Real Yoga

My website is called REAL YOGA for a particular reason.

When you look back thousands of years into the antiquity of India, where this Yoga business all began, you will find ancient Sages and Seers passing on their messages of health, welfare and Spiritual Attunement to their disciples.

Primarily their major interest was in passing on information to a student (chela) relating to the unfolding of that student's Spiritual potential. It is not everyone's dharma to become a Great Spiritual Light unto the world. Those that did, it seems, did it on their own. You can trace the great lives of Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, Jesus, The Buddha, etc and find, as far as we know, they had no formal training in the Sciences of Yoga.

Their burning desire was to unite with God — Unite with the Self — or to answer the mysteries of life for themselves. Each one, it seems, was born into a time when their need to the rest of the world was most greatly felt.

It is not to say that individuals other than great world Spiritual leaders cannot attain Moksha (liberation) while they are here on this earth, but it is to say, that attaining that great state of Liberation is not usually thought of as being readily accessible to the masses like you and I.

Most have forgotten the grand design of the Cycles of Evolution when they enter into the study of Yoga. It takes an inherent insight into the grand Yugas (cycles) which allows one to see just where we are in the Spiritual evolutionary process, and therefore what we can expect of ourselves.

It takes a unique person with a steady and singular drive to attain the highest states of Yoga — Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

I have been looking at a few Yoga schools, and a few other sites that have to do with Spirituality and it seems to me that it has all turned into a business. One must pay for this lesson or that, for this treatment or that, and promises made which are just plain silly.

In the early times, and here I think of two men, Swami Yukteswarji and Master Lahira Mahasaya, who worked providing for themselves, and also for the few students they had. Remember, in India poverty has always been rampant and some of these young boys that came to study wouldn't have a stipend (money) to leave for their guru's (teacher's) instructions, guidance and lessons.

A true and real Guru will take nothing from You, neither money, nor gifts. If you bring him a flower or a fruit he will touch it as a blessing and pass it on to someone else.

A prime case of a Master being looked after is Ramana Maharshi — he sat in a cave in eternal Bliss, eating nothing, and would have had his body die, but for the intervention of some people who recognized the Master he was and they began to feed him. From that moment on he was cared for by others, BUT if he had not been, he would have once again just sat there. He knew that he was eternal — always here — and the loss of the body was nothing to him. It did mean something to others though. Like Ramana Maharshi, a real Guru will take nothing from you.

What has happened since the 1800's is that we have entered a new age, the Dwapara Yuga Age, and Yogananda explains it very well indeed in his Autobiography of a Yogi. Here we have the opening up of electrical knowledge and the transference of information so readily at hand, that even now we can instantly be sending e–mails over the Internet. Worse though, because of this, it has opened up a whole new area for dreaming and hoping — Attain God Union via the airplane route, Kriya — Hold back the lines of time and become ageless. — Cure disease with this diet or the other. The cost? Not much really when you think what you will get out of it. And on and on it goes.

Most people love to learn, and becoming the perennial student in Yoga is one of the easiest traps to fall in to; thus, many of the modern Gurus are filling their cups to running over on your hopes, desires and aspirations, and I daresay gullibility.

You will see, as you take my lessons, that what I said at the beginning, to remain firmly fixed on your desire by performing all the prescribed paths of Yoga for you, and with a common sense approach to living in this modern world, is the way to attain and work out your Dharmic pattern.

I have seen so many young people get caught up in some cult or other and in the space of a few years, lose their youth, lose what they should have been learning in order to fulfill their Dharma. Ideals and aspiration can be easily misplaced.

When you think of it, if you have a problem you are trying to solve, the answer you are looking for is somewhere in that troubled mind that gave rise to the problem in the first place. Now then, when you come up with an answer, you have to remember it is coming out of that same confused mind, and will ultimately lead you to yet another problem and on and on it goes. How to over come that kind of thinking is through Yantra Yoga, where the mind's vibration is harmonized to your inner soul message vibration.

When a true thought arises into your mind from the depths of your soul, you should read it exactly as it has come to you, but as most people have mental discord, that cannot be so.

How to harmonize the two will be provided in the Yantra Lessons. While living your life as a human being fulfilling all your natural functions, keep steadily on with your practises.

What happens as time goes by, is that certain areas of the brain, hitherto unknown to you, open up and transport your psyche into another dimension which has no need for some of the previous desires you once had. To suppress and deny you natural state of being is totally wrong, and by natural I mean a balanced one — neither indulgent nor restricted.

To remain functional is the most important aspect of Yoga, otherwise how can you possibly fulfill your Dharma. In the meantime while remaining functional set aside time to practise your Hatha and other practises.

Articles by Swami Harinanda and Yogi Karmananda are © 2026 and are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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