Yoga for World Peace
Your life is good and would then inspire legends, even after death inspiring humanity with its wisdom. When something is created, it carries the samskara by virtue of its being and the samskaras those of who created it. Any product that we purchase has passed through innumerable hands, modified from the source to the seller, imbibing the samskara of all those who put their labour behind its modification through many stages as it finally morphed into its finished state. This has been the perspective of our Rsis. That is why they have advised us to collect no more than the very needful, and to live in a state of aparigraha (non-possession). This is a strong foundation for world peace.
All the people in this world desire peace. There is a need for establishment of peace in this world. It is with this purpose that every year there is a Nobel Peace Prize awarded to a person who displayed unbounded commitment to establish peace. Yet despite such efforts, peace in our times does not appear achievable, let alone established. This is because all the different people desire peace, and according to their own conscience or understanding they devise differing methods, and make fragmented efforts towards peace. And yet, there has been no world consensus on a uniform and unanimous, demonstrably successful path towards lasting peace.
The world witnessed innumerable blood-soaked struggles and genocides for the establishment of so-called religions, and yet peace remained elusive. In truth, the state of non-peace shows all the signs of a steady increase. This clearly shows that despite validity of all the ideologies and strategies being worked out for the establishment of peace, they severely lack the key forms of completeness, inclusiveness and being all-encompassing, all-pervading for all forms of existence.
There are diverse communities, sects, beliefs and religious Guru (leaders) in the present. All of them claim that their paths or paths prescribed by them alone would lead towards world peace. However, we realise that those faith-sects and belief-led communities do not exhibit the nobility, expansiveness and inclusiveness required which could lead to a peaceful world if humans adopt their paths.
People following the popular beliefs, sects, communal-faiths and pretentious religions might arrive to a peace at their personal levels. Yet, they get entangled in the nightmarish web of superstitions, ill-traditions, and false biases, getting out of which is very difficult. Can therefore we agree to some rules, beliefs and boundaries, which can be followed universally? These values should ensure that the sovereignty and unity of any person, society or nation cannot be shattered, that no selfish personal motive be successful, that all the people can adopt these values and find happiness and auspicious fulfillment in their own lives. Can we discover and unanimously agree on to such values? Yes, there is a path. This path, which can be tread by each and every citizen of the world, fearlessly and independently, we can state, is Yoga. Yoga will establish world peace in the truest sense. It is because the world turned its back on yoga-centric and yoga-based Rsi-culture and lifestyle that we are ridden with such horrors as illnesses, ignorance, poverty, violence, anarchy, despondency and insecurity.
If there is a path to establish peace in this world, then it is the widespread popularization as well as personal adoption of Astangoyoga formulated and explained by Maharsi Patanjali. There is a need to adopt this path, as it is the only solution which liberates our future from the historical repetition of blood-soaked violence ever enveloping the world Astangayoga is the only path which leads to the actualization of personal growth, social harmony and global peace.
Ajnana (Ignorance), agraha (persistence regarding a subject), selfishness and ahamkara (arrogance), these are the four tattvas (elements) which are opposed to Yoga. A person afflicted by them can not ever become aware of the truth. As the true knowledge of Yoga grows in people, their biases and prejudices start diminishing. As a result, in the place of selfish greed, selflessness establishes itself and Aunkara takes the place of ahamkara (arrogance).
Vasudhaiva kutumbakam
(Pancatantra-5.38)
That is, the entire world is like one’s own family. It is with this eternally noble, liberal, central maxim of our ancestors, that peace might truly be established in this world.
Therefore, through the medium of Yoga, we should readily participate with all our being into this auspicious anusthaw to uplift our atmd and thereby uplift the nation and the world for humanity’s progress.
‘Yoga’ — The Only
Means To Achieve
Divine Transformation
The real meaning of Yoga
Independence is our birthright. The expertise of the science of Yoga leads us to that sovereignty.
Yogascittavrttinirodhah
(Yo.su.-L2)
To cease the activity of citta (mind) is Yoga. The mana seeks meaning while remaining engaged to untruths, imagination and dreams. The mana is lost in the pain and agony of the past that has already passed, in the memories of past or in the worries about future.
The meaning of Yoga is to live in the present, where there is neither pain nor worry. There in only creativity in the present. Only the person who does not fear about the future can have pleasure in the present. It is the present which forms the past and creates a foundation for the future. Both past and future both do not exist independently without the present. Only by living in the present can pleasure be obtained in life. The nature of conscious atma is experienced after going beyond the mana. Thus, the meaning of Yoga is to be united with one’s own consciousness, the center or one’s existence, to know one’s identity and know the presence of the knower of all — Paramatma within. Yoga brings the realization of the body in the Brahmanda (universe) and the universe within the pinda (body), i.e. “Yatha pinde tatha Brahmande, Yatha Brahmande tatha pinde.” To extend oneself ubiquitously from the boundaries of small mindedness of ‘ego’ of self.
(Excerpted from the book Divine Transformation: Building Blocks for Englightened Life, Ideal Nation & Peaceful World by Acharya Balakrishna)
