There is a misunderstanding that yoga is just simply sitting in a cave and meditating.
Yoga could be anything; I talk about Richard Branson’s yoga.
He is a multibillionaire as you know and his understanding about life and time and everything
is like a yogi’s understanding of them.
In this brief video, I want to talk about cricket and golf as forms of yoga.
Yoga is only concentration where you transcend the mind, because mind is very slow.
The mind cannot make decision very precisely, that’s why Patanjali, the father of Yoga
says that you have to stop the mind, that’s his definition of yoga and why do you have
to stop the mind he says because then only you can go to your real self.
So a cricket player has to be also in yoga.
What he has to do is he has to completely be alert and aware and decision making is
very very important because what you are doing in cricket; you are trying to outwit each
other.
The bowler and the batsman are trying to outwit each other.
So you have to get to a place that you are better than the other guy and your decision
making is very important.
You should know how many runs you can take and whether you can do it or not and if you
make mistakes and you would go wrong.
So it’s a program where you will have to make the right decisions and also execute
it very quickly.
So playing cricket is just not only playing a game; it’s just not a sports, it is just
also mind training and it could also be a life training as well because in life you
have to make the right decisions and you also have to act very quick.
You cannot simply sit and wait for opportunities to come; you have to make quick decisions
and then make quick actions as well.
Look at golf; you know there is a book called the “Golf in the Kingdom”.
The book came long time ago by Michael Murphy and then I was told there is also a movie
that has come out.
In golf also, what you need is just concentration.
You have to keep everything in your mind.
Tiger woods must have been a yogi in his previous lifetime.
So he has to completely visualize everything in his own mind and then there should be a
coordination between the mind, the space and the hands.
What better yoga can you think about than playing cricket or playing golf?
So if you train yourself in golf or cricket, you know you would be very successful.
You can apply these techniques in real life as well.
So what I am trying to do here is to take some of the yogic techniques and then apply
to playing games.
They do the same things but if the players get to know about the yogic techniques of
what concentration is.
What Patanjali talks about concentration at length, what is concentration?
How to exclude yourself?
how to exclude your ego?, how to exclude your mind?, how to exclude yourself?
and then just be goal oriented, completely goal oriented and then for them what is important
is just only winning.
Failure is completely ruled out.
It’s a winner’s consciousness.
So what cricket or golf or any sports for that matter gives you is a winner’s consciousness.