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What kind of damage one can do with improper yoga?
This is many years ago – this boy was just about fifteen years of age at that time.
Karnataka is one place where yoga is big, you know.
Generally almost in every town or every village you will see under the banyan tree
there will be a few people doing yoga early in the morning.
That’s almost like part of the scenery there.
So one day early morning this boy is going somewhere, he saw some people doing yoga,
that is they were doing Shirsasana – headstand.
You know Shirsasana?
Normal means like this, yoga means like this for most people.
If you stand on your feet, that is not yoga; you must stand on your head, that is yoga.
So he saw people doing yoga, he liked it.
Young boy, agile, so he came home and he stood on his head –
fifteen, twenty minutes he is able to stand on his head.
He is staying there and calling everybody and asking them to see
how wonderfully he can stand on his head without any training or any help.
He did this just for about two to three weeks and then he started getting bouts of anger.
He will be just fine.
Once in two or three weeks he will get into a huge, uncontrollable bout of anger
lasting just about fifteen-twenty minutes.
At this time he will do anything.
In one of these situations he actually took a stick and hit his mother on her head –
she had a skull fracture.
So after this incident they started tying up the boy.
They said he is dangerous.
In a small town they didn’t know what to do, so they tie up the boy and keep him in one room.
A fifteen year old boy who is perfectly normal otherwise, if you tie him up and keep,
all the things that he goes through and this started happening more and more often.
Then when it became… they didn’t know what… how to handle it,
they tried to give him sleeping pills, they tried to do all kinds of mantras, tantras, everything,
nothing worked, he started getting more and more violent.
At that time they brought this boy to us and I knew this boy is just wrong yoga, you know?
Then we put him on various kinds of energy balancing systems and getting him right.
He became quite settled down.
In about a year and half he was completely, absolutely normal
but then he stayed on with us for another two and half years – four years he was with us.
He discontinued education.
He was with us for four years.
Those four years were very rewarding for him in a different way
but if he had not come at that time, let's say another two, three months had passed,
it would be very difficult to reclaim that boy, it would have been very difficult.
I have seen any number of people like this, simply by doing improper yoga.
So is yoga dangerous?
Yoga is not dangerous.
On this planet – I don't know if you come from elsewhere, I don't know –
on this planet stupidity has always been dangerous, always, and still is.
You need to understand this, when you are talking about yoga as a science
that can transform one’s life, just a simple thing –
sitting like this or sitting like that can transform a human being,
there must be something powerful about it, isn't it?
If you mishandle it, it could cause immense damage to a person.
It's just like electricity, it has no discretion.
You can't think of life without electricity right now, isn't it?
It’s so useful and you fell in love with it and you went
and stuck your little finger in there and you know what happens.
So I am not trying to make it difficult.
It's my wish too that yoga really reaches everybody in the world because it has to,
but if people want to take it they must show some dedication to it,
they must show some willingness to spend the necessary time on it
rather than just doing quick, quick yoga.
And not only that, they are so frivolous they want to modify it.
For thousands of years, people who come from within, who know the system absolutely well,
those people have formulated some things.
Upstarts who do not know one thing from the other are modifying it.
Today there is power yoga, aquatic yoga, sky diving yoga, what not!
This is just, you know, irresponsible, that's all, absolutely irresponsible.
The way it's happening here – the yoga in United States is absolutely irresponsible.
See, this five day session, see, there are few teachers,
ask them how many years of training they have gone through.
Four years of non-stop grinding training and out of this if hundred people go through, only…
our average has just been about twenty to twenty three people have been passing.
We are trying to improve that percentage; it's just not getting there.
Only twenty to twenty three percent actually pass and become teachers,
others we put them into administrative work and some other work, after training for four years.
Is this just to make it difficult?
No, there is a lot more to it.
There is a lot more to it than just what’s on the surface.