Still is there any hope ??

Mediatation or yoga techniques are very much popular in asian countries from ancient periods. We find the mention of breathing exercise in the Gita too. All of these techniques were used as a method to achieve higher mental status.

Obviously, if physical condition isn't good enough, one can't attain a higher mental state. So I repeatedly mentioned that yoga/meditation/breathing exercise certainly have a positive effect on our bodies.

But in my last article , I have discussed about the negative long term effects of meditation. Mindless application of these very much effective techniques lead to some times devastating effects. In support of this claim, in my last post, I have given links where case studies were done for a longer period rather than 1-5 months.

Can we just allow such a tool, which certainly helps to provide a better quality of life, to be applied in a more scientific way? I guess, yes we can. I have almost prepared a post which analyses condition of brain during and after the meditation. This post will be very much helpful to understand what is transcendental yoga/meditation as well as how we can by pass the long term negative effects of TM.

Oh! recently I have included email subscription facility. So now you can receive my newest post by mail too. Don't miss to read all the most contemporary and controversial discussion on yoga mania.

Yoga - case studies of negative effects

The experiences that I have so far shared with you is certainly based on my real experience associated my wife, SOMA and her co patients. I have observed them to do pranayam and meditation sincerely for period more than a year. They certainly enjoyed a better quality of life. I can remember my wife even could cook for me special dishes just 4 months before her death. At that time, I didn’t realize that very soon she won’t be around me anymore. But exactly that happened. She started to collapse at an alarming rate, which was beyond anybody’s control. She soon met the ultimate end. Similarly her other co patients died before or after her demise.

I have no intention to contradict the established belief that pranayam can cure. All the documentations done regarding the effects of yoga are based on short term basis. I haven’t seen any Long term case study which suggests that yoga can cure. But all I want to say that it’s just a belief. I have received huge emails after my last post. For all, here I’m going to add a link which suggests that yoga/meditation has in fact a negative effect in the long run.

Before I explore more on this topic, please feel free to read the following link. This link studies effect of Transcendental Meditation (TM) which is very much close to the style of pranayam so far as involvement of brain is concerned.

Here are the Links:

http://www.behind-the-tm-facade.org/transcendental_meditation-harmful-abstracts.htm

http://www.minet.org/Documents/research.1990.castillo

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned about PNI which says how yoga affects brain and immune system in a positive way. PNI also made a lot of short term studies which supported the concept but didn’t come up with long term effects as all of the patients they started with died after a certain period.

Here is another link which studied the long term effects of change of biochemistry of our brain and body.

http://www.behind-the-tm-facade.org/transcendental_meditation-tmresearch-biochemistry.htm


The research is conducted by the people I’m not related with and neither I endorse nor deny the truth of the reports mentioned there.

Readers are requested not to stop here or loose heart. I have some more interesting facts which may be helpful to make yoga more effective.

Yoga and Desire

Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) has scientifically highlighted the positive co-relation between yoga and mind and so body. It’s now beyond any doubt that yoga and other such techniques have a strong impact on brain. Neuroscientists also agree that psychology of a patient is very much significant in deciding the effects of yoga.

Psychology of a person, philosophically, is reflected in the nature of his ‘desire’. Inclination towards materialism and/or spiritualism is a reflection of a particular state of ‘desire’. Desire generates passion for something.

Desire is a process to create a dungeon around us which allows us to take pride in creating such a strong wall of materialistic happiness with lust and excessive passion like dust and sand used to erect a concrete wall.

This passion is the root of all dynamism, anxiety, anger etc. necessary to achieve success or drive off failure regarding materialistic happiness. On the other hand, passion for spiritualism generates internal happiness and shapes mind to look beyond the physical existence.

‘Desire’ shapes, or rather, defines our mind. Level of anxiety and feelings of happiness are connected to the desire of a person.

Broadly speaking I find three categories of people depending on the nature of desire. Excessive inclination/attachment towards materialism and spiritualism defines two categories out of three. The 3rd group dwells in between these two extreme groups.

Desire when uncontrolled is very much dangerous. Desire makes us a prisoner of irrational thoughts. Under such a circumstance, yoga, in the long term, is bound to generate more irrationality in thoughts and hence in works. Unfortunately, trainers of yoga and pranayam tend to ignore this fact. They put emphasis more on physical rather than mental state of a patient.

Obviously, as yoga has a remarkable impact on brain and so on mind, the impact of yoga will be different for the above mentioned three groups, in the long term perspective.

Although everyone will enjoy improved physical condition for a short period of time (6-10 months), same thing can’t be said about mental condition. Change in mental state will vary person to person as a result of rigorous and continuous practice of yoga. This change of mind is very much influential and strong in determining the ultimate effects (positive or negative effects) of yoga/pranayam/meditation.

"Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity."

This quote has a significant implicit meaning which will be useful in future analysis.

In my next post I’ll discuss about this in a different way, using some of the scientific findings and opinions of neuroscientists. Then only we’ll be able to explore some of the really dark facts about yoga.

Breathing Exercise - Dark Facts (Cont)

In my last post, I have mentioned few ‘dark facts’ about yoga in general. The points I have already mentioned imply that the environment plays an important role in the yoga practice.

I forgot to mention another very important factor. I’m thankful to Ms Mary to point it out. Here I’m writing about that. Thank you, Mary!!

Important to note that once you’ve started to practice pranayam/yoga/meditation sincerely, you must continue. Give a break for a week; you certainly become weak so far as physical and mental states are concerned.

(Rational but irrelevant Note: On the right side, I’m offering you a chance to earn few extra bucks. Check if it works for you)

Soma, my wife, used to practice pranayam religiously. After practicing it for 5-6 months , twice daily (Morning-1hr and evening-30 mins) without a break, she because of some reasons (I forgot the cause) she skipped practicing pranayam for appr. 10 days. Once she restarted, she couldn’t do it as long as she could do it earlier. Also, she became physically unstable. She needed a struggling 1 month to regain her earlier position.

So, for terminally ill patients, it is important to be punctual and practice it with a strong devotion. Only then quality of life will become better.

They should start it in a slower manner. They shouldn’t try to do it 1 hr in the very 1st week. Always remember not to cross the body tolerance level. It’ll cause harm. Comfortably they’ll practice and try to do it not more than 1 hr in the morning and 30 mins in the evening.

Also one should be careful about the patients who received radiotherapy on brain, neck and/or spine. Certainly such patients are significantly different from other patients. I made a wrong decision regarding Soma (She got radiotherapy on head) in deciding the pace and course of pranayam and meditation.

A healthy person may slowly practice to do for longer time until he/she feels tired. But in case of terminally ill patient, one must be careful about over enthusiasm.

Disclaimer : In this blog, I'm just sharing my personal experiences and views. Readers are requested to think over the points mentioned here. I’m neither promoting nor denying any ideas.

Breathing Exercise - Dark Facts

Let me explore some ‘dark facts’ related to meditation and other forms of pranayam (henceforth mentioned as pranayam). I believe the effectiveness of pranayam depends on number of factors.

1st of all, it is to be noted that pranayam should be practiced in the dawn and dusk. It has some scientific basis. Doing pranayam long (2-3 hrs) after sunrise and sunset will not yield the optimum results. Terminally ill patients, if they want to be cured (if at all pranayam can cure), need to practice pranayam to get the optimum results.

Secondly, I would like to mention about food habit. Normally, it is rationally expected that a terminally sick patient isn’t exposed to alcohol or smoking a cigar. Those who are doing pranayam should culture a strictly vegetarian food habit. Well, here I encountered a patient who was a vegetarian, but had a strong desire for non vegetarian foods. If I go by the words of the enlightened persons, I must mention that one needs to curb desire too to enjoy optimum results. This has an important implication which I’ll discuss in my later posts.

Thirdly, we often ignore an important point. Pranayam requires absolute devotion. Let us check whether environment around us is conductive to pranayam. Free from visual pollution? Noise free? In most of the cases we’ll find that the answers are NO. At least not free from visual and noise pollution upto that point where the environment can be said to be conductive to develop peace of mind and subsequently devotion.

Mindless deforestation and massive industrialization are making the climate vulnerable. Pure air is now an abstract concept. The quality of air, which is the most vital in breathing exercise, is susceptible. So how can we expect an optimum result ?

A lot of birds, like vultures and crows, are at a risk because of our heartless and mindless madness for industrialization. How can we expect a polluted atmosphere, which is itself a cause for a number of dreaded diseases, can help us to cure a disease? It is not the fault of pranayam that it often fails to deliver what is expected. But we are absolutely responsible to make the atmosphere more and more polluted. Funny enough that we still believe that such a man made polluted environment will allow us to get cured.

Well, a correction in the direction of the above mentioned points will certainly yield better results. By better results, I mean, better quality of life. To know more about the ‘dark facts’, please stay tuned.

Pl Note it ........

In my last post, I tried to look at the effects of yoga, pranayama and meditation in terms of scientific findings. That certainly establishes my earlier claim that pranayam improves the quality of life of an even terminally patient.

But Pranayama, yoga and meditation have unfortunately some unnoticed effects on mind. Continuous and sincere practice trigger a significant change about the approach to life.

This is what I'm going to write in my next post.