Yoga is a light that once lit, will never dim. The better your practice, the brighter the flame. B.K.S. Iyengar.
The primary aim of yoga is to restore the mind to simplicity and peace. Yoga frees you from confusion and stress. Other forms of exercise strain muscles and bones, but yoga rejuvenates the body. By restoring the body, yoga frees the mind from the negative feelings caused by the fast pace of our modern lives. We are all going a mile a minute. We have lists in our heads, we walk down the street with cell phones, multitasking. We are a generation of superwomen and supermen, and it is making us sick. We have to find something to counter-balance the insanity, and for me the answer is yoga.
Yoga can heal parts of our bodies that have been injured, traumatized, or simply ignored and neglected. Western medicine can accelerate the healing process but all too often cannot tackle the source of the problem. Yoga is wonderful for ailments because it stimulates injured parts of the body by increasing the blood supply to those areas. The body is a complex piece of machinery, a finely connected network of muscles, joints, nerves, veins, arteries and capillaries. The science of yoga classifies ailments that afflict the body and mind into three basic categories :
- self-inflicted ailments, caused by neglect or abuse of the body
- congenital ailments, present from birth
- ailments caused by the imbalance of any of the five elements of ether, air, fire, water, and earth in our system
Yoga can treat all three categories, but it requires a commitment to the treatment.
Yoga is good for people with cold extremities, which is caused by a slowdown in circulation when blood collects in the torso and fails to correctly reach the extremities. It gives rise to ailments of the chest and of the intestinal and abdominal organs. It is often the result of a sluggish thyroid, stress, or nervousness. Headstands and/or shoulder stands are great for the thyroid with fresh blood.
Yoga is great for the heart and circulation, varicose veins, high blood pressure, blocked arteries, angina, heart attack, colds, breathlessness, sinusitis, bronchitis, asthma, indigestion, acidity, and constipation.
Yoga is also great for diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, duodenal ulcers, gastric ulcers, ulcerative colitis, incontinence, obesity, diabetes, low immune system, physical fatigue, muscle cramps, lower, middle and upper backache, osteoarthritis, skin conditions and skin health, the brain and nervous systems, the mind and emotions, women's health, men's health, and the balancing of the hormonal system. Need I say more? And you'll get thin and flexible.
Suzanne Somers
