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whatonyogaearth · 8 months

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Yoga as a State of Being

We now find ourselves in an age in which more people are practicing yoga than ever before, the term yoga here having become more or less synonymous with postural āsana practice. There are a bewildering array of yoga styles out there, each one trying to make their mark. Yoga appears in glossy magazines and on YouTube and TV programmes and yoga studios have cropped up all over the place in most cities. At least 12,000 ‘yogis’ turn up at Times Square in New York twice a year to practice āsana en-masse. These days it sometimes feels like almost everyone is doing yoga (an exaggeration, I know). Yet, the question has to be asked, is what they are ‘doing’ really yoga?

To answer this question, it may be useful to try and more clearly define what we mean by ‘yoga’. This in itself is a tricky business! First off, is there something tangible, a set of practices and worldviews that we can point to and say conclusively ‘ah-ha, that’s yoga’? Or does the term yoga, as I suspect, refer to something more encompassing, more primordial even, to that yearning to find one’s place in the universe that has arisen amongst all humans in all times and cultures? These days we often hear people say something like “I’m off to do my yoga”. In the very early history of yoga this phrase would not have made much sense. Mostly, yoga was not something you did, but more often referred to a state of being, something you were at the core of your being, and the word was often used interchangeably with samādhi. I think it is important to fully understand this point, that yoga is ultimately the goal, that which we aim to attain, through whatever means and whatever practices seem right for us. The truth is, in its long history yoga can and has been defined in many different ways, as even a cursory look through this history will attest.

We might begin this journey sifting through the rather questionable ‘evidence’ presented by pre-Vedic archaeological finds from the Indus Valley Civilisation and early Vedic texts, where we meet the long-haired sages and vrātyas who some claim to be proto-yogis. Much scholarly research is now suggesting that the origins of the practices and concepts of yoga may have originated amongst the ascetic groups known as the śramaṇas, such as the Buddhists, Jains and Ājīvikas, although they didn’t actually use the term yoga. Our next hard evidence of yoga appears in the genre of texts known as the Upaniṣads where the first clear reference to yoga (in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad) defines it as firm restraint of the senses, a state in which one becomes completely undistracted by the outside world. Within the Bhagavad Gītā, we see yoga defined in a multitude of ways, including in this sense-withdrawal guise, but also as separation from suffering and also as ‘skill in action’ in the context of karma yoga. In Sāṃkhya and subsequently in the Yoga Sūtras the aim of yoga becomes ‘the stilling of the turnings of mind’ and the separation or isolation (kaivalya) of our true self or puruṣa from the everyday material world of prakṛti, and explicitly not becoming ‘one with everything’ which is in fact a more Vedāntic, Tantric and New Age notion.

Later on, yoga becomes inflected with a new set of meanings from the Nondual Śaiva Tantric traditions. The aim of yoga here becomes any practice aimed towards the achievement of that heightened state of awareness where one can perceive the Divine in all things, all situations, and all beings, including oneself. Later still, we come to the tradition of Haṭha yoga. Ironically, the name of this style of yoga which is now usually promoted as a ‘gentle’ yoga in most yoga studios, actually literally means something like ‘forceful yoga’. The overarching aim here remains one of ultimate liberation, but to reach this all kinds of bodily practices are employed, and in some strands of the tradition at least these are geared towards raising the kuṇḍalinī energy up the suṣumṇā nāḍi, awakening the c̣akras as it goes. Here, the division of four yogas, with rāja yoga placed highest, first appears. Though bodily health and longevity are promised as benefits of Haṭha yoga these are hardly seen as the ultimate goal. Indeed, it can be said with some confidence that health related aims (admirable as these may be) do not take on any considerable significance until we get to the present age, within the last century or so. Nowadays, yoga is very much embedded within the Health and Wellbeing industry and we have seen the rise of ‘fitness yoga’, for want of a better term.

So, what is yoga, and can it even be said to have a definable essence? For me, yoga describes a state of being that is innate, natural and primordial. Yoga is not even something to strive for or towards because each one of us has yoga at the very core of our being. In prehistoric times I believe we were all naturally engaged in yoga, and by saying this I certainly don’t want to portray a rose-tinted view of the past in which life was perfect and peaceful, that’s absurd, but I do think we would have been more deeply connected with the source, with the ground of Being, that puruṣa, brahman, Śiva, God, Pure Awareness, call it what you will. In the modern technological age, we have more and more distractions that prevent us from realising and abiding in this true state. This does not necessarily mean that the modern age is all bad, again that’s just absurd, it just means we have to work much harder to regain this state of yoga. And again, this is not really the right wording, because we are not actually re-gaining anything, as yoga is always with us, it is simply veiled or covered to varying degrees.

