Supernatural and experience. The Unknown and the Unbelievable: Encyclopedia of the Miraculous and the Unknown

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Looking for motivation to practice yoga? Here are 38 ways yoga can help you improve your health. Perhaps after that you will take a mat and go to a yoga class for classes.

If you've tried yoga before, you've probably already noticed that yoga has a positive effect on your well-being - you may sleep better, catch colds less often, and feel that you can relax properly. However, if you are telling a beginner how yoga works, using expressions like "It increases the flow of prana" or "It gives energy to your spine", you are more likely to stumble upon skeptical opinion and criticism.

It is best to offer interested individuals who are just beginning to practice more specific explanations of how yoga will improve health, cure diseases and relieve pain, and so on. Understanding the benefits of the class will help keep you motivated to get started and will also be able to tell others how yoga works in a language they can understand.

1) Flexibility

Improving the flexibility of the whole body is one of the main and obvious benefits of yoga. During the first lesson, you most likely could hardly reach the tips of your toes. However, over time, you have noticed that it is becoming easier for you to perform poses that at first were difficult or not given to you at all. You may also have noticed that pain began to pass. This is not an accident. Weak hips can put stress on the knees due to improper placement of the femur and tibia. Weak muscles The hips can put stress on the spine, leading to back pain. Lack of flexibility in muscles and connective tissues such as connective sheaths (fascia) and ligaments can lead to poor posture.

2) Strength

Strong muscles give much more than an attractive body. They also protect us from diseases such as arthritis and back pain, and help prevent the risk of falls in the elderly. If you can strengthen your muscles with yoga, you can balance them with flexibility. If you, for example, go to the gym and pump your muscles, they will become strong, but this will not add to your flexibility.

3) Correct posture

Your head is somewhat like a bowling ball - it is round, large and heavy. Keeping your head above a straight spine does a lot of good for your neck and back muscles as it supports them and balances them. Tilt your head a few inches forward and you will feel the tension in your muscles. Keeping your head tilted for 8-12 hours, you will realize that there is nothing surprising in the fact that at the end of the day you will feel very tired. Fatigue is not your only problem. Incorrect posture leads to problems with the back, neck and other muscles and joints. When you slouch, your back and neck become arched, and prolonged slouching leads to back pain, degenerative arthritis of the spine.

4) Joint and cartilage health

Every time you do yoga, your joints work at full capacity and turn to the maximum distance. This helps prevent degenerative arthritis and also works areas of cartilage that normally remain immobile due to lack of movement. The connective tissues of cartilage are like sponges, they receive fresh nutrients only when their fluids are squeezed out and new ones are absorbed back. If these areas do not work enough, they wear out, exposing the bones, which eventually turns into pain in the legs.

5) Health of the vertebral discs

The vertebral discs - the shock absorbers between the spine and the compressive nerves - must be mobile. This is how they get the nutrition they need. If you practice yoga, including balanced poses, flexing and arching your back, doing twists in your workouts, this will give your disks flexibility.

6) Strong bones

Weight training is well known to help strengthen bones and prevent osteoporosis. Many yoga poses are designed to allow you to lift your body weight. For example, postures such as down-facing dog and up-facing dog help strengthen the bones in the hands, which are especially vulnerable to damage from osteoporosis. Yoga practice improves spinal bone density, according to UCLA research. Yoga's ability to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol helps keep calcium in the bones.

7) Improved circulation

Yoga helps improve blood circulation. Relaxation exercises promote good blood circulation, especially in the arms and legs. Yoga also helps to deliver more oxygen to the cells, which, as a result, start working better. Twisting postures squeeze venous blood out of internal organs and help deliver oxygenated blood as you come out of the twist position. Inverted postures such as headstand, handstand, and shoulder stand help venous blood from the legs and pelvis return to the heart, where it enters the lungs and is better oxygenated. This is especially useful for those who have foot problems due to bad work heart and kidneys. Yoga also helps increase hemoglobin levels and increases the number of white blood cells that deliver oxygen to tissues. This thins the blood, preventing blood clots from forming, and reduces the levels of blood proteins that contribute to clogging of blood vessels. This reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes, since blood clots often lead to these problems.

8) Strengthen the lymphatic system

When you contract and strengthen muscles, move your whole body while doing yoga asanas, you improve the drainage of lymph (a viscous fluid rich in immune cells). This allows the lymphatic system to better deal with infections, destroy cancer cells, and remove toxic waste from cells.

9) Healthy heart

When you regularly train your heart with aerobic activity, you significantly reduce the risk of heart disease and also get rid of depression. Although not all yoga asanas involve aerobic exercise, if you are doing complex exercises, you may notice that your heart rate increases. Even if some poses do not make your heart beat faster, they still contribute to good adaptation. of cardio-vascular system. Studies have shown that practicing yoga lowers your resting heart rate, improves endurance, and helps you get more oxygen during exercise, all of which have many cardiovascular benefits.

10) Pressure reduction

If you have high blood pressure, you can improve the situation with yoga. Two studies in people with hypertension published in the British Medical Journal The Lancet, compared with the action of Shavasana ("corpse pose") with the usual lying on the couch. After 3 months, the results of the studies showed that Savasana reduced systolic blood pressure (maximum level) by 26 points and diastolic blood pressure (minimum pressure) by 15 points. The higher the initial level of pressure, the more it dropped to a normal level.

11) Getting rid of anxiety

Yoga helps lower cortisol levels. Under normal conditions, the adrenal gland produces cortisol in response to an acute crisis, which temporarily stimulates the function of the immune system. But if cortisol levels are still elevated after the crisis has passed, it can harm the immune system. A temporary rise in cortisol helps maintain long-term memory, but chronically high levels can damage memory and lead to permanent brain changes. What's more, excess cortisol has been linked to depression, osteoporosis (it leaches calcium and other minerals from bones and interferes with bone formation), high blood pressure, and insulin resistance. In rats, high levels of cortisol, scientists say, leads to a behavior in which rodents tend to eat more when irritated or stressed. The body receives additional calories that are stored as belly fat, which means that you start to get fat, and you increase the risk of developing diabetes and heart disease.

