Rameshwar Singh Jamwal
The attempt by PM Narendra Modi to take the country along with him in popularising Yoga, by getting 21st June as International Yoga Day and the reported attempts by some misguided and ignorant persons to oppose it, notwithstanding the role of Yoga in obliterating some of the most confounding problems being faced by the contemporary world has invited the worldwide attention. Foreign media is agog with the impending impact of this event on Indian and world affairs and the ripples of event are being felt as far as Canada. The Guardian, one of the widely read papers in UK carried out an extensive report on the event and had a biased opinion that it has angered the minorities in India. Due to such unfounded apprehensions, even the government dropped the idea of including Surya Namaskar in the event as it was being projected as if the participants would be made to worship Sun God, which in any case was not the case. It’s simply the name of a particular Asan, involving eight different postures, each intended to give different benefits to different body organs but alas, the screamers succeeded and the organisers had to drop the Asan from the event.
About one hundred and seventy five countries ratified the call for making as International Yoga Day, which will be celebrated all across the globe, out of which about forty six are Muslim countries. So, the misconception about its being related to one religion is altogether unfounded. Simply because it originated in India and was propounded by great Indian saints does not make it untouchable. The health related benefits of Yoga are known now to everybody, but perhaps very few people know that it can be used to control crime as well, which affects almost everybody on this planet and costs us trillions besides causing pain to millions .The economic cost due to crime, roughly estimated, is about ten percent of the GDP of nations and if seen from Indian context alone, would be around two hundred billion US dollars per year. And I am not counting the medical costs it will save by improving the health of citizens. Here Yoga can play important role, but firstly we will have to make the opponents see reason and for countering these forces, one needs to have some understanding about Yoga. Yog or Yoga, a way of life developed by Indian saints thousands of years ago, has been practiced by billions of people since then and still being practiced by millions around the world. It was collated, coordinated and systematised by great Saint Patanjli in his classical work, The Yog Sutras. The word Yog has been derived from Sanskrit word ‘Yuj’ and means to join, bind, attach etc. It also means to direct and concentrate someone’s attention on or to use and apply that attention. It also means the yoking of all powers of body, mind and soul for a particular purpose and then disciplining those powers and those of will, emotions etc. It is said that when the senses are stilled, when the mind is at rest, when the intellect wavers not, then the highest stage is reached. This steady control of mind and senses has been described as Yoga.
Yoga is the science of right living, intended to create a peaceful and better world, where every human being lives a healthy and peaceful life, a timeless pragmatic science evolved over thousands of years of research work, which is still continuing in India. It deals with physical, moral, mental and spiritual well being of a man as a whole.It can be used to control all sorts of crime throughout the world, as has been done by the author, though at a very limited level. The commandments of Yoga transcend countries, race, creed, sex, age and time. Yoga is method by which restless mind is calmed and energy gets directed into constructive channels.There are various forms of Yoga which can help in controlling one’s mind and since mind is the place where the urge to commit crime firstly generates, it will result in control of majority of crimes. The science of Yoga begins to work on outer most aspect of the personality, the physical body, and from physical body, Yoga moves on to the mental and emotional level and can also check problems arising out of stress and interactions of everyday life.Yoga can also become a powerfull tool to combat social malaise and crime problems of the world, by intermixing four different disciplines of Yoga, Neuro-Biology, Behaviorisms and Criminology.
Yoga means the disciplining of the intellect, the mind, the emotions, and the will, and plays important role in the development of man’s qualities, and helps him in channelising his positive energies for the betterment of his self and that of world. When man controls his mind, intellect and self, he is freed from restless desires, there are less chances of his going astray on the path of criminality. Even those who are deeply involved in criminal acts can be made to reform by adopting Yog. In the Yoga system, the mind occupies very important position. Since mind is the central point of Yoga practice, the purpose of Yoga is to control the mind and to take it away from attachment to sense organs. In material existence, one is subjected to the influence of mind and the senses. Therefore the mind should be trained so that it will not be attracted by the glitter of material nature. The purpose of eightfold Yoga is to control the mind in order to make it a friend in discharging the human mission. Unless the mind is controlled, the practice of Yoga is simply waste of time. One who cannot control his mind lives always with the greatest enemy and as long as one’s mind remains an unconquered enemy, one has to serve the dictations of lust, anger, avarice, illusion, etc. Therefore, as soon as one’s mind is controlled through one of Yoga systems, one should be considered to have already reached the destination. But it is not easy to control the mind which is very restless, turbulent, obstinate and very strong, rather more difficult than controlling other forms of nature like taming wind. No doubt it is very difficult to curb the restless mind but it is possible by suitable practice of Yoga and by detachment. For one whose mind is unbridled, self realisation is difficult work, but one whose mind is controlled and who strives by appropriate means is assured of success. It requires continuous and regular practice to have the feelings and then retaining them, which help in making the man control his desires and emotions, which can be used not only to prevent and control crime but also to reform criminals. This can be possible by introducing a thought process in the Practitioner (pupil or Sadhak or learner or Yogi), which will activate and strengthen the Sattav Guna, (the quality of goodness and purity), but only after reaching a certain stage. What are those thoughts, how these are introduced and made to germinate in the minds of criminals or would be criminals and how his bad qualities (Tamo Guna or the bad qualities of darkness or ignorance) can be made to relegate to the back ground, then enfeebled and finally eliminated like removing obnoxious, virus infested files from a computer, erasing them from memory, creating space within brain or neurons and refilling them with positive ideas, thereby changing the ratio of above said three attributes and finally the quality of neurons, which process can’t be explained here. Suffice to say that by disturbing the sequence of Nucleotides in the genes, the amount of amino acids,the quality and quantity of proteins gets affected which in turn affects the behavior of neurons and ultimately that of individual. The process and concept requires lot more space to explain and this unexplored part of Yoga also needs to be highlighted and made use of, if we want to make the world believe and reap the true potential of Yoga.
(The writer is the Author of book, ‘Controlling the Mind of a Criminal, the Yogic Way’ and has propounded a first crime theory by an Indian, called ‘Yogic Crime Theory’.)
