Blogs from Jupiter

Written yesterday night (Friday) but just posted today…

Just woke up a few minutes ago. I’m still in the office. I took a nap right after our yoga session. Too sleepy to drive home. And tired too. I like yoga despite its difficult routines and poses. I sweat but I don’t palpitate unlike cardio exercises. Yoga is really good for the heart. But more than the exercise, it also helps you mentally. You exercise your mind by learning how to focus, concentrate, and control your body. It’s nice that our yoga classes are scheduled every Friday as all the stress of the week are purged out of our bodily systems. I always have that good weekend rest.

My dad, in his younger days, used to do yoga as well. And he attributes his yoga practice in the past to his current health condition. Despite his old age, he is in tip top condition (though there unavoidable health conditions that comes with old age). He used to be a vegetarian too. But unlike us commoners, my dad’s understanding of yoga is beyond the flexing of muscles and bones.

Yoga is a path to spirituality, a philosophy and way of life. The popular yoga that we know, those breathing exercises, poses and meditation, is just a small piece of the whole picture. In yoga parlance, this is what they call hatha yoga. The literal meaning of yoga in Sanskrit is yoke. But as a spiritual way of life, yoga means union. The concept is very similar to mysticism: a union with the object of knowledge, a universal spirit or divine energy, or what Hindus call as brahma. The path of yoga is to achieve liberation from the limitations of flesh, delusions of the senses, and the pitfalls of thought.

Dad says that aside from hatha yoga (physical), there are other types of yoga: bhakti yoga (devotional), mantra (incantations), karma (work and service), Jñana (mental), Raja, and so on so forth.

My dad always tell me that there is a distinction between the self and a higher self. That I am not this body, that I am not the person that I conceive myself to be. This is not what I am (body) but this is only a vehicle, a vessel. The true self is that being that drives the vehicle (body). The concept of the body is similar to Christianity’s Seat of the Holy Spirit. That’s why we are taught to take care of our body because how could we fulfill our spiritual mission on earth if we are physically weak? In yoga, it pushes the concept higher by saying that the higher self is brahma. In other words, if one is to translate this in Christian terms, that Holy Spirit who seats in your body is the real you. Revolutionary isn’t it?

There are still a lot of things to learn. My dad believes that yoga is the real thing. Sometimes, I would have withdrawals and difficulties understanding his lectures because the end all and be all of life’s hoola-baloo is that all of us are one and the same. We’re like this drop of rain that when it reaches the ocean, that raindrop totally loses its being a raindrop. That raindrop becomes a part of the ocean… no… that raindrop becomes the ocean. In the first place, how can a raindrop distinguish itself from another raindrop once it is in the ocean?

It actually make sense. As Christians, we are taught to "Do to others as you would have them do to you", says Luke in the Bible. When we do bad things against others, you are not only hurting others but yourself as well.

But yoga is more than that…