Having as I do a preference for the Nondual Śaiva Tantra view of things, I also happen to believe that rediscovering the state of yoga does not mean renouncing or closing oneself off from the world, to the contrary, it means opening up fully to the universe and all the wondrous potentiality it contains. If one could see the Divine working creatively through everything (including oneself) in every single moment, whether enjoying a beautiful beach, cleaning a toilet, or doing a headstand or whatever one does in life… then one would know one was truly living in yoga. We might rediscover that lost state through dancing or whilst washing the dishes, we might rediscover it through sitting in deep meditation, and yes, we might rediscover it through standing on our heads! Who cares how we find it? Yoga is a destination with many paths, and now is hardly the time to bicker about which path is superior.

As a species, we stand at a crossroads. Our egotistical desire to control and manipulate everything has left us at the edge of destruction. I know it all sounds a bit grand but maybe, just maybe, rediscovering this state of yoga, this state of equilibrium and joyous exuberance in all-pervading Divinity, will be the thing that can save us...

By Dr. Benjamin Major

#yoganaturesheffieldblog #yoga philosophy #yogaasastateofbeing #yogahistory #yogainspiration #yogaforrelaxation #nonduality #whatisyoga #yogaislife

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gayacentrodoyoga · 1 year

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Hoje tivemos mais uma fantástica aula de Yoga Darshana (tradição de Haṭha Yoga).

Amanhã voltamos à Praia de Salgueiros pelas 10:00. O ponto de encontro será no passadiço ( junto ao restaurante AQUA).

Evento gratuito 🤩

Junta-te a nós e traz o teu tapete e chapéu🧘‍♂️🧘‍♀️🧘

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kapilagita · 2 years

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కపిల గీత - 151 / Kapila Gita - 151

🌹. కపిల గీత - 151 / Kapila Gita - 151 🌹 🍀. కపిల దేవహూతి సంవాదం 🍀 ✍️. శ్రీమాన్ క.రామానుజాచార్యులు, 📚. ప్రసాద్‌ భరధ్వాజ 🌴 4. భక్తి యోగ లక్షణములు మరియు సాధనలు - 05 🌴 05. మౌనం సదాసనజయః స్థైర్యం ప్రాణజయః శనైః| ప్రత్యాహారశ్చేంద్రియాణాం విషయాన్మనసా హృది॥

తాత్పర్యము : మాట్లాడునప్పుడు సంయమనమును కలిగియుండవలెను. పరిశుభ్రమైన ప్రదేశమున స్థిరమైన ఆసనముపై కూర్చుండవలెను. ఆ ఆసనముపై క్రమముగా దర్భలను, జింకచర్మమును, వస్త్రమును ఏర్పరచు కొనవలెను. అది అంత ఎక్కువగా గానీ, తక్కువగాగాని గాక సమస్ఠాయిలో ఉండవలెను. ప్రాణాయామసాధన ద్వారా మెల్ల మెల్లగా శ్వాసను అదుపులో ఉంచుకొనవలెను. చంచలమైస మనస్సును భగవంతునిపై ఏకాగ్ర మొనర్పవలెశు.

వ్యాఖ్య : సాధారణంగా యోగ అభ్యాసాలు మరియు ప్రత్యేకించి హఠ-యోగం స్థిరత్వాన్ని సాధించడానికి సాధనాలు. యోగ సాధన కోసం ముందుగా ఒకరు సరిగ్గా కూర్చోగలగాలి, ఆపై మనస్సు మరియు శ్రద్ధ తగినంత స్థిరంగా ఉంటాయి. క్రమంగా, శ్వాస ప్రసరణను నియంత్రించాలి మరియు అటువంటి నియంత్రణతో అతను ఇంద్రియ వస్తువుల నుండి ఇంద్రియాలను ఉపసంహరించుకోగలడు. పూర్వం శ్లోకంలో బ్రహ్మచర్యాన్ని తప్పక పాటించాలని చెప్పబడింది. ఇంద్రియ నియంత్రణలో అత్యంత ముఖ్యమైన అంశం లైంగిక జీవితాన్ని నియంత్రించడం. దానినే బ్రహ్మచర్యం అంటారు. వివిధ కూర్చున్న భంగిమలను అభ్యసించడం ద్వారా మరియు ప్రాణాధారమైన శ్వాసను నియంత్రించడం ద్వారా, ఇంద్రియాలను అనియంత్రిత ఇంద్రియ ఆనందం నుండి నియంత్రించవచ్చు మరియు నిరోధించవచ్చు.

సశేషం..

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹

🌹 Kapila Gita - 151 🌹 🍀 Conversation of Kapila and Devahuti 🍀 📚 Prasad Bharadwaj 🌴 4. Features of Bhakti Yoga and Practices - 05 🌴 05. maunaṁ sad-āsana-jayaḥ sthairyaṁ prāṇa-jayaḥ śanaiḥ pratyāhāraś cendriyāṇāṁ viṣayān manasā hṛdi

MEANING : One must observe silence, acquire steadiness by practicing different yogic postures, control the breathing of the vital air, withdraw the senses from sense objects and thus concentrate the mind on the heart.

