29. Rampage of Rajas

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This post, may not directly be related to Self-Enquiry or spirituality. But I thought of writing what I have learnt from my Yoga college (SVYASA) about Psycho-Somatic Diseases. I was amazed with the simplicity of fact, and how much we have complicated the simple truths in the name of modernization and logic. In the last post we saw the necessity of moving towards Sattva from a spiritual perspective. This post and the next one will show how essential it is to cross Rajas and move to Sattva, even for the sake of enjoying good health.

The modern era is that of internet, technology and cell phones. But it is also the era of nuclear weapons and NCDs – Non-Communicable Diseases. In the previous centuries, it was the epidemics that were on rampage (plague, cholera etc), whereas now contagious diseases cause very few deaths around the globe (e.g. H1N1). In the current century, a new crisis has risen, that of NCDs. Everyday, slowly but definitely, the whole world is moving towards increased incidences of Hypertension, Diabetes, Asthma, Ulcer, Depression, Anxiety, Arthritis, Back-pain, Obesity and a host of other diseases. In the earlier centuries, these common ailments were mostly prevalent only in the old age, perhaps after 60 or 70 years. But today, these have become a common feature in the middle aged. If a person is over 40 years and if he is free of all the NCDs (most common ones are Hypertension and Diabetes), then people have started treating him like a hero of the society! “Do you know? That uncle is 45 but he does not have high B.P. or Diabetes” – what a compliment! And we, the proud city-dwellers, laugh at an innocent villager who looks at an A.C. bus in amazement. In fact, that villager has the right to laugh at us for looking at ‘No-Diabetes’ with awe! Which one is better? Not being aware of A.C. buses, or not being aware of a disease called Diabetes or Hypertension?

All the activities of the body are being controlled by the brain. Brain is the exchange center for all the to-fro signals. These signals travel throughout the body through the nervous system. The signals are very mild electrical signals with intensity in the order of micro-volts. The basic details about the nervous system is shown in the figure below.

So, in case of Voluntary systems, both work and rest are in our control. We regulate the work-rest cycle as we require. We carry a load for sometime, hands and legs pain, so we keep it down to relax for a while. After some rest we resume the activity again.

But in case of Involuntary systems, the work-rest cycle is mostly controlled by external stimulus. Eating the food is in our control, no doubt, but once we have swallowed, digestion is beyond our control. Acid and bile secretion happen on their own as soon as we eat food. And they automatically stop when digestion process is complete.

On-Off is shown only for the sake of simplicity. It does not mean that heart switches off literally! It only indicates that 'On' is an excited state and 'Off' is a relaxed state. Also, in case of digestive and excretory system, sympathetic-parasympathetic do the opposite. When Sympathetic system is active, digestive system is less active and when Parasympathetic system is active, digestive system is excited. Details are shown in the table below:

Organ/Activity	Sympathetic	Parasympathetic
Heart beat rate	High	Low
Blood Pressure	High	Low
Breathing Rate	High	Low
Muscle stiffness	High	Low
Heat Generation - Sweating	High	Low
Digestion	Less Active	Normally Active
Excretion	Less Active	Normally Active
Eyes	More Active	Normally Active

This is only a very basic list showing some simple aspects. Medical science will talk about plenty of these things in terms of hormone secretion, chemical release etc.

How external situation controls the Involuntary N.S. can be understood with a simple example. If a snake enters the room in which you are in now, you jump up in fright and sympathetic system switches on in your body. Without your explicit permission, heart rate increases, B.P. rises etc as indicated in the table above. This has been designed as an emergency system for the sake of the survival of the body. When situation is against us, automatically the sympathetic system takes over and does the necessary changes in the body. For both flight and fight, body requires more energy, briskness than usual. And hence body adapts with all the changes listed. Since all the energy is directed towards external muscles, digestion process becomes sluggish. Once the snake moves out or is caught and taken, mind calms down and Parasympathetic system becomes active. And automatically, all the changes that took place earlier get reversed and come back to normalcy. In the example of the snake, body undergoes a big stimulus and intense excitement in the sympathetic system. And after the snake is caught, there is an equally big sigh of relief. But in day-to-day life there are hundreds of smaller stimuli and relaxations which we usually do not notice. For e.g. when a young boy speaks about a cricket match he is a little more excited than usual. And after the discussion is over, his system relaxes for a while. This way, a living entity is constantly under work-rest cycles, cycles varying in degree and intensity.

