Many people in the West associate yoga with the postures of Hatha Yoga and come to yoga class for reasons of fitness. Nothing wrong with fitness, and a regular yoga practice will indeed make you fit: strong, lean and flexible, with glowing skin and vibrant health inside and out. But those are just the side benefits. The practice is ultimately not about healing the body or making it beautiful, but attaining direct experience of the deepest truth of our being. It is about enlightenment. The many paths and schools of yoga all lead to the same goal—realising our divine nature, realising the divine nature of everything.
The Bhakti yogi may follow the path of love and devotion, the Karma yogi the path of selfless service, the Jnana Yogi the path of rigorous intellectual discernment, but the deeper one gets into any type of yoga practice, the more one realises that all paths include the others. The field of yoga is one vast interconnected web, just like Indra’s net, that endless jewelled lattice which symbolises the cosmos. Each knotting of the thread contains a jewel whose facets reveal the pattern of the entire net. So one can start anywhere: each point of experience is sacred and leads to an encounter with the whole.
Hatha Yoga begins with the body and teaches deep attention to the present moment, tuning the field of experience to ever subtler levels of awareness. It involves asanas or postures which open the body, revealing and releasing deep patterns of conditioning; pranayama, which frees the breath and harmonises the flow of prana or life force energy; kriyas, which cleanse and purify the physical body to make it an ever finer instrument of perception.
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Ha-tha refers to the sun and moon (masculine and feminine) channels of the energetic body which run either side of the central axis of the spine. Hatha Yoga brings about their union. Practice works to balance and harmonise these energies so that the cosmic (kundalini) energy which lies sleeping at the base of the spine awakens, opening the central channel of the energetic body and connecting it to the universal cosmic energy.
Yoga, in fact, means to yoke or bind, and refers to the union of the individual soul with the divine. Direct experience of that reality is the goal of all yoga. So Hatha Yoga leads to Raja Yoga, the royal way of meditation and enlightenment. Actually, Hatha and Raja Yoga contain and depend on each other. And in Patanjali’s classic ‘Yoga Sutras’, which establish the eight limbs of Astanga Yoga, they are one continuum.
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In the West today, Hatha Yoga commonly refers to a gentle asana practice accompanied by pranayama and meditation. But in fact, all styles of asana practice are forms of Hatha Yoga. And though the emphasis may vary, all paths of yoga include the eight limbs of Astanga: Yamas --ethical observances, Niyamas--personal disciplines, Asanas—postures, Pranayama—control of the vital energy , Pratyahara-- withdrawal from sense perceptions, Dharana--concentration, Dyana—meditation, Samadhi--union with the divine. |
Confusing? Perhaps. The Indian tradition, which refined the practice of yoga over many thousands of years, rests upon core philosophical paradoxes. But yoga is even more ancient than its Vedic sources--with roots extending into neolithic and perhaps palaeolithic times-- and more universal as well. Forms of yoga have existed in ancient cultures around the world.
The first yogis were shamans: practitioners of ecstasy, spiritual healing and transformation. This power of yoga remains unchanged today. Though one can feel some benefits after a first practice session, yoga is slow medicine. With time and devoted practice, yoga works to heal the physical body, purify the subtle body and bring the mind to razor-sharp clarity. Inner peace and fearless trust are the fruit. Yoga transforms everything, as an awareness of the boundless Being to which we belong infuses each moment of experience.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna articulates this awakening:
“I see Thee (boundless Being)---beginningless, middleless and endless; infinite in power, of boundless energy active everywhere, having the sun and moon for eyes, with a face luminous like a flaming fire, and with spiritual radiance energising everything.” ---- Bhagavad-Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 19)
Do you feel drawn to follow this path? A willing heart--together with a good measure of patience and commitment--are what you need. The journey belongs to all who desire it.