12) Happiness and getting rid of depression

Are you upset about something? Sit in the Lotus position. Or better yet, do the Semi-Elevated Pose - standing on one leg, straighten one arm forward, and with the other grab the other leg from behind, making a bend in the back. Although these poses can be quite challenging for beginners, with practice they can help you get rid of depression, as well as help to significantly increase serotonin levels, reduce levels of monoamine oxidase (an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters) and cortisol. Ph.D Richard Davidson from University of Wisconsin found that the left side of the prefrontal cortex shows activity during meditation, which indicates that a person receives a sufficiently high portion of happiness and his immunity increases. More severe activation of this zone is observed in those who regularly practice yoga and meditation.

13) Problem Solving excess weight

Move more and eat less - these recommendations are for everyone who wants to lose weight. Yoga classes also give you physical activity, and also contribute to the transition to proper nutrition. Regular yoga classes make you move more, so you burn more calories, and the spiritual and emotional components of your practice will help you do right choice food and can help solve the problem of excess weight. Yoga also inspires you to eat more mindfully.

14) Reduced blood sugar

Yoga helps to reduce sugar and bad cholesterol levels, increases the level of good cholesterol. In people with diabetes, yoga has been shown to lower blood sugar in several ways: by lowering cortisol and adrenaline levels, helping to reduce weight, and improving insulin sensitivity. By lowering your blood sugar, you can reverse many of the effects of diabetes, including heart attacks, kidney failure, and blindness.

15) Improve memory

An important component of yoga is focusing on the present. Studies have shown that regular yoga practice improves coordination, reaction time, and even IQ scores. People who practice transcendental meditation demonstrate the ability to solve problems and receive and remember information better. Perhaps this is due to the fact that they are less distracted by extraneous thoughts.

16) Calming the nerves

Yoga helps you relax, slow down your breathing, and focus on the present by shifting balance from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system. The latter helps to calm down, restore strength, it reduces the frequency of breathing and heart rate, lowers blood pressure, increases blood circulation in the digestive and reproductive systems and has a relaxing effect.

17) Improved balance and coordination of movements

Regular yoga practice enhances proprioception- the ability to sense one's posture in space, and also improve balance. People with poor posture and movement problems usually have poor proprioception due to knee problems or back pain. A good balance will not let you fall. For older people, this is especially important, as they get more independence, they can take care of themselves, and they turn to doctors less. For everyone else, postures like Tree Pose help you feel more stable in your legs.

18) Body Control

Some advanced yogis can control their body in unusual ways. Scientists studied yogis who could cause an unusual heartbeat, generate specific electroencephalogram indicators, and, using meditative techniques, raise the temperature of the hands. That is, it demonstrates that yoga can be used to increase circulation in the pelvis if you want to get pregnant, or to force yourself to relax if you have insomnia.

19) Relieve Muscle Tension

Have you ever noticed that you can grab a phone in a death grip or make a face while staring at a computer screen? These unconscious habits can lead to chronic tension, muscle fatigue, joint pain, arm, shoulder, neck and face pain, which only exacerbate stress and worsen mood. When you start doing yoga, you begin to feel where tension is being held, perhaps in the tongue, in the eyes, in the muscles of the face or neck. If you tune in correctly, you can eliminate tension. However, for large muscles, it may take years of practice to learn how to relax them.

20) Serenity

Stimulation is sometimes good, but not always for the nervous system. Yoga helps you get rid of turmoil modern life. Restorative asanas, yoga nidra (a form of guided relaxation), savasana, pranayama and meditation support pratyahara, the technique of withdrawing the senses from objects, which helps to calm the nervous system. Another benefit of regular yoga practice has been shown in studies to improve sleep. This means that you will be less tired and less stressed.

21) Improving the functioning of the immune system

Asanas and pranayama (a system of breathing exercises) can improve immune system function, although scientists believe meditation is the most beneficial for the immune system. Meditation helps stimulate the immune system when needed, such as raising antibody levels when vaccinated, and also reduces immune system function when needed, such as helping to reduce the effects of inappropriately aggressive system function in autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis and others.

22) Healthy breathing

Yogis try to take fewer breaths, but deeper ones, which helps to calm the nervous system and is more efficient breathing. In 1998 the magazine The Lancet published studies in which people with lung problems due to coronary heart disease learned a yogic technique known as "full breathing". A month later, their average respiratory rate decreased by 13.4 -7.6 breaths per minute. At the same time, their exercise capacity improved significantly, as did their oxygen saturation. What's more, yoga helps improve lung function, including maximizing the amount of air you can inhale and exhaling it efficiently. Yoga encourages breathing through the nose, which helps purify the air, warms and humidifies it (cold, dry air contributes to asthma attacks in people who are especially sensitive to the disease), delays the entry of dust and pollution into the lungs.

23) Good bowel function

Ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation - all these troubles can worsen. If you experience less stress, you will suffer less. Yoga like any other physical activity, relieves constipation and theoretically reduces the risk of colon cancer, because it helps food move faster in the intestines. And although there has not yet been scientific evidence, yogis believe that twisting poses will especially help get rid of constipation.

24) Peace of Mind

Yoga helps calm an anxious mind. In other words, it helps to slow down thoughts and rid you of the frustration, regrets, anger, fears and desires that cause stress. Since stress brings a host of health problems, from migraines and insomnia to lupus, multiple sclerosis, high blood pressure, and heart attacks, if you learn to calm your mind, you're more likely to live happily ever after.

25) Signs from Above

Many of us suffer from chronically low self-esteem. If you drown out this problem with drugs, overeating, hard work or debauchery, you will pay for it with your physical and mental health. If you turn to positive self-esteem techniques such as yoga, you will experience first short glimpses and then more serious changes in your sense of self. If you regularly practice yoga for self-examination or self-awareness, and not just for a change after going to the gym, you can find a completely different side of yourself. You will experience feelings of gratitude, compassion and forgiveness, and you will realize that you are part of something Big. Although improving health is not the most important goal spiritual development, this is often a concomitant phenomenon.

26) Pain Relief

Yoga helps relieve your pain. According to several studies, asanas, meditation, or a combination of both, reduce pain in people with arthritis, low back pain, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other chronic conditions. If you can relieve the pain, your mood will improve, you will be more active and you won't need to take medication.

27) Fire Treatment

Yoga helps you change your life. In fact, this is the greatest power that yoga has. "Tapa" The Sanskrit word for "heat" is fire, the discipline that nourishes yogic practice and upon which regular practice is built. The tapa you develop can intensify throughout life to overcome inertia and get rid of bad habits. Once you start practicing yoga, you will notice that your life changes: you start eating better, exercising more, quitting smoking after several years of unsuccessful attempts.

