20 July 2013 - QA 3

I know a lot of people who are very skilled and successful at my work place, yet they do not practice yoga or meditation. Is yoga a prerequisite for skill in action? How does practicing yoga make one more skilled?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Every baby is a yogi. A baby does all the yoga asanas, and has all those qualities.

Now, you may say that this person does do any good deeds, yet he is having a good time! How do you know? He may have done something good in the past; he may have been a yogi in his previous life. Now he is just enjoying the fruit of those actions.

Yoga is not just doing some asanas, it is a state of mind, of uniting yourself with the existence, with the truth, with the cosmic mind or the big mind.
The small mind becoming one with the big mind, that itself is a joyful thing. You don’t need to look for an excuse not to do it. If you don’t want to do yoga and be skillful, go ahead, be skillful. Skill in action is a result of yoga, and silence is the mother of all talents. A few moments of deep silence brings up many talents within you.