Daily Readings from the Works of Swami Venkatesananda


Insights and Inspirations (Venkatesa Daily Readings Vol 2) — Have You Heard Of 'Yogism'?

March 24, 2024

 

Swami Venkatesananda      I haven't! Years ago  an Indian in a responsible position recommended me to a group of seekers as an authority on ‘Yogism'. I always wondered what he meant by that.

      Yoga is fast becoming a fashion, especially among Europeans. It will soon be regarded as a status symbol, a qualification for obtaining a job or getting married! People have always aspired to dominate over others: some people with the know-how of yoga will soon 'capture' the field, create a cult, put a hedge of rules and regulations of their own invention around it — and now an 'ism, is born.

      Already the simplicity and the meaning and the technique of yoga are forgotten. When the '-ism' is born, the spirit of yoga will have evaporated, leaving the empty bottle of rituals and formalities, organizations and, if you please, headaches too! They are life's vehicles and vexations. Wisdom lies in using the positive and, if not eliminating then at least minimizing the negative aspects of these necessary evils.

      People have blindly followed many 'isms' — and people are losing interest, surprisingly even in materialism and sensualism. Everywhere young people are questioning. In our ability and willingness to reply to them lies the destiny of the youth, of the nation and therefore of mankind.

      Questioning is not for the sake of questioning: the answers will be insipid if the questions are not flavored with the right spirit of inquiry and inner discipline. We should encourage the youth to cultivate these. Knowledge without discipline is newspaper. Knowledge with discipline is scripture.

      Yoga is a technique for self-realization or God-realization, satori, redemption, communion, mystic atonement with the Divine — words do not matter in the very least if you get the idea right! Keep the spirit of yoga. Use the form. But where 'the letter killeth the spirit' be bold enough to revive or resurrect the spirit.

     Yoga — yes!  Yogism – no.

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