My discovery of Yoga

I wanted to share this on my professional network, because today being World Yoga Day as designated by the United Nations, I intended to hopefully influence at least a few to start thinking about Yoga seriously and actually putting it in to practice. While Yoga’s benefits have been touted ad nauseam by every new age teacher on the planet and really the old age teachers of India, literally at least for 5 thousand years, Yoga has a tremendous potential to transform your capacity to focus and deal with work stress and improve work performance manifold. And very importantly, over time it also will give you the capacity to deal with toxic co-workers, bosses, cultures and situations in constructive ways without you flinching a tiny bit from the inside. 

So let’s get on with my journey discovering Yoga. 

Growing up in India you would think that Yoga would have been front and center in our lives.

But almost until 2012, quite ashamedly I might add, the word hardly ever registered in my consciousness. ( and all this while people from around the world had been coming to India to learn Yoga and taking it to the west and it had become a massive movement of about 18 million practitioners just in the USA as of last count ).

In the summer of 2012 I embarked on building a bod, may be even 6 pack abs. So I borrowed the most popular at home workout DVD sets of the time (perhaps even all time), P90X devised by Mr.Tony Horton.

I was 30 years old and had never worked out a single day in my life before that, well not seriously with any sense of continuity anyway. It was day 3 of the program when Mr. Horton at the age of 45, while instructing the rest of us does about 360 pushups and 120 pull-ups in a matter of 1 hour! (Read that again)

And I could do exactly 2 push ups and 0 pull ups. 

I was still reeling from this realty check comparing myself to a 45 yr old man when came day 4. 

It was the yoga day. 

So I was like, uh whatever! But because I had decided to follow Mr. Horton, I turned on the episode. Now every episode begins with a quick 15 second intro by Mr. Horton of the routine being done on the episode.

I am quoting him verbatim, “….there is a whole bunch of people that say, I don’t want to do no yoga, its silly and it weird and they do these “om’s” in the end, expand the mind here a little bit, and try something new,  I can do a bunch of things at my age of 45, not because I can do a bunch of pull ups, but because I do Yoga.”.

When I heard him say that last part, my ears perked up! I really was intrigued because now that I saw this man do 360 pushups and 120 pulls all the while talking on the video, he had my complete attention. And my initial reaction to needing to do Yoga on day 4 was similar to those “ bunch of people” he refers to in the intro.

So I did the one and half hour long yoga routine. I hardly could do 20 % of the routine. I mean I did every move as best as I could with ample rest in between, but my best effort could only be accounted to 20% at best to what Mr.Horton did on the episode.

And when I was done with it, at the end of the one and a half hour, my world had changed for ever!

I can go on and express all the things you all might have already heard about what Yoga feels like, but you see, one can read and talk about love all she/he wants. But you never know what it is, until you fall in it. Until you experience it. And yoga is one of those things.

Yoga today is a non-negotiable aspect of my week (I wish I could say it is a non-negotiable aspect of my day I am not THAT disciplined yet, will get there soon, I promise).  

I could write a whole series of essays on this topic that I have gathered over the years on this topic for the scientific minded person. Yoga as a discipline that checks out science and spiritual quests alike. The Mind and the Body together. There is nothing like it in the world. And dare I say, there never will be.

Since then building a bod/six pack abs, went off the agenda. And yoga has been my priority. I still strength train 1 or 2 times a week. But yoga is at least 2-3 times week. I’ve gone on to buy the Ultimate Yogi series by Mr. Elliott Travis which gave me the variation that I needed through the week. And my life has never been better!

There is no reason for anyone struggling with stress, struggling to clear their minds, struggling to sleep better, struggling with their weight, struggling with flexibility and strength issues, struggling with focus issues, struggling with mental health, anxiety and depression issues not to do Yoga. It's a non-negotiable, if you want to solve any of the above said problem without the side effects of the prescription drugs that America is so addicted to.

Of course by Yoga, I really mean, the Asana part of the 8 phase Yoga about which is a topic for another blog on a separate platform. And if anyone is interested in finding out more, I will be more than happy explaining the science and about Yoga in its entirety that most western Yoga practitioners ignore mentioning. Just know that if all you do is the Yoga Asanas, there is tremendous benefit, but you surely are being shortchanged when you just stick to the Asanas. Remember you are just doing 1 phase.

And thus I discovered Yoga and I intend to do till my body gives up on the day I die.