Advantages of asanas

Advantages of asanas

Besides being an aid in controlling the mind, the steady asana confers many advantages and these may be classified as follows:

1. Physical advantages:

(a) The muscular and arterial systems get into proper order.

(b) The entire body is charged with health, strength and radiant vitality.

(d) The pranas, or the vital airs in the body, begin to function with a regular and rhythmic motion.

(e) Fearlessness, fortitude and will power come of themselves.

(f) One gains control over the body and never feels tired, depressed and downcast.

(g) As one feels inner joy and buoyancy of spirits, his face manifests a healthy radiance.

2. Mental advantages:

(a) Mind gets steady and well-directed, and one acquires the habit of working with fixed attention.

(b) Mental freshness.

(d) It develops imagination and helps in focusing one’s attention or dhyan.

(e) It brings in the habit of deep and concentrated thinking on the otherwise abstruse spiritual problems.

3. Spiritual advantages:

(a) One, through the recession of physical consciousness due to bodily, gradually rises above the pairs the pairs of opposites or state of duality, i.e., hunger and thirst, heat and cold, attachment and detachment, etc.

(b) One easily crosses over the state of tamogun (inertia) and rajogun (restlessness) and acquires that of satogun (peace and equipoise)

Some precautions and generally recommended to secure the sadhak from possible it effects or obstacles. He should practice the asanas in solitude so that they never become for him a means of exhibiting his virtuosity to the applauding public. It is also advisable that he should avoid proximity to fire, the company of women, undesirable friends, or anything similar that may carry a risk to his body or his mental equilibrium. He must also eschew over-indulgence in food and drink as well as fasting, for the one burdens the body and distracts one’s energies, while the other undermines one’s vitality. Hence it was that Buddha taught his disciples the middle path, for as he said in his first sermon:

Sensuality is enervating; the self-indulgent man is a slave to his passions, and pleasure-seeking is degrading and vulgar.

And—

By suffering, the emaciated devotee produces confusion and sickly thoughts in his mind. Mortification is not conducive even to worldly knowledge, how much less to a triumph over the senses.

The rule of the golden mean, which applied to everything, applies also to exercise. The understanding sadhakj will neither dissipate his energies in over-strenuous exercise like weightlifting, racing, high or long jumps, nor will he deaden them through lethargy. In short, temperance and simplicity must be the watchwords of his life. Those who specialize in Hatha Yoga or Prans Yoga even go on lay down the following condition for their day-to-day living:

(a) A place of solitude on a moderate level.

(b) A thatched cottage, preferably square in form, in the midst of natural scenery and verdure.

(d) The seat should be covered with palm leaves or dry grass, woolen cover, or a deer-skin.

(e) The site should be so selected as to have a uniformly temperate and even climate all the year round.

All these things should be taken into consideration if one were to choose even a cave (mountain or underground) for spiritual sadhna.

(f) One must exercise scrupulous moderation in his diet and drinks, preferably one helping of porridge in a day.

(g) No outsider should be permitted to haunt the sanctuary.

Gheranda Samhita, a well-know treatise on yoga, gives a detailed account of asanas and the practices allied thereto, viz., mudras and bandhas. While the mudras are locked postures, the bandhas are fixed postures. The former being psychophysical in nature are generally termed as “gestures,” and the latter being purely physical in nature are but “muscular contractions” and are used as catches for holding the pranas at particulars places.

While there is quite a large number of mudras, the bandhas are just a few. The well-known mudras or gestures are (1) the Maha Mudra (the great gesture), (2) Maha Bandha,(3) Maha Vetham (4) Urgyan (Udhlyam), (5) Khechari (moving in the void), (6) Vajroli,(7) Jaladhar, (8) Mulvant, (9) Viprit Karna (sauwang), (10) Shakti shalana,or Prithvi, Ambhavi, Vaishwanari, Vayavi, and Skashi corresponding respectively to the five elements: earth, water, fire, air and ether. In addition to these there are still others like the Nabho Mudra, the Yoni, the Manduki,the Kaki, the Matangi, the Bhujangini, the Asvini, etc. Others not enumerated are taken to be modifications of these.

