Parveenbanu M. Malek

Yoga Parveenbanu M. Malek

"Yoga" is a much misunderstood and abused term these days. Yoga, let it be understood, is a sacred word. It signifies both the means and the end. It is the aim of human existence. It is to live Yoga that one is born. By a stroke of mysterious misfortune, Man has fallen from heaven, is separated from God. The "why" of this is a divine secret. Yoga, rightly practiced, promises to restore the lost Kingdom to Man, assures him to re-unite him with the Ultimate Reality, once again. It will be clear how Yoga is not just bending and stretching the limbs in various postures. Yoga is not ringing the bell or beating cymbals, not staring at a candle or looking at a dot on the wall. Not that these processes are without significance, but they are preliminary, all too preliminary aids, rather starting points in the long, long march of the trainee of Yoga in his quest of Reality. Yoga is not merely a practice, or a set of practices, but the whole science of life itself. We are living muted lives. Yoga offers the whole life. Yoga promises to cure all our diseases ? physical, mental, emotional, spiritual ? all of them. Yoga promises perfection. Yoga promises perennial bliss shorn of all misery.