YOGA FOR HEALTH & HAPPINESS BY
YOGIRAJ N. RAMALINGAM

Samatvam Yoga Uchayate – Harmony is called Yoga, says Bagavatgita.

Your mind, body and spirit are all intimately interconnected. Because of this, every disease occurs on emotional and spiritual level as well as physical ones. Yoga is designed to address all of these levels and not just the physical ones. If we limit our treatments on physical levels only, the diseases, tends to come back again or the treatments become worse than the illness. If we also address the emotional and spiritual dimensions, then the physical body often begins to heal as well. Yoga brings harmony between your mind, body and spirit.

Pathanjali Yoga sutra says:
“Controlling the mind and the thoughts is yoga. One who does this attains brightness in his life”

Thirumoolar says:

“When body is destroyed, the soul is also destroyed. Then we cannot attain eternal happiness. Only Yoga, and pranayama bring good health, longevity, strength, vim and vitality.”

Yoga teaches you how to enjoy living, not how to avoid dying. How to relax, not how to be lethargic, how to manage stress not how to avoid it. How to live in the world fully, not how to withdrawn from it. How to take care of yourself so that you can also give more fully to other.
Yoga is a combination of breathing, stretching, relaxing and meditation in a scientific sequence and it result oriented. Although we have the technology to evaluate the physical improvements, medical science has not yet found a way to objectively measure the emotional and spiritual healing yoga brings but you can experience it for yourself. Yoga is a system of powerful tools for achieving union – healing – with parts of ourselves, with others and with a higher force. Yoga increases our awareness of what is happening inside us – physically, emotionally and spiritually. Increasing our awareness extends our control over what is happening within. As a result we can notice the effects of stress and make changes before they become full blown illnesses such as heart disease.

Yoga is not a religion and the methods of yoga are ecumenical and all compassing. It is a system that can help broaden a persons present experience of his or her own philosophy, religion and daily life. Yoga complements rather than replaces western school of medicines. Knowing the power and limitation of each is very important. Western techniques like drugs and surgery can be very helpful in a crisis but they are limited and yoga addresses the more fundamental issues that pre dispose us to illness.

Meditation

Peace and stress begin in your mind. Meditation is the process of quieting your mind. When your mind is quiet, you feel peaceful. You lose your sense of separateness and isolation. You may even experience your higher self. The concept of meditation is very simple; any one can do it but the practice of meditation is very challenging for it is not very easy to quiet ones own mind which is like a drunken restless monkey strunk by a scorpion.
Investigators are demonstration that meditation can lower blood pressure, improve productivity and reduce stress. But ancient yogis and swamis did not meditate to lower their blood pressure and these are only side effects or byproducts of their primary purpose: to experience inner peace and happiness. This experience treats disease on emotional and spiritual levels, then the physical level also may begin to improve as measured by various scanning machines and angiograms but the physical healing is only one manifestation of a more profound healing that begins on emotional and spiritual level.

Meditation does not smooth out the disturbances in your life as a tranqilinser does. Meditation allows you to go deeper to where the disturbance begins. It helps you to become more aware of how your mind becomes agitated and gives you more control to stop these disturbances. Meditation does not bring you peace because the peace is already there; it only helps you stop disturbing it.

Asanas or Hatha Yoga are a series of gentle positions to limber the body and these are performed slowly and gently with control and grace, as a type of meditation rather than a form of calisthenics.

The various asanas and breathing techniques are developed for the purpose of enabling people to sit for long periods of time in meditation. It is easier to gain control over your body than your mind. So asanas are a good place to begin but the more benefits come from learning to control your own mind. As you gain more control over your mind, it begins to quiet down.

Breathing exercises
Historically Kundalini is the mother of all Yogas. The Kundalini energy is dormant at the base of our spine. A constant regular practice of the yoga enhance us and stimulates the grandular function and awareness.  This Yoga helps to attain physical and mental balance. This quality is intrinsic to Kundalini Yoga.

Your breath is a bridge between your body and your mind:
Changes in your body affect your breathing. When you exercise your oxygen requirements go up and you breathe faster and deeper.

Changes in your mind affect your breathing. When you are anxious, your breathing is rapid and shallow. When you are relaxed, your breath is slower and deeper.

Changes in your breathing affect your body. When a baseball pitcher winds up to throw, he first takes deep breath. It helps him perform better. When a marksman is taught to shoot a rifle, he is told to inhale fully and to pull trigger while slowly exhaling. Opera singes us and martial artists also use breathing technique to improve their performance.

Changes in your breathing affect your mind. When you are a little tired a deep breath can make you more alert. When you are feeling anxious or worried, a few deep breathes can help to calm you down.

Besides connecting your mind and body, breathing is also bridge between your sympathetic and para sympathetic systems. During times of emotional stress, your sympathetic nervous system become stimulated. As a result, your heart rate, blood pressure and muscular tension all increase. In people who are chronically stressed, the automatic nervous systems is out of balance – that is sympathetic nervous system is chronically over stimulated.

The breathing techniques can help balance your sympathetic and para sympathetic nervous systems. When practiced regularly they produce profound, calming effect on your mind and body and decrease sympathetic nervous system stimulation. Unlike asanas, these breathing techniques can be practiced any where any time.

In the western medical system, the pathology of breathing – what happens when something goes wrong with the lungs or respiratory systems is only taught. But in the tradition of yoga, thousands of years have been spent studying the more subtle effects of the breath on the mind and body, and how these can be enhanced for greater power help and inner peace.

Oxygen is food for the heart and the brain. And it is carried in the blood. When the heart starved of oxygen carried in the blood, heart attack and brain stroke are resulted.

According to yoga system, we inhale not only oxygen but also energy or prana. Prana means both breath and spirit. Breath is vehicle for prana. This “vital force” may sound a little mystical since it cannot be measured using conventional scientific equipments. Yet in our daily language we refer to our energy level, which is high at some times and low at others.  Our experience validates the concept of energy even though we can not measure it. Like wise, practicing these breathing techniques may enhance your level of energy. See for yourself.

The breathing techniques or pranayama can expand and balance the availability of energy to you and in meditation, this flow of energy can be focused and intensified.

Various types of breathing are explained and demonstrated by Yogiraj N. Ramalingam.

Pranayama is divided into three parts.

1. Pooragam – breathing in
2. Kumbagam – controlling the breath
3. Resagam – breathing out

 

Nadi Suththi

Without leaving the breath in air, it is own way, controlling it in a circular path and then breathing our both in the morning and evening is known  as Nadisuththi pranayama. It consists of five different parts. They are:

1. Pasthrika

Tightly close the right nostril of the nose with right thump, breathe in though the left hole along for 8 seconds. Then close the left nostril with the right ring finger and slowly breathe out with the right nostril for 16 seconds. Do this again and again for 10 times.
Benefits: Astuma, severe cold, cough, chest pain and gastric trouble will be cured. Blood is purified quickly and sent to the nerves immediately.

2. Kabalapathi

Breathe is through both the holes fast and at the same speed breath out. Repeat this 10 times.
Benefits: Destorys the accumulation of (phlegm).

3. Ujjayee

Inhale through both the nostrils in a smooth uniform manner. Expand the chest when you inhale. Retain the breath as long as you feel comfortable and then exhale slowly through the nostrils. Repeat 10 times.
Benefits: Relives from Chest Cong