[ Excerpt from The Science of Yoga, page 346 ]
According to yoga, the sorrows of life are caused by a bipolar existence, a split of the one into two, a topic which we have already explored. Remember that the truth of everything is 'Oneness' and not the apparent dual form of of anything.
The delusion of duality creates an ambivalent attitude of like and dislike between one pole and another -- love getting suppressed when hate supervenes, and hate being driven underground when love gains the upper hand -- while the fact is that both these attitudes are simultaneously present in a individual, both aspects of a singularity. Only one of the aspects comes to the surface as and when the occasion demands.
Human nature, under the delusion of duality, is thus in a state of perpetual conflict. It is never in state of balance between its two compulsive attitudes. To get back from duality to real 'Unity' is the process of yoga sadhana, which in effect is re-polarization. Yoga, or union, cannot take place without there being polar harmony (polarity).
As long as the living cell is in balance of these two forces (positive and negative) it is protected from all destructive forces which oppose life. The body loses its polar balance as a result of negative thoughts, disturbed emotions, improper breathing and debilitating disease, revealing the state which we previously defined as nara (psychic disassociation -- disturbance of the pancha kosha).
The condition of illness (physical, mental, emotional), therefore, results from an imbalance. Health results from balance. In order to return the body to the state of health and harmony, proper polarity must be re-established.
In the science of yoga we endeavour to cultivate both the positive and the negative forces underlying existence, and to bring them into an active state of balance, as both the harmonizing force for health and well-being as well as the generative force for spiritual transformation. This is the primary aim of the branch of yoga known as hatha yoga.
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