Difference between Yogi, Bhogi, and Rogi

Yogi – A yogi has discipline to follow a path of higher purpose and wisdom that has been set out in history and is time tested. There is no personality of liking this and wanting that which is getting in the way of them making any choices as there is no choice to their perception, only from someone else’s perception would there be a choice and this may make a yogi look strict or rigid to someone who is not. (say like having a brownie, no choice, not happening)

Bhogi – one who eats the world – partaking of the material world and has little to no discipline although they think they do. Their minds are covered with rajas and tamas, they are about enjoying life and push away from anything that causes anything but enjoyment. Their perception is cloudy and dull at best. They live a life seeking pleasure and because pain is the opposite side to that coin, they constantly moving from one to the next back to the other. Discernment is lacking as well. They are into what is fashionable and popular at the moment. They wait for six hours in line for an iphone the first day it comes out or posting pictures of themselves in yoga poses on instagrama and social media.

Rogi – Roga means disease. A rogi is one who lives a life of creating their own disease in their ignorance. Even if they don’t realize it, they are burdened by disease in their life. They cannot experience happiness because of health; of the body and mind, is the first step to happiness. Having disease is like having a ball and chain shackled to your ankle and worse. Their senses and perception do not work properly and are inhibited so their discernment is also and thus the choices they make are not made in benefit of their health. It is said that someone with jaundice will see a white wall as yellow. This says it all. They cannot see anything but through the eyes or senses of their disease. They do not know anything else. It is beyond their perception.

 

There is a poem…………

 

A yogi eats once a day, a bhogi eats twice, a rogi eat three times a day, and it takes four men to carry you to the funeral pyre

 

Unwrapping this poem:

A person of living a spiritual path of yoga eats only once a day

One who is of the enjoyment of the world eats twice a day

One who eats three times a day ends up diseased

And one who eats more than 3 times a day sees their death early.

 

 

This poem is known all over India as vast amounts of knowledge are handed down through poems and vachana like this.

The yogi eating once a day is quoted in several texts. One of which is Charaka Samhita, the main text of Ayurveda. it is quoted there at least twice.

This also is much more proof of the ignorance of Western/Modern yoga with its yoga raw yoga diets, juicing, and Western detoxes which have absolutely nothing at all to do with yoga or ayurvedic knowledge.

Everything in this realm is so deep and has nothing to connect with the Western world.

 

This also needs to be looked at in a way to understand it. I had a person after reading this say, “so I should eat once a day then?” Well, of course not. What are you is really the question. Everyone and their mother is identified as being a yogi today in the western world like cabbage patch kids were popular in the 80’s. It is a fad. That is all. If you live in the Western world you are not a yogi, just that plain and simple. Sorry. Just because you have subscribed to paying for an exercise certification under the auspices of yoga, does not make one a yogi. A yogi lives a very ascetic life. That is so beyond obvious to the people of India. They come from a culture that understands what a householder is, that has levels of understanding of life that the West is just defunct of having because it just simply goes against the culture. So no, don’t eat once a day unless you live in the woods, are in meditation all day, and have a real sadhana.

What you can get from the deeper meaning in this is that the less you eat the healthier you will be. The modern world is a world of excess and bhoga. The mind is in control of almost everything. To control the mind fasting is the best. That is its main function spiritually. Infact, it is the highest sadhana. Vrata. When you do not feed the mind, which is what you are actually doing, feeding desires, the mind starts to release its grasp on you. The first step is to realize that you are not the mind, that is also the hardest step in the Western culture where everything is about identification and desires to the point even detachment and spiritual paths are now identifications and attachments as well as goals and achievement.

 

This differentiation also relates to sleeping positions:

It is stated that a yogi sleeps on their left side, a bhogi sleeps on their right side, and a rogi sleeps on their back.

This is actually very much correct when it comes to the physiology.

12 thoughts on “Difference between Yogi, Bhogi, and Rogi”

    • Yogis eat once a day. Are you a yogi?

