Is it the person who can bend his feet to his head? Is it the one who can sit still for hours, or the one who can outpace and outrun us without eating nearly as much as we do. Or, is it the one who can skip a heartbeat or two? Who is a yogi, and how do we identify one? Am I a yogi? Are you a yogi?
Yogis consider the Vedas as a testimony of competent people (rishis). They think that reading and comprehending these scriptures alone will not take a person to realization or union. Practice is what leads to the cosmic union. So, yogis see anything that is not practice, such as reading, debating, etc. as a preparation for practice. Yogi is not too much into arguments. Rather, s(he) is more so a practitioner of the conclusion.
The greatness of yogis lie in their art to not get too entangled in debates. That is because they know that intellect alone cannot answer or prove a lot of things that are spiritual. A yogi treats intellect as a weak instrument, because it can only give knowledge limited by the senses. A yogi, instead, wants to go beyond the senses. Only by being there and experiencing (practicing) can a person go beyond the facts that are restricted by senses and intellect of a non-practitioner. Things beyond reason, or super-consciousness, can only be experienced by practice, not by theory.
A yogi almost always is of the opinion that time is too short. Hence, the path to a practices, although it goes through scriptural knowledge, is shortened by a yogi. A yogi is not as much into vada (the aurguments), as (s)he is into siddhanta (decisive principles). Yogis almost always avoid vada because it disturbs their chitta. This is the basis of Kriya Yoga.
There is a conviction of the control over self that a yogi exudes. Swami Vivekanand said, “If you are the arranger you can arrange that body in one way or another. Who makes up this body but you? Who eats the food? If another ate the food for you, you would not live long. Who makes the blood out of it? You, certainly. Who assimilates the blood, and sends it through the veins? You. Who creates the nerves, and makes all the muscles? You are the manufacturer, out of your own substance. You are the manufacturer of the body, and you live in it. Only we have lost the knowledge of how to make it. We have become automatic, degenerate. We have forgotten the process of manufacture.”
The urge to get out of this world is quite intense in a yogi. (S)he knows that this world we think of as the world is nothing but a dream (an experience), maya. We have to experience it quickly and get out of it. But there is also no getting out of it without the experience. The trick is only to shorten the duration of this experience. These experiences are of little loves between spouses, family, and friends, and it’s resulting pleasures and pains.
Who is a yogi? Next time you see someone bending out of shape, you may actually not be looking at a yogi. Maybe it is the silent one you didn’t think much about, sitting alone watching the glory of creation around him/her.
धार्मिक छवियाँ 