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Photo Copyright Suresh Gundappa 2007. Buy this photo from Suresh’s Gallery.
Yoga has nothing to do with exercising , It is more to do with awareness. Like most of things borrowed from East are misunderstood, Yoga has become commercially abused exercise. People are suffering more from yoga than benefiting from it.
Yoga also comes from root Sanskrit word Yony; Female organ, it means unity. Our scholars are clever, they say Yoga comes from word “Yuj” which also means unity. Again scholars conspiracy!. I tell you they are wrong . In eastern scriptures “Yony” word also has been used in poetic terms as symbol of unity. It has to be so as the creation point is treated with highest respect. In deepest experience of Yoga you also meet creator. Yoga is a creative union of creator and you. Yoga means inner union of yin and yang.
Now coming back to Yoga. Yoga was meant to create awareness of Body and Mind. Yoga cannot be of any benefit to you unless you make progress in awareness. Let me share with you science of yoga and how it benefits you.
When you do yoga and when you do all the yoga-asanas, If you can be aware of breathing couple of things happens to you. First breathing awareness eliminates all the unnecessary “must have’s” out of your life. Once you are aware of breathing you are aware of the body. Normally Body sends lot of signals and sends lot of messages to you everyday and every moment. You normally ignore it because you do not know how to read body signs. For example once you learn breathing awareness you will identify all the foods which brings happy energy to you and you will discard food which gives you unpleasantly feeling. But for this to happen you need to be aware of breathing. Each food has inherent character of energy in them to uplift you but to know that you need understand deeper mysteries of awareness.
Normally you consume food without awareness. that’s why you stuff yourself because you are not able listen to body, you keep stuffing food. Food and fattening is a by product of lack of awareness. Once your awareness of breathing increases then your food intake goes thru drastic change which results in lower consumption of Food. This is how you become slim. Now in west; people have missed completely focusing on breathing but their focus has been on slimming and exercising. When you miss focusing on breathing your basic problem remains grounded.
Vegetarianism is a by product of breathing awareness. Every food particle feeds you different energy apart from calories. It is not accidental that on spiritual path lot of teachers recommend vegetarianism. Because meat feeds you energy of the killed animal. you will find it difficult to move into awareness with collection of such hyper energy of meat in your body. However as you move higher in awareness plane then your vegetarianism or non vegetarianism doesn’t matter. You will learn a inner alchemy and awareness to transform any energy. So don’t think I am telling you eating meat is wrong it’s just takes little longer to move on awareness path if you are meat eater.
Now to watch breathing you need to be surrounded by silent atmosphere. All yoga studios blast music so much that you miss your own breathing sound. Yoga once becomes just a body exercise then you consume more food because you are burning more. “pranayama” science of breathing also has been taught in such a wrong way that it has become just breathing exercise.
There is no inner alchemy happening with you in curretn way of Yoga. So more people are becoming Fat & Frustrated with with yoga because they are following wrong principles. Since you are doing half baked yoga there is bound to be side effects as yoga postures are derived from the highest state of meditativeness. Each of this postures create vibrations in your body. These vibrations can be used positively or negatively based on your awareness. it’s dangerous to work on a science you have not understood properly ; it is like a chemist mixing two wrong liquids to create a solution. Effects can be negative.
Yoga is deep form of Mystical science. Borrowers have been “lost in translation” . If yoga doesn’t improve your awareness then you will still substitute Food for love, food for misery, food for money, food for happiness and you will go on stuffing food at every opportunity.
Next time you practice yoga make sure you pay attention to breathing, pay attention to awareness. if you are not improving in your awareness then stop pursuing Yoga. Better go to gym and pump some weights. at least you are not on wrong track.
Once your breathing comes to your awareness thru Yoga you will unravel the mysteries of Body and Mind. You will suddenly find the interface between Body and mind. The moment the unity of Body and mind happens then you are in union with God. this is the inner alchemy of Yoga. This is the only Alchemy you need to know.
Love and lots of it dear ones
Suresh
Thank you for such deep insight on a west favourite subject. I do yoga basically power yoga and i never worry about awareness and breathing. I am only interested in keeping my body in shape.
It’s amazing how lot of things we learn from west are completly lost in translation. I always love your blogs for new insights into daily lives. I learned something new from your blog today!.
Suresh Bhai, What a post! Yoga is a union of yin and yang! wow! I guess this sense of poetry makes your blog such a wonderful to read.
I remember once you telling me that between two breaths lies secret to this world. I never forget it.
THis photo is too good! colors,light – Inshah Allah God bless you!
