Modern Yoga

THE REAL YOGA, which is called Raja Yoga, King of Yogas, is to lead a highly moral life. Not morality according to circumstances or according to culture, but true ethical activity in life: not to hurt, not to drink, not to drug yourself, the right amount of sleep, the right amount of food, clear thinking, and acting morally, doing the right thing. They never mentioned exercise, as far as I understand after talking with a great many scholars. They say exercise normally, walk, swim, all that, but their emphasis was a very moral life, a mind which is active.

You can do yoga exercises for the rest of your life but you won’t awaken spiritual insight.

Modern yoga – I don’t know why they call yoga, it should be called just exercise, but that wouldn’t appeal to you! You can practise yoga, the exercises of different kinds. The speaker has done some of it for years. But you can do this kind of yoga exercise for the rest of your life, you won’t awaken spiritual insight, nor will the awakening of a higher energy come into being. In the East they have a word for this, kundalini. I have discussed with them very seriously and what they are talking about is a certain form of increased energy to do more mischief. By eating the right food, by control, by breathing properly, etc., you have more energy, naturally. And that gives you a sense of superiority, that you are enlightened and so on. But when the self is not, there is a totally different kind of energy to keep the mind fresh, young, alive. That can only come when there is absolutely no sense of the self, because the self, the ‘me’, the centre, is in constant conflict, wanting, not wanting, creating dualities, opposing desires, this constant struggle that is going on. As long as that struggle is going on, there is a wastage of energy. When that struggle is not, there is a totally different kind of energy taking place. --Krishnamurti at Brockwood Park 1979,