memory, atomic memory, karmic memory, inarticulate memory, and articulate memory. If this memory was not there, your body would not even take a form. There are so many billions of people on the planet, but everyone took this form legs, two hands, two eyes. When you were in your mother’s womb, your body knew it had to take on this form. If the memory was not there, we don’t know what form it would have taken.
You have retained your physical form this way only because of memory. Memory always means that which is past. If you go and watch a cinema, what happens so big and so real, more real than the real? It becomes a bigger reality than reality because it is so exaggerated. But all this is just memory being played out. It is recorded in a film or a digital format, or whichever way, but it is just a memory, it is already over. If the information that you carry, which is memory, is the only thing that determines the nature of who you are right now, that means you are past. There is no real life; it is just a play of memory.
Even your thoughts, emotions, and compulsions as to what you like, dislike, whom you love, and whom you don’t love, are all by memory. It is already past. You loved someone yesterday and are living with that memory. If you are trying to live that which is over, that which is will bypass you.
Yoga means to liberate yourself from that information that determines who you are right now. That information that determines the color of your skin and the shape of your body should not determine how you think, feel, and experience your life . If that information doesn’t determine how you are right now, then you are moving into Yoga.
The daily morning sadhana is just to gradually create distance from that information. You don’t have to lose it. If you forget it, you will once again do the same idiotic things all over again. The more unpleasant your life has been, the more you should never forget. This is not about forgetfulness, but about being able to carry it.
Today you have memory sticks. If it is plugged in all the time and all of it is playing, you will go crazy. But if you stick it in your computer when you want or put it in your pocket is good, no problem. Memory is still there but not compulsively working through you. When you want, you can consciously activate it; otherwise, you can keep it aside and it lies there. Once that freedom comes, memory is not a problem. But memory is a problem right now because it is playing up all the time. Yesterday’s likes and dislikes are determining who you are today. It will not allow you to experience what is today, it will not allow you any perception of life.
5 Yoga is a technology for transformation
Everything that human beings can do is essentially an expression of who they are.
Someone sings a song, someone dances, someone writes a book, someone paints a picture. You may be conscious of it or not, but everything that you say and do is essentially an expression of who you are.
Yoga is diametrically opposite to this because it is not an expression of who you are; it is about determining who you are; it is about changing the very fundamentals of one’s existence. Today there is substantial medical and scientific evidence to show that the very fundamentals of the activity of your brain, your chemistry, and even your genetic content can be changed by practicing different systems of yoga. This needs no confirmation because we have already witnessed this, but today there is scientific data to prove it.
If you find full expression through any particular activity, it may also leave you somewhat transformed. If you cook, sing, or dance with all your heart, some transformation may happen. That’s only a certain impact that is happening because of absolute involvement in a particular activity, but essentially that activity by its nature is an expression of who you are, not determining the nature of who you are. But yoga is not an expression, it is a technology through which you can change the shape of who you are- both literally and otherwise.