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Om Bole Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jai, Śrī Śrī Dev Puruṣa Mahādeva Kī Jai, Hindu Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṃśrī Svāmī Madhavānandapurījī Mahārāj Kī Jai, Viśva Guru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṃśrī Svāmī Maheśvarānandapurījī Gurudeva Kī Jai. Hari Om. This evening we are in Jaipur. Swāmījī has a cold, so he is not going to be giving the satsaṅg; it is my turn. Swāmījī asked me to talk about yoga and physiotherapy. Once upon a time, I was a physiotherapist, and now I have forgotten most of it. But to start, I will change the topic just a little bit. It is better that I speak about yoga in daily life with physiotherapy, because they very much go together, especially the awareness and the thinking that you should have in yoga in your daily life. If you want to have a successful treatment of any illness, you need to have this awareness. I will talk in two parts. One is about back problems and general skeletal issues you might have, and the other about respiratory issues. One of the things I used to do when working in hospitals was to go and assess people’s workplaces and try to stop them from having injuries, rather than trying to cure them, because that is the real answer to problems with backs, necks, arms, and so on. Often, when you look at how people live, you find it so simple and obvious from that perspective why they have a problem. As people who practice yoga regularly, and hopefully increase our awareness about what we are doing, how we are sitting, and how we are working, you can really put that into practice. It does not require a professional or a therapist; it just requires awareness. For example, we used to go and look in people’s kitchens at how they were set up. In a kitchen, there are basically four main things: where the refrigerator is, where you cut things, where you wash up, and where you cook at the stove or oven. The idea was to set up the kitchen so you would not twist a lot. For people with back problems, twisting all the time naturally puts stress on your body. If it is not necessary, why do it? It is a very small, simple thing to fix. We just used to rearrange the drawers, perhaps where the knives were, because people were always reaching behind for a knife or spoon and then coming back. People would immediately get results. You can apply this everywhere: the way your computer is set up, your desk at work, your car setup—playing with the seat, moving it forward and back to see what is most comfortable for you. I would say this is a form of yoga. For me, yoga in the āsanas, besides the spiritual and prāṇic effects, is in practice a personal experiment. You do something, see the result, and decide whether that practice benefits you physically and mentally. Of course, it takes a long time; it is a very long experiment. Over time, you learn more about what you are doing and, when you have a problem, how you can fix yourself. As your awareness increases and you become more aware of that experiment and how you practiced last time when you had the problem, your power to immediately fix what is arising increases. You can experiment in the same way by looking at your daily life. That is yoga in daily life: where you are sitting, how you are sitting, how different places where you sleep affect you. I know, for me personally, these foam mattresses we have here—I cannot sleep on them; I get back pain immediately. For me, it is better to sleep on the floor. For someone else, it is completely different. But to have that awareness of your own body and your own needs in those things, you can also use it to affect your thinking about the situations you are putting yourself in. As your awareness increases, when you look at therapy, the main point is mental: why we have illnesses. Look at how certain situations affect you mentally, and that is also a yoga awareness. You see how you reacted yesterday when something happened, and then you ask yourself, "Do I really want to put myself in that same situation, and do I want to have the same reaction?" Because those things affect you not just mentally, but physically. I can give an example from when I was first here in Jhadan. I was having a terribly hard time staying there. Everything was horrible: the food, people, environment. It was too dusty. I think everyone who has stayed for a longer time in Jhadan has had that at some stage. Another thing: since I was studying, I was always renowned to be the most inflexible person in the whole physiotherapy course I did. If the tutors wanted an example of just how far you could not stretch, I was always up at the front of the lecture theatre showing them. I could basically only touch to about my knees. One day in Jhadan, we were in the fields digging holes to plant some trees where the mountain is now. The sun was going down, and with me was Govind Purī. Govind Purī was looking out towards the sunset and said, "It is so beautiful." I looked at him and thought, "You are such an idiot." But it was beautiful. It was really, really beautiful. You know how the sun sets in India when it is going down—this big, big orange ball of fire. It is quite stunning, incredible. Then I realized it really was beautiful. That whole mental tension I was holding at that time somehow just disappeared. The next morning was the surprising part. When I did āsanas in the morning, I was doing exactly the same āsanas I had done for the six months I was there. But instead of my hands going to my knees, they went flat on the ground. No pushing, nothing. Doing the same āsanas, bending forward. That whole stiffness which had been there since I was a young boy was gone. It was all mental. That is the only way I could explain it. As a physiotherapist at that time, still thinking that way, I thought, "It is impossible." Nobody can gain so much flexibility in 24 hours. I knew where I was yesterday and what I was doing at my fullest limit. The next day, it was not at my limit; it was just relaxed and down, like spaghetti somehow. It really made me appreciate how much of what we hold in our spine, in our neck, in headaches, etc., comes from something very different from the physical problems we have. If we can, with yoga, develop that peace and release those tensions, release those knots which are there, then the problems also go away. Of course, it is much easier to take a tablet short-term, but it never solves the problem. That is where yoga is really special, because