The body machine

In this wonderful machine that is our body, not a single part is dispensable or superfluous. Every part has a crucial role to play, to make life healthy and happy. Even if one part breaks down and needs repair, the body feels uncomfortable and even falls sick. How can one keep all parts healthy?

External cleanliness, though important, will not alone lead to good health. The internal organs too should be kept clean by supplying them with fresh blood. This calls for a certain discipline in our way of life: regular exercise, nourishing food, proper rest. Hard work is no substitute for exercise. On the contrary, it tires the parts and ages them fast. A muscular body need not be a healthy body. Indeed, in the process of developing the muscles, the other vital parts may be ignored.

A student or an officer sitting at his desk all day long may give good exercise to his brain, but his other parts languish; one who breaks stones or builds a house will have strong limbs but little else. Similarly, if we take any job, we see only some parts of our body benefit. We do not get all-round exercise. This is especially the case with the internal organs that rarely get sufficient exercise and proper nourishment. And that is the main reason for most of the illnesses we are subjected to. The other types of exercises help little in tackling this problem.

The opposite is the case with Yoga asanas. After a half-hour bout with them, we feel fresh and ready to face the world with a new zest. Asanas preserve and generate energy — not expend it as other exercises do. Yogic poses recharge our body cells. There is no appreciable sweating or running out of breath. Yoga asanas improve the functioning of every organ in the body, including the ears, eyes, brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and the ductless glands. Supplying the tissues with proper and enough blood,' Yoga keeps them healthy.

What Yoga asanas do to our body and mind can be summarized thus.

They—

—keep the vital bodily organs like heart, lungs and intestines healthy;
—remove impurities by increasing the blood circulation;
—make the ductless glands secrete their vital juices in proper quantities;
—mould the body to make it trim and beautiful in both men and women as extra fat is removed;
—assure longevity as the organs do not decay from frequent attacks of diseases;
—keep the brain sharp and keen and improve concentration and grasping power; and
—make the nerves tingle with health

The power which activates the nerves is like electricity that flows through the wires in our house.

Unless this power energizes the nerves, the body will be dead, or worse, will become a dumb doll —minus the doll's beauty.

This power is called prana shakti. As we can only see the manifestations of electricity, this shakti can only be felt as it gives life to the body.

This shakti's main abode — and instrument — is the brain from where vital nerves originate and pass through the neurofibrils in the spinal cord to the different parts of the body. All our emotions and feelings and reactions to the outside world are conveyed to the brain through these nerves — and they also convey the orders of the brain to the different parts.

We have noticed how our eyes shut involuntarily when a fly comes buzzing towards them. We wake up to the fact that our eyes have been saved from damage in the nick of time, only after the danger is past. How and from where the eyelids get their orders so fast is something marvelous indeed. It is the ever-alert nerves which realized the danger, tipped off the central nervous system, received the orders and acted — all before we can shut our eye¬lids — literally!

So different are the ways in which the nerves control the organs that it is a mystery how they function. Yoga asanas seem to have gained the knowledge of keeping the nerves — and so the body — healthy and well functioning.