Ancient Science of Holistic Healing in a modern age

[Dover]

THE SPEAKING TREE: Ancient Science of Holistic Healing

SWAMI SATYANANDA SARASWATI

What is disease?

Disease is a condition experienced in the body but existing in the mind. According to the yogic concept, disease is inherent in the deeper self, but we are not sensitive to this, so it is experienced through the mind and the senses in the body.

What is the role of yoga in healing?


Nervous depression, heart ailments and cancer have all emerged with industrialisation in the last century. Our children have to deal with the tax department, banks, government, consumers, exporters and other such agencies. They spend their whole life at it. They cannot sleep, because their minds remain preoccupied with these problems. Diseases arise out of a restless and anxious mind. No medicine can tackle them. For those suffering mentally, physically and emotionally, who are beyond the range of medical treatment, yoga has something valuable to offer.

Are ancient yogic techniques relevant today?

On the physical level, we are subject to a polluted and inharmonious environment in which the laws of nature are not respected. Our body takes in many toxins from the atmosphere and the food we eat, and we must have a process for purging these accumulated impurities. In hatha yoga there are practices to purify the stomach and the alimentary canal. Pranayama purifies and balances the respiratory and nervous systems, and asanas, mudras and bandhas release energy blocks and help to build up the body’s vitality and resistance. On the mental plane, worries, fears, anxieties and tensions that we experience in our daily life, all create an accumulation of impurities in the subconscious mind. To expel these toxins and to rid ourselves of tension, we have to practise meditation and yogic relaxation on a regular basis.

What do recent studies reveal?

They reveal the profound effects of yogic techniques upon the cardiovascular, respiratory, nervous and endocrine systems...cont'd

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1010536.cms

------

Shaman: developing a modern edge


By Linda Leicht
News-Leader

Shamans are found in traditional cultures around the world — African witch doctors in huts, Celtic pagan priests standing in open fields, American Indian medicine men in sweat lodges.
Shane Knox plans to work in an office.

Knox, who uses the name ShadowHawk, says he has been a shaman for 25 years. He studies and applies traditional native American, Asian, African, Celtic and other methods, but he is firmly planted in the modern world.

"I may very well do a traditional ... smudging and blessing with prayers to Grandmother and Grandfather, but I will have booked that appointment on my cell phone and entered it in my electronic organizer," says Knox. "Now we're going to do it at the office."

Moving into an office seemed natural to Knox as his business grew to include more clients, CDs and a Web site...cont'd

http://springfield.news-leader.com/lifestyle/today/20050219-Shamandevelopin.html

--------



Ayurveda the latest darling of holistic healing

BY JULIE DEARDORFF

Chicago Tribune

(KRT) - At the height of his professional football career, Ricky Williams was feeling stressed and unbalanced. Something inexplicable was "off." So the Miami Dolphins star abruptly walked away from the sport - and a multimillion-dollar salary - and began studying the ancient Indian medical system known as ayurveda.

To football aficionados, Williams is an unlikely ambassador for the 5,000-year-old holistic health tradition, which uses nutrition, oils, herbs, cleansing techniques and yoga. His critics link his newfound interest in ayurveda to a possible suspension from the NFL because of a third positive test for marijuana.

Regardless, Williams wrote in an e-mail that his immersion in ayurveda is paying off. "I am now able to do things with my body, after only minimal yoga practice, that I could never have imagined doing on the football field," he wrote. "My balance has increased as well as my flexibility. A lot of my pain has decreased too."

Proponents of ayurveda have welcomed the spate of publicity that Williams has brought and say the 5-foot-10-inch, 226-pound former running back and Heisman Trophy winner is lumbering down the right path to rejuvenation...cont'd

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/living/10963719.htm

--------