28) Guru Gifts

Good yoga instructors can provide many health tips. The very best of them don't just teach you how to do different poses correctly. They keep track of what postures you should do, when you need to go further or slow down a bit, help you relax and make your practice most effective for you personally. A respectful relationship with a teacher will help you learn many useful things.

29) Less drugs

If your medicine cabinet looks like a pharmacy kiosk, it might be time for a yoga class. Studies of people with asthma, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, or obsessive compulsive disorder have shown that yoga has been able to help them reduce their medication intake, and for some, it has allowed them to stop taking medication altogether. If we talk about the benefits of taking fewer drugs, then they can count a great many: savings, getting rid of side effects, the risk of dangerous interactions, and so on.

30) Getting rid of anger

Yoga and meditation promote awareness. The more knowledge you have, the easier it will be for you to deal with destructive emotions such as anger. Research suggests that chronic anger and hostility are strongly associated with heart attacks, as are smoking, diabetes, and high cholesterol. Yoga seems to help release anger by increasing feelings of compassion and connectedness, as well as calming the nervous system and mind. It also improves the ability to cope with life's difficulties, to endure bad news, to find the strength to cope with events that unsettle you. You will be able to react quickly in the right situation. There is evidence that yoga speeds up our reactions. In a difficult situation, you can find the right solution and you will suffer less.

31) Good relationship

Love cannot overcome everything, but it can help heal. By cultivating emotional support for friends, family, and community, you help yourself, improve your health, and heal from disease. Regular yoga practice helps develop friendliness, compassion and strong self-control. In addition to its emphasis on not harming others, yoga philosophy also encourages you to tell the truth and take only what you really need. This is what will help you improve relationships with many people.

32) Power of Sounds

The basics of yoga - asanas, pranayama and meditation - help to improve health, but yoga will give you much more. Take, for example, chants - chanting mantras. Mantras promote a longer exhalation, which helps shift the balance to the parasympathetic nervous system. If chanted in a group, mantras can bring more benefit, you will experience a more powerful physical and emotional experience. Recent Research Swedish Karolinska Institute have shown that buzzing sounds, such as chanting the sound "Om," for example, open up the sinuses and facilitate drainage.

33) Alleviate the suffering of patients with serious illnesses

If you imagine an image during yoga nitra or other practices, you may notice that your body is changing. Several studies have shown that guided imaging can help reduce postoperative pain, relieve frequent headaches, and improve quality of life in people with cancer or AIDS.

34) Cleansing the body

Kriya Cleansing practices are another element of yoga. They include many practices ranging from quick breathing exercises to cleansing internal organs such as the intestines. jala neti– gentle cleansing of the sinuses with saline solution – helps to remove impurities and viruses from the nose, prevents the formation of mucus, helps to clear the sinuses.

35) Benefiting Yourself Through Service to Others

Karma yoga(service to others) is also a constituent philosophy of yoga. Even if you do not seek to serve others, your health will improve if you do so. Researchers from University of Michigan found that older adults who volunteered less than 1 hour per week were three times more likely to be alive after 7 years. Service to others gives meaning to your life, and your problems don't seem so bad when you see what others have to deal with.

36) Healing Hope

Most patients who are treated with traditional methods are passive recipients of care. In yoga, what you do for yourself matters. Yoga gives you the tool to change and you can feel better from the start of your practice. You notice that the more you practice, the more benefit you bring to yourself. As a result, you achieve the following: you begin to take care of yourself, you discover that your participation gives you the strength to change, and you also see that these changes give you hope. Hope, in turn, helps heal itself.

37) Everything is connected

When you read about the benefits yoga gives you, you notice a lot of overlap. This is because all these things are closely related to each other. Change your posture and you will change your breathing. Change your breathing and you change your nervous system. This is one of the most important yoga lessons. Everything is interconnected: your pelvis is connected to your talus, you are connected to society, the society around you is connected to the world. These relationships are vital to understanding yoga. This comprehensive system simultaneously uses many mechanisms that complement each other and give many effects.

38) Placebo Power

If you believe that you will get the best, you can get it. Unfortunately, many mainstream scientists believe that if something works because of the placebo effect, it doesn't count. However, many patients, when they really want to be cured, recite mantras at the beginning or end of yoga classes or during meditation practices or just during the day, this speeds up their recovery. Even if it's a placebo effect, how many people think it's bad if the person is really cured?

THE WONDERS OF YOGA

The famous Russian scientist A. Kondratov, our contemporary, devoted many years to studying the phenomena of yoga, and this is what he says: “The participants in the campaigns of Alexander the Great, Arab scientists of the Middle Ages, European travelers of the New Age spoke about the miracles of Indian yogis. But only recently it was possible experimentally, in scientific laboratories, to check their reality.It turned out that without any illusionary tricks and fakir tricks, yogis demonstrate "something amazing, outstanding", but by no means "something unprecedented, supernatural."

Can yogis, as their fans claim, stop the heart? If they can, then this is a real miracle, the doctors said. Initially, it seemed that this was the case: the pulse was really not palpable, and the heartbeat was not heard. But radiographs and electrocardiograms confirmed that the heart was still working. Only the frequency of its beat, usually equal to 60-70 beats per minute, fell by half. But the pressure inside chest with the help of special breathing, it increased so much that it prevented the flow of blood through the veins to the heart - the pulse and heartbeat disappeared. Yogi Swami Rama demonstrated to scientists how to not only slow down, but also speed up the heart rate. His pulse rate increased from 70 beats per minute to 300 beats! (Experimenters limited themselves to 20 seconds of work in this mode, because an increase in heart rate even up to 200 beats per minute causes pain, fainting, etc.)

Yoga exercises - I experienced it myself - allow you to control the work of not only the heart, but also other organs and parts of the body that work automatically and, it would seem, are not amenable to the orders of consciousness - for example, the alimentary tract, stomach.

Many authors, both ancient and modern, have reported that a yogi can be buried alive, stay in the grave for several days, weeks, and even years, and then come out of the coffin alive. Indeed, in the yoga system, the so-called “samadhi” is practiced - the samadhi of the “embryo in the earth”, when the yogi turns off all the senses, falls into a kind of lethargic sleep. The coffin with him is placed in a crypt or buried in the ground. Scientists in India conducted a series of experiments to find out how true the stories about long-term burial alive are and what physiological processes occur during this.

