Difficulties in Yoga, There is no doubt that yoga is a path to a healthy body and a healthy mind. Once you start practicing yoga consistently, life starts to show a positive change. The mind starts becoming clutter-free. Due to a calm mind, you sleep well. When you sleep well, you start waking up early. Waking up early allows you to spend time on meditation and exercise leaving a whole day to work productively. Ultimately, it brings happiness and content. There is no denying to the fact that there are difficulties in yoga practice which are discussed below.
External and Internal Difficulties In Yoga Practice
It is not easy to be consistent in the practice of yoga. Even a committed yoga practitioner may face difficulties in moving up ahead on the path of yoga in the presence of external and internal difficulties. External difficulties are easy to conquer but it is difficult to identify and conquer the internal difficulties. The internal difficulties are mainly concerned with our personality. In this article, we will mainly discuss internal difficulties and the ways to overcome them.
Internal Difficulties In Yoga
Patanjali has discussed these difficulties under Chapter-1 of his Yoga Sutras in Aphorism 30. He has identified these distractions as disease, mental laziness, doubt, carelessness, craving, false perception, non-attaining concentration, and falling away from the stage when obtained.
Disease
An unhealthy body is the first obstruction in the path of a Yogi. All of us are fall prey to diseases and suffer from time to time owing to our own negligence to health or due to reasons beyond our control. In Hindi, there is a saying, ‘Pahla Sukh Nirogi Kaaya’ which means the first and topmost happiness comes from a healthy body. Thus, any serious yoga practitioner should not neglect own health and try to stay as healthy as he can.
Mental Laziness
Mental laziness comes from lack of commitment. Avoid mental laziness at all costs. Mental laziness can suck away interest from any lively subject.
Doubt
It is normal for a person with the scientific temperament to doubt the efficacy of any practice. The same thing happens with the practitioners of yoga at the beginning. The best method to dispel these doubts is by trying and being consistent in the practice. Patanjali has clarified that a serious yoga practitioner will start feeling the first signs of progress as he stands committed towards the practice. These signs of progress will automatically dispel any doubts in the mind of a yogi and the student will persevere in the practice of yoga.
Carelessness, craving and false perception
Any person with carelessness, craving for success without realizing that craving will only make it difficult to practice with concentration, false perception about himself or about the practice of yoga are all the difficulties in the path of a beginner. In nutshell, a person should have a clean slate of mind.
There is a story about a great yogi who went on to become a great teacher. He left his life of luxury and approached a guru for learning yoga. The guru asked him to sit and keep his eyes closed. He followed the instructions without asking any question and kept sitting in that posture for about two hours. Then guru came and accepted him as his disciple. This is the kind of commitment and personality a yogi should possess.
Falling away from the stage when obtained
Once the practice progresses, there are times when the practitioner might feel that the progress is stopped. He feels that nothing is happening. It is normal for such feelings to occur. But the Yogi must have faith. He should persist in his practice and soon he will again start progressing.
Overcoming the Difficulties in Yoga Practice
These negative feelings can be replaced with positive feelings. Friendship, mercy, gladness, and indifference to evil are the positive emotions which can be developed to replace the negative emotions. Be a friend to all, have mercy on less privileged, be glad when others are happy and do not react with evil towards evil, but practice indifference.
Keep practicing concentration. Concentration brings calmness to the mind and strengthens the practice further. The more you concentrate, the easier it is to overcome the above difficulties. Have faith in the practice, remain committed and keep practicing. The petty difficulties will stop bothering you with time.
