Spiritual health: Yog

September 15, 2024, 9:38 AM IST Lalit Kapoor in FIVE PILLARS OF HEALTH: A Blueprint for Wellbeing, Health, TOI

What is Yog (also written as Yoga) and how is it relevant in contemporary society? We will explore this topic in this blog post.

Today, with the worldwide spread of Yog, it has become a generic term describing many pursuits ranging from simple physical exercises to an elaborate set of principles dictating how we live our lives. The sculptures of Mohenjodaro and Harappa are a testament to the practice of Yog 5,000 years ago. There are references to Yog in the Vedas, and, in fact, there are 20 Upanishads dedicated to it, 11 of which are in the Atharva Veda alone. The best known among them is the Yogatattva Upanishad from the Atharva Veda. In this Upanishad Vishnu states to Brahma that Yog is one, but there are various kinds in practice, the chief among these are of four types:

• Mantra Yog: The practice through chants.
• Laya Yog: Through deep concentration.
• Hatha Yog: Through exertion.
• Raja Yog: Through meditation.

Some say Yog was first started by Shiva, while others credit Sage Kapil. Ved Vyas included Yog in the Bhagavad Gita, providing one of the broadest interpretations, where each chapter is described as a different Yog. Sage Patanjali’s *Yog Sutra* is widely recognized as the authoritative work on Yog. It also offers a broad interpretation of Yog, encompassing all aspects of one’s whole life.

Hatha Yog is a narrower interpretation of Yog, focusing on body postures (Asanas), cleansing activities (Kriyas), and breathing exercises (Pranayama). In Yog literature, there are a number of reliable texts on Hatha Yoga, written between the 6th and 15th centuries AD. Four that stand out among them are:

1. Hatha Yog Pradeepika by Yogi Swatmarama

2. Goraksha Samhita by Yogi Gorakhnath

3. Gheranda Samhita by Sage Gheranda

4. Hatharatnavali by Srinivasbhatta Mahayogindra

Yog in the 20th century was revived by Krishnamacharya of Mysore, who was patronized by the King of Mysore about a century ago. His two disciples, B.K.S. Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois, played a key role in spreading Yog throughout the world.

Broadly, one can say that Hatha Yog, combined with Karma, Bhakti, and Jnana Yog disciplines, as preached in the Gita, prepares one to practice meditation. The triangle of the knower, the knowledge, and the known, once dissolved, is the ultimate state of being. Achieving this state is Yog.

The state of samadhi, achieved through yog and meditation, is not experienced by our sense organs, mind, or intellect, and is therefore indescribable in words. But one thing is certain, it must provide a very happy and peaceful experience; otherwise, why would one, after experiencing it, continue to return to it again and again?

The knowledge of the supreme self and ultimate reality (Brahman) is necessary but not sufficient to realize it. Experience is essential. The experience cannot be realized until we streamline our body, mind, and intellect through proper disciplines as expounded by Patanjali in his Yog Sutras: Yam, Niyam, Asan, Pranayam, Pratyahar, Dharna, Dhyan and Samadhi. In the Gita, the recommendation is similar but further classified by one’s aptitude (gunas) into Karma (action), Bhakti (devotion), and Jnana (knowledge). When a seeker who has achieved this balance in life (defined as sthitaprajna in the Gita as a person of steady wisdom) practices concentration (*dharana*), their meditation (dhyana) is successful, and they achieve samadhi.

The Yogatattva Upanishad declares that the realization of the supreme self is possible for the yog student who is free from “passion, anger, fear, delusion, greed, pride, lust, miserliness, swoon, giddiness, hunger, thirst, ambition, shame, fright, heart-burning, grief, and gladness.”

It would not be inappropriate to say that following the five pillars of health as expounded in my blogs to-date helps one achieve this goal.

Another Perspective on Yog

Yog means to join. What are we trying to join? One way to look at ourselves is to realize that we are a bundle of body, mind and intellect (BMI). With the body, we perceive the world of objects around us; with the mind, we feel the world of emotions around us; and with the intellect, we think in the world of thoughts (ideologies) around us. So we, as the Perceiver, Feeler, Thinker (PFT) equipped with our BMI, are constantly seeking happiness in the world of Objects, Emotions, and Thoughts (OET) around us. Very often, these three pursuits for happiness are in conflict with each other. The body wants to pursue one thing, the mind another, and the intellect has a totally different agenda.

For example, it is late at night, and you are watching a great movie on TV that you have been wanting to see for a very long time, but you have an important meeting the next morning at the office. The body is tired and wants to go to sleep, the mind wants to watch the movie, and the intellect is saying, “Don’t be ridiculous; you have an important meeting in the morning.”

In our pursuit of happiness, we face such conflicts all the time—conflicts within our own body, mind, and intellect. In our teenage years, we mistakenly confuse physical attraction with love, or in adulthood, fall in love with a neighbor’s wife, knowing very well in our intellect that this is inappropriate and will lead to unhappy endings.

Most smokers know that smoking is bad but cave into the body’s desire to smoke. The same goes for alcohol drinkers and those addicted to chocolate, cheese, or mithai. Thus, one goal towards happiness is to bring our own Body, Mind, and Intellect into sync so that internal conflicts disappear. THIS IS YOG.

Seeking Happiness

We all seek happiness, but interestingly enough, what we seek is different for each of us. One person seeks cigarettes while another hates cigarettes. As the scotch drinker walks through a duty free shop at an airport terminal, he is attracted to various scotches on display, but his wife has no interest in them and is drawn to the perfume counter where all the finest perfumes are displayed. Why is this so?

Our sages point out in our scriptures that this is because of our interactions in the earlier years of life. If, as a teenager, trying to belong to a clique of smokers, you cave into smoking, you develop that addiction. If the group you were exposed to consisted of alcohol drinkers, you develop an addiction to alcohol. The same applies to marijuana smokers or cocaine users. The term used to define these in Vedanta is “vasanas”. The way we interact with the world around us develops impressions that lead to such desires. These desires always dictate our actions, and our mind is constantly flooded with thoughts—thoughts about subtle desires that we feel, if fulfilled, will be the source of happiness.

Clearly, the object, emotion, or thought that we are seeking does not carry happiness. If it did, everyone would experience it, but they don’t. Thus, the scriptures tell us that our personality has embedded in it the happiness code. Our true nature is happiness. Pure consciousness in us is blissful. We are unable to experience it because of the cover of “vasanas” that we have accumulated during our lifetime to date. When we act in this world with an egocentric desire, we accumulate more desires. When we act in this world without any egocentric desires, we feel bliss.

Water drops flow towards water to merge with it. Mercury droplets are in a hurry to merge with other droplets. It is in our nature to seek our true selves. The consciousness in us (jeevatama) is seeking to merge into pure, universal consciousness (Parmatma).

Bringing these together is YOG.

Doing yogasana is one of eight steps in achieving this. Patanjali called this pursuit Ashtanga Yog – The eight limbs of yog.

As we practice Yog, we should keep in mind that we must strive to practice these steps of Yog every day of our life.

To read the article on Times of India, click here