Yoga for health. What could non-conscious practice lead to?

When I started practicing yoga, almost all troubles related to health left. There was a fitness interest in hatha yoga, and I did not even try to get benefits. But after some time of practice, I came to the conclusion that mostly in the modern world people practice yoga to gain or keep good health, appearance, and external forms. Some people who practice say that they come to relax after a hard working day.

For several years I was practicing yoga as a tool for better health. “Yoga for health,” “No back pain,” “Yoga for weight loss,” “Yoga without spirituality” – a lot of internet websites have similar advertisements. What do you think, do we need spirituality? Maybe it’s enough to limit ourselves only to physical exercises: stand in asanas, do breathing exercises, vinyasas, vyayamas?

Let’s imagine a good person, John, who’s got a spinal hernia. Somewhere John heard that yoga therapy helps very well in such situations. He needs only to find a good specialist and start. Our hero did that: found a specialist, went to classes, and did not miss. Work, John, work. His spine becomes longer, and muscles of the back become stronger. As we know, by lengthening the spine, it creates negative pressure in the intervertebral space, after which the shifted disk returns to its regular place.

Our yogi became healthy, pain gone, mobility became better even than in childhood, confidence, burst of strength, energy, and emotions. How will John live after that? Where  will he direct those powers that he did not have before becoming healthy? Very good if he lives according to conscience and harmony with nature and surroundings. Very good if nobody is suffering because of John’s life on this planet. But what if John does not know moral and ethical principles? What if, by doing yoga, he was not aware of yama and niyama principles?

John has much more energy, and he needs to direct it somewhere. Imagine that our hero is engaged in the tobacco business. Where will accumulated energy go? To one more tobacco shop? To advertisements and sharing about smoking tobacco? So if, because of John’s actions before, 100 people with lung diseases get to the hospital in a year, how do you think this number will rise when he is full of energy and directs it to his job? John removed the bonds that were not able to help him go further. Now he can really work, also even having such a powerful instrument as yoga that will keep or return health to a normal state.

What if John’s problem with his spine was not accidental and had a reason? Maybe it “indicates” John to his wrong action, and it motivates him to do some other work that would bring goodness for the surrounding world, not harm?

Modern psychotherapy thinks that diseases are consequences of wrong actions. Most religions agree that diseases are consequences of sin!

So if, with the help of yoga as physical action, our friend John removed disease, he removed consequences of sin. It means, if a person becomes free from disease but will not change his behavior and, on the contrary, will make even more sins because he gained strength and energy and he needs somewhere to direct it, will this person be healthy? I doubt it. I think you too. By looking at ancient scriptures, it’s possible to understand what will be with human in the end, who use such powerful instrument, as yoga to spread his egoism.

So what to do? Go to the doctor for a prescription for medicine and do a drug treatment course? It is also not for us in most cases (only if the doctor tries to tell the truth).

Maybe to do some other healing techniques? What for? If yoga helps to remove disease, it also helps with the root cause. But it’s important to go to this ancient, powerful, and effective knowledge in complex.

What to do so that yoga would not become for us like “heals one, but makes sick another?”

Firstly, it’s important to understand that diseases are not trouble but signal that we should listen to. Signal that tells us that we do something wrong. What  could we do wrong? It can be everything. You need to be responsible for your thoughts, words, and actions. To live by conscience and in harmony with nature. Treat others the same as you would want to treat yourself. Before making any decision in relation to nature and other living beings, put yourself in their place and ask yourself a question: would you like to get the same? It means, whatever you do for others, put yourself in their position and imagine that you do it for yourself. Would you like to get what you do for others? It is very important to get to know the principles of yama and niyama. In ancient times, people were prohibited from doing the third step of yoga (hatha-yoga) until the first and second (yama and niyama) were mastered.

So how to be? Start from the first two? If we would live in an ideal situation for self-growth, then of course, yes! But as we live social lives, it’s important to do it in a complex otherwise, until the third step, we will not come. What to talk about further steps… Of course it’s important to work with our body – it is very important! It is necessary to remember moral norms, that accumulated energy should be directed to good deeds, and that the world would become better from our time in this life, but not degrade.

Of course we are all different, and everybody has different level of consciousness and development level. For somebody, will be very hard to understand that through our whole life we were making not very good deeds in relation to the external world and ourselves. Possibly for someone it will take a huge amount of time to understand it and start living in a new way. Somebody is already open to new information and is prepared to act very fast. In all situations we need to follow our conscious and healthy sense, but not models that some others enforce on us. And if we at least understand that we should start changing, that we should make an effort not only to physical and material but also to spiritual growth, it will be the first step on the way to a happy and conscious life!

Let’s remember our friend John. John’s activity can be different, and the tobacco business – not the worst how it’s possible to harm humans and the surrounding world. Just take its very obvious example, because most of us already know information that smoking will not lead to anything good, even though some time before it was the norm. Some people keep doing this pointless work, robbing away health and happiness from their own lives and the lives of their families.

While John was practicing yoga therapy, the instructor was able to tell that John would understand the basics of conscious and healthy living. After some time he fully reviewed his relation to life. Some time… For everybody it will be different. If you have a lot of bravery and determination to act, if we are prepared to challenge ourselves and those who benefit from the fact that we would live in limits and never know freedom, we will move very quickly!

John was full of determination, and in a short period of time he changed his work. Our yogi understood that real happiness is much deeper than material wealth and a healthy body. Now he helps other people, and the energy that accumulates in the practice of yoga directs to good deeds.

Author: A. Iacun