What yoga can teach us (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2 : Health
Prelims level : International Yoga Day
Mains level : Health and wellness through Yoga

Context

• The evolution of yoga can present us with an alternative world view for transforming human society.
• It is heartening to note that yoga has been widely accepted across the world today.
• The Polish government celebrates International Yoga Day.
• In Aligarh Muslim University here, special endeavours are being taken to make this event successful.

History of Yoga

• The word yoga was first mentioned in the Rigveda, but its philosophy, science and grammar were first provided by Patanjali in his magnum opus, Patanjali Yoga Sutra.
• Yoga was taken to the West by Indian gurus.
• They started centres where people practised yoga and realised its benefits.
• However, the popularity of yoga also created a massive business of approximately $40 billion.
• This is set to grow with the rising popularity of yoga.

All is one

• Yoga is something beyond physical health and material wealth.
• The human persona is not only a body; it is also a mind, an intellect, and a soul.
• Yoga attempts to harmonise all of them. In the process, one attains a healthy body, a sharp intellect, and a focused mind capable of realising the unity between ‘I’, generally defined as personal consciousness, and ‘I’, the universal or cosmic consciousness.

Objectives

• Its ultimate goal is to experience the unity of individual and universal consciousness.
• Yoga teaches us to recognise the fundamental unity between human beings and humankind, humans and the environment, and ultimately recognise a total interconnectedness of everything.
• The essence of this realisation is to experience that all is one.
• There is no ‘us’ and ‘they’ everything is us. This is an integral or holistic approach.
• There is today a new vision of reality emerging from new physics.
• As we know, old physics was mechanistic; we had then the great figure of Isaac Newton.
• Corresponding to that mechanistic philosophy, but in a larger mould, we had a dualistic philosophy that divided the world into two components.
• The world of matter and the world of mind.
• The great figure of this philosophy was Descartes. But a hundred years ago, a brilliant Indian physicist, Jagadish Chandra Bose, demonstrated to the scientific world that there was no fundamental division between plants, animals and human beings.

A new way of thought

• Globalisation based on the mechanistic world view also attempts to integrate nations through the concept of the world as one market.
• The recent experience of attempts to integrate the economies and technologies of nations instead of creating any global consciousness leading to oneness has turned out to be divisive, exclusivist, fragmentary and has not helped in resolving any of the conflicts.
• The market forces, instead of harmonising conflicts, have further deepened the fault lines.
• This has resulted in a world that is out of balance.
• Restoration of the balance in this planet is a big challenge.
• Enlightened global minds need to think about an alternative paradigm.
• This indicates that some meaningful thinking has set in.
• It can be argued that if international negotiations could be held on the basis of holistic tenets, along with a calm mind, perhaps the UN would be able to use its time for good purposes.
• If such and other practices of holistic behaviour are pursued, possibly a new culture of conducting world affairs and international relations might evolve in the future.

Conclusion

• There is increasing awareness that the present imbalance is the outcome of the inability of existing socio-economic institutions and political structures to deal with the current impasse, which is derived from the inadequacy of concepts and values of an outdated model of the universe and the belief that all problems can be solved by technology.
• Perhaps there is a need for a new paradigm.
• Enlightened global minds should seriously ponder on such a probability.
• Apart from emphasising the normal benefits of yoga, International Yoga Day should be utilised to think about how a peaceful transition can be achieved for peace, harmony and happiness.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) With reference to the latest QS World University Rankings, consider the following statements:
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is the top ranked university in the world and IIT Bombay is ranked number one in the list of Indian universities.
2. Not even a single Indian university is featured within the world's top 100.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
A. 1 only
B. 2 only
C. Both 1 and 2
D. None

Answer: C
Mains Questions:
Q.1) Can an alternative world view for transforming human society into a non-violent, eco-friendly, non-dogmatic, egalitarian, all-inclusive, secular world family be evolved through the harmonisation of yoga and science?