How Yoga Works

This Thanksgiving was an unfortunate one for yours truly.  It's Monday night and for the second day in a row I'm unable to leave the couch due to illness.  Perhaps the only good thing about being sick over a long weekend is the ability to waste the day away reading and watching comfort movies free from guilt.  As a result, I was able to finish How Yoga Works by Geshe Michael Roach and Christie McNally.  It was chosen as October's book in my yoga book club, and I really had no idea what to expect.

How Yoga Works explains just that:  the ways in which one can use yoga to not only better oneself but also to promote good in the world at large (but of course everything is really one, so in doing one you also do the other, etc).  The book explains how yoga works within the context of a charming little story about a young Tibetan girl named Friday who is wrongfully imprisoned in India for carrying with her the Yoga Sutra (a book that is deemed far too old and important looking for such a young girl to lawfully be in possession of).  In order to prove that the book is really hers, Friday must teach the prison's captain yoga.  This eventually leads to the practice being spread throughout the community, and consequently to an enhanced quality of life for the townspeople.  

The story itself drags a little in parts, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.  The whole concept of Buddhism/Eastern philosophy in general is quite new to me, but the more I learn about it the more I like it.  Much of it seems like hidden common sense - ideas we all know instinctively but need to be told outright before we can realize how brilliant they are.  At one point, for instance, Friday uses a bamboo pen to demonstrate how, although the Captain understands it as a tool for writing, a cow understands it as something good to eat.  Therefore it is neither a pen nor food in and of itself; any meaning it holds is relative to the individuals who are perceiving it.  This concept leads to a detailed explanation of the powers of the mind and relativism.  I will not attempt to explain it all here, but the philosophy lays out a truly beautiful way of understanding the world which could undoubtedly lead to healing on all levels.

 

Closely related to the principles discussed in How Yoga Works is the idea of holistic health.  This concept is also quite new to me, yet it makes perfect sense when I think about it.  For instance, there's no question that the reason I've been so irritable lately is that I have a cold.  Any physical discomfort, from being overly full and bloated to having a headache affects my mood in a very negative manner, just as feeling healthy improves it.  Conversely, mental turmoil causes afflictions such as insomnia and headaches, and the whole thing turns into a vicious cycle.  Therefore you can't possibly maintain a healthy body without also having a healthy mind and vice versa.  And even if this isn't scientifically proven, if you think it's true then it is true because everything we perceive is determined by our minds.  It's all so simple...I can't believe I didn't think of it like that before!!!