Yoga Therapy – What and Why

One meaning of yoga is to achieve or restore balance. Therapy means treatment intended to restore the lost balance (disorder). When yoga practice is used as a system to restore the lost balance or to relieve the disorders, it becomes therapy. Thisparticulartherapy has significant merit as compared to other alternative therapies. It is effective in all stages of illness from preventive to primary, secondary and tertiary states of management. It is holistic in real senses as it bring balance at all the levels of existence from physical to mental, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. Yoga can be major practice as a therapy to cut down the health care cost worldwide as it requires minimum resources to practice it.

World health organization (WHO) defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being and not mere absence of disease or infirmity, Yoga appears to offer the techniques for achieving this as we see in the definition offered by Sri Aurobindo who said, “Yoga is the technique for complete personality development at physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels".Yoga promotes the spiritual wellbeing that forms the basis of all other aspects of health. It appears that yoga or spiritual health characterized by self awareness, inner freedom, peace and contentment that offers complete mastery over the inner mental processes and deep rest to the cell is the panaceafor all the modern problems in health or education or interpersonal relationship issues or global peace.

The famous statement of Swami Vivekananda “Each soul is potentially divine, the goal is to manifest this divinity within by controlling nature external or internal, do this either by work or worship, psychic control or philosophy and be free".Highlights the goal, methodology and the benefits of yoga, ill health is physiological imbalance and restoring the balance is the solution (Integrated yoga); Lack of right knowledge about my true nature is the cause of stress and right knowledge is the solution (Jnana Yoga); inner violence is the opposite of peace either inside or outside and softening the emotions (Bhakti Yoga) is the solution.