Psychology, Mental Health and Yoga

The Healing Power of Peace

"For everything - to live the spiritual life, heal sickness - for everything, one must be calm,"¹

The Mother

There has been a growing recognition of the role of stress in producing physical illness as well as psychiatric disturbances. According to conservative estimates, about fifty to seventy per cent of all physical illnesses and a substantial percentage of psychiatric disturbances are related to stress. As a result, a number of therapeutic approaches for stress reduction and for the treatment of stress-related disorders have come into vogue during the past few decades. Some of the chief techniques used today include Progressive Relaxation, Autogenic Training, Relaxation Response, Biofeedback, the use of visual imagery, and breathing. The common feature of these and other similar methods is that they all serve to restore the homeostatic balance disrupted by stress.

Walter B. Cannon, who pioneered the study of the physiological reaction to stress, traced the basis of the stress reaction to an adaptive response made by the autonomic nervous system when an organism is faced with a life-threatening situation. Faster breathing, quicker pumping of the blood by the heart, an easier coagulation of the blood and other bodily changes brought about by the release of adrenalin have come to be seen as adaptive functions in the face of a life-threatening danger, because such emergency reactions give an animal organism the extra strength needed to

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fight the clanger or run away from it, and to reduce the chances of bleeding to death in the case of injury. Therefore, Cannon called it a "fight or flight" reaction. This oft-quoted phrase contains a hint regarding the relevance of peace in healing stress-related disorders, for peace is the state antithetical to that produced by a "fight or flight" reaction.

The physiological reaction opposite to that of "fight or flight" was not named until relatively recently when Herbert Benson coined the phrase "relaxation response" to describe a state in which breathing is slow and deep, the heart-rate is slowed down, the muscles are relaxed and there is a feeling of relaxation. In the writer's opinion, this state of relaxation is a diminutive physiological form of the spiritual state of peace.

Peace, like relaxation, is generally understood as the absence of restlessness or tension rather than as a positive state with its own content. This seems to be due to the fact that our experience of peace is rarely deep enough to make us aware of its positive nature. In truth, however, to regard peace merely as the absence of disturbance is similar to looking upon joy as the absence of suffering. Peace, like joy, has a positive content of its own, and is a powerful force that works for harmony and healing. As the Mother says:

"Quietude is a very positive state; there is a positive peace which is not the opposite of conflict - an active peace, contagious, powerful, which controls and calms, which puts everything in order, organises.... True quietude is a very great force, a very great strength."²

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Quietude, calm and peace are the one panacea that time and again have been prescribed in yoga for all maladies, physical and psychological. Here are some statements to this effect:

"Peace and stillness are the great remedy for disease. When we can bring peace in our cells, we are cured."³

"Catch hold of a peace deep within and push it into the cells of the body. With the peace will come back the health."⁴

"The imperative condition for cure is calm and quietness. Any agitation, any nervousness prolongs the illness."⁵

The rationale for the efficacy of peace in healing lies in the fact that illness is essentially a state of disequilibrium, and peace is a sovereign remedy for establishing equilibrium. As the Mother states:

"In reality illness is only a disequilibrium; if then you are able to establish another equilibrium, this disequilibrium disappears. An illness is simply, always, in every case, even when the doctors say that there are microbes - in every case, a disequilibrium in the being: a disequilibrium among the various functions, a disequilibrium among the forces."⁶

The exact way in which disequilibrium brings in illness, and how peace can act as a healing force is explained in the following passage:

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"The vital body surrounds the physical body with a kind of envelope which has almost the same density as the vibrations of heat observable when the day is very hot. And it is this which is the intermediary between the subtle body and the most material vital body. It is this which protects the body from all contagion, fatigue, exhaustion and even from accidents. Therefore if this envelope is wholly intact, it protects you from everything, but a little too strong an emotion, a little fatigue, some dissatisfaction or any shock whatsoever is sufficient to scratch it as it were and the slightest scratch allows any kind of intrusion. Medical science also now recognises that if you are in perfect vital equilibrium, you do not catch illness or in any case you have a kind of immunity from contagion. If you have this equilibrium, this inner harmony which keeps the envelope intact, it protects you from everything. There are people who lead quite an ordinary life, who know how to sleep as one should, eat as one should, and their nervous envelope is so intact that they pass through all dangers as though unconcerned. It is a capacity one can cultivate in oneself. If one becomes aware of the weak spot in one's envelope, a few minutes' concentration, a call to the force,* an inner peace is sufficient for it to be all right, get cured, and for the untoward thing to vanish."⁷

