YOGA Q AND A
Benefits of Yoga
Sadhguru answers a question on the health benefits of yoga and explores exactly how yoga helps you stay healthy. He speaks about the energy body and its role in maintaining physical and psychological health, and explains how maintaining the vibrancy of the energy body ensures a healthy life.Full Transcript: Sadhguru: Essentially, if your energy body [...]
Sadhguru answers a question on the health benefits of yoga and explores exactly how yoga helps you stay healthy. He speaks about the energy body and its role in maintaining physical and psychological health, and explains how maintaining the vibrancy of the energy body ensures a healthy life.
Full Transcript:
Sadhguru: Essentially, if your energy body is balanced and fully activated, there can be no physical or psychological ailment in you, it's simply not possible. I can show you hundreds and thousands of people who walked out of their ailments completely, simply - not by any treatment - simply by bringing a certain balance to the system.
There are any number of people. It's not some kind of a miraculous thing, it is just a deeper understanding of the system and the system is a miracle, there’s no question about that.
This is a miracle, isn't it? No? Yes or no? It’s a phenomenal miracle, isn't it? So the magic is already there, you just have to play with it right, that's all. You don’t have to do any extra magic.
Already everything is magical, isn't it so in the existence? Yes or no?
Every atom is a magic by itself because we’ve still not figured anything in its entirety. So very simple, you don’t have to do any great yoga of twisting yourself upside down and all that. Simple things;
if you breathe right and keep your body in a certain level of balance, you will see there is no need to have any kind of ailments.
Ailments are of two kinds - one is infectious; infectious means it's an invasion from outside. That we have to deal with medicine - for that you must go to the doctor.
But over seventy percent of the ailments on the planet are chronic in nature. That means you are producing your own ailment, self-help this is called. [Laughs] Because nobody is bothering you, you want to do something to yourself. So, most… over seventy percent of the ailments are because of self-help.
People are generating ailments from within and this cannot be cured by any medicine. You can only manage it, you can never cure it but the very source of making this body is within us, it comes from within. Your heart, liver, kidney everything from…manufactured from within, isn't it?
If you do certain simple things, if you allow, fixing also happens from within and every human being is capable of this. It’s just that they’ve never paid attention to it.
Only advantage is if you go to a doctor, he will do it; these things you must do, that’s the only problem.
Yoga FAQs
Here are a few questions and answers collected over the years, that offer insights into the fundamentals of yoga and meditation.
Question:What is the difference between yoga and meditation?
Sadhguru:The English word “meditation” doesn’t mean anything because if you sit with closed eyes, you are “meditating”. But with eyes closed, you could do many things – japa, tapa, dharana, dhyana, samadhi, shoonya. Or you might have mastered the art of sleeping in vertical postures! If you mean meditation as dhyana, it is one aspect of yoga.
Meditation is not something that you can do. But you can become meditative.
Meditation is a certain quality, not a certain act.
The main aspect of meditation is, right now your mind is the boss and you are the slave.
As you become more meditative, you become the boss and your mind becomes the slave – and that is how it should always be.
If you allow the mind to rule, it is a terrible master.
It will put you through all kinds of endless suffering.
But as a slave, the mind is wonderful – it is a miraculous slave.
The reason why most people who have tried meditation have come to the conclusion that it’s very difficult or impossible is because they are trying to do it.
Meditation is not something that you can do.
But you can become meditative.
Meditation is a certain quality, not a certain act.
If you cultivate your body, mind, energies and emotions to a certain level of maturity, meditation naturally happens.
It is just like if you keep the soil fertile, if you give it the necessary manure and water and if the right kind of seed is there, it will grow and bloom into flowers and fruits.
Flowers and fruits will come out of a plant not because you want it, but simply because you created a conducive atmosphere.
Similarly, if you create the necessary atmosphere within yourself on all the four dimensions of who you are, meditation naturally flowers within you.
It is a certain fragrance that one can enjoy within oneself.
Question:Can I do yoga if I eat non-veg and drink?
Sadhguru:Yoga isn’t a restriction, it’s a deeper understanding of life.