The experiment involved both unprepared people and people practicing yoga. An ordinary person in a hermetically sealed box (he replaced a coffin or crypt) did not feel very comfortable. His breathing quickened, his heartbeat increased, the electrical activity of the brain testified to tension, an increase in a stressful situation. After 10-12 hours, an excess of carbon dioxide forced to stop the experiment.

People who mastered yoga techniques could stay in boxing twice as long. The devices showed that the breathing of a trained person slowed down, the pulse decreased, the electrical potentials of the brain were similar to the state of mental relaxation, relaxation. There is no mysticism here, but the yoga technique would be useful to people who find themselves in an extreme situation associated with a lack of oxygen (for example, miners or submariners).

Breathing exercises, pranayama, is one of the cornerstones of yoga teaching. Numerous studies of pranayama have been conducted in India, the USA, France, the USSR and other countries. No miracles contrary to the laws of physiology have been found. But there is a striking effect that give breathing exercises yoga. With their help, the French diver Jacques Maillol was able to dive to a depth of 101 meters without any equipment! It turns out that even the work of the respiratory system can be put under control.

Treatises on yoga, starting with the most ancient and authoritative - "Yoga Sutras" of Patanjali, speak of the "powers of siddhi", superhuman abilities acquired at the highest stages of yoga. Are they related to the so-called psychic abilities that are so much debated now? There is no answer to this question yet, because it is impossible to solve one thing - the unknown through another. Perhaps in some cases we are dealing with a controlled hallucination: by bringing the psyche into a certain state, the yogi can "materialize" his visions, although for an outside observer no "materialization" occurs. There is still no such equipment that could fix this work of the brain. However, data have already been obtained that characterize the features of the electrical activity of the brain in yogis who are in deep concentration (meditation).

Back in 1929, the Austrian psychiatrist H. Berger, trying to establish the code of the brain, spoke of its fantastic complexity. It has not been deciphered to this day. It was possible to find out only a few of the simplest rhythms associated with one or another state of the psyche. The most noticeable are the so-called alpha waves that occur in a state of rest and relaxation. If you influence a person with some kind of irritant, say, a bright light or a loud sound, then there is a blockade of the alpha rhythm, a sharp decrease in the amplitude of the alpha waves. This is for ordinary people. But, as J. Hassett writes in the book "Psychophysiology", the monks of the Buddhist school of Zen, when contemplating, directed at the outside world, and not deep into themselves, did not "get used" to the alpha rhythm to sound stimuli. “While the EEG response to sound (tone) gradually weakened in the control group, it persisted in the monks. Thus, the EEG data supports the claim of these monks that they are "better aware" of the world around them. On the other hand, the meditation practiced indian yoga, of a completely different kind: it is associated with a focus on the internal state and disconnection from the outside world. During meditation, they did not block the alpha rhythm with sufficiently strong stimulation (for example, when a hot object is applied to the hand), although outside the meditation period the same stimuli blocked the alpha rhythm. Thus, judging by the EEG data, this state is exactly the opposite of the one that Zen monks bring themselves into. Yogis successfully cut themselves off from the outside world."

Spiritual and bodily, mental and physical in a person are closely connected. We turn pale and blush, we experience different feelings, excitement makes the heart beat faster, the body is covered with sweat from fear, the hair stands on end. These processes seem uncontrollable, depending only on external causes. However, practice shows that this is not the case. Let us recall at least children who can cry not at all because they are in pain, but because they feel like it. There are people who can slow down or speed up the heart at will, cause perspiration in various parts of the body, even raise their hair on end.

Our brain works on two levels, conscious and subconscious. We consciously perceive speech, move our arms and legs, slow down or speed up our breathing. At the subconscious level, the regulation of the work of the heart, body temperature and other processes controlled by the so-called autonomous nervous system with its functionally related sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions. Nature acted wisely, transferring the leadership of these processes to the "lower floor" of the brain - if not for this, we would only have to do what to order the heart to beat rhythmically, breathe easy, etc.

The yoga system was created in ancient times. Having modified it, the German psychotherapist I. Schultz in the 20-30s of our century laid the foundations autogenic training(from the Greek "autos" - himself, "genus" - born), which now has more than a dozen various options. With the help of autogenic training, many body functions that were considered beyond the control of consciousness can be taken under control. For example, the method of active auto-suggestion, created in our country by Dr. A. S. Romen, allows you to arbitrarily, in a few tens of seconds, raise and lower the temperature of the skin on the hand by several degrees, slow down and speed up the pulse, induce a state of "cataleptic bridge" without the help of a hypnotist , only self-hypnosis.

And yet, the capabilities of our brain, the ability of consciousness to control the work of the body are not fully understood. Apparently, the time is not too far away when the basics of psychophysiology (or autogenic training, or mental self-regulation, or self-hypnosis, or a yoga system adapted to the conditions of modern life) will be studied in schools and, having mastered the technique of self-hypnosis, any person will be able to create "psychic miracles”, previously considered the lot of the elect or even from above.

A legend has come down to us about a warrior who covered the distance from the marathon to Athens and fell dead, bringing the news of victory. When to program Olympic Games introduced marathon run, many believed that modern man is not able to overcome this distance. We now know that the marathon is run not only by ultra-endurance athletes, but also by the elderly, and women show results that far exceed the achievements of marathon athletes of the 20s, 30s, 40s and even 50s. Moreover, these results are the result of regular training. How superhuman the achievements of people will seem when it is possible to deeply understand the work of the brain, to put the automatic control of the body under control!

Over the past millennia, man has not changed physically. The limits of its capabilities, indicated some half a century ago, have changed and have long been surpassed. The real miracle is the man himself, his brain, knowing the world and himself.

There are numerous articles in magazines and newspapers about the miracles of yogis, about their physical exercises, typewritten instructions going from hand to hand on how to practice yoga, how to behave and eat ...

Finally, the widely known film of the Kiev studio of popular science films under the intriguing title "Indian Yogis, who are they?", which bypassed the screens of the country. There is a lot of discussion about yoga. scolded and praised, but, in essence, neither printed materials nor this certainly interesting film give a sufficiently exhaustive answer to the questions of what yoga is, what goals this ancient teaching sets, why its physical exercises and a special mode of life are needed .

