JCTR Bulletin 52: Essential Principles of Yoga

In Hindu religious practice, there is what is called yoga. What is it? Is there a relationship between our daily lives or the activities that human beings are involved in with the practice of yoga? What does it take to practice yoga and for what reasons should one practice yoga? We publish here, addressing these questions, a lecture that was delivered to the Diplomats' Spouses Association in Lusaka by Professor Venkatesh Seshamani of the University of Zambia Economics Department.

You may wonder what a professor of economics has got to do with yoga. Well, besides economics, I have also been practicing yoga for three decades now. In fact, my own interest in yoga stemmed from my realization that there was quite a lot in common between economics and yoga.

To begin with, both economics and yoga are sciences. Now, one of the basic principles of science is that you do not accept any proposition unless confronted with logical evidence. Economists, for example, say that if a country does not control its money supply and fiscal deficit, it will experience inflation. In order to keep inflation in check and the economy healthy, one must practice monetary and fiscal discipline. Similarly, yogis tell us that if one does not control one’s body and mind, one is bound to experience misery. In order to find peace and happiness, one must practice mental and physical discipline.

But there is no automatic realization of the truth of such scientific propositions. To achieve this realization, to obtain the logical evidence, one must be willing to conduct experiments. Beginning 1992, the Zambian Government, upon advice from economists, started to implement measures to bring about drastic cuts in monetary growth and budget deficits. The result was within some three years, the triple digit inflation levels were brought down to reasonable double digit levels. The experiments were done, the evidence followed and the conviction came. Similarly, if we want to realize what changes yoga can bring to our lives, we must be willing to implement the techniques prescribed by yoga for mind and body control.

The second point of similarity between economics and yoga is that both have as their ultimate objective the promotion of human welfare or happiness. The difference is that economics confines itself to only one main aspect of this welfare, namely, economic welfare, that is achieved through the enjoyment of material requisites of welfare. And money income is required to access these requisites. But yoga is concerned with the achievement of overall welfare of which economic welfare is only a part.

To achieve overall welfare, one must enjoy not only money income but also psychic income. Often, money income comes, but at the expense of psychic income – worries, tension, stress, lack of time to make use of the money one has made: all these detract seriously from psychic income.

While economics tells us how to promote economic welfare through the acquisition of money income, yoga tells us how to promote overall welfare through the acquisition of psychic income in addition to money income.

The third point of similarity between economics and yoga is that both use the same technique to achieve maximum welfare or happiness: the technique of optimization. Optimization is a mathematical technique that shows how to maximize any objective subject to some constraints.

In economics, one tries to maximize economic welfare subject to the constraint of limited material resources. For example, if the economic agent is a producer, he wants to maximize his profit by producing and selling some product(s) subject to given resources in the form of labor, capital, raw materials, etc.

In yoga, one tries to maximize one’s overall happiness subject to the constraint of the one main limited resource, namely, time. You only live once -- unless you are James Bond. And we all know that James Bond exists only in novels and films, not in reality.

If we have two firms enjoying the same resource profile and producing the same products and yet one firm seems to enjoy a higher level of output and profits, what could explain the difference? In a similar vein, if there are two individuals who are placed in the same socioeconomic circumstances and who are similar in respect of practically all other criteria as well such as age, sex, etc., and yet one seems to enjoy a higher level of happiness, what could explain the difference?

The answer given by both economics and yoga is the same: efficiency. The firm with the higher level of output and profit is running more efficiently. Likewise, the person with the higher level of happiness is running her life more efficiently. Krishna, the main proponent of yoga in the Hindu scripture Bhagvad Gita or The Song Celestial says: efficiency in action is yoga.

There are two principal facets of efficiency: allocative efficiency and technical efficiency. Allocative efficiency tells us that we must allocate our resources among various activities in such a manner that the returns are maximized. Prioritization becomes important. An efficient firm is one that allocates its resources among different products in such a manner that the overall output is maximized.

Allocating too much to one product at the expense of another would reduce overall output. In the same way, a yogi is one who allocates her time among different activities so as to maximize returns in terms of happiness. All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl. Similarly, a person who spends most of his time in the pursuit of money and material pleasures with little time left to allocate to prayer, introspection, self-reflection, meditation and service to fellow human beings is not likely to maximize happiness.

Technical efficiency says that, given the technology, one must combine the given resources for making a product in such a way as to produce maximum output of that product. A firm producing say cooking oil must know what is the right combination of labor, capital, oilseeds, etc., that will result in the maximum output of cooking oil. Similarly, each person must combine her physical and mental faculties in such a manner as to maximize the returns on the time spent in any given activity.

