31. ...And Obviously, Self-Curing

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Yoga therapy is not my interest, and I know that nor is it yours. This blog is meant for spiritual discussions. But then, there is a basic question that links spirituality and therapy – “What is meant by good health?”. Health is a state of physical, mental and social well being, and not mere absence of disease (as per World Health Organization). Having no disease is not the end of the game, it is not a perfect state of health. It automatically indicates the possibility of positive health. A person, physically very strong, mentally in balance and intellectually very sharp can still be miserable inside. He may still feel an unknown void of some sort.  Is there a limit for positive health then?

Just look at the word for 'healthy' in Samskrita. "Swasthah" = Swa + Sthah. Established in the Self. Self-Realized! It is amazing how health was inseparable from spirituality in ancient India. So, basically we are all Aswastha (away from the Self) until we reach that oneness with our own Self. Thus, there IS an upper limit for positive health: Self-Realization J Modern medicine only cures diseases, but Yoga therapy can treat us even if we are supposedly healthy – towards positive health. Perhaps that’s what we have been focusing at in the last 30 posts in this blog! And also, Yoga Vasishtha (Sage Vasishta’s teachings to Sri Rama) clearly says that, there is a deep rooted imbalance in all of us – Sara Adhi – which gets cured only with Self-Realization.

“I have diabetes. What Asana or Pranayama should I perform to cure this?” a patient asks. Well, the question itself is wrong. Because he is still in the modern medicinal mindset – he has just replaced tablets with Yogic techniques. He is still thinking about one to one relation between a disease and a remedy. And that is against the concept of Yoga therapy. It is a holistic system. It will not just look at your pancreas if you have diabetes. If you do that, then it is better to go to modern medicine. It is better to follow modern medicine correctly rather than following Yoga therapy wrongly. For Yoga therapy, we have to change the approach to the disease itself, instead of bringing Yoga therapy down to the level of constricted modern medicinal approach.

Yoga Therapy is not just about Asana, Pranayama or Kriyas. But as usual, we have a tendency to attach ourselves strongly to physical techniques. For the above question about Diabetes, the answer could be “There is no single technique like that. We do not give remedy like how they give tablets in Allopath. Yoga therapy is a combination of several practices at various levels. And asana/pranayama is just one small part. At that level Ardha Matsyendrasana and Surya Anuloma Viloma Pranayama are the prescribed practices. But they alone independently will not help very much.” The previous posts about the basic pathogenesis of diseases as per Yoga therapy would make it clear that the root causes of the disease are certainly not at physical level. Physical level just has the symptoms. So, along with treating the symptoms, we will have to simultaneously look at uprooting the tree totally.

The fact is that, unintentionally we have already looked at so many crucial aspects of Yoga therapy by now – Jnana Yoga (notional correction, building positivity, eradicating self-cheating etc) and Karma Yoga (effortless work of Swadharma, reason for giving charity etc). So while we are at it, in this one post let us look at physical level of well-being as well.

As we saw in the earlier posts, constant mental unrest and wrong life style results in imbalance in the nervous system. This imbalance gives rise to an unnecessary accumulation of voltage in the nervous system which finally shows up as some error in some organ of the body. But before it comes down to the level of the body, it would have passed through several stages, an important one being the manifestation as the irregularity in breathing.

All take the process of breathing for granted. It happens on its own, and we least bother about it. And so, no one notices when it is impaired. But just as how input/output has to be regulated very carefully for an engine to work efficiently, regulation of breathing is a very crucial aspect to maintain good health. If mind is not restless, then automatically breathing will be well-regulated and it does not require special attention. But when there is mental restlessness, the imbalance in the nervous system first shows up as imbalance in the breathing process. Breathing gets impaired in various ways – fast breathing, arrhythmic breathing and imbalance between left and right nostril breathing. And the breathing practices that are part of Pranayama are prescribed to bring it back to normalcy.

The importance of slow and rhythmic breathing is worth explaining, not just for therapy, but for calming down the mind for Self-Enquiry or meditation. Consider a piece of plastic pipe as below. Water is constantly flowing through this pipe. The wall of the pipe would be facing a pressure from inside due to water flow. Now with the condition that the flow of water cannot be stopped, how can we give rest to the pipe?

The first obvious answer is to reduce the flow to the minimum possible level. But there is another important way – stabilizing the flow. If the flow fluctuates, the pipe wall faces fluctuating pressure and that causes more harm than just constant high pressure. Because variation means repeatedly reducing the pressure and then hitting it with a higher pressure.

Now let us apply this to breathing. When we breathe we intake oxygen (whatever is available amidst dust and smoke!). This oxygen is absorbed by blood in the lungs and circulated throughout the body. Blood is circulated because of the pumping of the heart. Heart requires energy for pumping blood. As we know, all energy production in the body is due to burning of Glucose in the presence of Oxygen. So, eventually even heart requires oxygen that lungs supply. Thus, there is a closed loop.