The above passage further implies that peace is a power for not only healing but also for prevention. For, the most important factor in prevention is one's power of resistance

* The Divine Force.

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to disease. This power to ward off illness depends not so much on physical strength as on inner strength which, the Mother states, is always associated with calm and peace.

. . .all those who are really strong, powerful, are always very calm. It is only the weak who are agitated; as soon as one becomes truly strong, one is peaceful, calm, quiet,... This true quietude is always a sign of force. Calmness belongs to the strong."⁸

The relevance of such strength in preventing illness is indicated in the following statement:

"Establish a greater peace and quietness in your body, that will give you the strength to resist attacks of illness."⁹

In other words, it is an inner weakness, associated with agitation and restlessness, that leads to a lowered resistance and makes one vulnerable to disease. In this regard, the Mother makes a striking observation: "...the most important of all causes for bodily illness is that the body begins to get restless.""¹⁰ Therefore, the first measure recommended for curing oneself of a bodily illness is bringing peace to the part that is ailing. She states:

... we said that this disharmony creates a kind of tremor and a lack of peace in the physical being, in the body. It is a kind of fever. Even if it is not a fever in general, there is a localised fever; there are people who get restless. So the first thing to do is to quieten oneself, bring peace, calm, relaxation, with a total confidence,

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in this little corner (not necessarily in the whole body)."¹¹

The last statement, like several others quoted earlier, contains an important implication regarding the nature of peace. Generally, peace is thought of as something which is psychological, that is, pertaining to a state of the mind or feelings. However, the integral peace that the Mother speaks about pertains also to the body. She therefore sometimes uses the term "immobility" when referring to peace in the body. The following passage describes how nerve pain can be overcome by immobility:

". . .if one can do two things: either bring into oneself - for all nervous suffering, for example - bring into oneself a kind of immobility, as total as possible, at the place of pain, this has the effect of an anaesthetic. If one succeeds in bringing an inner immobility, an immobility of the inner vibration, at the spot where one is suffering, it has exactly the same effect as an anaesthetic. It cuts off the contact between the place of pain and the brain, and once you have cut the contact, if you keep this state long enough, the pain will disappear... And then, if you can add to that a kind of inner peace and a trust that the pain will go away, well, I tell you that it will go."¹²

Such overcoming of pain by means of immobility, unlike the suppressive measures of pain-killing drugs, is not only free from harmful side-effects associated with drugs, but can have also a deeper action that is more than a mere temporary palliative. The Mother states that an

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inner mastery over pain can also lead to a permanent cure of the underlying condition which produces the pain. She says:

"And there are a number of illnesses or states of physical imbalance which can be cured simply by removing the effect, that is, by stopping the suffering. Usually it comes back because the cause is still there. If the cause of the illness is found and one acts directly on its cause, then one can be cured radically. But if one is not able to do that, one can make use of this influence, of this control over pain in order - by cutting off the pain or eliminating it or mastering it in oneself - to work on the illness."¹³

There has been some clinical research which seems to corroborate the therapeutic efficacy of immobility. K. K. Datey and his colleagues have demonstrated that the yogic posture Shavasana significantly reduces blood pressure in hypertensive patients.¹⁴ Similar results have been reported by the cardiologist Chandra H. Patel who employed Shavasana in conjunction with biofeedback.¹⁵

The rationale for the therapeutic effects of Shavasana has not been adequately explained. The muscular relaxation involved in the posture seems to be only part of the explanation. This writer is inclined to believe that a good deal of the therapeutic value of the "corpse posture" lies in the state of immobility produced by making the body as still as a corpse.