WOw! What a photo! I love this oriental lamps! They can take you to different world all together!
HEhehe…. Interesting I never knew the meaning of Yoga. good photo!
Wonderful lighting in the photo. Can you please share how you captured this? info on the setup please.
Prahshanth, this photo is from one of the oldest monasteries in Ladakh. Three lamps were located in a Box and I opened the back lid to let light in. I closed the front lid to make it dark. I underexposed the photo with focus on flame. actually pretty ordinary scene, Looks good on Photo. Thanks to Modern cameras
even guys like me take good photos 
Thanks for sharing, Suresh.
And yes, sometimes this small little box called camera creates wonders out of nothing – but one need to have an eye like yours to identify that
LOVE the textures from the double exposure- subtle and exquisite. You are so right that yoga in the US has degenerated into a form of exercise. It is taught at our gyms. There are a few yoga studios, though, that create a sacred space for yoga as a meditation.
Your connection between lack of deep spiritual connection and overeating is really intriguing. I think that you are right.
[Dear Suresh, please feel free to edit any of my comments to simplify them or even delete them]
I believe Patanjali would’ve been quite happy to read this post!
May I share this book… had come across a free online book by Paul Barncroft named Yoga Without Tree Hugging (Download Pdf)
Years later by chance, I happened to be in Bristol, UK and found that the author was in the same town and met him as well, it was a really pleasant evening. He was going to take down his site but he gave me permission to host his book.
Here is my review…
Excellent very small book on Yoga… brilliant and very humourous.
It dosent really teach yoga (best learnt from an instructor), but explains it. Of course there are 1000s of books on Yoga, but this book explains theres more to Yoga than just managing to get into confusingly convoluted postures.
I’d never imagined that Yoga and Zen were actually related until I read this book
I agree with Natural high that there is a deep connction bewteen spirutality and food. I somehow wanted to write that but missed writing it in my earlier comment. Thanks Naturalhigh for pointing it out.
Thanks Sanjay ( Many thanks really) for sharing wonderful link and your comments as usual are very insightful and interesting. I have not edited your comments and feel free to add anything.
PS: yes another word associated with Yoga is communion – which makes a Yogi – one who is in communion …maybe like Rumi or Kabir.
Btw I was going to request some elaboration on the how eating and love (spirituality) are related and it was nice to see that in this post
You made me miss taking yoga classes! (I used to before it became a craze!)
Lovely post, thank you for writing it.
Suresh,
Everyone goes away with something personal insight from your photographs. I enjoy the idea of placing those lamps – which suggests contemplation, relaxing, breathing and simply slowing down – on top of the newspaper talking about think tanks and ‘the next big thing in internet access’. And this takes place in a monastery! I love the irony. I also love the composition.
Thank you also on the lesson about Yoga. I’m going to take my time digesting (pun intended) this information and see where it leads me.
Peace,
“Guided by the Ancestors”
Nice post. I have discovered during meditation what I call “spontaneous yoga”. It is simply allowing your body the movements it wants to make during meditation and it ends up appearing like yoga but it FEELS absolutely authentic. Authentic from the point of view of being exactly what your body needs at that moment. Breathing with this yoga is absolutely authentic as well. I found it fascinating and my experience of it was that it is what true yoga IS and that, like religion, it has become but a shell through teachings of those who do so without true understanding.
Later I wanted to share this with my meditation group so I googled “spontaneous yoga” just to see if others were using the term/practice, and found many, many entries. As so often happens, self discovery is the discovery of the whole and many have gone before.
Wonderful post Suresh. And your photography is awesome. Thanks.
Suresh…that was so beautifully and powerfully written. I stopped practicing yoga on a regular basis about a year ago, when the studio I was going to closed down. I just couldn’t make myself go to the local “gym” for their version of Yuppy Yoga. For me, as a western white woman of mostly Christian decent, making the deep connection with Spirit, by and with my breathe (through the asanas) was a transcendental experience I refused to cheapen with a bunch of sweaty Heathens (LOL that was a joke
..) But seriously, I cannot WAIT to get back into it. I’ve just moved to a brand new town near the beach where there are true yoginis. While the benefits to my body were lovely, it was the benefits of yoga to my heart, mind and spirit that were irreplaceable. THANK YOU!
A much needed post! And great reminder
A friend of mine was actually healing a lot of experienced yoga instructors who came to him totally biologically deteriorated, ha ha! If one isn’t breathing properly, all those asana’s are useless. I’d actually love to find a studio in Toronto or Mississauga that teaches breathing yoga only. Any suggestions?
