Sri Swami Sivananda Yoga Therapy

Methods of therapeutic application of yogic practice

"Invariably, the body of a person is destroyed by the flow of time, just as an unbaked jug breaks up in a stream of water. Yoga is the fire by which the body is tempered, becoming timeless. Burn your body in this fire, thus having completed its purification." (Gheranda Samhita)
"The one who has gained power over the flow of the Primordial Force and subordinated its movement to his will easily wins the battle with death.
For it is truly said that everyone who tirelessly practices Yoga attains perfection, whether he is sick, weak, young, old, or even decrepit." (Hatha Yoga Pradipika)
ATTENTION!
The system of treatment described in this work should not be treated as a panacea, because it becomes such only as a result of some practice. Therefore, starting to master it, it is hardly advisable to immediately completely and flatly refuse the help of conventional medicine, at least at the initial stage, even if the results of using Yoga therapy exceed all the wildest expectations, which happens quite often. However, those who have unshakable faith in themselves, as well as those who have nothing more to lose, are in the most advantageous position. They can afford the luxury of risk, which in many cases is more than justified.
In addition, it must be taken into account that Sri Swami Sivananda wrote his book in India, counting on the intellectual type and lifestyle of the Indian reader, the Indian climate and the traditional Indian food set. Therefore, despite the accuracy and clarity of presentation, simplicity, accessibility and effectiveness of the proposed practices and their comprehensive nature, it is strongly recommended to approach the application of the proposed methods reasonably, if possible, consulting with experts in the field of practical Yoga and Yoga therapy who have experience working in our conditions., as well as with professional doctors who are well acquainted with the practice of Yoga.