It has been stated earlier that we are not generally aware of the positive nature of peace because our experience of peace is rarely deep enough. But another

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probable reason is that we are used to thinking of a positive force as dynamic, that is, as something which is expressed in action or movement rather than in stillness or immobility. In other words, it is difficult for us to conceive of power as static. As the Mother observes:

"... a human being becomes aware of power only when it is dynamic; a human being doesn't consider it a power except when it acts; if it doesn't act he does not even notice it, he does not realise the tremendous force which is behind this inaction - at times, even frequently, a force more formidable than the power which acts."¹⁶

The difference between static and dynamic power is explained in the following passage:

"... there is the same difference between static power and dynamic power as between a game of defence and a game of attack;... Static power is something which can withstand everything, nothing can act upon it, nothing can touch it, nothing can shake it - it is immobile, but it is invincible. Dynamic power is something in action, which at times goes forth and may at times receive blows. That is to say, if you want your dynamic power to be always victorious, it must be supported by a considerable static power, an unshakable base."¹⁷

Many of the physical and psychological maladies of our times may be conceived of as stemming from an excessive dynamism without a base of static power in the form of an

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inner poise. This seems to be supported by the findings of Friedman and Rosenman, two cardiologists who have concluded that the classic American life-style - the hard-driving pursuit of success - is the key to America's soaring rate of coronary disease.¹⁸ According to these two researchers, traits which constitute what they call Type A behaviour are a major factor in heart attacks - more important than obesity, high blood pressure and smoking. The two chief characteristics of Type A behaviour, according to Friedman and Rosenman, are "hurry sickness" and an inordinate drive toward achievement, usually associated with competition. Persons with Type A behaviour pattern, say the two authors, are "involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time..."¹⁹

In these findings may be discerned a striking closeness to the following observations made by the Mother about ten years prior to the publication of the book by Friedman and Rosenman:

"...they [men] are always wanting - quick, quick, quick - to rush from one thing to another, to do one thing quickly and move on to the next one.... They are always wanting: forward, forward, forward....

"And I have observed this in the cells of the body; they always seem to be in a hurry to do what they have to do, lest they have no time to do it.... Muddled people...have this to a high degree, this kind of haste -quick, quick, quick.... You go hurtling through life...to go where?... You end with a crash!"²⁰

The remedy suggested by the Mother for this "hurry

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sickness" is the same as always. She says:

"... to live to the utmost of one's capacities at every minute, without planning or wanting, waiting or preparing for the next...

"All those who have tried to be wise have always said it - the Chinese preached it, the Indians preached it - to live in the awareness of Eternity. In Europe also they said that one should contemplate the sky and the stars and identify oneself with their infinitude - all things that widen you and give you peace."²¹

The Mother does not advocate a flight from action in order to find peace. Her gospel is one of action and dynamism. She speaks, however, of the need for finding "rest in action":

"Become as vast as the world and you will always be at rest. In the thick of action, in the very midst of the battle, the effort, you will know the repose of infinity and eternity."²²

How to establish peace within oneself? Here is how the Mother answered the question on one occasion in talking to the children in the Ashram:

"First of all, you must want it.

"And then you must try and must persevere, continue trying. What I have just told you is a very good means. Yet there are others also. You sit quietly, to begin with; and then, instead of thinking of fifty things, you begin saying to yourself, 'Peace, peace, peace, peace,

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peace, calm, peace!' You imagine peace and calm. You aspire, ask that it may come: 'Peace, peace, calm.' And then, when something comes and touches you and acts, say quietly, like this, 'Peace, peace, peace.' Do not look at the thoughts, do not listen to the thoughts, you understand. You must not pay attention to everything that comes. You know, when someone bothers you a great deal and you want to get rid of him, you don't listen to him, do you? Good! You turn your head away (gesture) and think of something else. Well, you must do that: when thoughts come, you must not look at them, must not listen to them, must not pay any attention at all, you must behave as though they did not exist, you see! And then, repeat all the time like a kind of - how shall I put it? - as an idiot does, who repeats the same thing always. Well, you must do the same thing; you must repeat, 'Peace, peace, peace.' So you try this for a few minutes and then do what you have to do; and then, another time, you begin again; sit down again and then try. Do this on getting up in the morning, do this in the evening when going to bed... if you want to digest your food properly, you can do this for a few minutes before eating. You can't imagine how much this helps your digestion!... and there comes a time when you no longer need to sit down, and no matter what you are doing, no matter what you are saying, it is always 'Peace, peace, peace.' Everything remains here, like this, it does not enter (gesture in front of the forehead), it remains like this. And then one is always in a perfect peace... after some years.

