We live in a time where most of our hours are spent working at a desk. Technology has made our lives easier. Things have become accessible to us. Despite the ease and freedom when we face the reality of our lives we realize our lives are not optimal. We often realize it is not even close to the best life we could have. Our potential is not being fulfilled. With more self-awareness in life, we come to acknowledge that most of our experiences are full of discomfort.

Yash Birla explains that we are not contented

most of the time and we look for options that can make things better for us. We do this almost all the time. This does not indicate that our lives are miserable. It simply implies that for some reason, something is holding us back. In today’s world, we are faced with an overwhelming problem–we do not recognize our true identities. We are struggling to define ourselves according to the way society sees us, our actions, and our beliefs. It is now completely normal to feel unhappy, unfulfilled, confused, and depressed. We are all constantly trying to seek a solution to these problems by searching for better circumstances, accumulating more things, or making appointments with psychologists and doctors. This is where we need to pause realizing the importance of Yoga.

Why do we need yoga? It is not a physical exercise to tone, sculpt, and build your body. It is an ancient way of life that has existed for thousands of years, designed to free us from obstacles and liberate us from any fear. Yoga brings us into balance and harmony, giving us the ability to enjoy life, fulfill our potential and find our true identity. According to yoga, we are not in tune with both universal nature and our own nature. In modern society, it is clear we are alienated from our own nature and the nature around us because we are under the illusion that we is something separate from these things–something locked up in a bag of skin, disconnected from other beings in this world.

Yash Birla says our minds are always thinking and wandering far away from our current physical presence. The nature of the mind is to think toward the future and dwell in the past. But reflections of the future and past is not the truth, they are delusions. The past is just our subjective memory and the future is our illusionary imagination, therefore both are false.

We are disconnected from the present, which is the only gate for truth and eternity. We seem to be lost all the time. There is no mindfulness in whatever we do. 

Any experience of disconnection in the present causes a lot of suffering and loneliness explains Yash Birla. This is the reason yoga strives to bring us back into connection with everything around us, not simply on the intellectual level but on the experiential level. Yoga provides us with the tools for improving our relationships by stripping away the illusions that prevent us from connecting with our true Self, other beings, and life itself. It can be seen as a kind of map that liberates us from the maze of life. Yoga is the optimal guru connecting us with our inner teacher, the one who shows us the way of liberation, provides us guidelines and opens the gate for us to make the journey ourselves.