By Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar┃Updated on : June 09, 2021
Art of Living Founder, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar shares the true spirit of yoga in honor of International Yoga Day.
What follows is the first part of a talk given by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, in honor of 2016’s International Yoga Day:
I greet all of you from so many countries across the world on this occasion of the curtain raiser for International Yoga Day 2016.
Making yoga universally available
Thirty-five years ago, when I used to speak about yoga to audiences both in and outside India, people would think yoga was a practice performed by people who would apply Bhasma (sacred ash) and had their hair tied in matted locks. They would picture someone standing on one foot by the banks of the River Ganga, and think that yoga was actually meant for such individuals only, and not for everyone. These were their feelings about yoga in those days.
Today, I’ll share the secret behind why I named this movement and organization 'The Art of Living' thirty-five years ago. People then thought of yoga as something that was not meant for the common man, only possible to be learned by few distinguished or qualified individuals. They thought that only someone who was a renunciate or a saint was allowed to practice. Yoga wasn’t known to be practiced and understood by worldly individuals. This was a huge misconception in those times. This is why I chose to call this movement ‘The Art of Living’ – a unique skill or art meant to lead humans toward happy and fulfilled lives.
When people heard about 'The Art of Living,’ they naturally became very curious to find out what it was all about, and many wanted to explore and go deeper into it. When a few would come to meet me, I would guide them in practices of yoga, pranayama, and meditation. As they started to get more experienced, their beliefs and notions about yoga began to change. Thousands of youth joined this movement and became teachers all over the world.
Many other spiritual and religious organizations have also taken up this cause and contributed to it. Many teachers of yoga have worked tirelessly through these past decades, causing the misconceptions surrounding yoga and its practices to almost disappear. This is a great achievement.
Awakening around the world
Last year, when the International Yoga Day (IYD) was officially declared, many programs were held across the world, and close to one-third of the world’s population participated with great enthusiasm in different countries.
In earlier days, we’d heard a saying that the sun would never set on the British empire. But today, we can proudly declare that the sun never sets on yoga. From Japan to Argentina, from Norway to Australia and South Africa, yoga and Indian spirituality are being honored and appreciated everywhere. It’s now possible for the whole world to experience the multi-fold benefits of these practices, and many are grateful for this opportunity.
When we think of yoga, we understand it in a slightly limited way, as signifying only a few asanas (specific bodily stretches or postures), like standing upside down on the head; or rigorously moving the stomach and abdomen. This alone isn’t yoga. Yoga is bigger than that, and it can shake up and awaken the entire world.
Unity for a family of souls
Yoga unites the individual with greater consciousness, the larger universal reality. Yoga brings union of the soul with God. God isn’t seated somewhere high up in the heavens. God will not suddenly and miraculously appear before you one day, saying, “My dear one! I am very pleased with you. Ask for a boon you want and I shall grant it.” This happens only in TV serials. God is that all-pervading, supreme energy that’s hidden deep within us all. The art of awakening that divine energy is yoga.
The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, said, “Yoga is the unique skill of going from aham (me) brahmasmi (I am the Brahman or God is within me) to vasudhaiva kutumbakam (the world is one family).”
This is really a very deep thought. Yoga doesn’t stop at having the realization of aham brahmasmi and then renouncing the world and staying in some faraway cave in the Himalayas. Instead, yoga is the journey of knowing, from aham brahmasmi (God resides within me) to vasudhaiva kutumbakam (we are all one). Realizing oneness with everyone and striving to wipe out tears and bring smiles on every face-- this is yoga in the truest sense. This is vasudhaiva kutumbakam.
Light travels to darkness
I remember a story from the Mahabharata. Lord Krishna was standing before a mirror and adorning himself. He took quite a long time to do so. So, while Lord Krishna was doing this, his charioteer outside grew restless, thinking and wondering about what was taking the Lord so long. He finally entered Lord Krishna’s chamber and asked Him, “O Lord! Where do you wish to travel today?”
Lord Krishna said to him, “I am planning to meet Duryodhana today. Duryodhana is only impressed by outward looks and appearances. He doesn’t yet have the ability to look within (himself or others). So I’m taking care to dress myself finely and properly since I have to go meet a prince.”
This is just like when we have to go for an important corporate meeting, we dress ourselves properly in a formal suit or dress, and comb our hair, attending carefully to how we look. So in the same way, Lord Krishna prepared Himself for meeting Duryodhana.
His charioteer then said, “O Lord, why do you take so much trouble to go so far away to meet him? There can be no comparison between him and you. If you simply snap your fingers, Duryodhana will fall at your feet in an instant. Then he’ll have to do whatever you ask. Why go meet him instead?” This incident happened at the time when Lord Krishna had decided to go as an ambassador of peace. Lord Krishna said, “My dear, darkness never travels towards the light. It’s light that travels to darkness to illumine it.”
When people would ask me, “Gurudev, why are you traveling to Iraq?” I said to them, “Would people from Iraq be able to travel to India to learn and imbibe its spiritual wisdom? The kind of crisis and stressful situation that Iraq is in right now shows that we should take this knowledge there.”
India has received the blessings of such profound spiritual knowledge and traditions. Lord Krishna has shown by example that one must travel to help, wherever there’s a need and necessity to do so. Wherever there’s a need for love and knowledge, it’s we who will have to travel there and provide it. Such is the greatness of India’s spirituality.
And why is this so? It’s because we hold dear our values of oneness and love, considering the whole world as our own. The voice for vasudhaiva kutumbakam was first sounded here in India.
Read part 2 of this artcle here.
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