So once again, thank you very much for having me here on a relatively short notice. It was
a kind of a last minute arrangement for which I am very grateful to Corina, to Theta. So
yes, today I will be talking about an issue that I talked about, one of the issues I talked
about in my book, Thinking in Asana, which is, let's say, an analysis of the modern
postural yoga practice and the relation between this practice and the interpretation of the
yoga philosophies that particular schools of modern postural yoga adopt. And yeah, I
will be talking about certain concepts coming from Patanjali's yoga. So I will be referring
to some, you know, Sanskrit concepts, some Sanskrit terms, although I am not a philologist,
I have learned some Sanskrit, I haven't used it, used it in a long time. So actually Sanskrit
itself will not be the focus, but rather how these terms are interpreted by modern way
specialists on postural yoga. And I hope, you know, some of these interpretations you
might find very interesting. So to clarify, you know, probably many of you know very well
about what modern postural yoga is, but for you who don't, a clarification. So this term was
proposed in 2004 by Elizabeth Demiquelis and refers to a group of, maybe more of a category of yoga
practice that focuses on the practice of yoga postures, or actually sequences of yoga postures.
Those systems of practice that started to develop in the 20th century under a variety of influences,
many of them Indians, some of them actually extra Indians in Western. This is the dysfunctional
practice where originally kind of, you know, maybe not originally, but mainly Anglophone and
transmitted via the English language, with of course then, you know, local translations as well,
and translational largely known all across the globe. And what interests will interest us here
today is that modern postural yoga systems, modern postural yoga lineages, they always claim some
continuity, you know, with the ancient yoga traditions, and they claim continuity, I mean,
most importantly with Patanjala yoga. So they really consider Patanjali as their, you know,
the forefather of yoga, the most important authority of yoga, they tend to very often refer
to what they call the yoga sutra, they will read the yoga sutra, they recite the yoga sutra,
they will try to, you know, interpret the yoga sutra. And they try to legitimize their practices
and find me like, like, find traces of this practice and in Patanjali and also try to interpret
Patanjali in such a way that, you know, their practice somehow fits to what it is believed
he was trying to say. So what is a problem that's why I found very interesting, as I said,
Patanjali I guess, is to be very important to modern yoga practitioners, modern postural yoga
practitioners. And sometimes they will tell you directly that their yoga is Patanjali yoga. But
when, you know, the, when scholars look at how Patanjali yoga is treated in this, these modern
postural yoga milieres, they will notice that this is a very strange interpretation. So some
have called it, you know, unfocused, polyvalent, some say it was kind of vague, very removed from
what Patanjali was actually intending to say. And it's, I was, and I was wondering, you know,
and it seemed to me that both of these claims are incomplete in some way. And as is actually a
modern postural yoga practitioner myself, I started realizing that, yes, what is being written
about Patanjali and Patanjali yoga by modern postural yoga instructors, teachers is, yes,
it's strange, it's different. But it does, there seems to be, let's say, a method to this madness,
this does seem to make sense in a particular way. And it's not just pure, you know, fancy,
it's not just purely, let's say, just random what these, these people are trying to say.
And I decided to see if, you know, there is some sort of a pattern if there, if there's a possibility
to find the reasons for why this interpretation is such and not another. And, and definitely this,
definitely, you know, there are many reasons, but whatever the authors, the modern authors,
writing a modern postural yoga, were writing, they were referring to, you know, varieties of
common, let's say, commonly available knowledge, then the knowledge that they had available on
yoga, they were referring to their own, sometimes to their own imagination, but
they were also probably referring to something else that then I will try to explain. But,
well, to go back to the part Angelina Shastra, so there is a problem with this text that's related
to it's the history of a reception. So, you know, the text was composed somewhere between the,
sometime between the fourth and the fifth century. And here, I'm actually referring to the theory of
pelvic mass, based on his study of the transmission of the manuscripts of
of the part Angelina Shastra, written, so the first manuscripts just combined together the
sort of sutras, and with the with the Hachel, the commentary, probably written by the same author.
And, and although they were written as a single whole at first, gradually they saw, they were
separated, first just formally, in the sense of editing, and then actually it came around the
11th century, I think was the first time that, for example, the yoga sutra was commented on as
a separate text, the text kind of disregarding the yoga vahasa or the self commentary.
So of course, the separation leads to the existing transmission of a text that's very
terse, very technical, in the sense, very, it gets it gives you very little information.
