The explosive interest in Yoga over the recent years is indeed a fascinating phenomenon. Yoga has gone mainstream; it is packaged, sold and promises everything from greater flexibility, better mind-control, improved health, general feel good, to supernatural powers and improved sex life! Not to wonder Yoga makes the headlines all over the world today?

But could there be a flip side to the tremendous growth and interest of Yoga all around? When the great demands outstrip supply, what happens to the source it all came from? Has the goals of Yoga changed when many of the so-called Yogis are busy touring the world giving one-week teacher training courses, in between press-conferences and product launches, promoting the many benefits of their particular style of Yoga. Their names are all over so hey, of course they must be really good at what they are doing!? But inevitably, there comes a time when the common man start to educate himself and start asking: 'What is actually going on here? Is the Yoga being taught by the so-called Yogis really Yoga or is it mere sensationalism'?

This article tries to ask some questions about the state of Yoga as well as the state of a Yogi. What are the characteristics given in some of the Classical texts? I will primarily refer to sections from the Bhagavad Gita, but also briefly cover some passages from the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and Yoga Sutras

There are not straightforward answers to 'What is Yoga', the main reason being that it is practiced and defined in numerous ways, but whoever calls themselves a Yogi should in principle have some realization of the state of Yoga from within. Now in order to give justice to Yoga we cannot bypass the Classical tradition Just because somebody is hip, cool and trendy and call themselves a Yogi are we to blindly follow what they say? Especially when some of these 'Yogis' have new so-called 'Yogis' graduate from their
One-week intensive Teachers Training courses, with almost no prior experience of yoga, but with a gung-ho desire to start teaching! Naturally one may be wondering what kind of Yoga they will actually be teaching.

Don't get me wrong, I believe diversity is good, because it challenges us to be more specific about what we are actually doing, but there has to be a level of certain adaptability to the principles of a subject (and a further consolidation of it), if we are ever to claim we are doing justice to it.

Anybody can pick up an instrument and claim to be playing music, but unless there is fine-tuning, tact, manner, skill and a certain harmony according to the source, whatever we will be playing may be a too 'personalized' style of music. Why should the source of Yoga be any different? Of course we cannot all be classical virtuosos, but without harmony and connectivity to a genuine source we will just be projecting, playing our own fancies.

If you ever wanted to learn to play an instrument properly or be proficient in any art, would you go and seek out somebody who has just learnt to play the scales? Is it possible to give justice to the art of teaching in the world of music and art unless one has years and years of experience? Well here is the trick; if one does not even know how to play an instrument properly how are you actually going to pass on the message on how to fine-tune it?

But ok, the world of Yoga has had a recent revival in the past fifty years and we have more schools and styles than ever before, but unless all of these styles can serve the very purpose of Yoga - to find greater harmony and peace from within - can we even call it Yoga? If the practice of Yoga is to lead us back to our inmost nature, if this nature is not clearly experienced by the articulators of the various styles where will we actually be heading with our practice? If somebody calls themselves a Yogi, should we not expect a certain depth and penetration into the subject?

However many years of practice we have been doing (life times), unless we offer up our greatest awareness will we ever be able to do it justice? To inquire into the many tricks, turns and travesties of our own mind requires an unshakable commitment to truth, but not they way we would like it to be - rather according to the way things are - beyond any projections we so easily construe for ourselves. So coming to a final realization of Yoga make take a little longer than we initially expected.

Among a thousand people, only one would strive to take up Yoga,
But amongst one thousand people engaged in Yoga, only one will come to know the real meaning of it.
B.G 7.3

This verse from the Bhagavad Gita does primarily refer to Bhakti Yoga, the Yoga of Devotion, and how a seeker of Yoga may eventually come to experience his/her divine nature. But whatever style of Yoga we practice, whatever technique it may be, our final homecoming to truth will be the same for us all. The Yoga Sutras equally speaks about various realizations of Yoga=Samadhi, but in the highest realization there are neither distinctions nor qualities of any other. All that remains is the Pure Experience of Self/Spirit from within and in that center all styles and practices of Yoga will meet. (For further references see Yoga Sutras: 1.45-51, 3.50-56, 4.29-35).

The compiler of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (15th CE), with his endless techniques and various practices knew very well the dangers that may come from jumping to hasty conclusions about the real meaning of Yoga. Swatma Rama therefore summarized his great work over four chapters with the concluding remarks:

Until the prana enters and flows in the middle channel and the breath becomes firm by the control of the movements of prana; and until the mind assumes the form of Brahma without any effort in contemplation, up to then all talk of knowledge and wisdom is merely the nonsensical babbling of a mad man.
HYP 4.114

To come to a realization of Yoga and eventually call oneself a Yogi is therefore not an easy endeavor. Who knows how many years, lifetimes of practice it may take, but if we have faith and can inquire honestly into what a genuine tradition may teach us, we will certainly get closer step by step, rather than run with fancy in the wrong direction.

