Lazy Yogis

There are many lazy yogis who do not want to do asana postures and/or breath infusion practice, even though these are listed definitely by Patanjali as part of ashtanga eight-tiered yoga practice. Recently I read an author who belittled asana postures and who claimed that Patanjali did not care about it but stressed instead the system of meditation on Ishwar, The Person God.

I have not seen any verse in Patanjali where asana postures are minimized but there is a verse extoling the worship-meditation of Ishwar.

Despite all the reasons people do for not doing asana postures and breath infusion, the reason for not doing it, and the only reason, is the influence of the dulling mode of material nature on the mind of the person. This influence is very powerful. It uses the intellect to support itself by hedging itself in the mind of the yogi, or the potential yogi, with all sorts of foolish justifications.

Some swamis take massages from their personal servants (disciples) and then in another breath they ridicule a person who does asana, as if doing asanas is not a form of self-massage.

However we may ask ourselves as to why most people who do yoga in the modern setting, do it by doing meditation only. This word meditation is touchy and is rather vague. Whatever they do which they call meditation, even if it is not what Patanjali defines as such, we may accept at face value as meditation. Okay, so we are in agreement that they do meditate, no matter what they actually do. But the question is why do they think that they can only meditate and be successful?

The whole attitude against yoga postures and breath infusion by Western ascetics from various groups is controlled not by those people, and not by their dogmas and justifications, but by the dulling mode of material nature, which is in the mind and which latches on to any excuse or justification for not doing a physical practice which causes pain to the material body.

Thus people just sit and meditate instead of spending at least 15 minutes doing the asana postures and some breath infusion practice.

Srila Lahiri Baba was recently encouraging me to continue with asana postures and breath infusion, especially breath infusion. He said it does wonders for upgrading the subtle body so that it is more likely that the yogi will enter into chit akash or will absorb chit akash energy which penetrates the yogi’s psyche.