Yoga, the moment you hear this word, what comes to mind is generally asanas, or meditation, or wellness, and of course, India as well. A very general perception about yoga is that it’s one of the most effective fitness regimes, and that’s about it, but is that all? Definitely not. Yoga is much wider, deeper, and more complex than what we think of, and in this documentary, we try to cover the complete picture of yoga in a crisp and a simple format for everyone to understand. Before even getting to what is yoga, we need to first know about who gave yoga, the one which we are using today. It is Patanjali. So let’s see the story of Patanjali in the first place, and then what exactly is yoga. In very simple words, it is a very complex subject, but we tried our best to bring it forward in the most simplistic manner, so in this chapter we’ll see what it is, and the third chapter is about Kundalini yoga, one of the highest forms of yoga which is very complex, but the reason we brought that also into this documentary is that there are a lot of misconceptions around Kundalini yoga, so we want to do our bit in clearing out those misconceptions to the best of our abilities.

Now, let’s see these three chapters in this documentary, starting with the first chapter, the story of Patanjali. As per Shiva Mahapuranam and a couple of other scriptures, one day Lord Shiva was in a deep state of ecstasy in the form of Nataraja in performing a special type of cosmic dance called Ajapa Tandava. While this event is happening, Bhagavan Sri Maha Vishnu goes into a deep state of meditation and experiences the cosmic dance of Shiva. Very much interested in this course of events, Adi Sesha, who is the vahanam of Sri Maha Vishnu, requests him that he also would like to experience the ecstatic dance of Nataraja. That’s when Bhagavan Sri Maha Vishnu orders Adi Sesha to go to Chidambaram, a place which is the abode of Mahadev in the form of Nataraja, and that’s where you can get to experience the celestial event of Shiva Tandava. In simple words, Sri Maha Vishnu orders Adi Sesha to go to Chidambaram and serve Nataraja.

One day, a woman named Gonika was praying to Surya Bhagwan for her wish of bearing a child, and as she held her hands in a praying pose, which is called as Anjali, both palms joined facing above the sky, a small baby snake fell from the skies into her hands, and that baby snake is no one but Adi Sesha himself. As he fell down from the skies into her hands, the downfall in Samskritam was called as patana, and the folded hands is called as anjali, so as he fell into the folded hands from the skies, patan plus anjali became Patanjali, his name, and he took up an incarnation of a humanoid snake. After taking up that incarnation of Adi Sesha as Patanjali in a place called Chidambaram, in today’s Tamil Nadu, where Mahadev was worshipped as Nataraja, that’s where Patanjali served Nataraja. The worship of Nagas has been deeply rooted in the culture of India since times immemorial, and Patanjali being Adi Sesha is highly revered and worshipped even today.

Wherever Mahadev is shown as Nataraja, he has two attendants with him: one is Patanjali, whom we just discussed about, and the other one is Vyagrapada, a humanoid with half tiger and half man. If one really has to experience Patanjali, he is mostly found in Tamil culture across India, one of the greatest cultures that has an incredibly long history and heritage, and that’s where we have 18 siddhas or yogis who shaped up this great culture, and Patanjali is one of them. As you see in the pictures here or in the carvings shown with the markings, Patanjali is always shown accompanying Nataraja in his dance, and that’s what he wished for as Adi Sesha. And now let’s get to the point about why we’re talking about Patanjali. He is the one who wrote three incredibly powerful scriptures which helped humanity from three most important quarters of life. Now let’s see what they are.

The first one is Ayurveda. Patanjali wrote a scripture on Ayurveda which is called as Patanjali Tantra, which in turn of course ascribes to Sushruta Samhita, but Patanjali Tantra is specialized in various kinds of treatments for different kinds of ailments that a human can come across. It is one of the primordial sources of Ayurveda. The second one is Mahabhasya. Patanjali gave a detailed commentary for Panini’s grammar. We have done a couple of documentaries on Samskritam already on this channel, and like I already said, the maturity of a language shows the maturity of a civilization, and if one can understand how matured Samskritam as a language is, one will be able to appreciate how advanced the civilization was back then. When I am saying advanced, it’s not about outlandish claims of vimanas or something like that; it’s about the clarity people had back then about life, spirituality, mathematics, science, biology, philosophy, and a lot more.