Let's start with the basics. Who is considered a yogi? Does this definition fit a person who knows how to perform all yoga exercises - the so-called asanas? With proper training, a gymnasium or an acrobat can successfully perform them, but will he become a yogi from this? Then, perhaps, a yogi is a person who knows how to swallow hot coals, washing them down with a glass of undiluted hydrochloric acid? However, even before the revolution, venerable audiences were entertained by this kind of tricks in cabarets, booths, and circuses by magicians who mastered the wisdom of illusion and prestige. Maybe a yogi is a person who has received a diploma with a seal and a signature certifying graduation from the Yoga Institute? But can one be considered a real yogi who only presents a certificate of his involvement in this clan?

Among Indian yogis, there are many followers of Jainism, one of the three main religions of Indonesia (along with Buddhism and Hinduism). Their main external distinguishing feature is that they do not recognize any clothing. The only part of the body they cover with gauze is... the mouth. After all, Jain yogis vow not to harm any living being. That is why they tend to keep their mouth constantly closed - so as not to accidentally swallow a midge. Therefore, they also never move at dusk and at night - so as not to crush anything living in the darkness. And of course, the Jains are staunch vegetarians who spiritualize even plants and believe that eating plant foods is also “murder”. That is why the highest achievement they consider a slow death from starvation. It happens that a Jain yogi consciously dooms himself to it.

In complete contrast to these ascetics are the so-called Aghorapantha Yogis, adherents of the god Shiva. They roamed the forests like wild animals and fed on carrion, for everything that is given or taken by Shiva is sacred to them. True, now this sect has practically disappeared.

Compare the “diets” of Jain yogis and Aghorapanthi yogis themselves - and you will understand how naive and ignorant are the “profound” advice of pseudo-experts about the “correct” diet of Indian yogis!

The famous yogi Ramakrishna, a man of rare disinterestedness and truthfulness, and his best student Swami Vivekanadze, whose speeches were once a huge success in the USA, was dedicated to the book by Romain Rolland, who admired the spiritual purity of these people. The book of the Soviet ethnographer-orientalist L.V. Shaposhnikova “Years and Days of Madras” describes the amazing fate and crystal honesty of Verkataraman, nicknamed “Maharishi” - “The Great Teacher”. But at the same time, another “great teacher” by the name of Mahesh, a man with the beard of a saint and the eyes of a notorious rogue, also labors in India today. In his residence in the Himalayas, equipped with the latest technology (heliport, air conditioning in the cells, a tape recorder for recording sermons), he accepts wealthy clients for a solid bribe, eager to join the "mysteries of yoga." The progressive Indian public, not without reason, reproaches this millionaire “yogi” for having links with the American Central Intelligence Agency.

Ascetics and swindlers, ignoramuses and scientists, vegetarians and lovers of carrion, emaciated beggars and successful businessmen call themselves yogis. And the point here is not only and not so much in the personal qualities of people practicing yoga. After all, yoga is a very complex, contradictory phenomenon. It took shape a very long time ago: in an era when there were no clear lines separating scientific knowledge from magic, materialistic philosophy from theology. Hence its diversity: on the one hand, it certainly contains problems that are being solved today by a whole complex of modern sciences; on the other hand, representatives of various religions and mystical societies seek to adopt it. After all, yoga, in fact, is used by the most esoteric, hidden from the "uninitiated" sects, such as Sufi Muslims or Tantric Buddhists. "Serves" yoga and such mass religions as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam. At the same time, many of yoga, in particular physical exercises, are also practiced by non-believers.

Thus, due to historical development, mystical and rational, the old, characteristic of pre-scientific thinking, and the new are intricately intertwined in yoga - something that the sciences of man are now only beginning to reveal and realize and that yogis in the course of practical preparation for their “higher”, mystical purposes were intuitively grasped millennia ago. But this real experience of people in using the seemingly mysterious, unknowable capabilities of our body and psyche for a long time was interpreted purely idealistically both by religions that adopted the technique of yoga, and by various mystical societies, such as the Theosophical. Today, science seeks to provide a materialistic explanation for these phenomena - primarily those related to the mysteries of the brain.

In this area, as elsewhere where it is required to separate the rational from the mystical layers, there is a fundamental and uncompromising battle between science and religion, between the materialistic and idealistic understanding of phenomena. However, there is more confusion, misunderstanding, and often outright falsification and manipulation of facts than anywhere else. The difficulty of accurate and objective evaluation here is due to the fact that the problem of yoga requires not only extremely deep and versatile knowledge, but also additional research in the field of medicine and Sanskritology, psychology and physiotherapy, psychiatry and the history of religion, physiology and Indology, Tibetology and a number of other Oriental and "human studies" disciplines, and moreover, it necessarily requires a historical, dialectical approach. Without all this, any conclusions “for” or “against” will be hasty, and all kinds of advice and recommendations look not only naive or undesirable - they are simply harmful.

To be convinced of the need for just such an approach to yoga, one should at least in general terms get acquainted with its history and ideology.

Not so long ago, it was believed that the most ancient yogic text is the famous Yoga Sutra, a work written by the ancient Indian scholar and philosopher Patanjali around the 2nd century BC. But here in the Indus Valley, and then in other parts of Hindustan, cities were excavated, whose age exceeds four thousand years. Simultaneously with the civilizations of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Proto-Indian (i.e., the First Indian) civilization flourished here. During excavations of its monuments, about 10,000 seals covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions were discovered. So far, it has not been possible to decipher the writings of the proto-Indians. In addition to hieroglyphs, there are images of animals, people, and gods on the seals. Some of them are shown sitting in traditional yoga postures - asanas. And since the origin of the proto-Indian civilization itself is still mysterious (on the territory of Hindustan, no traces of the predecessor culture that gave rise to the proto-Indian one have yet been found), it follows that we still do not know where and when the teaching of yoga arose: whether it was in India or in the "X-center" unknown to us, the cradle of proto-Indian civilization.

The era separating the proto-Indian and classical Indian cultures is now called the “dark period”, because we know too little how and through what channels the achievements of the proto-Indians penetrated to the past Aryan nomad tribes who invaded Hindustan about 35 centuries ago. But such penetration, no doubt, was. Aryas adopted from their predecessors not only the decimal number system, many economic inventions, but also faith in the great god Shiva, who was considered the "creator of the science of yoga", and its practice.

