Gita 06.10 – Popular yoga is not spiritual yoga

Bhagavad Gita, 6.10 So this verse talks about how the yogi should practice the process of Ishtang Yoga.

Yogi Anjeet. Anjeet means to engage in Yoga. Satadham.

Constantly. Oneself, body, mind, soul, situated in a secluded place. Ekaki, alone.

Chittaatma. Leaving the consciousness under control. Nirashir.

Aparigraha. Nirashir. Giving up desires.

Aparigraha. Giving up possessiveness. So this verse is stating how the process of Ishtang Yoga has to be practiced.

So in terms of location, it is said, Ekaki and Rohasistha. That one should be alone and in a secluded place. Yoga, as a physical exercise, is often practiced in groups and in the media often images come of some popular yoga teacher instructing thousands of people where the yoga teacher bends into some yoga posture and all the students follow and also get into that posture.

And these media images are often thought of as providing testimony to the enduring popularity of yoga. Of the pervasive, widespread popularity of yoga. That's in China, in America, in Australia.

So many people are doing yoga. Yes, it is good that people are getting appreciation for more natural forms of living and exercising. Yoga is definitely a natural form of exercise at the body level.

But yoga is so much more. It is essentially a path for the pursuit of self-realization. And that pursuit of self-realization is an activity of consciousness.

It is not an activity of the body. So, it cannot be done in a hall with hundreds of other people where everybody is doing the same exercise or similar exercise and everybody observes the process of verification for understanding our higher spiritual identity and what it takes to know that identity. So, the contemporary popularity of yoga is actually the popularity of a watered-down initial stage of yoga that is of yoga exercises.

So, here it is stated that yogi has to be constantly engaged in yoga. Not that the yogi do yoga once a day for a few minutes exercise. For shaping and toning the body.

Many people do yoga as a workout. A workout is something which people have a job, people have a career, people have family and to pursue a life of sense gratification they also want health. So, yoga becomes the means by which they can maintain their health and thereby they can pursue all these activities.

So, such a pursuit of yoga is not very fruitful. Such a pursuit of yoga is not very fruitful in spiritual terms. It doesn't lead to self-realization.

It actually may end up leading to self-forgetfulness more. All the people may feel that by practicing yoga I am becoming calmer, I am becoming more self-aware but we can't really be very self-aware without knowing who is the self of which we need to be aware. We just be more aware of our body and mind and while that may make our life in this world may be a less conflict filled, slightly more peaceful but ultimately that will offer a new lasting benefit.

So, yoga has to be practiced as a means for self-realization and for that one needs to know the self. So, it is we practice with the body, mind, self. Concentrate, control the mind.

Focus the consciousness. Yoga essentially means pursuing higher spiritual truth. So, when higher spiritual truth is to be pursued at that time the desire for lower worldly pleasure needs to be given up.

So, nirashir. Nirasha doesn't mean disappointment as it means in the vernacular languages. In Sanskrit it means freedom from desire.

So, nirashir means one is not bound by desires but rather one has broken free from the bondage of desires. Aparigraha. Aparigraha means not having any possessive mentality.

It doesn't necessarily mean not having any possessions because as we will see in the next verse even the yogi has his deer skin. Yogi has his sitting place. So, it doesn't mean just having no possessions at all.

It means having no possessive mentality. Essentially, if we see the common denominator in all these describers is that the yogi gives up the desire to enjoy the world and minimizes connection with the world. So, the yogi is yogi.

So, he is constantly engaged in yoga in a secluded place. Ekaki alone. In this world crowded places in this world crowded places filled with bustle and hustle.

They are the places where people interact and people in general are pursuing sense gratification. So, when worldly people interact they discuss sense gratification and they pursue sense gratification. So, the yogi gives up all that.

So, the purpose of ekaki and rahasi sthithaha is to avoid the association of materialistic people who will fill the mind with who will fill the yogi's mind with thoughts and schemes of sense gratification. So, this yogi by controlling the mind normally the mind is what drags us here and there mind being filled with dreams and schemes for sense gratification worldly enjoyment impels us to go here and there. So, physically relocating oneself away from the hus and bus, the passion of worldly life is good but along with that one has to mentally switch off from it also and that requires controlling the mind.

And controlling the mind has two components here that we don't desire things that we don't have and we are not possessive about the things that we have. We just use them for the pursuit of self-realization.