My talk about Yoga and International Yoga Day (Mediyaan News)

Today is International Yoga Day. Watch the video where I talk about it.

I have given evidence from Tholkappiyam and temple architecture that Tamil people were practicing yoga from an undated past. The Siddha-s practiced yoga. The origins of Yoga can be traced to Valakhilya-s and to Dhruva even before them. By the prevalence of an asana by name Valakhilyasana, we understand the description about them in the Mahabharata on how they did tapas by hanging from tree-branches. With one leg bent around a branch, they stretched their body upside down and balanced with their hands holding the other leg.

Yoga, as part of Astika darshana-s is attributed to rishi Patanjali and practiced as Ashtanga yoga in a comfortable asana for the sake of Realisation of the Ultimate Reality. Today we have adopted the asana feature alone as a means of bettering our health. In his maiden speech in the UN Assembly in 2014, our PM, Modi suggested Yoga to overcome many a life-style problems of the current times. It was welcomed by a record number of countries and resulted in observing International Yoga Day every year on 21^st June. This date happens to be the day of summer solstice when daytime is the longest in the northern hemisphere.

Though our country had released coins and stamps in connection with this day, the UN also released 10 stamps with pictures of asanas and OM next to them. 

Though certain communities resisted the use of OM and Namaskar in the poses, it must be remembered that the upper echelons of those communities have no problem in learning and practising Yoga in its original form. Even the Gulf countries have added Yoga in their school curriculum.

In the current times, Yogasana was popularised by Thirumalai Krishnamachari who received the knowledge from his remote ancestor, Sriman Nadamunigal, through trance. Nadamunigal himself was a beneficiary of Yogic practice that he received 4000 Divya Prabhandam-s of Azhwars by focusing on the verses of Madhurakavi Azhwar in praise of Nammazhwar. Nammazhwar himself was a yogi seated in Padmasana in which state he could see Vishnu in different kshetras.

With such amazing events seen in our country, it is surprising to see archaeological finds in Mexico in yogic postures. I talk about these poses in Olmec and Tlatilco cultures that thrived 3000 years ago. 

The Indus region in Bharat has much older evidence of seals with images in Yogic asanas and even a skeleton unearthed in Yogic samadhi. 

The Mexican evidence perhaps can be traced to Mayan who built the city and palace for the Pandavas in the Mahabharata 5000 years ago before he moved out of Bharat.

I wind up this talk with an appeal to learn yoga from a trained teacher and practice it regularly for a healthy life. Please watch this talk which is in Tamil and share.