uh regarding yoga basically it's such a very popular phenomena these days
but it seems that there's so many kinds of yoga you have i don't know hot yoga kundalini yoga
tantra yoga power yoga vikram yoga ramdev yoga so can the true yoga please stand out yeah thank you
yeah you see this is a word that has been if you like hijacked by a lot of elements and
that's fair enough why not hinduism such a such a majestic religion it doesn't ask for copyrights
there are certain words that are endearing that create a humanity
wishes to embrace hinduism that take them away we are not selling copyrights you can take them away
you have a very magnanimous religion so the word yoga the ancient term really if you
like the beginning of hinduism let me just go back on the theory of yoga how hinduism started
at the early stages the hindu philosophy you'll be surprised was highly materialistic
the nyaya vaishashika philosophy of the hindus was highly materialistic it was atomic's theory
that everything is nothing but atoms and anu and parma these are the words they used
and they're trying to explain the whole of the creation in terms of little lumps of matter
and this idea was prevalent in india about two and a half three thousand years ago
and we suspect i mean i'm using word very careful we suspect democritus used to be a
frequent visitor to india he was a great greek philosopher who introduced the idea
of atom in the void in western physics that's how the western physics started
the idea of atom and the void reduce everything little lumps of matter how they sit with each
other what are the properties you can explain the whole creation so this idea of atomic theory
basically comes out from this very ancient hindu thinking which was highly materialistic
there was no room for spirit everything was explained in terms of matter anu and parmanu
then we have revolution taking place this is like the beginning of hinduism the real hinduism
one great sage a great ancient sage of india whether he was a story figure or just a name that
you conjured up i don't know because very ancient story the name of the sage was kapil here is the
first person one of the sages who was very clear thinker a deep thinker and he asked himself before
i make sense of the world that i see around me all this anu and parmanu why don't i sort myself out
who am i that is trying to make sense of the world because my capacity to understand is obviously
going to kick into how i see the world because if i'm a taboo then my vision of the world will
satisfy me if i'm real intellectual giant then i'll really dig deep into nature of reality so let
me suss myself out who the heck am i what is my capacity to understand so he want so his journey
was not looking outward this was the ancient hindu fellas looking outward he went inward to suss
out his own faculties the capacity in the locus operation of his own faculties he looked within
here if you like beginning of this is the germination of hinduism beginning of hinduism
and through this it's again these ideas we may think this old hindu is not hindu
in the western world even the greek philosophers used to say this beautiful stuff
men know thyself first before you mess in the world why don't you sort yourself out who the
heck are you what is your capacity so this is very ancient saying in the western philosophy
as well as indian philosophy sort yourself out what is your capacity to understand the reality
so ancient kapil looked inwards looked within and here is a marvelous story whether it's true
historically i don't know but i love to think it's true historically i love this this character so it
would turn inward he started to analyze through introspection through sitting quietly under a
tree meditating through introspection he started to suss out the different layers to his being
okay i've got the physical being and within the physical body that i possess there is a mental
realm that i seem to kind of in invoke and use and this is what democracy this is what uh you know
descartes discovered and this is made him very major philosopher there's more to me than matter
i'm the mind say descartes i think therefore i am now this is ancient thinking so here kapil started
looking inward so he said first physical body then he looked inward say no no there's a mental
if you like dimension that i possess which is very important because that is how i interpret
the world what my mind tells me so mind is to be incorporated in my world view
it didn't stop there he went deeper he said there is a determining faculty within the mind that
kind of puts things into boxes oh this is kind of a round this is square this is blind blue
so we start putting putting things into boxes this is called the law of induction and deduction so
computer event people say we have it if you like this determining faculty in the mind
that allows us to try and classify the world and see it in a more rational manner to get a better
grasp of reality we have this rational faculty that we possess and the term we use is buddhi
so it's the body the mind and the buddhi the intellect that we seem to come naturally with
us seems to come with the framework you know we don't need to get batteries for it it just kind
of kicks in so he seemed to have all human beings seem to possess this kind of different layers
but his journey didn't even stop there otherwise it would have just been an intellectual gymnastics
he went one step further and here hinduism started suddenly this man through this
introspection suddenly discovered oh by the way i am not what i am observing i am the observer
so what i am conscious about is not what i am i am consciousness itself so the vision went inward
until it hit the jackpot not stopping at the body the mind of the intellect but at the spirit
i am the observer not what is being observed so everything i observe is secondary i am the