So, what should happen if we sit relaxed and try to regulate breathing for few minutes? Firstly our breathing rate reduces. Secondly breathing rate becomes rhythmic. Because of that, heart rate becomes rhythmic. Because of that, blood circulation becomes rhythmic. That means, blood is now flowing throughout the body very smoothly without much fluctuation in pressure and also at a very low pressure. And so, all the arteries and veins in the body are now enjoying a relaxed state – because of lack of fluctuation in pressure and a low pressure. And this way, if this is happening throughout the body, won’t we feel much relaxed and happy? When the body is thus relaxed throughout, automatically healing expedites within the body. Thus, breathing regulation (part of Pranayama) this is a common treatment for all NCDs.

But for us spiritually thirsty people, the story isn’t over yet. If blood circulation has become rhythmic, obviously the blood supply to brain also gets well regulated. Looked from the physical side, thoughts are nothing but some kind of electrical activity among neurons. Each type of thought has different level of energy requirements. Now if the energy supply to the brain has become low and rhythmic, then that means the electrical activity in the brain has also become low and rhythmic. That means, mind is easily able to retain softer thoughts (requiring a low energy). So, mind is calm and also easily concentrating on one chain of thoughts. Very conducive for meditation on an object. But if someone is already strongly into Self-Enquiry, whenever he does intense enquiry within, automatically breath slows down drastically. There breathing regulation happens as a result, not cause. You control any one, mind or the breath, and the other gets controlled automatically. Hatha Yoga approaches from the breath side of it, and Vichara (Jnana Marga) approaches directly from the mind.

Although breathing is a major input/output process, it is not the only thing that has to be regulated. As we saw in ‘The Numb Limb’ Pranayama would have to mean regulation of all activities of the body – food, sleep, speech etc. When Adhi (mental unrest) flows down to the level of body and becomes Vyadhi, digestion is another thing that gets impaired on the way. Food intake, digestion and excretion start getting slightly or moderately irregular and remains so for a long time – which we usually ignore as it does not pose a big threat in day-to-day activities. So, food regulation is another major part of Pranayama. If a person like Ramana who does not speak anything apart from Advaita says that food regulation is the greatest of all supplementary practices, then we can imagine the importance of it. When we begin to have simple Sattvik food at regular timings 3 times every day, without any munching in between, it beings the digestive system of the body to a wonderful rhythm. This important system of the body becomes rid of fluctuations and the need to adjust with varying quantity/quality of food and saves the body a lot of effort.

Secondly fasting regularly is also prescribed. Digestive system works continuously from the moment we are born till we die. It hardly gets any rest. Digestion process itself takes around 25% of the energy liberated from digestion! The engine of the car is much heavier than you are. The petrol that engine uses is mostly to carry the engine itself! So when we fast once in a month or a fortnight, the necessary rest is given to the digestive system. And just like how we perform household activities on weekends when we are free from office work, the body redirects all its energy (spared from digestive activity) on repair, healing works in our system. So, a person who fasts systematically, becomes more energetic, not weak. I hear that fasting has now been found to regenerate immune system in Cancer patients who have undergone Chemo-therapy. When you catch cold, or a have stomach upset, just fast, and you will recover much faster. Or if you fast regularly, you will not catch cold so easily.

We will have a brief look at Asana also. When mind is busy thinking intensely, it shows up in some muscle of the body as stiffness. Eyebrows, fingers, toes, shoulders – somewhere a slight but unnecessary tension can be seen. But when this happens throughout the day, it is a sign of booking of some NCD for the future (just like flat booking!). Because it means that mind has gone into a constant high-voltage mode. So, for treating NCD, this also needs to be reversed. Asanas, relaxation techniques developed by various institutes are finally meant to relax the whole body from head to toe. Asana is not meant just for improving the flexibility, but to tense just one part of the body and thereby relax all the remaining limbs of the body totally. Also, the part that is tensed would receive a gush of energy when we are in a posture. And when we release the posture and relax, energy would again diffuse throughout the body. So, this flushing action on specific parts of the body helps remove any Pranic blocks in that part. This when repeated several times for long periods of time, brings physical distribution of energy in the body to normalcy.

This post was meant to only touch some of the aspects of Yoga therapy. SVYASA has pioneered in treating diseases with Yoga and more details can be obtained from them. Yoga therapy is mostly self-practice and Self-curing the disease from the roots, rather than a doctor pushing a tablet into your mouth and curing you of the symptoms. A patient who has really tasted all the aspects of Yoga therapy (Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga, Raja Yoga and Bhakti Yoga) will certainly not limit Yoga to his treatment after that. He cannot be without seeing the whole movie once he gets to see the trailer of it in the name of therapy.

Among different streams of Yoga, perhaps Bhakti Yoga is the only one that isn’t covered yet in this blog and we shall do that soon!