PURPORT : The yogic practices in general and haṭha-yoga in particular are not ends in themselves; they are means to the end of attaining steadiness. First one must be able to sit properly, and then the mind and attention will become steady enough for practicing yoga. Gradually, one must control the circulation of vital air, and with such control he will be able to withdraw the senses from sense objects. In the previous verse it is stated that one must observe celibacy. The most important aspect of sense control is controlling sex life. That is called brahmacarya. By practicing the different sitting postures and controlling the vital air, one can control and restrain the senses from unrestricted sense enjoyment.

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹

#kapila gita #prasad bharadwaj

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chaitanyavijnanam · 2 years

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కపిల గీత - 151 / Kapila Gita - 151

సశేషం..

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹

Continues...

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹

#kapila gita #prasad bharadwaj

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mysticalblizzardcolor · 2 years

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From Apple

Everybody is looking for KṚṢṆA.

Some don’t realize that they are, but they are.

KṚṢṆA is GOD, the Source of all that exists, the Cause of all that is, was, or ever will be.

As GOD is unlimited, HE has many Names.

Allah-Buddha-Jehovah-Rāma: All are KṚṢṆA, all are ONE.

God is not abstract; He has both the impersonal and the personal aspects to His personality, which is SUPREME, ETERNAL, BLISSFUL, and full of KNOWLEDGE. As a single drop of water has the same qualities as an ocean of water, so has our consciousness the qualities of GOD’S consciousness . . . but through our identification and attachment with material energy (physical body, sense pleasures, material possessions, ego, etc.) our true TRANSCENDENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS has been polluted, and like a dirty mirror it is unable to reflect a pure image.

With many lives our association with the TEMPORARY has grown. This impermanent body, a bag of bones and flesh, is mistaken for our true self, and we have accepted this temporary condition to be final.

Through all ages, great SAINTS have remained as living proof that this nontemporary, permanent state of GOD CONSCIOUSNESS can be revived in all living Souls. Each Soul is potentially divine.

Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad-gītā: “Steady in the Self, being freed from all material contamination, the yogi achieves the highest perfectional stage of happiness in touch with the Supreme Consciousness.” (vi, 28)

YOGA (a scientific method for GOD (SELF) realization) is the process by which we purify our consciousness, stop further pollution, and arrive at the state of Perfection, full KNOWLEDGE, full BLISS.

If there’s a God, I want to see Him. It’s pointless to believe in something without proof, and Kṛṣṇa Consciousness and meditation are methods where you can actually obtain GOD perception. You can actually see God, and hear Him, play with Him. It might sound crazy, but He is actually there, actually with you.

There are many yogic Paths – Rāja, Jñāna, Haṭha, Kriyā, Karma, Bhakti – which are all acclaimed by the MASTERS of each method.

SWAMI BHAKTIVEDANTA is, as his title says, a BHAKTI Yogi following the path of DEVOTION. By serving GOD through each thought, word, and DEED, and by chanting of HIS Holy Names, the devotee quickly develops God-consciousness. By chanting

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa

Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare

Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma

Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

one inevitably arrives at KṚṢṆA Consciousness. (The proof of the pudding is in the eating!)

I request that you take advantage of this book, KṚṢṆA, and enter into its understanding. I also request that you make an appointment to meet your God now, through the self-liberating process of YOGA (UNION) and GIVE PEACE A CHANCE.

George Harrison

Apple Corps Ltd 3 Savile Row London W1 Gerrard 2772/3993 Telex Apcore London

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ulgnd · 2 years

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Hatha Yoga vs Vinyasa Yoga Hatha Yoga, which is one of the oldest branches of yoga practiced, uses physical techniques to preserve and channel the vital force or energy, otherwise known as Prana. The Sanskrit word हठ haṭha literally means "force," thus alluding to a system of physical techniques and movement in the body. With this type of yoga, you move your body slowly and deliberately into different poses that challenge your strength and flexibility, while at the same time focusing on relaxation and mindfulness. On another note, Hatha Yoga has been known as meaning “sun” and “moon”, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Svatmarama, the author of Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā-a classic 15th century Sanskrit manual-speaks of how the physical practices can also be seen to impact the flow of energy in the body. In particular, he discusses how they pertain to what some Yogis considered the two primary energy channels of individuals prior to enlightenment. These channels are known as the Ida and the Pingala, and can be compared to the complementary forces that make up life: male and female, Yin and Yang, solar and lunar, etc. Svatmarama then goes on to explain that part of what the hatha yogi is doing can be thought of as balancing these two energies – in a sense, he says, uniting the “solar” and the “lunar” elements of the body. Hatha Yoga is somewhat different from Vinyasa Yoga, which is very popular in the west. In Vinyasa, a person usually moves from one pose to the next at the teacher’s discretion. This transition coordinates with your breathing. It is done specifically as you exhale or inhale, and it gives you the feeling that your breath is moving your body. In our Alula Yoga classes, I teach more of a Hatha Yoga style, and Kara teaches Vinyasa style yoga. Both consider mindful movement and utilize breath with every pose and transition and both have great health benefit such as lowering stress and anxiety, and building strength and flexibility. Check out our current class schedule on the link on our profile page or at https://www.alulayogaapothecary.com/events 📷 @kristineurbnlgnd at @gardenofthegodspark #yogi #coloradoyoga #outdooryoga #yogalove https://www.instagram.com/p/CerGd0XuIcV/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#yogi #coloradoyoga #outdooryoga #yogalove

