In the book “Yoga Rahasya”, Nath Muni says, “Any disease can be cured by the right usage of the eight branches of the Ashtanga yoga.” The eight branches are: Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Prathyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi. Healing can be done by applying any of the above eight branches in a systematic way and cure any disease or disorder.
Yoga has been applied to cure both physical and physiological disorders, as well as, psychological disorders. We use our body in our daily life to do many tasks for ourselves. We walk, talk, think, bend, run etc.. Like any machine, the body too has a ‘wear and tear.’ The body has the power to regenerate and heal itself with in good reason. Wrong usage of the body causes a lot of ‘wear and tear’ which is very damaging. It causes more damage than the bodys rate of healing itself causing disorders in the body. Wrong usage of the body also causes structural (skeletal and muscular) issues and imbalances between the left and the right of the same body. This causes uneasiness, stiffness, inconvenience, and graduates into inflammation, pain, disorder, and disease.
These disorders can not be cured by a medicine, but, only by correcting the structure, balancing the left and the right of the body, and by learning how to use the body the right way, ( the light way) and maintaining the right usage by inculcating new habits which are optimal for the usage of this machine called The Physical Body.(The Sthula Sharira.) For ex: Sciatica cannot be cured by a medicine. It can only be cured by correcting the structure of the body and balancing the muscle usage. Also, inculcating the habits that lead to it.
Similarly, the internal organs inside the body like liver, pancreas, thyroid gland etc.. have their own designated areas which is their natural habitat. Any structural imbalance and wrong usage on the outside of the body might push the organs out of their place, out of their natural habitat, thus, disrupting their natural functions causing physiological problems. This issue too can be corrected only by letting the organ rest back in its natural habitat, back into its original positioning and releasing it from its stress and thus allowing it to heal naturally.
Yogic knowledge enables us in understanding how to bring the body its organs to their normal stress less state and heal from the structural ailments and imbalances. Only a person with experience or deep insight can get us the desired results especially when healing is required. Every body, and its mind, habits, movements, and desires are different. Based on this fact, the same disease manifests in different people in different ways, and with different symptoms.
Only an experienced teacher with insight can modify the yogic tools and faculties according to the need of varieties of the body type and the disorders it suffers. There are many subtler settings in the body and mind, which should not be toyed with, without an experienced guide. Make sure you have a knowledgeable teacher to get the desired results.
In essence, yoga was originally meant for healthy individuals with spiritual orientation to be free of ailments, as prevention is better than cure. It can also be modified according to the respective need to rectify any diseases or disorders Physically, Physiologically, and Psychologically.