MIRACLES OF YOGI

Since time immemorial, the mysterious East, like a magnet, has attracted numerous travelers. Particularly attracted Europeans was the mysterious India - the "wonderland". This country received such an unusual epithet thanks to the incredible abilities that Indian fakirs and yogis demonstrated. Even in ancient times, European travelers who visited India said that extraordinary people live there - yogis who develop their eyesight in such a way that they can see how some animals are in the dark, as well as small objects at long distances on the horizon and even beyond the horizon, objects hidden from view by a barrier. These people can look at the Sun for a long time. They are not afraid of either heat or cold, and naked stand and sit on the snow in the Himalayas in unusual positions, spending many hours in meditation. Travelers assured that they saw with their own eyes how these people were buried in the ground for many weeks and months, and that after digging they came to life. Some assured that these people are subjected to the methods of tempering with five fires "panch-dhuni", and then they are not afraid of fire and can safely walk on a burning fire. It was reported that they do not sink in water and can sit on the water for a long time, swaying on the waves of the sacred Ganges. They talked about the incredible endurance of yogis, who can run for several days without rest. Other incredible abilities of yogis were also reported: allegedly southern and northern yogis, thousands of miles apart, communicate with each other mentally.

In Europe, these messages were perceived differently. Some considered them fiction from beginning to end, the fruit of the uncontrollable imagination of travelers, others more restrainedly expressed their doubts, admitting that some of the facts described by eyewitnesses could actually take place, but that all this requires reliable confirmation. Decades passed, and the flow of information about yoga did not decrease. Many fantastic information reported by travelers was confirmed by authoritative scientists and special commissions, as well as numerous eyewitnesses. An indisputable fact was the extraordinary mastery of yogis with their bodies and internal organs: control over the work of the heart, breathing, as well as the autonomic nervous system, the impact on work endocrine system, control of feelings and emotions, incredible hardening of the body of respawns that generate “tumo” heat in the body, unprecedented endurance of “heavenly runners” - lung-gom-pa (yogis “contemplating the wind”), running for several days in a row with incredible speed without stopping, without slowing down the pace of running. This kind of demonstration is usually popularly called a miracle. Yogis do not consider their achievements miraculous, and what they demonstrate can be performed by anyone with the help of appropriate training, including such as burying in the ground for a month, teleportation and levitation.

Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine, the famous English psychiatrist Alexander Canon, who works at the Hoch Research Psychiatric Center in Cologne, writes in his book “Unknown Influence” about how he himself, with the help of a Tibetan yogi, levitated through a wide and deep gorge in the Himalayas. Preparations for levitation through the gorge, writes A. Canon, went on for several hours. Returning to London, Dr. A. Canon published a book in which he described his levitation experiment. A number of prominent scientists have confirmed that they have also witnessed levitation demonstrations. Now the phenomena of levitation are observed by hundreds of thousands of people. It is shown on television and in films, in various countries.

In 1934, at the University of Calcutta, in front of well-known Indian scientists, among whom was Sir K. V. Raman, the Nobel Prize winner who discovered the effect of light diffusion - the “Raman effect”, Swami Narasingha swallowed lethal doses of sulfuric and carbolic acid and then ingested one grams of salt of cyanic acid. After that, he drank water and removed the acids from his body.

There are now scientific documentaries made about fire-walking yogis and yogis who are buried in the ground for a long time. For materialistic scientists and the majority of lay people in yoga there is much that is mysterious, unknown and frightening, especially at its highest level - Raja yoga. So a wild man is afraid of the light of an ordinary light bulb, because he does not understand the laws of electric current.

The miracles shown by Indian yogis so greatly perplex many scientists that they, scientists, often refuse to believe their eyes and burst into abuse: “Swindlers, charlatans, swindlers!” Yogis don't argue. They quietly meditate, train themselves, and then plunge into the water for one and a half to two hours... They see in the dark... They distinguish small objects that are at a distance of the horizon... They look at the sun for a long time...

Science, having reached cosmic heights in its development, is increasingly returning from heaven to earth, and man becomes the most coveted object of its attention. Science is just beginning to comprehend the secrets of human biomechanics and biochemistry, and there are a lot of them. Indian yogis are ideal models for study here.

An interesting experiment lasting forty days was carried out in Lahore. All this time, Yogi Harid was sewn up in a bag and nailed up in a wooden box. Round-the-clock security ensured that no one opened the specified box and did not supply the yogi with food and drink. At the end of forty days, the box was opened, the sack was torn open, and Harid was found dead. No breathing, no pulse, no heartbeat. The doctors washed their hands. After that, another yogi extracted wax from the dead man's nostrils, doused his “colleague” with hot water, and a miracle happened. Harid is alive.

Or the popular walking among yogis on red-hot coals. Researchers had speculation that yogis used special ointments, but observations and chemical analysis showed that this was not the case. Yogi Husain came to London specifically to demonstrate how it is possible to be insensitive to high temperatures. Physicist Price personally recorded the fact that Husain walked on a metal sheet heated to eight hundred degrees. Then there was an accident with Price's students. They decided that there would be a desire and everything would work out, they also stood on a hot sheet. The result is severe burns.

Surprisingly, yogis are also not afraid of cold. In the Himalayas, in the highest mountains, where the temperature is below thirty degrees, they spend many hours of meditation, and at the same time they are completely naked. Sometimes they compete with each other. They cut holes in the mountain lakes, wet the sheets and dry them on their backs. As a rule, these "competitions" are held at night, when frost and wind are especially raging. Some yogis dry up to thirty sheets on themselves overnight.

In the cases described, yoga in an incomprehensible way change the properties of their own skin and the temperature balance in the body. No less amazing phenomena are demonstrated by these people when they use muscles in their training. It does not matter how old a yogi is, an old man or a youth, any of them is able to achieve either steel hardness of muscles or their wonderful elasticity.

Yogis can spend long hours in positions that are unnatural for a person. An ordinary person is not able to repeat this even for a few seconds, he will simply be struck by convulsions. Absolutely fantastic yoga control is demonstrated over the abdominal muscles. Here the yogi relaxes his stomach so much that it becomes possible to feel the spine, and a minute later he lies with his back on broken glass, and on his stomach there is a board with a dozen adult men. Or a truck runs across the yoga…

A common mode of transportation for yogis is running. Although, it would seem, why be surprised here if Olympic sprinters and marathon runners show exorbitant speed and endurance? However, there is a difference. Yogis are able to run without rest and water for several days ... This is if they are not in a hurry. In cases of haste, they reach speeds of up to thirty to forty kilometers per hour! Moreover, they prefer to move around at night in order to be in time for the monastery they need by morning. In complete darkness, yogis are able to overcome up to two hundred kilometers, and this is along narrow and uneven mountain roads.

