Relax and See
YOGA OF PERFECT SIGHT: RELAX AND SEE Using the methods developed by Dr. W. H. Bates and Dr. R. S. Agarwal, School for Perfect Eyesight Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, India Observations and Principles: RELAX: Like our other sensory organs, the eye functions without effort. When we make an effort to see, we develop vision problems. Any time that you are conscious of your eyes when looking at objects, they are not relaxed. Allow the light to enter your eyes, rather than straining outwards to view the world. Many vision problems are reversible and can be remedied by following the relaxation methods. CENTRAL FIXATION: Unlike a camera, the retina is not uniform, but has a specific area of maximum sensitivity, therefore we experience Central Fixation. That is to say, we see best where we are looking. Therefore, raise your chin to look up, turn your head to look from side to side. Let your head move while the eyes stay at rest and perceive the stationary objects in your field of vision to be moving. MOVEMENT: With normal sight the eyes are moving at all times and the eyelids open and close--or blink--frequently. By contrast, staring causes stress to the eyes and reduces the quality of vision. Do not try to fix the gaze or stare. In normal vision the eyes are in constant subtle motion and as a result we perceive the outside world to be in constant movement. FAVORABLE CONDITIONS: Each person should read, watch movies, use the computer, sew, etc. at such a distance and in such a manner as is most relaxing for their eyes; there is no optimal distance and lighting is variable and cannot always be controlled. PERCEPTION is a combination of the mechanics of the eye and the interpretive faculties of the mind. Vision is therefore a process of mental interpretation. If the mind is not relaxed, the ability to perceive is impaired. Hence: Relax and See! MEMORY: Improving the memory of the shapes of letters and objects improves all vision. IMAGINATION: We see only what we think we see, or imagine. We imagine only what we can remember. The waking mind is filled with mental pictures. If these pictures are remembered perfectly, vision is improved. READING: When reading, see the open space between lines of writing and the open space behind the letters. Allow your eyes to rest on these open spaces rather than focusing on the individual forms of letters and words. EYELIDS: Ideal position is half-open. The sages say this is so that we perceive both the inner and outer worlds. Physiologically it helps to keep the eyes relaxed and moist. PERIPHERAL VISION: When the eyes are relaxed, the area of peripheral vision greatly increases. This allows you to have an awareness of the world around you, not just what is in front of you. Night vision also improves as the rods, the part of the retina that processes images in the dark, are more active in the peripheral part of your vision. REST: In all cases, closing the eyes and resting them improves vision. These principles can be used in conjunction with the 5-element understanding and treatment of the eyes, sight, and perception.
2 YOGA OF PERFECT SIGHT: RELAX AND SEE Techniques and Exercises: The practices are designed to relax the eyes, to reduce the habit of staring which locks the muscles and ligaments, to keep the eyes in constant subtle movement, to allow vision to come to you rather than leaping out into the world to see, to relax the mind, and to strengthen memory and imagination. BLINKING: The greatest things are always the simplest things. Blinking! STAR CHART: Look at each point and blink. SUN TREATMENT: Look at sunlight through closed eyelids. If this is not possible, look through eyelids and hands. A few minutes a day can gradually be prolonged. Morning or evening are best. Swing gently back and forth. Stop if there is any discomfort. (In India sun treatment is also done with honey drops in the eyes; the honey is produced by bees which have collected nectar from lotus blossoms). EYE BATH: Follow sun treatment with a cool eye wash, or splash cool water in the eyes. You may also use rosewater drops or rosewater-infused cotton set on the eyelids for 5 minutes. PALMING: Place palms so the eyes are covered but with no pressure on the lids or eyeballs. If you see no colors or light or flashing, then your eyes are completely relaxed. If your eyes are not completely relaxed, do not concentrate on anything that you perceive, but imagine total blackness. You can also think on any pleasant things which will aid you in relaxation: trees, wind, music, flowers, etc. Practice for 2 to 5 minutes at a time, any time you feel eyestrain. SWINGING TECHNIQUES are designed to allow the visual world to slide past without your vision getting caught on any point of interest, thus breaking the habit of staring. PRAYER SWING: after palming, move hands into prayer position, move head gently from one side to the other, allowing eyes to relax and calm. LONG SWING: rotate side to side, lifting heal to do so, keeping finger or pointer directly in your line of vision. Keep focus on tip of your finger or pointer. HEAD SWING: look to right, blink; look center, blink; look to left, blink. Do not move eyes away from alignment with head; allow world to slide past. As you do this, imagine your third eye and allow it to view the world along with your two eyes. OPTICAL SWING: allow eyes to relax and trace a slight horizontal or vertical line. Do this as an exercise with different letters: To remember the letter O of fine print continuously and without effort, imagine a little black spot on either side of the O, one on the left and one on the right. The spots are a little blacker than the rest of the letter. Shift your attention from the spot on the left to the one on the right. Continue to do this. Observe that the O appears to move to the right when you think of the left spot, and to move to the left when you think of the black spot. The shift is very short, just the width of the letter O. Observe the printed letter. If vision is normal it will appear that the letter appears to have a slight motion.
