Yoga and Total Health Magazine - December 2006 Issue

Editorial by Dr. Jayadeva Yogendra

To understand the highest truth, you do not need lengthy explanations and too many words. For Albert Einstein material world was E = MC2. However, when Einstein was interviewed by a journalist, about his theory and Einstein went about explaining it, the journalist wrote in the interview that he developed a headache and was collapsing and he ended the interview quickly.

The more curious we get and more information we seek more confused our little mind becomes. If the story teller begins, “There was a King” and we ask, “What was his name? Where did he live?” the storyteller would not be able to complete his story.

The more verbose we are the more problems we create – more doubts, more questions. But unfortunately we love to talk, to know, to argue etc. True understanding and genuine knowledge does not occur thus.We have in the old Upanisads in India the story of a boy who wanted to learn about the highest reality, “Brahman”. The teacher recommended to the boy to observe fast for two days. In the end the boy was too weak and did not turn up to the teacher to ask “What is Brahman?” The teacher went to the home of the student who was lying emaciated in his bed and the teacher asked him the question, “Boy what is Brahman”. The boy said “Sir I cannot think of anything I am hungry and can think about food only”. Thereupon the teacher said “My son! Food is Brahman, the Highest Reality.” Do not belittle anything”.

Yoga and Total Health Magazine - December 2006 Issue

The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali by Smt. Hansaji J Yogendra
Much importance is given to space between the eyebrows. A divine luminosity is supposed to be experienced. We have Bhruamadhya trataka where the physiological adjustment creates experience like overcoming all extraneous vision. It is claimed that if one concentrates on this, one will be gifted with unusual vision. The head and forehead are the regions where the fingers and hands are placed in imparting spiritual blessings.

Chapter III – 32

Some other articles from current issue

Hatha Yoga by Dr. Jayadeva Yogendra
Some think that Hatha Yoga is a lower form of Yoga. Asanas are considered very physical. Against this Jnana Yoga or Raja Yoga is spoken of as superior. They lead to spiritual awakening or self realization etc., it is said.

The question of course is whether techniques themselves can lead to spirituality. Is there such intrinsic merit in an Asana, a Mantra or Yantra or Bhakti etc. to take us immediately to the highest. Can a man just sitting in a meditation pose attain Samadhi?

What is then this highest we are looking for? Are we not in the final analysis talking about our subjective experience? Being in a serene state is this subjective experience.

Here ‘experiencing’ becomes more important than ‘doing’. It is not so much the Asana that is important as the attitude. The techniques are just a nominal help. The Buddha would have attained enlightenment whether he sat in Padmasana or Vajrasana. He was already ready for the final plunge to attain the higher understanding.

Yogic technology whether Bhaktiyoga or Hathayoga or Rajayoga basically creates conditions that are propitious for altering our state of consciousness. The mere closure of the eyes is not enough just as the erect spine and all the rest. Definite changes that occur in the brain (as measured by crude instruments like ECG or sophisticated PET) reveal this.

However much the modern man will try the use of external aids or the internal aids in reaching superior states of consciousness, it is actually the personality complex that has to evolve from the Mudha to the Viksipta and Ekagra states of consciousness.

We just cannot forget the basic tendencies with us viz, the klista tendencies. A person who believes in materiality as the only reality, who is terribly identified with his thoughts, feelings, actions and thus cannot throw a distance between his subjective awareness and objective world, is not likely to experience sustained spiritual awareness through techniques.

Against this are men who right from early childhood are stuck by the limitation of materiality who can integrate a constant awareness of the other worldly reality who have deep intuitive understanding of life - such ones are bound to evolve faster and make the best of all aids that come their way. Hathayoga should be practiced keeping in mind the spiritual objective.

Old Recollections by Shri Amrut Desai
My association with Dr Jayadeva goes back to a little over 60 years. We both were born in the same month of April and the same year 1929 within a span of 15 days. Our grand parents were Anavil Brahmins, a very robust community of farmers and hailed from Surat district in south Gujarat. Haribhai Jivanji Desai, the grand father of Dr Jayadeva hailed from village Degam situated on the Billimora-Bansda line of the Western Railway and was a school teacher who had started on an initial salary of Rs 9, whereas my grandfather had settled as a farmer in another village situated on the same railway line not far from Degam. Incidentally my wife also hails from the same village of Degam and her father had many recollections from the life of Dr Jayadeva’s father i.e. the Founder of The Yoga Institute and grandfather.

I had my early education in Navsari in the same district and was privileged to be the college mate of Dr Jayadeva He was in the arts faculty whereas I was in the science faculty and since the college did not offer any scope for pursuing further studies in Botany after the immediate science class. I was forced to leave for Bombay. This was in 1948-1949. I was however disillusioned with the life in Bombay and having been selected for the police training at Nasik, joined the police college there in February 1950. As luck would have it, on completion of the training I was posted in Bombay in July 1951 and continued to work with the police department till my retirement in July 1987 with the substantive rank of the Assistant Commissioner

During my long police career and subsequently when I was working with the BSES Ltd as their chief Vigilance Officer. I came to The Yoga Institute on a few occasion. I attended the prayer meeting held after the passing away of the founder. Once Dr Jayadeva invited me to address the Parisamvada in November the same year I decided to have a better insight into Yoga and therefore joined the 7 Months Teachers Training Course and completed the same in June 2005. Thereafter I have been attending the Saturday classes conducted by IBY. I have also joined the Institute’s alumni association.

The lives of Dr Jayadeva’s grandparents were of sacrifice and hardship. The Founder’s life in childhood was even dodged with death and suffering having lost his mother and paternal grandfather of plague and grandmother of tuberculosis. Moreover he having to travel to remote places with his father had also a vast experience of rustic people and places, and therefore imbibe a feeling of self-reliance and independence and had also learnt to be rational about religious rituals and superstitions. Over and above all these, the Founder had also deep studies in all aspects of classical yoga under the guidance of his great teacher, His Holiness Paramahansa Madhavadasaji.

Dr Jayadeva has inherited all these sterling qualities from his forefathers to which he has been added a few like fearlessness and humility of his own and has been using them exclusively for the benefit of the Institute and the vast humanity that attends it. He is ably supported by his wife Madam Hansaben and it is our prayer that God may help them in their efforts and spare them both many more years of service to the institute and the society, which it serves.

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