The third one, the last and the most important reason why we are talking about Patanjali, is that he is the one who gave Patanjali Yoga Sutras, the foundation for the yoga what we know today. Now, yoga is not about stretching legs and hands on a mat; it is a lot deeper, and a vast majority of the people across the globe who are practicing yoga do not know where it came from. It came from Patanjali, and we’ll see that in more detail in this documentary going forward. A quick roll up of the three Patanjali gave: Patanjali Tantra for physical health, that’s Ayurveda; Yoga Sutras for spiritual health; and Mahabhasya for social health, that is through communication with a better language and grammar. There are many scriptures given by rishis or yogis in Indian scriptures, but Patanjali stands out for one simple reason: he covered three most important quarters of anybody’s life, the physical, the mental, and the social health, all three contributing to a better quality of life.

Now, if you take a quick look back, yoga started as a conversation between Bhagavan Sri Maha Vishnu and Mahadev. Patanjali learnt it from both Vishnu and Shiva, and he gave three different scriptures on yoga, Ayurveda, and Mahabhasya, and it was passed down eventually to his student Adi Shankaracharya. Yes, that’s right, Patanjali is in the guru’s lineage of Adi Shankaracharya, and Adi Shankaracharya has set up four pitas—Dwaraka, Badari, Sringeri, and Puri—where his legacy is still being continued. So the knowledge that was passed down by Bhagavan Sri Maha Vishnu and Bhagavan Shiva to Patanjali, and from Patanjali to Adi Shankaracharya, and from Adi Shankaracharya to four pitas across India running the great legacy of Patanjali, that in short is the story of Patanjali.

Now let’s see what is yoga in simple words. While there are many scriptures defining what is yoga, the most simplistic one which each and every one of us can understand comes from Bhagavad Gita, and these are the words of Lord Krishna explaining Arjuna about what is yoga: yogah sth-kuruk-armani sangam tyaktva dhananjaya, siddhy-asiddhyoh samo bhootva samatvam yoga ucyate. That translates to be steadfast in the performance of your duty and treat both success and failure equally, and such state of mind is called as yoga. It sounds very simple, but incredibly complex to practice in real life. Can we really be so indifferent to success and failure? It’s easier said than done, but that is what yoga is.

Now that you understood the most simplistic definition about yoga, let’s get to one of the most complex definitions of yoga as well, and this is what Patanjali defines yoga as: yogash chitta-vritti-nirodhah. It sounds so simple, but the meaning is so deep. Yoga is a process of restraining chitta from any fluctuations. A very loose translation of this word chitta is mind, but it’s actually not just mind; it’s a state of mind, and we’ll see in a minute what it is. Let’s step out a bit towards the human anatomy. The structure of the brain as we know is scientifically classified into four different parts, rather five, so there are four lobes which are called as cerebrum and one lobe called as cerebellum. These four lobes together are the frontal lobe, which is responsible for personality characteristics, decision making, movement, and actions like that; the parietal lobe, which is more about identifying the objects and interpreting pain in the body; the occipital lobe, which controls the vision and the color perception about your abilities on recognizing colors; and the temporal lobe, which is mostly the reservoir for short-term memory, hearing, speech, perception of musical rhythm, etc. The fifth part is the cerebellum, which is to coordinate voluntary muscle movements to maintain the posture and balance of the body. This is the construct of the human brain as we know today, and depending on which state of mind you are in, different parts of the brain get activated and the actions are directed accordingly.

Now, if we try to understand the same human brain as per yoga siddhantam, the anatomy is classified in a different format. Towards the left, what we just saw are the lobes with different functions, the physical classification of the tangible parts of the brain—that’s how anatomy is classified. While in yoga siddhantam, the human brain is classified into four levels, four levels of consciousness, or in simple words, four different states of mind. The state of mind defines how the brain behaves. The first level is manus, the second level is ahamkaram, the third level is buddhi, and the final level is chitta. These are the four levels in which a human brain could oscillate. On a lighter note, you should not be comparing these two because the purpose is totally different. The scientific classification is more towards understanding the physical properties of a brain, while yoga siddhantam focuses on a holistic approach about how your brain would function in different states of mind. So they are not contesting, but complementing each other.

It is quite important to understand these four levels of the brain as per yoga siddhantam, so let’s briefly see them starting with the first one: manus. Manus is a state of mind where the sensory perception of pleasure and pain takes the center stage, and in any of your decision making, such kind of pleasure would be the deciding factor whether you would like to opt for something or not. It depends on the pleasure or pain you derive from doing that specific thing; you take the call whether you want to do it or not, and that is the state of mind called manus. The second one is ahamkaram. Here it’s an egocentric attitude in decision making, so if I take a call in a self-centric approach, it’s like I, me, myself. If I take a call on that note, then it is in the state of mind called ahamkaram. The third state of mind is called as buddhi, where the decisions are made in a more rational approach, with the ability to discriminate what is good, what is not, and then take a call. Then that state of mind is called as buddhi.

