Adiyogi’s worst nightmare and our PMs biggest dream – World Yog Day

I like Narendra Modi. I voted for him. I believed in his visions of development based on hullabaloo surrounding Vibrant Gujarat, ‘Khushboo Gujarat Ki’ campaign and the upcoming GIFT city until two things happened; he decided to make the world’s tallest statue that will cost money we can run entire countries on for years and years and he decided to celebrate International Yog Day on June 21^st.

I’d still let him pass on the statue matter, only and only because I have never faced livelihood issues on a daily basis so wastage of ‘public money’ though massive doesn’t touch me directly and like several others, after a point, I fail to empathize.

But the International Yog Day disturbs me. The feeling it produces tugs at my heart in a way only those who feel what I do will understand and that’s why I choose to word it out.

If I know correctly, after several years of yogic practices, Modiji himself had chosen sainthood during or before his RSS years and had only returned because his Guru had asked him to. At the time, if I may dare say, even he must not have been aware of what the fate had in mind. But he listened to his guru, went on to join politics and as they say, the rest is history.

The International Yog Day as we all know is a worldwide event. 177 nations support it and if Wikipedia is true then it had the "highest number of co-sponsors ever for any UNGA Resolution of such nature." No wonder everyone is talking about International Yog Day; hoardings in malls, by the pavements, on the roads, pamphlets at the traffic signals, banners on the web, ads on YouTube, Instagram posts and 5 out of 10 tweets with the hash tag World Yog Day.

Modiji has achieved for International Yog Day what he has managed to for every other venture he has undertaken – create a buzz. And here is where my problem with this day starts. If one digs a little deeper, one would come to know that Yog is not a one day activity and that’s why celebrating it on a single day is not enough. Thorough knowledge of Yogic science along with enough stress on regular practice requires years of persuasion and diligence. A single day event can excite people enough to enroll in classes and make resolutions to practise every day, but we all know what happens to New Year resolutions, don’t we?

I belong to advertising industry and know that each year clients plan activities around days such as Father’s Day, Mother’s day, etc., etc.. These activities are one e-mailer long, an entire campaign long or an entire day long. Sales increase, restaurants, malls and event management companies make money, media space sells at higher rates than normal and as night falls the frenzy dies down and we move on to writing copy for another day. So far, I have not seen long-term and thoughtful activities around days. And if you ask me I don’t see International Yog Day being treated any differently.

Though a lot of yog teachers are endorsing this move, there is one set of people who I think might remain unfazed or indifferent with the idea of International Yog Day; the authentic Yog teachers. I say this from personal experience, an experience of 21 days spent in an ashram in Rishikesh, that authentic Yog teachers give a rats ass about publicity. I can’t stress enough but they don’t want to teach a class of 60. They don’t want their classes filling up with queues stretching outside until the end of the corridor. They don’t want to be known in the elite circles neither do they want to indulge in superficial leading-no-where sort of intellectual conversations. All they care for and have been caring for is providing their limited amount of students, the real yog experience; the one that isn’t limited to practicing asans or meditating alone but the one that covers the Yams and Niyams, Asan, Pranayama, Dharana, Dhyan, Pratyahar and Samadhi, the whole nine yards because they know at the cellular level, what Yog really is and are committed to teaching just that. 

If Modiji’s dream is to see an asan practising, mindful, self-aware and a harmonious world then doing head stands on a large ground with thousand others every year on the 21^st June will not suffice. He should be working on a very comprehensive and a cohesive strategy that imbibes yog in the lives of people in a way that they start recounting the real reasons behind doing a particular asan like they remember ad jingles. He should concentrate on quality which gets lost when people in massive numbers are involved and not publicity. After all, Yog as he rightly said, but I have my doubts will achieve, “…is an invaluable gift of India's ancient tradition. It embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfilment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well-being. It is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness within yourself, the world and the nature...”