Yoga: A Holistic and Non-Sectarian Way to Achieve Overall Well-being
The world is moving rapidly towards self-sabotage and extremism. Yoga can therefore represent the most holistic and sanest path towards wellness. Blake’s popular lines, “To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower” are apparently obsolete now. All the poets who seem to have linked childhood with a period of happiness, wonder and joy perhaps were grossly deluded. Sadhguru is deeply moved and shocked by the number of suicides among people aged 15-29, globally[1]. It is the second leading cause of mortality globally, among this age group.
Sadhguru says that our society is somewhat fundamentally wrong in indoctrinating the young generation to believe that happiness is proportional to the number of degrees they acquire, scores they obtain and wealth they accumulate. When they realize that all these are absolute illusion, they feel discouraged and depressed. What we forget to tell the young generation is that the doors in life do not open because of the qualifications they have, but because of who they are. Human body is the most sophisticated technology on the earth, but we are trying to manage this with a pickaxe and a wrench. We have propagated a wrong belief that fixing the outer conditions will fix our lives too. In fact, it might bring convenience to us but will not bring well-being.
It is high time to make a paradigm shift. The system as yoga is, can significantly make all the difference among the people. Yoga means ‘union’ literally. Ancient yet flawlessly state-of-the-art, this method of self-alignment is capable of channelizing inner energies in a way that your mind and body function at their best. It is a way to create inner situations in a way you would like them to be. Externally, we all are differently capable but internally, we are all equally capable of utilizing inner energies. All human beings are equally capable of turning into architects of their destinies and joy. Yoga provides us the way to achieve so.
The United Nations has declared June 21 as International Yoga Day.[2] It acknowledges the fact that yoga is not restricted to any race, community, or religion, but is a way of ‘inner engineering’ that is relevant to all the entire humanity. Geographically, yoga may have originated in the Indian subcontinent, but faith and religion have no role to play in this scientific path of overall well-being and self-exploration.
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Yoga is neither a religious practice nor a cardio-vascular workout. It is neither a kind of sun worship nor body worship, neither acrobatics nor metaphysics. To consider it a mere physical fitness routine is both tragic and baseless. We should consider it as a holistic way for achieving overall well-being and happiness.
