Light on Hatha Yoga

The ordinary is so magical, present and simple that it is often not worth talking about. Not because the ordinary lacks worth, but because the words used to describe the ordinary, even the word ordinary itself, falls short of the experience. Imagine thousands, millions of lines or threads woven together. These chords stretch beyond the physical you and throughout the universe and beyond. This fabric of highways includes the energetic body and mind energy, as well as all the energy around the body and mind. These systems go into influencing biophysical function and subtle level healing solutions within our most expansive states of consciousness. Sanskrit, the language associated with the historical origins of yoga, is an active language. All the sounds that make up the alphabet reside within and stimulate the larger chakras in your energetic system. This system stretches out with innumerable lines that stretch through you and the universe. To contemplate the ancient texts of yoga is to engage in this system. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika is one of the most influential texts within the study of Hatha Vidya (knowledge through physical control) and Raja Yoga (control of the mind in order to enter the mental state of yoga). If we look at the essence of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, its contribution as a written body of material offers very particular and precise practices which aim for Hatha Vidya and the attainment of Raja Yoga. Outside of the casually vague instructions “sit on asana” or “do asana,” most yogic texts did not specify which poses to practice or how to practice them. This you learned from a teacher. The Pradipika actually list a specific amount of postures to practice: eleven preliminary postures and the four contemplative ones. For reasons I hope to illuminate in the following pages, I have translated the Pradipika in poetic form through a process of steady practice of the aforementioned postures followed by observation. After practicing morning rituals, I would sit with a passage or two and translate the experience, as opposed to the manual description. I started with the chapter on Asana not because it was for gaining steadiness, but because it was about sensation. Sensation gives you experience and awareness of existence. It is in that existence that true awareness can come into our lives.