Cosmopolitan April 1935 Page 56/57

   

The "lotus seat," which the Hindus 

consider the position best adapted , for thinking: 

in it the right foot is placed upon the left thigh, 

and the left foot upon the right thigh, 

and the soles of the feet are turned upward.

Photograph by Edwin F. Townsend; 

posed by Marguerite Agniel

We've all heard of yoga, the strange philosophy of Hindu mystics-but who'd have thought that the foundation of yoga is-setting-up exercises! Yet can you control your mind if you don't control your body? Here are the first simple steps toward doing both  

Yoga for You 

by FRANCIS YEATS-BROWN 

Author of "The Lives of a Bengal Lancer" 
Photograph by Arthur O'Neill

"WHAT IS yoga?  The word means "yoke." It is the discipline which we must impose upon ourselves in order that we may reach happiness, and heaven: it is a system of physical and mental exercises, neither more nor less, evolved about three thousand years ago by a race of men very like ourselves, the Indo-Aryans, whose language-Sanskrit-is the grandmother of our own language. 

These are the positions assumed for yoga 

relaxation exercises. At the left is the "serpent stance," 

in which the lower half of the body lies along the floor, 

the upper half being raised on the hands. 

In the center is the "lotus seat." At the right is 

the "fish posture," in which one stands 

on the back of the neck and shakes the legs. 
Major Yeats-Brown
continued on page 182

In this definition of yoga, I placed physical before mental exercises. This needs a word of explanation. In the system which I know best, that known as Ghatastha yoga, emphasis is laid on the control of the imagination through breathing rather than through any cold effort of cerebration. But there are many different yogas, each leading by different ways to the same goal, the same "lair of the illumined self," where the adept understands that he and the world are one. 

That the world is one, a whole, is of course the intellectual position of the western monist. But the Indian monist is not satisfied with intellectual concepts. He believes that no mere mental grasp of a philosophy is sufficient: its meaning must be felt and realized in every part of the being-in the bones and intimate tissues as well as the brain. 

Yoga is not the dreamy and fantastic theory that it is sometimes represented to be. It demands action rather than contemplation from its disciples. It is a practical approach to the problems of life, grounded in the good, clean earth, beginning with the body and progressing by orderly stages to some of the sublimest conceptions ever formulated by the mind of man. 

My introduction yoga occurred while I was out pigsticking. We were pursuing a vicious boar, which had wounded a beater, killed a buffalo and cut a horse's leg to the bone. After being hunted all morning, he had jumped over the low wall of a peasant's house. 

The inhabitants were fortunately able to climb out onto the roof. There was the boar inside, among the kitchen pots and pans, and there was I, compelled by the etiquette of the chase to go in and finish him off. I dismounted and walked into the "compound" with my spear. 

A man feels brave enough galloping after his quarry on a good horse. But dismounted, crouching at the low door of a mud hut, with nothing but his spear between him and a three-hundred-pound boar with tusks like razors, he will probably be scared stiff. I was. I was so .frightened I could hardly move. 

However, I didn't have to move, for the boar moved first, and moved so fast that I scarcely had time to put my spear down. I caught him a glancing blow in the snout, however, and turned him, so that he went crashing into the wall of the compound. That gave me time to collect my wits. When he charged again. I was ready for him, and speared him through the shoulder. I have his tusks now, a fine pair. 

This incident gave me a psychic jolt. Perhaps it put the fear of God in me, or the fear of death. Anyway, it woke me up, and gave me that sense of the joy of living which is the first step on the path of Reality, according. to the Hindus. 

What that Reality is, I shall not discuss until I have described the steps by which it is approached. 

There is no particular mystery about yoga, beyond the mystery which attaches to any incalculable and cosmic phenomenon, such as gravitation or electricity. The Hindus believe that you draw in a powerful vital force with each breath you take. This force may be directed to various centers of the body, but you must know what you are doing. If you mess about with the electric-light plug, you are liable to get a shock. So also if you play tricks with your breathing, you will feel giddy or even bring on convulsions, unless the power you have tapped is rightly controlled. 

