Saturday, December 17, 2011

INTRODUCTION

Evreryone in this world wants to live happily. Even in Fairy tales, all the stories will end with the same note, “And they lived happily everafter”. Is it possible to live a life, full of happiness?

Nobody wants worries and miseries in life. When we are happy, we seem to enjoy it and pat ourselves on our backs, and often say that our own hard works have given happiness. But when we are faced with worries and miseries, we become broken hearted and blame ‘God’ for our miseries. Or we try to blame people, who we don’t like for our miseries, citing reasons as their jealousy etc., To get free from such miseries, some people get prepared to do anything. Only then they start thinking of going to all temples on advice of one and all. Some resort to fortune seeing, right from kili josiam to mantrics and tantrics, and end up spending all their hard earned money and earning more worries and miseries. People who do not believe in God, resort to even fist fighting and end up in police stations and courts.

Is it possible to bravely face such worries and miseries, without being shaken to our bones? Is it possible to find some solutions intellectually? Is it possible to develop our mind and learn to face the worries and miseries without being shaken? To do so are there any ways and means in Science & Technology? Or are there any ways and means presicribed in any religion? If there is any thing, is it possible to follow those techniques and fulfil our wishes?

So this is what we are going to discuss in this article, titled ‘Aanandha Yoga’.
The worries and miseries any person faces, can be classified into 2 types.
1. worries and miseries due to mental state and
2. Worries and miseries due to physical state.

Both are inter-related to each other. If we get mental worries, our physical body will also be affected. And if we get physical ailments our mental state will also be affected. Every person born in this world will certainly have to face troubles one day or the other, in their life time. When one has to face a mental worry, he should learn to keep his body without being affected. And similarly, when he has to face a physical ailment, he should learn to keep his mind with out being affected. One needs extra ordinary talent to achieve this. Is it possible to develop such extra ordinary talent?

Yes ! it is certainly possible ! This article will show the ways and means of achieving such extra ordinary talent ! If one can read this and also follow this in one’s life, Then certainly it is possible to be happy.

I recently got saw a video related to this topic and I am posting the link here to watch.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Chapter - 1

In this Universe, all living things including man wants to live happily. Everyone is running only behind happiness. Should we try to live happily or blissfully? If you want the answer for this question, then one should first know what is 'happiness' and what is 'blissfulness'. Happiness is that which is felt by all the physical senses, eyes, ears, nose, tongue and touch. Whereas bliss, is of the highest state of total elevation of Mind and soul. According to the Oxford Dictionary the meaning for the word Bliss = Extreme happiness - a state of spiritual blessedness. (And in Sanskrit it is known as 'Aanandha' and there is no exact equivalent word in English for this.)

Happiness has an opposite and that is sorrow. For all that is enjoyed by the physical senses, there is an end. But 'Bliss' or 'Aanandha' has no boundaries. We have misunderstood that the term 'happiness' and 'bliss' or 'Aanandha' is the same. That is why all people are running after happiness and also experiencing sorrow finally.

The moment we start walking in the path of 'Aanandha', all our sorrows and miseries will slowly start vanishing.
What is 'Aanandha' and how do we start marching towards it, is the aim of this article.

If we should understand what is 'Aanandha yoga', then first of all we should know what is 'Aanandha'. Either happiness or Aanandha, cannot be shown physically. It can only be experienced. So it is a state that can be perceived by the mind. Now if you want to know, what is the process of mind perception,
then one should know what is 'mind'. But understanding Mind is not an easy thing. Mind is the most complicated to understand. To understand the concept of 'Mind' there are two distinct paths. One is through 'Science' and the other is through 'Philosophy'.


Thursday, December 15, 2011

Chapter – 1 a(continued)

Study of Mind through Science :
The moment we talk of 'Mind' in Science, the first name that comes to our mind is Dr.Sigmund Frued. He is a German Doctor / Scientist who lived between 1856 and 1939. He was one of the best Psychiatrist of his times. And the ‘Psycho Analysis’ method he devised to analyse his Psychiatric patients is very famous to this day.


Sigmund Frued

He divided the Mind into 3 states
1. Concious mind
2. Pre concious mind
3. Unconcious mind

The same concept is dealt with, in our Indian philosophy and in Sanskrit they are ……
1. Jaagrathi – Waking state
2. svapnam – dreaming state
3. sushupthi – deep sleep state
(We will discuss this in detail later)

Concious Mind :
That state of mind when a person is awake. This consists of all our thoughts, feelings, love, anger etc., In fact this occupies only a small part of the mind.

