Science of inner being

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Swami Chaitanya Keerti [1]

In April, there were news reports that the White House has embraced yoga as a worthy physical activity at a time when some schools in America were railing against the ancient Indian practice, saying it promotes Hinduism.

Yoga is often mistaken as something that’s “Hindu”. It is not. According to Osho, yoga is not a religion, it is pure science, just like mathematics, physics or chemistry. Christians discovered many laws of physics, like the law of gravity and the law of relativity. But that does not make physics “Christian”. You won’t call these laws Christian because they were discovered by those who were born in the dominantly Christian countries. Physics remains just a science — secular and significant.
Similarly, yoga is also a science; it is just an accident that Hindus discovered it. It is a pure science of the inner being. A Muslim can be a yogi, a Christian can be a yogi.
Yoga has stood the test of time. As a science it has given better health — physical and mental — to millions of people for thousands of years, without medicine. Yoga proposes experience. It does not preach any dogma or belief. Just like science, yoga talks of experiment and experience. Experiment and experience are the same; their directions are different. Experiment means something you can do outside; experience means something you do inside. Experience is an inside experiment.
Yoga is an energetic phenomenon. It is not just about the fitness of the body. It is about fitness of the whole being — body, mind and spirit. It is wholesome. That’s why the White House is reportedly stretching every muscle and sinew to get Americans, including children, to focus on the decline in the nation’s overall well-being. The drive is led by Michelle Obama, a health and fitness enthusiast who swears by yoga.
Yogiraj Krishna says in Gita: “Yoga karmasu kaushala (The efficiency in work is yoga)”. How does this efficiency happen? It happens when we are not divided within the body, mind and spirit. Yoga does not divide. It does not create any dichotomy between body and mind. The very meaning of yoga is harmonious union.
The message coming from the White House is inspiring: “Yoga has become a universal language of spiritual exercise in the United States, crossing many lines of religion and cultures.”
Osho reminds us about Patanjali, the ancient scientist seer of yoga. He is an enlightened person like Lord Buddha or Lord Krishna, but he has a scientific temperament. Patanjali is like Einstein in the world of Buddhas. He is a phenomenon. He could have easily been a Nobel Prize winner like Einstein or Bohr or Max Planck. Patanjali was a scientist and thought in terms of laws. And he deduced absolute laws of human being — the ultimate working structure of the human mind and reality — and together we refer to them as yoga.

Swami Chaitanya Keerti, editor of Osho World, is the author of Osho Fragrance