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I'm curious about the extra person in a lot of these images. In some, they're clearly disciples of the Yoga guru and paying obeisance, but in some others it looks like they're holding a spade[1] or (what looks like) washing clothes[2][3] or stoking a fire[4]. It could be just to add some variety and background to the image, but I wonder if there's more to it, perhaps something related to the Yoga asanas that are being depicted in each one.
[1] https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/collections/hatha... [2] https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/collections/hatha... [3] https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/collections/hatha... [4] https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/collections/hatha...
washing clothes and stoking a fire are perfectly fine things to do for disciples
I Think [2]may be someone grinding a food substance on a flat mortar and pestle style implement. Such things are still used in India and other parts of the world, and even Yogis still need to eat sometimes.
Instead of `hathyog pradeepika', I find `patanjali yog darshan' more enlightening. According to Patanlaji, there is more to Yoga than just physical health. He divides the book into various parts. But the main, which the general public relate to, is `saadhana pad'. It starts with
/Atha yoganushasanam/ == अथ योगानुशासनम == let us start yoga with discipline.
This is the first /sootra/ (verse). And every verse builds on the previous. And in the 2nd verse he defines what is yoga.
/Yogashchittavruttinirodhah/ == योगःचित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः == ...
Literal meaning of Yoga is add, sum, to be one with. For believers, it could be - "to be one with God", for spiritual, meditating people - "to be one with supreme consciousness". And as Vivekananda explains to non-believers, you can think of atman as a form of energy... it can never be created nor destroyed... so just oscillate between energy and partical form... and yoga means to be one with the source (energy).
As par India system of yogic tradition, that is the goal of every human being and Patanjali tells us how to achieve that. /Yogashchittavruttinirodhah/ "Yoga means suppressing (/nirodhah/) the fluctuations (/vrutti/) of mind (/chitta/)." Well, I am using close meanings. Patanjali divides our mind into various logical parts.
I find this really fascinating. Must read. But the best book that I have found is in Sanskrit and Hindi.
Would you have a recommendation for a good English language translation for Yog Darshan by Patanjali?
There are lots of english translations of "Patanjali Yoga Sutras" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_Sutras_of_Patanjali#Trans...)
To see how succinct they are, read Bon Giovanni's translation at https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/yogasutr.htm
If you are new to the subject start with Swami Vivekananda's Raja Yoga which is a very loose but accessible overview.
For a detailed study with notes from various commentaries, see The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali trans. by Edwin Bryant.
The above two should give you a solid foundation after which you can move on to even more exhaustive translations with specific commentaries.
I have read many translations but the could not find anything close to the Hindi translation - "Patanjalya Yog Darshan". This is a short book. And if you want to go deeper then "Paatnjali Yoga pradeep". But even the Hindi language in the latter is pro-level.
A bit unrelated but important thing to note is that yoga isn't just exercise poses, it is a framework for a specific way of life. Asana is the part of that framework that deals with different postures that can build a healthy physical body while other parts of the teachings get into self-care, breathing, social interactions and self-reflection.
It's more spiritually oriented than 'posture' and other pedantic things although arguably that helps.
From the article: "a way the sacred can come into life”.
Basically a way to strengthen the resonance of the chakras and effectively 'raise the Kundalini fire' i.e. to help you achieve a specific kind of enlightenment.
Or at least in their view. [1]
This is effectively the point of 'Yoga' in it's greater sense, it's just rarely communicated in those terms. The degree to which people practice Yoga and don't realize that it's an intensely religious exercise, mostly designed to bring them to (supposed) 'enlightenment' is a little baffling.
People downvoting this are sadly demonstrating their ignorance
A tangent but I thought others would find this interesting...
The image at the top is related to Kundalini per the caption. This form of yoga seems to be synonymous in my area of the US (DC) and probably others with a group termed "white sikhs". They originate from a 60/70s group started by an Indian guru. Sikhism traditionally does not involve yoga but the guru that started the US Sikh group had a background in it so yoga was an integral part of his teachings. The group became ~~somewhat of~~ a cult and guru investigated for abusive practices, but they now seem to just be devout Sikhs with slightly different traditions and organization than Indian counterparts. They seem to be shunned by some Punjabis as not "real" Sikhs while other Punjabis have joined them.