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markwhitwell · 4 years

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Does “Hathayoga” Really Mean Force? An Interview With Yoga Master Mark Whitwell

Mark Whitwell | Heart of Yoga

Mark Whitwell is a world-renowned yoga teacher of the old school, who for decades has been sharing the tools of body movement and breath and bearing witness to the madness of the yoga industrial complex with compassion. Sometimes seeming to have stepped directly out of a fourteenth-century Tantric temple, Mark teaches in the traditional way of transmission between teacher and student through non-hierarchical and sincere mutual friendship and affection.

We wanted to interview Mark as someone who does not just hold knowledge of Yoga but embodies it (as you will see if you spend some time with him) about whether “hathayoga” really means “the yoga of force,” as claimed in numerous books and articles. In a world where one study found Yoga to be more dangerous than all other sports COMBINED, and where yoga-related injuries are increasing rapidly, do we really want or need a practice whose very name indicates “force?”

Interview by: The Dirt Magazine, an independent online magazine featuring new writing on spirituality, embodiment, relationships and psychology.

The Dirt: Mark, let’s start with the big question: does haṭhayoga really mean yoga of force?

Mark Whitwell: Well, some have translated and interpreted it that way, and some certainly practice it that way, so maybe we have to say that to them, it does. But I would argue that no, it does not mean that, because if what you are doing is forceful, than it is not yoga.

I have to tell you, I am not an academic. I am not a scholar reading Sanskrit who can look back through the texts and tell you the meanings. But I am very interested in the findings of those who are doing that work, and how it aligns with what for all of us should be the main touchstone of truth, which is our own embodied experience. Not our opinions and impressions, because as we know they can be severely warped, but something deeper.

The Dirt: So could you give us a quick overview of that research, maybe some leads if people want to dig deeper?

Mark Whitwell: Well for the academics reading this, a good place to start is Jason Birch’s article, The Meaning of

Haṭha in Early Haṭhayoga, (Editor’s note: this is available on academia here.) I found this very interesting to hear about what is said in the Tantric and haṭhayoga texts of over a thousand years ago, in some cases.

For starters, it is very interesting to me that Jason Birch finds that all the early references seem to refer to something earlier and lost. So the truth is we don’t know the earliest roots and uses of the word. I believe it may go way way back to the time of the Vedas, but there is no textual evidence for that yet. But I also feel we should be careful not to impose the western academic paradigm of needing textual proof onto what is essentially an Indigenous knowledge system with its own systems of — not belief, that’s dismissive, something deeper — own ontologies, own ways of understanding reality, that should not be seen as less true than the ‘rational’ academic paradigm. Otherwise we’re just continuing the legacy of colonial cruelty, assuming the western paradigm is superior.

The Dirt: That’s very interesting. Could you give us an example of that?

Mark Whitwell: Sure, take for example Krishnamacharya’s text, the Yoga Rahasya. Krishnamacharya described how this was transmitted to him from his ancestor Nathamuni. This kind of thing is absolutely normal and completely dignified, serious and sincere within the Vedic traditions, the Tibetan traditions, the Yoga traditions… all across that ancient world there is a deep tradition of transmission of teachings beyond time and space. This is dismissed or seen as a quaint anthropological phenomenon by modern academic scholars, starting from the first European Indologists, who want to find out the ‘real’ story according to the known laws of western physics etc. “who actually wrote the piece” — that world actually reveal a lot, the assumption of the superiority or priority of their lens on reality. I recommend reading Charles Eisenstein’s essay, ‘The Feast of Whiteness’ for a really good explanation of the problem of imposing a western framework of “but what really happened” onto another culture’s ways of knowing, and suggestions for other ways of engaging.

The Dirt: I think we could have a whole other conversation about that subject alone. But let’s come back to the findings about what ancient texts say about haṭhayoga. Some people who don’t like the implications of ‘force’ use a translation of haṭha as meaning “sun and moon.” Is there a history of that, or is it a modern new age invention?

Mark Whitwell: Oh, there is absolutely a deep profund history of that. Ha and Tha, sun and moon, the union of opposites within and without. Strength receieving, male and female in perfect prior union. This is the essence of the Tantras, and as we now know, haṭhayoga comes to us from the tantric period, approximately 400–1500 CE.

Going back to Jason Birch’s research, he notes that modern books and practitioners have been drawn to the “sun and moon” definition to avoid the distastefulness of “force”. I mean people are using force, but they still don’t want it branded as that. He finds clear definitions of Yoga as the union of sun and moon in early Haṭha texts such as the Amṛtasiddhi (11th/12th century), and of the syllables ha and ṭha being used to indicate sun and moon, and inhale and exhale in earlier medieval Tantric texts. So this definition is valid, but it’s not widespread in the older texts to my understanding. We have the word haṭha in use before that definition is first found.