      Actually, nothing is eaten after sunset, srotamsi close. So dinner would be right before the sunsets or right after. Nothing done at sandya.

      Since the agni is high at the peak of day, it would make sense that lunch as we call it would be the only meal of a yogi.

      Did you read the disclaimer page?

    • No offense at all. Hard to offend me. 🙂 We all are on our journeys. My point is to be real with the age we are in and what ones abilities and capacity is. it is a very romantic notion to just think that everyone is the same and anyone can reach moksha nomatter what. Changing the lifestyle and diet drastically creates disease.

  2. I really appreciate the thoughts. Reading the new western blogs on Yoga, I just feel how shallow they have made to this ageless science of self realization.

    Reply ↓

    • Manoj,
      Thanks for your comment and time.
      Yes, it is very sad. But it is what it is.

      Being in the West right now, and living between worlds, that is living half the year in India in the paradigm and half the year or less in the West gives a particularly interesting vantage point to see from for me. What i can relate back to you is first, at least you have enough sense, intelligence, and knowledge as well as lack of ego and discernment to not be swept up into that world. Most people do not have that….. how would they know better? This is what it really comes down to. They come from a world of sensory overload. Enjoyment and entertainment. Engrossed in ego and inflated while over stimulated to the point of delusion really. What is accessible to them is just what is written for sales and marketing for that world. The Western world is based only in achievement, which is externally focused. There is no presence there or self. So how would they ever have access or comprehension of anything else? And really what i am speaking to is the people writing books and articles.
      Everyone is a healer, yogi, shaman, etc etc here today. From my view, the mirror only shows the level of brokenness and lack of being able to help oneself and the need to help others or validate oneself by becoming a certified teacher after only several weeks.

      In my experience and education, anyone with any level of spiritual development is not out trying to save anyone. Just from the very fundamental comprehension of karma and yoga, the creation of karma is the opposite direction from the real path. Maya is maya. Not gonna play in it and say one is beyond it. Being helpful, sure….. trying to teach everyone…. no. Impossible and not even real since all the real work is internal anyway.
      But where is their knowledge coming from????? Short courses taught by people set out to make money and make a living? Books written for Westerners? As an example, the Dalai Lama is writing tons of books on self improvement and self development…. if you have ever done any study into any of the ancient texts of Buddhism, where is that stuff in them? What is the difference between spirituality and self help? In my education they are in opposite directions, one towards god, the other towards self absorption. That is the culture of the western/modern world. God is a four letter word here and religion a dogmatic controlling system from their eyes.
      How are they supposed to know?
      So as you see all of that out there, have compassion. It is their suffering and karma. Just have gratitude that your eyes are open and brain is functioning. There are so many different levels, so many different people. Not everyone is given access, not everyone even wants to live the life of a Brahmin or monk or whatever. But to pretend one is a yogi…… it just fashion.

  5. Hello, I have enjoyed reading your blog – appreciate the more in-depth, authentic approach. I’m curious why the rant against, say, the Dalai Lama writing something helpful for the general public? We all need a guru to light the path for us. Sure, we are in the material world and being a monk in the forest is maybe not our dharma this time. But whats the harm learning from wiser people?

