Study And Training Of Emotions

Emotions can play havoc with our lives but one can learn to manage them

- Harold Sequeira

When I started the Teacher Training Course at The Yoga Institute in 1966, little did I know that I knew nothing about emotions and the havoc they play in our inner and outer life if we do not understand how they function.

During our study of Sadhana Pada (Chapter II of Yoga Sutra), under the concept of Svadhyaya (YS 2.1), we came to know that the mind becomes restless because of untamed emotions. There is no scientific or psychological consensus about the definition of emotions. According to psychology, emotions are brought about by changes variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioural responses and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. In her book, ‘Yoga and Western Psychology,’ Geraldine Coster, Dean of Psychology, Oxford University, states that she has not found any explanation so precise, so complete and so profound about emotions, as in the