Mechanics of Stress

The mechanics of stress must be known if one is to be successful in yoga practice. Gone were the days when someone went to an isolated place to do yoga. Now is the time to do yoga anywhere and anyhow. With the advent of highways and airports, with every bit of land being owned and controlled by people of means and power, there is nowhere to run.

A yogi/yogini must stand the ground in the apartment, condominium, cottage or wherever and do the practice amidst the hustle and bustle of modern lifestyle. For this some details about the mechanics of stress must be known. A plan to effectively manage stress must be instituted.

If one finds that one’s lifestyle is hostile to yoga practice, one should find a way to scale back some desires, so as to reduce the encroachment on yoga, which modern lifestyles cause.

Wishing stress away, abolishing it by using Sanskrit mantras or New Age feelgood statements is not the yogic way unless such methods are scientifically tested by the individual yogi/yogini, where the result of their effectiveness or ineffectiveness are tested within the mind of the individual.

Yoga cannot be about wishful thinking nor about wanting to prove that the universe is responsive to the will of the individual who uses a body which will not survive say about two hundred years.

One must test to know what one does which is hostile to yoga and which cannot be wished away by mental creativity. Then one must curtail the behavior if not eliminate it completely.