Monday, September 21, 2009

Yoga - Discipline of Freedom: The Yoga Sutra Attributed to Patanjali.

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first studied yoga nearly thirty years ago, while living in a small house in the Indian Himalayas. I had bought a used book in New Delhi for about a dime, and found the beginning poses it described sufficiently easy to allow my naturally stiff muscles some access to the practice. At the time "yoga" meant to me only a series of static physical positions (called asanas) - place the right ankle here, move the left thigh there, try like hell to get up on your head without falling over! I could, of course, intuit that this form of exercise was very different from my high school wrestling, and certainly a long way from the many scorekeeping games that dominate the American concept of "sport." I could tell that yoga had something to do with the mind as well as the body, and with the spirit as well. ("When in the headstand," the little book counseled, "close your eyes, take slow deep breaths, and pray.")

But like many of the estimated six million Americans who practice yoga now, I had little idea that these physical postures and weird breathing exercises were a small, and not at all self-sufficient, part of an ancient and vast system of philosophy and spiritual discipline. For what I took to be yoga was really hatha yoga, the physical component of the ashtanga or eight-limbed path of Raja (Kingly) yoga - which was itself only one of the four main types of yoga conceived of by esoteric Hindu spiritual teachings. Raja yoga focuses on control or purification of consciousness as a way to realize our true identity, and to unify that identity with the essential nature of the universe. For Hinduism, the spiritual path in general is the pursuit of that unity. Other types of yoga focus on devotional love, active service to others, or intellectual apprehension as ways to achieve this goal.

That first yoga book was written by Swami Sivananda, a man whose biography bears out the complexity of the term. Sivananda was a Western educated Indian who practiced medicine in London for many years. During this time he began to suspect that the materialist and reductionist approach to healing which still dominates Western medicine lacked an adequate understanding of both physical health and deeper aspects of human well-being. Sivananda returned to India and sought out teachers of traditional Raja yoga, bringing their detailed teachings out of Indian backwaters to the attention of the Western world. He founded a center for the study of yoga philosophy and practice in Rishikesh - the place where the Beatles would come nearly fifty years later to study meditation with the Maharishi. And he trained a number of the more famous yoga teachers (including Vishnudevananda and Satchidinanda), who spread the techniques and perspectives to Europe and America.

The books by Miller and Feuerstein will enable anyone to delve deeply into the philosophy that underlies the practice of hatha yoga. They reveal that the real purpose to yoga is not to be flexible, to lose weight or even to achieve physical health. It is, as in Patanjali's classic yoga sutra which Miller has translated, to achieve a "cessation of the turnings of thought." In other words, the entire system of Raja yoga - which includes morality, austere self-discipline, hatha yoga, and meditation - is to still our ordinary consciousness so that realization of our essential connection to a much greater reality can arise. Patanjali's writings, variously dated between 200 B.C.E. and 400 C.E., appear to summarize an oral belief system that had existed for centuries. Miller's presentation, unlike those by writers such as Mircea Eliade and I. K. Taimni, conveys the essence of the philosophy without drowning us in technical terms or exposition that is scholastic and academic. One can read this beautifully produced little book with no earlier training, and come away with an appreciation for the depth of Raja yoga philosophy, including the way the asanas and breathing practices of hatha yoga are ultimately aimed at quieting the body so that the mind can begin to approach what Patanjali calls "infinite knowledge." Contrary to the way it is often presented, this system is not a technique of stress reduction aimed at helping us do "better" at our conventional lives.

In contrast to Miller's in-depth study of a classic yoga text, the Shambhala Encyclopedia of Yoga is a wide-ranging reference work with entries on over two thousand key concepts, practices, and personalities of all forms of yoga. Feuerstein draws on his knowledge of more than 3,000 years of texts and myriad different schools of yogic philosophy, as well as cutting-edge issues in contemporary academic scholarship. This book is a wonderful resource for anyone who wants to feel at home in the terminology of Hindu spirituality, which - not unlike Jewish spirituality - necessarily makes reference to texts and terms that originated in the distant past and in a foreign language.

For those wishing to begin their approach to yoga with a conventional hatha yoga practice there now exist a multitude of how-to books. These volumes typically contain a brief account of yoga philosophy, detailed descriptions of asanas and breathing exercises, some tips on diet, and a few meditation practices. A surprising variety of styles can be found in any good bookstore. For example: B. K. S. Iyengar's Light on Yoga is the textbook for the most popular school of yoga practice, one emphasizing strict attention to form and the use of props to help recalcitrant American bodies adapt to Indian twists and bends; Beryl Bender's (inappropriately named) Power Yoga prescribes a physically demanding, dynamic posture flow, deep breathing, and the generation of heat to allow muscles to stretch to new lengths; Jean Couch's Runners' World Yoga Book is geared to all levels of proficiency, and illustrates each asana with pictures of people with high, medium, and low degrees of flexibility.

Esther Myers' Yoga and You is a lovely contribution to this crowded field. She provides detailed instructions and useful illustrations, and she is particularly adept at stressing how breathing techniques can be integrated into each asana. One of the few women writing on a subject that has generally been dominated by men, Myers not only demonstrates a technical mastery of advanced postures but communicates an emotional and spiritual sensitivity to the psychic concerns of those who would use their bodies to help still their minds.

After nearly thirty years of hatha yoga, I still sometimes feel like writing a letter of thanks to someone after I practice. A good deal of medical study has shown that hatha yoga will cure many back problems, increase energy, improve your posture and balance, and lower blood pressure: yet when I think of these asanas as connected to my own (often fumbling) attempts at spiritual growth, however, their significance is far greater. Those who continue asana practice beyond the first feel-good weeks or months are, I suspect, the ones who see the wonderful things it does for our bodies as an aid to an even more vital transformation of who we are.

Roger S. Gottlieb teaches philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His two most recent books are This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment and The Ecological Community.


Named Works: Yoga - Discipline of Freedom: The Yoga Sutra Attributed to Patanjali (Book) Book reviews

Source Citation:Gottlieb, Roger S. "Yoga - Discipline of Freedom: The Yoga Sutra Attributed to Patanjali." Tikkun 13.n2 (March-April 1998): 96(2). Academic OneFile. Gale. BROWARD COUNTY LIBRARY. 21 Sept. 2009
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very thoughtfull post on spiritual growth.It should be very much helpfull

Thanks,
Karim -
Positive thinking