Concepts of yoga that helps in personality development

In the science of yoga there is a two-way approach: the practice and the concept. Both are essential forage development of personality. Concept helps man to follow the practice with shraddha (faith) and practical experience is useful to understand the concept in subtle ways. Let us see here four basic but very important concepts of yoga, which are useful to develop the internal personality of man.

In the science of yoga there is a two-way approach: the practice and the concept. Both are essential forage development of personality. Concept helps man to follow the practice with shraddha (faith) and practical experience is useful to understand the concept in subtle ways. Let us see here four basic but very important concepts of yoga, which are useful to develop the internal personality of man.

Concepts of yoga that helps in personality development

‘Yoga karmasu kaushalam’says the Bhagavad-Gita it means dexterity in action is yoga. Man cannot live without action for a moment, as breathing itself is an action. Man does actions through the physical body, the first visible personality of man.

Using the physical body and a systematic approach in action man can reach a higher state of yoga. Dexterity involves three main points: maximum possible perfection and beautiful action, relaxation in mind while doing the action and the third is the right approach behind the action. This concept is useful for development of the personality at the physical body level.

‘Yoga cittas vrtti nirodhah’is a sutra in Patanjali Yoga Sutra gaining mastery over mind is yoga. As our physical body is continuously in action so is the mind also. The speed of mind is many times more than that of the physical body. Mind with its interest (vasana) always creates desires and man helplessly keeps on fulfilling them, thinking that after fulfilling these desires he will be happy. But alas, that moment of happiness never comes. He simply gets dragged behind the mind like a slave. Using this concept man can develop his mental body.

Mastery over mind involves understanding the different desires that mind demands and as per the requirement and necessity attain them. The second is as per the urgency and importance to keep on postponing them till one is exhausted with the existing will power and the third important point is to reduce the speed of mind by slowing down the speed of physical body activities at the outset. All these three ways require willingness and proper awareness.

‘samatvam yoga ucyate’, this concept is from Bhagavad-Gita. Equanimity is yoga. Observe the emotions; they are never in a balanced state. Likes and dislike, excitement and depression are four negative corners of the emotional personality. When man likes something, he feels attachment and if he dislikes, he hates it.

The same way if he gets success, he is in an excited state and if he fails, he falls in depression. Day after day man is a victim of his nature. Why equanimity is necessary? It is because equanimity saves his energy and he can use it for a better purpose. One minute outburst at the emotional body level takes the energy from the whole system of man by which he can run 10 KM. Use the emotions for your better life and do not allow emotions to use you.

How to bring equanimity at emotional body level? It may be a million dollar question. But with a systematic approach man can overcome his imbalances in the emotional body. Freedom is an important quality to recognise and it can be used for equanimity.

Quality of contentment helps man to enhance equanimity. ‘However wrong the other person may be, however unfavourable the situation may be, I still have the choice to remain calm and not to get angry and thereby maintain equipoise’. Use this freedom for equanimity.

The second dimension to achieve equanimity is, ‘at the first place not to allow our emotions to create any kind of liking / disliking for anything and at the second slowly and steadily with a systematic approach to annihilate the liking / disliking which has already set in our personality’. No liking or disliking is ever permanent; it’s always changing, if man understands this, it will be easy to achieve equanimity.

The third way to achieve equanimity is to understand that ‘success and failure are parts of life’. No one will be successful all the time and no one will be unsuccessful. Treat both at an equal level. Show happiness on success as moderately as possible and keep oneself steady on failures. The effort of oneself should be to leam how to achieve success in future from failures.

‘manah prasamanopayah yoga ityabhidhiyate’, this is for the development of intellectual body. Yoga is silencing as well as expanding the mind (intellect). In present day life, in order to achieve success, man uses his intellect most cleverly and puts a lot of pressure on it. Unnecessarily perusing and pressurising the intellect will only hamper the function of the nervous system.

Ultimately, the result is a sick life at the intellectual level. Everybody wants happiness but no one is happy. Happiness is wrongly understood and is taken as pleasure, comforts or joy.

Every expansion is life and every contraction is death, says Svami Vivekananda. Expansion of life is possible only when man expands his intellect and this will be done by silencing the intellect. Both, the silencing the intellect and expansion of intellect go hand in hand.

One should withdraw the intellect from small petty things and generate ‘Let go’ attitude for it aru4this will help one to silence the intellect. This will be easily possible when the intellect gets a higher goal in life. A higher goal is always for the betterment of the family, society, nation and the universe.

For silencing and expanding the intellect the value of ‘acceptance’ is very important. One should not reject any thing at the first place. One should accept it, analyse it and understand it before one decides to follow it or to reject it. ‘Right attitude’ is another wonderful tool. It simply means that through one’s approach nobody should unnecessarily be harmed, its result must be beneficial to all.