What is Yog? Simply put, it is being in union with yourself. It cannot be explained verbally, you need to go through certain experiences, which will make you come face to face with what is called atma sakshatkar, your true self.  Once you come face to face with your true self, you are in yog, and once you are in yog with yourself, you are a yogi.  Yog can be of several kinds; you might choose to be in yog with fashion, with beauty, with sport. A practitioner of yog, is in yog with himself or herself…that’s a yogi, where yog is for evolution, the rest are all bhogis i.e.  yog is for bhog.

A rakshas undergoes enormous tap (penance) to impress God.  When God finally appears before him to grant him the desired boon, what does the rakshas ask for?... Immortality. Riches. Pleasures….  Why? Kyonki woh apniyoni se bandha hua hai, he is limited by his karmas, so he cannot ask for anything beyond that….  He cannot understand a world beyond that, so he cannot ask for more than that.  He is bound with his desires, he needs that experience, so he asks for that. It’s a wrong perception to think that the spiritual is divorced from the material.  Your senses have bound you to the physical, so you cannot comprehend anything beyond that.  So even when you go to God, you ask him for something that has to do with your physical world, your senses, your intellectual life.  Because you cannot ask for something you don’t understand, right? If you were a practitioner of yog, your set of questions would have been completely different.  What you’re asking about has to do with philosophy, it’s intellectual, you are limited.

The problem with the majority of the population of the world is that we want to know everything intellectually, but we don’t want to practice it… and if you’re bound by your physical and intellectual self, how will you go beyond? Somebody has to take you, no?… We know the law of karma; everyone learns it, it’s in every religion, but do you practice it? Why not give everything that is there in your pocket to the next beggar you see on the road? You’re earning good karma, and you know it, but you won’t do it! Intellectual understanding is not enough, we need a Guru to really explain it.  And if a Guru tells you to do something, you will, because the Guru will ensure that you have the gyan to do this, he will ensure that you have gone beyond the five senses.  He’s not an empty talker, he’s shown you the light, it needn’t be described to you anymore….

The Guru cannot come to you, you have to come to the Guru, otherwise the art will lose its efficacy.  The system and the foundation work on the basic principle of the ancient tradition of the Guru-shishya….  But here, the Gurus are seeking out the shishyas in the West, even flying out to them….  Are we blind fools to allow this? Can’t we see that these are not Gurus; they are clever businessmen selling smart ideas? And to take a step back, how can you sell something that is not yours to begin with? In Vedic chants there is a specific short shloka: ‘idam namam’, It’s not mine.  When it’s not yours, how can you sell it? That beats me….  You can only make an effort to present it at best.  The true yogi would never go to anyone, people come to him….  We are teaching celebrities and high ups, but I don’t go to them, not because of an ego, but because it is the way this art has been designed, and I want to follow the art in its purest and highest form.