How might a contemporary teacher of Yoga respond to the criticism that modern practice is inauthentic because it does not properly reflect Patañjali’s teachings on Yoga?
The modern yoga practice and misunderstanding in the terminology about yoga
In the last 10-15 years there has been a mass explosion of yoga and the term “yoga” is now everywhere. We have gym yoga, hot yoga, yoga to strengthen the ore, yoga to loose weight, aro yoga, n!de yoga, doga "yoga with yo!r dog#, power yoga, rave yoga, et. $lmost every day a new “brand” of yoga appears in what we an now all the “yoga mar%et”. &oga today is mostly assoiated with' well-being, fitness, body image, healthy lifestyle and spirit!ality. spirit!ality. If we go ba% in time and have a loo% at the old traditional texts that deal with yoga, we an see that there is a h!ge differene between how yoga was desribed in the past and how yoga is seen today. (ne of the main differenes is the fat that the modern yoga pratie today is almost exl!sively assoiated with the pratie of body post!re "asana#, while traditionally the asana is only part of the spetr!m of what yoga is. In most of the ases today if someone says “yoga” it)s ass!med that this person means “yoga post!re * asana”. $nother main differene is the aim of the pratie, yoga today is done mostly for fitness and well being, so it is seen as a therapy or as a way to ahieve a good body shape, whereas in the past yoga was !sed as a means to self-reali+ation, mo%sha, amadhi.
oday we often hear the term “yoga style”, whih !s!ally indiates the way a yoga pratie is done, how the pratie “appears, loo%s”, loo%s”, we o!ld o!ld say that the yoga yoga style indiates the s!perfiial aspet of the pratie, in the way the yoga pratie appears.
In the traditional text we have what we an all “&oga ystems”, that indiates more the way a pratie leads to a parti!lar goal, for example atan/ali $sthanga &oga is a ystem of yoga rather then a yoga style and atha yoga is a system of yoga pratie. $ll these differenes reate a lot of mis!nderstanding in the terminology related to yoga. oday in many ases atha yoga often refers to a parti!lar style of yoga and $shtanga yoga is often assoiated with another style, a dynami style of yoga. Whilst really $sthanga yoga is the traditional atan/ali system and all yoga pratie we see today is a derivative of atha &oga. &et we still have many yoga shools today that laim their root is in the lassial yoga of atan/ali even if it)s lear that the root of their pratie is in the hatha yoga tradition. $ll this an lead !s to !estion the a!thentiity of modern yoga. ine &oga is generally spea%ing assoiated with atan/ali darshan, to verify the a!thentiity of a pratie, we sho!ld onnet this pratie to atan/ali, and in most of the ases the modern pratie based mostly on asana, has very little to do with atan/ali)s system, whih is primarily based on meditation. 2!t we an easily onnet the modern pratie with the atha &oga tradition, so let)s have a loo% to the roots of the modern pratie.
Origins of the modern yoga practice
If we trae the yoga tree of the yoga “styles” we see aro!nd today in the West and in the east as well, we an trae the root of this tree to two main “branhes”, from two people' wami ivananda and ir!malai 3rishnamaharya. 4rom ivananda we have what is %nown today as “ivananda &oga”, “atyananda yoga” and “Integral yoga”. 4rom 3rishnamaharya we have atthabi ois $shtanga vinyasa, Iyengar and 6iniyoga. We an say that from these two branhes most of the yoga “styles” we %now today are born. In the ivananda teahing on yoga we have an integration of atha yoga, atan/ali and the yoga as desribed in the 7ita "nana, 2ha%ti, 3arma et#, all reonneted to the $dvaita 6edanta.
