YOGA AND HEALTH
Healthy body is essential for everybody. Different people define health differently. WHO defines health as the complete well-being of physical, mental, social and spiritual state?
Physical well-being: This means the absence of diseases at the physical level and also the
capacity to adjust and tolerate the various changes in the environment like cold, heat,
pollution, germs etc.
Mental well-being: When a person is free from any mental tension and illness, it can be termed as mental well-being. Therefore, mastery over senses, ego and emotions is necessary
Social well-being: When we are able to adapt, cope ourselves to the people and surrounding, then it leads to social well-being. We should have acceptance and respect towards each other.
Spiritual well-being: When a person is able to manifest divinity in his all aspect of life, it leads to spiritual well-being. It is a state where man realizes that he is an universal consciousness.
Yoga in treatises:
The word ‘Yoga’ means ‘Unity’ or ‘Oneness’ and is derived from Saàskåta word
‘Yuj’ which means ‘to join’. Unity means the joining of individual consciousness with the
universal consciousness. Yoga is the science of right living and as such is intended to be
incorporated in daily life. It works on all aspects of the person: the physical, mental,
emotional, psychic and spiritual.
The science of yoga begins to work on the outer most aspect of the personality. The physical body, which for most people is a practical and familiar starting point. Yoga aims at brining the different bodily functions into perfect coordination, so that they work for the good of the whole body.
Yoga can also be explained as an integration and harmony between thought, word and deed or integration between head, heart and hand. From the physical body, yoga moves on to the mental and emotional levels. Yoga is a systematic process for accelerating the growth of the man in his entirety. With this growth man learns to live at higher states of 5consciousness. Key to this all-round personality development and growth is the culturing of mind through yoga.Sage Vasiñöha’s theories articulate the yoga as “manaù praśamana upäyaù yoga ityabhidhéyate” (Yoga Väsiñöha : 3.9.32) which means- ‘yoga is a skillful trick to calm down the mind.’
The Bhagavad Gétä puts forth yoga as – smTv< yaeg %Cyte “Samatvam yoga ucyate” (2.48) - “Being fixed in yoga renouncing attachment and staying even-minded in success and failures. Evenness is verily yoga.” “yaeg> kmRsu kaEzlm!” “Yogaù karmasu kouśalam” (2.50) – “Yoga is maintaining relaxation and awareness in every action.” According to Sri Aurobindo – ‘Yoga is a technique for total personality development as physical, mental, emotional & spiritual level’. According to Swami Vivekananda – ‘each soul is potentially divine, to manifest the goal by internal, external or natural & also by Work, Worship, Psychic control & Philosophy. By one or more or all of these & be free.