Various eyewitnesses describe the fleeing yogis in the same way. People have drowsy eyes, no emotions on their faces, skin as pale as the moon. While running, yogis are in a trance. They tried to stop them, they sobered up, and then they needed time to return to a trance again and develop tremendous speed or enter a multi-day load mode.

So, yogis change the properties of their skin, muscles, and are able to control heat transfer, blood flow and heartbeat with their will alone. No less than the above, their digestion and metabolism are surprising. For example, Swami Narasingha in 1934, while at the University of Calcutta, surrounded by the most prominent scientists, including the Nobel Prize winner in physics K. V. Raman, did an unthinkable experiment on himself. He swallowed lethal doses of carbolic, sulfuric and cyanic acids, washed down with water and ... nothing, remained alive and satisfied.

Finally, it is worth remembering the phenomenon of levitation. It looks like a perfect miracle, which Soviet scientists tried to explain. That is, they did not deny it! In general, thousands of evidence of levitation have been collected so far. Many cases have been documented.

It is considered quite normal in India to see yogis sitting on the water… The waves gently rock them, and they meditate and, as they say, do not know grief. Many cases are described and documented when yogis soar in the air. Rarely, but it happens that the invitation to “fly” is received by Europeans.

So, in the book "Unknown Influence" Alexander Canon tells that, under the guidance of a yogi, he managed to levitate through a wide mountain gorge. It is unlikely that Canon fantasizes. He is a Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine, a famous English scientist who values his authority.

The yogis themselves treat their abilities with ordinary calmness. They do not consider themselves unique and are convinced that any person has the potential to learn what they can do.

In Europe, these messages were perceived differently. Some considered them fiction from beginning to end, the fruit of the uncontrollable imagination of travelers, others more restrainedly expressed their doubts, admitting that some of the facts described by eyewitnesses could actually take place, but that all this requires reliable confirmation. Decades passed, and the flow of information about yoga did not decrease. Many of the information reported by travelers was confirmed by authoritative scientists and special commissions, as well as numerous eyewitnesses. An indisputable fact turned out to be the extraordinary mastery of yogis with their body and internal organs: control over the work of the heart, breathing, as well as the autonomic nervous system, influence on the endocrine system, control of feelings and emotions, incredible hardening of the body of respawns that generate “tumo” heat in the body, unprecedented the endurance of the "heavenly walkers" - lung-gom-pa ("contemplating the wind"), running for several days in a row without stopping, without slowing down the pace of running.

Yogis do not consider their achievements miraculous, and what they demonstrate can be performed by anyone with the help of appropriate training, including such as burying in the ground for a month, teleportation and levitation.

Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine, the famous English psychiatrist Alexander Canon, who works at the Psychiatric Research Center in Colne Hoch, writes in his book “Unknown Influence” about how he himself, with the help of a Tibetan yogi, levitated (flyed) through a wide and deep gorge in the Himalayas. Preparations for levitation through the gorge, writes A. Canon, went on for several hours. Returning to London, Dr. A. Canon published a book in which he described his levitation experiment. A number of prominent scientists have confirmed that they have also witnessed levitation demonstrations. Now the phenomenon of levitation was observed by hundreds of thousands of people. It is shown on television and in films, in various countries.

There are now scientific documentaries made about fire-walking yogis and yogis who are buried in the ground for a long time. And yet in yoga there remains a lot of mysterious and unknown, especially at its highest level - Raja Yoga.

Magic powers of Yogis

The ability of people to work miracles in India is called siddhis. In yoga, there are eight main siddhis, achieved through a special practice of psychophysical exercises:

1. Anima (from Sanskrit "anu" - atom) - reduction in size. According to the theory of yogis, the laws within the space of the atom will be different from the known laws of the space of the macrocosm. Through reduction in size, the adept can become invisible, and thus he is able to penetrate into the smallest objects and study their internal structure.

2. Laghima - not to have weight, that is, to control the force of the earth's gravity on your body through the development of opposite centrifugal tendencies in each cell. Yogis consider this an easy act and often use laghima to demonstrate levitation. The Markandeya Purana states that laghima means "to have superior speed."

3. Mahima - become incredibly large. This makes it possible to see vast spaces, the interaction and movement of the solar system and the universe, to penetrate into the essence of their depths.

4. Garima - being extremely heavy (as opposed to laghima). In some works of yogis, instead of "garima", "kamavasayaita" (complete satisfaction) is described - a complete feeling of satisfaction.

5. Prapti - to be transported in space to any place at any time. In the "Shiva Samhita" it is written on this occasion: "He (the adept) will find everything he wants, because everything will be at hand for him."

6. Prakamya - fulfill all desires or see all your desires realized.

7. Vashitva - control the forces of nature. The purpose of living thinking nature is to conquer inanimate, inert nature, and also to subordinate the rest of the living world to the will of man. But in order to dominate, one must know the origins. This required the will and courage of many generations of yogis, multiplied tenfold by the thirst for knowledge.

8. Ishitva - to be the ruler of the world, to create and destroy, renew and destroy.

Thirty additional qualities:

In addition to the main eight siddhis, yogis describe thirty additional qualities acquired by them in the process of psychological training.

1. Achievements obtained through mental activity (“nirodha piranama siddhi”) as a result of self-control and concentration based on phenomena in three areas: in the field of natural laws (“dharma”), partial laws (“lakshana”) and phenomena occurring due to certain conditions ("avastha"). Through this training, the adept learns the past and can foresee the future development of phenomena.

2. Penetration into the meaning of words and the cries of animals. The sound composition of words, their sound form, the meaning of words, that is, their inner content, and the combination of sounds and words are three aspects of an indivisible whole. By concentrating on each of these aspects separately, the adept can understand the language of all living beings.

3. Knowledge of the past can be achieved by concentrating on external and internal signs, as well as traces left by a past life on the body.

4. Reading thoughts is carried out with the help of concentration on the ability of thinking and perception. According to the ancients, thought faster speed light, the fastest. Some yogis believe that thought is the radiation of the mental and psychic field (the field of emotions) emitted by the human brain. The brain is material and it emits material waves of a certain frequency, and, like any wave, they have the ability to move in space, that is, to have a subsequent independent existence even after the death of the source. Thought is sown in space like stardust. She is universal. Yogis believe that a thought can be sent and caught by tuning into a certain wave with the help of rhythmic breathing.