From the publisher

Yoga is the most ancient and most thoroughly developed method of conscious harmonious self-improvement of a person in philosophical, cosmogonic and practical terms. She begins by restoring to us the fullness of self-control - the ability to consciously control our own self, so rare in our time. own will and personal power. This restores the natural state of inner balance and peace, independent of external circumstances.
Yoga Therapy is not yet Yoga, but its anticipation, it is a reliable system of treatment, proven by the practice of several millennia, based on the methods of conscious awakening of the forces of the organism itself. With the help of Yoga therapy, almost any functional disorders and many organic disorders are healed: diseases of the respiratory and circulatory organs, digestive system, blood, endocrine system and musculoskeletal system, neuropsychiatric disorders, diseases of the urogenital area, chronic inflammatory processes, consequences of injuries, surgeries, poisoning, radiation exposure, infectious diseases, immune system disorders, allergic reactions, weakening of the body's adaptive abilities, etc. Yoga therapy is also a natural, harmonious and reliable way of rehabilitation, restoration of strength and health lost due to the body being under pressure from hard psychological, environmental and other stressful situations.
Medicamentous methods and methods of treatment using external influence (psychic influence, manual therapy, etc.), not supported by the efforts of the patient himself, aimed at defeating the causes of ailments, make a person a slave, because they do not heal him, but only eliminate some of the consequences of disorders that are rooted in deep in the very personality of a person, in his mind. With such treatment, the causes of diseases are not eradicated and after a while they give rise to the same, and sometimes even more intricate pathologies. Again, an external force is required. So the sufferer falls into a strong dependence on some external benefactor - a doctor or healer.
Yoga therapy offers a person the means by which he can eliminate not only symptomatic manifestations, but also the personal and karmic roots of diseases - consciously, creatively change his personality, use the reserves of his own body and its interaction with the world, with its own forces, with its own will to achieve complete healing without getting into any addictions.
The books of Sri Swami Sivananda have remained classics for several decades both in terms of the level of philosophical reflection and an exhaustive exposition of the most diverse aspects of the art of practical Yoga, as well as the unthinkable concentration in them of the deep power of the realization of the great Master, the indomitable creative power of his free Spirit.
All the creations of the Master are an invaluable gift of love to humanity, which is waging a difficult battle for a new quality of awareness.
"Yoga Therapy" by Sri Swami Sivananda is one of the most interesting works on the method of therapeutic application of practical Yoga.
From the translator
It is truly a great joy to be able to present to the attention of the general public "Yoga Therapy" by Sri Swami Sivananda - a wonderful practical work by the most famous master of Yoga, which until now was available in Russian only in a very imperfect "samizdat" translation and without a single illustration.
However, it should be taken into account that this book was written half a century ago - at a time when a significant part of the internal aspects of the practice of Yoga was not subject to disclosure in the West and could only be passed on by teacher to student by word of mouth.
Since then, the situation has changed somewhat. The most dramatic changes have taken place in the last twelve years. In the course of the three or four years immediately preceding the current year, a number of books were published devoted to the actual psychoenergetic practice in various directions of Yoga. Among them are such works as the second edition of "The Art of Pranayama" by B.K.S. Manteka Chia, The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, translated and edited by Mr. Desikachar, the son and one of the closest disciples of Sri Krishnamacharya [Sri Krishnamacharya is the teacher of such world-renowned masters as B.K.S. and further text in square brackets - comments by A. Sidersky.), as well as many other books. Of those not yet published, but which have become quite famous thanks to teachers who use the information contained in them in their practice, two manuscripts that have been discovered quite recently are very interesting. One was found about twenty years ago in the book depository of one of the Indian rajas by Sri Krishnamacharya and Pottabhi Jois. The name of the author of the manuscript is unknown, since the title page and dedication page were missing from the manuscript, however, the text was largely preserved. Judging by the language of the manuscript, the accuracy of the study and the sophistication of the technique, as well as the philosophical and theoretical interpretations, partly characteristic of Shaivist Yoga, partly completely original, the age of the manuscript is unlikely to exceed one and a half thousand years. Worked with the manuscript mainly by Pottabhi Jois. After restoring the order of the pages and translating the text into classical Sanskrit, he found that the manuscript is a detailed guide to the practice of a somewhat unusual, but nevertheless extremely effective dynamic training system - Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. Sri Krishnamacharya and Pottabhi Jois gave the manuscript the name "Yoga-Korunta" - "Self-Taught Yoga". The powerful dynamic method of performing yogic exercises (asanas) combined with breathing practice and the cyclic practice of breathing exercises (pranayama) described in Yoga-Korunta, being classical, nevertheless significantly changed the not so long ago generally accepted attitude to yogic practice in the West. practice, as to a technique mostly static. The second manuscript was found quite recently in a small monastery on the border of the southwestern part of the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas. It belongs to a somewhat later time - its age, most likely, is about a thousand years. As in Yoga-Korunta, several first and last pages are missing from the manuscript, so neither the name of the author, nor the exact date of writing, nor the place where the manuscript was compiled is known. The practice described in it is called by an unknown author "Dhara-sadhana", which can be translated as "The path of the stream", "The path of the blade" or "Battle training" [Dhara (Skt.) - flow, downpour, blade, battle.]. Like "Yoga-Korunta", the manuscript is remarkable in that the philosophy on which the method of psychophysical training described in it is based cannot be unambiguously attributed to any of the known religious and philosophical schools, but rather to the category of synthetic (if considered as a consequence) or primordial (if you treat it as an insight) teachings that have absorbed direct knowledge of the essence of things. Despite the fact that the practice of Dhara-sadhana most closely resembles the complex techniques of classical, Shaivist and of Tibetan Yoga, both static and dynamic, its philosophy and the psychoenergetic background of the exercises largely retain traces of Eastern influence and are somewhat akin to Taoist concepts, so the technique is somewhat similar to the technique used in some schools of Taoist Yoga, in particular, the Vietnamese yogic practice of Duong Xinh [In references and notes, the names of the above-mentioned manuscripts are "Yoga-Korunta" and "Dhara-Darshana".] Probably, Ashtanga-vinyasa-yoga and Yoga-dhara-sadhana were formed as practical methods during times of secondary rethinking and new synthesis, when the masters selected the best from the practices of various schools, synthesizing new highly effective integrated approaches [This was characteristic not only of Yoga, but also of other types of psychophysical training, for example, Qi Gong. In those