It was in 1982 when I first started going to Yoga classes.

As a result of these classes my physical condition changed rapidly. I quickly became fit and full of energy and my general feeling of sluggishness and resistance changed to one of lightness and well being.

Along with changes in my body I had imagined that there would be a corresponding change for the better in my eyesight. This had been poor from the age of fifteen and I needed glasses with prescription lenses of –6 diopters in each eye to see anything clearly beyond the end of my nose. To my puzzlement, after 6 years of practising yoga, I found that my eyesight had deteriorated even more. By 1988 the things I was looking at without my glasses appeared to be even more blurred than when I had started practising yoga in 1982.

It is now clear to me that my mistake during this period was to assume that eyesight is a physical phenomenon arising from the physical nature of the eye.

At the time I was confused as to why the practices were not working on my eyesight when I had always been so careful to follow the instructions of my teachers to the letter.

I continued to go to yoga classes as well as to Yoga ashrams and meditation retreats. At all these places I often heard other students like me with blurred sight want to know if their practices would help them with their eyesight. To all of us it seemed inconceivable that with the remarkable benefits that the practice of yoga had brought to our health our eyesight could remain blurred. Some of us put great pressure on ourselves to find the right asana, breathing exercise, eye movement, mantra, mudrah, etc that would bring us our dream of clear sight. Some of us consoled ourselves with the belief that blurred eyesight was part of the process of withdrawal from the external world and that to desire change for the better in eyesight was to be attached to the material world.

