YOUR DAY IS TO SHORT

Articles In This Section:

· STRESS IN THE WORLD

· NOT ORDINARY MORTALS

· YOUR DAY IS TO SHORT

· BENIFITS YOGA HAS TO OFFER

· YOGA SAGES

· SPIRITUAL PRACTICE OF YOGA

For the average Westerner there exists an altogether different approach—a serviceable adaptation, as distillation of Eastern methods, which for purposes of clarity I have chosen to call Yogism. Stripped to bedrock, here is a technique in the form of mental and physical disciplines that may readily be incorporated into our day-by-day existence. One needn't make a career of it. Thus Yogism may and does serve as an easy, pleasant road to self-discovery and well-being and will help anyone willing to approach it with an open mind. Yet there is no need to devote more time to it each day than it takes to smoke a cigarette, drink a second cup of coffee and listen to newscasts after breakfast, lunch and dinner.

If you are an average man or women coping with just average problems, here is what you are doubtless up against: Your day is too short. You rush to work in the morning and home at night, fighting your way through crowds and traffic tangles. You work under pressure on the job or in the home, and at the end of the day you are up against more pressures: Bills must be paid, expenses budgeted, chores taken care of after hours; your children bring their problems to you; the household absorbs all your energy; family life makes endless demands on your emotional and physical resources. And even though you love your kin and give of yourself willingly, there are times when things simply pile up and threaten to overwhelm you.

The same holds true for your work-world: In the course of any single day you are up against a dozen unforeseen complications—there are delays, disappointments, errors, misunderstandings, irritations and similar minor crises. Heaven help you if, on top of all this, a major crisis looms. All at once you feel driven beyond your capacity.

Different people have different ways of responding to all these pressures. Some panic, others lose their temper or become paralyzed. The physiological reactions vary too, but chances are they will manifest themselves (in addition to snapping at others or indulging in what the French call a crise de nerfs, freely translated as the "screaming memes") in symptoms such as headache, insomnia, backaches, nervous ticks, hives, stomach upsets. Keep the tensions up, let them begin to feel insoluble, and the body protests by escaping into psychogenic illnesses—illnesses that are very real indeed, but whose causes are mental rather than strictly physical. Next come the perpetual frowns, the wrinkles, the graying hair, a general sense of defeat and of growing old before one's time.

Yet none of this misery is inevitable, if you only make up your mind not to let it get its insidious hold on you. That's where the practice of Yoga can be of such enormous help. Think of Yoga as a tool that will help you banish fear, and the fear of fear. Think of it as a key to spiritual freedom. Give yourself a chance to reshape your own destiny.