International Yoga Day is celebrated on June 21st every year. June 21st was announced as the international yoga day five years ago in 2014 after prime minister Narendra Modi proposed this idea. The main aim of celebrating international yoga day is to create awareness amongst the masses regarding the importance yoga holds in maintaining a perfect balance between your materialistic and spiritual well being.
Yoga is an ancient art which originated in India approximately 6000 years and requires people to practice meditation in their daily lives so as to attain healthy and strong life. In ancient times, yoga was practiced by Hindus, Jains and Buddhists. This ancient wisdom is also known as the supreme science of life. But in today’s world, looking upon the health benefits yoga provides, it is practised all over the planet.
What was the purpose of Yoga?
Before we talk about the purpose of Yoga, let us have a quick look on its history. Since ancient times yoga as a complete system was passed down from the master to the student. The first written records of yoga dates back to around 200 BC in Yogasutra of Patanjali. Yoga system consists of eight folded Path Viz: Yama, Niyama, Pranayama, Pratihara, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi. These are also known as eight limbs.
People generally practice yoga to attain not only good health but also inner peace and ability to exercise control over mind and thereby uniting the mind, body and soul. In the western world, yoga is viewed upon as a holistic system to maintain well being. For that matter, yoga is now taught as a separate subject in schools and colleges right from kindergarten to graduate levels.
In ancient times, yoga was generally practiced to awaken the kundalini Shakti or the serpent power which is believed to be located at the base of the spinal cord in the human body. When a person practices the various asanas in the yogic system, it forces the energy to rise in the human body and pass through the various chakras towards the third eye or trikuti which is responsible for intuition, imagination and at times out of body experience. It is also called samadhi. But this system to be successful requires years and years of practice.
Can practicing yoga lead to salvation?
In earlier times, yoga was practiced with the sole purpose of awakening the kundalini Shakti so as to attain spiritual enlightenment and salvation. The great ancient sages practiced yoga along with deep meditation for years altogether to attain samadhi; a state where the soul detaches itself from the physical body and it can fly to higher spiritual realms such as heaven or greater heaven. However, once the meditation is disrupted, the soul returns back to its physical body and the entire out of body experience comes to an end. This process does not lead to salvation.
How to attain salvation?
Salvation means that the soul gets freed from the cycle of birth and death and it never returns to this materialistic and destructible world. Once a soul attains salvation it goes to eternal place called Satlok and stays there forever. It is place where there is no old age or death, there is no hatred and no miseries.
Considering the amount of time these sages devoted to attain samadhi, it will be highly impossible for a human being with the life span of 80-100 years to replicate the same behaviour. Moreover, as mentioned earlier samadhi is not salvation.
To attain salvation a soul will have to ascend towards satlok. There is a specific path present in our human body to ascend to Satlok . There are three veins in our nervous system called the Ila, Pingala and Sushmana. The practitioners of yoga are aware about the third eye or trikuti, which is situated between the two eyebrows at the back of your head. However, the way towards satlok is much higher than the crown chakra or Sahsar chakra which is situated above the third eye. The ones who meditate along with yoga can reach until the crown chakra. Only the ones who are following the way of worship and meditation given by an enlightened saint can ascend to those higher realms which are partly in our body and partly outside it.
There are five types of winds that regulate the workings of a human body, about which all the practitioners of yoga are aware. However, there are 7 other types of winds which assists a soul to ascend towards the eternal abode-Satlok. And only those who are practicing true worship will be able to take control over those 7 winds. Hence, it can be concluded that performing yoga and meditation alone cannot lead to salvation. There is more to it and only an enlightened saint can give you more information about it.
Who is an enlightened saint?
In today’s world, there a hundreds of sages and it is a difficult task to identify an enlightened sage. However, our holy books have given us information as to how an enlightened sage could be identified. An enlightened saint is the one who is aware about the situation of this universe, who has seen Almighty and is aware of His eternal abode-Satlok and who has the knowledge about the deep and hidden secrets in Holy Scriptures of all the religions. That enlightened saint will be able to guide the mankind on the route of true worship and meditation to attain Almighty and His eternal abode.
Who is the enlightened saint?
Today there is only one saint in this whole world who is enlightened and is imparting the true spiritual knowledge from all our Holy Scriptures. His name is Sant Rampal ji Maharaj and to understand what he preaches one will have to listen to the spiritual discourses given by him or read the books he has authored and which are freely downloadable over his website www.supremgod.org
He is the only one who is capable of differentiating what mediation during yoga session and what mediation in spiritual sense mean and what one individual can attain through either of the practices.
