Dear reader, if you notice any error in the paragraph numbers in the hyperlinks, please let us know by dropping an email at integral.edu.in@gmail.com
|}
=Hathayoga=
==What is Hathayoga?==
Hathayoga is a powerful, but difficult and onerous system whose whole principle of action is founded on an intimate connection between the body and the soul. ...The body is not to the Hathayogin a mere mass of living matter, but a mystic bridge between the spiritual and the physical being;...scientific processes to give to the soul in the physical body the power, the light, the purity, the freedom, the ascending scales of spiritual experience which would naturally be open to it, if it dwelt here in the subtle and the developed causal vehicle.
...Hathayoga is, in its own way, a system of knowledge; but while the proper Yoga of knowledge is a philosophy of being put into spiritual practice, a psychological system, this is a science of being, a psycho-physical system... It must not be forgotten, however, that both do arrive at the same end. Hathayoga, also, is a path, though by a long, difficult and meticulous movement, ''duḥkham āptum'', to the Supreme.
All Yoga proceeds in its method by three principles of practice; first, purification,...secondly, concentration,...thirdly, liberation...The enjoyment of our liberated being which brings us into unity or union with the Supreme, is the consummation; it is that for which Yoga is done. Three indispensable steps and the high, open and infinite levels to which they mount; and in all its practice Hathayoga keeps these in view.
The two main members of its physical discipline, to which the others are mere accessories, are ''āsana'', the habituating of the body to certain attitudes of immobility, and ''prāṇāyāma'', the regulated direction and arrestation by exercises of breathing of the vital currents of energy in the body. ... it does mainly by these two methods, complex and cumbrous in action, but simple in principle and effective.
The Hathayogic system of Asana has at its basis two profound ideas which bring with them many effective implications. The first is that of control by physical immobility, as the power of mental immobility in yoga of knowledge the second is that of power by immobility.
It is the sign of a constant inability of the body to hold even the limited life energy that enters into or is generated in it...the first necessity of a greater status or action is to get rid of this disordered restlessness, to still the activity and to regulate it. The Hathayogin has to bring about an abnormal poise of status and action of the body and the life energy, abnormal not in the direction of greater disorder, but of superiority and self-mastery.
The first object of the immobility of the Asana is to get rid of the restlessness imposed on the body and to force it to hold the ''Pranic'' energy instead of dissipating and squandering it... —just as the restless active mind seems to seize on and use irregularly and imperfectly whatever spiritual force comes into it, but the tranquilised mind is held, possessed and used by the spiritual force.
The body, thus liberated from itself, purified from many of its disorders and irregularities, becomes, partly by Asana, completely by combined Asana and
''Pranayama'', a perfected instrument. ...The lightening of the heavy hold of the latter, of which the overcoming of fatigue is the first sign and the phenomenon of "utthāpana" or partial levitation the last, is one result. ...the Hathayogic siddhis or extraordinary powers of ''garimā, mahimā, aṇimā'' and ''laghimā''. Moreover, the life ceases to be entirely dependent on the action of the physical organs and functionings, such as the heart-beats and the breathing.
All this, however, the result in its perfection of Asana and Pranayama, is only a basic physical power and freedom. The higher use of Hathayoga depends more intimately on Pranayama. ...but the principal gain is that by this purification the vital energy can be directed anywhere, to any part of the body and in any way or with any rhythm of its movement.
The Prana has according to Yogic science a fivefold movement pervading all the nervous system and the whole material body and determining all its functionings. The Hathayogin seizes on the outward movement of respiration as a sort of key which opens to him the control of all these five powers of the ''Prana''. …a complete mastery of the body and the life and a free and effective use of them established upon a purification of their workings is founded as a basis for the higher aims of Hathayoga.
...this depends on the connection between the body and the mind and spirit and between the gross and the subtle body on which the system of Hathayoga takes its stand. Here it comes into line with Rajayoga, and a point is reached at which a transition from the one to the other can be made.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/hathayoga</ref>
===Cultivating Hathayoga===
''Q:'' ''Mother, in the physical education we practise here our aim is a greater and greater control over the body, isn't it? So, as Sri Aurobindo has said in what we read last time, that the Hathayoga and Tantric methods give a very great control over the body, why don't we introduce these methods into our system?''
''A.'' These are occult processes for acting on the body—the Tantric ones, at any rate—while the modern methods of development follow the ordinary physical process to give the body all the perfection it is capable of in its present state. ...the basis of all these methods is the power exercised by the conscious will over matter. ...movements, on the other hand, if they are made consciously, deliberately, with a definite aim, suddenly start helping you to form your muscles and build up your body. ...these very movements with the will to develop this muscle or that, to create a general harmony in his body—he succeeds. ...Therefore, what I mean is that the method one uses has only a relative importance in itself; it is the will to obtain a certain result that is important.
