I thought I was joining a simple Yoga class for three months. Little did I know that these three months would become life-defining, life-affirming and life-changing. On the face of it, nothing much happened. But underneath my skin, where the soul-whispers are, everything happened. Three months of asana classes, pranayama practices n, Samkhya philosophy classes, Yoga Sutra talks, sattvic food, a visit to the neighbourhood fruit shop, quick chai–getaways, more readings on Vedic philosophy and many minutes of meditation. There was a new world before me or maybe I had simply stumbled into the depths of my own being and awareness.
Three months, with an intensity that allowed me to reacquaint myself with life and maybe even the idea of who I was and what I was doing here in this thing called life. The journey may have been uncomfortable as I confronted all that lay latent within me, repressed even.
But let’s start at the beginning:
In 2013 I arrived in India, as the Consul General of Ecuador. In 2018 the new government extended its trust in me and appointed me Ambassador of Ecuador in India until 2021. During this time, I felt an urgent need to deepen the little knowledge I had about yoga: its philosophy and its technology, my excuses never allowed it. I returned to Ecuador, frustrated with myself for having postponed my human, spiritual and intellectual commitment to studying yoga.
At the beginning of this year with my wife Toya, we made the decision to leave everything and no longer postpone our much-displaced desire; we contacted “The Yoga Institute” in Mumbai (the oldest organised Yoga centre in the world). What caught my attention the most was the Institute’s emphasis on the philosophy and psychology of yoga. We arrived in Mumbai in the month of July and joined young people from all over India and several countries around the world: Syria, New Zealand, Ukraine, the United States, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, after so many excuses and waiting we began the “3 Month Teacher Training Course Program.”
It was a three-month journey into the depths of our being, we were transported to the very beginning of Indian civilization and we were finally able to understand why yoga is a technology available to all those who want to adopt it in their lives, regardless of your religion. Yoga is a technology because it is a set of practices and techniques designed to improve and transform the mind, body and spirit. Yoga uses a combination of asanas (physical postures), pranayama (breath control), and meditation to achieve balance and harmony in all areas of life. In addition, yoga also includes philosophical and ethical principles that guide behaviour and thinking. In essence, yoga is a systematic tool or method that can be applied to achieve self-realization and comprehensive well-being.
In life we have milestones that mark our existence, in my case having been Ambassador in India was one of them, and now these three months of education in the deep knowledge of yoga have allowed me to understand that it can be adapted, adopted, accepted and appreciated for what the universe gives us (whether positive or negative).
By Ambassador Hector Cueva Jacome
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