Dear Friends,
Namaste!
It has now been over six months since we set out on our exciting journey together. At this juncture, it will not be too untimely if we were to stop just to look over our shoulders and see the distance we have covered so far.
We started at the very beginning. “Why should we do this? What’s in it for us?” we asked ourselves. And we agreed that the answer was “to gain total fitness and happiness”. We further nailed down what we wish to achieve by stating that we wanted total fitness at four levels, viz., physical, emotional, intellectual and social. On this solid foundation, we would embark upon conquering the ultimate goal, i.e., to obtain eternal, infinite and irrevocable happiness! We acknowledged that even though it may not be possible for all of us to attain that ultimate goal, it would take us ever so closer to it – a great achievement in its own right!
Having satisfactorily answered the “Why?” bit, we turned our attention to the next all-important question – the “What?” bit. What is it that we need to do in order to achieve our objectives. And we exclaimed “Yoga!” in much the same manner as Archimedes exclaimed “Eureka!” a few centuries ago.
Great minds think alike! No wonder we converged so rapidly on these basics. :) But that did not solve our problem. We needed to understand, interpret and implement Yoga correctly and consistently if we wished to stand a ghost of a chance! We needed to define Yoga; we needed to comprehend what it really is as well as what it at all is not! We needed to ‘empty our cup’ and learn the rules of the game.
That we did and got all set to cut across the breadth so we take a bird’s eye view of the entire landscape. As we trained our eyes on the same, we discovered that Yoga consisted of many types and many dimensions (limbs as we called them). This is when we got introduced to the eight limbs and four major types of Yoga. We also discussed the precedence/hierarchy among the eight Yoga limbs and the four major types.
Given the vast expanse of this science of all sciences and different levels of difficulty attached to Yoga limbs and types, we wondered whether it would not make sense to divide all aspirants based on their preparedness to study different levels. Thence we looked at Human Evolution and identified various milestones that each of us would pass through before we attained Nirvana. This enabled us to map various Yoga limbs and types to the corresponding level of Human Evolution.
Of what use is a map if one does not know the current position (marked with ‘X – You Are Here’) on it? Through the story of an ancient King and his six sons, we discovered how we can correlate with one of the six types of Human Beings and figure out for ourselves what step to take next – and the next – until we reach our destination.
We took the help of one more analogy. We treated Human Life as a school consisting of a Kinder Garten and four standards. We identified the student profile and the curriculum (in terms of Yoga limbs and types applicable) for each standard.
Then we surmised that although the curriculum may differ, each student has to study until he or she graduates. This study (we called it ‘Sadhana’) would have to be done relentlessly – in fact, daily – in order to excel in the School. We identified the four elements comprising Sadhana and established that if we kept doing this Sadhana one day at a time, if we kept walking on the Yoga path one step at a time, we would surely reach our destination sooner rather than later.
Thus we have covered the breadth of the subject matter so far.
What remains now is to cover the depth. The “How” bit!
We shall now start our deep-dive into all the eight limbs and four major types of Yoga. The entire journey consists of 1111 steps (articles) – of which we have covered 30 so far! One article every Tuesday will take approximately 21 years for this journey to complete! If that sounds too long, or plain crazy, let me end this article by sharing a story –
An aspirant approached a Zen master, “Sir, I would like to master Zen under your guidance. How long will it take?”
“Twenty-one years,” came the reply.
“But that’s too much. I simply don’t have that much time or patience. I don’t mind burning the midnight oil, following your instructions to the letter, putting in long hours etc. Now tell me how long it will take!”
The master mused for a moment and said, “Forty-two years.”
Adios!
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