Yoga On & Off the Mat

Hatha Yoga: The Forceful Tradition

By Brooke Hewes, 7-20-07

	Yoga On & Off the Mat

Welcome back to Yoga On & Off the Mat. As I wrote last week, the first three articles of this column lay the foundation by asking what is yoga and what is Hatha Yoga, and what’s the point of all this toe touching anyway? OK, I admit it—they lean toward the dense side. But they sort of have to—the practice and tradition of yoga is vast, dynamic and diverse, and it is only fair that I give enough background before relating it to work, relationships, holistic health, sleep, food, and the many “on and off the mat” topics I plan on covering.

Click here to read the first article: What is Yoga?

If enlightenment is the effect, who wouldn’t want a little yoga in their life? Don’t we all want less greed and attachment, and a little more love and compassion? But how, in a culture so entrenched in dualistic definitions of success and physical form, do we possibly reach this spiritual ideal?

A likely answer from your yoga teacher: On your mat! You can taste the spiritual, physical, and emotional fruits of yoga by practicing one of the many forms of Hatha Yoga popular today. (Plus, you can wear those OMgirl pants in your closet with a bit more pride.)

Hatha Yoga translates as “forceful yoga,” and is the broad canopy under which most western perceptions of yoga fall. The Sanskrit “Ha” means sun and “tha” means moon. Together, Hatha Yoga is the union of opposites. And just as all yoga seeks balance between yang and yin (light and dark; up and down; outward and inward, masculine and feminine), Hatha Yoga balances creative sun (yang) energy with receptive moon (yin) energy within the body. Traditionally, Hatha Yoga is holistic and incorporates postures (asanas), moral disciplines, control of the vital energies and breath (pranayama), and meditation.

Modern Hatha Yoga is diverse, replete with many, mostly-physical, practices to suit the growing number of practitioners. There is Iyengar Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga, Viniyoga, and Ananda Yoga. Some chose Kundalini Yoga, Anusara Yoga, or the more restorative Yin Yoga. If none of those suit, there is Forrest Yoga, Bikram Yoga or Jivamukti Yoga. And then there are Kripalu Yoga, Sivananda Yoga, and Integral Yoga. And more yet (though I will defer to your own Google search to continue the list). Despite differences, each path drips from the same well of Hatha Yoga, which at roughly 500 years old is one of yoga’s newest additions.

Hatha Yoga and its asanas weren’t always part of the path to enlightenment. Asana, the Sanskrit word for pose that translates to “comfortable seat,” was mentioned in the ancient Hindu texts the Vedas and later the Upanishads, both of which laid the foundation of traditional yoga. This mention, however, was quiet, almost silent relative to other aspects of yoga like meditation and devotion. To some, the body wasn’t just secondary, it was repulsive.

In the Maitrayaniya Upanishad, one of the Upanishads of pre-classical yoga (~500 B.C.E. to 100 C.E.), the body was described as a venerable, ill-smelling, and unsubstantial “conglomerate of bone, skin, sinew, muscle, marrow, flesh, semen, blood, mucus, tears, rheum, feces, urine, wind bile, and phlegm.” The body was full of desire, anger, greed, and, among others, envy. The body caused suffering. Enlightenment and its path, then, rejected the physical form.

Even in the Yoga Sutra, which was written some 500 to 1,000 years after the Upanishads, postures were only one of eight essential limbs. It wasn’t until the Tantric texts of the 4th century that the body, writes religious historian Mircea Eliade in his book Yoga, Immortality and Freedom, “acquires an importance it has never before attained in the spiritual history of India.”

Working with the body became a way of achieving yoga, or union with the Divine. Tantric yogis believe that through a combination of asanas, mudras (hand positions), controlled breathing (pranayama) and bandas (energy locks), one can join the feminine and masculine energies within the body. In this tradition, the goddess Shakti resides at the base of the spine and represents the feminine. When she uncoils in the form of a serpent (kundalini) and rises through the energy centers (chakras) along the spinal column, she joins the masculine (represented by the Hindu god Shiva) at the crown of the head. Once this pairing occurs, universal consciousness permeates the practitioner and he or she is enlightened.

