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We began to introduce the practices of nada yoga, singing and music, which have an incredibly beneficial effect on such people. They love music. When we take out the harmonium, they all come. They all want to play the harmonium and everybody wants to sing. Then we begin chanting of the mantra Om and even practise a little trataka. Only in the last two years have we begun to practise trataka for just thirty or forty seconds to one minute.
We found that the reports which we get from the psychologists, the psychiatrists, the psychotherapists and the people who are in charge of their institutions, note that there have been positive changes in behavior, in perception and in understanding. It was at the beginning of this year that we proposed that a few of these handicapped persons should come and join the classes with all the other so-called normal people, who are attending the general courses. This was so they could start moving from their isolated, confined environment and mix in society with healthy and normal people. Definitely, it has been accepted, and this year about four of them are joining normal yoga classes of asanas, pranayamas, relaxation, yoga nidra and so on.
I have not continued to teach these classes for mentally and physically disabled persons myself. However, I have encouraged a lot of yoga teachers in Torino, throughout Italy and wherever I can, to make themselves ready with proper training so they can go and teach yoga in every area, whether it is a social center, or a private venture or a national association. We are collecting reports from psychologists at each institution and center and making these reports available to anyone who is interested in such fields, as evidence of the effects of yoga on mentally and physically retarded persons. This is great testimony to the deep effects of yoga. We know that yoga works for the psychosomatic diseases that one acquires in life, but now we are proving that positive changes are also experienced by people who have been born with physical and mental defects. It has been a marvellous experience to see these changes and also to share them with all of you.
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