Happy arrogance
Artistic Yoga arrives to Dubai. Developed by Bharat Thakur, internationally renowned yoga master, the powerful system of yoga helps you be happy – just as Thakur is. Rajeev Nair met him in Dubai
YOGA master Bharat Thakur calls the brain a coconut. Mind is a mix of memory and creativity, and yoga, the ancient Indian tradition of mind-body-soul transformation, according to him is ‘Endocrine Exercise’ and its whole purpose is to make people happy.
Of course, he is happy. And he says everyone who is happy must step forward and say so. A happy man, Thakur says, lets go.
He also puts on an air of arrogance, which he says is put on to keep away weird people who seek ‘instant enlightenment’ from approaching him. He knows what he speaks about, and he says so.
Thakur regards Yoga as just one – the ancient Indian tradition. “There is nothing called Artistic Yoga,” he says. “It is just a name,” — one he gave to a holistic system of yoga that he put together.
With ‘Artistic Yoga,’ he aims to elevate yoga from mere flexibility training, as, he feels, is mostly the practice. He researched extensively on his beliefs while he worked as teacher at schools, and says that yoga offers a complete fitness regimen by enabling strength, endurance, flexibility, agility and balance for the body.
“You don’t need extra weights to train your body,” he says. Hunk-like cultivated looks, he says, are ugly. “Some simple postures of the 8,400,000 postures in yoga would do for good, happy looks.” His yoga does not make people tired, or look unhappy. “Look at long distance runners. They look sick because they are overloading their lungs. Artistic Yoga stimulates the mind and body.”
His advice to beat stress is to “live life to its fullest right now. Right now, be happy,” he says. Yoga presses some gland or the other in the body, he observes, and the pressure on these porous glands makes them secrete anti-stress hormones. “A simple slap can create tremendous stress on the human body. Imagine, what happens to your body, living stressed, day after day, week after week, month after month…”
The important thing in yoga, Thakur says, is to practise it daily. Any one, at any time, can practise yoga. “But, do it daily.” He says it is best to practise yoga from the age of five.
Thakur says he is neither a master nor a guru. Such titles embarrass him.
It is this seemingly blatant disregard for pretentious attitudes that sets Thakur apart.
He was in Dubai recently to conduct workshops on ‘Artistic Yoga,’ in association with Serenity. He plans to open his yoga studio in the emirate, and thus open up his world of yoga — Artistic Yoga has over 1.5 lakh practitioners in India alone — for the benefit of the residents of a city, which he says, “has happy vibes.”
Simplicity seems the essence of the man. He has written three books without much of the jargon associated with yoga titles, and plans some 50 books including one soon for computer users and another for women.
He is sharing a wisdom, which he sourced from nature, from the Himalayas, where he spent 16 years from the age of four, after being chosen by his master Sukhdev Brahmachari.
Lore has it that his parents, yearning for children for long, had promised the yogi their first son. Living in the Himalayas, he understood life but he was not, Thakur says, “culturally trained. That I learnt from the society.”
He moved to the mainland, and did post-graduation in exercise and biomechanics. Prior to that he had studied Sufism, Buddhism, Jainism, and the ancient Indian medical system of Ayurveda. “It was essential to go to the universities, to the accepted principles of education, because, for example, I would call charkas as plexus now, and convey the meaning to people. It has changed the way I interact with people. I have been groomed now. Had I just come from the hills, I would have been more animalistic – screaming, shouting. Now, I am much better.”
He arrived at yoga last. “Sufism, Buddhism, Jainism – they are all isms. When the master dies, that becomes an ism. An ism is a belief, but yoga is life. It is not spiritual or religious; it is a research, an experiment man does on the human body.”
Yoga, in its spiritual level, he says, could be philosophical. “But it is not philosophy; it is wisdom with a straight meaning. India calls it darshan shastra, the art of viewing, not the art of listening. The art of doing is wisdom. The art of believing is philosophy. Yoga goes towards doing not listening or understanding.”
Thakur wouldn’t call himself enlightened. “If enlightened people say they are enlightened they are stupid. I don’t want to be stupid.
But he wouldn’t confer to whether there is a state of enlightenment. “That, you will have to work yourself out. If I confer about the state of enlightenment, I will kill your celebration of life. You will start worshipping me, and you will do nothing for yourself. I guide people on the way towards whatever you call it. I don’t claim anything. I am a normal, straight, basic human being – a friend, a guide. ”
Thakur expounds that happiness must be proclaimed. An Indian philosopher J Krishamoorthi once observed that the moment you say you are happy, you lose your happiness to which Thakur says, “He said that about the art of awareness. It is a behavioural pattern. I am not teaching the art of awareness. I am trying to be there. In one, you are standing by the side of the sea, and talking about swimming. Another is entering the sea, and talking about swimming. Once you are in the sea, you will be wet. And you know you are wet and there is no problem in raising your hand to say you are wet (happy).”
Basically people are caught up with their lives, observes Thakur. “They don’t understand that they have to live for themselves too. They are living for others. Man is a crowd, and he will be happy, when he moves from the crowd to a single being.”
Man needs yoga, says Thakur, because “a direction is needed. If there is no direction you might end up being a hippie. Yoga is nothing but an energy-channeling process. There are so many happy people in the hills, why aren’t there so many happy people in the homes? Yoga was never part of the life of people. Swamis are happy; non-swamis aren’t. I want to create swamis in normal households. Live in your house, practise yoga, and be happy.”
While yoga might be popular in the West, more as a fad, Thakur says, “Western people cannot practise yoga. The involvement of Western people in the system of yoga is very low. They can only accept us from the physical asanas. They have not crossed beyond that. What they do is all c–p. I would prefer working with the Asian people. Go to Japan. They are so open, fabulous people. See Dubai, there is so much good response from here.”
Yoga is for happy people, says Thakur, and for unhappy people. “Happy people are more welcome in my life.”