3 YOGA OF PERFECT SIGHT: RELAX AND SEE DRIFTING SWING: Allow the eyes to drift slowly and continuously about the room, while you bring to mind a memory associated with each thing that comes into your vision. BAR OR FINGER SWING: Sway back and forth, allowing yourself to see the formless background through your fingers or a set of bars. BALL EXERCISES: Toss a ball from one hand to the other in an arc in front of the face. Blink when catching the ball, blink when throwing the ball. Follow the progress of the ball with your eyes by moving the head up and down and from side to side. ARM EXERCISES: The exercise above can also be done without a ball. Extend your arm and hand out to one side, follow it with your eyes as it arcs in front of your face and down to the other side. Blink the eyes as your other hand arcs across your face and down to the other side. ARM ROTATION: Hold your arm at your side with palm facing forward; slowly bring your arm upward in front of you and then to a full upward extension. At the full extension your palm should be outward. Circle the arm back behind you until it comes to rest at your side; the palm face outwards the whole time. Turn the forward and repeat. Follow your hand with your eyes by moving your head, loosening the neck muscles as you raise and lower your arm. Keep the shoulder relaxed at all times. Repeat with the other arm. ARM EXTENSION: Stand with legs shoulder width apart. Move your left arm so that the hand is palm down beside the shoulder. Imagine that the palm is pressing down slightly and apply more weight to your left leg than to your right. Extend the right arm out with slightly bent elbow, raised palm and extended fingers. Allow your attention to focus in the distance beyond your extended fingers. Repeat on the other side. EYE CHART: LOOK, REMEMBER, IMAGINE, SEE For this exercise you will need two copies of an identical eye chart. One chart should be affixed to the wall. Stand or sit at a distance where you can read second or third line of letters without the aid of corrective lenses. Look at a letter on the wall chart. Close the eyes. Look at the same letter on the chart you are holding. Close your eyes and remember the form of the letter. Open your eyes. Imagine the letter in your mind. Blink the eyes. Without straining look at the same letter on the wall chart. Blink your eyes and look at the letter on the wall chart once again. Repeat this exercise with each letter. This exercise can be done with two eyes and also with each eye covered in turn with an eye patch. READING: Reading can be done in indirect sunlight, dim light and by the light of one candle in a darkened room. You may alternated between standard printed print and very fine print. 1. Hold the page at a distance where you can comfortably read the words without corrective lenses. There is no optimal distance other than that at which your eyes can be relaxed. 2. Do not try to make out individual letters or words. Let your vision see the open spaces between the lines of type. These may look like white bars between the lines of black type. Run your eyes along these 4 YOGA OF PERFECT SIGHT: RELAX AND SEE
white bars and take in the words above them in their entirety. Relax and let yourself take in the meaning of the words. You may also note the clear open space of the page underneath the printed words. Let your eyes relax on the openness of the page and allow the meaning of the words to come to your mind. 3. At the end of each line of writing blink the eyes and set your vision at the beginning of the next line. Blink your eyes before beginning the next line of writing. You should blink at the beginning and at the end of each line of writing, moving your head if necessary to scan the line rather than moving your eyes back and forth across the page. EYE VAPOR AND EYE BATHS: Relax the eyes with any of these options, 1. Splash cold water into the eyes 2. Use an eye cup and bathe the eyes in cool water or in a mild saline solution in warm water 3. Use a non-heat vaporizer and blink the eyes while allowing the vapor to soothe them 4. Place rosewater drops directly in the eyes 5. Moisten cotton swabs in rosewater and place over the closed eyelids while resting COLOR MEDITATIONS: GREEN, RED, BLUE: For this exercise you need either a large color field, such as curtain of a solid color; or, a colored gel lit from behind in a darkened room. Relax your eyes and your mind and let the color field bathe your eyes. Do this sequentially in front of green, red and blue color fields. TRATAKA: CANDLE GAZING In a darkened room observe the flame of a single candle for 5 minutes. Blink the eyes regularly and allow your gaze to move naturally. Fine print can also be read by the light of a single