The final and the topmost level of consciousness or your state of mind is called as chitta, which is the highest level where there is no difference between pleasure or pain. Honestly, this state of mind is very difficult to put in words, but apparently they say that it is the highest level of consciousness, or in simple words, the most stable state of mind where you will not be affected by any reason whatsoever, and you are in full control. Your thoughts, emotions, feelings, everything is in full control of yourself, and you will not be distracted by any other means, and that rock steady state of mind is called as chitta. If we reflect on the definition of Patanjali, what he’s saying is restraining chitta from any kind of fluctuations, that means how can you hold yourself in such kind of a rock steady state of mind where there is no space for neither pleasure nor pain. Holding your brain in that state is called as yoga. Like I said, it’s a complex definition, so yoga is a practice where you raise your state of mind from manas to chitta. Once a person realizes the chitta state of mind, then there is no difference between god and man. If a person is in the state of mind of manus, it is called as pashu, and his journey all along these four levels of brain reaching out to the highest level is called as the journey towards pashupati. A more mystical definition about yoga is a pashu becoming pashupati is called as yoga. Pashu refers to anybody who is in the state of mind of manus, and pashupati is anybody who is in the state of mind of chitta. This is also the reason why there has been a saying of aham brahmasmi, which means I myself am the god, it’s just that I have to realize it by getting into the state of chitta. So that’s a more of a mystical definition, but that’s what it is, and this is also the reason why in Hinduism it is said that you are responsible for your life, good or bad.

Further down, Patanjali explains about a process in which you can attain the highest level of chitta, and he says that it is an eight-step approach: yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. These eight are considered as the eight limbs of yoga or eight steps towards the highest level of consciousness of the human mind, and this is called as Ashtanga yoga. Let’s briefly see the eight, what they are, starting with the first one: yama. It means having external discipline, and it is fivefold: being non-violent, truthfulness, not stealing, not wasting energy, and not being greedy. This is the very first step in yoga that one has to practice, to strictly follow these five guidelines. The second step is niyama, which means to have internal discipline, and it is again fivefold: bodily purification, contentment, spiritual observance, self-study, and devotion. These are the five important traits one has to develop to get into the second phase of Ashtanga yoga, which is niyama.

The third phase is asana. Asana is a posture which you can hold comfortably and concentrate for a very long time. This is the step which is widely popular across the world, which are the yoga asanas, and as an offshoot from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, eventually Hatha Yoga, a special branch of yoga, got developed, which has 84 different asanas which are in practice across the world today, but the foundation of it is given by Patanjali about how an asana needs to be conducted. The main objective of asana is to sit comfortably for a long time in that posture and concentrate deeply on the entity that you would like to meditate upon, which we’ll see in a short while. The fourth step of Ashtanga yoga is pranayama. This is also reasonably known across the world. Controlling the motion of exhalation and inhalation flows is called pranayama, and one very important point here with respect to pranayama is that it sounds to be so simple and easy task, but it is a very, very complex process, and I’ll hold that for a minute because we’re going to see something related to pranayama in a short while.

Up next on the fifth step of Ashtanga yoga is pratyahara. It is a process of withdrawing the senses from their abilities. From this step onwards, it goes into a metaphysical nature, that’s what it is. In this step of yoga, it’s all about withdrawing the sensory abilities of the sense organs voluntarily. The sixth step is dharana. Dharana is holding the mind onto a particular object of your focus; it could be an entity or an object or a murti of a god, anything that you would like to concentrate and meditate upon. Remember that the choice of the entity is also very crucial; say for instance, if I’m a devotee of Shiva, I could be meditating on a Shiva lingam. The seventh stage is called dhyana. Dhyana is a state of meditation, an unbroken flow of knowledge from that object of meditation is called as dhyana. At this point, the person who is meditating will think of nothing else except the entity about which he or she is meditating. Say for instance, if I’m meditating on a Shiva lingam, I think of nothing else but fully just about that Shiva lingam, and that state is dhyana. This state is very powerful because this state of dhyana is the foundation for Buddhism, which originated eventually from Hinduism, and it is called as Zen as it went eastward. Dhyana became Zen. The eighth stage of Ashtanga yoga is samadhi, a final thoughtless state of mind is called as samadhi. At this stage, a person will realize his or her highest state of mind, which is chitta. It is difficult to verbally articulate what this stage is, but they say that this is the stage where one can realize aham brahmasmi, that I myself am the god.

