the Swami who stands apart - Baba Ramdev

Last night whilst switching channels we came across Swami Ramdev. He was saying something about health and Ivy was immediately interested. We listened and for the next 45 minutes were hooked. He was speaking and we listened. And listened. And were in complete agreement. Not because of his charisma but because of the content. It made complete sense.

Baba Ramdev, as he is popularly known as, is particularly known for his efforts in popularizing Yoga as it is enunciated in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. He is one of the founders of the Divya Yog Mandir Trust headquartered in Haridwar, that aims to popularize Yoga and offer Ayurvedic treatments. 

The first part of his discourse was on Yoga breathing exercises, called Pranayamas. He mainly focused on a breathing exercise that anybody who can breathe can easily do. "Kapalbhati Pranayama". This pranayama consists of rapid forced exhales followed by passive inhales. In between demonstrating this exercise, he spoke about the benefits to the various parts of the body.

He was aware and was mapping each of the internal organs, their functions, the benefits the exercise would give to each part and their interdependence and impact on each other. It was amazing. Even a medical physician was impressed not only at the depth of knowledge but the art of being able to present it correctly and accurately to common folks. In a language they could understand.

The New York Times calls him an "Indian who built Yoga Empire", "a product and symbol of the New India, a yogic fusion of Richard Simmons, Dr. Oz and Oprah Winfrey, irrepressible and bursting with Vedic wisdom".

You can visit his website that is filled with quite a few interesting insights into his organization.
 http://www.divyayoga.com/

The most interesting part however is the huge collection of over 50 videos, many in English, that teach various yoga exercises. These are categorized into wellness related and disease related.
http://www.divyayoga.com/yoga-a-pranayam-videos.html

And as if this wasn't enough, he surprised at least me. He asked the audience for 2 more minutes of thoughts to finish his discourse. And talked about the primary issues facing the nation. His list of 3.

1. Distribution of GDP by sector.
Whilst Agriculture is around 16%, Manufacturing 27%, Service is 57%. This leads to major lack of balance in supply and consumption. His solution - Governmental policies and incentives to increase Agriculture and Manufacturing to around 33% each.

2. Corruption
I guess you don't need to be Einstein to identify this problem. His figures suggested that around 5 trillion USD is lying overseas. And around that much within the country. His solutions. Make all large currency notes (Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000) illegal, with a 1 month period in which it can be returned to banks, if the source can be shown. This would make all ill gotten and illegal cash of zero value. It would also make being corrupt a little difficult, because of the sheer volume of the physical notes. The 2nd to sign treaties with various overseas countries to declare Indian owned deposits and repatriate them legally if their owners are unable to show the source of their income.

3. Political Accountability
Ultimately change can only be brought by having a conscientious political class that was honest and willing to be accountable for their actions.And since the current politicians were neither honest nor accountable Baba Ramdev has done the next best thing. Launched his own party, the "Bharat Swabhiman", which plans to contest all 543 Lok Sabha seats in the next elections.
http://bharat-swabhiman.com/en/

Here's hoping and wishing Baba Ramdev all the luck with the hope that he will succeed in his dreams. And more important, that if and when he does get the power he desires, he remembers this unfortunate truth.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.