Hello!

I'm interested in opinions/experiences how much yoga-practice can speed up progress of insight ?

I've got a friend who is a yoga teacher and he went through a difficult time which lead to some sort of "depressive/seeing no meaning of life" state of mind.
That became quite serious, so he started seeing a psychotherapist getting professional help.

I guess it's getting better now, he's been dealing with his problems and is getting back on track.

But, about 2 or 3 weeks ago he started doing meditation quite serious (about 20 - 30 min each day).
He asked me persistently to show him something. I actually didn't want to support it, because I told him to focus on making progress in his therapy and not spending energy in meditation.
However, he kept asking and so I told him the first steps in mental noting (rising and falling and so on).

It turns out he's quite happy with it. He says his concentration increased a lot, he feels more calm and relaxed, cause during meditation he is able to let go the "daily stress" (and stay more focused).


My question is, might it be possible that due to the fact that he is been doing yoga for several years, his state of mind is some sort of "preconditioned" regarding spiritual progress ?
Could it be that he might experience a quick progress of insight ?

I'm a bit afraid that he is having good progress in Insight-Meditation, getting some good insights and then falling back into unpleasant states of mind (for example due to realising the impermanence), what on the other hand is counterproductive regarding his therapy!



Many thanks in advance for some advice!

(and sorry for my English, I'm not a native speaker).


Andre

Hi Andre, the simple answer is yes. Yoga (integration) is a part of the whole ball of wax and thus the focus (mindfulness) which it fosters (physically and mentally) leads naturally to insight. As to your fears about your friend: If he believes that meditation will help him so be it! If you feel confident that this is also a good way to end suffering and believe that despite that great end there are phases along the path that can exaggerate the negative aspects of our experience then you can warn him of that possibility (probability).

I see this whole thing as "therapy". It may be that what he is experiencing already is due to the stages of insight but it could be that he has issues which can best be handled by standard medical paths. Good luck.

Yoga can bring out the emotional stuff that hides in the body. Meditation can help to process all of that emotional stuff. For example, if one is feeling down, one may be hunched over and by doing yoga, one can forcefully remove that hunch but that can bring the emotional stuff that initially caused the hunch up to surface. Using meditation, one can process the emotions and hence can prevent the body from hunching again.