So, and of course, yes, although the sutra form would be a very technical, very rigorous form of
giving certain very, actually, this is very well defined concepts, without the context of this
commentary, this technicality, this kind of semantic terse, what might have not been
so clear. So gradually, it seems like what happened is eventually in modernity,
the sutras of Patanjali became aphorism, became sort of sort of cryptic texts that
were seen as something more akin maybe to, you know, visual poetry, to verse,
to some kind of some form that can be interpreted quite freely. And this indeed won't happen. And
another matter is also of course, the text once it started to, once it entered the angle of one
context, once it started to be translated into English, it was also attributed with great
importance, great value as this universally applicable text on yoga philosophy, or even
philosophy in general, almost like a real life philosophy, also in general. So yeah, the texts
became very important. Also, it became kind of cryptic, because it's, as I said,
it started to be interpreted as a collection of aphorisms. And that opened the possibility
for many people to comment it on it in a very, let's say, free and kind of individualistic way,
in the sense that it was this, these commentaries were not necessarily a part of a
philosophical dispute, so to say, but they were rather interpretations based on individual
understanding on individual experience. And of course, one commentary, the first commentary
that was written precisely in that manner was Swami Vivekananda's commentary from the end of
19th century, from 1896, in which he just took the sutras, translated them in a very,
very free manner that was already quite removed from, from, let's say, the original
technical translation, and then added to it his own commentary, practically creating his own,
like, own system of yoga. And this same practice has been repeated by many different authors,
and among them were the authors that I'm going to, who I'm going to discuss today. So they just
took the sutras, kind of, kind of translated them into English, and they just, you know,
added their own spontaneous and free interpretation. What spontaneous maybe is not a good word, but
very idiosyncratic, so to say. So I'm going to be talking about
three different lineages today. These are the three lineages I studied when I was
studying doing my research that appeared in my book, which is Vinayoga, Aindhayoga,
and Ashtanya yoga in the tradition of K. Patavi Joyce. So Vinayoga, or so-called Vinayoga, I should
say, is a system created, maybe created, it's not an appropriate word, but definitely developed by
D.K. Vidyasikachara, who was the father of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. So Tirumalai Krishnamacharya
is the person who connects these three lineages, because the three founders of these lineages were
all somehow, you know, the students or disciples of Krishnamacharya. And D.K. Vidyasikachara also
was Krishnamacharya's son. He was actually an engineer, and he came to yoga, I mean, he was,
he was a yoga practitioner as a very young person, as a child, as a young man, then he,
disengaged from due practice, went on to work, well, study and work as an engineer, but then
in the 60s he decided to go back to yoga, and then he became a yoga instructor, yoga teacher,
and he started to study with his father. So it seems that indeed his system of practice and his
entire theoretical system, combined with the system of practice, is descended quite directly
from Krishnamacharya. This was a system of practice that was developed in Chennai, in Tamil Nadu.
The second system is that of Ayyenga Yoga, developed by B.K.S. Ayyenga, who was also,
he was actually a brother-in-law of Tirumalai. There's a, there's an error in, spelling error,
it should be Tirumalai, not Tirumali. Anyway, he was Krishnamacharya's brother-in-law and
studied with him for just three years, until he moved to Pune, Maharashtra, where he developed
his system of practice. And the third one is Ashtanga Yoga, well, in the tradition of K. Parabhijoys.
