The Value of Yoga

by John Warak

THE brilliant and self-proclaimed ‘spiritual entertainer’, Alan

Watts put it ever so aptly: “much of the secret of life consists in
knowing how to laugh, and also how to breathe.” Jesus too,
gave us a simple, yet marvelous example of this when he proclaimed
that – In order to enter the kingdom of heaven, we must become
as children once again.

THE past has already passed. And, the future hasn’t

arrived yet. The present is our ‘present’. It’s our gift. His
powerful, timeless and universal message means that we need
to be happy in the here and now. We need to ‘get out of our
heads’, stop that never ending mental chatter and just BE
STILL. If we took the time, this can easily be done throughout
the day. Whenever we look at children, we find them always
full of smiles and laughter. And, this is surely one of the
very reasons that we adore them so much. Well! Ok! Most of the
time! Why are they so endearing? Is it because they remind us
of our former selves and of our inner child? The poet,
William Wordsworth, famously wrote, in The Rainbow, “The
child is father of the man.” The problem is that, as adults,
we have forgotten how to simply RELAX, take a long deep
breath and to quite literally just have a ball. We have
forgotten how to play and how to enjoy ourselves. Well
then! In order to regain this lost, child-like wonder, we must
learn the art of living well: And, we can do this right here and
right now by putting an end to taking everything so damn
seriously and by embracing life in all of its seemingly endless
diversity and marvelous beauty.

This reminds me of that brilliant cautionary heavy metal

song, Paranoid by Black Sabbath. The final line goes like this: “I
tell you to enjoy life. I wish I could! But, it’s too late.” Because, if
we fail to (or refuse to) learn how to find true joy, before we
know it, this whole ‘play’, which we call our life, will be over
having ‘slept’ through the whole ‘show’ and dissolved “into thin
air.”

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 THIS marvelous and highly complex bio-machine, which we
refer to as our brain, has evolved up to the point where it has
effectively seized control of the entire human organism. But, this
brain of ours is only a part of the totally of what and who we are. It is
not our ‘master’. For, it could not survive long without say the heart
or the lungs and indeed the rest of the body - which are all designed
to function seamlessly and harmoniously together. As Robert M.
Sapolsky, a Professor of Biology & Neurology points out: “We
humans live well enough, long enough, and are smart enough to
generate all sorts of stressful events, purely in our heads.” It
seems that, this is the price we have to pay for having inherited a
complex brain mechanism! According to a 2005 article published by
the National Science Foundation, an average person has about 12,000
to 60,000 thoughts per day. What’s more, 80% of these thoughts
are negative and a massive 95% are repetitive thoughts. On
hearing these stats, our Ego might say, “Oh! How marvelous!”
However, let’s take the following daily ritual for example: You wake
up on any given morning from a long blissful sleep and automatically,
the ‘CPU’ that we call your brain, does a ‘system check’ and million
thoughts start racing through your head, faster than the speed of light
- Where am I? Who am I? What’s my name? What time is it? What to
eat? Oh my! I have so much to do today! And on and on and on, this
mental bombardment keeps flooding your stream of
consciousness ad infinitum. And, by the way! That’s just within the
first few minutes upon waking. I mean, you haven’t even made your
first trip to the bathroom yet! At this point, the lines from Paranoid
come rushing back into my consciousness. Come on everyone! Let’s

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all sing together now:

People think I'm insane because I am frowning all the time

All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfy
Think I'll lose my mind if I don't find something to pacify
Can you help me occupy my brain?

Thankfully, for most of us, there is a way out of this collective

insanity that has befallen the human race. It can be found in an
ancient method that has the power to save us from the self-
delusions and that abyss that I call ‘the prison of the mind’, and
restore us into balance, harmony and a state of peace and pure
inner joy.

You have surely heard of yoga. Right! Yet, have you ever pondered
over its actual meaning, why its popularity is so enduring and how it
all got started? I know I have.

ACCORDING to Dr. Ishwar V. Basavaraddi, the Director of

Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga in India:

Yoga is a spiritual discipline based on a subtle science, which

focuses on bringing harmony between mind and body. It is an
art and a science of healthy living. The word yoga is derived
from the Sanskrit root ‘yuj’, meaning to ‘to join’ or ‘to yoke’ or
‘to unite’… the practice of Yoga leads to union of individual

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 consciousness with that of Universal Consciousness, indicating
a perfect harmony between the mind and body, Man & Nature.

YOGA was introduced to the West during the early 19th

century. It was first studied as part of Eastern Philosophy and began
as a movement for health and vegetarianism around the 1930's.

ACCORDING to a well-written article in Wikipedia, today, Yoga

continues to spread crossing boundaries of culture and language. In a
nutshell, Yoga is a healing system of theory and practice. It is a
combination of breathing exercises, physical postures, and
meditation that has been practiced for more than 5,000 years.
While yoga evolved as a spiritual practice in Hinduism, in the
Western world, a part of yoga, known asana, has grown popular as a
form of purely physical exercise.

Some Western forms have little or

nothing to do with Hinduism or spirituality,
but are simply a way of keeping fit and
healthy.

YOGA for Treating Diseases

As stated above, most yoga classes consist of

a combination of physical exercises,
breathing exercises, and meditation. These
characteristics make yoga a particularly
beneficial kind of exercise for people with

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certain health conditions, including heart disease/hypertension,
asthma and back problems. For people with heart problems,
studies have shown yoga to help people young and old. Specifically,
yoga seems to promote heart health in several ways, including
regulating high blood pressure and improving resistance to
psychological stress. Yoga also has the potential to buffer against
the harmful effects of bodily self-objectification as well as to promote
wellbeing.

AS the old saying goes, “you cannot plough a field by turning it

over in your mind”. Therefore, if you want to stop that never ending
chatter in the skull, reduce stress, and get the true and lasting
benefits of yoga and meditation, you could start right now.
I’ll show you how:
Simply start by closing your eyes
and taking in a long, deep and
conscious breath. As you do so,
keep focusing your attention on
this very moment, right here and
right now. Start with 5 minutes at
first. Then, gradually build up your
practice to 1 or 2 hours over time.
Besides, you’re not gonna let Kitty
cat become a better yogi than you! Right? What ever you do, please do
me this favor. Never lose your sense of humor, and keep that
beautiful smile – Because, when you do, you’ll find out that life will be
smiling back at you. ☺ Author, John Warak