Doing yoga just for myself, unexpectedly discovered amazing things. The attitude to the environment was changing rapidly. Ceased to be deceived by camouflage of behavior and words. The internal, rather than the proclaimed motives for actions became clear. For several years he was in a condition that the white crow in a flock of black friends is probably experiencing. He felt like an alien - the interests of those around him seemed so far away and everyday life goals and attitudes were perceived so false in comparison with the suddenly revealed truth. This was reflected in the work. Being engaged in research in the field of economics, I clearly saw all the stretches of the ideological and economic doctrine of that time. He looked enviously at his colleagues, one after another defending dissertations. Surprised by their conviction, confidence in their innocence. But my views diverged from the generally accepted ones, and moral strength that appeared from nowhere kept me from a compromise. Only then, after many years of reflection, I realized that clarity of perception and morality - all this is the result of yoga. Turning a person over, changing his character, giving him the opportunity to truly become aware of himself, is detached, as if from the outside, to see and evaluate the environment - this is in the strength and style of yoga. She, like a kind mother, can caress, or maybe spank, but at the same time she dreams of seeing her child held in life and helps him in this. It took 15 years for yoga to firmly enter my destiny.
The next ten years were devoted to her in-depth study, teaching in health groups, trying on a psychotechnician. These were difficult years. The administrative system does not need yoga; moreover, it is dangerous. Yoga makes people unyielding, inconvenient for fooling and manipulating their consciousness. The creative attitude she develops towards life, towards everything that fate encounters, is only rarely applicable in a society of frozen dogmas. It seems that this is the main reason why yoga has not received a residence permit in our country for a long time. Another thing today, when society makes completely different demands on a person, when transformative activity is needed instead of conformism, and realistic and competent initiative is required instead of obedient execution (do not lean out). In these changed conditions, yoga can become a powerful tool for transforming the psyche and consciousness in accordance with the new realities of life. Having analyzed all this, I realized that I should share the experience of 25 years of yoga practice.
So the decision to write this book ripened. From many speeches, meetings and conversations, I was convinced that my own and others' experiences, refracted through the prism of personal assessment, are received with great interest. He acts better than abstract agitation. Therefore, I want to talk about my first steps in yoga and about the stages of comprehension of this difficult science of self-improvement. Passion for yoga began in 1965. I then just returned from the army and again got used to civilian life. Once in the spring I walked in the forest. That's when I met my first Master. In a leisurely conversation during the collection of snowdrops, it turned out that he was a retired officer, had been in the eastern regions of the country for a long time, where he had studied certain yoga exercises. He has been performing a headstand for over 20 years, periodically starving and has not eaten meat for a long time. He was an elderly man with a high forehead and a piercing gaze of slightly narrowed eyes. Surprised by some kind of children's ease of use. He immediately spoke about the problems that concern me. His inner strength, logic of persuasion acted attractively. “Yoga is everything,” he said. “If you want to become a man, you must do it.” He spoke ardently and hotly. It was felt that convincing people was his attitude in life. On the very first evening he suggested: lie down on the floor and lift your legs, now throw them behind your head. And I, as I was in soldier's boots, lay on the floor, raised my legs, basin, touched the socks of the floor behind my head. “That's enough,” he said, “now slowly take your starting position, lie down a bit and get up.” Well, I felt, because the truth is acting? I listen to my feelings and notice some unusual freshness in my head. “Uh,” I thought, “this is not a joke, it seems, indeed, it works.”
And, probably, it was from this moment that the countdown of my friendship with yoga began. Then he came to him more than once. I looked at books, talked. Somehow I took a translation of S. Essudin's work “Hatha Yoga and Health”. I read, got acquainted. I didn’t understand everything. Not everything could be explained by Mikhail Markovich. It was too unusual. I believed in physical exercises. The rest seemed a kind of anachronism, especially discussions about Cosmic Consciousness, about Prana, about some mysterious Kundalini. There was interest. But somehow it did not work out closely.
