The United Nations’ declaration of the International Day of Yoga on June 21st comes at a critical time in the history of humanity. It is of much more significance than a few more people twisting and turning their bodies. For the first time in the history of the UN, 177 countries co-sponsored the resolution for the Yoga Day. Never before has any resolution in the UN gotten this kind of support.
On this day, we want to change the direction of humanity as to how they seek their well-being. In pursuit of their well-being, we do not want people to look out or look up or look down — we want them to look in. Yoga is a technology, a tool for people to turn inward and create their own well-being. Your well-being will not come from somewhere, either you create it or you do not — this is the fundamental of yoga. As there is a science and technology for external well-being, similarly there is a science and technology for inner well-being. This science and technology has found such a profound expression in this land. It is a wonderful moment for India that today we are able to offer something which is of tremendous value in the world.
We have been in conversation with various Governments and large businesses in the world and they are all looking forward to this possibility. This is because we always believed that if affluence comes, people will be well, but today you will see the most affluent countries are the most ailment-ridden. For example, the Unites States has so many choices for nourishment, but they are spending over three trillion dollars per year on health care. This kind of expenditure can sink a nation, but unfortunately India is heading this way rapidly. As reasonable economic well-being comes, we are heading towards becoming the diabetic capital of the world, and various types of ailments are taking shape.
For all of this, introducing yoga into everyone’s life will provide a simple yet powerful process to create one’s health and well-being. It is not just about physical health, because mental ailments are also spreading rapidly along with the modernisation of the world. Human interactions and relationships are breaking up, resulting in people breaking up mentally and emotionally. The significance of yoga is that once you learn the practices, you do not need anyone’s help, a special place or any equipment. It can be done wherever you are. The science of yoga is a phenomenal gift to the overall well-being of the human being.
What is YogaIJ
The word ‘yoga’ literally means union. What is this union aboutIJ There is a longing in a human being to become one with something or someone, and it finds expression in a million different ways. If you attempt union in a very physical way, this is referred to as sexuality. If you attempt union through your emotions, this is referred to as love. If you attempt union through your mental attitudes, unfortunately it gets labeled as greed, ambition, conquest or maybe just shopping! If you attempt the same union consciously through your energy, then we call this yoga.
This fundamental longing within a human being to always be something more than what they are right now, is essentially a desire to unite with everything around us. If you look at this longing very carefully, you will see that it does not matter how much an individual human being expands in this world, still they want further expansion. Essentially a human being is looking for infinite expansion but attempting it through physical means. If you attempt something infinite through physical means, you are bound to fail.
If you aim to reach infinite by going in installments, it is foolish and futile. Your longing for boundlessness is great but the methodology is hopeless. What you want is not more; what you want is all. Physically, ‘all’ is not a possibility, only ‘more’ is possible. And ‘more’ is a very destructive process, for you and for the planet. ‘All’ is not destructive, but it cannot be achieved physically. You need to find a vehicle which travels in a different dimension, which is non-physical in nature. So, yoga is a science and technology that provides you with the appropriate vehicle to go beyond the physical dimension and experience union with the existence.
Unfortunately, people have been trying to fulfill this fundamental aspiration by looking heavenwards or outwards, but not inward. Even just 150 years ago, a large segment of humanity in the world looked up, while only a small segment looked out. It is that small segment which gathered wealth, built palaces and did things in the world. But today, a large part of humanity is looking out instead of looking up. If you look out for human well-being, we will rip the planet apart and destroy the very basis of our existence — which is what we are doing today. We want to call it by different names such as ecological problems, global warming or climate change. All that is happening is human beings are looking out in pursuit of human well-being. Our idea of well-being has to turn inward. Human well-being will not happen unless one turns inward because human experience is created from within. Once you realise this, yoga becomes very relevant because it employs technologies for inner well-being and tools for self-transformation. As human intellect fires more and more, you will see in the next 25-50 years, yoga will become the norm on the planet, not an exception.
Yoga is not a Religion
Yoga is not a religion. It is not a belief system or a philosophy, but a technology for inner evolution, to hasten human evolution to its ultimate possibility. Yoga was expounded as a science, well before any religion was even thought up.
