Though yoga and meditation are often linked together they are also different. Meditation is thought to have been practiced all over the world for a very long time. Self-hypnosis is also thought to have existed in the world for a long time.

These alternate methods of healing and self-healing have existed for hundreds of year’s in spite of efforts to discourage them by various vested interests for example fundamentalists and dogmatists. Doesn’t it make you wonder why some people would want to discourage something as wonderful as self-hypnosis, meditation and yoga? Well the answer is simple. Most people who against these methods were people in control- control of other people. And they were under no circumstances willing to relinquish the control they had over the masses, because these methodologies thought one how to have control over one’s well being( physical, mental & spiritual).

In many societies of the world these practices were forbidden. People in countries under dictatorship, communism were forbidden to practice yoga meditation, and self-hypnosis. Why? Because communism didn’t allow people to question and receive answers about any thing other than what they wanted the people to know. They wanted people who were not in touch with their spirituality, whose consciousness was not awakened. They wanted their masses to be like robots and just obey commands. And we all know that yoga takes us to a higher plane and a higher level of consciousness. So people who practice yoga cannot be manipulated according to the whims and fancies of certain people. Because of this kind of oppression many people in the former Soviet union practiced Yoga in secret.

As a person who has lived in a free country all his life I find this difficult to comprehend, as will all of you who live in a free society. All we can conclude is that if people were willing to risk their lives for the well being offered by yoga there must be something to it. Think of all the sages who realized self and more through yoga.

In the present day of gadgets, where we have some gadget or other to do almost any thing we want, we still have no time for ourselves-no time to take real good care of our well being, our spirituality, of self awakening. Who is holding you back from yoga? No one But you yourself. Take a few moments to yourself, put your feet up and relax. Think of all the benefits that you will gain by practicing yoga or meditation or self-hypnosis. Think of the well being that is the fruits of practicing these self- improvement methods. Don’t you want to feel good about your self, be relaxed and calm and be able to deal with the vagaries of life confidently and calmly.

Love and good wishes,

Yoga has specific techniques which deal with the science of mind control. We will study the nature of the mind as is recognized by yoga in this chapter. Shankaracharya has defined the mind in four different ways as per its functions: manas for the job of resolving and doubting; buddhi for the decision and judgment; asmita for the consciousness of its individual existence and chita for remembering the previous experiences. The Mind is a vast collection of thoughts and traces of past experiences. When you are born, your mind is the collection of samskaras collected over the previous births. Those samskaras, whose fruits have already been enjoyed have been wiped out. But as you grow up, new samskaras are being added continuously due to various acts performed by you from birth to death. This translates into the law of karma which states that the events one faces in his life are the results of the activities done by him in the past and his mind at birth contains the samskaras from his previous births.

Yoga recognizes five factors, basic to the mind of every person. They are called kleshas because they are the forefathers of every human misery. They are: avidya which is the false knowledge or ignorance of ones true self in relation to the objects; asmita or ego feeling since in yoga, body and soul are two different aspects; raga is the liking of pleasurable experience; dvesha or aversion to pain; abhinivesha or fear of death. Yoga understands the human behaviour from the perspective of these five qualities which are assumed to be present in a person since birth and are considered as the impurities of the mind. They make a person unstable and agitated. Hence yoga has given way of dhyana and pranayam to cleanse your mind.