Bhagavad Gita Chapter 6

INTRODUCTION

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Kṛṣṇa talks about key elements to experience yoga: practice with determination and practice without deviating from the prescribed way.

Nithya Yoga — the yoga of eternity — is re-presenting yoga. The method has evolved but the system, the truth itself is the same as the original system offered by the great master, Patañjali. His system is so complete that we can't add even a single word to the techniques. It is the experience of Truth and Truth cannot be developed.

Patañjali’s Aṣṭāṅga Yoga, eight organs of yoga or aṅga has unfortunately been wrongly translated as ‘eight steps of yoga’. Because of this, it has become just a small few techniques or methods to make your body flexible and a little healthy. That is a disgrace done to yoga. When you get a diamond and you use that diamond just as a vegetable cutter, it is a disgrace to the diamond. In the same way, when you use the powerful science of yoga just as technique to bring a little health, it is so unfortunate!

A depiction of a person performing a yoga pose, bending backward with their legs folded over their head.

This is what Kṛṣṇa means when He says, ‘Self is satisfied by the Self in the Self’. All of this has to happen together, not part by part. When one aspect is complete, all others also become complete. This is the state of pūrṇa, complete completion. Nothing can be taken away from it. Nothing can be added to it that would make any difference to its state of completeness. No joy can make it more blissful, no sorrow can make it less blissful. One becomes centered in bliss. When centered in bliss, it is forever!

The way yoga is taught
and practiced in many
places, one is moved
away from reality into a
fantasy world, to fulfill
one’s imagined needs.
The senses and the mind
wander aimlessly.
Running after the
fantasies created by the
mind is just like running
after a mirage or running
after the horizon. We can
never achieve bliss by
running behind these
fantasies because these
fantasies have no
existence in reality.

GOALS:

Be completely complete,
practice without deviating from
the prescribed way To
understand we can never
achieve bliss by running after
fantasies

ASSESSMENTS

Can Patañjali’s system of yoga be developed and more words added?

What is the correct translation of Patañjali’s eight anga of Aṣṭāṅga Yoga, are they eight organs of yoga or eight steps of yoga?

Is yoga only to make your body flexible?

What is the state of pūrṇa?

Can anything be added to the state of complete completion or take away from it?

What is a mirage?

Can we ever touch a horizon?

ART OF THE DAY

MATERIALS NEEDED:

Play dough or modelling clay

Pictures of yoga asanas

ART OF THE DAY:

DRAW THE POSTURE

PROCEDURE

Children make a figure and change the arms and legs into the different asanas

INFERENCE

Yoga is also about moving the body Moving the body is healthy

ACTIVITY OF THE DAY

ACTIVITY OF THE DAY: ASHTANGA YOGA

MATERIALS NEEDED Slides or posters of a selection of asanas showing all the 8 components of each asana

PROCEDURE
Take children through the 8 components
each asanas

INFERENCE
Doing the 8 components of yoga, you are
complete Yoga is a complete system

WORKSHOP OF THE DAY

Illustration of a yogi in Bhujangasana pose

WORKSHOP OF THE DAY:

VAAKYARTHA SADHAS

Hold Vaakyartha sadhas on the state of pūrṇa, complete completion.

CONCLUSION Experience yoga as per the original system offered by the great master, Patañjali Patañjali’s Aṣṭāṅga Yoga is completely complete, nothing can be taken away from it, nothing can be added to it