‘Yoga has become a joke’

YOGI ASHWINI.

Deccan Chronicle- March 28,2011

Last month he stunned doctors at the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Mumbai, just by looking at photographs of 8 random people — sick and healthy — and identifying the sick ones within 10 minutes. Dhyan Foundation’s Yogi Ashwini’s feat left the doctors speechless. We caught up with the dynamic yogi who is in town for the launch of his book and to hold workshops.

On the recent IMA feat, he says, “We asked doctors to give us two types of patients, those with cancer and spinal problems. Most diseases including cancer and trauma are psychosomatic diseases. The emotion manifests and shows. I pointed out the areas where the problems lay and also when the ailments started for all 5 people after seeing their photographs.”

“Also, volunteers were made to do 50 minutes of asanas without a break after which the pulse rate of one of the volunteers was checked. It was found the pulse rate had dropped by 15 counts. The doctors were amazed and gave a letter informing that the experience had changed their perception of yoga.”

So, why did the yogi feel the need to have an open demonstration? “Because yoga has become a joke and I had to prove what it actually was. Yoga has been reduced to mere stunts. Doctors have fragile egos and we needed to tell them in a polite manner, that yoga can complement medical science. Yoga doesn’t heal nor cure diseases. It can only prevent you from falling sick. If you are ill, go see a doctor or a vaidya.”

Criticising the popular notion that sweating by doing yoga helps lose weight, Yogi Ashwini says, “Sweating actually makes one age faster. The strength of one’s body is lost via bodily fluids and sweat is a bodily fluid too.” When quizzed about why yoga is misunderstood by the masses and self-proclaimed yoga gurus, he says, “We don’t respect our own culture. We look up to Egyptians and Greeks, who couldn’t survive a war or two, and Mayans who lived for a few hundred years. We forgot the Vedic civilisation that is one lakh years old. By civilisation, I mean ‘civilised’ people who were well-learned and evolved. Not one TV channel here shows real yoga. The yoga and facts shows aired on channels are not wholly real and they only show the smaller picture. When we called the media to cover the demonstration at IMA, we were told that they’d cover it only if an SRK or Salman came. We don’t respect our own culture.”

He adds, “The Pythagoras Theorem was not discovered by Pythagoras. It can be traced 16,000 years back in Gunita and Shatpath Brahman books. When Harappa and Mohenjodaro were found, 50 times more radioactivity was recorded compared to Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Even the father of the atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer said that Japan’s nuclear bombing was the first in modern history. There is a reason why Oppenheimer specifically mentioned ‘in modern history’. When Thomas Alva Edison invented the gramophone, the first record he played was Vedic mantras from the Rig Veda. Most discoveries were made only after the 1600s after English merchants took our knowledge. They repackaged it and gave it back.”