19 DECEMBER 1931, Page 17

NERVE CONTROL IN EAST AND WEST

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] • SIR,--It may interest Major Yeats Brown to know something about other ways of practising yoga than the particular form to which he alludes in his article.

Though the " seat " is the usual form, the lying-down posture is practised in South India. Here, you lie down at full length, face downwards. Joining your heels close together, you plant your two big toes on the ground. The palms of your hands should lie firm and your fingers out- stretched. No limbs of your body other than your two hands and the two toes should touch butna devi (mother earth).

The head must be thrown back and the lips closed. Then comes the most difficult stage of all. You manipulate your lungs and eyes, breathing, sight and -concentration. A slightly modified form is the joining of the hands in an attitude

• of prayer. The bridge of the nose should rest between the two index-fingers and the two turned-up thumbs tucked under ' the chin.

:Considerations of space forbid-.me to state the equivalent -posture for women, the five other forms, the tnantrams, &c.-