Now, the association of Ashtanga Yoga with Parabhijoys has since become kind of problematic
because of a discussion of his instances of sexual abuse. But, so to what extent, you know,
the the monique Ashtanga Yoga in the tradition of K. Parabhijoys is still here today, it's a
diplomatic. But anyway, so the founder of this, of the system of practice was, was Parabhijoys,
who also studied with Tirumalai, Krishnamacharya, for like 25 years. He started with him
in Mysore and he also developed his system of practice in Mysore. And now, the problem with
Parabhijoys is that he was a man of very few words. He wrote, actually, he wrote one book
that he already originally wrote in Canada that was then translated into English. This book is
very test, very, and also, I would say, very unintellectual. And it doesn't really,
whereas, Tikabhijoys, because I younger have written on Patanjali, they have actually, as I said,
produced their own commentaries to the dress. But he just didn't really do that a lot. I mean,
he did comment on some of the concepts from Patanjali, but there's very little to work with
over there. So I, when I was doing my analysis, I referred to
writings of other people who have adopted this style of practice and who have become
authorities in the styles of, in the style of practice themselves. My main source was Gregor
Mille. Mille, I know how to pronounce him, he's Australian. Well, he's a kind of a German name,
but he's Australian. He wrote a book on Patanjali, interpreting Patanjali's system. And also,
I refer to Ershad Joyce, the grandfather of K. Parabhijoys, Tokino McGregor, John Scott, quite,
well, let's say celebrated teacher, Ashland Geger, teachers and instructors. They do not,
the three people you see in the bottom row, they do not offer a very, you know, verbose and
systematic elaboration of Patanjali, but they do mention and discuss some concepts. So I, yeah,
I referred to their work. And so today, my idea was to, so I discussed a few different concepts
in my book and tried to show how they kind of form their interpretations, form kind of systematic
models of yoga philosophy within three different systems. Today, I'd like to talk about
two of these concepts, which are Kriya Yoga and Sanyama. So Kriya Yoga as, so this is this
three-partied, three-partied part practice of Tapasvarya and Ishvara Pannitama.
This practice, so I mean, so these three elements are also listed as the three of the five niyamas
in Patanjali's, in Patanjali's Arshtanga Yoga system. And here I offer kind of, you know, brief
interpretations of, well, basically what's said about these concepts in Patanjali Yoga Shastra.
So Tapasvarya, Tapasvarya is a term that's usually translated as austerity. It's known
from before Patanjali, of course, actually the term already, so all the root tap, tap
related with the idea of heating, heating up is already found in, in, in, in Vedic literature.
And this concept of heating and fire and actually the transformative, destructive slash
productive role of fire and transformation by fire is quite important in different aspects of
what's the Indian philosophy. Actually, and we will see that actually this idea of heating
appears in the modern post yoga systems. But well, in Patanjali Tapasvarya is explained simply as,
well, a sort of an austerity in the sense of enduring pairs of opposites such as
standing and sitting, hunger, thirst, cold and heat. So basically the ability to endure
well, physically difficult, you know, conditions and quite importantly, the result of the practice
of Tapasvarya would be destruction of impurities and also the attainment of special power over
the body and the senses. Kaya and Blyasitya I think is a term Patanjali uses and this idea
of destroying impurities is something that the authors there have studied also pick up on.
And it seems it was kind of, you know, an individual recitation practice.
So that would be the recitation of purifying, purifying formulas such as the syllable om
in here, the term japa is used for the first thought for this practice, or also
so this is something that has been interpreted as, let's say, going over. So repeating over over
again of treatises, treatises on liberation, mokshashasta is a term that Patanjali uses,
and also it would have a particular result, the result which would be union with a desired deity,
ishta devata, which could be a god, it could be a sage, it could be a powerful yogin.
So that's all we know about Svartiya from the text, from other contexts. We know that this
and there was indeed an individual practice of reciting, kind of memorizing, or re-memorizing
various hymns or other texts present also outside of Patanjali gashastra.
And then we have the term ishvara pranipana,
possibly the offering to ishvara of one's actions and the effect of ishvara pranipana
would be samadhi, so the power of samadhi. And this is more or less all we know
from from Patanjali on these concepts.
And I should probably also, I'm not exactly sure that I will manage to cover these all, but
I'll try to. And then samyama, which is of course tardana,
bhihana, and samadhi, so the three, let's say meditative practices listed in Arshtanga yoga.
And yeah, the harana is understood as the fixation of chitta, so of let's say consciousness,
on a particular place, which can be an external, an object usually related to a part of the body,
such as navel, tip of the nose, or actually to a vishaya, so an object of the mind, a mental
object, let's say a mental control or some of some concept. So basically fixation on this
object here, and I would be, let's say homogenous flow of like reception
of this object, which actually the term pravaha is used here, suggesting this kind of fluid
movement, it seems, between chitta, between the object of meditation.
And then we have samadhi, and samadhi is of course a very complex subject, because it has a
variety of sub-stages of like sub-samadhi, of samapathis, it's so important, like I just said,
for like a super difficult issue to analyze the concept of samadhi and decide what it is.
