Page 32 - NAMAH-Jan-2022

Namah Vol. 29, Issue 4, 15th January 2022

past continues to hold us back in body and during certain exceptional situations such as
brain. But through the long, winding course war or being trapped in a desert or a jungle
of evolution we see some shining points like or during intense army training can survive,
stars in the night, where the human being overriding many so-called indispensable
has displayed some exceptional possibility. needs of the body.
There was a tendency at some point, an effort
at least, for it to be generalised through yoga Equally we see how certain religious practices
and an effort at spiritual evolution but it endorse fasting from time to time, some even
slumped back again in our present age as as rigorous as a denial of even water for a
science took the other route, the road outside couple of days. As a psychiatrist, I have often
rather than within. been surprised to see some acutely violent
patients who hardly eat or drink refusing
But perhaps we have reached that point everything, as if in a catatonic stupor followed
wherein a new journey or rather the lost by excitement, or in mania, yet continue to
trails of past attempts can be picked up again, be extremely energetic. It is so, because the
integrating our experience and gains from body draws energy directly from the lower
exploring the far limits of matter and our vital ranges and hence can continue with less
body’s physiology and chemistry. This other intake of food.
road opens three doors of possibilities.
In fact, this understanding opens the doors
to a new science of energy balance within the
body. Ordinarily, we depend mainly on food
and breathing for energy requirements of the
body. But have we not noticed how sometimes
when we are too busy or preoccupied with
an intensely engaging mental process, how
our hunger is put on hold for a long time.
Equally, we see how when we are in a state
of lethargy and dullness, the sudden arrival
of a cherished friend and the exchanges that
follow fill us with energy. Of course, there
are mechanisms such as the adrenaline rush
Mind over matter triggered by the sight and sound etc., but the
switch to this rush is in the mind.
We are not as helpless as we believe ourselves
to be. If we learn to disengage our mind from Newer possibilities of the mind
matter, in other words our thoughts and will
and feelings from a stark bondage to our body Ordinarily we cannot sustain these states
and physical condition, then it is possible to for long, yet they indicate a possibility that
have a much greater effect of our thoughts yogis of a certain kind explore to its ultimate.
upon our illness and on the body in general. Through the practice of breath mastery and
Even in ordinary life, we see how people thought control, they are able to slow down

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