_Interviewer:_ Master, I'll come back to you now. I think we know a little more about it all now. You mentioned Yoga. One of your books is called _Yoga and the spiritual life._ For many people, Yoga is nothing more nor less than a set of physical exercises where you stand on your head, or fold your legs into impossible positions. But that's not what you mean by the word "Yoga," is it? Are there exercises? Are there physical postures that you try to teach your students?

Sri Chinmoy: No, not at all. "Yoga" means conscious union with God. The fastest way to achieve this is to concentrate, meditate and contemplate. This is the most effective way to realise God, to discover one's own Reality. If one practises Hatha Yoga, which is the physical exercises, it may help to some extent. But there are thousands of people, especially in India, who can do all the physical exercises most correctly. But God-realisation is still a far cry for them. If it were only by practising physical exercises that one could realise God, then everybody would have done it by now. These are like kindergarten courses. If one wants to study in kindergarten, one can. But if one wants to skip that course, one can easily do so.

Spirituality, which is true Yoga, demands concentration, meditation and contemplation. These three steps only are of paramount importance. As far as we all know, the Christ did not practise physical postures. Lord Krishna did not do it. Lord Buddha did not do it. But all of them did realise God and become one with God on the strength of their prayer, meditation and contemplation. They did not practise Hatha Yoga, but they did pray, they did meditate, and on the strength of their prayer and meditation they became one with the transcendental Consciousness and the universal Reality of the Supreme.

Interviewer: So Yoga really means union with God?

Sri Chinmoy: Conscious union with God.

Interviewer: God is within each one of us?

Sri Chinmoy: God has always been within each one of us. Each individual has to realise God according to his inner capacity. And each individual can choose to accept the aspect of God that pleases him most. Somebody may like God's personal aspect, as a most luminous Being, while another person may like the impersonal aspect: God as infinite Energy. Again, somebody else will be pleased only if the God he realises is a God beyond his imagination.

God is both personal and impersonal. God will come to each individual according to that individual's choice, to please him in his own way. If you care for the impersonal aspect, God will come to you as the impersonal Existence. If I care for God in His personal aspect, then He will come to me as a personal Being.

From:Sri Chinmoy,My Rose Petals, part 7, Agni Press, 1976
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/mrp_7