If you go to the market today, you will find a thousand different courses being marketed as yoga—kundalini yoga, hot yoga, dog yoga, power yoga, and yet all of them are same, in that, they have no connection with yoga. Yoga, as given by Rishi Patanjali, is chitta vritti nirodha. That is, going over the five modifications of mind that pull you back into the physical world with the help of a guru.
Yoga is not an entry route; it is the exit route from the physical into subtler dimensions. This can happen only through a guru, who awakens the kundalini shakti inside you, opening you up to a world of experiences or miracles… for those who do not understand the science behind them. Such ‘miracles’ these days are a routine experience of Sanatan Kriya practitioners at Dhyan Ashram, and 4,500 years ago, at the time of Patanjali, miracles were a way of life.
A miracle is a law of nature, a fact of science, which a normal human being does not understand. The moment you understand it, it is not a miracle any more. Like in earlier times, people did not believe in gravity.
Aryabhatta gave the theorems and proved it mathematically, yet people did not believe, as there was no instrument to measure it. But gravity existed, even then. That time it was a miracle. Now, that we can measure and understand it, it is no more a miracle.
During the time of Patanjali, people understood the science of yoga. At that time, there was no destruction of nature, everyone was in harmony with each other, so there was a general understanding of what creation is all about. Even in those times ‘miracles’ happened, but then for those people they were not miracles.
Take the example of Mahabharat, the kind of weapons that were deployed by Kauravas and Pandavas in the epic war, the iccha mrityu of Bheeshma, the calling of the Brahmastra, all these are miracles for a lay person.
If you delve deeper into the ancient sciences, the descriptions of Brahmastra are given just like the nuclear bomb. In fact, recently a group of scientists tested the skeletons recovered at the site of Mohenjo-daro and found that the radiation levels in the bones were 50 times more than normal. You might call it a miracle, but for those people it was science as they understood nuclear energy, which the Brahmastra was. The problem is that human being is becoming so polluted and corrupt that he cannot perceive these miracles.
If you look around, men are killing monkeys, nilgais and peacocks calling them vermin that are destroying forests, burning dogs, torturing elephants… basically destroying creation.
Yoga is about understanding the dynamics of creation at the macro level and the elements which our body and the environment is made up of at the micro level. It’s not about having a toned body by running around and jumping and skipping, it’s about choosing the way you want to look with an elevated state of consciousness and with mantra siddhis.
Today, when acrobats and gymnasts are called yoga gurus and the market is full of such courses, one must understand that yoga is much more subtler and powerful than these gimmicks. In the long run, gimmicks cause more harm to the body and environment.
The writer is the spiritual head of Dhyan Ashram. Email: dhyan@dhyanfoundation.com