you can find a solution to physical problems in a long-term, permanent sense. The problem is that it requires effort. It really requires dedication and that daily observation of what you are doing, daily conducting that experiment, noticing if it is helping you or not, and then reassessing what you are doing and trying something different the next day or continuing with the same. At the same time, with yoga, when you are doing the āsanas in part one, part two, and part three, they very much maintain the muscular strength within the core part of your body, within the spine, and within the hips and shoulders. We have lots of experience in Jhadan building things, and always the main issue is the foundations. This is the foundation of the body. This is the part from which everything moves and acts. By maintaining it—maintaining the strength and flexibility in that part—it not only means you stop yourself from having problems in that area, but it means the support is there so the other parts can work properly. Subsequently, they are not under so much stress or having to adjust because your foundation is weak. Problems there also do not occur or develop so strongly. The main problem I experienced treating physio, which is so similar to yoga when you look at it, is that it has actually just stolen all the parts from yoga. But the answers are there. To get people to do them, that is very difficult. I wonder sometimes if we really want to be healthy, because it is all there. Swāmījī has given the whole system, but a lot of it comes down to us—whether we will practice and keep going with it, whether you want to be healthy and feel that you should be healthy. In my opinion, you do not deserve to be suffering physically; it is almost like a right that you should be able to make yourself healthy. But you have to believe that and then do it. The second aspect of yoga most important for health is the practice of prāṇāyāma. Physiologically, scientifically, when you look at prāṇāyāma or breathing in general, the lungs are a structure that is somehow triangular in shape, biggest at the bottom and smaller at the top. The blood supply, when you are sitting, because of gravity and the way the vessels are constructed, is also more at the bottom and less at the top. The importance is that if you can bring the air to the lower parts of your lungs, the efficiency of your breathing is much better. You have a bigger space there to put it in, and you have a better blood supply to then transfer the oxygen to the rest of the body and also to take the toxins out. Then think about a full yoga breath, the whole basis of prāṇāyāma. The full yoga breath’s first step is to bring the breath to that bottom part of the lungs, which is where the efficiency is. It is the main point where you want to have that breath. When you are breathing high in the chest, it is very inefficient. There is not a lot of blood supply there; it is just 50% of what goes on down below. In the full yoga breath, first you bring the breath to the bottom, and it stays there as you slowly fill up to the top of your lungs. That oxygen, by staying in the bottom of the lungs so long, also has time to circulate for the transfer to occur, for the toxins to go out and the oxygen to go in. It makes an incredible difference to the efficiency of your whole body. When you consider the toxins have more time to go out, it naturally means your body is getting better service—think of it like a car; regular service keeps it running well. Mentally, you know how it affects you when you take a deep breath slowly. It really changes your mental state, how you are feeling, your opinion about things. And that, once again, goes back and affects you physically. They are very simple things, but very powerful for health—mentally, physically, and spiritually. Regarding the back, the structure in your spine: one of the main reasons people get back pain, and it comes very suddenly, is that there are very small muscles between your vertebrae. They are incredibly resilient, work all day, and can also store tension for long periods without complaining much. You are not really aware they are working. But the problem is they store so much tension they can go without cracking, but when they do crack, then we have a problem. The āsanas we do for spinal flexibility—bending forwards, backwards, and twisting—allow them to twist in a controlled, stretching way. With that, the tension can go out, especially when you do them slowly, with consciousness and breathing. Because that tension can go out, they are refreshed and can do their job easily, not storing that tension which later comes to haunt you. It may come in one year or five years. Normally, with a back problem, it is not sudden. The incident may appear sudden, but it is something accumulated over a longer time. You cannot treat that in a consulting room, but with yoga you can. You can constantly maintain it, reduce that tension, release, stretch, and strengthen at the same time. When the foundations are good, problems tend to be much less. Similarly, when you do have a problem—when it is too late and you already have one—the quick fix is either surgery or medicine. The slow fix is to do it with yoga. It is slow because you have to again build up that whole strength and flexibility in the back, and do it within the restriction of the pain you are having, without making the pain worse. But with time, if you are persistent and practice it, in most cases you can actually fix the problem, improve your strength, and get back to a normal life. The principles we use in yoga for that type of treatment are very much the same as in physiotherapy. In physiotherapy, when giving treatment for such an illness, you do a small treatment and say, "Come back tomorrow." It is not just to have them come again and pay again. You do the experiment and see the result. It may make it worse, but from that you learn something. It may make it better, and you learn you should go more in that direction. The result is always positive if you are aware and using it to improve the treatment. Day by day, you come to a treatment that improves and suits your condition. The reason you do so little in the beginning is the same with āsanas. If you have back pain and start doing āsanas, you should be very cautious and very, how to say—I know in Hindi, miserly. You should do very little and see what happens. The mistake many people make is they get very enthusiastic: "Now I will cure my back pain with yoga." You start, and it feels