The Puzzle
My path of yoga commenced at a very early age as I was born to a family of yoga teachers and had travelled around India and South East Asia to learn and practice different styles of yoga (Both traditional and Non Traditional)
As I started teaching and learning from different gurus and masters of yoga from different perspectives and ideologies, somehow I got caught up in the misery of whether I have to be religious to be a yogi.
For a great period of time, I was in the yoga ashram, performing fire rituals of the different deities every week and there also used to be times while my time practicing outside India where the practice was solely focused on the inner greater self, or Brahman as we say in Yoga. This had created a lot of confusion in me and I confronted my father regarding this one day and he told me that ‘At the end of the day, it is the karma which matters, the punya or paap or the vice and virtue. A man living a worldly life with human desires could be more moralistic and righteous than a person meditating in an orange robe whilst sitting on the peak of the Himalayas. And as far as my understanding goes, you do not have to be religious necessarily to serve your purpose in this world or to connect with your inner self or as we say in yoga, to be one with Brahman or your true being.
Who is Bhagwan?
Sometimes we do feel the need to devote to something higher than ourselves, and there is a force behind us which is greater than all we can think of, but again there is no need to be superstitious about that, as it is the case with some people, (For example, people suffering with OCD or anxiety can have a hard time as they might keep pondering upon if they did a particular ritual in the correct manner or not)
God can be a deity you worship to, or the frame of a deity you put up on your bedroom wall. The same god can also be in the oil lamp you are lighting up in the morning, or in the chants that you chant in a satsang. The Brahman is a force that unites all of us, the god that you pray to in the temples is the same Brahman that is inside of you, if you treat your body and mind like a temple keeping it away from negative afflictions and worldly sufferings, you are worshipping the inner force within you which is a subset of a bigger cosmic energy. Some worship this energy, in the form of action, some in devotion. Some go to the temples, some touch the feet of their gurus. At the end of the day , it is your Shraddha or devotion about how grateful you are to the universe.
Therefore, the traditional wisdom of yoga also supports that, out of the 9 main Darshanas, there are 3 Nastik Darshanas, and they have a major role in the history of humanity and yoga too, even though they do not believe in deities or specific Gods.
The Truth of Faith
Although, there is another perspective to view this stigma , nowadays people have made it a fashion to say that yoga is not religious, but we must have the viveka or ability to discriminate between what aspect of it is religious and what not is. To be religious in the sense of Dharma is not derogatory nor dogmatic. One not need fight shy about being religious in the sense of Dharma.
However, it is upto us to differentiate between what we believe, religion that relates with yoga such as the union or just believing in some uncritical dogmas that we are domesticated to believe in to be called an adherent of that religion.
Therefore , having faith in religion does benefit us sometimes in the practice of yoga as it brings a sense of responsibility and dharma for us to follow, For example, taking a shower before visiting the temple in the morning was initially a religious norm, but it can also be used as an aid to following the first niyama which is ‘ Saucha’.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali also state ‘ Iswara Pranidhana’ in Kriya yoga, which means devoting to a higher power or dissolution in the meditative state, and in the hindu religion, ‘Iswara’ is mostly referred to as Ishwar or God.
~ Written by Angad