The real meaning of Yoga

What does yoga mean?

Is yoga limited to the physical moment of the body or it having something deep within it?

Is yoga a method practicing for physical health and relaxation only or something more?

The dictionary defines yoga as “a Hindu spiritual and ascetic discipline, a part of which, including breath control, simple meditation, and the adoption of specific bodily postures, is widely practiced for health and relaxation.”

But is yoga limited to exercise of breath control, meditation, or the adoption of specific body postures only?

In the above definition, did we incorporate the real meaning of yoga?

The word “yoga” is a Sanskrit word which means “union” but here we have the next questions, union with whom?

Here it is, Yoga means getting union with the energy you are part of, union with the spirit within you, union with the soul within every living element on this planet, and these illustrations may go on and on. It denotes that every practice which is leading you towards union is yoga, even if you are getting union with the people around you, it is yoga. The person who practices the process of getting a union is called a yogi.

I do not know, how many of you read mathematics in Hindi language but here I would like to draw your attention of one sign of mathematics i.e. “plus”. Plus means adding values with each other, for example, 2 plus 2 is equal to 4. In Hindi, this “plus” is called yoga. Even our ancient mathematics is more than math; it is moreover science to explain spirituality. Knowing our own self is spirituality.

As we understood, yoga means union with our own self and with the energy we are part of.

But the question is why I union should?

If we, humans, look at our lives closely, we observe that deep reason for conflict in human life is inequality. Here, I am not talking about inequality in external life but an internal one. Let us understand it with an illustration, try to remember how many humans you talk today, and how did you treat them? What was your state of mind when you were communicating with them? Did you find quality in that?

When a human got united, he raises above the selfishness which includes me and mine and sees everyone equally and understands that everything is for him because he is union with the one, we all are part of.

A human will have equality towards all the other humans when he has knowledge of spirituality and understands that the energy or soul within him and energy or soul within all other humans is one and the same. The knowledge and understanding of spirituality are within you and yoga guides you to wipe the dust of ignorance and thereafter knowledge shine. A diamond does not shine in a mine but when it comes out of darkness into light then it shines, the process of bringing diamond from darkness into light is what is called yoga with respect to human life. When I know that the one who is writing this and the one who is reading it, are not two different humans but both are one; and that is called the Ekansh: oneness. Here question arises that if they both are same then what makes them different and answer is because they both are at a different level of knowledge and understanding or we can say the different levels of consciousness. But it is true, a human who has been united with the supreme energy or universal soul, he is having internal equality for all the humans.