a bit better, so you do some more āsanas, and then a few more, and half an hour is gone. The next day you wake up and think, "Oh, yoga is not good because I have worse pain." But you have to start with a small amount and be patient. Then in the morning, see the result. If it was positive, do a little bit more. If it was still hurting or got worse, then pull back, look in a slightly different direction, or think about why it might have gotten worse. If you have a good teacher, they can help you because their experience is that they have already performed the experiment many times and can put you in the right direction. Are there any questions until now? Anyone with a complaint or problem we can discuss? Then I will talk a little more about yoga in the office from a physiotherapy perspective. I would say the main complaint people have in the office nowadays is neck pain, especially if you work a lot at a computer or at a desk. There are a few principles for that, to do with yoga and the basic setup of an office. When you go into an office, normally if someone has a problem, the first thing is the computer monitor is too low. You have a structure that acts like a lever. If it has to tilt forward a lot, there will be tension; you are always asking those muscles to work. The line of the monitor should be that you can comfortably see it a little bit lower than your eye level and in front of you. Then your posture is good. If it is too high, you put tension in the other direction. If it is too low, you are always looking down. The second issue is how high the keyboard is. If you think about where it is relaxed, it is not relaxed when your wrists are bent up or down, because your shoulders are again in tension. The third one is that people sit with the monitor there, the keyboard here, and the telephone there. They turn here, hold the phone there and type, and watch there. If you just look at that posture, it is not good for the body. It is asking too much unnecessarily. In an office, to have a chair that turns is remarkably important because immediately the chair turns instead of you having to twist your spine. Naturally, the telephone will be on one side. If your chair turns, it is just a little less stress on the body. Every little thing you can reduce helps in the long term, because these are injuries that occur after 10 years. You do not notice now; you can work and work, and one day the body says, "Enough." But in the meantime, if we can reduce the stress we are giving, it makes a very big difference. They are simple things, but if you want to apply them, you are welcome. If not, you can come to us. Question: Have you tried doing only one of them? Answer: Really, it can be. But for me, the principle is experiment. It is your body. Obviously one of them is making it difficult, so experiment and find out if you have just done śīrṣāsana for too long, or if it is not a good combination for you. Which one are you doing first? And do you change the mat you use? For me, when you do śīrṣāsana on too soft a surface, it is completely different and gives much more stress on your neck than on a solid surface. Office āsanas are definitely very simple and short. If every half an hour you do these āsanas from part one with the neck—doing the circles of the head, forwards and backwards, and shoulder shrugging—they release tension immediately. Often in the office, when working a lot and not conscious of it, you can go for hours without releasing that tension. But if you have a habit of doing it every half an hour for just two minutes, it makes a lot of difference. The shoulder shrugging and circling for the hands, of course, come from Sarvajitāsana and the circles. They are all very simple but very useful in the office, and there is nothing you cannot do there. The same āsanas are good on the bus when going to Delhi; it really helps a lot. They also advise doing them on a plane; they are very much the same āsanas. The other issue some may have in the office is with circulation in the legs. Do the exercise with the feet up and down. It stops swelling in the legs if you sit a long time. The method of bringing blood from the legs back to the heart is that the calf muscles act as a pump. When they contract and release, that pushes the blood through the veins against gravity. In walking, and in doing that āsana with the feet, that pump is put into action. That means your blood return from the feet and legs is better, so you get less swelling. If you are prone to having clots or thrombosis in the calves, it also reduces the chances because it keeps everything flowing. Again, a very simple āsana. That is off the topic. I practice as long as I can and am just happy. Enjoying—yes, that is it, the peace of mind. Yoga is all day. What are we practicing? Yoga in daily life is really 24 hours. The fact that you get that chance here in the ashram, staying with Swāmījī, to really put it into practice is special. It is a great gift he is giving. But really, the thing I get from it is just that everything is enjoyable. What may come may not be pleasant, but it is enjoyable. Big difference. In the Kaṭhopaniṣad, it is written that in life, things that are pleasurable and things that are good both approach the person. The wise choose the good, and normally you choose the pleasurable. But in yoga, you learn to choose the good—what is good for you spiritually and physically. With it comes the real joy. That is what I get out of yoga. Physically, I do not get ill very often, and I think that is also from yoga and the balance. What is there to touch something with wood? You never know what comes tomorrow. That is the real beauty of being with Swāmījī, and that is his blessing—that it is such a great place to be. In yoga in daily life, not just in the ashram, but the way Swāmījī teaches that you should keep that awareness in your day, wherever you may be, in whatever work or situation. When you can practice that awareness all day, with that comes the joy. Anything else? I was a little unprepared; we got five minutes’ notice. To everybody in the rest of the world, Hari Om. Come and pay us a visit; you are most welcome here in Jhadan and with Swāmījī now. For those interested in Swāmījī’s tour: now he is going to Delhi, then to a world peace conference in India, in Merit. After that, he will go to Kailāśa and Dukāṭu. On the 6th of January he will go back to Jhadan and stay there for one month before going back to Europe. For three days he is here in Jaipur with us, so we are the lucky ones.