I am caucasian with a non-practicing Indian Sikh wife and did a project on Sikhism when I went back to school years ago, which is where I learned about them. Not long after, a temple we visited with my wife's family turned out to be one started by white sikhs, with Kundalini yoga studio underneath. It was very interesting seeing caucasians in full Sikh garb and small sword, including women which is not common with Punjabi Sikhs. I saw an older caucasion lady with sikh turban some years later leaving my office building and I said "sat siri akal" which surprised her, then she returned the greeting with a huge smile.
I find their story fascinating and I hope I haven't offended anyone here that is part of this group. For some reason I can't find the pages and videos I used for research a decade ago. Here are some that I found though...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epQhHjf8pTs
https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/yogi-bhajan/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-disturbing-mainstream_b_6...
My understanding (speaking as someone with Muslim Punjabi background from Kapurthala and Qadian) is those guys got involved with security contracts with INS/ICE in recent years. I met an adult child of people in that group in New Orleans a few years back.
Yeah. I've heard they have been big in security for a long time. I think one of the issues with the group at least early on was their starting of businesses, in particular in security, where they were not paying followers for their work. I'm not super knowledgeable about them, so it's entirely possible there are still some sketchy practices by parts of the group that I thought had ended.
I have added a huffpost article that states "Akal Security, the largest judicial security contractor in the United States, has been awarded at least $3.5 billion in Federal contracts since the year 2000, and its clients include the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense. "
"Yoga" is also the Bengali word for addition in Math.
Somebody explained "Yoga" to me once as the addition of self (jibatma) to the universe (paramatma). So this process requires many components. And according to some these components are independent of one another.
One famous yogi talked about 4 yogas- 1. Knowledge yoga 2. Work yoga 3. Devotion yoga 4. Raja yoga (the king yoga- famed and stories such as stopping breathing, leaving body without dying are rampant)
These yogas requires energy and healthy body and mind. So enters Hatha Yoga. I regularly practice Pranayama taught to me by my father.
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism assumes that you can be one with the universe without believing in any god. That is much discussed in Bhagabad Gita.
Buddha was an athiest. There has always been a strong sect of athiests in India- for thousands years.
For me the interesting thing is how the word 'yoga' was translated into Tibetan when the first yogis arrived to Tibet in the 8th century. Their term of choice wasn't the traditional 'union' (which is zung 'jug in Tibetan) but rnal 'byor. This word is composed of two terms: rnal means 'natural state', whereas 'byor' means to 'reach' or simply 'remain' in it.
They did the same with many other terms like "Buddha", translating it according it according to the meaning, not literally. (That was during the first wave of translations. In the second wave the translators were much more literary, although they praised the pioneers as superior.)
Are there pranayama videos on youtube that you'd recommend?
This work Joga Pradipika by Jayatarama(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joga_Prad%C4%ABpik%C4%81) is different from the well known Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Svatmarama(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatha_Yoga_Pradipika)
Modern day "Hatha Yoga" traces its origin to the "Natha Yogis"(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nath). It is also quite interesting to note that "Patanjali Ashtanga Yoga" had nothing to do with the above. Due to historical reasons, a subset of the Asanas (with his own modifications) were popularized by T. Krishnamacharya who also used the text "Patanjali Yoga Sutras" as a larger framework within which to seat his practice. This was then exported to the West by his students which has now come to be known as the de-facto Yoga.
The usual story I have encountered is that Yoga as taught today was invented from whole cloth in the 1920s.
Seeing similar claims about the 1800s does not just raise a question whether the 1920s or 1800s story is better. It puts the whole notion of Western invention in doubt -- right along with pre-Buddhist, Buddhist, and post-Buddhist stories.
At this point, I don't know the history of Yoga, and don't believe people who say they know.
Any suggestions/thoughts on learning yoga practices beyond physical exercises/fitness?
