The Goal of Yoga

Why yoga? What's the craze about? What is it that gets us totally absorbed in this ancient art of body, mind and soul?

I have been around countless yogis now for four weeks and have heard their stories of falling for yoga.  I've watched their faces glow after the morning practise, I have seen them tear up as they leave Mysore to return to their "normal" lives.  It is obvious: yoga does wonders to those who dedicate themselves to a regular practise.  When you arrive at a point when it is more difficult to skip a practise than to do it, you start wondering, "how did I do without"?

It starts with a wish to live a healthier life, to become stronger or more aware of your body, or even as a stress therapy. What it turns into is something most of us have not anticipated at all.

The father of yoga, Sri Patanjali, who lived sometime between 5000BCE and 300CE and produced the single most important account on yoga called Yoga Sutras, writes:

"The goal of yoga is not to obtain something that is lacking: it is the realization of an already present reality. Yoga practise does not bring about Samadhi [the higher state of conciousness] directly - it removes the obstacles that obstruct its experience" (Yoga Sutras, Sutra 2.2)

And there it is.  The love, the beauty, the peace that we so desparately search for is already there. We just need to remove the layers of our conditioning, our past experiences, fears and dogmas that we are taught to follow and it slowly unveils itself, like a delicte flower in the morning light.

In the depth of a breath, in the intensity of the moment, when the ego takes a step back and the ignorance looses its hold, we get a glimpse what it's all about. And that one moment is what keeps us coming back for more.  That moment when love is stronger than fear, when we learn to surrender and let go, the moment when stillness takes its bloom, that is yoga.

Of course, there are many ways of arriving to the destination. For me, getting out of my head and getting into my body, works.  Asana (yoga postures) is a good help to achieving the rest.. and there is much more to achieve than reaching your toes or even perfecting an advanced sequence.  Physical practise of yoga without the other "limbs" is just acrobatics.  Living the life of love and kindness is what it's all about. Letting go of the need for material posessions to make us happy, letting go of craving for status and authority, letting go of fears that stop as from being who we truly are, is the goal of yoga. 

As the constant chatter of our minds subsides, in the moment of stillness, we can see it more clearly. 

It is all there.  We just have to be brave enough to face it.