Yoga is about Practice

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 5 years before Jul 06, 2017

MiBeloved 5 years ago

This morning’s breath infusion was great. I had a student this morning. I gave him a lecture about the necessity of yoga practice. Yoga is not a cult thing. It is not about gurus, and asking gurus questions. It is about learning. It is actually a course like when a child begins learning in kindergarten and then gradually over time reaches graduate level at a university.

Yoga is more about learning and practice, and then it is about teachers. A millions teachers of the best qualification cannot help a student who is unwilling to do practice in the course of the particular subject.

Practice is the way to advance in yoga. Teachers surely help but their assistance is mostly utilized if there is practice side by side. If the student sits with the teacher and does not do the lessons recommended, that sitting will not get the education into the head of the student.

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This was also posted on LinkedIn where we got an unexpected response:

Thanks for the wise words. Harharanandaji often said that an ounce of practice is better than a ton of knowledge. He always and daily stressed this. The Gita also comes down heavy on this in Chapter 2.

As you wisely wrote in your great book "Spiritual Master", Chapter 11, "Classification of a Guru", a Chela "images" the Guru in one or more of 3 forms:

I - God in human form

II - A perfected human being

III - A hero idol

There is also here a measure of greatness. I am sure you are familiar with the distinction between a Vibhuti and an Avatar, which is well explained in the Gita. Napoleon and Caesar were Vibhutis, and mostly atheists both. Vivekananda, now spiritual and a great Yogi, was also a Vibhuti, as was Kalidasa. However, Krishna was definitely an Avatar (and I am not only following the parable in the Hindu Vishnu Puranas). How to measure this? By the afflatus of their presence and words, that's enough.

I have now one Guru-Pair. This is a unique situation, in which us, followers of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, call their phenomenon the Bipolar Avatar. One complemented the other precisely. And, make no mistake, quoting verbatim Sri Aurobindo: "The Mother is not my disciple, but my equal". They are Videha, I never met them in person. They may choose to return or not. But there was a Diksha many years ago. This Diksha brought me to tears, shook my being. It is because of it that I am drawn, once and again, to Pondicherry and their Samadhi.

But let's, as a matter of expedience, isolate Sri Aurobindo as my Guru. Using your 3 points, he passes all, for:

I - I believe him to be Kalki, thus an Avatar, so he was an incarnation of God.

II - He was definitively a most perfected human being, one of the most perfected of the 20th century, and his works and his deeds are there for all to see.

III - He is my hero idol, fearless, when he unquestionably put his life on the line to match his words, in the struggle against the British Raj, and was only spared by the grace of God (please read the "Uttarpara Speech" after he was released from a year in jail).

That's all, thanks.

As for you, please behave, or I will report you to Bimpy, Baapo, Oakie, and Bokey, and I mean it!