    Reply ↓

    • Hi SArora, thanks for the comment. Its complicated. What can I say? From a mundane world persons perspective things look like one thing and from another view things look completely different. I just spoke to a woman the other day who was just with the Dalai lama in Nepal somewhere. She went on about Richard Gere and how he is her hero. Of course Richard Gere has front row relations with the Dalai Lama. Why? hmmm. Gotta think about that. After her sharing she asked me about India and my time there. She asked to see pictures and i got to some pictures of Kamakhya Temple in Assam and the sacrifice goats there. She went off about nonviolence and how it should not be allowed and how wrong it is and and and….. And I just sat there and wondered where any real buddhist teachings where taught to her at all much less any awareness about anything, except Richard Gere. I asked her if she knows anything about what they do and why in Bali? She said no. I asked her if she has ever experienced anything with any sort of equanimity and putting aside her own beliefs and she looked puzzled. So i explained that how is what she is doing, projecting her own ideas that she is not living and has read in books or what she has heard by listening to the Dalai Lama is anything other than the violence she is so violently against in her nonviolence. I lost her. Not enough awareness to follow it. I went on with a little more discourse but it all was for not because she has swallowed the wrong pill.
      This is just one of many experiences that I have, constantly.
      In India, do you have any idea how the Dalai Lama is thought of? Do you realize the amount of money he makes in a country turning people against their own religion? Hmmm.
      There are many levels to everything.
      Do you think what he writes is Budhhism? Is it his teachings and what is from the texts? Or is it main stream stuff made for the little mind that is stuck always searching for happiness and just feeding that?
      I have nothing against him. He is doing his karma. Is it wrong or right is not for me to judge. What I do see is the results of people taking watered down teachings and identifying with what they are not. Identifying with stuff that leads them into ignorance rather than truth.
      Notice here, this little blog. Notice that you even see that it is more indepth as you have noted. Notice you don’t find that in other blogs. “everybody should take Triphala” is stated by Dr. Lad and his sheep follow blindly with their lack of knowledge, yet here i state the truth of triphala and that it is not good for everyone and infact it is contraindicated for certain people, yet, the western world of ayurveda has turned triphala into its own industry. Think about this. maybe look at the cost of triphala now. Maybe look how it supports consumerism blindly. Maybe look at the bigger picture of it all for a moment. What is the harm being done with the little knowledge being put out or the watered down knowledge and then someone calling themselves a practitioner or something else and then sharing that ignorance?
      I would then put this into another context. There is a huge wave of pseudo spiritualism going on that is anti religion. But infact, if you look at all of what i wrote above, is it not exactly the same thing as the religions that they are against? More so, is it not the exact same reasons of power and oppression that they are against that they are actually creating in their ignorance?

      A little further would be to point out what is a guru? Without knowledge and just the cultural appropriation of the Western world, we take a guru as a teacher with nothing at all known about what is actually a guru. It requires depth of study which is inherently missing in our western culture and then is left to what IS the superficial knowledge and attachments that we make with our meanings.

      Okay, off my soap box.

      I have nothing at all against the Dalai Lama. I do have a big stop sign on a stick that I stick firmly into the ground of ignorant fad ideas and misunderstanding being promoted. There is also much more behind or under what I write here. I do not expect random mundane western world people to grasp it, how can they if they do not have the experience of all that is actually going on behind the scenes and are only reading books?

      Shall I not write of these things and keep everything in a love love love view of everything is alright and go ahead and destroy knowledge and tradition and wisdom? Isn’t that what you saying is good about the blog is that it goes more indepth? Shall i not share the experiences that corespond with the ignorance? Like when i went to the Ayurvedic Institute, Dr. Lad diagnosed me with 3 different prakritis at various times yet he is rejoiced by his students as well as his book by how the pulse diagnosis that he teaches is so precise on 7 different levels…. which is no where in Ayurveda nor other modalities such as chinese medicine or unani or etc etc etc? Shall i not point out that David Frawleys book states that in winter time that one is to go on an anti kapha diet which is totally opposite from what the foundational knowledge of Ayurveda is? Shall I not point out that Dr. Lad has written a home Panchakarma in his remedies book with no diagnosis or contraindications, yet anyone that has any knowledge at all about panchakarma can see how utterly foolish and harmful this is to superficialize deep knowledge and put it out into a world that has no context for it much less the education to even have the awareness as to how harmful this would be to people just following without the education? Just keep it on the happy happy joy joy level right?

      Do we need a guru to light the path? Sure. Do you actually think the Dalai Lama is one? Or Oprah? Or Deepak Chopra? Really? Do a weekend workshop and you are now certified to teach meditation? Seriously? Its a Zumba (2 hour teacher certification) and yelp.com world in the mundane.

Leave a comment