Sivananda Yoga School of Port Elizabeth

Essays on Yoga

Thoughts and more about yoga ...

So many misconceptions abound about what yoga is all about that I thought I'd try to clear up some of the confusion and present the basic principles of yoga, both the physical (hatha yoga) and philosophical aspects, in an easyish to understand format for the average Western reader.

(Please note, that whilst I may know considerably more than some about this particular subject, it goes without saying that I know considerably less than others!)

This is a work in progress and will be added to whenever I have time, with arbitrary thoughts written down as they crop up.  All will be cleaned up in time.
If you wish me to elucidate any particular point, or elaborate on any particular angle,
please feel free to let me know by emailing me at: yogaman @ fastmail.fm

THOUGHTS ...

The meaning of the word 'yoga' gives the first clue as to the essential goals of the discipline: 'to unify'; 'to unite'.  And what is it exactly that yoga is trying to unify or unite? - the individual soul with it's source - the Creator.

You may be interested to know that the word 'Religion' comes from the Latin 'religare' which means: 'to bind back' ... and what is the goal of religion supposed to be? To bind the individual soul back to it's source - the Creator.  Sound familiar?  As you can see, the essential goal of yoga and religion, is to take the soul back to its source, its original home from whence it descended into this creation via a somewhat circuitous route.

Arbitrary Jump

We in the West tend to focus on the physical aspect of yoga.  We forget that this body is rented and we have no idea when the lease is to expire.  Nonetheless, we spend a lot of time, money and effort trying to make the facade look beautiful ... as somebody once said: "What's the use of a beautiful body if it houses a peanut brain?"

We run the risk of turning yoga into an egoistic 'show off how wonderful I am' exercise form - a 'look at my magnificent yoga body' and forget the real goal of yoga - the search for, and merging into, the source.  The actual point of human existence.  Many teachers strongly promote the purely physical aspect.

One sees this quite clearly when looking through the glossy ads in magazines like 'Yoga Journal'.  (Would love to see a genuine yogi tarted up like a ballerina, showing off his physique and extolling his munificent virtues :) You could be quite sure that he wasn't the genuine article if you saw him doing so!)

The body-based approach has both positives and negatives:

• Positives:
  • From a health point of view, no matter what form of yoga is followed, superb health benefits accrue and stress levels are markedly reduced.
  • It forms an introduction to yoga that some might feel more comfortable with. (We can be very blinkered i.e. religious conditioning)
  • Some students will nonetheless manage to progress through to a more genuinely philosophical approach even though coming through the more egoistic side.
• Negatives:
  • Students can really get the wrong idea of what yoga is all about - that the goal is purely to look and feel good.
  • If one does a search on the net for yoga, one comes up with many egoistic practitioners where the gist of their site is how wonderful they are, the products you can buy from them and not about the yoga, the practice itself.  This approach influences the students.  (I would personally like to see less name spreading and more goal-oriented practice .... but then again, this is only a personal view.  It is what it is.  Even I, in my studio, have to cater for our physical health and stress reduction approach, so only discuss philosophy abstractly, dropping hints here and there, and wait for the students to approach me themselves before delving deeper.  This actually has had some remarkable results as they are primed for further growth by the time of approaching).
  • Students may feel that by simply looking new-agey (burning incense, wearing the duds, dropping new-age terminology) they're on the path to self-realization ... very little, if any, concept of the unbelievably hard work that is necessary for genuine spiritual progress or the humility of the true philosopher.  Saying this, new-age dabbling can lead the true seeker to broaden his search as he sees the shortfalls of whatever it is he's involved in.