Back in the year 1961, a French cardiologist conducted a research in India about voluntary control of the heart with yoga. A lot of experiments were done on four to five highly proficient yoga gurus who can stop their heart—yes, you heard it right—who can voluntarily stop their heart to almost a steady state during the deep state of yoga. Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, a yoga guru who is highly revered who practiced yoga for his lifetime, was one of the subjects. The research was conducted on Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya along with four other yoga gurus where they could stop their heart. You can see the ECG or the electrocardiogram reports here; the one which is highlighted is in a deep state of yoga of Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, where he took control of his own heart and he slowed it down not with an intention to slow down, but when he enters that highest level of state of mind, which is chitta, with the strong practice of pranayama, even the involuntary functions of the body can be brought into control. Anyone who meditates at that stage, like I said, will be in a rock-solid state of mind and body as well. A person taking control of involuntary functions of a body might go against the current laws of modern medicine, but that’s the limitation of modern medicine, where yoga goes much beyond that. It is just that we haven’t discovered fully the potential of yoga, and this research paper details about how the yogis in India back then took complete control of their body, including the involuntary functions. This is the power of pranayama. Hatha Yoga says that if pranayama is done in a right way, it will cure many bodily ailments, and if it is not done properly, it will bring all kinds of new ailments. So that is the reason yoga should always be administered under the supervision of a guru.

Now, the Ashtanga yoga which we saw just now, the eight steps, the journey from pashu to pashupati via the four levels of mind, it all might sound a bit abstract or difficult to follow, but that’s what it is; it’s not so easy, it takes a lifetime of practice. At the highest state, just like how we saw the human body responds into a totally different direction beyond the understanding of modern science, in my opinion, the true potential of yoga is not really discovered by the current generation. Hope we will understand it in the years to come. As the Ashtanga yoga is very complex to understand, that is the reason I pulled up this most simplistic definition about yoga from Bhagavad Gita: we do our duty and stay indifferent to success or failure, and that is yoga, the most simplistic form of yoga which each of us can practice.

Let’s get to the third and the last chapter: Kundalini yoga. A lot of commercialization, misconceptions, and misunderstandings are entangled with Kundalini yoga, especially the chakras. It is very loosely used, and off late there has been a lot of commercialization with respect to Kundalini yoga, and we want to just do our bit to clarify what exactly is Kundalini yoga. As I just mentioned, yoga is a journey of a man or a woman from a state of pashu to becoming the state of a pashupati, and this journey is called as yoga. There are multiple paths one can choose in this journey: there is Bhakti yoga, Jnana yoga, Karma yoga, Sankhya yoga, and there is Kundalini yoga. Kundalini yoga is considered as one of the most powerful formats of yoga and also a very, very risky procedure to attain the chitta state of mind.

Now let’s take a look again at the human anatomy. As we all know, the human brain is the governing authority for the entire human body, and we have the nervous system, muscular system, and the skeletal system. In the operational hierarchy, the brain governs all these three systems top-down; that’s the basic of human anatomy as we all know. As we saw the anatomy as per yoga siddhantam, where there are four states of mind rather than physical classification, the same way the human body as per yoga siddhantam is classified into nadis. A nadi is an energy channel that flows right from the brain up until the end point where the interaction is performed. A nadi is a transversal flow of energy which cuts through the nervous system, muscular system, and the skeletal system, which again in turn is governed by the brain. Let’s take an example: do as I say, lift the little finger of your right hand. Now the moment you heard my words, your brain understands that I’m asking you to lift the little finger of your right hand; it understands what is the right hand and what is the little finger in the right hand, and sends a signal from your brain to the little finger which you wish to lift, and that’s how the action is performed. Now as per human anatomy, this entire process goes through your nervous system, muscular system, and the skeletal system because of a signal that was fired from the brain to lift the finger. Now this entire flow of energy right from your brain up until your little finger of the right hand could be called as one nadi. So as per yoga siddhantam, instead of classifying them independently, yoga siddhantam classifies the entire human body in forms of nadis, and there are 72,000 of such energy channels in the human body. Again, like I said, it is not a comparison between the human anatomy as we know today versus yoga siddhantam; they again complement each other, they do not contradict, just that the nadis are not practically visible, but are a logical classification about how the energy flows right from your brain to different parts of your body.

