Yoga and Sacred Geometry

This International Day of Yoga Nitya Rajagopal looks at this ancient science from the prism of sacred geometry and concludes that it helps the yogi connect with higher cosmic energies

- Nitya Rajagopal

Today, yoga is highly sought after for its health and wellness benefits. All over the world, avid practitioners swear by its ability to bring balance in body, mind and lifestyle. For people who may not be especially interested in the spiritual potential of yoga, these physical and mental benefits represent the pinnacle of their yogic practice, because they automatically uplift the quality of their lives in a way that can be directly experienced. But for some, who took to yoga to unlock and experience different dimensions of their own consciousness, such tangible benefits are only the beginning. They are the soil in which the knowledge and practice of yoga can take root, blossom and bear fruit.

Decoding union

The word yoga means union, and comes from the Sanskrit root “yuj”, which means to unite. Theoretically, one might interpret this in multiple ways, for example, the union between the individual and the universal consciousness. Intellectually, it sounds plausible. But what does it really mean? What is the “individual”? What is the “universal”? And what is this union between the two? How does it occur?

In modern parlance, the individual and the universal sound like opposing terms, but they have a unique relationship in the ancient Indian tradition. In yoga, the metaphor often used is that of waves in an ocean, where the individual consciousness is likened to a wave rising out of the ocean of universal consciousness.

The secret of sacred geometry