Yoga is in the news again, though no longer as a panacea for all the world(s)' problems, or as a benign souvenir from the so-called mystical "East," but as an easy way to injure one's body. If you are a yoga practitioner who believes that your practice (or your guru's practice) has its roots in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (or as some yoga teachers call him, "Pot and Jolly") then be warned: there are dangers when yoga is practiced incorrectly that are far greater than mere bodily injury. In fact, if one fosters the wrong cognitive habits while doing yoga then the danger is rebirth in this mundane reality (samsara). Thinking the wrong thoughts while doing a downward facing dog pose (adho mukha shvanasana) (or while observing someone else do a downward facing dog pose!) will delay release from the cycle of birth and rebirth, known in the Yoga Sutras as the preeminent state of kaivalya (isolation).
Worried?
You should be.
According to Patanjali, the root cause of suffering and rebirth is an incorrect cognitive habit, namely the misidentification of consciousness (purusha) with the material world (prakriti). The body, one's body, of course, is included in this. In fact, it is only when one isolates, separates and distinguishes consciousness from materials stuff, from one's body, that one can achieve liberation. This goal of reaching and maintaining the right cognitive habit is attainable by following the practices enjoined in the ashtanga (eight limbs) of yoga, only one of which is asana (posture).
So for Patanjali the postures (asana) of yoga are a mere means to an end, and not an end in and of themselves. The body is used, then, as an instrument for attaining the right cognitive habit, divorcing and detaching consciousness (purusha) from the material world (prakriti), from the body. In the same way that some poetry serves to move the reader outside of language, the body can be used to transcend the body.
It is thus ironic that so many do yoga as a mere physical practice, or as a way to meet other body-aware people wearing spandex, or expensive and politically correct, but nonetheless sexy, yoga outfits. Practicing yoga this way leads to rebirth and suffering. In fact, obsession with one's body (and with the person's on the mat in front of you!) conflicts fundamentally with what is prescribed by Patanjali.
So, while it is true that yoga can wreck your body, Patanjali thought that obsession with your body in yoga (and with the bodies of others) can wreck your mind, reinforce your undesirable cognitive habits, and can sabotage your chances for breaking out of the cycle of birth and rebirth!
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For me as a fat, very unhappy teenager who drank and smoke Hatha Yoga was a revelation. I immediately lost all my excess weight, stopped drinking and smoking, and started on a journey that would last 40 years and continuing! Meditation is difficult, and for many people it's good to start with body work. But the point is; we should not stop there. The essence of Yoga is that I am not the body. I am the innermost self beyond body, thoughts and feelings. Yet we must start with where and who we are: and for most of us, that is the body.
Thanks for a great discussion!
Until my next posting...
If we look at the phenomenon of Yoga as its practiced today (especially in the West), it is clear that it is simply a combination of two limbs of the 8 prescribed by Patanjali (ie Asana and Pranayama). In fact a lot of times it is simply Asana (or Physical postures).
That this overwhelming fixation on the physical body is detrimental in the "true" purpose of Yoga is a no-brainer. Doing so only reinforces the Ego and creates more modifications of Consciousness. So, then that is what should be called "Viyoga" (or Separation, instead of Yoga, which means union).
I therefore propose that all body-fixated schools of Yoga change their practice name to Viyoga. Or alternately, change their practices to include the remaining 6 or 7 limbs of Yoga to be qualified as Yoga.
:)
Should we call him Viyogacharya?
Yoga is to Hinduism, what heating is to baking. You are the oven, yoga is the heat, jnana is the cake. Any one can practice the Yoga Asanas (postures, streches) - it doesn't matter who you are or what you happen to believe. You can say I don't need all that Hindu mumbo-jumbÂo nonsense, let me just stretch my back. Fine. But when the oven is heated, it starts to bake, and the kundalini starts to tingle and buzzzzz your chakras, your 'ChristianÂ' priest is not going to give you any answers. Zilch. Nada.
The Asanas are the process - when it actually starts to go to work on you, bake you, you better be prepared. You will need help.
http://wwwÂ.manblundeÂr.com/searÂch/label/kÂundalini
The various chakra, nadi are NOT imaginary - once kundalini is activated "properly" you will have "real" experience of these in your "physical" body. If yoga is disconnected from Hindu "mumbo-jumbo", there is nothing else out there to explain these "real" experiences and guide us in a safe way towards mukti. Materialists and atheists should allow themselves the complete freedom to experiment "safely" and find out for themselves if any of this "mumbo-jumbo" is real or not.
Much of the problem seems to be that many Internet-based resources (which people understandably turn to, these days) pathologize yoga-related experiences and changes to the body-mind system (i.e. "Kundalini support groups") and such.
If a person practices yoga deeply, with liberation as his or her goal (i.e. if the practitioner follows the Yoga Sutras or a similar yogic text), a lot of neuro-physiological and psychological changes will take place -- many of which are experienced as uncomfortable or frightening.
I know of a few websites with good information and resources for dealing with these types of changes, in various ways and from various perspectives, in a rational and balanced manner. Here are three (I know the founder of the first, am affiliated with the second, and the third one is mine, FYI to all).
http://www.biologyofkundalini.com/
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/
http://livingunbound.net/
I don't know if he was anticipating lululemon yoga wear!
Rebirth and suffering? Spiritual/religious mumbo-jumbo.
If I could find a yoga class without all the spiritual nonsense I would be a much happier person. There are no chakras and we don't have a third eye. I understand that these are meant to be taken symbolically, but come on. Let me relax and do my poses. I don't need people reciting a bunch of hindi words to me they don't really understand to sound insightful.
http://www.thenewyoga.org/
I highly recommend everything by him.
Some of the concerns there about 'Will this achieve ultimate enlightenment' may be premature at best. Right now in the West, the spiritual issue is not so much 'failure to try and transcend the material,' ...in fact, it's considered to be *mandatory* in a lot of ideas of Spirit... Which are about dogma and *denial* of the body, not of working through it, to transcend or whatever one wants this time. 'The West' since monotheism came along has been kind of tied up in trying to argue or 'spank' ourselves out of the material, and in the process, however much the material is decried, it's only like spinning wheels in mud: or being in so much *denial* even of rebirth that everyone treats every life as a one and only chance to 'swing for the fences' ..instead of playing it right and just getting on base and making progress.
And that ain't addressing karma, whether you deny the body or, as I think a lot of people here are doing now, sometimes going to yoga class, ...just trying to figure it out. Denial of the body isn't 'transcending' it, just putting energy into denying it. Over and over.
Consciousness has more levels to it that most people realize, but they're all actually here and operating all the time; we just tend to not notice the more subtle levels, per artificial over-focus on the content of mind.
That's where yoga, and the "transcendence beyond the body" come in .... related practices help us to become familiar with our own formless consciousness that's always already here ... but the final phase of yoga is one of embodied integration (how could it be yoga, union, if experience of the physical is "jettisoned", or as is more likely, per your comment, denied, permanently?
That's why tantric paths can often be useful -- they take the very areas of over-focus of form --- body, diet, thought, sex, time, language, etc., and "re-purpose" these things for use as vehicles out of limited consciousness, and into a more rich and complete experience of life.
Patanjali's path of body-transcendence is just one school of yoga, representing the techniques (the yoga) connected with one school of Indian philosophical thought (Samkhya).
There are many others, some of which don't teach body-transcendence at all (i.e. Kashmir Shaivism, that I've mentioned in another comment or two).
What does this even mean? Do you even know what you're talking about?