I've been going in and out of the subject for the last 10 years or so. Modern yoga practices in my country essentially boil down to either stripped down physical training, or something intentionally very esoteric and built around 'energies' etc.
What I ideally would want to is to discern the actual practices from cultural background. I don't mind learning cultural background as well, but I have a hard time taking certain things for granted.
Maybe there is some modern movements/sources that explain scriptures to a modern man, with focus on practice? What I usually find is way too scientific in the sense of Orientology/Philosophy but not the actual practice
I do pranayama (breathing techniques). And two yoga poses (mountain, corpse).
That's what is left from 3 years intensive training. In other words I do what I like, when I like, how I like.
If you want something methodical try Pilates. It's yoga without the cult.
Ideally I would want things like samadhi, kayvalya and numerous other things explained in layman terms and ideally with some modern instructions. I do not want a stripped version of yoga that only involves physical exercises.
There is also this thing that some scriptures mention things that others don't and sometimes even present conflicting theories throughout the same scripture. Like hatha-yoga prardipika mentions two ways of achieving immortality: one through raising kundalini and another through saving bindu.
Alternatively I'm looking for some guide on what are the main ideas, different schools and techniques developed in yoga, how they relate to each other, what are main concepts and how they evolve in different schools.
tldr: I have a sense that there is something valuable for me, but I want to extract it with minimal costs, i.e. not getting a degree in philosophy or orientology in the process.
I've found a yoga teacher who is good at this - reasonably authentic yoga but without a requirement for superstition etc. I'd be surprised if he were the only teacher like that around - but it might take a bit more hunting out that the other types you mention (both of which I have encountered too!).
When I try to explain to my friends in the West of the different types of Yoga they are like huh? They have only heard of the physical Yoga that has been commercialised. But I say to them if you believe in that, then its worth understanding the other types of Yoga described in the Bhagavad Gita
I learned somewhere that common modern Yoga poses have been influenced a lot by Swedish gymnastics.
https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2012/oct/03/straight-yog...
https://jfdeters.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/the-myth-of-yoga/
https://theconversation.com/from-india-with-love-how-yoga-go...
This is either willfully ignorant statement or simply malicious thought to discredit Yoga from it's ancient roots.
A blog post of cherry-picked, unsourced comments doesn't prove that modern Yoga poses are Swedish.
Yoga is a ancient system and like many systems in the orient, it is quite malleable and has been modernized with time. There are many aspects of Yoga and merely reducing it to "certain body poses" and claiming it's Swedish, is cultural appropriation at it's finest.
I'm not sure I detect either ignorance or 'malicious thought' in the parent post. It is clearly true that much of modern Yoga practise in the west >is< influenced by other cultures (the Swedish / British keep fit programmes of the 1920s for example). It can also be true that Yoga has deep cultural roots that extend far into the distant past. The parent does not 'reduce' Yoga to certain body poses - you are both effectively agreeing with each other that it is a malleable system that has modernised (significantly) over the past 100 years or so. I would love to know what a C19th Hatha Yoga practitioner from those illustrations would make of the explosion of different styles that have evolved today. I would hope that they and, say, Tim Senesei or Adrianne Mishler might be able to have an interesting (and respectful) conversation.
"creating a system to train the body in preparation for anti-colonial resistance."
It was actually completely the opposite, the modern yoga practices were actually inspired by colonial rulers as it was time when in Europe it has become very popular and fashionable to exercise. Maharaja Krisharaja Wadiyar IV has hired Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (who btw died in 1989, just 32 years ago) to come up with somethign similar to Swedish gymnastics and Sokol movements in Slavic countries, just based on Indian traditions. It had nothing to do with colonial resistance, it was just a fashionable thing coming from the West, like later jeans or McDonalds or Starbucks (or cross-fit training for that matter)...
Great. Now people are claiming that Yoga also came from the West to India. Maybe the idea of eating food also came to India from abroad?
