YOGA & Mental Health

YOGA & Mental Health;
Yoga can be viewed as a scientific system designed to purify the body and the mind from toxins accumulated due to poor lifestyle choices and negative thinking patterns. A system rooted in thousands of years of empirical reasoning and evidence of its results, the goal of all Yogic practices is not only to be free of mental illness, but to achieve a state of mind that rests in equanimity in the face of the tumultuous emotions, desires, and suffering that are to be found in this world.
The major aim of this website is to start a discussion between two sciences of the mind: psychology and Yoga. Its goal is to provide a forum for understanding in more depth and detail how Yoga works as a science unto itself and as a complement to western psychologies understanding of the mind.
Yoga and Mental Health provides information for Yoga practitioners, students and psychologists on how the science of Yoga may be beneficial in transforming mental illness into a lifelong path towards mental health and spiritual wellbeing.
Yoga Psychology - The Body-Mind Connection
Yoga psychology is as vast as the subject it seeks to know and understand, the mind itself. Yoga psychology is the study of 'mind' and consciousness. When we study yoga psychology, we deeply and experientially explore our body-mind connection and work towards integration.
Understanding the mind is the first step to harnessing its awesome creative force for higher living.
Psychology asks 'what is a mind', a question that philosophers and scientists have been struggling with for millennia. Many theories have evolved, from the materialistic belief that mind is purely a component of the physical brain, to the transpersonal, esoteric belief, that the mind is an emanation of consciousness and therefore exists in every cell of the being.
Yoga psychology is the science of investigating the mind through yogic and meditative processes. The aim is not to intellectualize what a mind is, but to directly observe and cognize the mind; to have an experience of mind.

The investigative tools of yoga psychology are one's own awareness and the techniques of meditation.
Yoga psychology is the doorway to deeper self-knowledge. It teaches us to discipline and creatively channel the mind's power for higher purpose.
Yoga Psychology, body and mind are viewed as a single, indivisible unit.
The physical body is the gross aspect of the body-mind, and the mind is the subtle aspect. They are inseparable; therefore improving the mind also improves the condition of the body and vice versa.
In yoga and tantra, mind is viewed as a complex energetic process that deals with all aspects of knowing and knowledge, with the development of the individual personality (or ego), and with the expression of the personality.
Yoga psychology challenges us to take a more conscious role in developing our hearts and minds, in seeing the body-mind connection, and the connection between our individual selves and the greater universe.
The Origins of Yoga Psychology
The origins of yoga psychology and all yogic and tantric knowledge derive from the vast body of knowledge of Indian philosophy.
The origins of yoga psychology and yoga philosophy are intrinsically linked because in India mind and body are viewed holistically, as a single, indivisible body-mind in the same way that structure and function cannot be separated. The physical body is the gross aspect of the body-mind and the mind is the subtle aspect. To work on one is to work on the other.
Mind is an energetic process that deals with all aspects of knowing and knowledge, with the development of an individual personality or ego, and with all forms of expression of the personality. The mind is a tool for the existence and function of an embodied individual consciousness within the limits of time and space; to think, feel, emote, desire, remember, visualize and create.
Yoga psychology in its purest form is the use of meditation techniques, derived from yogic and tantric sources, to view all its processes objectively. Once we can see the mind we can work with and cultivate the mind for higher living.

The theories of what a mind is are found in related philosophies, particularly of Samkhya and Vedanta, part of classical Indian philosophy.
We can find the most refined explanations of the process of Yoga Psychology in the Raja Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Here, mind is termed 'chitta', and yoga is defined as 'the process that blocks the patterns and functions of the mind, the chitta vrittis'. Blocking the chitta vrittis allows awareness to separate from its false identification with the body-mind and to re-identify with its true nature, the highest Self. This process is called union of individual consciousness with universal consciousness.
The patterns or modifications of mind, the vrittis, trap awareness in 'normal' unenlightened states of being. They keep us in small, limited states of being and awareness. Yoga psychology allows us to realize that we are trapped, how we are trapped, and gives us the tools for self-liberation.
The theory that underlies yoga psychology, the definition of what mind is, and an explanation of the organs of this mind is found in Samkhya, which describes the structure of the mind and how the parts function.
Vedanta adds to yoga psychology through its description of mind as sheaths, called the mental sheath (manomaya kosha) and the intelligence sheath (vijnanamaya kosha). These sheaths cover the atman, the spirit or individual consciousness.
In Tantra, mind is viewed as a mighty power that can be awakened to its full potential by the powerful practices of hatha yoga, mantra yoga and kundalini yoga. In Tantra, mental force (chitta shakti) is described as flowing in a channel (ida nadi), which runs along the spine and connects the chakras. In Tantra, mind as a whole is controlled by the chakra at the eyebrow centre, called the third eye (ajna chakra). All the other chakras control an aspect of the mind except the chakra at the crown of the head (sahasrara chakra) which is outside time and space and which is the seat of consciousness.

The origins of yoga psychology theory can also be found in Ayurveda, the traditional medicine of India, in particular the study of mental illness. Yoga Therapy borrows heavily from Ayurveda, Tantra, Vedanta and Samkhya.