What is yoga anyway?
The experience of Nothing Missing
It’s a fascinating conundrum that “yoga” is now so widely identified with the postures. As if the poses & flexibility are a goal in themselves. A practice designed to help us realise “I am NOT this body” has often become so body focused!
As we move and the heart beat increases, as we stretch and we feel the boundaries of the body; we start to feel more connected or expanded. This ties in to the yogic idea of self as “atman” which is an integral part of “Brahman” in a salt dissolved in water type analogy. Our individual being emerges out of the fabric of existence, and remains connected to source. We are never truly separate in this way of thinking.
We have some imagery that looks like asana from way back in the Pre-vedic period, some four thousand+ years ago.
Many of the earliest asana recorded are seated poses that can be used for meditation & pranayama, because it was through these altered states of consciousness that the yogis sought an eternal truth. A truth beyond the vagaries of time or the individual life experience of the practitioner. The practice of “neti, neti” describes a way to shift awareness to ever greater depths as we discount “not this, not this” of anything which has not always been in existence.
Then later we see asana in sculpture and paintings before we see postures described in the early hatha texts - the Amritta Siddhi is believed to be the earliest as a 9th century text. Mayurasana is described in Amritta Siddhi as an arm balance with elbows tucked into the abdomen.
Why did postures develop?
The fundamental questions
The way that I describe the vast & labyrinthine history of yoga, is that it seeks to answer the fundamental questions that have always perplexed us!
Who am I?
Why am I here?
What is my purpose? (dharma)
What is life and what is death?
What is consciousness?
The whole development of yoga can be traced back to these questions, reformulated time and again, and answered in many different ways over the centuries as yogis & philosophers found different ways to research, debate, explore and answer them.
This is sometimes referred to as “sanatana dharma” a term which can be interpreted as “eternal law”, taking a term from Sanskrit and again from within the Vedic fold. However the complexity of yoga means we need to look beyond the Vedic traditions, since the tradition crosses cultural boundaries, integrates different philosophies and the physical boundaries of state lines. One way that I convey this to my trainees is that talking about “yoga philosophy” is like trying to summarise the history of ideas in Europe between 4000BC–today; we cannot reconcile the thought or complexity into a few pithy statements!
Development of Hatha Yoga
Asana was yet another development to answer the question of our existence. We do not know exactly how long postures were practiced before they made an appearance in texts, or even in sculpture. Hatha yoga describes the period where postures and other ways of training the body were documented and shared more widely.
We tend to think yoga always has to be calming or health giving, but Hatha translates as Forceful yoga. The yogis describe prana as having 5 component parts within the human experience. Apana vayu describes the descending energy or “air” which regulates the excretory functions of the body. It relates to the earth element and helps us to feel grounded.
According to Jason Birch the term Hatha means forceful, because it refers to the way the yogis forced the apana vayu, which usually moves downwards to change direction & ascend.
This idea also seems to have given rise for innovation in ways to use the body- such as the bandhas and cleansing practices or kriyas, we also find many more asana being documented in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika a 15th century text there are more than 70 postures described. Alongside details on pranayama, bandhas and kriya. So the physical practices have come to the fore, but still with the aim of uncovering the ultimate truth and discovering an untainted consciousness.
Development of asana
Later it seems the practice of asana might take on a more militaristic path in places, alongside the need to expel the colonialists during the 19th and 20th centuries. This has given rise to a new name for the development of yoga asana during the 19th–21st Centuries, the athletic postures we are familiar with today, as modern postural yoga.
This term is highly contentious as it seems to suggest postures came about later under the influence of the West.
Cultural Appropriation
During the last few centuries we see the interplay of yoga and influences from the West as the traditions of yoga are re-interpreted- or perhaps more accurately simply misunderstood, and then “sold back” to India and the world, with a scientific veneer. This is sometimes presented as a way to “validate” the yoga, without giving credit to the incredible ingenuity, genius and profundity of the early practices and practitioners.
In the meantime so much of the richness and depth of the practice is lost altogether when we ascribe more physical & psychological interpretations to the philosophy and practice of yoga. Yoga without its philosophical foundation is a different beast altogether, because the whole fundamental purpose of yoga is to answer the most profound questions of life, death and consciousness.
The foundation of any yoga practice lies in the sophisticated philosophies of India or South Asia. The ideas they expound are so different from our own cultural heritage that it takes some time to appreciate. There is a subtle shift where yoga becomes less a practice to be mastered and more a way of being, a state of mind.
4 key ideas throughout the vast time and geographical framework of Yoga History
Karma - The law of cause and effect, it is not a moral see-saw, it’s not retributive, it’s not God-ordained. It’s just simple cause and effect, something more like a Newton law!
Dharma - Universal law which we need to fulfil in order to fulfil our moral obligation and destiny.
Reincarnation - The law of life, death and rebirth; many different formulations exist and are debated over the centuries.
Samsara - The cycle of life and death. Not seen as comforting, but rather something to overcome by understanding the very roots of our existence.
Yoga today
Today we may perceive yoga as a way to lead this life with a little more ease, more physical and mental health. Our definitions tend not to be as far reaching as the yogis. One way of thinking about what yoga is that resonates for me is the state of “nothing missing” or the realisation that there is nothing to achieve, the busyness can drop away and a vast expansiveness can take its place.
