So, what did yoga give me, what did it lead to? Diseases receded: frequent colds, chronic pharyngitis, sinusitis, gastritis and cholecystitis - a bouquet that did not allow normal life. And if not for this, I would hardly have exchanged a quiet, full of entertainments and pleasures life for a semi-basketball existence. As you get rid of diseases and further advance along the path of yoga, the power of thought has noticeably increased. Ease of thinking, the ability to express oneself clearly, readiness for productive work appeared. Participation in scientific work unequivocally proved that it is better: to indulge in weaknesses, break the regime and then painfully hatch the thin phrases of the scientific report, or to live in the regime and work with a twinkle, with the ability to penetrate the essence of phenomena, pose problems and find ways to solve them.
I recall myself irritable, vindictive, self-confident and impudent, with a constant feeling of unjustly offended, with a feeling of dissatisfaction with everything and everything. And where did all this go? Yoga made me a different person. Today some initial mistakes, wanderings, attempts to tie yoga to the solution of one's private problems seem ridiculous. I realized that yoga is not a backup for the shaky building of your "I", not a pill for a single use - it is a lifestyle, life itself, the path along it.
In our country, there are still widely held views that yoga is a gymnastics. It is believed that the philosophy of yogis is a mixture of mysticism and religion, which is of no interest to us.
Meanwhile, today yoga is actively studied and practiced all over the world. In India, there are several hundred centers where they teach yoga, treat patients, conduct extensive scientific research. She became the state system there, she is taught in high and high school, used in the army and police. Hundreds of centers operate in the West. They teach the art of meditation, treat many chronic diseases, and study the mechanisms of yoga.
But you need to understand that yoga is very different. There are many narrow, applied areas. And each has its own methods, goals and objectives. And there are integral systems.
So classical, traditional yoga is a system of means and methods of controlling thinking and development of consciousness. It includes several stages of the consistent development of personality.
However, business-minded, practically thinking people are not attracted and even repel the seemingly necessary departure from social activity and the search for happiness in self-immersion, achieving an ecstatic state of merging with the Cosmic Absolute.
Modern yoga has moved far from traditional priorities. It offers a technique of psychophysical, moral, intellectual and spiritual self-regulation, which allows you to develop a special kind of perception, sometimes called supersensible, and a special kind of consciousness, called superconsciousness. However, today it is no longer for some mystical purposes, but for use in everyday life. According to modern yogis, the future of mankind is determined not by the development of machine civilization, threatening environmental disasters, not by universal computerization, which only contributes to overall progress and assigns the role of a consumer to a person, but by improving the person himself, the hidden and almost unused reserves of consciousness and the whole organism.
Today, on the market of services, yoga is offered not as an integrated system, but as its individual parts, as various complexes of physical culture, respiratory and psycho-regulatory technologies. They have different names (brands). Their task is to satisfy the increasing demands of society for non-drug methods of correction of physical and mental health. They cope with this task quite successfully, which explains the avalanche-like growing popularity of yoga.
In discussions about yoga, two opposing points of view most often clash. Some unconditionally deny it, attributing it entirely to the sphere of religious mysticism. Others consider it almost a means of saving mankind and prophesy for it to gain leading positions not only in philosophy, but also in social practice, in the way of life and thinking.
Let's try to figure out what yoga is? Is it possible to call a yogi one who knows how to perform complex physical exercises, the so-called asanas? Or is it a person who is insensitive to pain, cold and hunger, able to stop breathing and even heart? Or maybe a yogi is someone who can lie on a broken bottle glass and endure injections of a sharp dagger without any consequences? And how to appreciate the fact that scammers and ascetics, ignoramuses and scientists, vegetarians and meat lovers, emaciated beggars and successful businessmen call themselves yogis.
Apparently, the point is not in the personal qualities of people practicing yoga, and not in the successes they achieve. Rather, the vital attitudes, the goals to which they strive, and, of course, the particularities of the methods they use, are important.