“Hatha Yoga maintains youth long. It keeps the body full of vitality, immune to diseases, even at old, old age. The Yogi never becomes old.” -Bishnu Ghosh
The acceptance of Yoga as preventive medicine and performance enhancer has swept across America like a hurricane. Elite athletes, celebrities, businessmen, and people from all walks of life are using its principles to transform themselves, at times with staggering results. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, undeniably one of the greatest basketball players ever, has this to say:
“Basketball is an endurance sport, and you have to learn to control your breath that’s the essence of yoga, too. So, I consciously began using yoga techniques in my practice and playing. I think yoga helped reduce the number and severity of injuries I suffered. As preventative medicine, it’s unequaled.”
In the last hundred years America and the Western world, in general, has woken up to the powerful ancient Indian practice of Yoga, particularly Hatha Yoga. Hatha is the authentic name for the physical branch of Yoga postures. But in India Hatha Yoga has never been about the staggering physical results. Hatha Yoga has always been about achieving power over the body to transcend the body.
We use the body to forget the body!
Through Hatha Yoga we use the body as a launch pad, to get in touch with our deeper self. The ancient Yogis devised Hatha practice as a preparatory step to Yoga Pranayama and Meditation. The belief in Yoga philosophy is we touch our highest potential only when we forget we are a mere body made of blood, flesh, and bones. Our highest potential is our ability to touch the love, joy, and beauty within us. Through this we can attract our one true love, our ideal partner.
Hatha Yoga also generates a host of benefits as by-products of achieving command over the body including incredible physical results like a slowed aging process, a mostly injury- and disease-free existence, high energy, and a physically fit and great-looking body. According to Yoga philosophy having a weak, unfit, and unbalanced body is extremely susceptible to diseases, rapid aging, injuries, fatigue, and other limitations creating an obstacle to our greater awareness of who we are. It acts as a barrier to our love channel. Hence, the Yoga masters devised a set of physical postures called Hatha Yoga that balances the energy in the chakras and gets us to our ideal shape.
The Ideal Shape and Love
You are probably wondering right about now, “What ideal shape must I be in to attract my ideal partner in love?” And maybe you are responding to that thought with, “I am more apt to find love if I am muscular and toned, or if I have a great six-pack of abs.”
Okay, yes, good muscle tone is a potential indicator of a healthy body but that is not what is going to attract your true love. There are millions in this world who have an amazing body but who still repeatedly attract only bodymates or painmates. I am writing about being in your ideal spiritual body shape so that you can attract a person who will love you for who you are and not for your body. Being in your ideal shape has nothing to do with society’s image of the perfect-looking body. What then exactly does it have to do with? Before we get into the Yoga of it, when you look at your naked self every morning in the bathroom mirror, what do you see? How do you feel about what you see? Are you happy with it? If you are not, you are not in your ideal shape.
Ideal shape is an extension of how you feel inside mentally about yourself, and ideal body is an extension of that fit mind. We are not just physical beings. We are psychophysical beings, meaning, If we are happy on the inside then we start radiating that happiness outside.
So, the ideal shape has both psychological and physical components to it. Psychological states like sadness and happiness have corresponding or parallel physical components. If we smile on the outside it indicates internal happiness. So if you want to know if you are in your ideal shape right now, read the three questions that follow and see if you can answer “yes” to each.
1. Do you have a strong immune system?
Mel was a very muscular guy who almost lived in the gym! He looked strong and fit because he was lifting a lot. One problem, though, was that Mel got sick a lot. Every flu season he was one of the first to catch the flu.
Lifting weights has nothing to do with building a strong immune system. One great indicator of being in your ideal shape is being physically healthy all the time. A healthy body arises from an abundance of Prana. Whenever there is Prana depletion in the body, the body is susceptible to sickness. So having a strong immune system is an absolute necessity for an ideal shape.
Through Yoga Asanas and a healthy, proper, diet you can build an extremely strong immune system where even if you gets sick occasionally your recovery time is really fast. In both this, and the diet chapter, there are lots of tips about leading a disease-free life.
2. Do you love your body as it is?
One of my students, Andrea, has always been skinny, which a lot of people would call a blessing. But Andrea felt she needed to put on some weight. This surprised me because, to my eyes, she looked great. Andrea told me she felt strong and happy, but she felt she could do with a little more weight. I gave her some tips and she gained weight, but then she told me she didn’t feel right in her new shape even thought she had reached the weight she wanted. After a few months, she went back to her old weight and felt great about it. The two of us ultimately realized Andrea had already been in her ideal shape, but her childhood programming had her thinking she was too skinny.
Do not let your environment, your family, or society dictate what body shape must be right for you. As long as you are happy, healthy, disease-free, and feeling good you are in your ideal shape. Loving your body is an indicator of being in an ideal shape.
You may already be in your ideal shape if you are leading a Yoga lifestyle, but if not follow some of the Yoga postures and cardio exercises in this chapter to get there. If you wish, you may also want to take some yoga classes.
3. Are you strong enough to get through the day with energy?
Are you one of those kinds of people who always look and feel tired, where you can’t get through the day without a regular dose of caffeine?
The third indicator of being in your ideal shape is you are able to get through the day with enough energy, and without crashing by midway. If you truly feel you need caffeine to help you, chances are, you may not be in your ideal shape.
An accumulation of carbon in the blood, arising from improper breathing, incorrect posture, and not having enough exercise could be the main reasons for your lack of energy. Read further in this chapter about two key factors that can contribute to your ideal shape and energy level: namely cardiovascular strength, and spinal flexibility. Being in ideal shape is such a personal journey. It helps to just keep getting healthier than you were last year.
"It is about learning to love from the inside out. Yes a big part of the book is about Yoga, but the core message of it , is learning to and how to love yourself on the inside. It emphasizes so much on focusing on yourself, that is such a refreshing perspective on relationships.” Paulina D, San Diego, CA
"The core message of the book is before you unite with someone try to unite with yourself. It is learning about yourself, finding yourself and then if you choose to you can find love on the outside . The book gives ways to do just that in simple step by step way.” 
"Yoga is a life long process and the goal of life is self exploration. The book inspires me to make myself whole, integrated, to feel complete unto myself. Once I do that , I will attract a holistic, integrated person who is a totality of himself, which is how a relationship is supposed to be.” 
"Yoga is love, love is Yoga. It is not a relationship book, it is not just a love book, it is a lifestyle book. It is educational, informative, a message that everybody can apply. It teaches you how to be a better person, so that you don’t just find the love of your life but learn to have better relationships with everyone.” 