he teahings that ome from 3rishnamaharya are mostly fo!sed on the asana aspet of the pratie and are !s!ally more aimed towards therape!tial aspets. 3rishnamaharya was a traditional vadya "traditional ay!rvedi dotor# and !s!ally people were seeing him to get a therape!ti ons!ltation, Iyengar for example was one of those people. In fat we an see that all the modern yoga “styles” that have their root in 3rishnamaharya are strongly fo!sed on the asana aspet. We an say that most "if not all# of the modern yoga pratie is a derivative of atha &oga, whih is different from atan/ali yoga. he fat that today all the yoga shools refer to atan/ali rather then 7ora%nath "who traditionally is onsidered the “father” of the atha yoga system# is d!e probably to the infl!ene of 6ive%ananda. 6ive%ananda with his boo% “8a/a yoga”, probably infl!ened by the theosophist was the one who revived atan/ali. his revival was probably d!e to the fat that the d!alisti darshan of atan/ali is loser to the 6edi orthodox view, while atha yoga, whih has its roots in the tantri tradition, at that time didn)t have a good rep!tation and was often was assoiated with bla% magi and withraft. o probably 6ive%ananda revived atan/ali to %eep the &oga pratie more “p!re”, in fat he re/eted everything that o!ld be assoiated with tantra, inl!ding hatha yoga. $fter 6ive%ananda, ivananda and 3rishnamaharya ontin!ed the revival of atan/ali. ivananda was a sannyasi of the dashnami order fo!nded by han%araharya while 3rishnamaharya was a 6aishnava. 2oth the $dvaita 6edanta and the 6aishnava tradition are in line with the 6edi orthodoxy and onse!ently with atan/ali)s view. ivananda !nli%e 6ive%ananda did not re/et atha yoga, b!t inorporated it into his system of teahings. We an say that from 3rishnamaharya emerges most of the different &oga ”styles” we see today. he two most pop!lar st!dents of 3rishnamaharya were Iyengar and athabi ois. 4rom Iyengar we have the alignment based yoga pratie %nown as “Iyengar &oga” and from athabi ois we have the dynamise!ene pratie alled “$shtanga 6inyasa”. 2oth Iyengar and athabi ois developed a pratie that is mostly based on $sana and both of them refer mostly to atan/ali rather then to the atha yoga text or 7ora%nath.
$nd this is probably d!e to the infl!ene of the orthodox view of 3rishnamaharya. he yoga pratie ta!ght by ois too% the name “$shtanga 6inyasa &oga” or often “$shtanga &oga” and this an easily lead to a mis!nderstanding and onf!sion, if we onsider that “$shtanga yoga” !s!ally refers to atan/ali)s system. oday many pratitioners of $shtanga yoga or Iyengar or any other yoga “style” !s!ally laim that the pratie they are doing is the $shtanga yoga of atan/ali and in many of the yoga teaher training o!rses today it is !s!ally tho!ght that the yoga they teah is based on atan/ali, b!t most of the time we see people teahing mostly asana from the atha yoga tradition. o at this point it is neessary to ma%e a differene between atan/ali yoga and atha &oga. Patanjali Yoga and Hatha yoga
atan/ali yoga is desribed in terms of the mental field “9hitta”, we o!ld easily say that the yoga of atan/ali is the yoga of the mind and the system of atan/ali is based on eliminating the hitta vritti, the “movement” of the mind. $shtanga yoga is divided into external and internal yoga, we an say that external yoga is the reg!lation of the “external” expression of 9hitta, while Internal yoga is the reg!lation of the “internal” manifestation of hitta. &ama, :iyama, $sana, ranayama and ratyahara are ;xternal yoga)s.
If we all atan/ali yoga the yoga of the mind "9hitta#, I personally thin% that we an all atha &oga the yoga of the rana, where prana is the vital energy that allows !s to be alive. $nd probably the atha &oga system is based on the fat that ating on the rana we at indiretly on the mind. ,> “When the movement of prana is ompletely annihilated, then the mind is reabsorbed and then amadhi is onsidered attained” & ?,@ “hro!gh restraining the prana, tho!ght*o!nter tho!ght is restrained and thro!gh restraint of tho!ght*o!nter tho!ght, prana "air# is restrained. 9hitta has two a!ses, vasana and prana. When one of the two is destroyed or inativated the other also will beome immobile. When the mind is stilled, then the prana is s!spended there, and where prana is s!spended, there the mind is still.” & ?,>1->A o atha yoga wor%s on the prani field to at indiretly on the mental field.
