Some disciples gather around their spiritual master to practise yoga, at the foot of a Hindu temple. The word “yoga” means “union”, unification with God. This discipline belongs to Hinduism, and it is practised to open out to a higher inner awareness; like many other spiritual practices of various traditions, it works on the unsteadiness of the mind, as it is the main obstacle to realization.

Practitioners need to collect themselves, to focus on breathing until it is deep and calm and to concentrate their minds on God, on the spiritual Self.

“When a man’s thoughts are curbed and he focuses on the Self only, when all his yearnings have come to an end, then this man is said to have reached yoga”, says the Bhagavad-Gita, the Chant of the Blessed, one of the most beautiful and best-known sacred books of human kind. The aim of yoga is to be one with the Everlasting, to become aware of one’s eternal essence.