A Master Responds

A y

oga butt? That's the funniest thing I've heard. But it sums up how the West views yoga: as an aid to master the physical. Sure, yoga can help one develop a perfect behind. But yogis don't look good because of their butts. When you encounter a yogi he mesmerizes you by his enigmatic presence. Yogis vibrate on a totally different plane.

Most of the so-called yogis in the West seem to focus on figure correction, not true awareness. They make statements about yoga being for the body, mind and soul. But this is just semantics. Asanas (postures), which get such huge play in the West, are the smallest aspect of yoga. Either you practice yoga as a whole or you don't. If one is practicing just for health, better to take up walking. Need to cure a disease? See a doctor. Yoga is not about fancy asanas or breath control. Nor is it a therapy or a philosophy. Yoga is about inside awareness. It is the process of union of the self with the whole. Yoga is becoming the Buddha.

Yogis are experimentalists. In the West, scientists research mainly external phenomena. Yogis focus on the inside. They know that the external world is maya (illusionary) and everything inside is sathya (truth). In maya everything goes, but if you know yourself nothing goes. The West tends to practice only what we call cultural asanas that focus on the external. We don't practice asanas just to become fit. Indian yogis have discovered 8.4 million such postures. It is essentially to train our bodies to find the most comfortable pose that we can sit in for hours. Beyond that there is no role for physical yoga.

Basically yoga is made up of two parts: bahirang (external yoga) and antarang (internal yoga). The West practices only the former. It needs to enter into antarang yoga. For that you need a true master to take you into spiritual yoga. Someone who has walked inside himself. Such a master will ask: Now friend, you have known the body, you have known your breath, your mind, so what next? After that begins the trip to the unknown where the master makes the student gradually aware at every stage, where you know that you are not the body or the mind and not even the soul. That is when you get the first taste of moksha, or enlightenment. It is the sense of the opening of the silence, the sense where you lose yourself and are happy doing it, where for the first time your ego has merged with the superconsciousness. You feel you no longer exist, for you have walked into the valley of death. And if you start walking more and more in this valley, you become freer.

It is a trip from you to no you. A trip from the known to unknown. From the valley of total knowledge, stuff and ego to utter surrender where nothing remains in you but pure consciousness. You go to a stage where you are totally free of fear of dying. Or living. And that's what a yogi means in India. It is someone who has moved from body to the mind, to the soul, to awareness, to the subtle surrender to the superconsciousness. Next time you head for a yoga class, ask yourself whether you are ready to be a seeker of the path.

Bharat Thakur, a living Himalayan master, teaches the ancient art of yoga and meditation and has a wide following in India. He can be contacted at bharatyogi@hotmail.com