1
Victor Boyko “Notes onclassicalyoga practice”
“Yogash–Chitta-Vritti-Nirodha" (ChVN), quoted from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras translates as “an intentional slowing down of mental activity within consciousness. Whenthis activity isstopped, one entersa state known as “silenceof the mind”.The Yoga Sutras are our oldest extant texts on the subject and represent the teachings ofclassicalyoga which will be discussedin this article.
In order to survive in Russia today, we are required to think and act at a highest level of intensity, that’s why today the number of psychosomatic disorders withinRussian population reached a catastrophic level. Typically, this is a violation of the functionality of the internal organs and systems, due to an acute or chronic trauma, in combination with the personal characteristics of psycho-emotional reactions.The resulting stress levels cause excessive psychological strain that activates our neuro-endocrine and autonomic systems, which in turn causes the changes in the cardiovascular system and in the health of our internal organs. Initially, these changes are symptomatic, but with frequent and prolonged exposure, they can become organic and irreversible.
The most common of these disorders are asthma, essential hypertension, dermatitis, gastrointestinal disease, ulcerative colitis, a disorder of sexual sphere, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, goiter, heart attack, depression and neurosis.
There are no available preventive medicines for these disorders, and, for the majority of Russian people, medicines to treat the symptoms of these disorders are not available. State appointed medical professionals, particularly in the provinces, seem to be at a complete loss with regard to treatment, and patients feel abandoned.
The population is quickly becoming a victim of circumstances and a nasty lifestyle.
One of the effects of yoga practice is to eliminate functional psychosomatic disorder and our school transmits this unique technologyas far as possible to the society.
Experience has shown that a reasonable implementation of yoga provides high standard of health and psychological stability of the average practitioner;even among those who had experienced the most severe external conditions. If those who are in an atmosphereof continuous disaster, called “the Russian reality”, feel theydo not deserve to be happy, they are at least entitled to a peace of mind.
It is known that yoga is not an activity in the ordinary sense; it is a skill of dosed staying in the full and continuous sense of peace.
Here are the necessary and sufficient conditions for this:
-Absence of body movement;
-Absence of arbitrary motion of thought;
- Absence of emotion;
-And as a result, the predominance of activity of the parasympatheticnervous system. In this case, the heart rate and clearance of respiratory tract are becoming lower, skeletal muscle arteries are becoming narrower, and a gastro-intestinal tract is expanding. This leads to a reduction of blood flow in the muscles, myocardium, and its intensification in a digestive tract.
Physical peace is needed to cover the energy consumption and to compliance with the functional balance of the body; this is provided by rest and sleep. However, mental peace - the suspension of mental activity is unreachable by well-known methods. Alcohol, drugs, and different crazy extreme methods are not considered. Physical exercises, for example, body building, do not eliminate the high nervous excitement, but only enhances it.
Claude Bernard showed in the nineteenth century that the internal environment of the body tends for balance and it was capable to self-correction.Walter Cannon introduced the concept of the relative stability of this environment and its components, and called this biological function of "homeostasis"."Silence of the mind" yoga, being properly implemented, provides ideal conditions for the formation of homeostasis of the highest quality.
Human organism - a self-organizing structure of open type, consisting of thousands of regulatory systems; mental activity represents only a small part of the spectrum of life-support processes.
Asana is a fixed position (forms) of the body. The minimal number of the asanas has real historical roots, and lots of other was invented by the falsifiers of yoga in the 20 century.The sutras say,asanais a fixedandcomfortable posture.Minimizing of physical activity during asana performance also slows down the activity of the mind up to a complete stop.Body - this is the tool by which you can start developing of the mental silence; there are no other win-win situations.
In a classic yoga, asanas are performed only using the wayallowed bythe body.If you are practicing in class, it is useless to imitate others - everyone has his own unique genetics, age, health condition, and natural flexibility. It is known, comfort is a synonym for convenience.For example, sitting on a sofa, reading, meditating, listening to the music etc. -forgetting about own body and not feeling it for a while.
In yoga, the main goal is to just stay in a static position! There is no other meaning than the mere presence in a pose.
You can come to silence of mind only while being still, because you always realize process of motion.
In addition, the movement activates themotor cortexof the frontal lobesandthe premotor cortex (so-calledpremotor areaof the brain). Mindfulness is usually a standard waking consciousness, although during yoga practice it may turn into an intermediate state between sleeping and waking, when alpha rhythm and low-frequency brain activity simultaneously present.
