So our topic today is yoga relationships. The relationships of yoga or yoga relationships. A very relevant topic for everybody.
Life is very confusing because we don’t have knowledge. For most people life is a mystery. But a mystery is only a mystery because we don’t know the truth. And that’s the whole point: we must learn the truth about life. There is a Sanskrit verse in the Vedic scriptures, it is called Jnana jijnasa and this means ‘Inquire into the Absolute Truth’.
I know all of you are involved in yoga, I’ve been told. And that’s very good. That’s a very good step in the right direction. And, of course, the yoga that I know many of you are practicing is hatha yoga. And maybe you are doing some other yoga, too, I don’t know, but hatha yoga is certainly common among us here.
But actually this is just one very small part of yoga. But again, due to a lack of understanding in the world today, although yoga is so popular almost nobody knows what the real understanding of yoga is.
“It is exercise, it is bending and twisting and turning, it’s losing weight, it’s looking good, it’s feeling good. That is yoga.” That’s all the benefits of hatha yoga, yes. But on what level is this operating? Think about this. What level is this operating on? The physical level and to a degree on the mental level.
So being linear we will say this is operating on the physical and mental level. But it’s not on the spiritual level. It doesn’t touch us, the spirit soul. I’m different than the body. I’m different than the mind.
So hatha yoga is the part of the yoga system to help us come to a very good state of health physically, and if you incorporate some breathing, etc., also help us to calm the mind. And that’s what it is designed to do. But what about me, the spirit soul? Do I get a lot of benefit from hatha yoga?
Really, no. The most great expert hatha yogi can be completely ignorant of who he is. So we want to go further, this is the point.
This is an introduction. Hatha yoga is how I was introduced to yoga. But very quickly this took me into other dimensions of yoga because I wanted to.
So what does yoga mean? In the truest understanding it means union. The word ‘yoga’, ‘yog’ means ‘union’. Two people or more than two are united, and specifically, it’s a union between the individual soul that we are and the Supreme Soul. So we are part and parcel of the Supreme Soul.
This is the ultimate in theism. Yoga in the most advanced understanding is not an atheistic philosophy. This is the highest level of theism.