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Yoga for the physical body and beyond

A morning satsang at a summer retreat discussing the modern practice of yoga and a return to spiritual roots.

"Spirituality does not mean religious practice. Spirituality means not only doing meditation, but encompasses everything."

"Yoga is from the mother’s womb until liberation, and it should be a very easy practice. Everyone can do it."

The teacher addresses the assembly, reflecting on the global spread of yoga since International Yoga Day. He cautions against practices focused solely on physical fitness or difficult postures, which he links to future injuries, and criticizes the commercialization of yoga. Emphasizing the need for a genuine guru lineage, he shares the discovery of their spiritual ancestor, Ālagpurījī, in the Himalayas, and concludes with remarks on environmental protection and a blessing for practice.

Filming location: Vép, Hungary

Good morning to everybody. It is nice to be here again in this beautiful atmosphere for our summer retreat. You all know, and were all practicing together for the Yoga Day. It is unbelievable how the whole world has turned towards yoga—many, many people in every part of the world: Europe, China, the Middle East, Australia, Africa, North and South America. This means it is the time to come back to spirituality. Spirituality does not mean religious practice. Spirituality means not only doing meditation, but encompasses everything. This time, the subject was "yoga for body and beyond," which was a good subject. As you know, I was also in New Delhi for a program; some of our people were there and it was great. Now, the question is this: are people really practicing yoga, or are they just doing it for physical fitness? Of course, physical fitness is very important, but there is more beyond the body. The last century was a very hard time for humans. They experienced two world wars, which divided humanity and created enemies. People fought from country to country. Because they experienced that war—which was in every aspect not good, bringing poverty and lack—people got into their mind, into their psychic, the idea of money: earn, earn, earn money. This way of thinking brought humans to a distance, separating human from human. Even families were disturbed; there was conflict. For example, families would fight and have court cases just over heritage. When parents died, brothers and sisters fought over property. Before, it was not like that. This was the time of that Kali Yuga, where people were only, only doing and struggling for money. But still, they are struggling for money. And especially those who call themselves a yogī, who call themselves a guru—it is horrible. They have a competition: who is the richest in yoga? The richest one is considered the wise one, the one who can renounce. So still, it will take time to understand yoga. Spirituality is where pure thoughts are not fighting against each other. There is no competition in yoga and no challenges. But still, there is a long way to come again to the yogic way of living—not only for a few yoga practitioners, but for whole families and for the whole society. You know that since 1970, our yoga and spiritual life has been working in Western countries. For the people of that time, yoga was called fakir: sitting on iron needles, or yoga meant hanging upside down (called head standing), or twisting your legs in what’s called padmāsana. So it was not positive for people. And even now, people practice and teach very difficult postures. When you demonstrate a difficult posture, it doesn’t inspire; it may get admiration, but not acceptance. Yoga is from the mother’s womb until liberation, and it should be a very easy practice. Everyone can do it. That’s what the system of yoga and life brought into the world: this kind of practicing in a very simple way. But there are many others who are giving such difficult postures, and young people go there. We have experienced that those who practice those difficult postures, after a few years or one or two decades, have problems with the back bones and with the joints. The declaration of the Yoga Day by the Prime Minister of India gave some kind of confidence to the people. He also explains and declares simple exercises. This time, what was officially demonstrated to hundreds of thousands of people was a very simple exercise. Of course, I noted at the time that some exercises were being done wrong. The wrong thing they did, or taught, is moving the neck and rotating the neck while standing. Many people had a problem: they got dizzy, fainted, and fell down because they did not have the experience. That is why they taught like this. Our teachers, our yoga, and their life is now coming to be known in India also. They admired our yoga and the life group, people, and teachers. Our teachers are perfect teachers. Yes, and we need to develop more teachers to bring the correct practicing of yoga, which we call the system yoga in life. So, all our people who are yoga teachers should produce more teachers. Let all become the yogī, the healthy and spiritual consciousness. Do not run behind those who declare themselves very rich and this and that. A very interesting thing is now, because the Prime Minister declared yoga, people who did not practice yoga and were against āsanas now say they are yogīs, that they were practicing yoga all the time. To come to the middle point, you can see which master was teaching āsanas, prāṇāyāmas, and meditation in the proper way. It is very important that you are learning from a master. You should have a master; we call it paramparā, this special lineage, guru lineage. Some say, "No, we don’t need a guru." Then it means you don’t know what yoga is. They themselves call themselves the guru, but they don’t have their own guru to worship. We found our path and we found our lineage. You have heard everything and seen many pictures of our lineage, Ālagpurījī. You heard about that? Who did not? This little child. Okay, so Ālagpurījī—now I was there, you know that. After 12 years of research by Dr. Shanti, we found really that point, which is verified, declared, explained, and so accepted, where Ālagpurījī was living. And we are working on that. Many people would like to go there, but there is a restriction now, so they are not going. Because of the pollution, they want to protect the Himalayas very, very much. There’s a lot of pollution the tourists are doing. Maybe they don’t throw big plastic bags, but they put toilet paper under the stones. At the same time, while sitting, they open a candy and eat it, and put the little plastic wrapper under the earth. You know that plastic you cannot destroy. Also, there are no toilets. When ten people go for two days, can you imagine? Ten people’s two days—how much urine and cord they create. Human pollution is more dangerous and unpleasant than that from animals. There are two kinds of animals: vegetarian and non-vegetarian. The excrement of those animals is not so polluting. But humans are neither vegetarian nor non-vegetarian; they eat everything. That’s called an eater of everything, living or dead, and all kinds of grains. So the human excrement is very, very stinky. The government is strictly restricting that part of the forest. So if we go there or we don’t, we know from where we are. Of course you would like to go. It will be properly organized. Sometimes now, suddenly 30, 40, 50 people went. It is the border of China and India, and suddenly there’s an alarm: why did Western people go there, suddenly so many? Now you need permission to go, and they will not give permission. You need permission to go to Mount Abu and also to Mount Kailash. Why? Because of the pollution; they will destroy nature. We try to move rocks to make little paths, but they don’t want to, because it is in nature. There are many things, but we know that we know where we are. We found our roots, we found our ancestors, and now we should know we are on the right path. We have a lot of evidence from Ālagpurījī; this I will talk to you about later. Many, many books describe Ālagpurījī. We will now have a nice seminar. Nice to see you, and I wish you very good practice. So practice āsanas, prāṇāyāmas, meditations, and we will have a satsaṅg also. This satsaṅg: what is tattva? Deep Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Alak Purījī, Mahādeva Devapurījī Samādhi, Satguru Svāmī Madhavānandajī Bhagavān, Satya Sanātana Dharma, Om. Shānti, shānti.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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