Comfort means the complete absence of sensations, at least, the sensations which attract your attention.However, even after reading the book "Yoga - the art of communication", many people still perform asanas in the usual manner without taking this condition seriously.The beginners are puzzled and annoyed because of absence of the usual diligence and attendant paraphernalia - willpower, heating, sweating, fatigue, and sensations in the body.The man says, "If I do it, and absolutely do not feel anything, then where the work by itself is, and where the result is?"
“Vegetative automatics” controls life support of human body.If everything is going well this extremely sophisticated and useful work is impalpable. It is not displayedin the consciousness until a person is functionally healthy and active within the average values of the load.
Exactlythe same thing happensin a traditionalyoga!The correct pose is not one where you copy someone, but the pose when the body is not manifested in the mind! Only as long as the body does not remind about itself, the pose in which you are in can be called "Asana", and what you do can be called "Yoga".
As soon as your body begins to remind about itself, no matter in what place, the useful time of the asana is completed.Further holding of the asana leads to the accumulation of sensations and clarifies consciousness, and then the phase of injury comes.
The absence of any pressure on the asana, the absence of desire to improve it, the absence of desire to bend more or to do asana correctly, etc., that is, non-action in the posture meets the main requirement of ahimsa: all violence against its own body is forbidden!We are not speaking about the injuries that result from effort to perform asana better and more correct. Better than what? Correctly compared to whom? Better than the man in the photo, on the screen, or a man directly in front of you, which bends like rubber? But this is a different person with a different body.You have your own body, which can be bent today to the certain limit and not more and even if you try to bend yourself more, you will not get anything but trouble or pain.
While mastering yoga we learn to influence the consciousness through the strange, by conventional standards, the use of the body.Asanas - fixed poses of unusual shape which are never implemented in everyday life - they are not peculiar to it.But the bodyis very sensitiveto unknownimpacts.While practicing, a powerful stream of impulses comes from the musculoskeletal system to the above-mentioned areas of the cortex. This stream leads to overstimulation of these areas. Shavasana is always performed at the end of the practicing just in order to eliminate this overstimulation. Tonus of the rest of the cortex automatically reduces. This is mental relaxation.
In yoga it is important not to perform poses according to some rules, which were created for something by someone unknown person. You should not do the asanas; you just need to be in the asanas.And that's all -nothing from you except a relaxed presence. When attention stopped at a fixed body, consciousness begins to fade gradually, first in the pauses between the poses and then in themselves.
The lifestyle of the Westis thepermanent and full involvement of the individual in the different parallel processes, which mayhappen even with different speed; Lifestyle of the East isjust being.How to make muddy water clean? Leave it alone. Do not touch it and it will settle. There are no other options regarding consciousness. The greatest achievement of yoga is the opening of the fundamental importance of dosed silence of mind and a way to reach it.
The work of human sensory system is based on events that are called changes. The function of vision, for example, is realized because the eyeballs continually fluctuate with frequency from eighty to one hundred twenty Hertz. Consequently, the body should not interfere with sedation of the mind neither by a movement or sensation of the form.Inasanas, it should be asstatic andimperceptibly, as in Shavasana.Or you can say: Shavasana should be maintained during all practice, no matter which postures we performed today.
This is the ideal situation. This of course takes a few years to develop.
In the living human body the heart contracts rhythmically, the breathing process is discrete but continuous; if the body is in rest, to realize these physiological movements, you have to pay attention to them. By themselves they do not penetrate into perception, staying behind of the threshold of sensitivity. If you consciously focus on any area of the body, it is almost certain the feelings will appear there. This is especially typical for neurotics, with two possible options:
-Hypersensitivity develops;some processes in the body clog a consciousness so much that a person ceases to perceive stimuli from the outside; he sinks in the flow of strange feelings inside;
-A body disappears from the perception, because a person is fully concentrated on the outside troubles and dangers. One of the beginners, an explicit neurotic, during performing Pashimottanasana, said: - I can not bend; it's hurt... He was asked: - Where it hurts? He answered: - I do not know ... Everywhere.
In addition, the mental flow of the neurotics and people which are on the verge of breaking down is often out of control and it becomes self-sufficient.The external world and its events are understood poorly and inaccurately.
Every beginner understands differently the requirement about the absence of the sensations during asana practicing, substantiated in the book "Yoga - the art of communication".Hence, there are periodic meaningless online discussions and arguments especially popular among the beginners on the website of our Yoga school.