Moreover, the body is a machine (among many other things) and needs decarbonizing just as an engine does. The first step, then, is mental and physical purification: mens sana in corpore sano. 

The succeeding stages are: 

(2) positions 

(3) exercises 

(4) breathings 

(5) nerve control 

(6) mind control 

(7) meditation 

(8) bliss 

But yoga is a synthesis of activities: we must not overanalyze its component parts, but should rather consider it as a whole. In order to make a good drive at golf the beginner must know how to place his feet, what to do about his knees, hips, shoulders, arms, wrists, fingers, head, eyes; then he must forget details and have faith. So with yoga. We are at liberty to reject it as unscientific nonsense, but before doing so we should at least be scientific enough to try its practices on ourselves . . . 

Certain positions have been adopted by the human race from time immemorial as indicative of various emotions, such as kneeling for reverence. Among the Hindus the "lotus seat" is considered the position best adapted for meditation. In it the right foot is placed upon the left thigh, and the left foot upon the right thigh, and the soles of the feet are turned up. 

The race that is famed above-all others for its intellectual subtlety and its capacity for abstractions was meditating like this long before the time of Buddha, and the lotus seat is still as popular as it was three thousand years ago. Surely there is some particular virtue in this position? Perhaps the subtle electrical currents of the body which Western medical science is now studying may be influenced by this posture. Who knows? 

With regard to breathing, why is it that if we think deeply and calmly our breath comes slowly and regularly, and that when we are nervous and agitated our breathing is irregular? The Hindus cannot explain these phenomena, but they have noted them, and used them to promote human happiness. Their methods bring results-peace of mind, awareness, intuition. 

We all need peace of mind in our hectic civilization. Can right breathing give it us? The Hindus assert that it can, and I believe that one day we shall have to admit the truth of their theories. That is one of the many possibilities latent in the application of yoga to Western life. It is destined, I believe, to advance the intellectual frontiers of mankind to regions almost unguessed. 

I have tried these yoga exercises on myself. I know that the lotus seat is , good for me, physically and mentally. I know that the "fish posture" gives me I the feeling of treading on air. I know that the "cleansing breath" has the tonic I effect of a walk in the mountains. And I believe that the further practices of yoga (nerve control, mind control, and so on) would be of benefit to me, had I the time and the teacher requisite for this study.

Unfortunately, I have neither the one nor the other. Yogic practice must be carried out under quiet and regular "conditions which are absent from my life. Moreover, individual guidance is essential. You can no more learn yoga out of a book than you can learn golf out of a book. 

Next year, I hope to go to India to continue my researches under a teacher. If I outline the kind of things I shall learn, it is with the reservation that some of them are extremely dangerous unless studied under a competent instructor. This is particularly true of the breathing exercises, which are liable to induce all kinds of physical and psychic disturbances if practiced by enthusiastic but ignorant amateurs. 

First, I shall take up again the positions and exercises for relaxation. For instance, the fish posture to which I have already alluded. It is a simple and amusing exercise: you merely stand on the back of your neck and shake your legs. But I should not have written "merely," for of course there is an art in doing it right. Lie flat on your back, raise your legs above your body, and then raise your body above your head as far as it will go. You will now be standing on the back of your neck, with your chin pressed in, and considerable tension about your throat. This tension about the throat is beneficial, for it massages the thyroid gland.

While you are in this position, you can support your loins with your hands if you like; the main thing is to have the body and legs as straight and as high as possible above the head. Now begin shaking the legs, gently at first, then harder. The effect is difficult to describe: at first you will feel suffocated and uncomfortable: later, after you have practiced it for a few days (and always supposing you have average health), you will experience the benefits of a reinvigorated blood stream. 

Then there is the "serpent stance," in which the lower half of the body lies along the floor, the other half, from the navel upwards, being raised on the hands, so that the spine is arched backwards, compressing the kidneys and suprarenal glands. I refuse to commit myself to physiological details, but I know that holding this position for several minutes a day is a wonderful nerve tonic. Also, there is the writhing exercise, which is nothing more than the cancan performed seated; it is a great inducer of peristalsis.

