Why Yoga Matters

1. Yoga strengthens basic units of society
The basic building blocks of society are individuals and families. Yoga improves physical, emotional, and spiritual health of individuals. All this has tremendous spin-off benefits on society. In addition, inner calmness and emotional balance provided by yoga helps put relationships on a stronger footing. This boosts stability in the family. By strengthening families, yoga strengthens society.

2. Yoga has the potential to reintroduce spirituality in education
Modern society is built on the foundation of secular education. But the lack of spiritual education and training can prove to be a stumbling block to the long term survival of our species. This is because rapid progress in science is putting increasingly powerful tools in our hands while our wisdom to use them lags. Yoga allows us to reintroduce spirituality to school curriculum without dismantling its secular framework. This is because yoga philosophy is secular and its methods are scientifically testable. Yoga provides us with tools to train future generations on how to access deep spiritual wisdom. This will allow them to come up with the right moral answers for the increasingly complex problems of tomorrow.

The most important purpose of Yoga is to bring about a deep transformation of the individual – an awakening of intelligence that is free of dependencies and romantic beliefs and ready to meet the accelerating challenges of the 21st century — Ganga White

3. Yoga can make science more complete
Science is most ignorant when it comes to understanding the nature of consciousness. One definition of yoga is that it is the “science of consciousness”, so can yoga help? Since yoga is also amenable to scientific process, the marriage of yoga and science has the potential to allow science to learn more about consciousness.

If the yogis are right and consciousness is the fundamental building block of the universe, then yogic knowledge will be something that science will be unable to do without. Thus yoga may allow science to move out of dead-ends it currently finds itself in and accelerate its progress.

4. Yoga can transform corporations
Companies today work in an increasingly interconnected world where disruptive innovations happen at dizzying speeds. The result is that corporations require a workforce that is motivated, happy, and clear-headed at all times. Employees have to be able to work cooperatively with each other, analyze complex data, and also face severe time pressure and stress. It is clear that yoga has a great role to play in making corporations successful. Yoga can help increase happiness and cooperation of employees while reducing stress. Yoga not only provides employees with a clear head to make complex decisions, but also equip them with a deeper wisdom to take these decisions.

5. Yoga provides higher meaning
Those who practice all eight limbs of yoga find that the ego diminishes and a spiritual resurgence takes place within. This movement away from the ego is liberating and brings love, happiness, and meaning into life. With the heart overflowing with love and the spiritual compass strong, the individual becomes an agent of a deeper divine movement:

The meaning of our self is not to be found in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless realization of yoga, of union; not on the side of the canvas where it is blank, but on the side where the picture is being painted. –Rabindranath Tagore

Credits:This has been written by Raj Shah and edited by Ketna Shah.

Related: Six Things Not Yoga