Yoga for Health

Yoga is a term which refers to the union of the human with the God or the Self with the Higher Self. This term is many a times used to refer physical exercise or just Yoga postures (Yoga asanas) as many commercial yoga masters are coming up with the idea of making money with this magical word. Yogasana is a part of the bigger picture. According to the eight fold path of the great saint Patanjali, Yogasana is one of the eight components that would aid in achieving the state of union of the Self with the Higher self.

A good health would be a natural result if the Yoga happens. Yes, it has to happen. We can just facilitate the process through some efforts like meditation.

For doing a proper meditation, the body has to be strong enough to sit in a right posture. Also the wandering mind has to be brought under control. Yoga asana would help achieve these in the initial stages. An advanced meditator may prefer to continue doing asanas or just get the complete command over the mind and body with only meditation.

A good physique and a fresh mind could be a achieved by a proper practice of the yogasanas (yoga postures) along with a right diet. But, for the spiritual journey to progress faster, it is necessary to make meditation, a regular part of the life. Through meditation, the evolution of the human being would be many times faster. In this evolution process, a person would become more divine, renouncing the Ego and developing pure love.

Meditation has a direct impact on the mind and the body. Even though the ultimate goal of meditation is to transcend mind and to attain liberation, along the way, one would be blessed with a good health and a strong mind to live in this world successfully.

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Developing Spiritual Eye

Third eye is referred to as spiritual eye and has been given significance in many of the spiritual scriptures. When the spiritual eye starts developing, a person on the spiritual path is able to observe the thoughts or the incidents, being detached from the thought or the incident, as an observer, thus coming out of the vicious grip of the mind. This establishes a seeker on the path and helps the further progress.

Developing spiritual eye

There are a lot of materials available in the market that claim to fasten the development of the spiritual eye. It would not be a holistic approach to just concentrate on the third eye or the spiritual eye, for its development. 

The spiritual eye, which corresponds to the higher chakras, ajna and sahasrara, are part of our energy body. These higher chakras start developing when the energy body is cleared of its blocks through meditation. When the blocks are cleared, the energy naturally starts flowing in the required direction and it does the necessary work for the spiritual development of the seeker.

The holistic approach

The holistic approach would be to work with the entire energy body or the entire chakra system and the sushumna channel. In Kriya yoga, when one does kriya pranayama, the entire channel is cleared and the proper flow of prana (life force energy) to the higher chakras is facilitated. In the case of meditation like vipassana, the practitioner works with the entire energy body which would help the holistic development of the third eye.

Attitude towards meditation

It would be better not to sit for meditation with the objective of activating the spiritual eye or the third eye. The opening up of the third eye may bring some powers that may pull down the seeker on the path, if the higher chakra sahasrara is not properly open. The reason for which meditation is done is to attain liberation. Specific desires and expectations may not help in that process. So, it is better to meditate, with no specific desires. The development of the spiritual eye would happen on its own and bestow the required benefits at the right time.

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Meditation and Karma

When one speaks of meditation, the first question one may ask, if not into meditation is, why do you meditate?

There may be different answers for this. It may be for better physical health, better mental health, dealing with stress... To attain liberation, would be the apt answer. If one dives deep into the Eastern philosophy, the word Karma (the fruits of the action one does) has a lot of significance as it determines the whole scenario for the individual. Instead of saying that the karma determines the life of an individual, it would be better to say, that the individual determines his life by creating karma (either good or bad) through his free will.

Store house of karma

A human being has both visible and invisible (to the physical eyes) components. Physical body is the gross visible aspect. Astral body and the causal body are subtler bodies of an individual that are not visible to the physical eyes.

Both the physical body and the astral body would be dissolved in the process of death (physical body is the first to disintegrate). It is the causal body that would be storing all the imprints of our karma and could be termed, the store house of karma.

Liberation

So, how to achieve liberation? When all the deep rooted karmic imprints are cleared and the causal body dissolved, one comes out of the cycle of birth and death. Sounds simple. Right? Indeed it is simple, if one has a right tool to work with, to attain progress. Meditation is the tool with which we could work with the subtler bodies.

Impact of meditation

Meditation helps to bring the deep rooted karmic imprints and dissolve it, not allowing it to manifest into troubles, in this physical plane. Imagine, how good it would be to burn the seeds of a banyan tree, rather than watering it and cutting it when it is big and magnanimous. In the same way, it is very easy to dissolve the karma in subtler body than dealing with the problems of life, in manifested state. It is easier and faster to clear the karmic debris in subtler body paving way to liberation for which meditation is a great tool.