Unconcious Mind:
Popularly known as the deep mind, it consists of all the buried thoughts, feelings and experiences accumulated over a vast span of time. It is generally said that this Unconcious mind is deeper than the deepest of the oceans. And it is the largest of all the three states. All that is burried here is beyond the reach of the concious mind. No one knows what all are burried in this state. The very starting point for all our actions like love, mercy, lust, anger, rage, greed etc., all emanate only from here.

Pre-concious Mind :
Or the dreaming state of mind. It is an in-between state between the above mentioned 2 states, namely Concious and the Unconcious. Even after we wake up after a sleep, we may be able to recollect some of the thoughts from this state.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Chapter – 1 b(continued)



Mind as proposed by Frued, can be explained as follows.

All that we see in this universe can be divided into two.
1. Living (that is Life inside the living) and
2. Non – Living.
The same concept is dealt with, in our Indian philosophy and in Sanskrit they are ……
1. Sat
2. Chit
(We will discuss this in detail later)

All living things have 2 exclusive properties and they are
1. Life itself and (to sustain life it has to live)
2. Reproduction (to overcome extinction it has to reproduce)

To sutain its life and to live, it has to fulfil its hunger and thirst, and protect itself from its predators.

To overcome extinction it has to reproduce and hence indulge in sex
For all this to happen, what it needs is a nerve cell that is the brain.


A part -- a very important part -- of the organism is the nervous system, which has as one of its characteristics a sensitivity to the organism's needs. At birth, that nervous system is little more than that of any other animal, an "it" or "id". The nervous system, as id, translates the organism's needs into motivational forces called as instincts or drives. Freud also called them wishes. This translation from needs to wishes is called the Primary process.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Chapter – 1c (continued)

Just imagine an infant screaming itself blue for milk. It doesn’t know what it wants in any adult sense; it just knows that it wants it and it wants it now. The infant in the Fruedian view is pure, or nearly pure id. And id is nothing if not the psychic representative of biology. This is what Frued called as the Primary process.

As the child gets older, the neurons or the brain develops and from the state of ‘Id’ it changes to ‘I’. This is what Frued called as ‘ego’. To fulfill its requirements of ‘for me’, judging the circumstances, it learns to ‘ask’ or to ‘take’ what it wants. This is what Frued called as ‘Secondary process’. At the child grows, the ego struggles to keep the ‘id’ happy and it meets with obstacles in the world (when its demands are unreasonable and against norms). And it keeps a record of all the rewards and punishments meted out, when reaching for its demands. The record of things to avoid and strategies to take becomes the ‘super ego’. This super ego is also known as ‘conscience’.

It is as if we acquired, in childhood, a new set of needs and accompanying wishes. Unfortunately, these new wishes can easily conflict with the ones from the ‘id’. The superego represents society, and society often wants nothing better than to have you never satisfiy your needs at all.

Right from birth there is always a conflicting whirlpool blowing in the mind. ‘Id’ which is the representative of biological matter of our body, the ‘self’ called the ‘ego’, and the 'Conscience' which is the 'super ego' is always in constant conflict.

Freud once said ‘life is not easy !’
The ego -- the "I" -- sits at the center of some pretty powerful forces: reality; society, as represented by the superego; biology, as represented by the id. When these make conflicting demands upon the poor ego, it is understandable if it -- if you -- feel threatened, feel overwhelmed, feel as if it were about to collapse under the weight of it all. This feeling is called 'anxiety', and it serves as a signal to the ego that its survival, and with it the survival of the whole organism, is in jeopardy.
Freud mentions three different kinds of anxieties: The first is 'realistic anxiety', which you and I would call 'fear'. Actually Freud did, too, in German. But his translators thought "fear" too mundane! Nevertheless, if I throw you into a pit of poisonous snakes, you might experience realistic anxiety.
The second is 'moral anxiety'. This is what we feel when the threat comes not from the outer, physical world, but from the internalized social world of the superego. It is, in fact, just another word for feelings like shame and guilt and the fear of punishment.
The last is 'neurotic anxiety'. This is the fear of being overwhelmed by impulses from the id. If you have ever felt like you were about to "lose it," lose control, your temper, your rationality, or even your mind, you have felt neurotic anxiety. Neurotic is actually the Latin word for nervous, so this is nervous anxiety. It is this kind of anxiety that intrigued Freud most, and we usually just call it anxiety, plain and simple.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Chapter 1d (Continued)

There is a strong whirlpool wind and storm brewing up in every person’s mind right from birth. ‘id’ which is the biological representation on one side, the ‘I’ in every person which is the ‘ego’ on one side, and the ‘super ego’ which is known as the ‘conscience’ which represents the ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ of the society on one side, are all in constant conflict with one another.

