Yoga had always been a part of my school curriculum since 6th grade. We were made to by-heart mantras and do asanas every Tuesday in a large hall. That is when I purchased my first yoga mat. Albeit, it was never our favourite class of the week for in the subsequent years, it substituted one of our sports periods and for the basketball player and cross-country runner in me, the slow movements and lack of adrenaline while doing the asanas was boring.
It was only in 11th grade when I took up Physical Education as an elective that I was introduced to the theory of Yoga. I had always heard that it was more than just a set of asanas that provided innumerable benefits, but it was reading through the books that made me realize it. The addition of my Sanskrit knowledge that I had acquired in the 5 years between 6th and 11th grade that had helped me make more sense of the sea of knowledge that stood in front of me.
Slowly, I began understanding the science behind it. The anatomical applications of the asanas and began to believe in them more and more. Reading about Patanjali’s Ashtanga, I realized that despite having practice asanas, I was barely wetting my feet at the shore of the sea. The phrase “Yoga is a lifestyle in itself” began to make sense. It was the lifestyle of plain logic coupled with unparalleled science and living in simplicity. My classmates and I organized yoga events and made posters about Yoga for our annual fest. I was being drawn in more and more into the sea and the more I immersed myself, the more beautiful I found it to be. I was so fascinated that I wanted to take it up as a career. I wanted to use Yoga for post-surgical recovery but dropped the though when I realized it would involve more study of biology – one of my least liked subjects.
Entering college, I found myself to have more time at hand and enrolled myself for professional guidance in the field of Yoga. My teacher, my Guru, explained things in detail with such simplicity and the power of my belief in the practice helped me gain innumerable benefits. My hair fall decreased, I went from being called “malnourished” to having a healthy weight, my strength increased, and breath stabilized. I could control my anger better and I smiled more.
A year later, I found my self enrolling for the Yoga Instructors’ course that my teacher was offering. I was doing it not so that I could become a teacher and begin earning out of it but because I thought it would help me understand myself better. The knowledge of nadis, chakras, pranayama, doshas and gunas fascinated me. I was as if all sciences were merging to make more sense than they ever individually could.
I thought of The Ancient One from Doctor Strange saying how no one could see all the systems together, as one integrated unit and not separate ones and that is when I realized that Yoga was tapping into that realm of infinite knowledge. Books like The Secret, The Alchemist and Eat, Pray, Love all were hinting at the same thing. Yoga wasn’t preaching of opening locked secrets of the Universe or of transporting one to the spiritual realm but was only showing a path that led a self that was beyond joys and sorrows but was forever in a state of bliss.
Practising yoga with this newfound consciousness made me more aware of my thoughts, practising asanas with the correct technique helped me achieve more with my body and the daily practice of Pranayama made my subconscious thoughts rise to the surface. I was getting to know myself better, but I know that the journey is never-ending. As someone rightly said,
“The Longest Journey, Is the One Inwards”
Skepseis 