Make it A New Normal- Yoga.

                    - Rasmi Dhulipudi

In the 20 years of my life, with all the learning that happened- how to make friends, what is the best consistency to make Maggie, how to complete 6 chapters overnight for a final or that Mitochondria is the power house of the cell, one such fact put together is- ‘Yoga is originated in India’.

It is this stereotypic outlook of many people- especially foreigners that if we are an Indian, we get up at 5am every morning and have structured yoga and guided meditation sessions and lead THE ‘healthy life’, but, in reality, most of them are like me, the 95% of the people, whose knowledge on yoga and meditation is very limited to a fancy video we try making for our Instagram on ‘World Yoga Day’ for our college NSS team, attempting to get the pronunciations right to prove that we are Indian enough or, on a fine weekend morning, buying a cute pair of Nike to go along with the colour and aesthetics of your yoga mat and the water bottle and post a story with a relevant hashtags (#LeadingTheHealthyLife).

I want to address this percentage of the people, the 95%, What really is Yoga? Why should we make the extra 15 meditate every day to meditate? How does it connect our soul, mind and body?

Yoga essentially consists of meditative practices culminating in attaining a state of consciousness free from all modes of active or discursive thoughts. Yoga has a pre-Vedic element originating in the Indus Valley Civilization and many historic books and epics talk about this wonderful science. The fundamental purpose of yoga is to foster harmony in the body, mind, and environment. Yoga postures, for example, simultaneously calm and stimulate the brain. These postures activate and stimulate vital organs by supplying fresh blood to the brain, making it alert but relaxed. There are very different types of yoga, each specific to every part of the body. For instance, Pranayama (breath control), Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation) etc. Meditation constitutes a major chunk of focusing the mind on a particular object, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.

Concluding this, let’s make- ‘I got up a couple of minutes earlier today to do some yoga and catch some meditation’ a really cool thing. Our rich culture handed it down to us on a silver plate- here you go, you don’t need fancy medicine and expensive gym equipment, lay a mat on the floor and learn to move your body in specific ways, your physical health will stay strong and enduring, take some time out of your daily hustle to sit quietly and introspect, your mental health can be addressed.

So, the next time someone brings up yoga and meditation- I am hoping the only thing you have to say about yoga wouldn’t be- I do yoga every day as well, for 8 hours- the Shavasana.

References- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtanga_(eight_limbs_of_yoga)