10 most asked questions about yoga

To Americans and often confused educated Indians, Yoga is something which has been an enigma wrapped inside a mystery. Here is some light on the most asked questions about Yoga.

1) What type of yoga is right for me?

This depends on what you want to achieve. Do Hatha yoga like any of the Ashtanga yoga or Bikram yoga if you are non-serious or a beginner. There are enormous health benefits. Harvard Medical School has recently introduced Yoga and meditation for patients to help them cure faster. If you are a healthy individual, learning to detox, focus and remove all distractions from your mind may be the most awesome tools you will learn to be more productive at work.

However, if you are serious or want to be an advanced practitioner, you can use Dhyana Yoga or Raja yoga to take your focus and meditative ability to a very high levels. Hatha yoga is a baby step towards Dhyana Yoga. After Dhyana Yoga, you will then proceed to a sequence of Gyana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Karma Yoga (in a order that is specialized) to reach the pinnacle of yogic self-realization.

2) Is yoga a religion?

Let us be frank. Religion is belief in an external divinity. The Abrahamic God is transcendental and such a God is superior to humans in all respects. Yoga is a school of Hindutva (called a Darshana) and neither Yoga nor Hindu will make you believe in an external God. This is something most people (including Hindus) do not understand properly. Neither Yoga nor Hindutva will ever make you believe in another external God. Do if you are a theist, do not worry about anyone trying to make you change your faith. Instead you will begin to ask the right questions about your beliefs, and hopefully that makes your belief stronger rather than weaker. I repeat, there is no religion or religious practice hidden in Yoga. If doing a set of exercises (Hatha Yoga) will somehow magically make you change your religion, then there is something seriously wrong with your belief system.

If you are an advanced yogic practitioner, you will begin to see religion in a completely new light - one which is personal, spiritual, immanent and elevating.

3) What are the benefits of Yoga?

In this world of social media, instant gratification and short attention spans; learning to focus and do dedicated work effortlessly is a superpower indeed. Yoga will teach you that superpower. Learning to focus, shut disturbances away from the mind and relax effortlessly whenever you want are all the gifts that even a beginner can learn from the various forms of Hatha Yoga.

An advanced practitioner will learn how to reorient one's relation with the universe. This could result in Siddhis - extraordinary awakenings of the mind to bliss, intelligence and truths, without relinquishing on focus and control. This is far superior to any substance induced euphoria. You will never find a drug addict among serious Yoga practitioners. Why indulge in substance abuse when you can take yourself to the highest blissful states of the mind effortlessly and with no side effects? Do not be foolish and say this is impossible. Tens of thousands, if not millions of people in India have been through this path, and maybe you should try walking walking the path before making sarcastic comments. After all you have nothing to lose except your sorrow and unhappiness.

4) Do I need to be flexible with my body to do yoga? What if that is not possible?

Of course, if you are young; Hatha Yoga is easy. If you older, maybe you should begin by doing some low intensity asanas of Hatha Yoga and move to more advanced Yoga forms like Gyana, Bhakti and Karma Yoga, The Bhagavad Gita is required reading for Karma Yoga. All of Sri Adi Shankaracharya's books and commentaries are focused on Gyana Yoga. Note that he is the greatest philosophers who ever existed.

I do not know of an easy way to gain Bhakti Yoga if you are not steeped in Hindu thought from birth. There are some advantages of being born in India, which people from outside do not realize. India is the Karmabhumi for seekers, and there is no denying that the spiritual flame in India burns far brighter than the rest of the world put together.

If you not born in India, begin by having some Indian friends who can defend their beliefs and are devout by nature. Debate with them to your heart's content. You can also watch Swami Sarvapriyananda of the Ramakrishna Mission on Youtube. He is a tireless exponent of logical and scientific enquiry of consciousness. There are also the timeless classics of the stalwarts of Bhakti Yoga - commentaries written by Sri Ramanujacharya and Sri Madhvacharya. Read their books and hope that some of their infinite Bhakti rubs on to you.

5) What’s the difference between yoga and meditation?

Meditation by itself is impossible to sustain long term. It is more like a passing fad or a new year resolution that loses novelty in a single day. If you are serious about sustained motivation to indulge in meditation, you have to either indulge in Yoga or Zen practices. Yes, Zen can also lead you quickly up the paths of Dhyana and Gyana Yoga. However, the path does stop there. Zen is a corrupted Japanese term for the original Sanskrit word - Dhyana. It was created by a South Indian Pallava prince and monk from Kanchipuram, named Bodhidharma. If you go to Kanchipuram, you will know how much of its culture is shaped up by Hindu thought. It is one of the most famous sites for Hindu pilgrimage.

6) Is yoga cultural appropriation?

Yoga is Rishi Patanjali's gift to the world, not just Indians. He wanted the entire world to practice Yoga. Any talk of cultural appropriation is nonsense and not helpful. Any hack which makes you productive, focused and happier without any addiction, financial cost or side-effects is something you should adopt immediately without question.

I just hope that you will become more curious to know more about Rishi Patanjali as you become an advanced practitioner, as you invariably will. After all, he was also a human like you and me at one time. What made him go down this path of Yoga? What can we learn from him? Do his personal beliefs stand the test of logic in the modern age? And other questions.

Rishi Patanjali's final resting place, exists near Trichy, inside a famous Shiva temple. People often forget that he was an ardent devotee of Shiva. That is why I said that Bhakti Yoga is the hardest Yoga to master. His Samadhi is right opposite to a statue of a dancing Ganesha. I remember meditating next to his Samadhi, and asking for his guidance. I was not disappointed. Both Vibin and I had tremendously uplifting and elevating personal experiences, which I cannot explain logically or put into words. I am a diehard cynic of everything in the modern world, especially about modern religion. If an extreme sceptic like me says these things, you probably should take these words more seriously.

