Harness your full and true potential

Harness your full and true potential
K VIJAYARAGHAVAN, TNN

One of the invocations in the performance of Suryanamaskara (the 12 yoga postures of salutations to the sun) is Om Hiranyagarbhaya namah, implying, “salutation to one who awakens our inner capacities and potential”.

This concept is behind one of the Hindu trinities, Vishnu (Padmanabha) reclining peacefully on the serpent, Adisesha, whereupon creativity in the form of Brahma issues forth. Applied to man, resolving the undesirable traits and also transmuting particular base and apparently damaging instincts can help to bring out his true potential and creativity.

This principle also is behind the yogic concept of raising the kundalini sakti (serpent power) to transmute and thus tap the power of even the carnal instincts in man.

Even manic depression and ‘cyclothymia’ (swinging moods) have been shown, through modern studies, as fertile grounds for creativity in various forms — art, poetry and music. Also, anger, irritability, anxieties, and disturbances, in many cases are consequent on the existence of an abiding and powerful creative mechanism within. When analysed and channelled, these act as allies, instead of acting as damaging influences.

James McCartney, in his book, Yoga: The Key to Life sums up the practical working of this concept. He conceives of meditating on two separate triangles. The vertices of the first represent the virtues of light, wisdom and power, while of the second represent the oft-residing traits as restlessness, desire and doubt. When these two triangles unite through superimposition, this verily is yoga which literally means ‘unison’.

The traits, as in the second triangle, now are resolved and manifest in their transmuted forms as peace, health and understanding. This also is the key to J Krishnamurty’s concept of watching, as if like a witness (sakshi bhava), the origin and trends of even apparently damaging thoughts within. It is as if these too are like adversities, which to quote Shakespeare, wears, like an ugly toad, “a precious jewel in his head”!

C Rajagopalachari (Rajaji), in his hymn, conceives of how “the good in every man is like an atom too”, which has to be found, to “explode it into lasting peace”. This, verily, also is the process of harnessing the full and true potential through this process of empowering, cleansing or transmuting the traits within, depending on the nature and specifics of each particular case.