Beauty Through yoga

                                               Beauty Through Yoga 

                                                 by 

                                             Kamini Bobde

Beauty is skin deep, is a well known adage, but the portend of this message  penetrates people’s minds just as deep. Beauty has been shrink-wrapped into specific parameters of skin colour, height and figure. This kind of brain washing by the commercial world and the media is producing dissatisfied individuals who are trying to attain the unattainable, that is, uniformity in appearance. To want to look good is not a crime but to be slave to it is a crime against one’s own self.

The truth of the matter is that a healthy mind and body are essential for beauty, a kind of beauty which gives joy and happiness both to the possesser and admirer. Not the Hollywood actor Maryln Manroe kind of beauty which the whole world gasped at but Maryln was miserable enough to end it in it’s prime. But the poet said, “A thing of beauty is joy forever”  Which is true. Only the concept of beauty has to be understood.  

What are these attributes of beauty which are joy forever? What about the wrinkled, wizened beauty of a Mother Theresa?

Therefore, before I talk about beauty through yoga it is essential to settle what we mean by beauty and what is achievable through yoga. I am definitely not talking about altering your nose length or rubbing off wrinkle lines with butox.

  

A glowing complexion, sparkling eyes, a strong steady gait, well toned body are attributes of an attractive personality. All of these are attainable simply through the daily practice of yoga or practice of asanas.

 A major attribute of beauty is also appeal which goes beyond mere looks. It is the over all personality of the person. Bad temperament, like arrogance, anger, or negative, depressive dispositions can cancel out all appeal and make a person unattractive. While asanas take care of the physical fitness of a person, the other daily practices like, pranayam, pratyhara, dharna, dhyana and samadhi take care in correcting the mental, emotional and temperamental problems. In short a healthy mind, body and spirit is what results in a beautiful person which is highly achievable through yoga.  

Men and women alike are these days obsessed with retaining youthful looks and vigour in life. Here I would like to relate what was achieved in death by Paramhansa Yogananda which is a proof of what can be achieved through the practice of yoga. Paramhansa Yogananda who is immortalized through his book, “Autobiography of a yogi”, spread the message of yoga and kriya in the west. He lived largely in the west and took Mahasamadhi in Los Angeles, California, on March 7, 1952.

The body of Yogananda was kept for more than 20 days and here is a reproduction of the notorized letter of Mr. Henry T. Rowe, Los Angeles Mortuary Director, in which he wrote how weeks after his death, Yoganand’s face shone and there was no sign of any decay. “The absence of any visual signs of decay in the dead body of Paramhansa Yogananda offers the most extraordinary case in our experience…No odour of decay emanated from his body at any time. On March 27th there was no sign to say that his body had suffered any visible physical disintegration at all.”

While Yogananda was an exceptional spiritual person, but from what he achieved even in death it is clear that if one were to adopt  yoga in some measure in our lives we can hope to arrest decay and destruction of our bodies.

In this column, I will outline briefly how a daily package of yoga can bestow you with beauty.

Asanas are so designed as to revitalize your various organs, exercise your muscles and oxygenate your blood and cells and throw out toxins.

Very often a dull complexion, mousy hair, pimples, pigmentation are result of  bad digestive system, hormonal imbalances, lack of exercise and bad lifestyle. Here I would like to tell you about a young girl who had an unfortunate skin allergy which would darken her skin, and her face would break out in itchy red eruptions. Only a daily application of cortisone cream would suppress it. Realising that at some point the cortisone would stop working, she took recourse to yoga. Her teacher found that she had chronic constipation problem and she was unduly stressed out about studies. A combination of this resulted in accumulated toxins trying to escape through her the pores of her skin which resulted in the eruptions. Ten days of asanas, pranayam brought her problem under control. Then cleansing her digestive system through “Shankprakshalan”, eliminated her problem completely. Now, she takes care to see that her system is cleansed and keeps her stress under control with pranayam and meditation.

 A daily practice of asanas as prescribed by a good yoga teacher designed for specific personality and body constitution takes care of  maladies and health problems due to mal function of disgestive, hormonal, system  in our bodies.

Asanas followed by pranayam (breathing control), pratyahara (withdrawal of senses) , dharna ( one pointedness) and dhyana ( meditation)  relieve stress and over a period bring about a balance in one’s attitudes and outlook on life. It is important in any practice of yoga to realize that any amount of reading, or mere intellectual understanding is useless and the only way to fully know what each of the above mentioned practices are is to experience through daily practice under the guidance of good teacher.