Happy Guru Purnima from Sharath ji! -_- Today as all of you know is a Guru Purnima. Every year when a Guru Purnima comes, it’s very special day for us, people who practice Ashtanga yoga, that came from Pattabhi Jois lineage. Because it’s Pattabhi Jois’s, my grandfather’s, birthday. Today if he was alive he would be 99 years old. Physically he is not there, but he is there, in all of us. What is Guru Purnima? Guru is a very important person in our life. agyana-timirandhasya gyananjana-shalakaya cakshur unmilitam yena tasmai shri-gurave namah (Guru Stotram). First we have to understand who is a guru. ‘Gu’ means ‘darkness’, ‘ru’ means ‘dispeller’. Guru is the one who removes the darkness in us, which called as ‘agyana’. The ignorance is the darkness. Through his own experience and sadhana he will remove all the obstacles, delusions in us. And he leads us towards the rightness that is ‘gyana’, true spiritual knowledge. Only guru can make us realize what gyana is. That’s why Guru Purnima is the day when we remember and worship our guru. So we all showing respect and thanking Guruji for giving us this beautiful practice. Shri K. Pattabhi Jois is the one who brought the authentic yoga to all of us. It started through Rama Mohana Brahmachari, from him to Krishnamacharya, then to Pattabhi Jois, and he shared to each and every one of us. So many people could relish this beautiful practice, the vinyasa system of yoga. Nobody knows when yoga has started. In Bhagavad Gita (4.1-2) it is said: ‘imaḿ vivasvate yogaḿ proktavān aham avyayam vivasvān manave prāha manur ikṣvākave ‘bravīt’, ‘evaṃ paraṃ-parā-prāptam imaṃ rāja-rṣayo viduḥ sa kāleneha mahatā yogo naṣṭaḥ paraṃtapa’. So Krishna himself says ‘This is very old. There is no date when yoga has started. So the yoga is timeless. It has come through the stream of parampara. Whatever you experience, you can’t become a yogi through reading books. It has to be through the guru-shishya (student) parampara. I want everyone to keep this practice and taking it on to the next generation. The upcoming youngsters should practice and learn this beautiful yoga. My grandfather has always used to say ‘Yoga doesn’t belong to one person. Yoga is universal’. Universal means it doesn’t belong to one individual, but to everyone. No one can claim yoga. We can’t copyright and hold it, saying ‘this is mine!’ It’s like a Sun. We can’t own or copyright a Sun. Can you copyright Sun or air? It’s impossible. The only thing you can copyright is your ego. So you can experience the Sun, take good energy from it, and yoga is exactly like that. Through yoga we can experience and have a peace of mind, control over sense organs. I want you to enjoy yoga, experience it and take your spiritual practice to higher levels!
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 17:05:53 +0000