candle in a dark room. COLOR DAYS We teach people how to be visually happy. Sometimes this is not easy, but there can come a moment when everything changes, and the world becomes full of color. -- seeing.org Pick and day and a color and spend the day looking for that color. If you forget about it through most of the day, don t worry - go for a color walk, and spend the time looking for your color. Let the color come to you; you don t need to search for it. When you see your color, be aware of the color rather than the form - seeing a blue truck is one thing, but seeing a mass of blue which happens to be on a truck is another! For this technique the form of objects is not important, while the experience of receiving the color is all. RESOURCES www.seeing.org http://thebatesmethod.blogspot.com/2008/12/dr-r-s-agarwal.html http://motherandsriaurobindo.in/#_staticcontent/sriaurobindoashram/-03 The Ashram/Departments/ School For Perfect Eyesight/-00 Contents.htm http://learn.colorotate.org/ http://learn.colorotate.org/how-do-we-perceive-color/#.wqss91pyvoq
Concentration and Relaxation What is concentration? The dictionary says concentration is an effort to keep the mind fixed on a point or to fix the gaze on one point or on one letter or an object. Such a thing is impossible and always causes great strain and those who practice it suffer from imperfect sight and mental strain, and then lose the power of concentration. Their memory, imagination and sight are affected. But, if by concentration you mean doing or seeing one thing better than anything else, and shifting the sight from one part to another, then you may speak of concentration. Recent psychology gives a new interpretation to concentration. Attention underlies concentration. The state of attention which seems to be continuous is in reality intermittent; the object of attention is merely a centre, the point to which attention returns again and again. All parts of the objects, and then the reflections inspired by these various parts hold our interest by turns. Even when the attention is fixed on the most trifling material object, it works in just the same fashion. There are two aspects of concentration -- voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary concentration is an effort and cannot be maintained without fatigue; our thought holds the object in focus. Whereas in involuntary concentration there is no effort, the object holds our thought without our volition as in contemplation and meditation or in central fixation. Involuntary concentration and relaxation are the same thing. Relaxation of the passive kind usually ends in sleep or sleepiness, as experienced by many patients in palming. Relaxation combined with action as usually one experiences in swinging, central fixation and while line of fine print is also free from effort and strain when done properly. Another thing about relaxation: obstacles to relaxation may prove sources of relaxation. An instance of which is found in the noise that is keeping us awake when wishing to go to sleep. If we sufficiently relax, if we accept the disturbance and sleep in spite of it, not only is the obstacle overcome, but, because overcome, it in turn becomes rather pleasantly associated with going to sleep. When again we desire to sleep, we find the noise soothing rather than annoying, and really a source of relaxation instead of an obstacle to it. * * * When the mind is able to remember perfectly any phenomenon of the senses, it is always perfectly relaxed. The sight is normal, if the eyes are open; and when they are closed and covered so as to exclude all the light, one sees a perfectly black field--that is, nothing at all. If you can remember the ticking of a watch, or an odor, or a taste perfectly, your mind is perfectly at rest, and you will see a perfect black when your eyes are closed and covered. If your memory of the sensation of a touch could be equal to the reality, you would see nothing but black when the light was excluded from your eyes. If you were to remember a bar of music perfectly when your eyes were closed and covered, you would see nothing but black. But in the case of any of these phenomena it is not easy to test the correctness of memory, and the same is true of colors other than black. All other colors, including white, are all altered by the amount of light to which they are exposed, and are seldom seen as perfectly as it is possible for the normal eye to see them. But when the sight is normal, black is just as black in a dim light as in a bright one. It is also just as black at the distance as at the near-point, while a small area is just as black as a large one, and in fact, appears blacker. * * * Excerpts from Yoga of Perfect Sight, by Dr. R. S. Agarwal