To most of us the subject of Yoga is a recent phenomenon, let us therefore not be too hasty in defining it, but rather seek support from the Classical Indian Yoga tradition and see if our articulations of Yoga bear any similarities to that. Yoga should indeed be practical, but unless it bears any similarities to the Classical sources that define it, can we ever call it Yoga?

The Bhagavad Gita is a marvelous work on Yoga that spans over 18 chapters. It is a synthesis of all the major Upanishads and without compare the most frequent book read in India over the past 2000 years. It is a dialogue between the heroic warrior Arjuna and Krishna, an incarnation of God in support of the upkeep of Dharma, righteousness. The story takes place on a battlefield right before the battle are about to commence. Surveying the situation the heroic warrior Arjuna is overcome by faint-heartedness and refuses to stand up and fight. His head droops with a troubled mind incapable of action, but Krishna gradually installs in him the courage to act out his Dharma, duty, after explaining to Arjuna the various principles of Yoga.

What appears to be an immediate appeal to stand up, act and perform ones duty, becomes a philosophical eulogy over the many types of Yoga and how an individual may find that steady place from within as the very support of all ones activities. Act with greater clarity and become free from the opposing dualities of good and bad, right and wrong etc. and find a steady support in Yoga. Gandhi suggested that the external battlefield depicted, was a metaphor between the good and evil forces within man and a proper study of the text would help us to better discriminate between the opposing forces that operate within us. How to be more centered, see more clearly, become free from the endless patterns of opposition, awaken to dignity and eventually become free to realize that the source of Yoga is already present within us - if we can only remove the patterns of ignorance that obstructs it.

For this to come about we cannot merely grasp onto any belief or dogma that we must try to follow. We should rather create more space and awareness to the very patterning and conditioning that drives the operations of our mind-field, and from that an awakening to Yoga takes place.

In the second chapter Lord Krishna begins his exposition of Yoga. After giving a brief overview of this immortal essence within us all, Lord Krishna introduces the notion of Karma Yoga, the law of action, how to gain clarity from within although caught up in endless activity of the senses. The overall purpose is of course to not let actions lead us astray by simply acting out our fancies or mere desires, but rather allow the clarity of Yoga to be awakened in us by following certain observances while acting out our inescapable duties and responsibilities:

To work alone you have the right, but never claim the results thereof. Let not the results of actions be your motive, nor be attached to inaction.
Established in Yoga, O Dhananjaya (Arjuna), perform actions giving up attachment and be unconcerned to success and failure: This equanimity is called Yoga.
Far inferior is work prompted by desire, than work done through wisdom, O Dhananjaya. Therefore take refuge in wisdom: Those who are driven by results are miserable.
Whoever is endowed with this wisdom, will get rid of both good and evil. Therefore take to Yoga; Yoga is skill in the midst of activity.
(BG 2.47-50)

This article has no room for lengthy commentaries on this passage, but it should be adequate to summarize Yoga as: 'equanimity' and 'skill in action'. The goal of Yoga is therefore clearly not about 'becoming' or 'getting' anything, but rather be free from the subtle patterns that drive our intentions and become more free and steady to see the equanimity already existent from within.

The immanent questions being raised are of course: How are we to give up the fruits of our desires? How are we to reach a state beyond the delusion of our own idealism? If the essence of Yoga facilitates this, then how is our mind supposed to reach this unified state from within? Arjuna therefore asks Lord Krishna to be more specific and let him know how a Yogi, a man of steady wisdom, talks, sits, walks and acts. The answers given to us is clear and simple, but maybe not so easy to follow:

When a man gives up all desires of the mind, O Partha (Arjuna), and delights solely in the self from within, then he is said to be a man of steady wisdom.
He who is untroubled in misery and bereft of more desires in the midst of pleasures and who is equally devoid of all attachment, fear and anger - that sage is said to be of steady wisdom.
He who is free from all affections, and whether receiving good or evils neither welcomes nor hates them, that is a man of steady wisdom.
When he completely withdraws his senses from the sense-objects, like a tortoise its limbs, then his wisdom may be steady from within.
A living being practicing restraint may curb some of his appetites, but never the relish for them. But for a man of steady wisdom, even this relish gives way when the Supreme Being from within is realized.
The turbulent senses, O son of Kunti (Arjuna) may forcibly lead astray the mind of even the struggling wise person.
Therefore control all of these senses. A seeker of Yoga should sit meditating on God from within as the highest, because he is a man of steady wisdom indeed, whose senses are under control.
(BG 2.55-61)