"But at the beginning, a very small beginning, two or three minutes, it is very simple. For something complicated

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you must make an effort, and when one makes an effort, one is not quiet. It is difficult to make an effort while remaining quiet. Very simple, very simple, you must be very simple in these things. It is as though you were learning how to call a friend: by dint of being called he comes. Well, make peace and calm your friends and call them: 'Come, peace, peace, peace, peace, come!"²³

To those who are engaged in the practise of Sadhana, illness may sometimes come because of lack of enough receptivity to the spiritual forces which one calls down by one's aspiration. The method of relieving such a disturbance is essentially the same, and consists in relaxing the part of the being (physical, vital, or mental), where there is resistance to the higher forces, by using one's will, or by widening the consciousness or simply by calling the peace. The Mother speaks about this in the following passage:

"The method is almost the same for all parts of the being. To begin with, the first condition: to remain as quiet as possible. You may notice that in the different parts of your being, when something comes and you do not receive it, this produces a shrinking - there is something which hardens in the vital, the mind or the body. There is a stiffening and this hurts, one feels a mental, vital or physical pain. So, the first thing is to put one's will and relax this shrinking, as one does a twitching nerve or a cramped muscle; you must learn how to relax, be able to relieve this tension in whatever part of the being it may be.

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different in the mind, the vital or the body, but logically it is the same thing. Once you have relaxed the tension, you see first if the disagreeable effect ceases, which would prove that it was a small momentary resistance, but if the pain continues and if it is indeed necessary to increase the receptivity in order to be able to receive what is helpful, what should be received, you must, after having relaxed this contraction, begin trying to widen yourself - you feel you are widening yourself. There are many methods. Some find it very useful to imagine they are floating on water with a plank under their back. Then they widen themselves, widen, until they become the vast liquid mass. Others make an effort to identify themselves with the sky and the stars, so they widen, widen themselves, identifying themselves more and more with the sky. Others again don't need these pictures; they can become conscious of their consciousness, enlarge their consciousness more and more until it becomes unlimited. One can enlarge it till it becomes vast as the earth and even the universe. When one does that one becomes really receptive.... One can act through thought, by calling the peace, tranquillity (the feeling of peace takes away much of the difficulty) like this: 'Peace, peace, peace... tranquillity... calm.' Many discomforts, even physical, like all these contractions of the solar plexus, which are so unpleasant and give you at times nausea, the sensation of being suffocated, of not being able to breathe again, can disappear thus. It is the nervous centre which is affected, it gets affected very easily. As soon as there is something which affects the solar plexus, you must say, 'Calm...calm...calm', become more and more calm

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until the tension is destroyed."²⁴

The Mother's prescription of peace as a sovereign remedy for preventing as well as healing physical and psychological disorders is based on the occult knowledge of vibrations. In a passage previously quoted, the Mother alludes to vibrations of disorder as producing a "tremor...in the body" and causing "a kind of fever".²⁵ In another previously quoted passage,²⁶ an allusion to vibrations was made in speaking about having "observed this in the cells of the body...in a hurry to do what they have to do".