Till now there is no problem. This is how a living being is supposed to be. But problems appear when the spring is pressed more and more but not allowed to relax equally. System begins to show errors when the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems are disturbed. But then, why does this imbalance occur?

The snake example is too simple for us to see the complications involved. Suppose while working in office, you did a big blunder, unintentionally. Manager comes running to your place and yells at you so loud that the entire floor stops working and looks at you. Now you may be either angry or afraid. But in either case the sympathetic system has switched on. You say ‘Sorry’ and after shouting for 3-4 minutes the manager returns to his place. And now begins the problem. Instead of switching off the sympathetic system and relaxing, you mind goes on replaying the same scene again and again. In the next half an hour the 3 minute scene would have rewound and replayed 10 times. Every time you modify the scene a little and think about it repeatedly. “I should have replied like this, I should have pointed out this” etc. Then you go to your close friends and put forth all the arguments justifying your mistake – another hour gone. You again discuss it throughout while having lunch with colleagues. When you return home you describe the entire history of today’s event to husband/wife/mother/father at least 3 times. And probably that day in your dream, you will become a super-hero character boss-buster and punish all the managers with rage. Even the next day when you see that manager your anger is on the verge of bursting. Well, days pass and slowly you begin to forget (not fully). After a few days when you remember this incident, you do not get as angry as you did on the first day.

So, a 3 minute incident kept the sympathetic switch on for several hours in effect. And each time you replayed the incident in the mind, the same sympathetic arousal took place in the body, which is actually totally needless. Unnecessarily the B.P. raised, heart rate raised, breathing got impaired, digestion process got inhibited etc. You may say, well that is fine, only few hours, so no harm done. But wait! With our current lifestyle, our days are filled with such incidents! If not so bad as to make the manager yell everyday, some excitement, some trouble or the other keep coming every day. Office related, money related, family related, property related etc.

And yes, we will not see any problems in the body in few days or few months. A young body tries to adapt. So, we do not consider these little stressful incidents that dangerous. But our youth, especially between 25-35 is filled with such incidents. Small or big, stressful incidents bombard the nervous system so much in these 10 years, that along with accumulating money, we would have accumulated some unnecessary voltage in our nervous system. The body tries and tries hard to bring back normalcy during the limited resting hours, but alas, sleep hours alone are insufficient to bring about sufficient rest to the system. Dreams are also exciting the sympathetic system by showing agitating scenes. We charge the battery only 70-80% but try to extract 100% or even more of charge from it. This repeats for years, and finally one day the system fails, at some part of the body.

In the electrical circuit of your house, suppose there is a leakage and no one notices. A constant low voltage is continuously flowing through all the electrical apparatuses of your house. It is so low, that even when you notice probably you ignore it. But after several months, probably a fan or a bulb burns. Although very faint, when left alone for a long time, it could burn some part of the circuit. Similarly, mind thinks and thinks, and sends continuous signals through the nervous system in microvolts. The intensity of the thoughts have rapidly increased in 21^st century and hence the voltage of the signals as well. All have forgotten how to switch off this voltage, and have left it freely flowing, even during dream-sleep. Over the years it accumulates, finally to break down some organ in our system.

So, we are irreversibly rich by 40, and also irreversibly sick by 40. In today’s generation, it is our own mad rush after money, it is the demands of our own beloved family, it is our own desires for accumulating property that gives us these little little stressful incidents constantly to finally give us some NCD. Well, you may say little worries are part of the family life. Yes, true, but that ‘little worries’ have probably crossed a certain limit. Consequences and statistics are in front of us. Our earlier generations also had worries, no doubt, but perhaps they didn’t live as lavishly as we are living today. They did not make fuss about taste of the food, size of the bed or the color of the paint of the house. They certainly did not worry themselves as much as we are worrying today. Today we are lavish and confident on the outside but growing empty and insecure inside.

And by the way, ‘irreversibly sick by 40’ – is only according to modern medicine. As per Yoga therapy NCDs are reversible, fully or partially. We shall look at it briefly in the next post.