All those pretzel-twisty yoga postures were designed by the ancient Vedic scholars to develop . . . the mind?
Maybe that’s a bit of a stretch (no pun intended). So, just for now, please set aside your ideas about what yoga is.
Now, grab a mental pen and write the number “1” on a fresh, blank mental page. We’ll build from there. The number “1,” you see, is a common denominator to all whole numbers. It divides evenly into 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. In a similar way, your mind is a common denominator to all your life experiences. You can’t really have any experiences without a mind to perceive and to process them.
In developing yoga postures, ancient Vedic scholars saw this and raised you one: they also saw a direct connection between the physical body and the mind. Lately, Western science is concurring with this notion. Livescience.com recently e-published a study shown in Newsweek that revealed botox-immobilized facial muscles inhibit the experience of emotion. http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/etc/100208-botox-paralyzes-emotions-too.html.
Fascinating!
And who can forget those exciting breakthroughs in the field of “biofeedback?” People actually lowered blood pressure and heart rates by willing them to lower with their mind. Because the information was measured in a scientifically-structured, experimental format, Western science has solid proof that the mind can directly affect the body.
But those ancient Vedic dudes didn’t stop there. Just like light and sound waves exist on a spectrum from microwave to ultraviolet, and doggie-whistle high to elephant and whale rumble low, they saw the physical world on a spectrum of density.
Things like rock are more dense; liquid water is middle dense; and air is less dense. We get these facts, and all sorts of other “laws” of nature from the branch of science called physics. We call them “laws” because their qualities remain reliably constant over time.
The Vedic dudes, sitting in stillness and silence for years on end, created a branch of ancient science we now call “metaphysics.” It deals with things happening on much subtler and more individually-specific and refined levels. These levels can only be perceived with enough accuracy, consistency and duration to analyze them when the body and mind are finely tuned.
Voila! Yoga, meditation and ayurveda (the health care branch of yoga) were born!
Turns out, the qualities the ancient Vedic dudes discovered are also reliably constant over time. So, they have come to be known as “the laws of metaphysics.”
Next week: What sort of things go on in metaphysics?
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- The Happy Space Cadet: Tales from The Final Frontier
- The Happy Space Cadet Tales:Tales From The Final Frontier
- The Broader Aspects Of Yoga
- The Broader Aspects Of Yoga
- Yoga Summer Dog Days
