Pragya Yoga - A direction for yog vyayam.

Healthy and happy life has always been a basic necessity of man. Happy- healthy life is a basic necessity of every individual irrespective of his social status. Health signifies not only physical health but also psychological and spiritual. Those, who want to derive the full benefit of health only through physical health alone, are never successful. Indian life style always eulogized the significance of physical, psychological and spiritual health.
Modern doctors have started looking for the root cause of diseases in mind as well.
For complete health great sages of India have recommended a life style combined with yog.In this life style desires, thoughts, physical actions, life style, rest and work get included. In The trend, which is in vogue today in the name of yoga; people limit themselves to only some physical exercises. And hence their efforts for a healthy - happy life are not successful to the extent possible. Yug nirman yojana executed by Gayatri Pariwar is a massive revolution inspired by rishichintan (the thoughts of great sages).To develop a healthy body, pure mind and civilized society is the object of this revolution. Healthy body is the first goal and hence lot of research and publicity has taken place in this direction. In this book some useful exercises for a common man have been suggested especially, even though some light has been thrown on the life style combined with yog. According to Gita yoga combined happy life is described as -

Yuktahara viharasya yuktacheshtasya karmasu Yuktaswapnaavabodhasy yogo bhavati duhkhaha
(Gita6/17)
Meaning - yogic ahar (food, air and water taken for the sustenance of the body) vihar (the contact with nature needed by the body) cheshta (the efforts performed by the man with a sankalp (determination) karma (skillfully performed actions) swapna (sleep and rest etc) to awaken (to be in the conscious state). The combination of these can destroy all the sufferings of life.

People who are desirous of a healthy and happy life should bring about a discipline and order in the above aspects of their life. E.g. the food should be pure, easily digestible and inclusive of good sanskaras.The items produced by nature in different seasons are considered to be the most worthy food of the respective seasons. Therefore consumption of seasonal foods is very helpful for maintaining good health. The meaning of Vihaar is behaving in accordance with nature. In Nature every season and place has its effect and there are principles to be followed to take advantage of the place and the season. Understanding these principles and behaving accordingly would be advantageous to health. If our efforts and actions are directed towards noble objectives and are implemented in the right time with the right means, then they prove to be beneficial otherwise in spite of being active and performing exercise one does not incur any benefits. There should be a right balance of sleep and awakened state. During Sleep, organs of the human body would get rest and get recharged. Any task has to be performed in awakened state. In order to get any task done efficiently, the related body part should also be activated. For example a player performs warming up exercises before his play, which is equivalent to awakening the body. A singer would also prepare his throat, which can be considered awakening it. A person doing sadhana would awaken himself before the actual sadhana. Bringing the desired awareness within the life is also a sort of sadhana.When ever we speak of Yog Vyayam, people usually start with Yogasanas. The Science of yoga as postulated by Maharshi Patanjali involves eight stages (yama, Niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and Samadhi) asana (yogic postures) is the third stage. If yama, niyama are not properly followed, the appropriate benefits of asanas(postures) cannot be obtained. For full information on the Ashtanga yoga process, pls. refer to the Patanjali yoga darshan published by Shanti Kunj. This would talk only about the aasanas(postures). Yam deals with satya (truth), ahimsa (non violence), brahmacarya( celibacy), asteya, ( non stealing), aparigraha( not accumulating) and Niyam deals with sauch, tapas, swadhyaya, santhosh and Iswara pranidhan. By violating the above yam-niyam, several knots are formed, which would cause troubles in one's healthy and happy life. People desirous of leading Healthy and happy life should also be taking care of their aahar(food)-vihaar(life style) and their thinking and character.

Yog Vyayam

To be healthy, besides having control over aahar (food)-vihaar (life style) and having a disciplined life; it is equally important that all parts of the body are active and vital. Nowadays even the wealthy people, who have proper food available and have access for all comforts, also become victims of physical ailments. Body is like a factory where different kinds of operations take place. The place where useful stuff gets generated within the body, harmful things also gets produced and it is essential to push those products out of the body. Lot of rebuilding activities continuously takes place in the body and several of the body cells gets newly created: all of which would need an appropriate system for which a balanced exercise would be very helpful. Therefore to throw out the body waste and to keep the body parts active and developed and in healthy state, exercise is very important.

There are different kinds of exercises, of which those that involve fast movements such as running, swimming etc are considered to be good exercises, which can be done by everybody naturally. Exercises done in Gymnasium is also useful and would be done under the supervision of an instructor but not everybody will be having access to these facilities, however it is necessary that anyone wishing for a good health should do exercise according to his feasibility.

Yog Asan (postures) is useful for an exercise life but this would consume lot of time as well. After every asan, few seconds should be spent to cool the body, only after which the full benefits could be derived. Man in his busy life is not able to take out some time for this. In order to achieve some specific purposes practicing the difficult asans becomes a must, otherwise it has become important to adopt a sequence of simple natural practice of the yoga asans. In such exercises, the yogic posture is used to give a balanced movement to the joints and the muscles of the human body. Surya Namaskar is one such experiment

In this book, the benefits of yog vyayam has been explained which can be called as yoga vyayam of pragya yog. Along with this, the different exercises to dispel the blocked parts and bring about flexibility in the muscles e.g pavan muktaasan etc are also given. The exercises given in this book are such that these can be practiced by people irrespective of age and gender. These can be done individually as well as in a group as part of physical training exercises.

While doing these exercises in a group, based on the individual's height and breadth, they should be made to stand in lines. …