If you knew how to become absolutely ecstatic just by your own chemistry, you wouldn’t smoke or take a drink in your life.
I’ve never touched a substance but if you look at my eyes, I’m always stoned.
Yogis look at alcohol, drugs and these things as kindergarten stuff because we can get intoxicated a thousand times over just with our aliveness.
Why simply wine? You can get drunk with the di-vine!
Question:How can yoga help in overall development?
Sadhguru:Yoga is not about self-development; it is about self-dissolution.
It is the method or the process which allows an individual piece of life to yoke itself to the cosmic.
When your experience of life shifts from being a limited entity to universality, this is yoga.
When there is a kind of oneness or wholeness within ourselves, this is yoga.
Then you have a certain freedom to play with your life whichever way you want, but at the same time life cannot leave a scratch upon you.
Question:The word “yoga” in Sanskrit means “union”. Is there some simple practice we can do to move towards the union?
Sadhguru:The simplest form of yoga, to bring this union is Namaskar.
The first level of conflict that happens within you is between your ida and pingala, the masculine and the feminine, the sun and moon within, the yin and yang, right and left brain.
There is a friction between these two polarities which finds expression in a million ways in your life.
By putting your hands together, you can bring harmony to the dualities within and there is a possibility that you can also unite the world.
Question:Does yoga require the help of an instructor or can it be self-taught?
Sadhguru:Let us say you are seeking to go to a distant city. If you are alone and there are no proper directions, definitely you would wish for a map. It is not that you cannot do it yourself, but we do not know how long it will take. On an uncharted path, if you go without a map, you may take lifetimes to get there. If you go with a map, you will cross easily. If you go with a good bus driver, you will cross very easily; that is the difference. When you want to walk uncharted terrain, it is intelligent to choose a person who has already walked the terrain.
Question:Is there a career option of being a Guru?
Sadhguru:Someone asked me, “Sadhguru, it's been wonderful having you as our Guru. How do you feel having us as disciples?” I said, “Being a yogi is fantastic. Being a Guru is frustrating.”
What is so simple, I have to speak the same thing in million different ways for a lifetime and people still don’t seem to get it.
And it's not a career because you cannot guide people through certain dimensions of life if it is only a means to your living. Only if it is more than your life it is possible.
Question:What can spirituality give to youngsters?
Sadhguru:Youth means lots of energy.
But unbridled energy without stability and direction is always dangerous and destructive.
Only those who are stable can use whatever quality and talent they have to the fullest extent.
So the most important thing for youth is, they need to become meditative.
If they are a little more stable, this energy which you call as youth, could be put to better use for their own and for everyone’s wellbeing.
Before youth manages the country, the world and business, it is extremely important that they learn to manage themselves.
The whole process of yoga is the science of inner management.
You create an inner possibility where being blissful, joyful and peaceful is of your own nature, and not because of something that happens around you.
Question:What is the first step to increase awareness?
Sadhguru:Every hour, remind yourself, “Wow! I’m still alive”. You may think this is silly, but over a hundred thousand people will not wake up tomorrow morning. So, if you are still alive tomorrow morning, smile because the fact that you woke up is not a small thing.
Then check whether the few people who matter to you are alive – great! At least a million people lost someone dear to them, but if none of those dear to you are gone today, fantastic!
Only when you are conscious about your mortality, you will want to truly know the nature of this life. You will have no time to do nonsense that doesn’t mean anything to you.
You will only do what really matters to your life. Becoming aware will naturally happen because the significance of being alive will blossom.
Editor’s Note:Check out the “5-minute Yoga Tools for Transformation” – simple upa-yoga practices for joy, peace, wellbeing, success and more. You can also download the app, or join or host a workshop on International Yoga Day, or train to become a facilitator for the practices.
How to Start a Yoga Practice
New to Yoga? You've come to the right place! Here are five practical tips that can enhance your new Yoga regimen.
Are you wondering how to start yoga? You've come to the right place! If you practice yoga, you can experience a profound sense of harmony both within yourself and the world around you.
Before you get into it, though, it's important to set the right kind of atmosphere both inside and outside.