5. Become invisible. Through concentration on the form of the body, the radiation coming from it, with the help of which it is visually perceived, weakens and, in the end, the contact between the visual organs of others and the body of the adept completely stops and the adept, as it were, disappears. In reality, it is only an illusion of disappearance. Similar transformations occur with other sense organs. Cases are described when yogis are photographed together with other people, but only a group of people appears in the photo, and instead of yogis, an empty space appears in the photo.

6. Knowledge of death and its essence. By concentrating on the basic properties of phenomena that give rise to immediate consequences, and on the essence of phenomena, the impact of which affects later, the adept learns the processes and essence of death.

7. Knowledge of the soul ("atma bala") or mind ("purna mano bala") is achieved by mental concentration on abstract concepts, such as the power of friendship and love, joy, regret, equanimity and detachment. Similar exercises knowledge of the depths of the soul and mind is achieved.

8. Acquisition physical strength animals is achieved by concentrating on the strength of these animals in conjunction with a special physical training. Swami Yogananda, in Autobiography of a Yogi, describes a yogi who possessed physical strength far superior to that of a tiger.

9. Knowledge of the subtle hidden mechanisms of things and phenomena, penetration into their essence can be achieved by attracting knowledge, intuition and concentration of thoughts.

10. Knowledge of the solar system and the starry worlds is achieved by concentrating the mind and focusing it on the sun. By this one can know the nature of the sun and stars and the processes occurring in them.

11. Knowledge of the planets is achieved by concentrating and focusing the mental faculties on the Moon. By studying the Moon, one can understand the essence of the planets.

12. Knowledge of the laws of motion of stars is achieved by concentrating on the North Star. Because of the vast distances, the ancient yogis said, the stars seem to us motionless, but in reality they are in perpetual motion.

13. Knowledge of the body and its basic essence is achieved by concentration on the solar plexus and navel.

14. Release from hunger and thirst can be achieved by concentration on the cervical cavity.

15. Calmness of the body and soul is achieved by focusing on the main artery (kurma) near this cavity (carotid artery).

16. Supernatural visions are achieved by concentrating on the light emanating from the subtle center located above the eyebrows, called "Brahmarandhra".

17. Universal knowledge comes after concentration on the “star of divination” (“pritibha”), which appears in the head after the establishment of absolute calmness of the body and mind.

18. Cognition of consciousness is achieved by concentrating on the heart.

19. Mental reconstruction of the structure of the cosmos. When the state of true consciousness is reached, in which the thought abstracts from things and its own “I”, deepening the concentration on this state, one can see the structure of the universe, the essence of Brahma, the basic laws of the construction of the entire universe. Along with this, the faculty of divination and the five sensory attainments are attained:

a) predictions ("pratibha") about the past and the future;

b) the ability of internal listening ("shravana"), with which you can listen to yourself, as well as understand the sacred sound "AUM" (Om) - the main mantra of yogis.

c) the ability of absolute touch (“vedana”), with the help of which one can penetrate into the essence of objects, “see” them;

d) the ability of supervision ("adarsha") - to see objects at long distances, as well as in the dark, and objects hidden by a barrier.

e) gustatory abilities ("asvadana") - taste sensations refined to the limit;

f) the ability to super-smell ("varta siddhi") - the ultimate refined sense of smell.

20. Leave the shell (body). With the concentration of all attention on the subtle astral body, the bonds connecting it with the shell are weakened and the adept can leave his shell or re-enter it.

21. Be out of contact with the outside world. By practicing concentration on the vital energy located in the region of the throat (“udana”), and directing this energy to the region of the head, one can develop the ability of a person to be out of contact with the outside world, i.e. no one can touch the adept and nothing can to come to him.

22. Control over fiery energy ("samana"). fiery or digestive Vital energy spreads from the navel in all directions evenly. It regulates various vital functions of the internal organs. Their interaction depends on it. Practicing concentration on it, the yogi's body begins to radiate light, similar to the reflection of a burning fire.

23. Ability to hear. By practicing focusing their attention on the organs of hearing, yogis can hear sounds at great distances, sounds beyond the range of hearing of an ordinary person become available to them.

24. Levitation. By practicing concentration on the relationship between the body, its cells and the all-pervading primordial substance that fills outer space, as well as focusing on small and light objects, yogis can neutralize gravity and become weightless.

25. Free wandering of thought not connected with the body (“mahavideja drahana”). With the help of exercises to concentrate the thought of free movement in space apart from the body, the yogi becomes easy and free and his thoughts wander without any restrictions.

26. Conquest of the elements of nature. Each of the five elements has five states: gross (sthula), form (svarupa), subtle (sukhshma), conditioned (anvaya), and causal (art-havattva). By concentrating on these five states, the yogi gradually subdues the five elements of nature.

27. The subordination of the five principles of sensory perceptions makes it possible for the yogi to achieve the state of “translevitation” (manoevity), in which the yogi, at will, with the speed of thought, can be anywhere. Traveling alone, the thought becomes the eyes and ears of the yogi's mind, the receptacle of all five senses, the source of information. Yogis thus comprehend the truth of the evolution of nature.

28. Knowledge of the universe. Having learned the internal properties of objects and phenomena, the yogi penetrates into the secrets of the universe, learns the laws of the universe.

29. Knowledge of time. The time during which an atom travels the distance of its diameter is called "kshana" by yogis. His continuous movements are called in Sanskrit "krama".

Concentration and meditation are processes by which space and time are connected. With the help of exercises on the concentration of the atom, knowledge of time and space (“anubhava siddha jnana”) is achieved, since the movement of atoms at a given moment is a continuation of previous movements, a general picture of the movement of atoms in the universe is formed. Yogis can thus know the past, present and future.

30. Transcendental achievement ("para siddhis"). Until now, we have been talking about non-transcendental achievements, they belonged to the world of forms. But with the help of exercises in the ability to recognize phenomena, to be able to highlight the essence, a yogi can influence the course of events, slow them down or speed them up. He can destroy the seeds of evil and achieve complete freedom.

Yogis also distinguish inner or spiritual achievements, which have the same name, but these siddhis are on an even higher level of understanding.

based on materials from the book: Georgy Boreev - "Legends and parables, stories about yoga".