Insight for Sore Eyes

Many age-related vision problems stem from a gradual loss of flexibility and tone in the eye muscles. Eye asanas can help.

By Fernando Pagés Ruiz

By training the eyes to focus on the ajna chakra (the "third eye," located between and just above the eyebrows) a yogi trains his mind to turn inward. On a more prosaic level, close-range focus exercises can forestall the need for reading glasses.

Perhaps you've seen a picture of a yogi staring at a candle flame. If so, you've seen trataka, an eye-cleansing exercise described in the Upanishads and mentioned in other yogic texts, including the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Trataka can also be found in the texts of Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine), where it is recommended to stimulate the alochaka pitta, the energy center related to sight. But as always with yoga, there's a connection between physiology and the more subtle aspects of spiritual practice. According to Dr. Marc Halpern, founder and director of the California College of Ayurveda, the practice of trataka decreases mental lethargy and increases buddhi (intellect).

Although traditionally performed with a candle, trataka can use almost any external point of focus, like a dot on the wall. Concentrate your gaze on one object, without blinking, until your eyes begin to tear. Then close your eyes and try to maintain a vivid image of that object for as long as possible. Each time you practice trataka, extend the time you maintain the after-image. This exercise, traditionally believed to remove any disease from the eyes and to induce clairvoyance, also develops the skill of internal visualization.Yogis develop this skill to keep their minds fixed in meditation on a sacred image—and, by extension, on the divine experience associated with that image. The intricate spiritual mandalas you may have see in Indian and Tibetan holy books are also designed for this purpose. Highly skilled meditators can visualize even the most minute details of these elaborate cosmic representations. By perfectly aligning inner and outer focus, these yogis seek a realization like that of Meister Eckhart, a thirteenth-century Christian mystic who once declared, "The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me."

With benefits ranging from better vision to increased concentration and spiritual insight, these eye asanas will enhance your yoga practice. Along with a healthy diet and regular exercise, they will help protect your vision from the stresses of light, tension, and environmental toxins. So as you grow older, and hopefully wiser, you can direct a soft, insightful gaze at the world, learning to see self and other as one.

Fernando Pages Ruiz is a health and fitness writer and yoga student in Lincoln, Nebraska.

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