1. What started it all
It was an ordinary school biology lesson. Everything was as usual, nothing special, except for one detail: almost all the boys in my class explored the capabilities of their bodies - they held their breath as long as they could and measured it with a stopwatch.
This idea did not come to their minds as collective enlightenment, it was an action planned by me. At that time, I had already been seriously engaged in athletics for two years at a sports school and had practiced this many times. My record at that time was 2 minutes and 30 seconds. For classmates, these were unattainable results, and this awakened of their natural interest and excitement.
The biology teacher was not angry at our pranks, but invited me to come to him after the lesson. The theme of our conversation later became the main in my life. We were talking about yoga! Hryhoriy Maksymchuk said that I can practice yoga and improve myself that way.
For the next lesson, he brought me a book in which the main pranayams and some asanas were described in detail. Such books were very rare at that time, so I copied this book into a notebook. My first conscious steps into the world of yoga began with the pranayams in this book. But my practices started earlier. At the age of 12, I started running in a sports school. Preparation of a runner for medium and long distances is good practice and a real asceticism. At that time, I wanted to become a famous runner, although in reality I was driven forward by forces that sought self-improvement.
2. An important event
The next important event worth mentioning happened in August 1989. I was then 16 years old. Nothing allegedly happened but however happened everything and the river of my life came out from own shore. Awareness always comes unexpectedly, and never possible to prepare for it or predict it. And like a thread follows a needle, so and an energy follow the awareness which transforms the life and attracts as a magnet everything we need. In my case, the awareness started a potential latent memory of my past experience and my samskaras. So I became a Yogi who went looking for God and diviness.
Two long years which were filled with pain and joy I hed to pass before samething happened. My burning mind was rewarded with freedom! Unexpectedly and suddenly something in me stopped for a moment, however before I had a few days of intense internal tension that it seemed as if I about to explode. The best thing that happens to us is when the mind does not interfere.
Then another long year was needed for the waters of the river to meet the boundless waters of the ocean, for the individual to dissolve in the infinite, for what had taken form to return to the primal. No matter how long the path is, it inevitably leads us to the goal, leads to the realization of the goal in oneself. My path was not an easy walk. Although formally I didn't have a teacher, but I always felt a connection with my Guru. I have always felt the support and flow of the love from those I didn't know, but I felt a constant presence, from those whom I called Mahatmas in my mind. During that period, my teacher was everything that happened on my path.
3. Sport and education
On the second day after the first workout I barely got out of the bed, and at the school I went down the stairs only with my back forward because my legs and press hurt a lot. When it got easier, I went to train again. A week later, I got intention and decided to become a serious runner.
What prompted me to do this? I did not stand out with physical natural abilities, and even among all the boys in my class I occupied the honorable penultimate place. Some impetus from inside which manifested itself as an unwavering intention to become a professional runner, like an icebreaker, paved its way. And so my intention and diligence paid off. After three months of training I won second place among pupils in my school in running for 2 kilometers and got into the school team. It should be noted that I trained on my own and information on how to train properly took from the book by the Olympic champion Nikolay Ozolin. It lasted nine months. I finished sixth grade and went to seventh, however didn't leave workout and even kept a diary (I learned about it from the book) in which carefully recorded everything did in workout. (In seventeen years of playing sports, I have accumulated quite a lot of such diaries.)
After nine months of self-training, when I was in the seventh grade I first met my coach Serhiy Chaika (many years later he will receive Guru Diksha from Pilot Baba and will be named Shiva Shankar). Serhiy became not only my coach but also my friend.
So, I was completely fascinated by sports. I don't remember ever missing a workout. Less than a year later, when I being in the eighth grade, I became the champion of the region and performed at the championship of country. These were distances of 400 and 800 meters. And the following year in the 300-meter hurdles, I fulfilled the standard of the first adult category. For all my sports life, I had many starts at different distances. However, for the last seven years of my running career I specialized in marathon running, covering tens, hundreds and thousands of kilometers. For example, in 2001 I ran 7000 kilometers. A marathon is a serious test of body and mind, so training should be appropriate. Sometimes I ran from 40 to 60 kilometers in a day and in a week was even more than 200 kilometers (the most in a week was 264 km).
