"Power Of Yoga" -Yogi Ashwini

"If we look around — whether its our neighbourhood, our country or the state of the world today — all we can see is chaos. People are struggling over trivial issues. They are struggling to fulfil their ambitions and aspirations, at the workplace, in relationships or tackling larger issues of terrorism and safety concerns. Peace or shanti has become such a rare concept that people receive Nobel Peace Prize nominations for attempting to address such an issue in daily life. The concept of peace is thousands of years old and was given at the time, by Vedic rishis, when modern historians believed the world to be inhabited by barbarians or nomads. The first mantras to be chanted amongst daily prayers began with praying for shanti first for the universe, the planet earth, amongst the vegetation and the energies that surround us and then for oneself as the rishis very well understood that the world can be a beautiful place to live in only when there is peace and harmony between the inhabitants and the environment that surrounds them. While modern textbooks preach the “survival of the fittest” and push the present generation to become achievers by leaving the crowd behind, the followers of the Vedas were selfless who gave importance to other’s well-being. The highly evolved beings of those times had a thorough understanding of various aspects of energy. This energy was responsible for the proper functioning of the creation. One such energy is agni. While the “primitive man” was discovering fire, there were subtler aspects of fire that the rishis used in their practices to achieve higher states of physical as well as etheric existence of human being. Let us take forward this series of knowing more about Vedic wisdom and various aspects of agni. Each finger represents an element. The thumb represents fire, index finger air, the middle finger ether, ring finger water and the small finger earth. The tip of the thumb which represents fire element can be used to alter the states of other three elements — air, ether and water — in the body. If body shows symptoms of sluggish digestion, constipation or slow peristaltic movement, touching the tips of the last two fingers to the tip of the thumb and maintaining this mudra for 20 to 30 minutes facilitates peristalsis and digestion. Various yogic techniques and texts like Hatha Yoga and Sanatan Kriya talk at length about physical and subtler aspects of agni, which is also one of the major constituents of the physical body — one of the five mahabhutas. Techniques of yoga are so highly developed and complete that without the aid of any modern instruments, the yogis had a thorough understanding of not just the physical body but also the subtle elements and there sub-elements and methods to manipulate them to suit the needs and requirements of the body. That is how even today, though rare is a chance for a normal person to locate them, yogis in a state of dhyan can go on for months and years without clothes or food". — Yogi Ashwini