What
is the yoga
The
yoga is a state of consciousness reached when the mind is at rest,
this word « yoga » has been given, by extension, to the
spiritual practices aimed to gather the dispersed Conscience into its
own center.
Putting
people in boxes
A
person appears in the eye of an other firstly with his physical
aspect. Then his clothes, then the intonation of his voice and his
eyes, his movements and postures. The spotters of certain luxury
shops or hotels have quickly an opinion about somebody according to
his shoes, his hands, his hair, his clothes and his general
appearance.
But
to define somebody only with these criteria would be too reducing and
wrong. A person is not only defined through his physical appearance.
What makes a person, except his body, is his spirit [or mind]. The
mind is very complex and difficult to describe. In the mind are the
drivers in order to let work the major systems in the body. There are
the storage places for the short and medium-term memories where are
all our existence, our friends, the traumatizing and fundamental
events that happened, all what we learned at school and in the life,
our personality, how to do bike, swim etc.
There
is the soul too
Some
others think, there is a soul too that would be our true self. It
would be the one who doesn't change from our birth till our death. So
the child we have been, then the pre-teenager, the teenager, the
young boy/girl, the middle-age man/woman and the older man/woman
would be one and the same person, only the body and the mind change.
The soul would remain the same from the beginning to the end of the
existence and would identify us beyond the appearances and the
circumstances.
The
ego
But
inside us are not only the soul and the mind :
there
is also the ego.
It
is not the enemy that some believe.
It
has been given to the soul in order for it to be conscious of itself,
to
be able to say ''I'' and also ''yes'' and ''no''
in
order for it to have the free-will.
The
united soul and ego constitutes the Witness or Conscience.
The
villain, the vainglorious is the false-ego :
and
yet : it is not there for nothing.
And
it is only the absence of right Conscience.
The
soul is bound to the ego like the moss and the seaweed are bound to
bild the lichen, each one is usefull for the other one and both are
merged in a single being.
The
yoga (as practice) is firstly a way of living in entirety with the
body, the spirit and the soul in full awareness. If you look after
yoga in Internet, you will find a lot. This name has been given to
all kind of practices beginning from the deepest mysticism to the
trendy fitness exercise.
The
original-yoga is not a yoga
as
understand in our area, in the West.
It
is firstly a way of life
putting
the Conscience at the first place.
The
yoga is to be one in our center
The
word yoga [pronounced : youga] : before the eighth century of
our time, this word meant freedom, liberation, rest (according to the
grammarians) but since a wandering monk, Adi Shankara1
in the eighth century, it means union, unity of the soul and God, for
some and for others : of the Conscience and the Peace that we
have inside us.
Yes :
we have a center inside us and there is the Peace. Outside,
everything is moving, turning, separating, mixing up, slipping. In
this center, nothing is moving, everything is always same, peaceful
and safe like the wheel axis that rotates continually. Go away from
the center and you will be outweighed by the centrifugal force. The
more you will go away, the greater the force that outweighs you will
be.
The
yoga is the gathering of the dispersed Conscience. When it
reassembles around its ''kernel'', the perception of the life, of the
world is clear. It is also the resting of the mind. Don’t forget
the sanskrit root of the word « yoga » means “rest”.
It
happened, it happens and it will happen you to be in this peaceful
center. In the course of an activity that requires all your
attention, you had some of these privileged moments where you have
been in peace, calm, happy. You felt then a feeling of fulfillment
that made you happy. That is why some people prefer this kind of
activities, the ones that require all their attention.
"The
union it is to become detached from the thoughts
By
remaining aware of the Holy-Name in its chest "
[Bhaktimàrga
2-5-35]
The
in-depth practice of a spirituality frightens, sometimes, so much it
looks like a religion. The path is not a religion and it is aimed to
everybody as long as you are thirsty of Truth and Peace.
1/ Adi Shankara : one of the most
famous spiritual master claiming by the Hinduism, even if he was
closer to the Vedism, via the yoga. His master was Govindanàtha and the
master of Govindanàtha was Gaudapàda. The master of Gaudapàda was
Patanjali (not the sanskrit grammarian but the master crafttsman of
the Yogasûtra, the initiator of its redaction. The original-yoga
recognize itself in this spiritual lineage and produced its own
translation of the Yogasûtra.
