Yoga Sagar

SR No.: 014011
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Paramhamsa Satyananda
Publisher: Bihar School of Yoga Munger
Publication Year: 1994
Total Pages: 436
Language: English
Classification: Seminar & Articles
File Size: 24 MB

Page 110

heart is the master. I think the heart is the slave to the mind. How does it happen? You are sitting down and suddenly your heart-rate goes up from a normal of 70 to 120. You have not done anything, but something has come to your mind. Similarly, the blood-pressure goes up, the heart-rate goes up, the oxygen requirements of the myocardium at the heart muscles goes up tremendously without you having done anything physically. So, this is why the role of mind has been indicated to us in ayurveda again.
Now I come to the role of yoga and the relaxation response in cardiovascular problems. The three main aspects where yoga has helped us is in the management of hypertension (high blood-pressure), the management of angina and anginalike syndromes and to some extent the irregularities of the heart-beat. To my mind the most important role of yoga in heart care is the preventive aspects to keep the heart in a normal state, or in a normal position - the absence of ailments from the heart - and this is where I think yoga has a great role to play.
When we talk of yoga and cardiovascular disease I must say that yoga is a way of life and I do not personally think there is any necessity for validation by the so-called scientific studies of the role or the effect of yoga. We know enough already. The first publication I came across was from New York, published in 1937, stating the role of yoga in human wellbeing.
In our Indian scriptures the word yoga has been defined as union. Yoga means the union of the self, this atma, with the supreme, the paramatma. Now, I often wonder if we as human beings, as mortals, can know the combination or the union of atma with paramatma. How do we manifest when we are living in this world? To my mind the biggest role of yoga is to let me know what I am. Am I what I think I am, the egotistic Dr. Wasir? Or am I what my friends think of me? They may praise or they may hate me. Is that what I am? Or is it the third T' which I really am, which God alone knows, and which yoga helps us to recognize? Yoga helps us to arouse for ourselves the awareness of what 'I am'. Once we know that, I think we can take care of a lot of problems which arise out of our interactions with other human beings.
Now, padmasana and shavasana are the two important asanas to a cardiologist. I have been impressed by these two
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