The Dirt: So what did it mean in those earlier contexts?

Mark Whitwell: Well I think we have to consider what is meant by force. Because there is very much a force we encounter in our yoga, which is the force of life. You know, one aspect of Christopher Tompkins’ excellent work has been pointing out that there are zero references in the tantric literature to a person raising their kundalini, in the sense of a coiled force at the base of the spine. There are references to a coiled force that may act upo0n you, descending down and then rising up your spine, but we don’t awaken kundalini, we are awakened by it. That sense of I the doer is dissolved. If anyone says to you “I awakened my kundalini” or “I had a kundalini awakening” something has gone very wrong, their identity structure has co-opted an experience of some kind and taken it on as an identity possession. Anyway, force is like this. It is something that acts upon us, something we join up with, something we are, not something “you” as a limited and separate self identity enact upon, to use Mary Oliver’s immortal phrase, that poor soft animal of your body. Your yoga is your participation in this force, this power, that you are. Not a manipulation of it, not trying to get to it. Abiding in it. This is how the ancient texts of our tradition speak about yoga, that energy may move forcefully, but not as an act of forceful volition.

Jason Birch has tracked it all down and finds the early Haṭha texts using the word “haṭhat” or forcibly, but only toward a movement of energy, not toward the body or into any movement or action. It has a sense of taking the normal downward movement in embodied life and turning it around, not violently. The implication is “that Haṭhayogic techniques have a forceful effect, rather than requiring forceful effort.” (Birch 2011). Force in the modern sense of pushing these poor old bodies into something that makes them sweat, shake, collapse, strain and sprain is absolutely not there. These are serious devotional practices we are talking about, from the Tantric cultures, one of the lost wonders of the world with their incredible insight that matter was not a degraded shackle pulling down our ethereal souls, but rather just on the spectrum of vibration of the whole cosmos. It’s a similar perspective to the understanding of modern physics that matter is just energy, not solid at all. This was radical, that the body could be a site of liberation, of deity abiding, not just a hindrance to be managed and bullied. The Christian legacy of anti-materiality is deep in the western psychology and has very much shaped the western approach to yoga. We are not that far on from self-flagellation and hair shirts.

The Dirt: So how could we summarise your interpretation of the word haṭha.

Mark Whitwell: I was always taught that asana and pranayama must be done carefully and within our breath capabilities, measured by the number of breaths and the ration of breaths. So I affirm the academic findings that haṭha can either mean the union of sun and moon — that’s accurate, and poetic and beautiful — or it can mean the great force of life, the energy of life that is moving through us, as us, and which our yoga enables us to feel and participate in. To be devoted to. A great force is moving the planets and oceans, the sun and moon, growing your hair. What is that force? What is the force that grows a seed? That force, that power. We don’t enact that, we recognise and abide in it.

As far as I know, looking at the translation work of Birch and Christopher Tompkins and others, “the word haṭha is never used in Haṭha texts to refer to violent means or forceful effort.” (Birch 2011). That matches my experience with Krishnamacharya and Desikachar, and their students such as Srivatsa Ramaswami. All emphasise that the key qualities to master asana were comfort, ease, and stability. Never force.

The Dirt: Could the association of yoga with the word force be to do with the association with tapasya, with ascetics?

Mark Whitwell: Yes, there has been great confusion in the last 500 years between ascetics and yogis. You might like to refer to the excellent article by Domagoj Orlić, “Why Yoga is Neither Physical Gymnastics.” Yoga became associated with obscene acts of self-torture, holding one’s arm in the air for years and years, a metal grate around one’s neck, and such extremes. Yet these extreme practices are not there in the Tantras, the Shastras, the Haṭha texts. They are not yoga. Mortification of the flesh is the opposite to realising the intrinsic union of the source and the seen. It was the early Europeans coming to India and trying to understand what they saw that really popularised an idea of yoga as force, as self-violence. Perhaps reflecting the internalised violence of their own culture. A kind of projection that the Yoga sutras warns us about. And getting confused with the fakirs and ascetics, and seeing it all as a suspicious kind of witchcraft. India internalised all of that British projection and judgement. By the time Krishnamacharya was teaching, yoga was not seen as a high or holy calling. This was a man with the equivalent of 6 or seven PhDs, yet he was teaching yoga, as a very serious undertaking, in a time when it was not taken seriously at all. He would do some kinds of “feats” at the Maharaj’s request, such as stopping his heart for doctors, that kind of thing. But he refused to teach this to his son when he begged him. He said it was just to get attention for yoga, to get the ball rolling so to speak.

The Dirt: So there was also a confusion between ascetiscism and yoga within India as well?

