The roots of yoga are ancient, yet the history of yoga is less than half a century old. Swami Sivananda was one of the first sannyasins to recognize the potential divinity of individuals. He trained his disciples in the systems of yoga and Vedanta, and most became luminaries who have inspired people to rediscover themselves and adopt yoga.
There have been many thousands of teachers who have picked up one component of the yogic system and propagated it as their belief, philosophy and livelihood. Some adopted the system of hatha yoga, harsh physical discipline; some the reclusiveness of raja yoga, intense meditation, tapasya and self-control; some the path of bhakti. Whatever the path, it was adopted more as a belief and as something to be experimented with rather than as something that could become part of one’s life, something that had the power to transform human nature from the external, mundane and gross to something much deeper, higher and transcendental.
In the last half of the 20th century, the individual branches of yoga, such as hatha yoga, jnana yoga, raja yoga, kriya yoga, mantra yoga, were developed rather than the main trunk and root of yoga. Developing the main trunk and the root means incorporating the yogic principles not only as ideology but also into one’s life. Experiencing that lifestyle in which yoga becomes a part of oneself is identified either as classical yoga, the Bihar Yoga system or the Satyananda Yoga system.
At Ganga Darshan, you are taught not only the practices, but also how to live yoga. There is a difference between learning the practices and living the system, living the philosophy, living yoga as a lifestyle, because ultimately that is the main component that will make a difference to all of us and, through us, to the greater mass of society.
Worldwide, there has been an enormous growth of interest in and acceptance of yoga. Yoga is a system that incorporates a lifestyle, a practice, an idea. For example, both karma yoga and bhakti yoga are ideas that you can incorporate into your life. For a karma yogi, selfless service does not remain only an idea; rather, you become someone who expresses and experiences selflessness through action.
A bhakti yogi can experience such intense emotion that eventually the emotion burns the body completely, like Mirabai, whose physical body disintegrated into the image of Krishna. For Kabir, the power of the emotion of bhakti was such that his physical body became transformed into flowers. These people lived that component in their lives. Today there are too many things distracting us and stopping us from becoming bhakti yogis; however, there have been many hatha yogis, raja yogis, karma yogis and jnana yogis who have lived that particular yoga.
A yogi is one who is able to live and experience yoga every day. The ashram environment teaches one to live yoga every moment. To have that deep experience of yoga, certain preparations have to be made and certain understandings need to be developed. You have to belong to the ashram, just like you have a feeling for your home, which is yours in pleasure and pain, joy and suffering. When you have this feeling of belonging, your involvement – head, heart and soul – will cultivate the potential of the environment for you, both personal and outer.
At Ganga Darshan, living the yogic principles is emphasized. The activities of the ashram, gurukul, or Bihar Yoga Bharati are established so that each step is an understanding of the yamas and niyamas. For example, in karma yoga satya is to be lived. Satya does not mean truth; it is knowing yourself, unveiling yourself, recognizing the role of the ego, recognizing the role of aversion, the role of desperation, the role of aggression. It is recognizing your own role and how you can find your balance. You have to find your own solution, as no one can do it for you; even if somebody had that ability, you would only accept the solution you had discovered yourself.
In karma yoga, when you adhere to satya, you see yourself in your true colours, not as a victim and someone else as the manipulator, or as the manipulator and someone else as the victim. That is a power game, and it has its role, yet in the context of yogic life, you have to understand yourself, responding to the demands of the present. When you respond to the demands of the present, that reaction will carry a colour, which needs to be identified. The colour might be compassion, affection, love, hatred or dislike: it could be anything. The purpose of karma yoga for oneself is identifying that colour. Service is something else. The purity it provides you with has to be understood. Karma yoga leads to the attainment of shaucha, purity, one of the niyamas. You aspire and strive for shaucha, and while pursuing that road, you develop ahimsa, the non-violent nature.
The yamas and niyamas complement each other in the process of karma yoga, in the path of bhakti yoga, in the systems of raja yoga, in the perfection of kriya yoga, and the process of awakening through kundalini yoga. Take mouna as an example. If you can’t stop the external chattering with words, how can you stop the internal chattering with the unconscious and the subconscious? If you are happy about failing in sanyam, balanced restraint, outside, how can you expect to have sanyam inside? Your drive and motivation is to fail in sanyam and to inspire others to fail as well. Attainment of failure is your right, yet you are free to leave that mind outside the walls of Ganga Darshan.
By experimenting with and experiencing the yamas and niyamas and their role in one’s life, in meditation, in pratyahara and dharana, in the course of time you become like someone writing with an eraser. The impressions remain inside but the darkness goes away; the individual identity remains but the tamas goes away. That is the statement of the Yoga Sutras. From being a buddhu, idiot, one becomes a Buddha, the enlightened one.
29 July 2003, Ganga Darshan, Munger