�Yoga is more than physical exercise�

Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Wednesday June 28, 2017 16:41

Yoga is a 5000-year-old Indian body of knowledge. Though many think of yoga only as a physical exercise where people twist, turn, stretch, and breathe in the most complex ways, these are actually only the most superficial aspect of this profound science of unfolding the infinite potentials of the human mind and soul. The science of Yoga imbibes the complete essence of the way of life.

The High Commission of India in Botswana celebrated the third International Day of Yoga on Sunday. In his speech, the High Commissioner of India Dr Ketan Shukla told the gathering that during the 193 members United Nations General Assembly approved that June 21 each year must be marked as International Day of Yoga. 

“The declaration of this day came after the call for the adoption of 21 June as International Day of Yoga by Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi during his address to UN General Assembly on 27 September 2014. In suggesting 21 June, which is one of the two solstices, as the International Day of Yoga, the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi had said that the date is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and has special significance in many parts of the world,” he said.

Shukla said Yoga was a physical, mental, and spiritual practice or discipline, which originated from his native country, India. He said there were a broad variety of schools, practices, and goals in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.  He explained that among the most well known types of yoga were Hatha yoga and Rāja yoga.

He explained that the origins of yoga had been to pre-Vedic Indian traditions, was mentioned in the Rigveda, but most likely developed around the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, in ancient India’s ascetic and śramaa movements. He said the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali date from the first half of the first millennium CE, but only gained prominence in the West in the 20th century. 

“Yoga gurus from India later introduced yoga to the west, following the success of Swami Vivekananda in the late 19th and early 20th century. In the 1980s, yoga became popular as a system of physical exercise across the Western world. Yoga in Indian traditions, however, is more than physical exercise.

Yoga does not consist in sitting cross-legged for six hours or stopping the beatings of the heart or getting oneself buried underneath the ground for a week or a month; these are mere physical feats,”  he said. Shukla said real Yoga was the attainment of the highest divine knowledge through conscious communion with God. He explained that it had a meditative and spiritual core. 

“One of the six major orthodox schools of Hinduism is also called Yoga, which has its own epistemology and metaphysics, and is closely related to Hindu Samkhya philosophy Vedic Sanskrit, yoga (from the root yuj  ;qt~ ) means “to add”, “to join”, “to unite”, or “to attach” in its most common literal sense.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the root yuj samādhai (to concentrate) is considered by traditional commentators as the correct etymology,” he said.