Between these exercises it is advisable to lie absolutely flat on the floor and relax each limb consciously and in turn. While doing this, you can also think of your breathing, without straining in any way or altering the natural rate: merely tell yourself that you are absorbing your share of the world's vitality with each slow inward breath; and during each expiration imagine that the fears and worries of your life are being expelled. 

For the average student, the cleansing breath, to which I have already alluded, will be sufficient to employ his time for several months, if not years. It is not difficult to learn, and not dangerous, provided the heart is sound and the system is not seriously autointoxicated. You draw in twenty-one regular and rhythmic breaths, then hold your breath. Listen to your heart. You will find that it first accelerates, and then settles down to a slow, strong pulsation. 

A feeling of calm and confidence will come to you. You may hear the sound of bells, or see lights and flashes before your eyes. These symptoms are not necessarily psychic; they are more likely to be poisons working themselves out of your system. Hold your breath as long as you comfortably can, then draw in another twenty-one regular and rhythmic breaths. Repeat the process three times. You will feel incredibly invigorated, always provided you have avoided overstrain. 

The only object of yogic breathing is to make the act of respiration a slow and regular motion under all conditions. Once this has been achieved, the student has peace of mind, whether he or she knows it or not, and whatever the outward circumstances of his or her life. 

Nerve control and mind control are the fifth and sixth stages on the path to bliss, and in the particular yoga which I am studying they cannot be taken before the other steps. Other systems of yoga claim that equable breathing (and therefore peace of mind) can be achieved by purely mental means, but I do not myself believe that this is possible for Western races. 

We are coming now to a point where the actual practices of yoga, being largely psychic and emotional, are impossible to describe briefly. A generalization with regard to nerve control would be that it consists of relaxation of every part of the body separately (beginning with the toes and ending with the jaw and the muscles at the back of the neck), and then simultaneously. Mind control consists of various exercises designed to hold the attention on a given object without allowing consciousness to wander. 

The seventh stage, meditation, may be called a stillness: the making of the mind like a pool unruffled by the wind, reflecting the stars by night and the face of nature by day. 

As to nirvana, far from being the listless state sometimes pictured by western writers, it is a subtle, beatific activity, during which cosmic forces pour through a body held only lightly by the bonds of matter as we know it. But these are stages of enlightenment in which written words are more likely to deceive than help. 

My advice to those interested in yoga in the West is to achieve physical fitness by amusements (walking, swimming; golf, tennis, dancing) unless they can find a qualified instructor, and for the rest, to look inwards, not outwards. As the greatest Teacher of all said nineteen hundred years ago: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The realization of this is the alpha and omega of yoga, and the object of all the preceding steps. 

This brings me to the Vedanta philosophy. "Vedanta" means "the end of vision." Yoga is the means to the Vedanta, and the latter is the flower and culmination of Aryan wisdom. It is a way of looking at life which involves the whole powers of Man and Woman-physical, cerebral and intuitive-in order to accept monism not as an idea, but as a "feeling-realization." 

The personality must be sacrificed. Who am I, to think that my little self shall continue immortal, when I know that Creation is dissolving, at varying rates, under the relentless march of Time? Yet there is no death and no loss in the Vedanta, for I am the world. I am the dawn, the dew, the wind, the rain, the sun at noonday, the tenderness of evening, the sea and sky and mountains, humanity, the lover and the loved, the known, the knower and the knowing. I have renounced my little straying personality for the Universal Cosmic Consciousness. 

There is no reason why we white races should not evolve a yoga of our own. Perhaps we are already doing so. The Great War and the Great Depression have driven us to consider other values than those of material achievement. We have been taught that with all our getting we have not got wisdom, and have been driven to look inside ourselves. 

What we shall find there will be different from what the Indians found, for we shall bring to our researches the accurate methods of modern science, but the results will not be entirely new discoveries. Einstein was anticipated in the Vedas, every page of which is marked by a symbol meaning "relativity"; and the psychoanalysts (notably Jung, who is studying yogic texts) are covering ground already traversed by the seers of India.

For too long we in Europe and the United states have been conquering the material resources of the earth: now we must turn again to the control of ourselves and consider anew some of the deepest needs of the human spirit.