EXPRESSING FRUSTRATIONS

Articles In This Section:

· HOW OFTEN DO WE GET SICK?

· EXPRESSING FRUSTRATIONS

· YOGA AND MEDICINE

· YOGA EXERCISE

· SELFKNOLEDGE OF YOGA

Western civilization has for centuries laid so much stress on the individual and his happiness that more than any other group on earth we tend to allow ourselves to feel overwhelmed when personal happiness is lacking. We also tend to set up romantic goals, forever striving toward some perfect ending without end, then feeling devastated because life doesn't work that way. Hence the enormous discrepancy between our dreams and our realities, hence endless worry, tension and discontent.

Eastern philosophies in general take a vastly different view. The individual counts for less and therefore expects less from life; to put it another way, he neither starts out feeling as important to himself as we do, nor does he lay himself open to as much disappointment. In other words, he starts out with more of a sense of proportion about himself and his relationship to the cosmic whole. Yoga puts great stress on this.

Whether this is a better orientation than ours or one not as happy is beside the point. The fact remains that such a philosophy does keep the individual from being prey to the restlessness, unhappiness and hidden fears which help destroy us.

Our Western preoccupation with Self has for a long time been yielding bitter fruit. Among our neurotic Victorian grandparents it was the common thing for ladies to have the vapors and to faint dead away, and both women and strong men "took to their bed" when they felt powerless to cope with problems. Today, with medical science more probing and diagnosis more exact, we no longer fool ourselves with such simple tactics. Escape into illness has to take more subtle forms. It does. Needless to say the long list of disorders classed as psychogenic proves that it remains equally effective.

Our other way of expressing frustration is through mental disturbance of varying intensity and depth. (By this we mean psychiatric and psychological upsets as differentiated from mental illness of physical origin). Today in the United States about fifty percent of all hospital beds are occupied by mental patients. This is a staggering statistic made all the more formidable by doctors' statements about how many would-be patients remain undiagnosed. In addition we all know that every psychoanalyst, every psychiatrist setting up in practice throughout the country has more patients than he can handle. From this we must conclude that our unhappiness quotient has become the highest in the world. Yet ours is also the country with the highest standard of living, the highest per capita income, the most luxuries. Obviously something is seriously out of kilter somewhere.

The Yogi would tell us that we permit ourselves to be ruled and torn, looking for happiness outside rather than within. We do not clearly understand the difference between shadow and substance. We wear ourselves down with our unquiet.