Significance of Yoga
A happy, prosperous, content and peaceful life would be the desire of any person. A desire is good for nothing on its own. It is absolutely weak and useless without determination and effort. Your determination and dedication play a vital role in perceiving your desires. Your passion drives you to stay focused through your journey. Your commitment to abide by your path regardless of the hardships and sacrifices would reflect the intensity of your passion. A desire without determination, dedication, passion, and motivation leads you to nowhere. However most of us just desire for something but does not empower our desire with the necessary momentum to be achieved. Hence those desires never become our reality.
Man‘s constant longing for pleasure lures him to chase his desire for pleasure. His never ending thirst for pleasures is constantly fuelled through the sense of enjoyment. He is never satisfied with his accomplishments. His accomplishments are often replaced by a fresh set of desires ready to be achieved while his unachieved goals may cause melancholy. He is most often fascinated by the materialistic pleasures which would perish in the due course of time and hence result in melancholy. Likewise, he depends on his family members for his emotional pleasure. But he always fails to realize that all the materialistic things which give him pleasure are temporary and hence the pleasure he derives from these things is also temporary. Also the physical body, the basic medium through which we perceive this world itself is perishable. He remains ignorant of the nature of his own self throughout his life and feels insecure. But if the same person gets a chance to live with enlightened entities, his consciousness gets awakened and turns his focus towards yoga. Asans alone does not constitute yoga, they are only a part of yoga. But these asans alone are capable of enabling the practiser to achieve moksha and experience the eternal bliss. In a similar context, Lord Shri Krishna in Geeta stated
इन्द्रियाणि परण्याहर इंद्रियेभ्यः परम मनः मनसस्तु परा बुद्धिर्यो बुद्धेः परतस्तु सः (3 / 42)
Asans make our sense organs stronger and efficient. All our sense organs intertwine with mind. They cause mind to record and react to all their perceptions. Thus keeping your body fit in order to maintain ability and efficiency of your mind is inevitable. Also the intellectual ability of a person is dependent on mind. Unless your mind is fit and healthy, you cannot avail your intellect to its fullest. To sharpen and empower your mental skills, keeping your mind in good configuration is of immense importance. At YogaFaculty we provide excellent Yoga teacher training programs in India which would not only promote the self-development but also carves you into an iconic role model for numerous yoga aspirants. Soul is more subtle than our body or mind and hence the spiritual progress. Thus man can achieve moksha or salvation through mere practice of yoga asans. Yoga enables you to start your spiritual journey through simple physical workouts called yogasans and uses our physical body as a medium to accelerate the mental and psychological development to experience the spiritual bliss.
According to vedas, vedantas and yoga sat chit anand swaroop atma is considered the reason for eternal bliss, peace and happiness. ‘Sat’ means eternal. It refers to something which existed in past , which exists in present and which will exist in the future too. ‘Chit’ means mind and ‘Anand’ means bliss or happiness. The soul in this form of sta chit anand would become the reason for ever lasting happiness of a person. But the soul is intangible similar to the existence of butter in milk. Butter does exist in milk in some form but is intangible. Similarly though the soul is not tangible to our senses, its presence can still be perceived everywhere. It can be perceived in our physical body too. Soul dwells throughout our physical body though it is not visible to our naked eye. Lord Shri Krishna’s conversation with Arjuna in Bhagavadgita supports this concept. He said
यथा सर्वगतं सूक्ष्म्याकाशम नोपलिप्यते
सर्वत्रावस्थितो देहे तथात्मा नोपलिप्यते
It means that the soul exists throughout the universe just like the sky that is persistent everywhere. Thus it is clearly evident that soul resides in our physical body. But how does the soul contribute to the happiness, peace and pleasure of a person?
The end of miseries resembles cause for happiness, peace and bliss. These miseries end when the person gets enlightened. Our life is filled with sorrows. Unnecessary wants and desires make our life prone to miseries. The soul is sealed with five sheaths. The sat, chit, anand facet of our soul is concealed under the layers of materialistic desires and impurities like anger, ego etc. The soul coexisting with these disorders is called jeevatma. It is called paramata when it gets detached from all these disorders. The soul is affected by love, anger, attraction, greed, ego, ignorance, darkness etc. When the soul gets liberated from all these effects, man will reveal his true nature to himself which is called moksh, samadhi, liberation, enlightenment or salvation. This will entice him with the eternal bliss.
There are various ways to attain salvation by liberating the soul from the stated effects. Jnan marg, yoga marg, bhakti marg, karma marg etc are few such ways to mention which paves the way to eternal bliss.
We can adopt jnan marg which involves the study of vedas, vedantas and Upanishads along with the contemplation and rumination of the excerpts of a master and thus forth lead a happy life. Lord Shri Krishna in Bhagavadgita in the context of jnan yoga told Arjuna –
श्रेयो हि ज्ञानमभ्यासात
which means jnan marg is the best path to attain salvation. Only the person with profound dedication can attain the knowledge through this path. Lord Shri Krishna has also quoted –
ज्ञानात ध्यान विशिष्यते
which means dhyana is predominant compared to jnan marg. Dhyana is the seventh limb out of eight lims of Yoga. The following quote was mentioned in yoga sutra
योगांगानष्ठानात अशुद्धिक्ष्यते ज्ञान दीप्तिराविवेक ख्याते
It means that the impurities are destroyed through the practice of yoga and as a result the soul gets enlightened which causes happiness that will last forever. The prime purpose of yoga teacher trainings we provide at Dharmasala, goa and Rishikesh is to educate people about the benefits of yoga and in turn enable them to fill their lives with happiness. Lord Shri Krishna also talked about the supremacy of yoga in Bhagavadgita and stated –
तपस्विभ्योधिको योगी ज्ञानिभ्योपि मतोअधिक
कर्मिभ्यश्चाधिको योगी तस्माद्योगी भवार्जुन
In the above lines Lord Shri Krishna advices Arjuna to become a yogi as a yogi is given an imperial status compared to an ascetic or scholar. Also yogi is considered to be efficacious than the people who act irrespective of desires.
Bramhandpurana has quoted
गृहस्थानां सहस्रेण वानप्रस्थशतानी च
ब्रह्माचारि सहस्रेण योगाभ्यासी विशिष्यते
It means that the yoga practise is considered to be most valuable than any punya acquired by a thousand householders, a hundred hermits and a thousand young brahmans.
Thus it is clearly evident that yoga is the best approach for handling any kind of problem. Yoga teacher training programs offered at YogaFaculty thoroughly trains people to learn to use yoga to deal with any kind of situation and fill their life with joy and amusement.
The following verse is quoted in Hath yoga pradeepika
क्रियायुक्तस्य सिद्धिः स्यादाक्रीयस्य कथं भवेत्
न सस्त्रपाठमात्रेण योगसिद्धिः प्रजायते
Yoga is of course the best path to adopt for salvation but it needs sagacious practice. Continuously persistent effort is necessary to achieve success in yoga.