Here are 5 pointers to keep in mind to optimise your yoga practice:
1. Make sure your stomach and bowels are empty.
Yoga is not just an exercise but a way of enhancing the human energy system. As Sadhguru explains, "Anything that is not the body should be out of the body if you want to move your energies upward." So make sure to do your yoga practice before you eat (ideally in the morning before breakfast) and after emptying the bowels. And in the same vein, there should be no intake of food or water while you do the yoga practice itself.
2. Take a shower or bath.
Bathing is not just about cleaning your skin; when water comes in contact with your body, one's interiority gets washed as well.
Sadhguru recommends cool or tepid water as it makes "the pores between the skin cells open up, and that’s important for practicing yoga because we want the cellular structure of the body to be charged with a different dimension of energy."
3. Wear loose-fitting, comfortable clothes.
As we looked at, yoga works on one's energy system. Wearing loose-fitting clothes assists in this process.
Sadhguru says, "When your energies begin to expand within you, you will notice tight-fitting clothes will not be comfortable on your body. Naturally you would want a very loose fitting cloth."
4. Consume neem and turmeric before the yoga practice.
"The consumption of neem and turmeric with tepid, light honey water is a wonderful way of cleansing and dilating the cellular structure in such a way that it is able to absorb energy. When you do sadhana, the dilation brings flexibility to the muscles. The flexibility helps you to slowly build the system into a more powerful possibility." -Sadhguru
5. Start with an invocation.
An invocation is a way of bringing out the best in you before you practice yoga.
In the yogic culture, invocations are usually in Sanskrit, an ancient language that directly connects sounds with forms.
Using sounds to activate the human system is the basis of Nada Yoga, or the yoga of sound.
An invocation is a very simple form of Nada Yoga. A simple invocation that you could start with is:
Asato ma sadgamaya
Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya
Mrityor ma amritangamaya
Aum Shanti Shanti Shantihi
Lead me from untruth to truth
Lead me from darkness (ignorance) to light (knowing)
Lead me from death to deathlessness
Learn more from this beginner’s guide on how to practice yoga.
Sadhguru answers a question on the health benefits of yoga and explores exactly how yoga helps you stay healthy. He speaks about the energy body and its role in maintaining physical and psychological health, and explains how maintaining the vibrancy of the energy body ensures a healthy life.Full Transcript: Sadhguru: Essentially, if your energy body [...]
Sadhguru answers a question on the health benefits of yoga and explores exactly how yoga helps you stay healthy. He speaks about the energy body and its role in maintaining physical and psychological health, and explains how maintaining the vibrancy of the energy body ensures a healthy life.
Full Transcript:
Sadhguru: Essentially, if your energy body is balanced and fully activated, there can be no physical or psychological ailment in you, it's simply not possible. I can show you hundreds and thousands of people who walked out of their ailments completely, simply - not by any treatment - simply by bringing a certain balance to the system.
There are any number of people. It's not some kind of a miraculous thing, it is just a deeper understanding of the system and the system is a miracle, there’s no question about that.
This is a miracle, isn't it? No? Yes or no? It’s a phenomenal miracle, isn't it? So the magic is already there, you just have to play with it right, that's all. You don’t have to do any extra magic.
Already everything is magical, isn't it so in the existence? Yes or no?
Every atom is a magic by itself because we’ve still not figured anything in its entirety. So very simple, you don’t have to do any great yoga of twisting yourself upside down and all that. Simple things;
if you breathe right and keep your body in a certain level of balance, you will see there is no need to have any kind of ailments.
Ailments are of two kinds - one is infectious; infectious means it's an invasion from outside. That we have to deal with medicine - for that you must go to the doctor.
But over seventy percent of the ailments on the planet are chronic in nature. That means you are producing your own ailment, self-help this is called. [Laughs] Because nobody is bothering you, you want to do something to yourself. So, most… over seventy percent of the ailments are because of self-help.
People are generating ailments from within and this cannot be cured by any medicine. You can only manage it, you can never cure it but the very source of making this body is within us, it comes from within. Your heart, liver, kidney everything from…manufactured from within, isn't it?
