If you are one of those who thinks yoga is boring, or yoga is a performance, an exercise, a spiritual path or an accumulation of a sequence of postures, loud music, no music but only Tibetan bells, or yoga is breathing, a cult, a religious rite or quieting the mind, a Hindu or Buddhist practice, an enemy of Christianity, work of the devil, or a leisurely pass-time for the wives of the rich, a pretentious ego boost for the middle class bearded hipsters, and this and that, I am so sorry for you.
I am sorry that you don’t know any better.
It’s ok. It’s not your fault. You have been misled. You have been misled by your friend, your neighbor, the walking cute girl with her yoga mat, the muscular sweaty dude in his forearm balance, the snake charmer sweet tongued charismatic yoga teacher that compliments you in every pose as he palms your butt cheeks with the intention of adjusting you, the smiling girl at the reception area redirecting you to the compassion section where the pictures of the enlightened gurus are with their reassuring facial expressions promising hope…or perhaps you’ve been misled by the mainstream yoga media, by glossy yoga magazines with picturesque retreat locations led by famous yoga teachers…the online streaming classes, the organic juice stores and the corporate tight pant industry, the scented candles and the expensive mats, the shiny studios decorated with buddha sculptures and microphoned instructors and their compassionate fucking Namastes.
You’ve been misled and now you are missing the whole point; you're confused. You don't know whether to practice or not.
In short, the practice of Yoga is a process of elimination - elimination of bullshit, especially the colorful and comfortable one, that has been shielding us from Truth. Not from our true self but Truth. There is no such thing as self let alone a true or false self. The self is a dreamworld character with one purpose and that is to maintain and ensure the perpetual streaming of this tragicomedy we call life.
As long as we know us as a ‘self’, we are living in a dream world… which is ok I guess as long as we don’t mind (ignorance is bliss right?) but from this disheveled state of the world that we 'believe' to be in right now, I think everyone is fed up. Everyone has this profoundly deep urge to get the hell out of this dream state, to wake the hell up. Right?
But waking up is not as easy as it seems. Waking up is not splashing our faces with cold water in the morning. Waking up is a long process of hard work and understanding. That’s what Yoga is. It’s a process of awakening. Why is it hard? First of all because we are attached and absolutely in love with our Selves - the non existing self of our own species, our own kind, our own culture, our own gender, our little problems, our pouty lips… so much that we are willing to kill everyone else as well as the planet, blow up the universe to pieces just to protect this little delusional self.
We are fossils in a fossilized universe.
The thick layers of sedimentary rocks - cultural exaggerations and magnified politicized victimization of generations - has buried us into the deep muddy waters and turned us into fossils and what we want to do is not only come back to life from this caramelized state but go further by eliminating the thing we call the Self. Otherwise we are back into the swamp in no time.
It’s the self, like a magnet, that attracts and separates the good and the bad, the Trump lovers and the iceberg protectors. It's the self that builds up a walls between countries, the species, the women and the men.
Yes, Yoga is not becoming more compassionate, more cuddly, and pleasantly stretching that hamstring. No.
Real yoga is taking that dull edged machete in our hands and no matter how deceivingly lush those jungles look, chopping it one by one because what we’re after is the source of all that and not the trapping beauty itself.
We’re after truth. Truth - Not the true self.
All of us to some extent think that we are more informed than the ‘others’. The ‘others’ are more ignorant that we are. Whether we are informed or misinformed, we are all missing the point because we are still stuck in the self.
There IS no self and there is no such thing as others. But that can only be realized by vigorous thinking and then the shoulder tiring work of machete swinging. Cut it all! Unlearn, demolish the false in you until all remains is Truth.
That is Yoga.
~Namaste (which by the way is a simple greeting in Sanskrit between two beings. There is no need to sugarcoat the word with mystical ornamentation and there certainly is no need to fear it. It’s just a way of saying hi and bye!
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