Now that I no longer need glasses to see clearly after benefiting from Dr WH Bates’ discovery that ‘We see very largely with the mind and only partly with the eyes. The phenomena of vision depend upon the mind’s interpretation of the impression on the retina. What we see is not that impression but our own interpretation of it.’ [Better Eyesight without Glasses 1919] It is obvious to me that before 1989 when my eyesight began to change for the better, I did not understand that eyesight is a mental process. My error had been in separating out those elements of yoga that I had thought were alone responsible for bringing great physical well being and expecting them to somehow change my eyesight for the better. When I realised that eyesight is a mental phenomenon and not a physical one I understood that I had deliberately ignored the elements of yoga that are concerned with the mind. It became clear to me that I had mistakenly divided yoga into two parts. One of them the outer, physical, observable movement that I considered useful and productive and the other the inner movement that seemed irrelevant to me. My first contact with the mental side of yoga was during my four years studying oriental religions and languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. It was there that I became aware of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. I did not study them academically at the time but knew that their subject matter was the mind. It was not until later when my eyesight changed for the better that I picked them up and read them. As I absorbed the meaning of the texts I found my eyesight clearing further. At that point it was a fact to me that there is no division in Yoga, no separation and conflict between the inner and the outer, that it is all one single unitary movement. My fellow Bates Vision Teacher Patrick Mahony and I have been looking at some of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali together. We have found this process helpful in changing our eyesight for the better. Patrick’s changes come from a background of long sight developing in his forties and mine of short sight. The two of us started with the second line of the Yoga Sutras. Yogas citta vrtti nirodhah Literally ‘ Yoga is the inhibition of the activities of the mind ‘ and considered what the lexical or dictionary translation of the words conveyed. And then went on to see if we could find what lay behind those stark, awkward sounding words. The nature of the insight in the mind that brought with it the change in the eyesight. All of us can explore this together. We can find out what happens to our eyesight when the inhibition of the activities of the mind takes place. Let’s start by looking at some print, without wearing glasses, that does not appear perfectly clear to you. It can be something at the distance, a poster, an eye chart or something at the near such as a newspaper, a book or a magazine. Alternatively you could just become aware of the lack of clarity of your surroundings. Now turn your attention to something that has no intricate detail that you can interpret. A blank wall or ceiling will do or a blank sheet of paper or the clear blue sky. Contemplate something that makes no demands on you for a few moments. Go between the two situations and see what happens in your mind when you move from the print to the blank wall or blank sheet of paper. What kind of thoughts are no longer there? See if any of these thoughts re-appear if you glance at the print for an instant or do you notice a change in your eyesight for the better. If none of the thoughts associated with trying to see something clearly return you will have normal sight. It is for this reason that we find it helpful to translate the second sutra as ‘ Yoga is the ending of self centred thoughts.’ We looked at the third line of the yoga sutras next Tada drastuh svarupe’ vasthanam Which can be literally translated as ‘ Then the seer becomes its own nature or form ‘ In relation to this sutra we find it helpful to reverse what we did for the last sutra. This time, without glasses, have a look around you, get a general awareness of how clear things seem. See what thoughts are going through your mind. See if these thoughts are neutral, to do with things that do not affect you or are they about your failures, insecurity and vulnerability? Observe the way the thoughts follow on from each other, the way they link up to form familiar trains of thought that always reach the same conclusions. Experiment with these patterns of thought. See if you can deliberately introduce a train of thought that makes your eyesight worse. If you can do this, you will have consciously divided the internal workings of the mind off from what is seen. Paradoxically, to be able to deliberately make your vision worse mentally is the best way to change your eyesight for the better. When you become aware of how your thoughts affect your eyesight you will have an insight into the fact that all vision, blurred as well as clear, takes place in the mind. If we concentrate on blurred vision and try and change it without understanding the entire process of vision we start to blame the malformation of our eyes, our genes, the things we eat for our condition. We separate ourselves from what is going on and from what is seen. A consequence of the ending of self centred thoughts is that there is then no separation between the seer and what is seen. In medical terms, seeing is then an unconscious, automatic or more precisely an autonomic process like our heart beat. So, in this context, we have translated sutra 3 as ‘Then the thinker understands itself to be a product of the process of thought.’ The fourth Sutra reads ‘vrtti sarupyam itaratra’ literally short of this (the seer) identifies with the activities (of the mind) To experience this in the context of vision close your eyes. Now think to yourself, or rather imagine, that in a second or two you are going to open your eyes and, without glasses look at a line of the eye chart or some other reading material that is not normally seen clearly. Notice the build up of tension that comes with the expectation of not seeing clearly. The way memories from the past keep the eyesight blurred in the present. The self centred thought, whether it is part of our consciousness or not, is that movement of the past, when we are not in present time. Now close your eyes again, and this time imagine you are going to open your eyes and look at the blank wall, the blank sheet of paper or the clear blue sky. Notice that the tension is fading away this time or perhaps not even there. You can try out the expectation of being about to look at a black surface or another colour. Then see what happens if you have that stress free consciousness when you open your eyes and look at some print. What happens to your consciousness and how clearly do you see the print even just for that very first instant when you open your eyes? With this in mind we have translated this sutra as ‘ Otherwise the thinker still believes itself to be the originator rather than the product of particular thoughts.’ We can now look at the first sutra which simply states Atha yoga anusasanam Which is literally translated as ‘Now or here is the presentation of yoga’ Clear sight can only be in the now. There are no exercises leading to improvement in eyesight There is no path to seeing clearly. The facts of clear sight are there in our consciousness in the present. One of the facts of clear sight is oppositional movement. We can be conscious of this in the following way. Put the palms of your hands together and hold them in front of your face in the traditional position for praying. With your eyes open and without glasses move your head from side to side. If you look beyond the hands it will appear that your hands are moving in the opposite direction to your head. This is a necessary illusion of normal sight. Despite how it appears it is still your head that is moving not your hands. Keep moving your head and close your eyes and it will seem that your hands are still moving. Finally keep your eyes closed and stop moving your head. See if is possible to imagine that your hands are still moving. Most people will notice a change in their eyesight for the better when they open their eyes. If we treat the prayer swing as a repetitive exercise we make the awareness of oppositional movement dependent on a deliberate, intended action and therefore impermanent. The fact is that the illusion of oppositional movement is always there constantly generated by the normal and continual movement of our body and eyes. Even when we are looking at a tiny point the eye with normal vision is moving all the time and oppositional movement is there as a fact of vision whether we are conscious of it or not.   Something that helps us understand this point is to remember what it is like to drive a car and have a conversation with a passenger at the same time. As we talk we are seeing things ahead of us but are not conscious of them in the same way as we are of our conversation, unless we bring our attention to them. With reference to all this we translate the first line of the sutras as ‘These are the facts of Yoga.’ So in our translation the first 4 lines of Patanjali’s sutras read 1 These are the facts of yoga. 2 Yoga is the ending of self centred thoughts. 3 Then the thinker understands itself to be a product of self centred thought. 4 Otherwise the thinker still imagines itself to be the originator rather than the product of particular thoughts. Ajay and Patrick Working together run a training course where students can change their eyesight for the better and learn to help others do the same. This incorporates a student clinic which offers reduced cost tuition to clients wishing their vision to change for the better. They also hold day workshops at different venues. Ajay has a private practice in London and Patrick one outside Hereford For more information contact Ajay Sehgal at The International Bates Teacher Training Course 0208 560 1844 E-mail:Ajaysehgal@fsmail.net Tribute to Patrick Mahony