Yoga not just Body Fitness: a Pathway for Healthy and Righteous way of Life

Prof PB Sharma

As the World Yoga Day draws the global humanity towards realization of the power of yoga to create a healthy body and a healthy mind, let us not forget that the Patanjali Yog Sutras are not limited to fitness of body or tranquillity of mind alone. They in fact, offer a comprehensive therapy to create a healthy, happy and righteous human society that works to glow human excellence and caring connect to preserve and sustain this beautiful world of diversity and divine bliss.

The Yogasutras begin with Yogah Chittavratti Nirodha, clearly stating that yoga is to make our mind calm down the unnecessary anxieties and unwarranted ripples of tensions. As a healthy and focussed mind is the first pre-requisites of a healthy body. The Yogasutras ordain us to pay the greatest attention to our mind, so important today in the age of ever-increasing pressures of work and social life.

The Power of Yoga:

However, we need to utilize the power of yoga to lead a righteous life and make a bigger meaning and purpose of human life in service of the society and Mother Nature. It is for this reason the Yogasutras of Patanjali inspire us to cultivate goodness and righteous conduct that practices the universal human values of truthfulness, purity of mind and actions and commitment to treat our work activity as a worship of Divinity, as in Yogah Karmeshu Koshalam in the Bhagwat Gita.

The Patanjali Yogasutras invite us to guard ourselves from the five enemies of our life existence, namely mindless attachment to worldly pleasures, (Ragas), avoidable jealousy against our fellow humans (Dwesha), indulgence in toxic affairs (Madas), uncontrolled greed (Moha) and amassing wealth through wrongful means (Lobh), commonly referred in the Patanjali Yoga sutras as Panch Kleshas. The Patanjali Yogasutras invite the human society to practice the onerous virtues of human life that include Ahimsa, Non-Violence, Satya (Truth), Brahmacharya (Realization of presence of God all around) and Aparigraha (Sustainable consumption) by practicing with pride the purity of mind, satisfaction in one’s attainments and regular practice of Yoga and Meditation (Dhayanam).

Healthy Body, Healthy Mind and a Happy Soul:

It goes without saying that the healthy mind and healthy body also need a happy soul so that our body, the temple of divine continues to glow its eminence and inspires us, the humans to work for the collective good of the humanity. Often, we tend to ignore our soul and ways to keep it happy and blissful without realizing that it is the happiness of the soul that matters most for a healthy and happy living. To keep the soul happy, we need regularly engage in doing good for others (Parhit) and that too with selfless motives. Charity with a compassionate and caring heart makes our soul happy as it sees fulfilment of its embodiment in human form. Healthy body, healthy mind and a happy soul is the call of the Yogasutras of Patanjali.

Yoga offers Lasting Solutions for Peace and Sustainable Progress:

Further, as the power of the Yoga transcends beyond time and space, it has a universal appeal today for creating a sustainable, happy, peaceful and compassionate human society that should be the natural object of human life on planet Mother Earth. At a time when world is looking for lasting solutions for peace and sustainable progress of the global humanity, the practice of the Yogasutras offers a way forward for moving the world community on the pathways of blissful living with the realization of One Earth, One Family and One Future.

Let the celebration of the International Yoa Day-2025 on 21st June 2025 invoke in the world community a greater commitment to peace, harmony and sustainability and bind the global community together to create a green and blissful future for the humanity at large. The power of the Yoga shall create the much-desired synergy between Science and Spirituality to enable the scientific community to discover the innate spiritual strength of science to wipe out sufferings, disease and poverty from the face of the planet mother earth and help create a happy and sustainable future for the people of the world.

The author Prof PB Sharma is an eminent academician, renowned thought leader and crusader of integration of science and spirituality. Past President of AIU, Prof Sharma has been the Founder Vice Chancellor of DTU & RGPV, currently is the Vice Chancellor of Amity University Haryana.