Mark Whitwell: Yes. It’s something Desikachar would often clarify. Krishnamacharya really stood apart from any of the traditions based on anti-body philosophies, dualistic transcendent schools that saw the body as a bag of rotting flesh, a meatsack, that needed to be bullied and purified and ideally gotten rid of altogether. That kind of school has denigrated asana and pranayama the way they denigrate the body itself. Krishnamacharya’s lineage came from the 10th century Ramanujacharya, who had declared that yoga was the means that the two became one, and that householders and ordinary people could practice this. He wasn’t from a monastic, man alone type tradition. Even his guru in the Himalayas, Ramamohan Brahmachari, lived there with his wife and children, in his accounts.

So Krishnamacharya really represented the coming together of these great traditions of Vedanta and Tantra, which belong together. They are branches from the same great tree and are now back together.

The Dirt: And finally, could you tell us what you have observed in terms of the impact of this misunderstanding on people’s yoga, and how to correct that.

Mark Whitwell. Thank you. Thanks for caring about all the people out there, sweating away and struggling and getting injured. I think the idea that the body, that the earth, that the feminine is less, something to be conquered and controlled, has done great harm. It is the basis of centuries of patriarchal culture. And that cultural split, between some sense of essence within, and a dead materiality without, has enabled humanity to use and abuse its Mother, the body of Nature, and our own bodies are part of that body. So the conditioning towards a forcefulness towards embodiment runs very deep. This is the same psychology in the earlier Indologists translating haṭha as simple “yoga of force” and in the bullies who rose to prominence in the yoga world. And then the same psychology in the western students, who had been conditioned to control themselves, restrain the body, who were beaten at school, who thought a good teacher hit you with a stick to help you get it right… who were hit by their parents… this is the western mind, the modern mind, the cultural framework criticised as “whiteness,” but I don’t think that is accurate enough, as it is not intrinsically tied to skin colour. Basically it is deeply in us to bully and force the body, and yoga is our way out of that, into reverence and ease, and yet it has been popularized as mere duplication of the same old hegemonic patterns of abuse.

Your body is tired. It’s been forced into so many things it didn’t want to do. Deprived of sleep, filled with comfort food, too much or too little, plucked and poisoned, whipped along in jobs it hated, squashed into uniforms and cubicles. Yoga is the freeing of our bodies from all of this, the freedom to be that soft animal, that embodiment of love, that piece of wild mother nature. Our yoga is careful, precise, different for each unique embodiment. Please, don’t throw yourself around in the circus gymnastics they’re calling yoga. It’s just simply not. It’s all made up. There is no precedent for this kind of insane forcefulness, this self-violence. Step out of it all and be free, live your life in the garden.

vimeo

About:

Mark Whitwell was born in 1949 in Auckland, Aotearoa/ New Zealand. In 1973, he traveled to India and began a life-long study of yoga with Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888-1989) and his son, T.K.V. Desikachar (1938–2016). Mark Whitwell’s simple mission is to give people the principles of practice that came through Tirumalai Krishnamacharya to make their Yoga authentic, powerful, and effective. Mark Whitwell is the founder of the Heart of Yoga foundation and the Heart of Yoga Peace Project, an organization dedicated to developing yoga communities in conflict zones around the world. Mark Whitwell lives between New Zealand and Fiji.

#markwhitwell #heartofyoga #yoga #yogalife

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prabhupadanugas · 2 years

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यत्र काले त्वनावृत्तिमावृत्तिं चैव योगिनः | प्रयाता यान्ति तं कालं वक्ष्यामि भरतर्षभ || २३ || yatra kāle tv anāvṛttim āvṛttiṁ caiva yoginaḥ prayātā yānti taṁ kālaṁ vakṣyāmi bharatarṣabha O best of the Bhāratas, I shall now explain to you the different times at which, passing away from this world, one does or does not come back. The unalloyed devotees of the Supreme Lord who are totally surrendered souls do not care when they leave their bodies or by what method. They leave everything in Kṛṣṇa's hands and so easily and happily return to Godhead. But those who are not unalloyed devotees and who depend instead on such methods of spiritual realization as karma-yoga, jñāna-yoga, haṭha-yoga, etc., must leave the body at a suitable time and thereby be assured whether or not they will return to the world of birth and death. If the yogī is perfect, he can select the time and place for leaving this material world, but if he is not so perfect, then he has to leave at nature's will. The most suitable time to leave the body and not return is being explained by the Lord in these verses. According to Ācārya Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa, the Sanskrit word kāla used herein refers to the presiding deity of time. https://gloriousgita.com/verse/en/8/23 https://bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/verse-08-23.html https://youtube.com/c/HearSrilaPrabhupada https://www.bhagavad-gita.us/famous-reflections-on-the-bhagavad-gita/ #bhagavatam #srimadbhagavatam #vishnu #vishnupuran #harekrishna #harekrsna #harekrishna #harekrisna #prabhupada #bhagavadgita #bhagavadgitaasitis #bhagavadgītā #srilaprabhupada #srilaprabhupad #srilaprabhupadaquotes #asitis #india #indian #wayoflife #religion #goals #goaloflife #spiritual #bhakti #bhaktiyoga #chant #prasadam #picoftheday #photo #beautiful #usa https://sites.google.com/view/sanatan-dharma https://m.facebook.com/HDG.A.C.Bhaktivedanta.Svami.Srila.Prabhupada.Uvaca/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm8SQnYoARZ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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yoga-studies · 2 months

