The Buddha in his sojourn to seek the truth encountered a veena player who was tuning his instrument by the river side, he enquired the instrumentalist about the strings he was tightening. The veena player explained the importance of tuning the instrument, he stated that the strings if tightened too much shall break apart on playing the instrument also if the strings are kept loose, they shall not deliver pleasant musical notes, so there has to be a balance and a fine tuning of the veenaso as to deliver the correct musical notes.

This made Buddha realize the essential aspect of balance and he came up with the idea of the middle way approach, Buddha said- “Neither tight the strings of life-lute so much that they break, not let them be so loose that the lute becomes unmelodious, So follow the Middle Way”

The extremes in one’s life include "addiction" to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy, and unprofitable; or even the “addiction” to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata (the Perfect One) realizes the Middle Path, which gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, later on to enlightenment.

This Middle Way approach, not extremism, happens to be one of the central elements of Buddha’s teachings.Not only in Dhamma but almost in every field it is the Middle Way which leads to the solution as middle way is ought to be acceptable by all. Either it be business, politics, even war, administration and management, family, society, ideas or national-international relations, everywhere middle way is acceptable by all and positively affects a wider spectrum of people than benefitting a few.

Talking about the true nature of a yogi, hegets to naturally develop and adoptthis Middle way approach, which is nothing but an outer reflection of inner balance and acquired wisdom. As an outcome of yogic practices, the chakrasor the energy centres in the body tend to get balanced,which gets reflected in the personality of the practitioner in every aspect of his nature and behaviour.

Let us take the Anhata Chakra or the Heart chakra for example. A person with an over activated heart chakra shall be prone to emotional attachments, being over compassionate, he may suffer due to emotional crisis and easily fall for emotional attachments. Whereas a person with an underactive heart chakra shall prove to display a coarse nature, harsh and selfish tendencies.

The person shall fail to value basic emotions and lack sensitivity towards others. Therefore a person with balanced Anhata or heart chakra will automatically display appropriate compassion, love and kindness with requisite wisdom and non-attachment. This proves to be beneficial for the self and others too.

Similar is the case with sexual tendencies, governed by the Swadishthan chakra or communication skills taken care by the throat or Vishuddhi chakra. An excessive talkative trait is an outcome of an overactive Throat chakra whereas an underactive throat charka leads to shyness, under confidence and inability to speak up.

Words are said to be like an inner ammunition of peace, one must use them wisely and judiciously. Words have the potential to cause permanent harm. In an extreme case, they can even wage a war. Balanced use of words at the right time and right place and the right quantity is yet another aspect of a balanced throat or vishuddhi chakra.

Overall the chakras if balanced lead to a balanced personality wherein any kind of extremism is not nourished, instead a wise and balanced approach is inculcated. Similar is the case with even materialism and spirituality. Great mystics have always emphasised on the importance of a balance between the two. An extreme of any of these shall lead to a downfall of an individual, a society or even a nation
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