Yoga at the Youth Festival for Peace

“All life is yoga” – Sri Aurobindo’s motto

Yoga is a Sanskrit word that means “path, union, fulfillment”. It is a process of joining the external self with what is most profound in being; in this sense, it is not restricted to methods, exercises, norms or postures, which are only occasional instruments used to achieve it. Yoga is present at the Youth Festival for Peace. The practice has already opened several editions of the Festival, preparing the participants’ bodies and minds for the event’s journey.

Integral Yoga

The present time invites beings to synthesis and purify. In this way, all of life’s actions can be occasions for yogic practice. Integral Yoga has been lived and taught by the Indian philosopher and Yogi Sri Aurobindo, it is an example of a system of asceticism that aims to permeate all human existence. Integral Yoga does not exclude existence and external bodies, nor does it restrict the union with the divine life to special moments of meditation. On the contrary, it aims to transform the concrete, deify it, bringing atoms and cells the power of a higher level of consciousness.

Balanced path

In the Bhagavad Gita, a classic book from the Hindu tradition, it is said: “Yoga is not for the man who overeats or for the one who fasts excessively. It is not for someone who sleeps too much, or for those who stay awake too much. Let the man be moderate in eating and recreation, moderate in activity, moderate in sleeping and in a state of awakening. You will find that yoga chases away all your unhappiness”. Currently, the practice of Yoga invites the human being to a permanent lucidity in the different planes of life, without evasion. The fundamental internal attitudes of the spirit wanderer are the constant aspiration and the higher thinking. — Text adapted from the entries “Yoga”, “Integral Yoga” and “Yogi” from the Esoteric Glossary of Trigueirinho.