0.Introduction

Before arriving in India, I knew very few about यग [yoga]. Far from suspecting that, behind this word was hided an entire philosophical system, I was believing that the whole of यग [yoga] consists in a succession of positions such as the very ‘cliché’ cobra posture (Bhujangasan).

Still after few weeks in India, यग [yoga] was a mystery to me. On the contrary to what I imagined, यग [yoga] was perceived as an old-fashioned practice by my Indian friends and the students generally. Though the principle of यग [yoga] were manifest in their everydays and devotional life, they considered its practice too restrictive and only good for the previous generations ; not for the MTV one.

This is finally thanks to friends who left France for Auroville (Tamil Nadu) seventeen years ago, that I entered the universe of यग [yoga]. While having dinner together, they sometime evocated their meditation seminars, which did awaken my curiosity. It is not without precautions, that I finally did ask them to indicate me a good and traditional school of यग [yoga], where I could start to practice without any religious obligations. At that time, I considered myself as an atheist and wanted to preserve before all, my liberty of thinking and my dettachment from all religions and ects. Following my wishes, my friends indicated me Yoga Raksanam, a yoga school located in Besant Nagar, a district facing the Bay of Bengal in Chennai (Tamil Nadu).

Each Wednesday afternoon during nearly two semesters, I took my cycle for a crazy and deadly 5 kilometres ride from my institute to my यग [yoga] class. Yoga Raksanam was not a big school at all. Only two गर [guru] were teaching there : my former गर [guru], the Pr. Shekar and another woman who especially taught यग [yoga] and मन [mantra] chanting to children. Dressed all in white, the Pr. Shekar was an healthy man who could appear to be only 30 years-old if his hairs weren’t so white. Respectful toward my religious dettachment, he did introduce me to यग [yoga] without any devotional background.

Each week, he taught me new postures and breathing exercises and corrected the one I learnt previously. I felt great benefits and happiness while praticing every morning before classes but felt a little disappointed not to understand fully the philosophical sense of this practice.

When the second semester came, I was given the opportunity to take the course entitled ‘Introduction to Indian Philosophy’ and taught by the professor N. Sreekumar at the Humanities Department of the IIT Madras. Native from Kerala, Pr. N. Sreekumar was an excellent teacher who mastered German philosophy as well as Indian philosophy. Thanks to him, I could get a deep knowledge of यग [yoga] as one of the nine Indian philosophical systems. His course highlighted and completed theorically the practice I was learning every week at the Yoga Raksanam school.

At the end of the year, यग [yoga] was an integral part of my life and my way to start the first hour of each day. Though I had gained a good knowledge of yama, niyama, asana and pranayama (the four first stages in यग [yoga]), I was only feeling ready to start to learn meditation. Unfortunately, I had to leave Chennai at the same time for an internship in the deep countriside of the neighbour state of Karnataka where no yoga classes are available.

It is finally during my second internship in Delhi, that I entered the discipline of meditation under the guidance of Sadasiva, a गर [guru] teaching at the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre, an ashram located in East of Kailash colony (South Delhi). Everyday after work I practiced nearly two hours with a group of experimented यतगन  [yogin].

My life has changed a lot since I left India last november. In France, I always have the feeling that I have overloaded weeks running after time. The only adequate moments I find to practice यग [yoga] during my working weeks are from midnight to 1 am at night. But actually, I hardly practice more than three hours a week as many events such as parties and other invitations keep me away.

The practice of यग [yoga] requires a regular, flexible and healthy way of life that is far from being always compatible with an active life in our modern societies.