Individuality in Yoga

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 5 years before May 07, 2017

MiBeloved 5 years ago

During practice this morning Srila Yogeshwarananda made a remark about guru influence. He explained that the best manifestation of a yoga guru’s influence in the life of a student is the consistent practice of the disciplines. He said:

Convince someone to take up the preliminary steps of yoga seriously. That is success in teaching yoga. Failure to convince the student is failure to penetrate the lifestyle of the person.

Someone might praise a yoga guru but not assume the disciplines, this is a failed student. The individual himself must take up the practice personally because we are individual spirits. We must achieve it individually. No amount of collective unity can give us the deep advancement. It is such that individual effort, personal assessment of the psychological condition, personal mystic exertion to alter the inner nature, is required. To help a student means to help the student to get the individual psyche in order.