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GUIDING PRINCIPLES IN YOGIC
THERAPY Prof. M.P. Bhole
The most recent work carried out and published by Dr. Din Ornish and his colleagues has opened up new vistas of research and application of yoga in therapeutics. These research workers belong to the modern medical profession. I am, however, limiting myself to those yoga therapists or aspirants who are basically non-medical people but who know and understand a good deal of yoga through personal practice and have a sufficient exposure to the philosophical concepts.
The scope and limitations of yogic therapy are therefore as follows: 1. Conditions where yogic therapy cannot be used as the
first line of action: all life threatening medical, surgical emergencies like accidents, burns etc.; psychiatric conditions just now mentioned by Dr. Nespor; acute infections and hypersensitive inflammatory conditions; acute exacerbations of pranic conditions, such as acute attack of asthma, hypertension, or diabetic/blood
sugar, and certain genetic disorders. 2. The conditions where yogic therapy can be given along
with other treatment procedures: many chronic psychoneuro-endocrine-immunological type disorders; distress or tension disorders which are amenable to yogic treatment. The conditions where yogic therapy can be given as the first line of action without any inedication: purely functional disorders or imbalance at the neuro-muscular level, e.g. spinal disorders, constipation, borderline hypertension, diabetes, hyper-acidity, anxiety, migraine,
depression etc. When we find that there are limitations for yoga therapy, similarly we will have to find out indications and contra-indications for different yoga techniques.
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