The yogi or aspiring yogi who does asanas to obtain a spiritual result or even simply a control over his body, obtains these results because it is with this aim that he does them, whereas I know some people who do exactly the same things but for all sorts of reasons unrelated to spiritual development, and who haven't even managed to acquire good health by it! ...This amounts to saying that it is the conscious will which acts on matter, not the material fact. ...This means that you can use all the movements of your life for a harmonious development of your body. ...So, you choose the method you like best, but you can use the whole of your daily life in this way. ...To think constantly of the harmony of the body, of the beauty of the movements, of not doing anything that is ungraceful and awkward. You can obtain a rhythm of movement and gesture which is very exceptional.
"Something there is in us or something has to be developed, perhaps a central and still occult part of our being containing forces whose powers in our actual and present make-up are only a fraction of what could be, but if they became complete and dominant would be truly able to bring about with the help of the light and force of the soul and the supramental truth-consciousness the necessary physical transformation and its consequences. ...But even these changes would still leave a residue of material processes keeping the old way and not amenable to the higher control and, if this could not be changed, the rest of the transformation might itself be checked and incomplete. A total transformation of the body would demand a sufficient change of the most material part of the organism, its constitution, its processes and its set-up of nature." <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/17-july-1957#p2</ref>
<center>~</center>
Mechanical, these are the Asanas, Hathayoga. It is done with this intention. ...The psychological method is Yoga. To seek within oneself through introspection what is permanent, what is constant. That's all. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/16-december-1953#p4</ref>
<center>~</center>
But don't get into a meditation posture! And don't tense up; just let yourself go, as if you simply wanted to rest—but not in an empty hole. To rest in a mass of infinite force... a supple solidity. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/03/may-29-1962#p64</ref>
<center>~</center>
No use doing asanas and pranayam. It is not necessary to burn with passion. What is needed is a patient increasing of the power of concentration and steady aspiration so that the silence you speak of may fix in the heart and spread to the other members. Then the physical mind and subconscient can be cleared and quieted.
<center>~</center>
The asanas are one means for control of the body, as is Pranayam for the life-forces, but neither is indispensable.
<center>~</center>
Mother thinks that the shirshasana is not safe for your eyes. While some of these asanas are simple and safe, others are not so; they require a training of the body or practice under the eye of an expert. It might not be prudent for you to take them up in an amateur fashion.
<center>~</center>
Pranayam is safe only if one knows how to do it and is on guard against its possible dangers: (1) danger to health by mistakes in the method, (2) rising of the vital forces, especially lust, egoism and wrongly directed strength and force, (3) the awakening of concealed sanskaras of the physical nature or latent karma from past lives.
<center>~</center>
... it is not safe to do Pranayam without guidance by one who is expert in Rajayoga or Hathayoga. Pranayam is not a part of the sadhana here.
<center>~</center>
...it is not safe to do Pranayam except under the directions of a guru who is siddha in either Rajayoga or Hathayoga. Gasping is obviously a sign of something wrong—for the breathing in Pranayam must be perfectly unimpeded and regular.
<center>~</center>
Your experience is correct. The true breathing is not merely the inspiration and expiration from the lungs which is merely the mechanism of it, but a drawing in of the universal energy of Prana into every cell of the body.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/sankhya-and-yoga#p18
</ref>
===Benefits of Hathayoga===
...By its numerous "āsanas" or fixed postures it first cures the body of that restlessness which is a sign of its inability to contain without working them off in action and movement the vital forces poured into it from the universal Life-Ocean, gives to it an extraordinary health, force and suppleness and seeks to liberate it from the habits
...robust health, prolonged youth, often an extraordinary longevity are attained. On the other hand, Pranayama awakens the coiled-up serpent of the Pranic dynamism in the vital sheath and opens to the Yogin fields of consciousness, ranges of experience, abnormal faculties denied to the ordinary human life while it puissantly intensifies such normal powers and faculties as he already possesses…<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-systems-of-yoga#p9
</ref>
<center>~</center>
Asana is used by the Rajayoga only in its easiest and most natural position, ...Coupled with the use of the mantra it brings the divine energy into the body and prepares for and facilitates that concentration in Samadhi. <ref>
http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/rajayoga#p7
</ref>
<center>~</center>
...the way made clear for the ascent through the greater psychic being to the union with the superconscient Purusha. This can be done by Pranayama.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/rajayoga#p6</ref>
===Limitations of Hathayoga===
The results of Hathayoga are thus striking to the eye and impose easily on the vulgar or physical mind. And yet at the end we may ask what we have gained at the end of all this stupendous labour. The object of physical Nature, the preservation of the mere physical life, its highest perfection, ...On the other hand the physical results, increased vitality, prolonged youth, health, longevity are of small avail if they must be held by us as misers of ourselves, apart from the common life, for their own sake, not utilised, not thrown into the common sum of the world's activities. Hathayoga attains large results, but at an exorbitant price and to very little purpose. <ref>
http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-systems-of-yoga#p10
</ref>
=Different Schools Of Yoga=