observer and alone and this is the majesty and this is not an intellect you think ah let me drink
a cup of coffee and work out who i am he actually hit the jackpot this is the drama i told you
spirituality only begins with first an encounter otherwise it's just make
believe it's nothing more than make believe you must be honest about it
so when he hit the jackpot for the first time you know we talk about freedom you know kind of
natural for every human being every living is searching for freedom try and break free from
a limitation that's why we like spider-man we like to break free from limitations so
this particular experience the first thing that you get when you get this experience that you feel
free you're freed from this very limited vision you are regarding yourself i'm neither the body
the mind or the intellect i am the spirit perfect and pristine as he was saying atman i am that
in in his time the word atman had not been devised so the word he used was purush the observer not
push doesn't mean man the observer in prakriti the world that we observe so we made the division
between prakrutin this is the beginning of the yoga system this is where the the word becomes
yoga comes from sanskrit root yuja joined together with my real nature i want to discard the wrong
notion i have regarding who i am and join myself with my true being my essential nature is the
spirit this is the word this is the true yoga if i can use the word from the word yuja join together
with my real being with my real self not what i think i am but what i actually am what i truly am
not what i observe but the observer not what i am conscious about but conscience itself so this was
the inward and you can i can tell you this this is such a freeing experience for the first time
death appears like nothing fickle because you're no longer limited to the body your mind your sir
you discovered who you are this thing that never dies there's never born i am that i am that and
the first thing when you look you know read some of the material from ramana maharshi you know one
of these modern prophets of hinduism you know you see this man lived in the glory of the self all
his life day and night he could experience self separate from the body so this is if you like
the beginning of this marvelous side journey so the word yuja or the word the the if you like the
etymology of the word yoga is the user to join together with my real nature
now this is the beginning of the yoga system of thinking but then of course next generation we
get patanjali who codified this into ashtang yoga patanjali's yoga sutra becomes the central feature
of turning this theory into practice so you give a formula saying you follow this particular very
very severe discipline which nobody would ever take on really in this day and age he said here is
severe discipline i present it to you practice it and you will hit the same jackpot so he codified
it and that become the central word raj yoga means the royal pathway of discovering your true nature
from there spraying lot of variations and you see hinduism is pluralistic it likes variation doesn't
like say you are stuck in a rot only you must think like i'm telling you otherwise you are lost
it doesn't say that he said no no you discovered your own way you go on a scenic route take a bit
of a bypass you know so that all these various other yogas have spraying up kind of a supportive
or kind of different approaches to the same idea that patanjali present patanjali also there is a
central and one of the things that patanjali and all prophets have said is look even though you are
saying you are not the body the body is the most important tool you possess to do anything in life
including discovering spirituality so please make sure your body is looked after well it's
healthy so here we get this idea of hatha yoga or making producing a healthy body healthy body
is the best tool you possess to make spiritual progress don't ignore it you ignore it at your
uh you know at your at your you know peril you don't ignore the body so here sprang up all this
you know 84 asanas and all this lovely stuff you see on tv being shown not by easterners but
by westerners doing all this world look nothing wrong don't vilify some people are fixated on the
body so they just want to make the body stronger and better and healthier and not instant spirit
don't vilify them that is their level leave it leave them there
they must progress from where they are so if they think the body is the beginning and the end of
all it's just the body look out for the bodies i can bite in the cherry second time a third time
i can marry get married three times even in my 80 i'll get married because my body is fit let him go
for it that's his way this openness of the hindu system allows you to progress from where you are
doesn't vilify any particular level of approach if you say i'm just interested in hurt yoga
and the western world is only really fixated on heart yoga because i fix it on the body
that's why they do plastic surgery they want to maintain they think this is it they are
them there's nothing more than but the body so they'll kind of you know do all this kind of
tweaking the knobs and you know engineering the body so that jaw doesn't fall down and so on
so i'm also kind of been trying to keep my hair in place but that's life but this is if
you like the idea of different levels of yoga the kundalini yoga comes closest to patanjali's ideas
because it talks about actual physical movement that take place when you're successful in yoga
so this again very close to patanjali yoga sutra but that will be the closest i would say
but there are lots of variations and does it mean that one is right no no the one that suits your
temperament that fits your requirement that's best for you go for it but progress from where you are
my