Yoga is not just a physical exercise. It’s not merely about getting our bodies in shape, losing weight, or firming and trimming various parts and muscles. Nor is it solely about treating ailments and injuries. Yoga is actually a system and science of life, a way of living in balance, alignment, and union. The word “yoga” literally means union.
Most of us think of uniting just our nose to our knees or our fingers to our toes. “Finally, I can touch my nose to my knees!” or “I can finally touch my fingers to the ground!” But that’s not the union that yoga is really about. It’s about the union of this individual self, what we call Jivatma, with the Divine, the Supreme Reality, what we call Paramatma. So, yoga is a way of life rooted in the awareness that we are one. It’s also a way of life that brings us closer and closer to the awareness and experience of oneness every minute and every moment.
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The sage Patanjali gave us the beautiful system of Ashtanga yoga, the eight limbs of yoga. They begin with Yama and Niyama, or what we sometimes call the yamas and niyamas. These are the ways we live in the world, live with ourselves, and live with others—the way we live with nonviolence, truthfulness, not stealing or hoarding, purity, and surrender to the Divine. All of that and more is actually the foundation of yoga. No matter how good your triangle pose may be or how long you can stand on your head, if you’re not living according to the principles of yamas and niyamas, it’s not actually yoga.
If you’re living with violence, stealing, hoarding, and lack of integrity in your relationships, if you’re living without purity, spiritual practice, or surrender to the Divine, then what you’re doing may be great for the body—athletics, calisthenics, stretching, or aerobics—but it isn’t actually yoga. Yoga stays with us every minute and every moment of the day. It informs and impacts how we think, live, eat, dress, shop, breathe, and understand ourselves in the universe. It’s how we work with our mind, and it becomes the very foundation upon which every other aspect of our life is based. If you’re doing yoga, wonderful—do it. But also remember, yoga is something to live, not just to do.
In this time of Kali Yuga, when we look to the natural world, we see what happens when we don’t approach life off the mat according to the principles of the yamas and niyamas. The United Nations estimates that by the year 2040, the world will have only half the drinking water that we need. We’re already in a position where about 20% of our planet’s land is degraded. About 80% of the deforestation of the Amazon is caused by the meat industry.
If we don’t have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean soil in which to grow our food, we can’t live. So, today as we celebrate yoga and its healing power in our lives, let us remember the critical role each of us must play in creating a healthy, yogic, dharmic, sustainable world. First and foremost, what we eat. Animal agriculture, the meat industry, is the single greatest contributor to climate change.
80% of the Amazon rainforest is being lost due to grazing cows, who will later become hamburgers. It’s being lost at the rate of about one acre per second. The amount of water that goes into the production of beef is about 2,500 gallons, or about 10,000 liters, of water for one pound of beef. Do you know how long that water would take you to use in bathing every day? Six months. Are you prepared to not bathe for six months to offset the water usage from that one meal of beef? Yale University’s recent research shows that people who eat a plant-based diet contribute 75% less to global greenhouse gas emissions, to the pollution of water, and to the degradation of our environment. So, if you’re a yogi, you are naturally concerned about the natural environment, and you want to make an enormous difference—a 75% difference—just eat plant-based.
The fashion industry, too, contributes significantly to environmental degradation, with one pair of jeans using about 2,000 gallons of water. The fashion industry contributes about 20% of the pollution in our planet’s water. In 2018, it was estimated that about 92 million tons of textile waste were dumped into our planet’s land annually. These days there are so many beautiful sustainable fashion options. Plastic bottles, tires and so much more is being recycled into brand new fashionable clothes, shoes and hand-bags. Hemp, bamboo and organic cotton clothing options are available around the world.
Let’s make every minute and every moment count. Wherever you go, carry your own water bottle. Stop our dependence on single-use plastic. Bring your own bag when you go shopping. When you leave rooms, turn off the lights. Put eco-friendly light bulbs, compost your waste, and eat, dress and shop consciously.
We are conscious beings and yoga is a practice of expanding our consciousness. Whatever your religion might be, whatever your spiritual practice or path or lineage might be, our dharma is to live consciously, to live with nonviolence, to live with compassion. So, every time that you’re about to have a meal, ask yourself, “Do I really need to eat meat? Is it really worth 2,500 gallons of water so we can have hamburgers?” There’s so much we can do every minute, every moment, to make our lives and every choice one that is conscious and in alignment with what yoga tells us.
Our scriptures tell us Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam – the world is a family. But we are even more than just a random family: we are the family of Vasudha, the Mother Earth goddess. It is our responsibility to take care of her. Our scriptures say, “Mata Bhumi, putro hum prithivyah.” The Earth is our mother. We are her children. Let us live in a way that we take care of our Mother Earth, of our sisters and brothers of every race, religion, color, and every species. We can do it together; we can do it consciously. Let us make that choice.