The sensations are considered allowable when:
- They do not penetrate in the consciousness by themselves without focusing the attention on the body, or on the working area of asana;
-They disappear in the former place when the attention is transferred to another place, and they appear in this new place;
- For some reason (for example - in case of diseases of the musculoskeletal system) sensations or even pain are permanent and are habitual for a given person; In this case, a signal to come out of the pose is everything that is beyond this habitual sensation.
- The magnitude of these sensations does not preclude disabling of the consciousness;
If consciousness almost faded, and then suddenly starts to clear,it means that pre-sensation is already above the perception threshold. Although you have not realized yet this pre-sensation, it means that the useful holding time of the pose exhausted;
Here are the necessary conditions how to avoid the sensations:
- Perfect functioning of the body;
- Full muscle relaxation;
-Optimal (not causing sensation) speed of coming into the postures and speed of coming out of the asanas;
- Complete rest (immobility) in the asanas;
- The absence of the emotions during keeping focus on the body and the processes in it (e.g. respiration);
- The attention is not focused and scattered in the body;
- Therefore, "beam" of attention does not move;
- The optimal air temperature is 23-25º C (73-75º F);
- Noperceptiblemovementof air;
- The absence of significant muscular effort (strain);
- Optimal holding time of the pose.
Human energy in waking state is spent in the following main directions:
- Maintenance of vital activity;
- Providingphysical activity-muscular workand its associatednervoussupport;
- Mental activity;
- Emotions.
At the beginning, the individual learns to communicate with his body during asana practice.Familiarization with the features of his own consciousness occurs exclusively in the pauses between the asanas - in Shavasana. To get out of the flow of the obsessive thoughts, attention should be set in that place of the body, where it is more or less stable.It is undesirable to tie up attention to the respiratory process prior to the full mastering of mental relaxation. Moreover, it is strictly forbidden to observe the work of the heart - it is fraught with very big trouble.
Trigger points that initiate reduction of mental activity, a very individual and are grouped on large samples approximately in the following ratio:
- About 30% of people start to feel immediate pressure and heaviness in the skin of nose;
-Heat in the skin of the palms appears more or less freely in 40% of people;
- Relaxation of the eyes - 20%;
- Observation of breathing - 5%;
- Different or unusual - 5%.
Being fixed on something, attention constantly strives to go away from this "something", and we involuntarily drawn again into the thoughts.Once this is realized, it is necessary to return the attention back to the body, to the place of focusing.And so over and over again, just like a baby learning to walk.In the early stage of learning yoga such a boring process is inevitable. The attention moves away from the anchor point less and less and then sticks to it.After that, the student gradually realizes that during the asanas and between them he does not think more, that the stream of his own thoughts has dried.Only a continuous perception of the body and its impalpable overflowing of the poses in a pose remain. And then it becomes clear that a part of thoughts still remains in the consciousness and turns there, but they are autonomous and are not controlled by the person. He just watches them, detached and indifferent.
There are three basic types of thinking process representation:
- Mainly by the "pictures" for so-called "visual thinkers" (about 20% of all people);
- In the form of "chatter" - monologues and dialogues by your own voice or somebody's voice (people with auditory perception);
-Mixture of the "pictures" and "chatter";
- Thoughts out of nowhere; their form is unclear, but it may be logical and abstract for people with kinestheticperception and digital perception.
Emptiness in front of the inner eye is characteristic only for kinesthetic perception; they do not see anything special except phosphenes - flashing lights, flickering or complete darkness. If I am “a visual thinker”, as soon as my consciousness ceased a targeted and controlled work, the same though tarnished flow of "pictures" (images) will be in the field of view.But I'm not involved in it.
People with auditory perceptionstillheardialogues ormonologues, but as if from outside - the meaning of chatter is lost. The flow of "pictures" (images) is often mixed with a chatter; then the stage of chaos comes and all fogged up. Sometimes a mental bifurcation takes place. For example, in one part of the consciousness, a person is practicing yoga, and in the other is talking to someone, and participates in some events. What to do with this "craziness"? Nothing. Again and again, relentlessly return your attention into the body, as required by the technology.Little by little the part of mental flow which is not related with practice fades.
Of course, the pauses, in which a silence of the mind arises, are not binding after each executed asana. Such approach is valid only in case when a person is very weak physically or is seriously sick.But it might be another situation. Once I worked with a guy from Kiev - forty years old, big and physically very advanced person. A set of his problems was approximately the following: the chaotic surges of blood pressure, panic attacks, insomnia, headaches, inability to concentrate. It was not surprising after several shrapnel wounds, traumatic brain injury, two heavy concussions, malaria, typhus, obtained during the massacres in Angola.