The Spirituality and Yoga post concluded with a remark of Yoga. Yoga is popular across the globe and millions are into it. But is yoga what it is generally thought to be? I am afraid I am going to have to say “No” to that. In fact first we should make a list of what is not yoga. Because yoga has been branded as everything else other than what it really is.

Here is the list. Yoga..

1. is not a physical excercise
2. is not an easy-chair philosophy
3. is not super natural
4. is not a diet

The list is longer than it seems. Yoga literally means “to be one with” (from the “Yuj” element in Samskrita). Yoga is a science which was designed for a human to raise above material and reach the perfect state. But as of now, Yoga is popular for mostly its physical stage - the Yogasana - which is an irony really. It has become more of a fancy gymnastic and a money machine for some “guru”s.

One of the major formulation of the science of Yoga was by a saint named Pathanjali. He divided the quest of Yoga into 8 limbs and thus it was called as “Ashtanga Yoga”.

1. Yama - basic moral code for a human living. Actions by our body that connects us to the external world
2. Niyama - basic hygiene and desciplined living. To keep body and mind clean
3. Asana - perform certain physical postures to keep the body fit - To keep the body fit
4. Pranayama - perform certain breath control excercises to calm the mind. This is the crucial step and is the last opportunity available to control the mind through external means.
5. Prathyahara - to control the senses.
6. Dharana - to concentrate on the object of interest
7. Dhyana -a state above mind where you feel yourself only as a conciousness.
8. Samadhi - to be one with the one. “The End”.

As evident, 50% of the mass fail in the first step in today’s world and another big chunk get excluded by the second. Most of us will just do the third and to some extent the fourth and imagine that we have mastered Yoga. The purpose of the third step is to keep the body fit so that you can sit in a posture for hours for meditation. Because, for example, if our legs get cramps after 10 minutes of sitting still, how can we possibly try to detach mind from the body? Here “keeping the body fit” is not the end but is only the begining. But the world has reversed the purpose to such an extent that Yoga is being considered as a sport!

Last four steps are advanced and the techniques for each of those are not taught without eligibility i.e. appropriate practice of the first four. First two steps are just “human” and do not need elaboration (not really, but on paper at least). That leaves us with Asana and Pranayama - the two limbs of Yoga that are making their mark on the world. Why are they so important? Because they are intermediate - ones that connect external and internal worlds - the “key”.