Why Yoga is for Leadership?

Yoga is the Quantum Science of Spirituality. Yoga is the pathway to our realisation that we are energy beings encased in mindbody matter. This awareness makes us spiritual, as well as healers and leaders.

Over the last several months I blogged on the Bhagavad Gita. Each of the 18 chapters of the Gita starts with Yoga. Yoga means union, and in the context of the Gita is about the union of the mindbody matter state and the underlying energy state. Each chapter is about the pathway to this union. Krishna speaks of four specific pathways. Karma or Action; Gnyana or Wisdom; Dhyana or meditation; and Bhakti or devotion. Integrated the process is called Raja Yoga, a pathway suited for leaders. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra is a ‘how-to’ manual, as different from Krishna’s ‘why-to’ coaching approach.

The practice of Yoga can lead us to the fundamentals of Quantum Science. When mastered, in the ultimate Samadhi state we can experience the non-duality of the localised material form and the energised wave. Samadhi, integration sama and adhi, refers to becoming one with our original and natural energy state of being. In this state, we can experience the non-locality of relationships as in entanglement. We can experience the uncertainty between location and momentum, leading to the joyful probability of unlimited potential.

Yoga is the counter-point of Descartes's rationality and Newtonian rigidity. The energy state of the stilled mind that can communicate non-locally is not in the realm of Newtonian science. The irony is that those who question the energy state of the body as unproven can accept Einstein’s Relativity, not knowing that it is a theory still unproven, though it has given rise to powerful new inventions. As is Yoga with its applications to wellbeing and character building. Those who believe that the Earth was conceived and created 6000 years ago in the Garden of Eden will have difficulty in understanding the concepts of Quantum Science and Yoga.

We know that we don’t need to understand Faraday’s laws to operate simple or even complex electrical equipment. So it is with Yoga. One doesn’t need to know the why and how of our energy nature to practice Yoga and derive its benefits. However, as with complicated equipment, one needs to go through a manual that tells you how to use it. The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali is the manual for Yoga.

Patanjali does not try to convince you that you’re an energy being. He merely explains how our mind and body parts function and how we need to train the mind and body to be in alignment to experience energy. In simple terms, Patanjali’s eight-part Yoga is the ancient wisdom that astonishingly replicates the modern science underlying neuro-psycho-biological-mechanics if there is such a term. Patanjali Yoga is aligned with the Vedic Upanishad scriptures. Together they describe how the mind works, what our energy states are, what our mind awareness states are, how mind and energy relate with others behaviourally, how the mind relates with the body and breath, and how all these together align with our energy being.

I was introduced by my father’s father to Yoga when I was 2 or 3. I watched my father and grandfather stand upside down in a headstand for what seemed hours. As I grew up with my mother’s father hundreds of miles away I had only infrequent contact with Yoga for many years. In my mid-twenties, I reconnected with Yoga, both in physical practice and meditation. The physical practice under a not-so-well-trained instructor damaged my back. The meditation meandered through self-study and guidance from the good, bad and ugly. In my fifties and sixties, I understood the meditative and energisation process well enough to discover myself and help others. In my seventies, I reconnected with physical Yoga well enough to overcome my back issues.

Anyone who teaches you physical Yoga of asana and breathwork without the underpinning alignment with energy-based meditation can be dangerous. Those who teach you meditation without a deeper knowledge of the Upanishad wisdom can be even more dangerous. Many promote techniques of sunya and kundalini meditation claiming they are in a thoughtless state or can see your chakra. They are hallucinating. Ask those who teach sunya meditation how they remember the process and teach, if they were thoughtless. Sunya in Buddha’s terms referred to a No Mind disengaged state where thoughts floated by without attachment. Chakra energy centres are virtual and invisible, like the energy waves of quantum science.

The Upanishad say that one who has experienced never expresses, and one who expresses hasn’t experienced. Run a mile from anyone who claims to be self-realised or enlightened. They are often wonderful communicators, much as used car salesmen are. The Ramana, Ramakrishna and Kanchi Paramacharya never claimed they knew anything. They were in a state of ananda, bliss, in which the expression was silent, and the experience was intangible. This is the Samadhi state that Patanjali teaches. Those who express captivatingly saying they have experienced are fake.

I write what I write as a scribe, and as a communicator. I reflect my understanding of what Patanjali has written, and in other texts what the authors of Upanishad and Sages like Shankara have said. I have never been in their state and nor will ever be. The simple reason is that to be in that state one needs to give up all attachments and ego. For someone who helps run a business connected to earthly matters, letting go at the level of samadhi is infeasible. However, I have glimpsed that state and that glimpse alone has transformed me. In turn, it made me responsible for helping others glimpse what I did. That’s all I can do. Beyond that, it’s their calling.?

Reflection

Prashant, a friend of Pranav, CEO of Coacharya, created the symbol above as the Coacharya logo, 10 years ago. It symbolises the state of Samadhi. The Enso zero is the state of the mindfree Yogi sitting atop the infinity of their energy being. This symbol captures the essence of Yoga. Here’s the story .

Reflect on this. First breathe deeply for 5 minutes, about 10 cycles, inhaling through the nose from below the navel; holding the breath for as long as comfortable; exhaling slowly through the nose for twice as long as the inhalation; then hold the exhaled breath for as long as comfortable; repeat the cycle slowly with a deep awareness of the breathing process and the breath flow. For the next 15 minutes, as you continue to breathe, scan your body from head to toe and back, stopping at as many points as you wish, visualising that you are breathing from each part you scan. Then focus on your heart and witness whatever thought or emotion crops up, without engaging and following. The glimpse may favour you.?

I shall be blogging on Patanjali Yoga Sutra from now on as applied to leaders. Watch this space.

Ram is a co-founder and mentor at Coacharya?https://coacharya.com . Ram's focus is the integration of Eastern wisdom with modern science, spiritually, systemically and sustainably. Visit Coacharya.