Recent medical research is only the latest in a millennia-long tradition that studied and listed the many benefits of yoga and meditation. The benefits listed were not always the same as the dials of time turned. In the past, in India, yoga was seen as an elixir and fount of supernatural powers. Indeed, the ancient scriptures of India are replete with such descriptions of the superhuman acts of yogis. From Patanjali's Yoga sutras, to the Mahabharat and Ramcharitmanas, and the Vedas, there are many stories where this or that yogi - sometimes, hanuman, sometimes Rama or Krishna - perform something miraculous with their yogic powers.
Unfortunately the goal of yoga has been tainted with the brush of fantasy. Many hope the state of samadhi, moksha or kaivalya is one that will relieve them of stress and bring them to a perfect paradise distinct from the world in which we, ordinary mortals, live. In this state of paradise they believe they will find themselves enjoying a perfection of human character and a sublime transcendental experience. They hope for an end to loneliness, a freedom from desire, the flowering of perfect wisdom, peace and love untainted by the disturbance of human emotion.
Yoga does not turn us into gods. The limitations and troubles of being human cannot be removed but they can be accepted so fully that the flowering of the rich potentiality of the whole human being makes them peripheral to our life. The self- knowledge and equanimity that arise from yoga allow us to develop a more creative relationship with our emotions. Anger, for example, is a perfectly valid human emotion, one that can only be eradicated by becoming cold and insensitive to life.
Most people have known the fire of righteous anger: perhaps at the sight of thousands of Ethiopian children dying of starvation in a world which has the resources to adequately feed us all; or upon realizing that environmental degeneration has reached such a critical state that life on earth is at risk. Yoga does not make us immune to such feelings but it does allow us to process and express our feelings more creatively, positively and responsibly. So we learn to identify strong, habitually destructive emotions as simply waves breaking through our minds. We learn to let go of the habit of identifying our selves with our passing feelings and states of mind.
Thus when strong feelings of fear, sadness or anger arise we simply accept and experience them. We do not repress them and make them into a source of unconscious conflict nor do we automatically express them in reactive behaviour patterns. We take responsibility for them by directing out attention to them so completely that they are able to pass as naturally as they arose. They pass because we do not hold on to them and because in directing our attention to them we see into the broader context from which they arise. We see how much of their energy is due to the narrow, grasping action of our mind reacting too quickly to be able to keep a balanced, broad perspective on events and our responses to them. In seeing this we defuse the energy of destructive, reactive responses quite naturally. The negative energy they contained is then made available for the creative process of our lives.
So, while yoga does bring about a purification of character and the cultivation of wisdom, it does not make us superhuman. It does not make us immune to life. Instead we learn to live life more skilfully, to take responsibility for our actions, emotions, and for our thoughts. And we learn how that enables us to live more harmoniously with mankind and other forms of life. However, it is vital to realize that the cultivation of wisdom and virtue is gradual, subtle and cannot be forced. They arise through one agency only - that of insight into the real nature of things. They cannot and do not arise just because we want them to. They cannot be put on like a new set of clothes.
Only as insight into the impermanence, indivisibility and infinite nature of all phenomena develops through the cultivation of stability and tranquillity do we release those patterns of response that masked our inherent wisdom and virtue. It is useless to pretend to virtue and wisdom. In fact if we act out patterns of behaviour that we think consistent with an image of perfection, wisdom and purity then we plunge ourselves deeper into an inner conflict of ignorance and self- deception.
Unfortunately the goal of yoga has been tainted with the brush of fantasy. Many hope the state of samadhi, moksha or kaivalya is one that will relieve them of stress and bring them to a perfect paradise distinct from the world in which we, ordinary mortals, live. In this state of paradise they believe they will find themselves enjoying a perfection of human character and a sublime transcendental experience. They hope for an end to loneliness, a freedom from desire, the flowering of perfect wisdom, peace and love untainted by the disturbance of human emotion.
Yoga does not turn us into gods. The limitations and troubles of being human cannot be removed but they can be accepted so fully that the flowering of the rich potentiality of the whole human being makes them peripheral to our life. The self- knowledge and equanimity that arise from yoga allow us to develop a more creative relationship with our emotions. Anger, for example, is a perfectly valid human emotion, one that can only be eradicated by becoming cold and insensitive to life.
Most people have known the fire of righteous anger: perhaps at the sight of thousands of Ethiopian children dying of starvation in a world which has the resources to adequately feed us all; or upon realizing that environmental degeneration has reached such a critical state that life on earth is at risk. Yoga does not make us immune to such feelings but it does allow us to process and express our feelings more creatively, positively and responsibly. So we learn to identify strong, habitually destructive emotions as simply waves breaking through our minds. We learn to let go of the habit of identifying our selves with our passing feelings and states of mind.
Thus when strong feelings of fear, sadness or anger arise we simply accept and experience them. We do not repress them and make them into a source of unconscious conflict nor do we automatically express them in reactive behaviour patterns. We take responsibility for them by directing out attention to them so completely that they are able to pass as naturally as they arose. They pass because we do not hold on to them and because in directing our attention to them we see into the broader context from which they arise. We see how much of their energy is due to the narrow, grasping action of our mind reacting too quickly to be able to keep a balanced, broad perspective on events and our responses to them. In seeing this we defuse the energy of destructive, reactive responses quite naturally. The negative energy they contained is then made available for the creative process of our lives.
So, while yoga does bring about a purification of character and the cultivation of wisdom, it does not make us superhuman. It does not make us immune to life. Instead we learn to live life more skilfully, to take responsibility for our actions, emotions, and for our thoughts. And we learn how that enables us to live more harmoniously with mankind and other forms of life. However, it is vital to realize that the cultivation of wisdom and virtue is gradual, subtle and cannot be forced. They arise through one agency only - that of insight into the real nature of things. They cannot and do not arise just because we want them to. They cannot be put on like a new set of clothes.
Only as insight into the impermanence, indivisibility and infinite nature of all phenomena develops through the cultivation of stability and tranquillity do we release those patterns of response that masked our inherent wisdom and virtue. It is useless to pretend to virtue and wisdom. In fact if we act out patterns of behaviour that we think consistent with an image of perfection, wisdom and purity then we plunge ourselves deeper into an inner conflict of ignorance and self- deception.