Finding the Yogi in me

My Yoga partner

I want to disclaim right at the beginning of the blog that I am not a Yogi. I am rather an average human being having already lived half of his life with a 9 to 5 job, and a stable source of monthly income to meet my ends. However, lately I have been able to accept the daily struggles and move on in my life. Practice of Yogasanas and Pranayamas on regular basis since 2016 has definitely helped me in achieving a level of balance and inner peace that is very tough to find in our chaotic existence. When we think of a yogi, the image of an ascetic person living a life of seclusion and renouncement comes to our mind. I don’t reject this idea. But, yoga to me is beyond this notion of asceticism. It is rather a way of living in this world shouldering all the responsibility that comes with our social existence. With yoga, we become more aware of our actions and their consequences. This is the story of finding the Yogi in me. The yogi inside me is still evolving and getting better day-by-day. Here I have tried to throw some light on my journey till now and how I found the gem called Yoga.

Early years and overcoming eating disorder:
Experiences during one’s formative years shape the personality that one becomes in later years of life. And I was no exception to that. I still remember spending my childhood with a frail body and a mind full of fears lacking confidence. I never pursued sports of any kind. I preferred my math book to playing games outside during my teen years. I also never enjoyed my food, as if I suffered from some form of eating disorder. Then came a turning point in my life during my 9^th standard. During one of the classes, my English tuition teacher Mr. Ram Prasad Purohit shared a story of how he had visited the Parliament and savoured one full bowl of vegetable soup. It changed my perspective of eating food, especially vegetables. I then began appreciating the simple flavours of home cooked food.

Body building to be stronger version of myself:
After my intermediate, I enrolled for the undergraduate program in Fisheries Science. It was during 1998, as I entered the hostel I saw a multi-gym at one side of the dining hall and my happiness knew no boundaries. For a few days, I only went to the multi-gym and see my senior brothers working out. One fine day, Michael, the smartest of all the seniors who was from Tripura, briefed us about how to use the machines and do weight training. From that day on, I started working out with single minded focus on building a muscular body. I used to train hard as if I was training for the Olympics. I was also very particular about my diet, which consisted primarily of boiled eggs, leafy vegetables, milk, bananas and pathetic hostel food. Perhaps I took up the rigours of weight training not only to strengthen myself physically, but also to overcome the fears and weaknesses that lingered from my childhood days. Over the time fitness in fact grew as a habit without me realising it. Doing some kind of exercise on daily basis became a thing just like eating, sleeping and bathing… a daily routine.

I have always preferred to do weight training in multi-gym till I began working with the Government during 2010. Till 2015, my daily workouts included walking, jogging, cycling and body-weight training. Weight training in a gym became a thing of past. Though I always wanted to learn Yogasanas and Pranayamas, I was not sure whom to follow. I had learnt some rudimentary yoga practices watching Baba Ramdev’s yoga-camp live telecast in Astha Channel.

Light on Yoga by Guruji BKS Iyengar

Practice of Iyengar Yoga

During 2015, I suffered from severe back pain. I could not even walk properly. The pain originated from the base of left side of the waist and travelled down my left leg. My calf muscles were aching and inflamed. It was so painful that I didn’t let anybody touch my left leg. Doctor diagnosed it as the sciatic pain with prescription of calcium pills, painkiller injection and physiotherapy. I didn’t buy the medicine immediately. I came back and thought over it. I searched for yogic stretches for sciatic pain. I randomly selected some of the stretches and began doing some yoga poses. It bought such a relief. That day I stretched twice. Within a week’s time I was able to walk as the pain subsided to a great extent.

I, then, remembered a book that I had got during the World Book Fair, 2009 in New Delhi. It was the ‘Illustrated Light on Yoga’ by none other than yoga maestro Guruji B K S Iyengar. I finished reading the book and I found the recommended weekly course on yoga in the Annexure at the end of the book. The book is a complete guide for beginners and it contained all the basic Yogasanas and Pranayamas Here began my sincere pursuit of Iyengar Yoga. Once I completely recovered from the sciatic pain, I learnt all the yoga postures illustrated in the book: standing, sitting, inversions, and back extensions, etc. I took around 5 years of continuous and sustained practice to master around 50+ Yogasanas recommended in the Book. My learning was very slow but progressive.

Principles of Iyengar Yoga
There are many forms of yoga which have their origin in the Yogasutras of Patanjali. Iyengar Yoga is unique due to its focus on alignment and proper breathing. Practitioner is required to stay in every posture for a particular length of time. Every yogasana has some degree of depth to it. When we begin a posture, we remain at the surface level. As we stay in the same posture for a certain length of time with proper breathing, we move deeper into the yogasana by way of finer alignment and adjustment of all our joints and muscle. We realise this depth with consistent and regular practice (abhyasa). This helps us to achieve a level of agility and flexibility which is very hard to find as we age and grow old.

Progression in yoga practice:
Yogasanas can be classified as beginner, intermediate and advanced depending on the level of difficulty. Simple postures are as important as the advanced ones. We first need to prepare our body doing the basic postures and then attempt difficult yogasanas towards the end of our practice. It is even more important to do basic yogasana for longer duration and go deeper in it than doing advanced posture for shorter duration. So we need to be very regular, consistent and patient in our practice of yogasana.

Yoga for all:
We are continuously exposed to stimuli around us. We have become restless. It has become very difficult for us to sit quite for a moment without a thought or physical action. However, yoga through controlled breathing and restrained physical movements influences our thought processes. As we gather ourselves and begin practising yoga, our mind gets flooded with thoughts of every kind. But as we progress in our practice, we gradually tame our minds. It calms down our nerves and muscles, and relaxes every cell. Yoga is a form of exercise which teaches us minimalism. It requires only two things: (i) 4 sq. m. of space and (ii) willingness of the practitioner. There is no need of any other equipment or a partner. Yoga is for all – young and old, healthy and sick, and poor and rich. It is an equalizer.

Guruji has designed some props which help the practitioner achieve better results. These props can be the walls of our home, chairs, blankets, ropes and bamboo sticks etc. However, I have so far only used wall as a prop for my hand stands and inversions.

Finding the yogi in me:

Mental health is as important as our physical fitness. Finding peace in this chaotic world is very tough. We tend to take a lot of stress in everyday life. This increases the relevance of yoga even more. Regular practice of yogic and breathing exercises calms down the strained nerves and helps gathering mental compose while making the physical body flexible and agile. Yoga also aligns the body and mind with the inner self. The agility of body and its alignment with inner self takes the human being to the higher level in the hierarchy of self-realization.

Yoga for me is the connection I have with myself. In the process I have got to know my body really well. I now feel a sense of lightness and agility. I have become aware of the pains and weaknesses in every joint of my body. Though the left side and right side of our body appears similar, the organs and limbs on each side are never in sync. However, it is yogasanas which have helped me to recognise this imbalance and work on it to bring a level of sync in their movement. I have come to terms with all my physical deficiencies and weaknesses. With continuous practice of yogasanas, I have become a better version of myself. A sort of yogi. This is a lifelong process, continuously evolving with each passing day. This is a journey of self-discovery… discovery of the yogi inside.