Integrating Yoga, Meditation & Music...

Today is the International Day of Yoga (21st June), Music Day (21st June), Father’s Day (3rd Sunday of June). Please visit Wikipedia for the details and importance of these days.

Though they appear to have different themes and purposes, let us try to integrate these three different concepts into a holistic understanding. In my previous post https://researchsubbu.blogspot.com/2019/06/is-yoga-only-to-cure-roga.html?m=1, I explained how the yoga can be useful for our overall well-being and cleared the common myths about yoga. Today we will see how yoga is naturally integrated in our life… If we observe the infants and their movements and postures, they remind us about some of the yoga postures useful for the digestion, muscle strengthening etc. Just with this observation, I tried to find the analogy and luckily found it in one website… the link is here https://www.yoremikids.com/news/may-babies-do-yoga-yo-re-mi-for-child-development. Though we have not taught the infants about yoga & different asanas, they automatically and naturally do it… So it means the body is designed to have some natural exercises, which we do as infants and later stop to do and fall prey to different lifestyle disorders.

Even we can observe there is a strong association among yoga asanas, pranayama and meditation. In all the three, the breathing and the focus and regulation of breathing is the common element. That's why even the yoga and pranayama though they appear to give the physiological benefits, they also give the psychological benefits like stress reduction and mental peace etc. Thus, the yoga and meditation are well integrated and mutually supporting processes.

The other aspect we can commonly see is there is a soothing and pleasant music played in most of the guided meditations and yoga practices. It enhances the benefits. The music sets the mind and the mood and is useful in concentrating on yoga or meditation. That's how it gets well integrated with these.

In Indian culture, father is the head of the family and is the role model for the kids. His primary responsibility is to inspire the family members for good things by setting examples. Thus, the father has a role to keep his own health and well-being by setting an example for the wife and the kids to follow. The lifestyle changes such as making yoga and meditation a habit should start from the father sothat all the family members follow him. This is how on this Day of International Yoga ( This year's theme is Yoga for health- yoga at home), every father should take the lead to start practicing yoga and meditation daily for few minutes with all the family members. We can always integrate the music in this process for better results.

Everything is in Your Hands

Most of the religions in the world believe our destiny is in our hands… be it palmistry in Hinduism, Naseeb/taqdeer/kismat in Islam & the destiny written in the palms in Bible… Even the psychologists and motivational speakers etc always quote “You can create your own destiny. You can design your own future. It is in your hands.”

The more practical example I give from the Corona Pandemic… One of the key precautionary steps suggested to avoid the spread of corona is to frequently wash the “hands”. Dirtiness (corona virus presently) in the hands is deciding the destiny of the people and finally resulting in so many deaths of the people. Though other routes of transmission such as mouth, nose and eyes are there, hands may be the key contributing factors because with the hands only we keep the nose mask and the goggles & other PPEs to protect from the virus.  So, keeping them clean always is to be ensured. Even in the Karma siddhantha also, if you do good, goodness will be ensured. If we do bad deeds, definitely our destiny will be bad. Thus, the destiny reciprocates exactly what we do with our hands. If we help, bless or support someone with our hands, we will be destined to get those things in return in some or other form. If we use our hands to do anything wrong, definitely our destiny will be bad.

Washing the hands regularly makes me to bring the analogy to the introspection on regular basis about our deeds. Purifying the hands is like purifying the body, mind, heart and soul to do good to be good. Again, it is all about self-monitoring and control. If we want a positive future, we should have clean hands and deeds. We are always suggested to be positive. But the corona and other diseases are an exception. We should be negative to the negatives like Corona and other viruses, diseases and deceases.

 Finally, if we don’t wash our hands, minds and deeds frequently and keep them clean, our destiny will be washed away.

 Further, we can explore the analogies of wearing nose masks with the filtering the words we speak, mutual responsibility etc. We can learn from anything and everything… The important thing is how much we are applying…. Everything is in our hands only.

Let us spread the awareness before the corona virus spreads...

Save the Environment & Biodiversity from the “Inhumanity in Humanity”

Human beings are the only animals who can think and apply their mind to the fullest extent possible. Not only the efficiency of our mind, but also the direction in which it is applied i.e. the effectiveness is also very important for the growth of an individual, organization, nation and the world at large leading to sustainable growth. But the selfishness in the human beings has led them to go for excessive deforestation, damaging the ecological balance, climate change, ozone layer depletion etc. which are detrimental to the environment as well as human beings in turn. Mankind has become unkind towards the other species living along with us in the nature despite of the efforts made by the governments, stringent laws & regulations.

Nature, by its nature, has been helping us in many ways for our living and growth… We have been seeing how difficult it is when the nature takes the revenge in terms of natural calamities and the deceases spread by different species (Corona virus, Malaria, Dengue etc.). Recent Corona Pandemic has clearly given a message what happens when the nature becomes unkind towards mankind.  At least now, let us realize the importance of the nature and the need to protect it to protect ourselves from its revenges. That’s why it is said “If we protect the nature, nature protects us”. Let us realize and act with love and compassion towards the nature and let it reciprocate the same.

Today is the World Environment Day and the theme for this year is “Celebrating Biodiversity”.

In my view, if people are not able to embrace the human diversity (recent George Floyd’s death due to racism in America), how can we expect Bio-diversity to be protected. Even in the country like India, which is known for its cultural diversity, there is a recent incident of elephant’s death in Kerala. It drives us to think of caring for all the animals. Cruelty to animals is not at all acceptable.

Let all the animals live peacefully to let us live happily.

India is the only country in the world, in which the animals are associated with Gods and are worshipped... So let us keep up the spirit...

Please go through my previous posts on Environment in my blog www.researchsubbu.blogspot.com  & give your valuable feedback and suggestions-

https://researchsubbu.blogspot.com/2019/06/happy-world-environment-day.html

https://researchsubbu.blogspot.com/2016/11/pollution-natural-environmentcorruption.html

https://researchsubbu.blogspot.com/2016/09/ptotect-ozone-layer-to-get-protected.html

https://researchsubbu.blogspot.com/2015/08/inclusive-growth-of-agriculture-and.html

https://researchsubbu.blogspot.com/2015/06/environment-sustainability.html