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SCIENCE, THE HUMAN BEING AND
YOGA
Dr. N.R. Mitra:
There are research works which show the relationship between human beings and yoga from a scientific point of view. Yoga, as you know, is a very ancient science, and previously was also a secret science. Now the science is not secret, but is found in many books and thus today you can learn many things about the science of yoga if you so desire. But some parts of the science are secret, and in this case you need a guru to deliver the real secrets of yoga.
Yoga, as we know, helps to maintain spiritual, mental and physical balance. Ultimately, this results in the best possible management of one's bio-energy. So, if we practise yoga, we do not waste bio-energy. If every individual was a yoga practitioner, I am sure that the present problems of society would be minimized.
Returning to my topic, we have to understand who is practising yoga. The human being is practising yoga, so we have to know what 'human being' means. From a scientific point of view, the human being is composed of two things. One is the physical entity. We exist physically, all our actions are physical in nature and we can measure them physically. But we should know what else the human being is made of. He is composed of a body, which emerges from matter, plus something else which scientists do not know of yet. This is an unknown X. However, the common people know what this is; they call it 'life' or 'vital' force. But in yoga, it is called 'consciousness'.
So, if we accept this definition of consciousness, we could say that the human being is composed of matter and consciousness. The aim of the study of matter is to understand force, but force is everywhere and cannot be realized through the five senses, it can only be defined in terms of its impact. Therefore, force can be understood as that which causes change or tends to change a state of a body.
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