What is the Meaning of Yoga?

In 1999, I was on a plane flying home from India, after nine years of living in the Himalayas. I’d been meditating, studying meditation, practising yoga and living the everyday bliss of self-awareness. On the plane I picked up a glossy magazine and was amazed to see photos of North Americans practising power yoga poses and talking about how yoga is good for getting a fit body. Now, I agree that yoga is great for your body and your health, but I had to giggle at how differently I’d learned the purpose and meaning of the Sanskrit word ‘yoga’.

In India, yoga has been studied and practised for thousands of years, but it’s not the look of the physical body that is the main aim of yoga there.

Yoga, in Sanskrit, means to completely know yourself and to be at peace in yourself. It is not possible to define this peace except to say it is freedom from all suffering, freedom from doubt and freedom from confusion. A natural blessedness unfolds in you as you feel this peace and you increasingly realize this as the core essence of your life. This realization is called yoga: a clear knowledge of the oneness of your self with the source of all life.

Being established in this knowledge, your life starts to flow with a vital freshness and harmony, with clarity, mental alertness and a fullness of loving understanding. This Yoga state is expansive, creative and life-supportive.

You might doubt that this kind of expanded awareness is possible for anyone but a Himalayan sage; but yogis, including myself, have found that self-knowledge is a natural state and is possible! Our consciousness is self-reflective; in other words, you have the capacity to know the essence of your own life and mind. This potential has been researched for thousands of years by meditators.

Yoga is an exploration into this nature of consciousness and existence. Yogis have discovered, through deep personal inquiry that at the root of their own life exists freedom and an ever-present space.

But how, you might ask, is this relevant to the everyday life that I live? Once you understand that life’s activities, situations and happenings never alter your essential unchanging existence, your ego doesn’t have to prove its superiority, nor believe in thoughts of inferiority. This pure space of yourself is not affected by praise from anyone, nor is it diminished by criticism. Imagine the relief of living with this sense of perfect ease!

In this state of awareness, the body and mind continue to function perfectly of course, but you now don’t need to believe all your thoughts or reactions. One benefit is that negative and painful thoughts in your mind such as anxiety, anger, fear, neediness or confusion no longer seem so real. When ideas are not repeated or re-enforced, after time, they just go away! Try it and see for yourself!

A yogi is someone who engages in practices in order to realize this essential existence and their own potential power of awareness.

It’s great to have a healthy body, but this awareness is real power yoga!

Padma is an enlightened educator and one of Canada’s most respected and popular teachers of meditation, yoga and self-realization. For more about Padma, as well as information about classes, workshops and Padma’s television series, Padma Yoga, visit padmayoga.ca.

-By: Padma