In $y!rveda we find the same onept. $ording to the $y!rvedi tradition, eah individ!al is made !p of a ombination of A doshas' 6ata "movement#, itta "tranformation# and 3apha "stability#. 6ata dosha is generally responsible for movement, inl!ding the movement of the mind "hitta vritti#, so by red!ing 6ata dosha "assoiated to rana#, we help to alm the “hitta vritti”. $y!rveda and atha yoga have many ommon pointsB if we loo% at the shat%armas "p!rifiation tehni!es within atha yoga# we an see a great similarity with the tehni!es of the anha%arma "ay!rvedi therape!ti program where different p!rifiation tehni!es are !sed#.
he aim of $y!rveda is health and well being, while the aim of &oga "both atan/ali and atha yoga# is mo%sha. If we see both atan/ali and atha yoga we an say that they have some ommon points b!t there are some differenes as well. he ommon points are that both systems move towards the same aim' mo%sha. he differene is that atan/ali fo!ses on meditation "internal pratie#, while atha yoga fo!ses more on asana, pranayama, m!dra et "external praties#. $nother main differene is that sine atan/ali has its root in the d!alisti am%hya darshan, we see that there is a tendeny toward the separation between =atter and pirit, while hatha yoga has its root in the tantri philosophies and the tantri philosophy generally sees matter "inl!ding the body# as an expression of p!re onsio!sness. If we see the 2havanopanishad "a late sha%ta Cpanishad#, one of the main texts of the ri 6idya tradition, we an see that the physial body is assoiated with the ri &antra "the geometrial representation of the igher riniple#, and it)s at!ally worshipped. We o!ld say that, apart from the differenes, atha yoga in a ertain way is onneted to atan/ali yoga, if we see atha yoga as the external yoga ta!ght by atan/ali. Modern Yoga
:ow going ba% to modern yoga. $s we said in the beginning, modern yoga seems to be almost exl!sively fo!sed on the body*physial aspet, and often the fat that the pratie is so asana entri, an bring the modern pratitioner far from what the aim of yoga is. raditionally the texts spea% of D> asanasB today probably we have tho!sands of them. (ften the asana beomes /!st a fitness pratie or performane and in a way the pratie an beome more assoiated with 2h!%ti "pleas!re# then with =!%ti "liberation#, the original aim of yoga. :ow let)s try to answered the main !estion' “ow might a ontemporary teaher of &oga respond to the ritiism that modern pratie is ina!thenti bea!se it does not properly reflet ataE/ali)s teahings on &ogaF”
If we onsider atha yoga a!thenti, even if it has differenes with atan/ali, we an also say that modern yoga is a!thenti if it is done with the intention of reahing the same aim of atan/ali and atha yoga. If the aim of &oga is &oga, I thin% the pratie an be onsidered a!thenti. If atan/ali yoga is based on 9hitta*mind and atha yoga is based on rana*vital breath, we an say that modern yoga is based on the 2ody, and we o!ld say that the body is an expression of the vital breath. o ating on the body we at on the “prani field” that onse!ently ats on the mental field. o to a ertain extent we an say that the modern asana entri pratie is onneted to atan/ali)s system, b!t I wo!ld not say that the modern yoga pratie is the yoga of atan/ali. It is generally tho!ght that the body post!re is a refletion of mental*emotional patterns, so wor%ing on the body aspet an also effet the internal pattern "mental field#, b!t I thin% that this theory applies only if the external wor% of the asana is done with f!ll awareness of the onnetion of body - mind. If we %eep in the modern pratie of asana the witnessing attit!de ta!ght by atan/ali, we are on the same lines as atan/ali and witnessing witho!t getting involved is the basi pratie toward the separation of !r!sha from ra%riti. (ften today we see many yoga style that adopt a dynami form of asana pratie, and this an lead to the !estion'” sho!ld the asana be omfortable and steady”F I thin% that yes, the aim of the asana is to be able to have a position omfortable and steady, where there is the balane between alertness and relaxation, ideal for the pratie of meditation and the dynami asana pratie an be a tool to be able to reah that point' going from the movement to the stillness, from 9hitta 6ritti to :irodaha. o the dynami pratie an be a preparation for the stati asana that is a preparation for meditation as explained in atan/ali. $nd also, for many people the dynami pratie is a sort of “moving meditation” that an be a good preparation for sitting meditation.
$nother point o!ld be, the aim of yoga is mo%sha while the aim of the modern pratie is therapy*well being. I)d say that mo%sha is also abo!t therapy and well-beingB we an see mo%sha as the !ltimate therapy, the elimination of all s!ffering.
2efore aiming at =o%sha traditionally we sho!ld f!lfil 3ama, $rtha and