If you do certain simple things, if you allow, fixing also happens from within and every human being is capable of this. It’s just that they’ve never paid attention to it.
Only advantage is if you go to a doctor, he will do it; these things you must do, that’s the only problem.
Yoga FAQs
Here are a few questions and answers collected over the years, that offer insights into the fundamentals of yoga and meditation.
Question:What is the difference between yoga and meditation?
Sadhguru:The English word “meditation” doesn’t mean anything because if you sit with closed eyes, you are “meditating”. But with eyes closed, you could do many things – japa, tapa, dharana, dhyana, samadhi, shoonya. Or you might have mastered the art of sleeping in vertical postures! If you mean meditation as dhyana, it is one aspect of yoga.
Meditation is not something that you can do. But you can become meditative.
Meditation is a certain quality, not a certain act.
The main aspect of meditation is, right now your mind is the boss and you are the slave.
As you become more meditative, you become the boss and your mind becomes the slave – and that is how it should always be.
If you allow the mind to rule, it is a terrible master.
It will put you through all kinds of endless suffering.
But as a slave, the mind is wonderful – it is a miraculous slave.
The reason why most people who have tried meditation have come to the conclusion that it’s very difficult or impossible is because they are trying to do it.
Meditation is not something that you can do.
But you can become meditative.
Meditation is a certain quality, not a certain act.
If you cultivate your body, mind, energies and emotions to a certain level of maturity, meditation naturally happens.
It is just like if you keep the soil fertile, if you give it the necessary manure and water and if the right kind of seed is there, it will grow and bloom into flowers and fruits.
Flowers and fruits will come out of a plant not because you want it, but simply because you created a conducive atmosphere.
Similarly, if you create the necessary atmosphere within yourself on all the four dimensions of who you are, meditation naturally flowers within you.
It is a certain fragrance that one can enjoy within oneself.
Question:Can I do yoga if I eat non-veg and drink?
Sadhguru:Yoga isn’t a restriction, it’s a deeper understanding of life.
If you knew how to become absolutely ecstatic just by your own chemistry, you wouldn’t smoke or take a drink in your life.
I’ve never touched a substance but if you look at my eyes, I’m always stoned.
Yogis look at alcohol, drugs and these things as kindergarten stuff because we can get intoxicated a thousand times over just with our aliveness.
Why simply wine? You can get drunk with the di-vine!
Question:How can yoga help in overall development?
Sadhguru:Yoga is not about self-development; it is about self-dissolution.
It is the method or the process which allows an individual piece of life to yoke itself to the cosmic.
When your experience of life shifts from being a limited entity to universality, this is yoga.
When there is a kind of oneness or wholeness within ourselves, this is yoga.
Then you have a certain freedom to play with your life whichever way you want, but at the same time life cannot leave a scratch upon you.
Question:The word “yoga” in Sanskrit means “union”. Is there some simple practice we can do to move towards the union?
Sadhguru:The simplest form of yoga, to bring this union is Namaskar.
The first level of conflict that happens within you is between your ida and pingala, the masculine and the feminine, the sun and moon within, the yin and yang, right and left brain.
There is a friction between these two polarities which finds expression in a million ways in your life.
By putting your hands together, you can bring harmony to the dualities within and there is a possibility that you can also unite the world.
Question:Does yoga require the help of an instructor or can it be self-taught?
Sadhguru:Let us say you are seeking to go to a distant city. If you are alone and there are no proper directions, definitely you would wish for a map. It is not that you cannot do it yourself, but we do not know how long it will take. On an uncharted path, if you go without a map, you may take lifetimes to get there. If you go with a map, you will cross easily. If you go with a good bus driver, you will cross very easily; that is the difference. When you want to walk uncharted terrain, it is intelligent to choose a person who has already walked the terrain.
Question:Is there a career option of being a Guru?
Sadhguru:Someone asked me, “Sadhguru, it's been wonderful having you as our Guru. How do you feel having us as disciples?” I said, “Being a yogi is fantastic. Being a Guru is frustrating.”