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108 Saṃskṛta Core Concept Pointers - 16 - Haṭha

A lesser known facet of the Yoga Texts and Freenotes section of the Website is the Romanised Saṃskṛta Core Glossary and Cross Reference Guide. It started life as word by word linked index for the online Yoga Sūtra verses offering a meaning and a cross Sūtra reference resource when exploring related verses. However, as more Yoga Related Texts were added to the online Database, it was obvious that…

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ancientwisdomsustainer · 4 years

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Ancient Wisdoms’ Grounding Forces: Jñāna mārga

Using the Yogic Paths During Times of Unsettlement

Each of you, I’m sure is witnessing how fear is a daily reality right now as this in-the-face unknown looms across the globe. I suspect this unknown is also being magnified, at least in the US, by a cultural norm of focusing on the physical body. If you are uncertain what I mean by this just scroll your Instagram feed for twenty to thirty seconds; there are likely to be multiple examples of this somatic-based mentality. The modern Yoga scene tends to amplify this hyper awareness, with a greater focus on haṭha and the physical practices associated with the term Yoga. So much so that many folks, in this modern culture, associate the term Yoga only with āsana (the physical postures). I am sure, none of this is new news to many of you reading this post. We honor birth and youth as we run in fear from illness and death. We as a culture are truly challenged by the continually spinning wheel of saṁsāra, birth and death.

In this series of writings, I offer you three historical Yogic approaches to facing uncertainty and life as an embodied being. Each path (mārga) – Jñāna, Rāja and Bhakti (hyperlinks offered for further investigation) offer a different perspective in the practice of self-study, svādyāya and the aim of Yoga’s true purpose to yoke (yuj) or unite with the divineness within and without.

We begin with Jñāna, the path of wisdom and knowledge. This Yogic lens encourages truth seeking. Who am I? What am I experiencing as I live in this body? Swami Sivananda, world renown Yoga philosopher and teacher, encourages us to identify the Truth (as he named it) by understanding it as changing phenomena. “Everything, all matter in the universe, is constantly changing, that is the only Truth there is. The baby is born and we say he or she is already one day old – not one day young.” Here his words connect to how our words come from a basis of future-based fear. “Fear comes from avidyā (ignorance),” he underlines.

In Jñāna Yoga we investigate and reflect on what is the Truth, what is really lasting. “Is it the body?,” Swami Sivananda asks. “No. It is just a beautiful instrument,” he reminds us. He points us to notice where avidyāattempts to rule our understandings of what life in this body is and means. Personally, I faced this stark realization at a very young age when doctors gave me a fifty percent chance of survival from a life-threatening illness. My “beautiful instrument” brought me to an immediate and obvious first thought, without it (the body) there is no life, a deep quick reality check for a twenty-year-old. During the endless months of chemotherapy and radiation I unsuspectingly embarked into the inner world of self. It was scary and quite disorienting. Though I had grown up with a faith in Divineness I battled often to understand it more, to have true faith in the Truth. As my flesh suit’s, one my teacher’s description of the physical body, insides burned with chemicals and the skin turned a charred black I was convinced all my chances for a “fulfilling” life in a continued career as a model was completely nixed. My ego fought hard as I accumulated scars from procedure after procedure left me marked forever; and as strand by clump of hair fell in the shower, into the sink when I would brush it, and caught in my clothing as I put them on (the prior years I had been a hair model) the only dream I had ever envisioned for myself was diminishing rapidly.

Gratefully, one day as I rummaged through the dusty bookshelves of a used bookstore a series of texts about sages living in a mountainous setting was discovered. Reading this series of books, Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East, became my daily sādhanā (practice). A profound inner evolution was set into motion which I continue to pursue still, over thirty years later. I came to discover, through reading the texts, how the turning of every moment comes with temptations and desire, kāma, keeping a constant motion toward a perceived fulfillment. Working, making money and buying things coo us into feeling a temporary fulfillment of these desires. When these desires are interrupted or unfulfilled the ego rears up causing a range of expressions and actions, fighting on behalf of the kāma. Some folks are crushed by these pursuits. Their thoughts turn to words like failure, others ignore the under-stirrings completely by numbing the senses - taking tablets, drinking alcohol, doing drugs, eating disagreeable foods or sleeping too much. Another may blame parents or the world in general so feelings within can be discounted.

The teachings of the ancient sages offers another choice, to surrender to wisdom, as the experience of fear attempts to overwhelm. In Yoga, as a complete life practice, one does not only invest in the body; there is also an investment in the mind. Avidyā is a real disrupter and distractor. The ego can hide behind fear, behind arrogance, behind being “the best.” It wants the power to control everything and it manifests in different ways. Fear often expresses as a very deep-rooted saṃskāra, an impression that often becomes habitual in both positive and challenging ways. I have learned from the ancient saints, sages and many teachers it is habits of the ego facing us when fear surfaces. It took me that year of deep physical pain to realize how I associated losing this body, the beautiful instrument with losing my whole identity.

