About Hatha Yoga

'Hatha' yoga is the form of yoga most widely practiced in the West. The word 'hatha' comes from Sanskrit, meaning, loosely, 'force' or 'forceful.' There are hundreds of postures (or 'poses'), with many variations, the majority of which are less than one hundred years old. In fact, in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a pose (or asana) is mentioned only in terms that it should be "a steady and comfortable position" (II-46). Asana practice, as we know it, was not mentioned in the earliest yoga texts, and came to be in order to prepare the body for meditation. The Hatha yoga schools evolved to support this through arduous self-purification and strengthening, focusing on building strong and healthy bodies that would allow the practitioner to meditate for long periods of time and thus able to achieve transformation and transcendence.

Our knowledge of Hatha Yoga comes from the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, written around 1350 C.E., and it notes only 16 postures, 8 of which are seated. Thus, our earliest knowledge of yoga as a physical practice has many more 'yin' than 'yang' qualities. That is, the postures described in this early yogic text concentrate upon seated meditative poses, practiced calmly and in stillness, versus postures practiced in a 'yang' style, which are more active, more forceful, more muscle-oriented. In fact, the intensely active and muscular practice with which many are now most familiar came about, according the Bernie Clark, in the time of the "British Raj, when England began to colonize Indian culture and change the school system' and asana practice began to be 'blended with forms from the gymnasiums" (YinSights, p. 14)

Countless studios and schools offer 'Hatha' yoga classes; many, including ourselves, offer their own proprietary sequence of ritualized postures. Each class may be practiced in a different style, with different intensity, in varying degrees of heat, but the actual poses are 'Hatha,' that is the union of 'sun and moon' ('ha' and 'tha'), and 'Yoga,' 'to yoke,' 'to join;' union of the body, mind and spirit, yoking the individual with the divine.

"Yoga is experienced in that mind which has ceased to identify itself with its vacillating waves of perception"
(I-2)

"The vacillating waves of perceptions are stilled through consistent earnest practice and dispassionate non-attachment"
(I-12)

-- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

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