The Essence of Yoga

In the past few years, yoga seems to have gained immense popularity not just in India, but all across the globe. More and more people have been turning to yoga, as it has helped them not only to get rid of their physical as well as psychological problems, but they also found it a useful tool to remain physically fit and emotionally stable. This can be seen as a positive step by many. But the sad part is that the essence of yoga seems to have been lost, as people only see it as a tool.

Whenever most of us hear the word yoga, we automatically think of someone twisting their arms and legs, and making several shapes with the body. But yoga is much more than that. Yoga is a way of life, a living tradition, not a mere tool to lose weight, or to get rid of back pain. The word yoga  means ‘union', and it comes from the Sanskrit word ‘yuj' (pronounced as yug) which means “to join”, “to unite” or “to connect”. Yoga Sutra, the ancient text attributed to Sage Patanjali says: Yogas Citta Vrtti Nirodhah which means, “Yoga is the restraint of the agitation of thoughts.” It represents union, integration, discipline, way and behaviour. So, yoga is basically the pursuit of connecting our individual consciousness with the supreme consciousness and connecting our souls with nature and the universe and living in accordance to it. When we align ourselves with nature and the soul of the universe, our physical problems are automatically taken care of.
To have a basic understanding of how yoga works, let us assume we are in the 1980s. We are watching our favourite show on television and suddenly we start experiencing some disturbance as the television is unable to catch the signal properly. What would we do next? We would tilt the satellite dish until our television can receive the signal again, and the world starts pouring into our television once more. Our body works just the same way. When we learn to manage it the right way, we can experience the entire cosmos.

Yoga can create a sense of inner peace, harmony, and clarity of mind by dealing directly with energy and consciousness, as well as much more. If we use yoga just to get rid of back pain, to lose weight, to breathe better or to walk better, it means we have not realised the full potential of what our human body and mind is capable of.