Hey..good photograph…
Thanx for posting a article on union /yoni..
I realised the greateness of Indian philosophy few years back ,when I started reading about yoga and vedanta as I was not satisfied with the ritualistic tardition of India.
Now I understand ……………….. what a hsame a lot of it gets lost in translation (commercialism).
Gotta say though, while the way we breathe is a direct reflection of our awareness – fattening on the other hand … well .. yes and no. I mean through awareness we can direct any dimension of our being – emotional, mental, physical and so on.. any way we want, but Ill share a cute story:
There was a chubby nun in the monastery who gorged without limit at dinner time. While all the other nuns lived in self-deprivation, and dedicated minimalism, this one chubby nun ate with reckless abandon, ha ha! After a while this chubby nun developed great intuition, had the gift of communicating & seeing angels and was endowed with special abilities. The other nuns were all confused & jealous. Here we live in such self-minimalism, dedicated to the way – she goofs off and overeats all the time, yet she receives these precious abilities? And someone noticed – although you restrain yourself and follow everything to the T, you’re sad & overly serious when you eat – meanwhile the chubby nun is joyous & praises God with every bite! ha ha ha!
So there you go.
Awareness isn’t always connected to body mass – na na na na na [wiggles tongue]
Suresh, congratulations on this important topic!
Another meaning of “yoga” is unity with Divine, and here we are: there are very few seekers of truth, spiritual people in the West. And the rest is not really interested in spirituality so they prefer doing so called “yoga” just physically. It is understandable.
You are the lucky one, Suresh to live in India with its great spiritual tradition, where the breath of Divinity is felt everywhere and even cows and dogs are seem to be always in meditation!
I dream of moving to India one day, but the climate is too hot for me
shaktipower, I’d like to add an observation to the comment that there are very few seekers of truth, spiritual people in the West. That few or not, what I’ve observed in the Westerners here in India as well as abroad who DO seek and find something convincing to themselves, is their deep level of commitment. Really their dedicated services are so uncompromisingly professional that they set an inspiring example to many of us local guys out here
Great comment, Sanjay! “deep level of commitment” – how beautiful and how true…
Regarding your local guys – it seems to be natural that people do no value much what they easily posess.
Like if someboy is naturally beautiful, then she/he does not try keep up this beauty or specially uderline it.
And somebody who is not that gifted by the nature, does a lot to achieve the “beauty look”.
Heh heh… I can see what you’re saying – like a bald man appreciates hair more
…unfortunately it might be quite true ito a certain extent!
In any case, for sure East or West, there’s no human being who is not gifted with the same inner beauty
Just a matter of seeing it – and like you’ve said we guys might be taking it for granted.
Well known IT enterpreneur and visionary Narayan Murthy (founder of Infosys) has commented to an Indian gathering (entire speech is worth going through):
But he’s definitely set an excellent example himself of going far beyond gloating about the past
Sanjay, many thanks for giving the link to Murthy speech – it is very interesting.
I agree, India may live in the past, but no other country has such a great past (from the highest -spiritual – perspective)!
One point I would defiinetly disagree with Murthy is about Indian arrogance – the most arrogant nation is definetly Russians
Wow, so many comments, Is it the photo or the Yoga. Yoga indeed has spread all over the world, with the message of unity. I agree with everything you wrote about yoga.
As a yoga teacher, I think the most importat thing I want to add is that yoga is self practice. you cannot understand awarness in a yoga studio, you need an isolated room.
Very intersting thought.. Its one of things which gathers attention. It needs lot of time & energy to involve with deeper thoughts..
The picture is very grand & beautiful!!!
Great photos!
One point, though. The consensus of opinion is that the word yoga is from the sanskrit root, yuj, again meaning union, rather than yoni. Wikipedia says about yoni: The word yoni (Sanskrit योनि yoni) is the Sanskrit word for “Divine Passage” (c/f lila). The Ayurveda, or Science of Life, described yoni as a part of the female anatomy. Here the term was meant as a designation of respect for women who gave birth, thus contributing to the continuation of the community.
Dear author of this blog
Do you really know what yoga is? Did you read Sanskrit and other philosophical stuff form India?
Is there any reference in such meterials that Yoga means Yoni?
Yoga comes from sanskrit word Yuj that means some thing which joins
sanskrit says yoga is “chitha vrithi nirodham” hope you understand it
Even the awareness must be out.
There is no one who is aware and nothing there to be aware of, except the knowledge of both.
The photos are exceptionally beautiful.
But beauty is the projection of the knowledge and sensual activity.
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