Yog in vogue
Yog is taught all over the world in all forms possible, from hot yoga to Ashtang yoga to naked yoga... You name it, or should I say, create a demand and you will have people running to teach you. If you have a problem with your body, even if the problem is just in your mind, then there is Ashtang yoga for you which, of course, has nothing to do with the eight limbs of yoga as propagated by sage Patanjali. If you have a body ailment, then you have engineering yoga, where the only defect being rectified is the teacher’s bank balance.
Or if you have fancy for day dreaming and love to see yourself in the heavens, then you have many modern forms of meditational yoga techniques which promise to take you to the heavens and bring you back also, unchanged and as empty as you were. If you have been taught some advanced mantras and pujas for materialising thoughts or flying in the air then it is just foolishness, not yoga.
I can assure you that yoga is a journey, that too an inner journey.
It’s not just about learning techniques for doing asanas while worrying about the way you look, nor for having visions which your subconscious shows you or to harm others or to make more money.
If you are doing yoga, then the signs are clear — your guru is happy with you, there is a change in you (for the better), you are satisfied and happy with what you have and the way you look, your life is happy and contended, you are forever in peace and harmony, you never fall sick, you develop vak shakti and chitt shakti, i.e. what you think and what you want happens.
This is yoga and can only happen through a guru and his/her kripa. Businessmen selling you courses and you howling and crying out of pure love or whatever you may call it when you see some whiteclad gentleman or lady with flowing hair and a beautiful dyed beard (only in the case of men, the women would have had her facial hair removed by lasers), would only leave you poorer in the bank and ready for howling at the next one, whom you may decide to meet to fulfil your desires.