Express News Service
KOCHI:There are many ancient knowledge - principles and theories - which has been around for God knows how long. Some have faded into obscurity or now just exist as showpieces in museums. Whereas, there are some, from which people choose based on what they think is relevant in the current hustle and bustle, and follow them. One such entity is yoga. It’s been with mankind for centuries. Right now, rather than acknowledging the fact that yoga can guide a person to spiritual maturity, many people take it as just a bunch of stretching practices.
Now, this is where Malaysia-based yoga trainer Shailaja Menon comes to the rescue. (Uhm, not in the James Bond kind of way, but more on the lines of Star Wars’ Yoda kind of way.) She has written a book Yoga Shakti: Awaken Your Own Power, which will hit the stores on June 21, the International Yoga Day. Her book is an ‘ice-cold water on your face on a freezing morning’ to one’s wrong notions about yoga.
Shailaja seeks to inspire people to the philosophy of yoga. “Yoga is not about the body,” she says. “It is about the holistic element of the body. When one approaches yoga in a holistic way, one’s mind gets involved, deepening their awareness as part of the process. Subsequently, one becomes present at the moment. And that is when the transformation begins. One makes an inner, deeper connection between mind, body and breath. To put it in simpler terms, through learning about one’s mind, one can connect to the unknown.”
According to Shailaja, her book is the need of the hour for those wishing to practice yoga. “People are clueless,” she says. “They need to know yoga is not merely a stretching exercise. There is more to it. To gain an authentic way of living, one needs to have a deeper, greater understanding of the connection between the mind and body. Asanas (postures) and pranayama (breathing exercises) only serve to enhance this understanding.”
Yoga Shakti comprises of 12 chapters. “I have themed each chapter with questions for the readers and respective asanas,” Shailaja says. Published by Niyogi Books, New Delhi, the book was launched by Shashi Tharoor MP in Malaysia on May 20. He wrote the foreword for the book as well.
Shailaja is a certified Manasa Yoga trainer and conducts sessions in her studio ‘Mat & Beyond Yoga Studio’ in Selangor, Malaysia. “I follow the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, who is considered the father of yoga,” she says.
“I opened my studio six years ago. Before that, I was trained by Manoj Kaimal and used to do freelance yoga training. I have been teaching yoga for more than 16 years now.”However, her tryst with yoga began 18 years ago in Coimbatore after the birth of her first son. At the time, her mentor was Mataji Divyananda of Integral Yoga, Coimbatore.
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