The ‘id’ will keep on demanding, right from the basic necessities like food, water and sex, to all that is fanciful and luxury. Conscience will keep warning the ‘do’s’ and don’ts’. The ‘I’ which is the ‘ego’ will get trapped between these two and suffer, whether to go this side or that side. This is how ‘worries’ are born out of this conflict. ‘Restlessness’ is born out of constant worries. This is what Freud called as ‘Anxiety’. Anxiety or in other words worries and restlessness, is nothing but a confused state of ‘fear’. Constant fear leads to ‘stress’. And when a person experiences prolonged stress, he goes to the next stage called ‘Dipression’ . This is the beginning stage to many ‘Mental dissorders’, as well as 'physical dissorders'.

Many decades have passed since, Dr.Freud proposed his theories. Many Research results have been published in this field. And it is an agreed fact of all that, the human brain is the most complex and wonder of all creations. Just by looking at some numbers we can guess it. Our human brain consists of more than a hundred billion -100,000,000,000 ‘nerve cell’ called ‘neurons’. Each neuron is connected to the other neurons by about 1000 to 10,000 connections called the ‘synapses’. The amount of information passing through these connections is ‘infinite’.

The human brain has been divided in to several parts and research carried in every part. Out of this the front part known as the ‘frontal lobe’ is the most misterious one. It also seems to be beyond the reach of the Researchers. It is here that lies our human relations, love, greed, hate, aggression etc.,

According to research in Pschiatry, 6 out of 10 women and 4 out of 10 men in India have been affected by some form of depression and are taking treatment and are under medication.

So we have seen Study of Mind through Science, From this we have also learnt that uncontrolled mind and desire leads to the abyss of Mental dissorders.

If only we can understand our mind and bring it under our control, we can certainly live happily and blissfully. Understanding the mind and the thoughts that arise from it is quite difficult. But by understanding the ‘Mind’ through Science and by path shown by our ancient Maharishis through the ‘Vedas’ and other scriptures, we can certainly know the ‘mind’.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Aanandha yoga-Chapter-2

It is a general misconception that knowledge of Science is the source of everything. Science after a particular saturation point it comes to a full stop.

‘Philosophy begins where Science ends’. This has been accepted even by the most famous scientists. Even the westerners who have unshakable faith in Science are now resorting to ‘Yoga’ and ‘Meditation’ in full faith. After learning these from us Indians, they have adopted to it so well, that they are now teaching to the rest of the world. ‘Yoga’ and ‘Meditation’ are the techniques which have been given to us by our great Maharishis of the ancient ‘Vedic times’. But it is a sorry state that we Indians are running to the Westerners for learning ‘Yoga’ and ‘Meditation’. And the best part is that the westerners are also trying to patent this. It is only now, the Government of India has woken up to this sorry state of affairs and trying to patent.

In USA alone there are more than a million people practicing ‘Yoga’. There are hundreds of Yoga teaching centres world wide and it has become a Multi-billion dollar industry.

It was Pathanjali Maharishi who gave us this ‘Yoga’ and ‘Meditation’ in the form of ‘Pathajali Yoga Sutra’. In Pathanjali Yoga Sutra, what he has given is ‘Ashtaanga Yoga’. In Sanskrit ‘ashta’ means eight. So ‘Ashtaanga Yoga' means eight divisions. ‘Aasana’ which is the physical exercise is just one among that eight divisions. Nowadays, what is taught as ‘Yoga’ world over is only ‘Aasana’ from ‘Ashtaanga Yoga’. People are running towards this, only because of the benefits it offers. And that is why it has become a multi-billion dollar industry. If learning ‘Aasana’, which is only one eighth of the ‘Ashtaanga Yoga’ itself is so beneficial, then we can imagine the amount of benefit we can get, if we start preaticing all that is said in ‘Ashtaanga yoga’ one by one. The aim of this article is to bring out the secrets of this ‘Astaanga Yoga’.

For the benefit of mankind, our ancient Maharishis of the vedic age, have spent their entire life time, in finding out these techniques and carefully passing it on from generation to generation, from the past thousands of years. These Maharishis were seers of the ‘Ultimate Truth’ and known as ‘Trikaala Gnaanis’ (who could see the past, present and the future).


Should we not have the inquisitiveness to explore these secrets? One by one of these are being slowly proved by Science. The aim of this article is to highlight these facts.

If we have to fullly understand what is ‘Anandha’, ‘Yoga’ and ‘Meditation’, then we should first understand ‘Sanaathana Dharma’ which nowdays is known as ‘Hinduism’. Then we have to understand where exactly these things are expained in detail in ‘Sanaathana Dharma’.

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