When we face the egoic aspects of self an opportunity to transcend is presented. Svādyāya, self-study, coupled with openness to the teachings of others is the Yogic mārga, Jñāna. If one has many fears, this may be a signal of a strong identification with ego and body/mind. If one chooses to investigate a saṁskāra, habitual habit, space is generated for an expansion into self-understanding. The mind makes mental modifications, cracking and making space for new conditions to exist within the mind. It is then a matter of what one fills those cracks with, such as inspiring texts, meditative contemplation or devotional practices.

The mind is where I began my Yogic path decades ago. I quickly learned, while fighting the egoic attachments fueled by a deep mind-set and societal influences, I am not just this “beautiful instrument” of flesh and bone. It has been a tough lesson for someone who banked twenty-ish years of life on her looks. Over time Yogic philosophy and daily sādhanā has also firmly taught me I am also not just a mind. The mind is also a changing phenomena, hovering around the soul, Ātman or Self – that center point which never changes. It is this aspect of the Yogic journey we will consider in the next post on the mārga of Rāja.

If you are curious about generating a Jñāna inspired practice here are a few suggestions for readings:

The Inner Tradition of Yoga by Michael Stone

Letters from the Yoga Masters by Marion Mugs McConnell

Polishing The Mirror: How to Live From Your Spiritual Heart by Ram Dass

Falling into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering by Adyashanti

ૐLauraLynn

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whatonyogaearth · 8 months

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A Brief History of Yoga

By Benjamin Major

So, you may ask, I’ve seen lots of pictures of very flexible people getting into very difficult postures. Is that what yoga is?

In the modern world we have a tendency to see yoga as a largely physical practice, which one does to keep fit, build strength, stay healthy, relax or a combination of these things. However, though these certainly can be wonderful and beneficial effects of sustained yoga practice, excessively focusing on such things can actually make us miss the central aim of yoga. Yoga is in fact a mostly internal process. It is the process of cultivating a full and present awareness of reality in which all the energies of the body, senses and mind are brought to a single point of tranquil focus. Over time, many methods were devised to attain such a state. Below you will find a very brief, condensed version of this history.

Pashupati Seal from the Indus Valley

It is possible that people were practicing yoga in some form for hundreds or thousands of years before our earliest written records, and we have archaeological finds in the form of pictures on clay tablets such as the one above that have been interpreted as evidence in favour of this. However, this evidence is at best inconclusive and so we must look to the written records of the Upaniṣads, foundational Vedic texts, composed from about 800 BCE onwards, to find real evidence that people were engaging in the kinds of practices which came to be called yoga. At this time there is no indication that any of the physical postures many people know as yoga today even existed.

Moving further along in time we find the great sage Patañjali, whose birthdate and very existence is contested but who seems to have lived some time around 200 - 500 CE and who was the first known systematiser and compiler of yogic practices. A well-known part of his Yoga Sūtras is his description of the eight aids to yoga, which provides us with a very helpful framework for our yoga practice. But note that, even here, physical postures occupy a very small space and even when they do appear they consist mostly of seated postures that enable one’s body to open up to the more introverted practices that follow. Also at around this same time we see the emergence of bhakti and karma yoga, the yoga of devotion, the most well known text of which is the Bhagavad Gītā, a beloved text outlining the path of selfless action.

A group of Hatha yogis

In later times, from about 500 to 1200CE, Tantric yoga added a whole new complex and intricate suite of techniques that could help the seeker to achieve the state of yoga. These included various methods of visualization, mantra, working with the ‘subtle body’ or cakras and kuṇḍalinī energy and bodily postures and mudras. Next came Haṭha yoga, which is essentially the root of all modern postural yoga. Haṭha was in part an outgrowth of Tantra and it retained many of its practices. These were joined by a proliferation of āsanas (postures) and prāṇāyāma (breathing practices) designed to strengthen and empower the body, and to awaken the kuṇḍalinī. Let us note, then, that even though physical practices were now beginning to increase in importance, they were still performed as an aid to spiritual liberation, the ultimate goal of yoga.

Finally, in the 20th century we see the birth of what has been coined ‘Modern Postural Yoga’. Krishnamacharya is often credited as being the founder of modern yoga in early 1930s Mysore. It seems he and his students drew on Haṭha yoga and Tantra, but also upon Indian and Western gymnastics. This probably explains why so many popular modern yoga styles can often feel somewhat gymnastic. This is a far cry from the kind of yoga depicted in the Upaniṣads or Yoga Sūtras. However, it is very important to stress that this fact does not make these styles necessarily unyogic. As we mentioned earlier, the method of yoga requires a point of focus, and it may well be that, for many individuals, such vigorous physical practice may well provide that point of focus, as long as the ultimate aim of yoga is kept in sight and the practice does not descend to the level of just exercise.

#yoganaturesheffieldblog #yogahistory #yoga philosophy #ashorthistoryofyoga #whatisyoga

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