We may make a passing reference to some of them:

(i) Asvini Mudra: As the name indicates, it consists in expansion outward and contraction inward of the muscles of the rectum alternately by deep inhalation and exhalation as the asvini or mare does after discharging the faeces. It helps in cleansing the intestines, colon and walls, and in expelling the poisonous gases.

(ii) Vajroli Mudra: It consists in internal cleanliness of the genitalia by irrigating the general passages in the first instance by oxygenation or air-bath by means of a catheter and then by irrigating them with water mixed with a mild antiseptic. It is performed by nauli process, or with the aid of a sprayer or a douche. In its highest technique, one has to withhold the ejaculation of the sex secretions and to re-absorb them into the system.

(iii) Khechari Mudra (movement in the void): It consists in retroverting the tongue and pressing it deep into the throat. The practicer gets his tongue split in the form of a fork, as the serpents have. These forked tongues are then washed with a mixed lotion of milk, clarified butter and ashes; and then with the pranic exercise be closes or plugs the two holes of the posterior nostrils by each end of the two-forked tongue and remains absorbed in this condition for days on end and, like a serpent or a tortoise, he may continue in an unconscious state to such an extent that he cannot of himself regain consciousness without the outer aid of others. The whole process is a very complicated one and cannot be practiced by a layman with impunity without the aid of a perfect yogin. As the name indicates, the mind remains absorbed in the khe or void, as does the tongue in the void of the pharynx.

But this type of samadhi is not a real samadhi with an awakening in cosmic order and a super conscious state, but is a kind of trance in which one altogether loses consciousness itself. This is not the object of true yoga, which aims at Chaitanya Samadhi as distinguished from Jar Samadhi. A Hatha Yogin through the practice of this midra can, while drawing his pranas into Sahasrar, shut himself in abox, which may be buried underground for months. This kind of Jar Samadhi does not bring in any supersensuoys knowledge, wisdom and awareness such as characterizes the fully awakened or Chaitanya Samadhi, which is achieved when the power of consciousness gets established in its own true nature, and which can be terminated at will. That is Kaivalya or a state of perfect unison with cosmic and super-cosmic life as contradistinguished from a stone-like, inert state.

For developing concentration, one may practice the following:

i. Agochari Mudra (the imperceptible gesture): Herein one is to sit his asana with concentration fixed on the nose tip.

ii. Bhochari Mudra (the gesture of the void): Herein the attention is to be fixed on the void, a space four fingers down from the nose-tip up to which the breath flows.

iii. Chachari Mudra: It is called the gesture of the black bee, for in it the mind is to be fixed at the black spot behind the eyes.

While engaged in breath control or Pranayama, one may practise Unmani Mudra or Kavala Kumbhak. The later is a state of dazed intoxication and the other is of peaceful repose.

Again, in the performance of some of the asanas, one has to practice certain muscular contractions or ties, with a view to controlling the vital energy. These contractions or ties are technically called bandhas. They are particularly necessary while engaged in pranayama. The most important of these are:

(a) Mula Bandha (contraction of the basal plexus): By it the Apana Vayu, or the excretory energy, is locked up and drawn in and upwards to the region of the prana and thus effects, or brings about, a union of the prana with apana, the respiratory with the exc retory energies. It is done by pressing the rectum with the heel and a strong inward pull of the breath.

(b) Jalandhara Bandha: contraction of the neck plexus where all the arteries meet. It is performed by pressing the chin against the hallow of the collar bones in the chest. It prevents the nectar coming down from Sahasrar from being consumed in the fire within the navel region.

(c) Uddiyana Bandha: It consists in contracting the navel muscles so as to give support to the lungs and stomach, during inhalation and exhalation. It also causes the life-breath to flow throught the subtle nerve, and hence it also goes by the name of flying contraction.