YOGA—WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT-3.

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Part-3.

Neither is Yoga 'Fakirism', the impression that is obtained by many tourists and travellers, especially by news-people who, with a strong preference for the sensational and the fantastic, have managed to create the fantastic idea that Yoga is some form of self-torture—lying on a bed of nails, burying oneself underground, chewing or swallowing pieces of glass, drinking acid, swallowing nails or piercing oneself with pins and needles.

This has nothing to do with Yoga, and real Yogins have nothing to do with all this.



Neither is Yoga any weird ceremonial or peculiar rite.

It is not hedonism.

It is not paganism.

It is not palmistry.

It is not prophesying.

It is not astrology.

It is not thought-reading, nor is it the dispensing of charms to ward off evil spirits or 'possessions'.

None of these is Yoga.

If people call themselves Yogins and then explain their Yoga by exhibiting any of these unusual feats, then they are misusing the term Yoga.

Yoga is not auto-hypnotism or self-hypnosis.

It is not doing of incantations or by the monotonous performance of gestures.

Yoga is not experiences like those obtained by taking lysergic acid or mescalin or peyote (of Mexican origin) or divine mushrooms.

These experiences are not Yoga, nor are they products of Yoga.

SRI SWAMI CHIDANANDA
To be continued  ...




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