We are not aware of these vibrations, "but the body trembles, and one doesn't know it, because it is in the cells of the body that the trembling goes on. It trembles with a terrible anxiety and this is what attracts the illness."²⁷

All illnesses, according to the Mother, are characterized by such vibrations of disorder. She describes the external source of an illness as "a kind of vibration made up of a mental suggestion, a vital force of disorder and certain physical elements which are the materialisation of the mental suggestion and the vital vibration. And these physical elements can be what we have agreed to call germs, microbes, this and that and many other things."²⁸

"If you could see that kind of dance, the dance of vibrations which is there around you all the time, you would see, would understand well what I mean."²⁹

According to the Mother, even accidents are the aftermath of harmful vibrations. She says:

". . . in a game, when you play, it is like this (gesture), and then it is like the vibrations of a point, it goes on

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increasing, increasing and increasing until suddenly, crash!...an accident. And it is a collective atmosphere like that; we come and see it, you are in the midst of a game - basketball or football or any other - we feel it, see it, it produces a kind of smoke around you (those vapours of heat which come at times, something like that), and then it takes on a vibration like that, like that, more and more, more and more, more and more until suddenly the equilibrium is broken: someone breaks his leg, falls down, is hit on the mouth by a ball, etc. And one can foretell beforehand that this is going to happen when it is like that. But nobody is aware of it."³⁰

As stated earlier, susceptibility to noxious vibrations from outside is due to negative vibrations within oneself. Therefore the only way to protect oneself from succumbing to an illness is to establish harmony within oneself. And in order to do this one needs first to become aware of vibrations of disharmony within oneself. Often people are not aware of a disorder until it manifests itself in the form of gross physical symptoms such as headache, fever, pain, swelling, etc. When one is a little more conscious and sensitive, one feels an inner malaise before one develop gross physical symptoms. But if one is to use the power of peace for preventing an attack of illness, one needs to cultivate one's consciousness a step further and become aware of the constant play of vibrations, both internal and external. If one can cultivate such awareness and can constantly establish a peaceful vibration within oneself, one renders oneself immune to all attacks.

Such a rationale regarding the cause and prevention - as

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well as the healing - of a disorder in terms of vibrations is summed up in the Mother's following statements:

"... there is always a way of isolating oneself by an atmosphere of protection, if one knows how to have an extremely quiet vibration, so quiet that it makes almost a kind of wall around you. - But all the time, all the time one is vibrating in response to vibrations which come from outside. If you become aware of this all the time there is something which does this (gesture),... which responds to all the vibrations coming from outside. You are never in an absolutely quiet atmosphere which emanates from you, that is, which comes from inside outward (not something which comes from outside within), something which is like an envelope around you, very quiet, like this - and you can go anywhere at all and these vibrations which come from outside do not begin to do this (gesture) around your atmosphere."³¹

"... and it is only when you have this conscious, extremely calm atmosphere, and as I say, when it comes from within (it is not something that comes from outside), it is only when it's like this that you can go with impunity into life, that is, among others and in all the circumstances of every minute. . . ."³²

REFERENCES

1. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 4 (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1978), p. 271.

2. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 8, p. 330.

3. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 15, p. 163.

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4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 5, p. 122.

7. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 4, p. 63.

8. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 8, p. 330.

9. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 15, p. 161.

10. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 5, p. 176.

11. Ibid., p. 186.

12. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 6, pp. 407-8.

13. Ibid., p. 406.

14.K. K. Datey, S. M. Deshmukh, D. P. Dalvi and S. L. Vinekar, "Shavasan, a yogic exercise in the management of hypertension". Angiology, 20 (1969), pp. 325-33.

15. C. H. Patel, "Yoga and biofeedback in the management of hypertension". Lancet (Nov. 10, 1973).

16. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 4, p. 368.

17. Ibid.

18. M. Friedman and R. H. Rosenman. Type A Behavior and Your Heart. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.

19. Ibid., p. 84.

20. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 10, pp. 202-3.

21. Ibid., p. 203.

22. Collected Works of the Mother. Vol. 9, p. 65.

23. Collected Works of the Mother. Vol. 6, pp. 313-14.

24. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 4, pp. 265-66.

25. Vide reference 11.

26. Vide reference 20.

27. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 7, p. 145.

28. Ibid., p. 146.

29. Ibid., p. 147.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid., pp. 146-47.

32. Ibid., p. 147.

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