For example, two students studying for the same examination may spend four hours with their books. One student may have grasped a lot more of the subject than the other. Why? The more efficient student is the one who would have been able to concentrate more on his reading than the other.

One of the famous Indian monks of the late 19^th century, Swami Vivekananda, who was a great yogi, was reputed to have tremendous powers of concentration. The story goes that after just one reading of one of the most voluminous works of Charles Dickens -- Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club -- he could reproduce from memory any of the pages out of that novel! It only goes to show to what extent most of us under-utilize the memory plant installed through the technology of the human brain! Yoga teaches us to be technically efficient in the use of our mental and physical capabilities.

Let us come back to the student who was unable to concentrate and consequently could learn little in the four hours he spent with his books. The reason could be twofold: in the first place, he may have been unable even to sit still for a few minutes at a stretch! His body must have been fidgeting every now and then. Over and above the fidgeting body, his mind must have been wandering, flitting from one thought to another like a bee or a butterfly let loose in a garden of wild orchids!

Clearly, what this means is that this student has little control over his body and mind. Instead, the body and mind have control over him! Yoga teaches us how to still the body and mind by gaining control over them so that one can concentrate on one’s goal.

· Self-control: be moderate in whatever you do, for instance, do not eat, drink or sleep too much or too little; if you are married, practice sexual continence but not necessarily abstinence. If you want to practice abstinence, make sure you do so through sublimation and not suppression of your sexual urges. Do not over-react to anything be it good or bad. Another definition of yoga is: showing equanimity or being of equal mind in all the “pairs of opposites”: heat and cold, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, honor and dishonor.

· Self-discipline: lead a regulated life. Have as much as possible a fixed time for everything. Avoid waking up, going to bed, eating meals, practicing yoga exercises etc. at different times on different days. Avoid being late for appointments.

· Physical cultural exercises or asanas: there is a variety of physical cultural poses prescribed in yoga to maintain control over the body by retaining the flexibility of the spine. These yoga exercises should not be equated to other types of physical exercises that are aimed at merely toning up or building the body. The yoga asanas have a broader spiritual context and should be performed from that perspective if one is to reap their intended benefits. Indeed, the yoga exercises even differ from other types of exercises in some fundamental ways.

· Breath control: We cannot have full physical control by merely controlling our gross bodies. Our limbs may be still but quick and shallow breaths will sabotage our physical stillness. Through fuller and deeper breathing one can reduce the frequency of breaths over a given length of time. It is said that each one of us has come into this world with a certain fixed quota of breaths. So the longer we take for each breath and the longer the space between two breaths, the longer is the duration of our stay in this world! In economic terms, through the practice of breath control, we shall be pushing outwards our happiness production possibility frontier! Optimization no doubt, but dynamic and not just static optimization!

· Sense withdrawal: If we want to focus attention on one thing, we should be able to withdraw our senses from other things that may offer needless distractions. This is part of allocative efficiency as well. For example, if we are planning to allocate time to some activity, say watching some program on television, one should ask: is watching this program going to contribute towards maximizing my happiness or welfare? Is there something better that I can do, say practice yoga exercises? If the answer is yes, then watching the TV program has an undesirable opportunity cost attached to it. Besides, watching the program is going to give the bee of the mind more thoughts (emerging from watching that program) to dwell upon and make concentration on a desired activity that is much more difficult.

· Concentration: This is the ability to focus on any one given thing at any time. One may withdraw one’s senses but yet not be able to concentrate since the mind could still remain blank and lack the alertness and the ability to anchor itself on a single focal point.

· Meditation: This is a higher level of concentration where the focal point is one’s own self within. The practice of regular meditation is necessary if one has to eventually realize the true nature of one’s self.

· Self-realization: This is the highest level of meditation wherein the individual, having realized the true nature of one’s self -- pure, immortal soul -- finds unsullied peace and happiness.

Yoga is thus an eight-fold path prescribed for the spiritual traveler beginning with self-control and ending with self-realization.

What is the key to success in the practice of yoga? Krishna again answers this question in one word: perseverance. King Bruce’s spider may have fallen eight times before succeeding on its upward journey. We are likely to fall many times over. But we should never give up. How much effort would be required?

This varies from person to person depending on his already built-in capability endowments. An Olympic sprinter may require only a few seconds to cover a distance of a hundred meters. Some of us may require a few minutes. One who is physically disabled may require a still longer time. But for sure, every traveler can reach the destination in his or her own time -- if only he or she perseveres.