What is so simple, I have to speak the same thing in million different ways for a lifetime and people still don’t seem to get it.
And it's not a career because you cannot guide people through certain dimensions of life if it is only a means to your living. Only if it is more than your life it is possible.
Question:What can spirituality give to youngsters?
Sadhguru:Youth means lots of energy.
But unbridled energy without stability and direction is always dangerous and destructive.
Only those who are stable can use whatever quality and talent they have to the fullest extent.
So the most important thing for youth is, they need to become meditative.
If they are a little more stable, this energy which you call as youth, could be put to better use for their own and for everyone’s wellbeing.
Before youth manages the country, the world and business, it is extremely important that they learn to manage themselves.
The whole process of yoga is the science of inner management.
You create an inner possibility where being blissful, joyful and peaceful is of your own nature, and not because of something that happens around you.
Question:What is the first step to increase awareness?
Sadhguru:Every hour, remind yourself, “Wow! I’m still alive”. You may think this is silly, but over a hundred thousand people will not wake up tomorrow morning. So, if you are still alive tomorrow morning, smile because the fact that you woke up is not a small thing.
Then check whether the few people who matter to you are alive – great! At least a million people lost someone dear to them, but if none of those dear to you are gone today, fantastic!
Only when you are conscious about your mortality, you will want to truly know the nature of this life. You will have no time to do nonsense that doesn’t mean anything to you.
You will only do what really matters to your life. Becoming aware will naturally happen because the significance of being alive will blossom.
Editor’s Note:Check out the “5-minute Yoga Tools for Transformation” – simple upa-yoga practices for joy, peace, wellbeing, success and more. You can also download the app, or join or host a workshop on International Yoga Day, or train to become a facilitator for the practices.
How to Start a Yoga Practice
New to Yoga? You've come to the right place! Here are five practical tips that can enhance your new Yoga regimen.
Are you wondering how to start yoga? You've come to the right place! If you practice yoga, you can experience a profound sense of harmony both within yourself and the world around you.
Before you get into it, though, it's important to set the right kind of atmosphere both inside and outside.
Here are 5 pointers to keep in mind to optimise your yoga practice:
1. Make sure your stomach and bowels are empty.
Yoga is not just an exercise but a way of enhancing the human energy system. As Sadhguru explains, "Anything that is not the body should be out of the body if you want to move your energies upward." So make sure to do your yoga practice before you eat (ideally in the morning before breakfast) and after emptying the bowels. And in the same vein, there should be no intake of food or water while you do the yoga practice itself.
2. Take a shower or bath.
Bathing is not just about cleaning your skin; when water comes in contact with your body, one's interiority gets washed as well.
Sadhguru recommends cool or tepid water as it makes "the pores between the skin cells open up, and that’s important for practicing yoga because we want the cellular structure of the body to be charged with a different dimension of energy."
3. Wear loose-fitting, comfortable clothes.
As we looked at, yoga works on one's energy system. Wearing loose-fitting clothes assists in this process.
Sadhguru says, "When your energies begin to expand within you, you will notice tight-fitting clothes will not be comfortable on your body. Naturally you would want a very loose fitting cloth."
4. Consume neem and turmeric before the yoga practice.
"The consumption of neem and turmeric with tepid, light honey water is a wonderful way of cleansing and dilating the cellular structure in such a way that it is able to absorb energy. When you do sadhana, the dilation brings flexibility to the muscles. The flexibility helps you to slowly build the system into a more powerful possibility." -Sadhguru
5. Start with an invocation.
An invocation is a way of bringing out the best in you before you practice yoga.
In the yogic culture, invocations are usually in Sanskrit, an ancient language that directly connects sounds with forms.
Using sounds to activate the human system is the basis of Nada Yoga, or the yoga of sound.
An invocation is a very simple form of Nada Yoga. A simple invocation that you could start with is:
Asato ma sadgamaya
Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya
Mrityor ma amritangamaya
Aum Shanti Shanti Shantihi
Lead me from untruth to truth
Lead me from darkness (ignorance) to light (knowing)
Lead me from death to deathlessness
Learn more from this beginner’s guide on how to practice yoga.
