June 21st, 2016 was the 2nd International day of yoga, It was celebrated with utmost happiness and joy all over the world. The Indian government also played a pivotal role in organizing yoga events at different places all over the country. Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi himself was present in Chandigarh (A union territory & capital of both Punjab & Haryana States of India) to celebrate this auspicious day along with 30,000 people. The important thing which we need to realize here is that IDY (International day of yoga) should not just be a one-day event. We need to make it a part of our day to day life if we want a healthy, peaceful, happier & sustainable world. As it is rightly been said that yoga is not a one-time activity, it is the very way of our life. If you make yoga as a part of your life, then you will experience a deep sense of oneness not just within you but everywhere else as well. This oneness can be with nature, family, friends, society, nation or even the whole world. As a result, you feel reverence and deep gratitude towards life and every aspect which makes up this life.

Let’s understand what is life and where lies its source. Life can be defined as a progressive series of realizations; that means you constantly strive to move from untruth to truth or in other words from one level of reality to another. Anyone who chooses yoga to be the way of his life, it’s very important that he should understand the fundamentals of life. Once you are clear of what it means to be a conscious human being, then you can perform any action effortlessly without friction. In today’s world negative emotions like stress, anxiety, depression etc. have become very common no matter where ever you are. When people are at workplace they suffer, when people are at home they suffer. People even suffer their loved ones. Which means it’s not the job or home which has something wrong, It’s just that we have not understood the basics of our life in proper perspective.

People say that I am like this because My boss is not good, or my spouse doesn’t listen to me. So what we are saying here is that we are being controlled by the situations in which we exist. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that we are behaving like robots. If someone treats us good, we are good to them, if someone does little different from what we expect from them, then we start to go haywire. So let’s understand the very basis of our experience and how it can be consciously created. We need to realize one thing that whatever is happening to us in terms of experience is happening within us. Be it the pain, pleasure, agony, ecstasy, happiness, sorrow etc… all kinds of experiences happens within us only.

Let’s examine this scientifically. Whatever things we experience in our life is only through the window of five senses. Now when you are looking at something, your eyes are being used as a visual apparatus. The light goes through your retina & that stimuli go to your brain and then as per the signals received, brain processes/represents someone as a human or a dog or an animal or simply an object. So essentially whatever you see using your eyes, you see it within you. Similarly, when you touch someone, you think you are feeling the other person, but the reality is that you are only able to feel the sensations which are happening within your body.

So in a way, we can say that the seat of your experience lies within you. When a person says I am in love with somebody, he is actually lying, the only thing is he doesn’t know that he is lying. When you say you love someone, it’s not about loving someone, it’s just about your acceptance towards a particular person or entity. Which means love is not about somebody, it’s about you. Similarly whatever activity you perform in your life is about you and you only. So what happens to you in terms of experience, who should determine it? The clear answer is you. Let’s take an example. Suppose you are driving a car. Now let’s say when you turn your steering left it turns right, when you press the break, it speeds up. If that is the state of your vehicle, what would be the first thing you would do?. Obviously, you will stop it. Next step would be, you will try to fix it properly. This is the same thing which you need to do for your life as well. If you want to enhance your life, you need to fix yourself. Fixing another person, entity, an object or the world is not gonna work. Once you have fixed yourself, the world is not a problem at all because you are able to generate your experiences consciously.

Hope this must have helped you to understand the most fundamental aspect of life i.e if you want a peaceful & joyful life, the source to create that peace and joy lie within. You just need to create a conducive ambiance by making conscious choices.

Yoga doesn’t guaranty success, yoga doesn’t guaranty that you will have a big house or a big car, But yoga certainly provides you tools which will take to the higher possibilities of life where you can determine the kind of experience you want to have &  living peaceful, happy & joyful will no longer be an effort, rather the natural expression of life.

Happy Reading 🙂