Such sports austerities are necessary for those who want to become one of the strongest runners in the world. However, in my case, another intention worked, and I did’nt become such a runner. This intention directed my energies not outside but inside, namely to self-knowledge and self-realization and long-distance runner sports training have become good yogic practices that harden the body and mind, making them an instrument of the spirit and an excellent testing ground for willpower. Without the use of this force, yoga practices are no different from acrobatics or fitness and any activity can turn into yoga if there is the right concentration. A true yogi remains a yogi always, whether one practices or not. Yoga is a unidirectional flow of consciousness and when concentration of mind becomes absolute then not practice is the highest practice.
Ironically, my first education was not related to sports. I even have a diploma with honors, although I have never worked in my specialty. However, I received a master's degree in physical education and sports by writing a bachelor's and master's thesis on yoga. The offer to continue my studies in graduate school and continue to teach yoga at the university did not find a response in me. I wanted to be a free yogi, so working as an athletics coach, apart from the bureaucratic moments, was the most favorable for me. In general, as a coach, I have 20 years of experience working with teenagers and adult athletes.
The sports page of my life, which lasted for almost thirty years, it has been turned. Sport was a great opportunity for me to gain invaluable practical and theoretical experience. It was a serious austerity. So not a single kilometer of training was in vain, everything remained in me like money in a bank deposit.
4. I become Yogi Isha
Between words in a sentence is a gap. There is also a gap between two consecutive sounds. There is also gaps between everything that exists. Between Guru and disciple is a gap too. Disciple can have a sincere devotion to his Guru and this is a wonderful relationship. However, a disciple can enter into a gap between himself and his Guru. In this gap Guru and disciple do not exist, there is only the truth itself. Is there a necessity for Guru? Yes! He is needed in order to exist the both and the gap between them.
A long path is overcome by man walking life. Various life situations then slow down, then speed up the movement forward and it often happens that a person is constantly moving, as if in a circle. It is a great fortune to meet on our way who can be a Guru for us. A true Guru is not just a spiritual master who gives us knowledge and guidance, it is an inseparable part of ourselves in the presence of which our nature is revealed. There are no linguistic or spatial barriers to the relationship between the disciple and the Guru. The most important thing that happens in this relationship always happens without the help of words. Because the most valuable gifts of the Guru are not within the competence of the mind. So the best thing to do in the presence of the Guru is to resonate with him, to become receptive to his energy flows, and everything that is needed will manifest itself.
No matter when the first meeting with Guru happens, time doesn't matter in this relationship. The Disciple-Guru relationship is beyond the mind, beyond time and space. And when it happens you begin to realize that you have never met the Guru because you're never separated, because Guru is yourself. There are two and a gap between them, and when enter the gap then the two become one and then again there are two and the gap between them, this is how the game happens what called lilla.
I didn't meet my Guru in India, though he is a Hindu. My Guru Pilot Baba constantly travels the world telling people about yoga and helping them on their spiritual path. During one of Pilot Babaji's visits to Ukraine I received Guru Diksha and was named Yogi Isha.
5. It all depends only on us
My body is the house where my mind lives. My mind is the house in which my essence lives.
When I look at the starry sky, the Earth is like an insect in the endless cosmos. And when I look within myself, then the cosmos like a small fish that has dived into the ocean disappears into the Great Emptiness.
Samadhi exists constantly, regardless of whether someone enters it or exits it.
No one teaches anyone. Everyone learns himself. We can only share our experiences and tell about our path. Knowledge can come from anywhere, but from the inside comes the ability to assimilate knowledge, and whether we use it or not depends only on us.
The practice of yoga can completely heal the body, can strengthen the mind and make life happy, but for that to happen we need to have the intention. Must have an open heart and love, and if there is concentration, if there is intention, then everything becomes possible. True intention opens the door to samadhi. True intention leads us to the Truth and leads us to the God.