Yoga is an exercise for the mind

I hate to do exercises, never in a million times would I go and work-out in a gym. So, when my family doctor asked me to do exercise because my thyroid was going through the roof, my response was to just do nothing, and do self-talk that I do enough of walking stairs, walking for my 1:1 and coffee meetings to compensate for that. The surprising part is that, I am not a lazy person but there is something about doing exercise in a machine in a closed room and sweating that I just never liked. I even tried running but after training for a half-marathon and completing that ordeal, I said enough. But that's not the case with Yoga. There is something unique about Yoga that's much deeper than any exercise can ever do, and I fell in love with that aspect.

Yoga is a way to work with your body and mind to slowly uncover and remove impurities and confusions that has been covering your true self. This slow uncovering gives an immense pleasure and satisfaction every day. The real exercise (rather training) happening in Yoga is for the mind; the training to practice being in the now instead of wondering around in thoughts that move between the past, the future or the dreams, imaginations and expectations. I suppose my mind needed this exercise more than the body and hence no exercise helped.

Last time I was in India, a friend of mine asked me "does yoga really work"?

This friend who has been suffering from some health problems (high cholesterol, low thyroid) have been attending a daily group Yoga practice. He asks this question because he is yet to see any changes in his health numbers (6 months).

People often start Yoga practices after having certain body ailments or as a form of physical therapy. And it works great as an alternative treatment no matter what the ailment is, because Yoga touches something deeper within you that's non-physical; it helps experience the mind in a way that you might have never experienced. It saturates us with a deeper level of calmness from within which helps bring to the surface all those aspects of mind that might be causing the unrest and hence the disease/ailment. It then becomes easier to deal with these ailments, and that's when people become life-long practitioners and proponents of Yoga.

If you are doing Yoga because its another form of exercise, or stretching for you, or you are expecting immediate results from it, then you are yet to experience the true form of Yoga. When you do, you'll look not beyond but just be with it.

May you experience Yoga in its true form and experience the calmness and silence that's within all of us !!