Deepika.BurliBengaluru: As yoga guru Baba Ramdev took the stage, the audience laughed at his witticisms, swayed to his devotional songs and cheered his nationalist remarks. The founder of Patanjali Yogpeeth, Uttarakhand, was speaking at Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (S-VYASA yoga university), where he was felicitated on Thursday."Yoga is my life and worship. Prosperity, on the other hand, is a by-product of practising yoga every day since I was nine years old," said Ramdev, as hundreds of yoga enthusiasts and researchers from the institution listened with rapt attention.The yoga guru said machines have taken over the jobs of the poor, and his brand, Patanjali, will employ five lakh youngsters and five crore farmers in the years to come. "There will come a time when international companies will exit India. That's when machines will be replaced with people and the poor will have jobs once again. Wearing handmade clothes will become a reality and people will stop buying machine-made products," he said.Prime Minster Narendra Modi's Yoga guru, HR Nagendra, who's also the chancellor of S-VYASA, spoke on the relevance of meditation. "When the British came to India, they had the belief that there were only two levels of the mind — one where the mind is lazy, lethargic, silent and meditative and other when it is fast, sharp and brilliant. So anyone engrossed in meditation was considered worthless...It was much later that the distinction between a lazy and transcendent mind was made. Calming the mind is not being lazy. Instead, it is the third level of the mind, which is better than a sharp and fast mind," Nagendra explained.-------------------------Head: Those who do some form of service are criticizedIn an interview to TOI, the yoga guru spoke on how youngsters were increasingly taking to yoga, the popularity of his brand, Patanjali and how he deals with criticism.Why is yoga becoming popular across the country and the world?In today's world, people are battling stress, insomnia, loneliness and lifestyle diseases like obesity and cancer. They have started understanding the only solution to their problems is yoga. When it becomes a necessity, no government or country has the power to stop it from becoming popular.How about the youth? Why are they attracted to yoga so much?Youngsters are taking to yoga in two ways — either they make it their career and spend their entire lives practising and preaching yoga or they use it as a tool to improve their productivity, creativity, divinity and positivity. Whatever be the reason, yoga is a becoming a part of their lives. However, few are able to master pure yoga. But every little step counts and is better than not performing yoga at all. Some may meditate and some may exercise, but as long as yoga is practised, there is no need to compare which is better.After initial inhibitions, now almost every household has at least one or two Patanjali products. How did you bring about this change?We ensured our products were of world-class quality, sold them at affordable prices and most importantly, attached a spirit of nationalism to the brand. All the profits made are diverted to charity. So people started believing in the brand. The trust cannot be shaken. We aim to increase the popularity by leaps and bounds in the next five years.How do you handle criticism? Doesn't it affect you?When facing criticism, I believe in just one thing — people don't criticize the dead. They only criticize those who are living and are doing some form of service. That's my motto and that's how I never let criticism affect me.

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