 | By India Times
The ancient Yogis recognised long ago that in order to accomplish the highest stage of yoga, which is the realisation of the self, or God consciousness, a healthy physical body is essential. For when we are sick, our attention is seldom free enough to contemplate the larger reality, or to muster the energy for practice. The masters of yoga also teach us that personal growth is possible only when we fully accept our embodiment and when we truly understand that the body is not merely skin and bones but a finely balanced system of energies. Although yoga is best used as preventive medicine, some of its practices also have great therapeutic value. They can help those suffering from various difficult physical conditions, like back pain, scoliosis, and arthritis. However, ideally, your yoga practice should be an integral part of your efforts to maintain good health and prevent degenerative diseases. Therapeutic Yoga The word "therapy" comes from the Greek word therapeuein , meaning to heal, to take care of. Yoga can be understood as a comprehensive approach to healing, for it goes to the root of all disease, which is our false relationship to life itself. We fall ill when our body-mind is out of balance, when the life force false or circulate freely in us. Ultimately, there can be no complete healing until we have restored our primal trust in life, which alone removes all those obstructions within us that tend to manifest as ill health. Most of our diseases are symptoms of an underlying disease: our sense of being cut off from the sustaining power of life. We feel separate, isolated, alienated and also ill at ease. As we become aware of this feeling, which we share with billions of others, we experience the need for wholeness. We begin to understand that we are not really sealed off from life but are in fact interconnected with everything and everyone else. At times, this intellectual understanding may be confirmed and enriched by an actual experience of unity and wholeness. The word 'Yoga' comes from the Sanskrit root 'Yuk' - meaning 'to join, to unite'. Yoga seeks to restore the condition of wholeness in which, even if we should experience a spell of misfortune and illness, we nevertheless feel restored to life and healed in our relationship to the larger Reality Yoga is radical spiritual therapy. For millennia, yoga has had a close connection with Ayurveda , which is India's traditional medical and healing system. According to Ayurveda , which literally means "science of life", body and mind form an interactive system. This is also the viewpoint of yoga. Both schools of thought also insist that a healthy, wholesome life must be happy and morally sound. Moreover, the authorities of Ayurveda and yoga both recommend the cultivation of self-knowledge and serenity, which ensure our well-being. Western medicine is slowly rediscovering these ancient fundamental insights about disease, health, and wholeness. There is a growing literature on Ayurveda , traditional Chinese medicine,homeopathy, herbalism, aromatherapy, color therapy, body-work, healing touch, and so on. More than ever, we do not need to be passive victims of our illness or of the currently available knowledge of our present medical system. |
