BENIFITS YOGA HAS TO OFFER

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

At first it may sound far-fetched to claim that taking up the practice of Yogism or any other ism might help solve or even hold out the promise of solutions to objective problems. What, you may well ask, can a few breathing exercises, a few posture routines, bring to bear on whether or not the family budget can be stretched to cover the cost of those braces the dentist just said Johnny needs at once, without cutting into his precious college fund? And will it help build the addition to the house without which it will simply be murder to let your mother-in-law come to live with you?

Of course no one suggests such over-simplification. But consider this: Inasmuch as body and mind—or, if you will, the purely physical and the purely mental processes—are part of a single organic whole, it stands to reason that whatever affects the one will of necessity, directly or indirectly, affect the other. Therefore, just as emotional tensions often result in physical illness, so a state of physical well-being and relaxation can result in a more reasoned, relaxed approach to one's emotional problems and the tensions they bring on. And that, of course, is the first important step to being able to deal with them—the first step out of your quandary and in the direction of a solution.

But a more relaxed outlook on life is only one of the benefits that Yoga has to offer. To follow its precepts means learning to get more out of yourself, in every respect. For instance, proper breathing and relaxation, the very cornerstone of all Yoga teachings, result in deeper, more beneficial sleep and a general sense of restfulness and well-being; and these in turn enable one to function at the very optimum of one's abilities. It is not just a question of building greater resistance to emotional storms with their possible aftermath of psychogenic illness; a rested mind and a rested body are, as any doctor will tell you, the best kind of health insurance. So starts an entire beneficial cycle: a healthy body means a better-functioning body, it means added tone, improved functioning of the glands; and that in turn means better metabolism, muscle tone, skin tone, elimination and general vitality and vigor. It means eyes that sparkle, hair that shines and appetites time will not dull. In fact, it means slowing up the entire process of deterioration which we call aging and which in Western man starts so pitifully early.

As for the spiritual and mental results of Yoga practice, these soon become manifest in a fresh ability to make the most of one's inner resources. As one's powers of relaxation increase, there follows an enormous improvement in concentration. Soon the student finds himself in control of his thoughts instead of being controlled by them. And so instead of living at about ten percent of capacity, as do most people, he learns to live at one hundred percent, fully, deeply. He begins to do away with the fragmentation of his emotional wherewithal, escaping the whip of self-drive which can be so destructive, learning instead to think and feel clearly so that he wastes no more precious time in letting his mind wander in circles. Rather, he makes friends with himself until his whole organism functions as an integrated, positive whole, not a house divided. In psychoanalytical language so popular today, one might say it all adds up to the conquest of what has come to be recognized as the "neurotic personality of our times."