One question I get asked often is, “Sumit, what is the goal of yoga?” And to be honest, my answer depends on who’s asking. If it’s someone new to yoga, I’ll keep it simple—focusing on health, fitness, and stress release.
But when I’m teaching in a teacher training, where the audience is eager to dive deeper into the practice, I like to use an analogy that makes the deeper purpose of yoga easier to understand.
I say, “Imagine you’re stuck at a traffic light. What colors do you see? Red, yellow, and green, right?”
Now, let’s imagine you’re in Savasana at the end of class—your mind, which is usually restless and racing, suddenly comes to a complete halt. For that brief moment, you experience true stillness.
That’s where the first color comes in: R for Red—Rest. In that moment of stillness, your mind rests. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. It's a profound sense of rest that we rarely experience because our minds are constantly moving. Yoga brings us to this state where the restlessness stops, and all that’s left is silence.
Once you’ve found that rest, you’re ready to experience the next color: Yellow—Self-Realization. Just like the yellow light signals caution or pause, this stage is about pausing from your everyday identity. It’s that moment when you realize you’re more than just your body, mind, and emotions. You start to see beyond the surface of who you think you are, and begin to understand the deeper you—the part of you that exists beyond the physical.
And finally, after experiencing self-realization, you get to the green light: Green—God-Realization. It’s that sense of connection to something greater than yourself, that inner knowing that goes beyond words. It’s the realization of the divine within you, the ultimate stillness that leads you to recognize, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
This is one of the simplest ways I’ve found to explain the deeper meaning of yoga. We start with Rest, which brings us to Self-Realization, and finally, we arrive at God-Realization.
Each step is necessary to move forward, just like a traffic light guiding us on the road. And yoga is the practice that takes us through each of these stages, from restlessness to realization, and ultimately, to peace.
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