Dr.King - Author of books on Yoga, Spirituality and Indology

[Quick links] [Pause] Each one of us has our own idea of what our goal is.  One goal that many Yoga enthusiasts have is to enjoy health. To achieve that goal, they ‘twist and turn’ their bodies with the hope of making the body stronger and resistant to illnesses.  They may practice breathing exercises of Yoga to minimize their stress. Since stress is linked to our proneness to illness, they hope to achieve healthy life using these techniques. There are others who may long for the bliss experienced by meditation. They indulge in regular meditation and enjoy the bliss that results from a tranquil mind. There may be some advanced Yoga practitioners who aim at realizing the ultimate truth. That realization may bestow them eternal peace. A Buddhist may slog to free himself from the endless cycle of births and deaths. Prolonged meditation may enable him to achieve that. But have you observed something common in all these goals?

[Quick links] [Pause] In the last episode we looked at various things Yoga can achieve. Depending on where you are and where you want to go, you can stop at any intermediate goal. But the real target of Yoga is ultimate realization – the realization of the ultimate truth about this existence – existence as a totality. What this ultimate realization is, is explained in the ancient Upanishads, believed to have been recorded 5000 years ago. The sages who recorded these Upanishads arrived at this ultimate truth after prolonged meditation or practice of Yoga.

[Quick links] [Pause] Depending on what state you are in, and what your expectations are, the goals of Yoga can be different.

[Quick links] [Pause] With no offense meant, this is an important question. Buddha himself once faced this question and he handled it in his own way.

[Quick links] [Pause]   I am happy to announce the release of my 22nd book namely “The ultimate book on Yoga”. This also happens to be my 5th book on Yoga. I have been working on this book for quite some time.

[Quick links] [Pause] We concluded the previous episode by questioning the Kaivalya concept of Patanjali.

[Quick links] [Pause] If you have ever done a bit of gardening, you very well know how difficult it is to keep the weeds at bay. No matter how many times you pluck them out, they regrow once again. That is because these weeds leave back their seeds before you pluck them out. And these seeds sprout back into new weeds at proper times. So, you will forever face the menace of these weeds. One way is to carefully eliminate the seeds one by one so that there is nothing left to germinate. But that is a difficult proposition. Now-a-days we have several chemical sprays that render these seeds ineffective. They literally burn out these seeds. And burnt seeds don’t germinate. Patanjali says that our mental impressions that delude us are like the seeds left behind by our past Karma. They re-germinate however much we try to suppress them. We have to somehow get rid of these seeds or render them ineffective.

[Quick links] [Pause] We were talking about the preset impressions that all of us are born with. Patanjali calls it Avidya or wrong knowledge. How does this Avidya cause problems?

[Quick links] [Pause] We concluded our previous episode by wondering why we cannot remain in an ever-blissful state even after we attain the ‘self-realization’ through the practice of Yoga. The ultimate state of Yoga namely the ‘Samadhi’ is supposed to take us back to our real state – namely a blissful state. But when we come out of this Samadhi, we once again get trapped into a mix of happy and sad states of mind. Why?

[Quick links] [Pause] It was mandatory in many ancient Indian scriptures or philosophic texts to spell out the ultimate purpose of whatever was going to be espoused in the text before starting the discussion . So, does Yoga have any practical utility? Well, I am not talking about byproducts of Yoga such as health benefits, stress reduction and so on. I am talking about the utility of reaching the ultimate state of Yoga namely the Samadhi. Does it have any utility?