Yoga - it's MORE than just fashion (Nithya Yoga Series 1)

A few days back, I bumped into a friend of mine early morning.

Me: Hi man, how come you are awake on a Sunday morning?

He: I went for my weekly yoga class...

Me: Wow, thats a nice way to begin a Sunday. So what exactly do you do in the class?

He: We start off with some warm up exercises, then do some asana (postures) and breathing techniques and at last we do shavasana (resting pose) which is my favorite (laughs) because all others are really complex. I simply can't do them. I don't know how people do it.

Me: Thats nice. So how does it feel?

He: Yup. Its a great work out. Theres no doubt about it. Then during that one hour of session, I feel nice, peaceful. But sometimes, it gets really depressing...

Me: Hmm.. I can understand. So whats the plan for today?

He: Man, there are so many things to do. My boss wants a report by tomorrow. So I have to go and work on it. And then a party in the evening.. Man I wish I had 48 hours..

Yoga is such a commonly used word now. The very first thing that comes to our mind when someone tells us about yoga is a slim lady posing in some complex posture. We hear about all kinds of yoga - power yoga, deluxe yoga, blue yoga, super deluxe yoga .. I can go on :)

Most people like my friend associate yoga session with a physical workout and at most with some mental peace during that one hour session. But yoga was meant to be much more than this. It was not a tool, as it has become now, to keep oneself slim. It was not meant to be a fashion statement.

Patanjali, the father of Yoga, developed what is called Ashtanga Yoga as a tool to look inward. It was called a darshana, literally meaning 'looking inward'. Swami Nithyananda says the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga were meant to prepare the mind-body-spirit for enlightenment. That was the depth at which Patanjali proposed the aphorisms on yoga called Yoga Sutra.

Yoga was meant to be a continuous process of being aware of one self but now it has been reduced to a one hour workout session with postures, breathing techniques and meditations. Yoga was meant to be a way of living, a lifestyle wherein one is aware of oneself throughout the 24 hours. From the above conversation, complex postures is not yoga; going back to worrying is not yoga; physical workout is not yoga.

Swami Nithyananda introduced what is called Nithya Yoga, literally meaning, Yoga of Eternity which He says captures the essence of Patanjali's Ashtanga Yoga for the jet age generation. Describing Nithya Yoga completely in one post is impossible but one thing that is common to each and everyone who has done Nithya Yoga is that, 'it is out of this world.' People who have been doing yoga for 25 years say, 'I have never seen anything like this before.'

In the next few posts, I will take you through some amazing insights into yoga as told by Swami Nithyananda. For now, I leave you with this short video on Nithya Yoga.

-- Sri Nithya Arpanananda