Reading what I wrote instead of projecting your own political narratives would help a conversation, you know. Where did I claim any such thing? What came from the West was the idea (and a fashion) of fitness training as a popular pastime activity, and it was a new thing in Europe too. People just didn't do it or think of it that way before. They played sports, or practiced the skills, but the idea of doing regular exercises for health reasons only was something new. Same was in India, traditional Indian practices were about spiritual development, not training your body the way hatha yoga did it. No king or maharajah has ever before cared if his people exercise or not. Hatha yoga was Indian original system, and Krishnamacharya (on a request of Maharajah) took it and mixed different other technics (breeding practices, etc) and created a new system which was a combination of a response on modernization of India accepting good ideas from the West (that nation's fitness is something important), as well as the rise of Indian national identity and efforts of Maharajah to save the original Indian traditions from being forgotten. It was their original take on that new way of thinking about human health and life, the same way Sokol movements were Slavic take on it, not just something that "came from the West" as you try to frame it.
No. Not completely opposite.
Bengali and Punjabi groups of armed revolutionaries (wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anushilan_Samiti) did heavily rely on yoga for exercise. The author is right. You are way off.
There are 18 century texts in tibet showing yogis doing yoga poses. They also learnt from Sokol who came a hundred years later?
This tendency to claim any thing good eastern as western is a very old trope which dates to 18-19th century ideas of superiority of Europeans. I think in the 21st century we should let it go?
Yoga predates colonialism and is more than gymnastics or movements, so what are the “modern yoga practices” that you claim have come from Europe?
It wasn't about gymnastics or movements at all. It was a vast spectrum of different technics and practices used mainly for spiritual purposes, thre were many and many "yogas" coming from different teachers. What we call yoga today, was a system invented by Tirumalai Krishnamacharya as an amalgamation of many of these ancient practices into one modern system. They were not previously widely popular and you couldn't easily learn them, most of Indians didn't know about it. What Krishnamacharya changed was that he started a school of yoga and was traveling the country and popularizing it - and the reason this was possible was that Maharajah liked the modern fitness ideas coming from the West and though it would help his people to accept these habits of paying attention to fitness, but it was time of Indian nationalism and he wanted to protect their own traditions and ways instead of just taking it from Brits, so he hired Krishnamacharya to make an authentic Indian system of training.
Krishnamacharya did not invent modern yoga out of whole cloth. Krishnamacharya and his disciples (ie, Jois) created the modern branch of Ashtanga Yoga, incorporating calisthenics and other physical movements within the preexisting framework of Asanas & Pranayama. Hatha Yoga, as represented here in the Yoga Pradeepika, is independent of Krishnamacharya & overwhelmingly more popular in India than Ashtanga.
Hey thanks for your comment. Just wanted to add -- if someone wants to learn more, "Yoga Body" and "Roots of Yoga" by Mark Singleton contain this information. I wish this was more well-known in indian yoga circles.
This is a western academic interpretation of yoga which is favorable to the idea that all good things, even from the ancient eastern traditions, have western inspirations.
Does it not make you a little bit suspicious? What data would you seek out to falsify it? Did you factor in cultural narratives of western superiority into your thought process?
It's interesting to me that all of these appear to be seated postures with the exception of one where they appear to be hanging upside down from a tree.
And the one floating in the air of course.
That's the 'Dhalsim' pose
he is sitting on top of the wood
he is just relaxing on the grass, looking up
what I find most interesting is that you can look at the images and for one can see the master floating, hanging upside down, flying.
or you can adjust your perspective and see the master in perfectly "normal" positions.
So for example he can be in the same image hanging upside down from a tree and lying in the grass under that tree looking up.
No "Downward Dog" in the whole bunch...
It's a shame that none of the citations in the article are from any Indian source, from any of the various yogic lineages or masters.
I feel it's pretty racist, like blackface.
ayaṃ nijaḥ paro veti gaṇanā laghucetasām।
udāracaritānāṃ tu vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam॥
Translation: One is kin, the other a stranger say the small minded. The wise know that the world is but a family.
We are all manifestations of the same ONE cosmic vibration.
Have fun getting a brain tumor removed by an electrician.