Being a Yogi

Many of us believe that being a yogi has to do with someone who practices the postures of Yoga deviced by the great Indian sage Patanjali. Some may believe that being a yogi would be to renouce every luxury in life. But being a true yogi has 2 aspects.

3 Face Yogi Seal from Harrappa Civilization

One is the physical aspect which requires us to follow the path shown by Patanjali and practice the postures of Yoga. This helps us calm down, keeps our body fit, get in a meditative state, try to find God in ourselves and in others.

Second is the mind. We need to empower our mind to be free from bondages of happiness and sorrow with our actions. 

When Arjuna, the great warrior was griefbound before the legendary Mahabharata war, he saw his his cousins, uncles and his mentors were on the enemy side inspite of knowing fully well that they are on the path of injustice but still choosing to be on that side due to various family and moral obligations. Arjuna did not know what to do. To fight for what he believed was right was to eliminate a good chunk of his own family and loved ones. He turned to his charioteer, Lord Krishna, who was also his biggest mentor, friend and one of his most respected people.

Shri Krishna explained many things to lift the load off Arjuna's mind which were directly from the Vedas, the highest text in Sanatan Dharma (Hindu Society), said to have been provided to man by God on how one should live their lives. 

योगस्थ: कुरु कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा धनञ्जय |

सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्यो: समो भूत्वा समत्वं योग उच्यते ||                  

Be steadfast in the performance of your duty, O Arjun, abandoning attachment to success and failure. Such equanimity is called Yog.

He went on explaining that irrespective of the kind of work a person does, he should never get attached to it. A person should do something only because doing it would be Dharma or doing the right thing. Inspite of  that one should not attach feelings to that work. Irrespective of whether a job (based on the right path or Dharma) has a success probability which is good or not, it should not affect our intentions of doing it. We should do it just because doing it would be doing the right thing. People who follow this religiously are actual Yogis. 

सुखदु:खे समे कृत्वा लाभालाभौ जयाजयौ |
ततो युद्धाय युज्यस्व नैवं पापमवाप्स्यसि ||

Real yoga comes from power of mind and is the most powerful tool at our disposal. If we train our mind and be its master we can train it to follow the practice mentioned above and eventually become a true yogi. More information on how to train your mind please visit here. Being a yogi would not require us to renouce everything, but just be among everything and not be affected by it. This is detachment.

Doing the right thing is not always easy, but doing so unaffected by the result makes us a yogi. We read about how Karna, another demi-god, son of Surya (Sun), who was on side of Adharma (being a part of the sinful entourage of Duryodhana just because he owed Duryodhana a moral debt) had so many good qualities which made him stand out among the people of his era. But he sided with the wrong people in the war and inspite of him being a more skillful warrior than Arjuna would have helped bring upon an era of injustice thanks to his friend, had his side won. So to bring about balance to the society, he had to be put down.

This was an extremely displeasurable task. He could not have been defeated following the righteous path owing to his skills. But for the greater good of the society (and not for fullfillment of one's selfish desire) he had to be killed when he was pulling out the wheel of his chariot from a puddle. This was against the rules of the Mahabharata war and against any brave warrior code. Arjuna felt ashamed for being asked by Shri Krishna to shoot an arrow at the back of an unarmed enemy. But he did what he did not for his personal gain but had the intentions of greater good of the society in the back of his mind. He did not attach sorrow or happiness to this act. He did it because at this point, it was the right thing to do.

So in the vedic sence, he acted like a Yogi. Ofcourse this event was from  history, tens of thousands of years old, based on the fabric of society present at that time.

We cannot follow the steps followed by the legends and warriors of the bygone era in today's society. But we can still practice removing feelings from our everyday actions and aiming them to be for the good of others not getting impacted by the result be it good or bad.

This would make us a true Yogi.