How to be a True Yogi?

Yoga is a beautiful practice that unites body, mind and spirit, bringing us into greater harmony within ourselves, with the environment, and with those around us.

But who or what is a yogi?

Yoga is for everybody and is practiced by people from all backgrounds and walks of life. And, ultimately, a yogi is anyone who is dedicated to the practice of yoga.

Patanjali, in the Yoga Sutras, identifies five qualities that we should develop within our consciousness to help support our realization of the state of yoga. They are also the qualities that will start to develop in us as we deepen into the experience of yoga. They are sraddha, virya, smriti, samadhi and prajna. They are all interconnected and one cannot exist without the other; one follows the other. Let’s take a look at them now.

Sraddha

This is trust but it’s not about trust in someone else. It is a trust that has an unbreakable quality. It is the recognition of love, recognition of the eternal truth that is loving us, realizing that it is love that is guiding us, that love is always loving us. It is not about having a belief or blind faith. It is trust that arises from a corrected intellect. It is recognizing the truth and that recognition gets you into a state of receptivity so you can receive the great abundance of nature. Then you develop a trust in your practice and a trust in the infinite organizing power of nature which, ultimately, is you. You are That. Only then can we surrender to the flow of the Divine and move in the way that love makes us move. Otherwise, our actions are dominated by fear.

Trust is one of the finest expressions of love. This trust helps you to act in alignment with evolutionary intelligence while, at the same time, allowing you to receive what arises in the moment.

Virya

This is passion and energy. It is the quality of immense courage from which the natural outcome is trust. The yogi is filled with passion for the practice and for life as practice. This passion and energy naturally arises when there is sraddha, when one surrenders to the Divine flow and releases all effort to control it. When your life becomes your practice (by cultivating sraddha), you will naturally be filled with strength and intense energy. This is virya. When you are not trying to control and you have trust, virya occurs. It is an intensity that fills you with optimal energy levels. It means courageousness, energy-rich passion, aliveness.

Smriti

This is continued awareness, being in a state of remembrance in the context of your personal practice, in your life as practice. It is being really clear in your intention and the purpose of your practice. You need to be mindful as the ego will try to hijack your practice and your life. It is about keeping your eyes focused on your awareness, holding the value of truth. Then, even when the fluctuating values start to dominate your field of consciousness, you can really hold on to the value which does not fluctuate, the value of truth, the value of yoga, where you and That are ultimately one.

Continued awareness is in itself liberating. It is important to cultivate witness consciousness, to be clear with your intention and to notice where you are at with your intention and on what you place your attention. Your intention and attention need to be in alignment, only then can true realization occur. Smriti is the act of uniting both of these and living intentionally from moment to moment, living dharma.

Samadhi

It is important to cultivate a level of absorption within your practice in order to reach a level of unity with the practice, where ultimately you are no longer practicing; it is just part of you. Then the true practice begins to arise in your heart, the inner practice of yoga. When you and the practice merge and yoga penetrates every aspect of your being and you are moving towards love, towards unity consciousness, this is Samadhi.

Prajna

This is the true knowledge which arises from the experience of yoga. It is knowledge that arises from silence, from the unified field, transcendental knowledge. It is an intelligence that is beyond thought, the quality of which is silence. It is the quality of intelligence that starts to become available to you as you start having access to no mind. From that place you can start to gain mastery over the mind.

If we cultivate these five qualities within our consciousness, they will support us on our journey. They will also naturally start to rise up within us as we deepen into our yogic practice and, as they do, our whole experience of life becomes upgraded.

To go deeper into these teachings, check out This Is That by Himalayan Master Anand Mehrotra.

And access deep yogic wisdom direct from the source, in the Wisdom section on Sattva Connect. Your Support to an Awakened Life!