Prof PB Sharma
AS the World Yoga Day drew global humanity towards realisation of the power of yoga to create a healthy body and a healthy mind, let us not forget that the Patanjali Yoga Sutras are not limited to fitness of body or tranquillity of mind.
They offer a comprehensive therapy to create a healthy, happy and righteous human society that works to glow human excellence and caring connect to preserve and sustain this beautiful world of diversity and divine bliss. The Yoga Sutras begin with Yogah Chittavratti Nirodha that states that yoga is to make our mind calm the unnecessary anxieties and unwarranted ripples of tensions. The Sutras ordain us to pay the greatest attention to our mind.
Worldly pleasures
However, we need to utilise the power of yoga to lead a righteous life and make a bigger meaning and purpose of human life in the service of society and nature. It is for this reason the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali inspire us to cultivate goodness and righteous conduct that practices the universal human values of truthfulness, purity of mind and actions and commitment to treat our work activity as a worship of divinity. The Patanjali Yoga Sutras invite us to guard ourselves from the five enemies of our life existence – mindless attachment to worldly pleasures, (Ragas), avoidable jealousy against our fellow humans (Dwesha), indulgence in toxic affairs (Madas), uncontrolled greed (Moha) and amassing wealth through wrongful means (Lobh), commonly referred in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras as Panch Kleshas.
The Patanjali Yoga Sutras invite human society to practice the onerous virtues of human life that include ahimsa, non-violence, satya, Brahmacharya (realisation of presence of God all around) and Aparigraha (sustainable consumption) by practicing with purity of mind and regular practice of yoga and meditation. It goes without saying that the healthy mind and healthy body also need a happy soul so that our body, the temple of divine, continues to glow its eminence and inspires us to work for the collective good of the humanity. To keep the soul happy, we need to regularly engage in doing good for others. Charity with a compassionate and caring heart makes our soul happy as it sees fulfilment of its embodiment in human form. Healthy body, healthy mind and a happy soul is the call of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
Beyond time, space
Further, as the power of yoga transcends beyond time and space. It has a universal appeal for creating a sustainable, happy, peaceful and compassionate human society. At a time when the world is looking for lasting solutions for peace and sustainable progress, the practice of the Yoga Sutras offers a way forward for moving the world community on the pathways of blissful living. The power of the yoga shall create the much-desired synergy between science and spirituality to enable the scientific community to discover the innate spiritual strength of science to wipe out sufferings, disease and poverty from the face of the planet earth and help create a happy and sustainable future.
