Today it is well-recognized that Yoga works. Thanks to extensive research in the field of Yoga over the last 3 decades, there has been an increasing number of researchers going for research in Yoga, all-over the world. The present research trend is to understand the mechanisms of how Yoga works rather than just to prove that yoga works by clinical trials. These researches are on the ascent and are trying to emulate pharmacological research world with single blind if not double blind studies. Medical researchers working in their own super-specialty areas to understand as to how yoga works at molecular level, genetic, endocrine including immune system levels, respiratory and cardio-vascular levels, nervous system including brain levels, neuro-psychological and psychological levels as also at Para-psychological and spiritual (non-local) levels.

As it often happens, the researchers in each of these fields of specialties and super-specialties think that the root cause for the disease is enshrined in their super-specialty area. If a genetic expert thinks that everything is coded in the genes and is hastening to find the respective genes as Onco-gene, or Telomerase or chromosomal changes, the immune system expert would want to see the causative factor in the immune deficiency factors as NF-kappa B, while a brain expert will look at the functional and anatomical changes in the brain as the main reason for all the diseases, many psychologists believe that psyche is the main cause for all the diseases and so on. This resembles the search of a few blind men trying to get to know of the elephant!

Thanks to the advent of quantum mechanics and the associated bewildering phenomena as non-locality, holographic perspectives of the universe as postulated by Prof David Balm, etc the approach of looking at the whole is emerging fast. And there is an increasing evidence of these super-specialty researchers conceding to the wholesomeness of the human system and the multi-dimensional facets of the present day challenges in contrast to one-dimensional (physical) diseases like infectious and contagious diseases of the last century.

This approach of wholesomeness is reflected in the most modern hospitals in which all the super-specialties are set in a single building or a chain of buildings with a corresponding team work with tremendous organizational networking using the best of the computer and advanced technology. The patient care is supreme in these hospitals. All the specialists monitor the progress, or otherwise, of the patient by the measures of each of the systems; have a meeting in the morning to look at the patient from all angles; have discussions as to how they can deal with the case with all complications, etc. It is this wholesome approach that can unravel the mysteries of the present challenge of the modern era of psycho-somatic diseases and psychiatric problems.

A time has come for the researchers also to bring this dimension of wholesomeness using all the super-specialty high tech gadgets to track down the cause of the disease. Verily, our ancient Seers in India must have faced similar challenges and had found solutions for them by the Holistic Approach of treatment. Along with that, they also had gained the total understanding of our creation enshrined in Upanisads and they had developed yoga to bring this total wisdom base to day-to-day living of each and everyone in the society for prevention of ailments and for achieving positive and perfect health. They went one step further in unveiling the deeper secrets beyond the gross physical body to unravel the four more layers of this creation. Different yoga techniques as Samyama were found and standardized to move out of the body (astral projection) and travel in these higher dimensions of consciousness were also found and time-tested to put them into books, nay, text books for the students to grasp and to be taught in universities. We are in this transition to move from the physical to that which is beyond.

While double blind Randomized Control Trials which is now the gold standard in research will bring the most objective approach to eliminate possible placebo effects, researcher bias, etc. However as we evolve towards higher and subtle dimensions of fathoming the deeper layers of our creation, we need to take into consideration the non-material aspects as mind. Mind Body medicine has started hitting head lines. We need to find ways and means to incorporate the effect of the mind also without neglecting the same as a placebo effect. Also, in the context of having established the usefulness of yoga, it becomes unethical to deny these benefits of yoga to the control group participants particularly in long term follow up studies extending to a decade or more. Hence, in this proposed approach, we introduce health 'H' as a function of physical, psychological, social and spiritual well being (in tune with the definition of health by WHO) of the human systems: H = f (P, Ps, Soc, Sprt).

I. P - Physical Wellbeing: The physical dimensions of health would involve clinical symptom scores, physiological parameters, psycho-neuro-immunological, genetic and molecular components.

II. Ps - Psychological Wellbeing: The neuro-psychological and psychological measures of stress, anxiety, depression; IQ, Memory, Attention span, creativity including planning ability and the like.

III. Soc - Social Wellbeing; social behavior, responses to environmental changes, etc.

IV. Sprt - Spiritual Wellbeing: Para-psychological dimensions including telepathic, psycho-kinetic powers of individuals and the group effects involved in group prayers, Yajnas, etc.

This health function will first be established for normal persons as a multi-dimensional cluster by accumulating large amount of data in sizeable population. For a given group of persons with different ailments we will measure all the physical psychological, social and spiritual components and established a cluster which could be different from normal cluster. We may establish such clusters for patients of asthma, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, HIV, etc. With different type of interventions including modern medical treatments, yoga and other complimentary systems of treatment, we will track the direction of these clusters over weeks, months and years to examine with an open mind as to whether we can reach normalcy cluster. Using this Health function as a measure, we can define positive and perfect health by tracking such individuals and groups with positive as also blossomed health equivalent to perfect health. To identify positive and perfect health clusters and to move the normal cluster towards them, we invite all the Yoga organizations to participate in this project.

NAGENDRA H.R. , M.E., Ph.D.
Vice-Chancellor,
Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Bangalore, India