These are the very ground-rules for the steady wisdom of Yoga to be revealed. Unfortunately the endless fluctuations of our mind may toss us about in our ocean of thought waves, but unless the fluctuations from the two banks of opposite duality cease, we will never be able to stand steady on the ground of solid wisdom from within. The following sixteen chapters of this 'Celestial Song of God', That Bhagavad Gita, are Yoga teachings of the highest order, but without following these basic principles we will be lost in the deep sea of suffering from our endless mind-flux. First and foremost we need to curb the wild fluctuations of our mind because they ebb and flow by nature so the goal for a seeker of Yoga is to find a steady place from within that is not subject to these oscillations.

First and foremost we therefore need to become aware of all the subtle desires of the mind, observe and be willing to let them go rather than rule us. Everlasting happiness cannot come from something that is fluctuating by nature, of course our senses may get a real kick, but they are only transient and trying to satisfy them will only drag us away from the steady support from within. The goal of Yoga is to awaken to the Self from within, the single observer, the steady witness that experiences all of our sense patterns, but yet always remains permanently un-attached to them.

If we are able to rest in the steady place of the observer, the sound inner witness, we will be able to neutralize the pair of opposites and will no longer be swept off our feet with notions of pleasure and pain - because there is a steady anchor rooted in an inner experience of being which is different to what is present to it through the sense organs.

So a potential Yogi, a man of steady wisdom, would learn to tolerate misery and pleasure in equal measures. If he is subject to misery his sense organs may suffer a sense of dejection, but from within he remains the same. If elated pleasures come his way, he does not get attached to them, but sees them equally as stimuli born from the euphoric sense organs. Naturally there will be no attachment to them, neither fear nor anger. He does not welcome good nor hate evil, because he knows that the single observer from within is indestructible and much more real than any afflictions that have ever layered itself on top of it due to our identifications with our fluctuating sense organs.

So when he eventually comes to know that there is place of steady wisdom and unconditioned Joy from within - something of a different order then what is found in the world of the ephemeral senses - he gradually removes his awareness from the external sense objects and becomes established in a quality of Pure Seeing. Whatever pleasure he may get from the external senses, they are nothing but dull in comparison with this source of extraordinary light from within. When this Supreme Being, the true support of a man here is fully realized, the seeker verily becomes lit up from within and the goal of Yoga is finally realized.

The Bhagavad Gita expands on many further aspects of Yoga, but whatever avenue of Yoga we follow, unless this pivotal discrimination between what is real and not-real are fully embodied, whatever style of Yoga we are practicing will be merely a play of the senses.

But as we ponder and play, cry and rejoice through our oceans of suffering and ephemeral pleasures, the inner light of our very own self may gradually awaken to us. This is indeed the journey for the seeker of Yoga, to gradually learn to embrace the steady support from within, which manifest as One and the same within us all, but are found through different paths depending on the external circumstances an individual had to plunge through in order to finally get there.

So if we are to call ourselves practitioners of Yoga let us embrace our practice with greater awareness so we may come to taste this steady wisdom from within. Until we are able to do that, and we can walk, talk and act with steady support from that inner presence, all our articulations of Yoga will be mere fancy than reason - because the rational of Yoga does not lie in what we verify through the senses, but rather what is the very support of them.

So whatever style of Yoga we are practicing, let us follow these principles of introspection in order to bring about greater clarity in the field. Approach your practice with a pinch of salt, dear to question what is being taught, because unless any of these 'Yogic' exercises are born out of a genuine experience from people who have been close to the source of light from within. They will just be a simple way to exercise, taught by a general samsarin (a person of suffering), trying to stay afloat in the ocean of distress in the best possible way they can.

But while I'm equally swimming, clinging onto a bit of this and that, I just wanted to make a final point: Let us not be too pretentious when we scratch the surface of Yoga. Our various interpretations and fanciful projections may be all that we have, but unless we make the journey in and learn to embrace the sole seer from within, the priceless pearls of Yoga will be lost in the mud of bodybuilding.

So who is a real Yogi? From the article above I have tried to illustrate that it does not come from the identification of our fleeting sense organs. They practice of Yoga certainly starts with a purification of them, but only to finally realize that our root support lies elsewhere. So unless our practice is firm in the absorption of this inner support from within we are simply moving away from the very essence of Yoga. Let therefore our shared efforts in the field create clarity rather than confusion so we may all find a support of what is real, rather than the endless fluctuations according to will and fancy.

R. Alexander Medin