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Spirituality and
Hatha Yoga: Yoga for Mind, Body & Spirit
by Marianne Woods Cirone,
M.S., R.Y.T., Certified Yoga Teacher |
While most
Americans probably begin Hatha yoga practice for the physical and
stress reduction benefits, most have heard about yoga's spiritual
aspects. There are often debates about whether yoga should be taught
purely as a physical practice, or whether the spiritual side should be
taught as well. This debate especially appears regarding yoga taught
in settings such as health clubs, where spirituality is clearly not the
primary reason that most students are there. One of my instructors
for yoga teacher's training offered his opinion that nonetheless, even the most
physically-oriented student knows at the back of his or her mind that yoga
is something more than that, and is some how attracted to it .
Despite popular
understanding and websites entitled, 'yoga for health and fitness'
the origin of yoga was "about union of soul with God and not a
collection of physical and/or breathing exercises to promote good health
or reduce stress," to quote Sudhir Anand, the author of The Essence of Hinduism
, an excellent book on the Hindu tradition and its
relationship to yoga.
According to Anand and other yoga experts, yoga is a primarily spiritual
science used in the Vedic Hindu tradition that includes physical
elements. The science used in the Vedic Hindu tradition to achieve a
long, healthy life is in fact a separate entity known as Ayurveda.
Yoga has been said to be the esoteric aspect of the exoteric Hindu faith--
a direct experience as opposed to a doctrine based on the experiences of
others. David Lipschutz of the Temple of Kriya Yoga explains
his view of the philosophy of yoga or other esoteric traditions as,
"don't take my word for it, try it yourself". He parallels
yoga and Hinduism to Islam and Sufism, Catholicism and Rosicrusianism, or
Judaism and Kaballah. A highly acclaimed new book by the yoga
scholar Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D. entitled The Yoga Tradition: History, Religion, Philosophy and Practice
fully delves into these questions. Yoga is clearly stated to
be a science and not a religion because the results are consistent whether
one is believes in a particular way. It is often said that yoga does
not interfere with the practice of other religions, but many people are
suspect. I have seen articles in fundamentalist Christian magazines
warning against yoga and have been told by a Catholic religious educator
that "you never want to empty your mind, as in meditation, because that is
when the devil could come in."
In my Hatha Yoga teachers
training program, I have had the pleasure of spending several long weekend
retreats with other students of yoga who have successfully combined their
love of yoga with active practice of various religious traditions.
We have shared the company of a sincere and enthusiastic Franciscan
Sister who
is directs a retreat center in Ohio where she teaches yoga in addition to
other practices. She commented,
“I felt at home [with the meditation] since my faith tradition has given
me much along these lines, but doing meditation with extra pointers and
new techniques, as well as being with very interested people was a real
gift to me.”
Another
student in our program is a young mother from the Chicago suburbs who is
not only currently practicing Judaism, she keeps a kosher kitchen-- a deep
commitment to spirituality in our current fast food age. She
explained to me how keeping kosher helps her to focus on the spirituality
of her daily activities-- since she is going to do them anyway, why not do
them mindful of a spiritual connection? Her spiritual interests are paralleled
by another student who is active in the Unity Church, a Christian religion
which believes in affirmative prayer and the God within each
person.
These
are just a few examples of the ways in which yoga devotees successfully
incorporate an array of spiritual practices into their lives. While
many of the popular yoga books today and virtually all of the videos focus
on the physical aspect of yoga primarily or exclusively, there are many
resources available for those who wish to delve further into the spiritual
aspects. There is great overlap between the spiritual, philosophical
and physical aspects of yoga, so it is difficult to extract one part
without bringing part of the other. For those who are interested in
more of the yoga philosophy, click here
to see the section of this
website which discusses this further.
One
popular book today which strongly reaches into the spiritual roots of yoga
is Jivamukti Yoga
by
David Life and Sharon Gannon. Despite warnings
about the dangers of
incorporating strong spirituality, chanting and Sanskrit into their yoga
classes, Life and Gannon developed very successful yoga centers called
Jivamukti Yoga (Jivamukti means 'liberation from separation') and have
written a book which emphasizes the yogic scriptures on which the practice
is based. This book provides detail on sequencing of poses in their
style which is probably closest to Ashtanga or 'power' yoga, but does not
provide detail on the poses, so one would need other resources or
experience in order to practice this properly).
For
those who are interested in a logical examination of yoga, mysticism and
God, a highly recommended book is How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali
by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood. This book on the yoga sutras is called a "lucid
and very readable" book, highly recommended in the Keep it Simple
System Guide to Yoga, called a "must have" for serious students
of life. Patanjali is the 'codifier' of yoga, in that he wrote down the
precepts of the verbal tradition after thousands of years of its
existence. The system of hatha yoga as it is practiced today
is primarily based on the yoga of Patanjali-- thus this book is a key
piece of reading material for all yogi's and yogini's-- and all those
wanting to explore more about spirituality.
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