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Yoga's humanistic values can benefit a weary world

Yoga has been considered a universal concept of harmonious living since time immemorial

Somvir (The Jakarta Post)
Denpasar
Fri, December 12, 2008

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Yoga's humanistic values can benefit a weary world

Yoga has been considered a universal concept of harmonious living since time immemorial. Patanjali, the greatest yogi, wrote the text book on yoga entitled Yogasutra containing 195 philosophical sentences using ancient Sanskrit language.

Patanjali, gives a definition of yoga as the restraint of the process of mind. Some people also interpret the word yoga as unity between human souls with supreme energy.

Yoga introduces physical exercises, which are very scientific in themselves, to cure different diseases found in the human body.

These exercises are universal and have been taken not from any particular religion but from birds, animals and plants. It means the physical exercises of yoga that are prevalent nowadays do not belong to any particular religion or culture. The exercises done in yoga are, for example, peacock pose, snake form, lotus form, tree pose, fish pose and arrow pose etc. and these exercises are practiced by many yoga practitioners. These animals or birds certainly do not belong to anyone; they are everywhere and are good companions of human being.

Coming now to the breathing exercises of yoga: There are no hospitals and no doctors in modern concepts of medical scientific techniques of the human body's breathing system as perfect as those found in yoga.

Now we come to the last concept of yoga: Meditation. Meditation is when a person fully controls the senses, mind and complete contemplation on God is actually meditation. In a simple meaning meditation means remembering God. The recent development that yoga belongs to Hinduism comes from this last technique of yoga; meditation. It is true when some people meditate they do it silently without mentioning the name of God verbally. Some people use the name of God according to their faith and some of them also chant and recite AUM.

However, let us look at an original yoga text book such as Yogasutra. We do not find the mention of the word AUM there. We just find the word "Pranav" which later on translated into the word AUM.

I think, our Muslim brothers have an objection to receiving any other name than prescribed in their holy books. Similarly, there might be objections from other religions too. Therefore we have no need to recite Aum during meditation; other religions can recite and remember the name of God per belief or we may just substitute humming while meditating and remembering the God as per our own faith.

It is sad that some of our yoga gurus do not have deep knowledge or they have even not studied the original text books of yoga and they start including certain mantras or sectarian concepts to yoga. Yoga is not only physical exercise but it has developed into medical science to cure and prevent different diseases. Techniques such as eye cleaning, anal cleaning, stomach cleaning, throat cleaning and nose cleaning are important aspects of yoga.

Yoga contributes a lot in bringing the communities of Muslims and Hindus in India together; one of the concepts of Sufism is also very much influenced by yoga.

In Europe yoga has never been subject to bans because they adopted physical exercise, techniques of breathing and silent meditation and in fact now, in America, more than 10 million people practice yoga according to Time Magazine.

On the other hand, yoga opened the mind of western thinkers to look at Asia, a place of great philosophy. Development of science in the west and development of philosophy in Asia are the perfect combination and encourage us to share the experiences which finally will benefit all of us.

Indonesia has a great historical relation with India, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam also reached to Indonesia from India. India and Indonesia are an example of where all religions can live peacefully. The greatest contribution of Islam to India is music and art.

The Tajmahal is one of the wonders of the world and is a symbol of unity between civilizations of Hinduism and Islam which both can be proud of.

Indonesia has Borobudur, Prambanan, wayang and in fact the phrase "Bhineka Tunngal Ika" -- unity in diversity -- was taken from the last Hindu kingdom "Majapahit" of Indonesia. This reflects Indonesian intellectuals were very tolerant in accepting such values as "Bhineka Tunggal Ika".

Let us benefit from the science of yoga and not to consider yoga as a religion or sect but practice it regularly in order to achieve a healthy mind, body and soul which we have polluted in the name of modernization.

It will be mistaken, if yoga teachers teach about any mantra or any sectarian concept to convince the yoga students. If you study "yoga sutra", you will not misunderstand; you will come out from the illusion and practice yoga in a right way that will be accepted easily by others.

Let us hope our intellectuals as well as practitioners of yoga will not make any decision in haste to not practice yoga. Yoga is very soft, natural and makes the human being to have such qualities as being soft and natural.

Dr. Somvir has been living in Indonesia since 1993 and has taught Indian philosophy and yoga at The University of Indonesia Jakarta, The University of Udayana Denpasar and The Bali-India Foundation, Bali. He has written several books on Indian culture and books on yoga. He has done a comprehensive research on culture of India and Indonesia. He himself is a practitioner of yoga and was awarded with the title "The Best Yogi" during the all India yoga championship held in India in 1986.

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