Yoga is a science of mental training and is intimately connected with the evolution of human consciousness. Yoga can be practised by everybody, irrespective of religion, caste, colour or nationality. It does not interfere with the classical religions or different theological systems. In fact, the first classical yoga system was conceived by a man who denied the existence of God. Every individual is in search of tranquillity, peace of mind and balance. It is not possible for us to stop thinking. There is the compulsion of society, civilization and of our personal desires of acquisition and fulfilment. We are weak and have limited mental capacities, and on important occasions when we badly need their services they may fail to help us.
At critical moments, we are seized with nervous disorders, obsessions, inhibitions and so many other mental illnesses that surround us. The personality becomes distorted and behaviour is unnatural and artificial; we feel so unhappy about it. The main problem facing us is – can all these mental symptoms be eradicated? Medical science has brought many forms of tranquillizers, LSD, sleeping pills and so on. We are using them in increasing numbers, which proves that we have lost mental balance and tranquillity.
Let us diagnose our psychological background and the resulting errors of human thinking and behaviour. It is reported that our behaviour patterns are dependent on threefold tensions: mental, muscular and emotional. When the physical body accumulates toxins in different centres of the physical body, physical or muscular tension takes place. Over activity and under activity of the body also causes tensions. Over activity and passivity of the glands also creates tensions. Sometimes when there is excess oxygen or too much carbon in the physical body, the body becomes tense. After a surgical operation in which the thyroid gland was involved, it was found that the person could not sleep at all. In another case of pancreatic deficiency, the patient became full of suspicion, mistrust and doubts. When the pituitary gland was excited by the direct contact with the sex glands, it was seen that the person used to see ghosts or apparitions. Likewise, different physical deficiencies in the body create different kinds of tensions which cannot be cured by any method, except one which will be discussed later. Muscular tensions will have to be traced back to the deeper functions of the physical body.
Mental tensions are created in the mental realm on account of over thinking. If you keep on thinking all the time, a moment will come when your brain will refuse to think and that is the state of mental tension. In the evening, you are completely tired mentally, but are compelled to do some mental work. This creates faulty thinking and introduces errors in your judgment; this is called mental tension.
What is emotional tension? A flourishing business is lost overnight and you receive a shock; this is called emotional tension. Your son is studying in a distant land and you receive a telegram that he is suffering from an acute illness; anxiety starts and creates emotional tension. If we neglect to remove these tensions from our personality, they will, in due time, create complexities in our life. Emotional tensions are piling up day by day; and unfortunately, we are either suppressing them or we are escaping them through self forgetfulness by taking pills such as tranquillizers. This does not solve the problems but only aggravates them. The time is not very far off when the occurrence of nervous breakdown will be a common phenomenon.
Modern psychology, which is just a baby psychology, has not come to any definite conclusions. There are numerous books on tensions written by great scholars. Dale Carnegie has written a very famous book How To Stop Worrying and Start Living. However, the people who have read it have not learned how to stop worrying and start living. It is here that we introduce the subject of yoga.
The first author of a book on raja yoga was the great sage Patanjali. According to him, yoga means complete control over all dimensions of your personality. Control does not mean suppression, but it means complete mastery. If you have a car without brakes, you have a car without a controller. You may not feel the necessity of brakes, but when it arises, your car and yourself will be smashed to pieces. In the same way, everybody has a personality, but at the same time one must have a controlling force so that during moments of serious challenges in life, one is able to make use of it.
A certain well known film star committed suicide by taking sleeping pills because she did not have this brake in her life. She was nourishing emotional tensions in her personality for years and years, without taking notice of them. One fine morning, when she looked in the mirror, she was terrified to see traces of wrinkles and signs of old age. She could not reconcile herself to this sudden wave of emotional outbreak and committed suicide.
Yoga asks you to gain control over your mind, yoga does not ask you to stop thinking. Control of the mind does not mean that one should refrain from one’s day-to-day activities. Yoga prepares you to face the challenges of life intelligently and cheerfully without leaving any wrong impressions on your mental apparatus. Yoga can be broadly classified into three main systems. The first division pertains to the physical body. The second is a system which includes the vital systems in the body. The vital system includes the psycho-biological processes in the physical body. The third system is relaxation. To put it briefly, the first system is physical, the second psycho-biological, and the third is absolutely psychological.
The first is hatha yoga, which is the yoga of the physical body; it takes care of the entire body. Scientific and clinical investigations have been carried out in various countries like Poland, Germany, France, America and India. Their findings reveal that the practice of hatha yoga brings about a positive effect on different systems of the body. Last year a team of scientists conducted research on the effects of sirshasana, or the headstand pose, on the human body. When the research results were published they were really encouraging and inspiring.
A few years ago in France, great cardiologists and other doctors conducted electrocardio-graphic investigations on the different yogic postures and it was observed that the oxygen consumption, the glandular secretions, the rate of respiration, the rate of inertia in the heart and, at the same time, the ventilation in the brain were absolutely in order during yogic postures. What was more remarkable was that when research was conducted on the effect of pranayama, the scientists came to the conclusion that pranayamas bring deeper relaxation and the brain becomes tensionless.
Since I am intimately concerned with these medical investigations, I also did some research work in this field. I prepared more than 100 cardio-graphic charts on different mental conditions. It was found that when you breathe in and retain the breath for about a minute and a half, the condition of the heart in relation to the condition of the brain is so fine that it brings your personal physical state to a point of relaxation. That is the subject of relaxation, which I call meditation.
Do not understand meditation from a religious perspective. The word ‘meditation’ cannot convey what I want to convey. In yoga, meditation is known as dhyana, which means single pointed awareness. It has been observed that when the mind thinks constantly about one object for five minutes, meditation takes place. However, when you think of one object after the other and they are not connected with each other, tensions take place. This process of meditation is of the utmost importance for the present day man.
There are various systems of meditations which have evolved to suit varying temperaments. We have three types of temperaments for which we have separate systems. The first type of people has mad and restless minds. The second type are oscillating between the condition of restlessness and a state of one pointedness. The third type are said to be one pointed. For these three types of temperaments, we have three types of meditation. There are more than three types of meditations, but most variations of meditation can be classified into three groups.
Psychic sleep is for absolutely restless people. Psychic sleep is a kind of relaxation in which we bring complete relaxation to the disturbed mind. There is another system called inner silence, which is a method of adjustment with the inner mind. If you look at a monkey, the monkey jumps upon you, but if you just ignore him the monkey is quiet. It is that principle which we apply in this inner silence.
For the people who belong to the second type, whose minds are oscillating between two extreme conditions, there is the system of ajapa japa, which means spontaneous meditation and meditation through breath. Kriya yoga also brings about a great change in the physical and psychological personality, gives peace of mind and one pointedness. This is how the whole syllabus of yoga is divided according to the temperamental limitations of the individual.
Sometimes when the meditation becomes successful, psychological images come to the surface. Various tensions, mental troubles and suppressed subconscious stuff come up in the form of visions and experiences. If the suppressions are deep, psychological images will be frightening. When the meditation becomes deeper and deeper, relaxation takes place and many divine images present themselves in the form of visions and experiences. This is something like the psychoanalysis of modern psychology. Meditation is a system of relaxation, but merely sitting on an easy chair is not necessarily relaxation. This is a misinterpretation of the word relaxation. You may relax your physical body, but your mind may be quite disturbed. So relaxation does not mean sleep, nor does it mean just physical stillness. Relaxation is a condition which pertains to the mind. When the tense conditions of your mind and emotions are absolutely absent, you are in a state of relaxation.
1968, Australia