By Gustavo Plaza
A few days ago on the Internet, a friend, a yoga practitioner, shared this photo through Facebook.
When I saw her, she can't help but laugh and immediately nod. And it is totally true, silencing the mind is not a simple task and there is the titanic task of the yogi.
And good! How many really know how to meditate? Who has really meditated? Because you may even be a yoga teacher (supposedly) but you have never calmed your mind, serene your emotions and directly felt that most authentic essence of your true Self.
But now we are sincere. How many times it has not happened that you sit down to meditate and in less time than expected a thought appears: "I have to buy milk." Almost immediately you relate it to another thought: “I have to buy milk for breakfast, ” and an almost endless chain of reflections begins: “We hardly have any milk in the refrigerator anymore, this morning I had breakfast cereal with milk, and… what was it? What did my wife say during breakfast? That he was going to visit his mother this afternoon, like at 4:00, today I have a meeting with a client, he is a good client, I have known him since the time of school, when he had that punk hairstyle, in the 3rd year, that I was in parallel A and the one in B, at that time I lived in 5th streets. etc, etc, etc. ”
After spending a long time thinking about countless nonsense you remember that you are “meditating”, again you get up to straighten the spine that of course has bent over without you noticing, and you return to your concentration support (focal point, mantram, yantra, etc.) to try to advance your sadhana.
And what about the distractions that begin with external stimuli, sounds, smells, noises that happen around us while we try to meditate; Not only do they trigger thoughts, but they can even lift strong emotions like a wrathful anger towards the neighbor who makes noise with the stereo just at your practice time.
I remember when I was for the first time in Varanasi-India, I was very impressed to see those renunciate yogis, sitting in front of the Ganges, motionless for hours, totally absorbed in their meditation, absolutely indifferent to the whirlwind of this eclectic and moved city.
Achieving silence of the mind is hard work, as Vera de Kohn (Zen psychologist and teacher) told me: “Today people want everything easy, lighting retreats are made in 7 days, people want to live a fantasy, the way of meditation demands effort, dedication and sacrifice. ”
In today's world where yoga has been distorted by the usurpers of the spirit (as Ramiro Calle calls them), where people think of themselves as “yogi” because they attend a “gym” every day and are able to get on their heads, achieve the most complicated positions and achieve fantastic contortions such as those of Cirque du Soleil. The purpose is not clear, nor what yoga really is.
How many acrobats and trapeze artists do all these positions better than anyone and that is why they have not achieved enlightenment, nirvana or samadhi.
Yoga is not synonymous with physical exercise, it is not a method to lose weight, nor something to reduce stress. It is true that the practice of yoga offers countless alternative benefits, such as improving the quality of life, improving concentration and efficiency at work, bringing radiant health, but reducing yoga to this would be to commit barbarity.
First of all you have to redefine that term Yoga, so poorly understood and presented in the modern world. On the one hand there are those who know nothing about yoga; of those we have some categories, because there are those who think that yoga is a strange sect, others see it as a gymnastics comparable to pilates, spinning or aerobics, others believe they are acrobatic and trapeze circus exercises and could not miss those who have cataloged them as a satanic cult.
On the other side are those who "know" what yoga is and yet identify it as a practice of dynamic movements and complicated body positions to define muscles, burn fat and squirt.
While it is true that yoga includes work on the body and that the Hatha-Yoga system is an extraordinary ally in the inner search, we cannot think that going to a gym to practice postures and sweating is Yoga.
And it is understandable that people get confused, anyone who jogs and does physical activity will feel very relaxed and effervescent, full of encouragement.
Hatha yoga with its postures and savasana relaxes us and that is enough. But that is by no means an advanced state of yoga. Rather it is only the beginning of a long road.
Yoga is a method of Self-realization, a system that returns us to the natural state of Being; that frees us layer by layer of all those that prevent us from understanding our real nature.
Shaking the first layers of fatigue and mental tensions is very, very simple, as it is to dig the first layers of the soil to create a well, but when you start moving you will run into solid rock and layers of hard, thick and hard subsoils. Almost impenetrable.
That is why the first meditations are simple, pleasant and people always start at a good pace. But it doesn't last a month!
This hard and hard work of cleaning the mind of impurities that avoid the clarity of the flow of consciousness is what is known as Yoga, and that perhaps the word "Meditation" is the most appropriate to understand the true dimension of the exposed.
The purpose of yoga is the rediscovery of our own Being.
Yoga tells us that in us there is a more real I, more authentic than the social self or ego, the mask of the I. That I that has never ceased to be and that is forever and will continue to be when the body has ceased to be on this material plane.
The yogis of ancient India discovered that when the storm of thought calmed down, they were able to live their true essence. Just as a calm lake can clearly reflect the image of the Moon, so the yogi calms his mind to see in his inner reflection the Divine Consciousness.
Yes, I know, it sounds easy but the truth is that it is not and every meditator knows it. And now you may wonder, but what do I do to calm my thoughts?
Although I could give you countless advice, suggestions and supportive practices, there is only one way to achieve it: practice, practice and practice.
Of course, an experienced instructor will always be a great help. A true guru is something invaluable. But even with a great teacher it will be impossible to move forward unless there is sustained practice.
One thing to say, is that it is not necessary to leave a beard, long hair, wear a loincloth and become sadhu (renouncer) to achieve the purpose of yoga.
That same picture could have a list of thoughts longer than that of the western man about the eastern "yogi." The habit do not do the monk.
It is true that the life of the renunciate has its advantages over the life of the man in the world who must face many problems, situations and vicissitudes to earn his daily bread for himself and his family. But that is not an obstacle to obtain the highest degrees of accomplishment offered by yoga.
Sri Ramakrishna, one of the greatest yogis India has had, said that the men of the home who practice sadhana are true heroes, because their practice is much more difficult than that of the renunciates, since the activity of a Sadhu is for Owe nothing more than spiritual practice.
In the end, the yogi (oriental, western, renunciate or world) lives free, present, with his mind in peace, without judging anything or anyone. With a calm mind and perfect silence.
Yoga is silence
