Hathayoga Summary

Read more about Hathayoga from the works of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

What is Physical Education?

Physical education means chiefly the combination of all exercises for the sake of the growth and upkeep of the body and has three principal aspects: (1) control and discipline of the functioning of the body, (2) an integral, methodical and harmonious development of all the parts and movements of the body and (3) correction of any defects and deformities.

It teaches the cells to be conscious. But to develop the brain, it's study, observation, intelligent education—especially observation and reasoning. And naturally, for the whole education of the consciousness from the standpoint of character, it's yoga.

Why is Physical Education Important?

Sports help the body to prepare for the Transformation. And therefore for us spiritual life does not mean contempt for Matter but its divinization. We do not want to reject the body but to transform it. If there is impurity and insincerity within, the outer change will not be effective; but if there is a sincere inner working, the outer change will help it and accelerate the process.

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 two main members of its physical discipline, 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. These two methods, complex and cumbrous in action, but simple in principle and effective. Perfection of Asana and Pranayama, is only a basic physical power and freedom. The principal gain is that by this purification the vital energy can be direcHere it comes into line with Rajayoga, and a point is reached at which a transition from the one to the other can be made. All Yoga proceeds in its method by three principles of practice; first purification, secondly concentration, and thirdly liberatio. 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.

How to Cultivate Hathayoga Practice?

Though mechanical, these Asanas in Hathayoga are done with perception of the psychic being in us.The psychological method is Yoga. To seek within oneself through introspection what is permanent, what is constant.

Hathyoga and Tantric practises are occult processes for acting on the body 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 and to create a general harmony in the body— we succeed. 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. 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 thereby the conscious will which acts on matter, not the material fact. "Something there is in us 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

Why is Hathyoga Important?

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. Asana is used by the Rajayoga only in natural position, with the use of the mantra it brings the divine energy into the body and and facilitates concentration in Samadhi. The way for the ascent through the greater psychic being to the union with the superconscient Purusha can be done by Pranayama.

Different Schools of Yoga

Bhakti Yoga in itself is as wide as the heart-yearning of the soul for the Divine, resolves itself simply into these four movements:

• the desire of the Soul when it turns towards God and the straining of its emotion towards him,
• the pain of love and the divine return of love,
• the delight of love possessed and the play of that delight, and
• the eternal enjoyment of the divine Lover which is the heart of celestial bliss.

The triple Path of Works, of Love and of Knowledge is a direct commerce between the human Purusha in the individual body and the divine Purusha who dwells in every body and yet transcends all form and name. We perceive that as Hathayoga, dealing with the life and body, aims at the supernormal perfection of the physical life and its capacities and goes beyond it into the domain of the mental life, so Rajayoga, operating with the mind, aims at a supernormal perfection and enlargement of the capacities of the mental life and goes beyond it into the domain of the spiritual existence. the spiritual life, too much associated with the state of Samadhi. Object of Integral Yoga’s is to make the spiritual life and its experiences fully active and fully utilisable in the waking state and even in the normal use of the functions.

In Integral Yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous uprush of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, and on the other side a descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body. This descent is felt as a pouring in of calm and peace, of force and power, of light, of joy and ecstasy, of pure wideness and freedom and knowledge, of a Divine Being or a Presence—sometimes one of these, sometimes several of them or all together. “ Integral Yoga” is in its principle a taking up and summarising and completing of this process, an endeavour to rise to the highest possible supramental level and bring down its consciousness and powers into mind, life and body.

Read more about Hathayoga from the works of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.