Yoga helps discover your potential

Good governance and administration require multi-faceted skills and Yoga brings skill in action. In fact, it was called Raja Yoga because it was practiced by kings and princes in the ancient days. 

Yoga became popular in the west as a solution to lose weight or as a physical exercise and people also found relief from many ills such as stress, anxiety, professional burnout, addictions and insomnia. In addition to its remedial properties, Yoga is also a path to realise and harness your deepest potential. 

It has a profound impact on multiple levels of our existence. While stretches and postures make the body supple, Pranayama and Meditation take the mind deep within. An unknown dimension opens up within our being that enriches the experience of life in many ways. There are several benefits of yoga – it enhances health, improves memory and concentration, sharpens the intellect, de-stresses the system and increases energy levels. It also unveils an intuitive ability within us which is much needed for creative pursuits and in overcoming obstacles like the writers’ block.

According to Maharishi Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the oldest known text on the subject, Yoga is freedom from all the distortions of the mind. If we observe the mind, we will realise that it is always engaged in one of five things 

Yoga has eight limbs and one among them is physical postures. But, the central teaching is maintaining an equanimous state of Mind. When you can do any action with mindfulness, you are aware of what you are saying or doing, this makes you a yogi. Science is a systematic, logical understanding of what is. In the sense Yoga is a Science, that it is a systematic understanding of the subject. Knowing ‘What this is’ is Science. Knowing ‘Who am I’ is Spirituality. But, both are Science. All the Science of Yoga is already there in a baby and we have all been Yogis. Babies are in chin mudra while sleeping. In any part of the world, when babies are lying down they lift their legs first, and then they go on their belly and try to lift their shoulders (bhujangasan). To some extent every child has done asanas on this planet. The way we breathe is very different from the way a baby breathes. A baby has a stress free and a happy mind. So Yoga is just going back to our roots. 

Yoga is a discipline that opens the door to inner freedom, contradictory as it seems. With practice, you acquire the knack of switching between different modes of the mind, from engaging with the outside world to withdrawing from it and going within; between Passion and Dispassion. This skill of moving outward or inward at will makes you the master of your own mind, and when you win over the mind, you win over the world.