Why is Yoga Good for Mental Health?
Sadhguru answers a question about the rising incidence of mental illness and explains why it is happening as the old supports for psychological health are pulled away.
"Mental health issues like depression and anxiety seem to be rampant in many parts of the world now, including India. What is your take on this?"
Being mentally ill is not a joke. It is a most painful thing. Human sanity is a very fragile thing. The line between sanity and insanity is so thin. If you push it every day, some day you will cross it. You may enjoy that little bit of madness you crossed the line, and it felt like some kind of freedom and power. But one day when you cannot cross back, that is when suffering begins.
Why mental illness is on the rise
Mental illnesses are growing like never before because we are pulling out all the supports that people had but we are not replacing those supports with anything. If people become conscious and capable within themselves, everything would be fine even if you pulled all the supports. But without giving that competence, if you just pull the supports, people will crack.
Family was one bunch of people who were like a net for the circus that you did. Whichever way you fell, there was someone to hold you for some moments. That net is gone for many people now. When you fall, you fall. Religion, too, handled human psychological balance effortlessly a very inexpensive mass psychiatry. As these supports go, people crack up.
“If even a drop of this intelligence enters your daily life, you will live magically, not miserably.
Sadhguru
An orchestra of chemistry
Every human experience has a chemical basis to it. What you call peace, joy, love, turmoil, tranquility, agony, ecstasy everything has a chemical basis. A physician's job is to try and manage an orchestra of chemistry. Even mental illness is largely managed by chemical input from outside. But all the chemicals you can think of on this planet are, in some way, already present in this body.
The human body is a very complex chemical factory. Managing it from the outside is very difficult. You could manage it from inside but you must have access to your insides. Yoga gives you access to the very source of creation throbbing within you.
Yoga for mental health
Health means one level of pleasantness. If your body becomes pleasant, we call this health. If it becomes very pleasant, we call this pleasure. If your mind becomes pleasant, we call this peace. If it becomes very pleasant, we call this joy. If your emotions become pleasant, we call this love. If they become very pleasant, we call it compassion. If your very energies become pleasant, we call this bliss.
There is a whole science and technology to create inner wellbeing proper scientific steps to change the fundamental chemistry of who you are and create a chemistry of blissfulness. Once you create that chemistry, you are blissful by your own nature, not because of something else.
Video Wisdom · Sadhguru
What people are suffering is just their psychological drama. It is your drama but a very badly-directed drama. Only you can make it an enjoyable drama. As you can engineer the outside, you can also engineer your interiority. It is time to take charge.