Like Tantra, Hatha Yoga purports that peace displaces suffering when the body is balanced and neutral. A balanced body eases movement and meditation; a balanced body has healthy organs, muscles and bones; a balanced body brings mental clarity and intuition. And since asanas help the physical form find equilibrium, they were a primary tool of the practice. Unlike Tantra, however, Hatha yogis are less interested in the sexual union of opposites, though magical powers aren’t beyond them.

Essentially, because Hatha Yoga deems enlightenment a full-body experience, asanas prepare the body for what yoga scholar Georg Feuerstein calls “the onslaught of transcendental realization” in his book The Shambala Guide to Yoga.

If the body is not ready (purified, strengthened, balanced), Feuerstein warns that the taste of enlightenment can be dangerous—it can overwhelm the unprepared mind and body.

Or as Marina Zaleski, a yoga teacher in Missoula, puts it, preparation through yoga “offers us the proper/healthy context to experience either a momentary flash of enlightenment or the real deal and the ability to come out on the other side.”

By the late 19th century, Hatha Yoga grew more mainstream in India and spread West, first to Europe then the United States, where it landed, permutated and permeated. Most modern schools of Hatha Yoga derived from disciples of (O.K., brace yourself for these names) Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, including Sri K. Pattabbhi Jois (Ashatanga Vinyasa Yoga); B.K.S. Inyengar (Inyengar Yoga); Indra Devi; and T.K.V. Desikachar (Viniyoga). Unlike traditional Hatha Yoga, many practitioners and teachers today have abandoned or downplay yoga’s spiritual roots. Ann Dyer, a nationally renowned yoga teacher in Oakland, California, says this deviation from traditional yoga is unfortunate, but not (at least initially) intentional. When yoga came West, says Dyer, the yogis who brought it already had a deep spiritual practice.

“When you look at the evolution of yoga and those who popularized yoga in the West like Iyengar, he brought asana to a new level,” she says. “But he chose to do that coming from a very spiritual place where the Vedas, the Sutras, and chanting were all given. In America, we don’t have that context. We don’t have that bed of information that you have by just living in India.”

This bed, says Zaleski, builds naturally as one’s practice develops. It is not to be rushed, but laid one spring at a time as the student is ready.

“[Traditional yoga] tends to be unfolded versus completely laid out in a new student’s first class,” she says. “The occasional or drop in student doesn’t always hear the teachings. The physical postures help to prepare a yogi’s attention & patience to further hear and question (an important part of yoga) the teachings. Just as certain asanas are offered over time, so too are the teachings ...  The practice is continuous and always unfolds, not to be rushed — a down dog before handstands kind of thing.”

Still, many classes today are about sweating and stretching and staying fit. Some people do yoga because the class fits into their gym schedule, because they want to meet the hottie carrying the sticky mat, or because it just sounds cool. It is for this reason that some yoga scholars look down on the Americanized version. In fact, Director of the northern-California based Traditional Yoga Studies Brenda Feuerstein says that many contemporary versions of yoga are not yoga at all.

“People professing to practice yoga ought to know at least the essentials of yoga’s history and philosophy,” says Feuerstein. “Context is crucial to meaning, and meaning is crucial to practice. If someone merely wants to adopt some of the yogic postures without having any interest in its spiritual goals, in that case, one should not claim to be practicing yoga.”

Feuerstein is right. There is a big difference between the yoga that most of us know and practice today and the yoga of ancient India. But calling both traditional and “pop” yoga yoga has its benefits: retaining the name may inspire gym yogis to poke around the tradition’s other offerings. Besides, like the 1980 pop icon-turned-yogi Madonna sings, we do live in a material world, replete with material concerns, economic pressures and social structures that don’t necessarily cater to an ascetic life of contemplation and withdrawal. And if the ultimate Material Girl found spiritual support through a physical practice (note—this is assumption; I did not interview Madonna for this article, but I did watch this video clip promoting her Live Earth concert series), why can’t we? Plus, given the national proliferation of yoga, we’re in luck—almost any inclination or lifestyle can be suited. Even here in Missoula the choices are many and increasing.

• Yoga Fitness Center
• The Women’s Club
• Bikram’s College of India Missoula Studio
• Down Dog, Missoula’s newest studio
• Missoula Athletic Club

Check back each Friday for Yoga On & Off the Mat with Brooke Hewes. Bookmark www.newwest.net/yoga.

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