Today, for the first time in the history of humanity, human intellect is sparking like never before. Or in other words, more people are today capable of thinking for themselves than ever before. Because of this, naturally anything that you talk to people about must make logical sense or have a scientific basis to it. Yoga is the science for inner well-being. Because yoga evolved and was developed in the region between the Himalayas and the Indu Sagara, people - out of their reverence for these geographical features - identified everything that happened in this land as Hindu. If you call yoga Hindu, it is just like saying the theory of relativity is Jewish. Whatever culture or religious background a certain scientist came from, you do not identify that aspect of science with that religion. Similarly, yoga need not be and should not be identified with any religion or culture.
Fundamentally, every religion started as a process of unification, of experiencing your unbounded nature; you can call it God or ultimate nature, or whatever you like. But unfortunately today, religions have become the process of divide. The maximum number of wars, killings and injustice in the world happens in the name of religion. When you have your belief and someone else has his belief, these two beliefs will quarrel all the time. But yoga approaches the same dimension as a science so that you cannot quarrel on the path.
Yoga has been on for over 15,000 years without any organised head driving this force. Never in the history of humanity did somebody put a sword to somebody’s throat and say, “You must do yoga!” The yogic science is the only thing in pursuit of human well-being which has lived for over 15,000 years, and today nearly two billion people practice some form of yoga across the planet. As a part of the International Day of Yoga, we are making an effort across the world, not just to inspire people to do yoga, but above all to realise the potential of what it is and the tools it offers for transformation. As human beings, we are who we are on this planet only because of our ability to use tools. We are dominating the planet only because of our ability to use tools.
Every machine that we have created, every tool that we have created is only a way of enhancing what we already can do. Now we can walk, that is why we came up with a bicycle. Similarly we can speak, so we came up with a microphone, telephone and all kinds of things. But now, the yogic tools are internal tools. A few of them are physical, dealing with the body, breath and mind, but the rest are all subjective. If I ask you to remove a little screw in a chair, you try as much as you want without a screwdriver — you may lose your teeth but you are not going to remove the screw. If I just give you a tool, it becomes so simple. The same is true with life also. Yoga is that kind of phenomenal tool, on the physical, psychological and subjective level.
Spread the Message
It is incredible that heads of nations are talking about yoga for the first time. Governments are investing money to spread this because healthcare systems have failed, ways of creating happiness and well-being for people have failed, and now everyone is talking about creating a happiness quotient. To bring this about, many things are being done. Records are being broken, and yoga programs are happening internationally in thousands of places. The Government is teaching yoga through every Indian embassy across the world. This is a phenomenal development because we are looking at well-being as a science, not as faith, not as something that happens to you by accident. We are not looking at the stars to fix our well-being. We are looking towards a scientific process of creating well-being consciously.
The United Nations is talking about yoga, the Indian Prime Minister is talking about yoga and the US President is showing interest that he wants to learn yoga. These are significant developments, because people who are in important and responsible positions are beginning to see there is a need to turn inward. For the first time in the last few hundred years, heads of state are talking about the inner well-being of the human being rather than just talking about economy, military and other aspects of a nation. This is a consequence of the declaration of the International Day of Yoga. You must understand this effort to bring the spiritual process to the world has been on for a long time. Ashtavakra enlightened the king Janaka around 8,000 years ago. Krishna’s whole life mission, which today most people are not even aware of, was to marry the spiritual process and the political process. He did not only work with the kings, he also established over a thousand ashrams across the northern plains of India. It is important that the spiritual process should happen both at the top and down the line too.
The interest in yoga is not a new phenomenon, at the same time because of the media coverage and publicity, maybe more number of people are getting into it like never before because generally in the world, people are stressed like never before. They are anxious and neurotic and whatever the methods they have been using to handle their internal turmoil has worked to some extent, but it has not given them a solution. So looking towards yoga is a very natural thing.
This June 21, 2015 we want to spread this message internationally to people and bring the profoundness of what is available. This is fundamentally to establish that every human being can create well-being for himself; he need not wait for some other force to bring well-being to him. The only way to experience true well-being is to turn inward. This is what yoga means — not up, not out, but in. The only way out is in.
(The writer is a yogi, mystic and visionary, and a prominent spiritual leader. Visit yogayoga.org for yoga practices designed by Sadhguru, leading up to International Day of Yoga on June 21)