A yogi is not someone who can stand on their heads. Neither is the title applied to someone who closes their eyes and closes their legs for 20 minutes a day. A yogi cannot be spotted by their baggy pants, sanskrit tattoos or by the weird crystal they wear on their forehead. In short, there is no way to spot yogi. A yogic master can wear a handmade Italian with the same grace as the robes of a monk. A yogi can lounge on the rocky surface on a Himalayan cave and on the coach in a penthouse in Manhattan with the same ease. A yogi might count his malas with the same presence as the current value of his stocks. Yoga is not even a practice. The positions, breathing techniques, mantras and meditations we all associate with it are tools, nothing more. Yoga is a state. It is an inner attitude. A perspective of being. It is a total sense of ease, openness, surrender and presence that we can bring into the boardroom of a million-dollar company just as easily as into a temple in India. A yogi is not defined by his clothing or lifestyle, but by a set of inner perspectives on himself, and the world. A yogi does not fight, flies or attempts to control reality. He dances with it. He does not see his happiness as dependent on his income, his partner’s good behavior or the state of his body. He creates it within. The science of yoga does not have to be sought in Asia, nor in yoga studios. It is free, and available everywhere, at any time. Everything we do can become a yogic practice. Any activity we do can transform from being a wrestling match with reality, to a playful dance. This book is not about the practice of yoga, but the perspective of yoga. How one puts the yogic view on reality into practices is up to the individual yogi. Yoga can be expressed in as many ways as there are humans on earth.
What characterizes a yogi, and how we can bring the science of yoga into anything we do, no matter our situation, health, wealth or surroundings, is the theme I aim to lay out in this book.
The characteristics of the yogi
- The yogi does not blame the world
- The yogi does not judge
- The yogi looks within