Now that we have a brief understanding about nadis, which is the energy flow, coming to Kundalini yoga, it is all about how we channelize this energy flow in the human body towards the brain to realize the chitta state of mind. To realize the chitta state of mind, the brain needs to be pumped up with a lot of energy, and how you concentrate the entire energy in your body and pump it up towards your brain to realize that chitta state of mind is called as Kundalini yoga, in very, very simple words. If this feels a bit abstract in nature, then I would again reflect back to the research that was conducted about how voluntarily you can take control of your heart and other involuntary functions in your body, just that we don’t have that enough understanding and maturity. When I am saying we, it’s you and me together, we don’t have that enough understanding about what is the true potential of yoga, and Kundalini yoga is about one such state of yoga where a person can master the art of controlling the energy flow in his or her own body. This is the reason why Kundalini yoga is considered as a very, very dangerous practice and is absolutely not recommended for everyone. Kundalini yoga is not something that we pay a fee and learn from somebody from a yoga institute or something; that is absolutely nonsense. A guru who has mastered the art of Kundalini yoga in the first place, he or she will never teach it for money or any materialistic things. And second thing, Kundalini yoga is not taught to everyone who asks for it; the guru will assess whether a person is fit to learn Kundalini yoga both physically and mentally, and only then he or she will be taught Kundalini yoga. So all the commercialization that is happening in the name of Kundalini yoga, just don’t trust them. There are other formats of yoga like Hatha yoga, simple asanas, which are actually meant for everybody.

To theoretically understand what is Kundalini yoga, one can refer to one of the most credible sources, that is from Swami Vivekananda. He wrote a book back in the 1800s called as Raja Yoga. As part of this book, the anatomy of the human body and how Kundalini yoga works is explained out in a very subtle and detailed manner. This is what Swami Vivekananda wrote in his book Raja Yoga about the anatomy of Kundalini yoga: there are three most important nadis or the energy channels in the human body, called as Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna. This is what he says: if you take the cross section of a human spine, the right column is called as Ida, the left column is Pingala, and the midpoint or the mid channel that runs straight across the spinal cord is called as Sushumna nadi. These are the three most important energy channels that are very crucial for Kundalini yoga in every human body. Right at the bottom where the spinal cord hits the pelvis, that is where a corpus energy, a reservoir of energy, is concentrated and lies dormant, and this reservoir of energy symbolizes Adi Shakti, the sacred feminine energy, and is called as Kundalini, and is metaphorically represented as a coiled snake. The energy present in any living thing is considered and revered as the manifestation of Adi Shakti herself. Pumping up this corpus energy from your pelvis through the spinal cord of Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna nadis up until the brain to eventually push it from the manas state to the chitta state, this entire process is called as Kundalini yoga.

Now coming to chakras, the most commonly and loosely used word. Chakras are the core energy centers in the path of Kundalini energy as it moves as part of Kundalini yoga right from the pelvis to the brain. This is a bit abstract topic, and this is also a very, very commercialized element of yoga. Remember, no one teaches Kundalini yoga for money, no one should teach it for money, and it is not a course that will be taught or learned over a period of time; it takes a lifetime to just understand Kundalini yoga, let alone practicing and mastering it. The most mystical definition about Kundalini yoga is the unification of Shiva and Shakti in a human body; that is the ultimate state what anyone can realize once he or she gets to the epitome of Kundalini yoga.

So wrapping it up, it was Patanjali who gave the Patanjali Yoga Sutras, which is one of the foundational texts for yoga. Then we have Bhagavan Sri Krishna who gave the Bhagavad Gita, which is also a foundational text for yoga. Then we have Yajnavalkya Maharishi who gave Yoga Yajnavalkyam, which is another primordial text for yoga, and then we have Vasistha Maharshi who gave Yoga Vasistha, which also talks about yoga at great detail. Like this, there are many, many scriptures which detailed out yoga and have been part of the Indian culture since thousands of years. Each of these great texts on yoga explains about different types of yoga like Bhakti yoga, Kundalini yoga, Karma yoga, Ashtanga yoga, and there are many other formats of yoga. Like I said, yoga is about a journey, a journey of a pashu becoming a pashupati, so there are different paths in this journey that one can choose to pick up, and these scriptures detail about different formats of yoga. If we further zoom down into Ashtanga yoga alone, there we have eight steps—yama, which we saw, and in this entire ocean of yoga it’s only asana that is widely known, but there is a lot more than just asanas. Yoga is a lifetime process of finding the answer for one question, just one simple question: who am I? And as always, thanks for watching.