7) What does ‘Namaste’ really mean?

Yoga comes from the Sanskrit word "yujj" meaning union. Namaste is also the meeting or union of hands. It is a symbolic representation of Yoga. Yoga is at heart a study of consciousness, not of God. When you join your hands, it is the equivalent of showing respect to the person in front of you. It is akin to bowing down in Japanese and Korean culture.

There is the divinity of consciousness (Purusha) hidden in all living beings, especially in humans. We bow to the consciousness in the other person. We see ourselves in the others and thus we see the equality of man. There is no human who is inferior or superior. All humans have the same Purusha inside them. Western civilizations talk a lot about equality, but end up perpetrating more inequality when ever possible with their actions. Indians have it ingrained culturally to offer Namaste to all guests. We worship not just other humans, but also all other living beings, who also have some of the Purusha inside them. There is no better way to save this planet, unless we show the highest respect for all living beings.

8) What is the spiritual side of yoga? Does Yoga conflict with Advaita?

If you read the foundational book, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, you will find that the Yoga philosophy is surprisingly similar to Advaita. If you want to understand Advaita in a non-traditional way, just learn Yoga. Moksha of Advaita is Kaivalya in Yoga. There are some esoteric differences between Yoga and Advaita in the ultimate nature of Purusha (consciousness) and Prakriti (nature). For an ordinary practitioner, all these differences are nit picky and meaningless. If you know Advaita, you pretty much know Yoga.

Even Sri Adi Shankaracharya respected Yoga a lot. In his often quoted Brahmasutra commentary 2.1.3, it is said that he condemned Yoga. This is sheer nonsense. If you read the original Sanskrit and not the mistranslations in English, one will note that Sri Adi Shankaracharya respects Yoga a lot, but notes that there are some minor differences. He notes that when it comes to the minor differences, Advaita takes precedence. The similarities between both systems is around 99% and the difference around 1%. I am happy to delve deep into each one of these differences if there is interest. But suffice to say that the differences are really petty and minor, and revolve around the highest nature of Pradhana and multiplicity of Purushas. Advaita is a more refined form of Yoga and the transition to Advaita has to happen to explain the greatest scientific and theological issues facing humans today.

9) How often should I practice yoga?

Whatever free time you have should be spent on improving your inner self and making it more productive. If you want to invest 10 minutes a day to make yourself happier and productive, do yoga for 10 minutes a day. If you want to spend every moment of your life living in bliss, you will spent every moment of your life in Yoga. Really it is all upto you. Neither Yoga or the parent Hindutva is prescriptive. You do whatever you want, whenever you want. There are no overlords supervising or castigating you. Your personal path is customized and unique. Everybody has their own path to the highest bliss and happiness.

10) Where did yoga originate? What is its status today in India?

To understand Yoga's origin, you will have to trace the origin of Hindutva. Hindu philosophy has six Darshanas or schools of thought. Sankhya and Yoga are very similar. So is Yoga and Advaita Vedanta. At one time, there were dozens of schools of thought including hardcore atheists like Charvakas who questioned everything, including their own existence. The best ideas got selected by an evolutionary framework over eight to ten thousand years. Even in the Rig Veda Nasadiya Sukta, you can find atheists quibbling over the origin of the universe. Ultimately, the ideas coalesced into philosophies. Five of the Darshanas also fell into oblivion with unenthusiastic followers over time. Nobody read the original books anymore and were like the modern echo-chambers, merely touting the opinion of others mindlessly. Advanced Yoga, is still taught in various ashrams and school like the Bihar school of Yoga. However, in the non-academic world, Yoga has been almost by Advaita, which I would argue as a superior version of Yoga for the modern age. Advaita has almost all the original ideas of Rishi Patanjali and a lot more.

You will find around 70-80% of people in India, across religions, practice yoga daily. That is more than a billion people. Yoga is called Surya Namaskar, Ramdev Yoga etc. Villagers are way more devout than city dwellers, but everyone is taught some form of basic Hatha Yoga in school. Whether the seekers go on to advanced Yoga is really upto each person? There is absolutely no pressure on anyone.

One of the Darshanas, the Uttara Mimamsa (Vedanta) school gained extraordinary significance in the last thousand years, mainly driven by three geniuses - Sri Adi Shankaracharya, Sr Ramanujacharya and Sri Madhvacharya. The brilliance of their insights still reverberates across the world. If any serious philosopher reads their works, they will have their minds blown off. Sri Adi Shankaracharya brilliantly folded all schools (including Yoga) into Advaita and proved that there is no need for any additional school of philosophy. The other two stalwarts are no less brilliant. They have suffered from less attention, funds and interest from the West. Many of their original books of these prodigious writers still lie untranslated.

Foolish people, who do not read the original texts, try to claim that Advaita is superior to the other schools of Vedanta and the only way to interpret Hindu thought. I think such statements reflect British colonial biases and are borne out of the laziness of Indians to study the original Sanskrit books of their ancestors. I would say that no two humans are alike or want the same things in life. Each of the schools of Vedanta have a special flavor. If you want knowledge, you go to Advaita. If you want devotion, you go to Dvaita, If you want both, you go to Sri Ramanujacharya. All of them cover the Yoga philosophy along with other complex insights. If you want nothing to do with philosophy, then just stick to Hatha Yoga.

The path and flavor of self-realization really depends on what you want.