I attended the 28th Undergraduate Philosophy Conference at SUNY Oneonta during the month of April. I went to hear about a couple of papers which were written by students and presented by them.
One paper was on selfishness and service for others. The paper writer argued that we are naturally selfish, whereas we are taught to help others by the family or society or both. Selfishness is natural, whereas compassion for others is learned. Since it was a student conference, run by the students, I did not raise any questions. However, I started to think about questions which I could have raised.
Are selfishness and compassion for others innate or learned? The Chinese tradition holds that both Yin and Yang representing female (selfishness) and male (generosity) principles are equally innate. We learn to express one or the other at different times depending on the influence of society or family or both. Both are naturally within us and we decide to express one or the other. The ideal for living our daily life is to express both of them so that a balance of two is achieved.
This distinction led to me to linking it to anima and animus of Carl Jung, who borrowed profusely from India because of his interest in yoga and mythology. Especially to construct his own view of anima and animus, he borrowed the notions of nar-masculine principle and nari-female principle. They are intricately united into Shiva, the god of creation and destruction. This unity is presented as constituting the body of Shiva. In the hands of an artist, it is vividly created in the form of a statue of nar-nari depicting Shiva as both the male and female principles. The statue is displayed in the Elephanta Caves near Mumbai in India.
This brought me to back to the yoga practice of the control of breathing.
Yoga believes that breathing from the left nostril influences the right side of brain, which is linguistic and emotional and may be regarded as the female element in each of us. However, when one breathes in from the right side, it influences the left side of the brain, which is intellectual and conceptual and is regarded as the male side of the brain. Yoga emphasizes that the balance of the two sides of the brain will lead us to the unity in our being. In yoga, both selfishness and helping others like yin and yang are embedded in our being. Since we can learn to balance these responses, we need to train our breathing as prescribed in the Pranayama step of Ashtanga Yoga. When we breathe in and out equally through the right and left nostrils, we are capable of balancing the two. This balancing act of breathing in and out through left and right nostrils would help us to reach the equipoise, contentment and happiness that reside in our inner being.
Suggested exercise
Sit in a lotus position or in an easy posture. With the right thumb, close the right nostril. Breathe in through the left nostril for a count of eight. Retain this air in your lungs for a count of four and then exhale this air out from the right nostril for a count of eight. Repeat this five times. Then do the same exercise by breathing in through the right nostril for a count of eight. Then retain it in your lungs for a count of four. Exhale from the left nostril for a count of eight. Repeat this excise five times and then relax by enjoying your day.
Dr. Ashok Kumar Malhotra has been a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. He is an emeritus SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor and founder of the Yoga and Meditation Society at SUNY Oneonta. His videos are accessible on YouTube. Malhotra’s columns are condensed from his eBooks available at www.amazon.com/author/malhotra. He donates all royalties to the Ninash Foundation (www.ninash.org), a charity that builds schools for underprivileged female and minority children of India.