Our previous post talked about SPORTS and it Classification & Problems. We will now discuss How can Yoga meet these challenges?How can Yoga meet these challenges?

Yoga - A Solution:

Yoga is the science for all-round personality development.Yoga certainly can meet the challenge. It appears to be the right solution to modern man in all aspects of his life in general and the region of games and sports in particular. Let us now try to understand what we mean by an integrated personality development.

Personality Development - Physical Level:

Physical personality development would not imply a bulky body weighing 100kgs. An ideal body has the following features brought out by yoga.

1. A proportionate body with all muscles relaxed in the normal state. It is soft like a flower flexible to the core.

2. Instantaneously it can acquire diamonds hardness. All the organs and systems in the body work in harmony and with least abnormalities.

3. The chronic and acute ailments vanish or are absent in such a body.

These aspects of personality development at the physical level make the bodywork most efficiently by harnessing the energies in the right direction. At resting periods, all the muscles are relaxed and the joints remain loose to conserve energy and the metabolic rate is very low. During normal activities, just the necessary amount of energy is used by the body.At crucial times, under conditions of high stress, the functions of the organs so nicely co-ordinate that the necessary energy gets evoked and flows profusely into those regions which need more energy. The body gets all the necessary strength to deal with the situation. This Stamina acquired through the harnessing of the Inner vital energies and training the different organs and systems to work in such co-ordination can be effectively accomplished by yogic practices. It is in this area of application of Yoga that specialists in physical culture - wrestlers, acrobat, gymnasts, etc. are keenly interested in and they are the ones who taught yoga with a good measure of success.

Personality Development- Mental Level:

The power of imagination-'creativity' and steadfastness- will power are the two aspects of the mind, which come under this head of personality development. We all know that creativity is the core of 'Arts' and 'Technology'. It has been seen that yogic practices enhance the creative power of man. As such many musicians, poets, film-artistes, engineers and technologists have been attracted to Yoga.

Will power is an essential requirement for all persons to accomplish any work, however insignificant or great the task be. There is a fine sloka in Niti Satakam describing three types of people.

Praarabhyate na vighna

bhayena neecaih

Praayabhya vighna vihataah

viramanti madhyaah

Muhurmuhurapi

Pratihanyamaanah

Praarabdhamuttamajanaah na

partiyajanti.

(Fearing possible obstacles and difficulties, the lowest do not start the work at all. Having come to face obstacles one after another the middle type leave the work uncompleted, But best are they who reach out to completion of the task in spite of all odds and obstacles torturing and crushing them all through.)

Yoga, by its systematic and conscious process of calming down the mind erases the weaknesses in the mind and builds up will power. In such a mind, each obstacle is conceived as a challenge and arouses tremendous energy to combat the situation. Bravery becomes a part of the personality. Steadfast to the core, such a person takes up with marvellous sobriety the challenges in life and converts them into opportunities for accomplishing his mission. This aspect is most needed in sports.

Personality Development- Emotional Level:

Our emotions control our behavior especially at crucial junctures. The challenge of the modem era pose a great threat to the emotional faculty of man. Yet, the culturing of our emotions and development of our emotions and development of our emotional faculties filed no place in the whole 'scheme of education. Man looks lost in the confusing world of emotional conflicts, mental blocks and turmoil. The result is deep unrest, agony and psychosomatic ailments:

Yoga trains us:

1. To systematically sharpen and sensitize our emotions.

2. To consciously expand and diffuse the overtones of such sensitization.

Thus, Yoga offers a fine tool for the development of the emotion personality of man.

Personality Development- Intellectual Level:

In the modem era of science, a sharp intellect plays a key role in the scheme of education. Rather than mechanical cramming up of information, thinking and understanding are valued more in the learning process. The children are taught right from the primary level to think logically and scientifically. The capacity to analyze and correlate relevant information forms the function of the intellect. Concentration is the expression, precision is the outcome, this capacity is vital to success in the region of sports.

It is again the specialty of yoga that can bring about the comprehensive development of the intellect. As we have seen, Yoga emphasizes the skill to calm down the mind and it is this skill to pacify the mind that brings the capacity to detach.

Hence yoga is attracting the attention of many intellectual sufferers bringing them into its fold sportsmen are no exception.

This article is an excerpt from ‘BHARATIYA YOGA FOR SPORTSMAN OF THE WORLD’ by Dr. H.R.NAGENDRA, General Secretary of Vivekananda Kendra. Formerly he was a Scientist working for NASA in the USA.

Courtesy: Krida Bharati, Maharashtra, India