So the short definition is that it would be kind of a continuation of
kyana, but when the object itself appears empty of its form, so it seems there's like a gradual
process of deconstructing the object of meditative focus, when actually, you know, ultimately in the
final stage of samadhi, the object is deconstructed totally, so that through this deconstruction,
the subject of focus can be, actually the subject who is doing the practice is revealed,
and here we'll see how this concept becomes interpreted. So now I would like to show you
some quotations, we're having what I've just said, having what I just said in the background, let's
see what had been written about these concepts by the authors I have studied. So first we have
tika vida sikachar. Tapas is a process of inner cleansing, this kind of figures because we know
that tapas is removal of impurities, or the destruction of impurities. This is removing
things that we do not need, but means of attention to body posture, eating habits,
and to breathing patterns. We already see here that the particular practices are related to the
concept of tapas, so we do postural practice, we do breathing exercises, so that breathing exercises
actually are very important in Vinayoga to achieve the effect of tapas, which is the inner cleansing,
and then he says that tapas helps to prevent the build-up of rubbish in the body,
including excess weight and shortness of breath. So there's the idea that there's a
rub, there's rubbish in the body that builds up and tapas is a way to remove it.
Then spartiya. This is also a, so now spartiya, a practice of recitation of mokshasastras or
repetition of om, here becomes getting close to yourself, or seeing a reflection of your mind
as we read and study certain texts. And also spartiya may imply referring to a teacher who
becomes a mirror that reflects ourselves from all directions. On the other hand,
Ishvara Pranthana would be concentrating on the quality of our steps along the way,
rather than on the goal itself. And then we have a more kind of conservative interpretation,
laying all our actions at the feet of God. Like, yeah, this one, as I said, is quite
conservative, but once again we have this strange concept of concentrating on the quality of the
steps rather than, yeah, on the goal of wherever these steps are leading. And I think this might
be actually a good idea to comment more on this now. So what I did in my work is I tried to
look at the particular practice, forms of practice of yoga
that was,
I'm just kind of, you know, reconsidering the structure of my lecture as I get. So anyway,
so my hypothesis was that modern post-yoga specialists, such as, for example,
D.K. Vidasika Shah, whom we are now discussing, used their own experience coming from yoga practice
together, of course, with other forms of background knowledge to interpret Patanjabi.
So basically, there's this assumption that the way you move your body, you know, if you do this
regularly, if you create some very prominent patterns of movement, for example, patterns of
feeling the body and also the world around you, this will start to influence the way you are
thinking. It will start to influence the way you think you make sense of the world and you start
to consider different concepts. And this is, this claim is based on theories of embodied meaning.
Such theories exist within cognitive linguistics, so such research as George Legel is the most
famous one, Mark Johnson, actually Mark Johnson is a philosopher, Legel is a linguist,
or Ronald Langaker, for example, they postulated that. When we create, so let's say first we have
concepts, then we have language, which is kind of, you know, let's say the embodiment of concepts,
and both of them, when we think, and then when we speak about what we're thinking,
we use as building blocks recurrent elements of our experience. These may be, and usually they
have a sensory basis, so well, you know, visual, usually visual domains will be the most important
one, but sensory domains provide us with experience.
And that also refers to movement, the first of kinesthesia, for example, you know,
lines, points, objects, moving along the lines, exerting force, having social interactions.
This, we use kind of basic experience to kind of construe objects, let's say in our mind's eye,
and then when we start using language, we kind of use the same concepts to create linguistic
expressions, and also these particular experiences provide us with metaphors through which we may
talk about abstract concepts. So, for example, you know, movement or sensory experience may become
a metaphor to talk about things, and the more complex, the more abstract things we talk about,
the more we are going to need this very basic rudimentary experience to explain them. So
given that,
yeah, why would, for example, Tehkavi Desikachar in his book, The Heart of Jurgen, this is how this
book I'm quoting from, was called, why would he use such strange expressions to interpret concepts?
So why would he use these ideas that are not at all present in Patanjali Yoga Shastra?
One thing about preventing the build-up of rubbish in the body, in tapas. So,
in being yoga, as I said before, a very important practice is the practice of, well, basically of
pranayama, of breath retention, and actually it's more than that. So not even as much the
separate, a separate practice of pranayama, but rather combining breathing, a very specific style
of breathing into all forms of practices, including asana practice. So the idea is that
one should, a practitioner should first learn to breathe very slowly, and basically the practice
is to gradually extend your breath so that a proficient practitioner will be able to, and
the breath is being pounded, so you will be able to, let's say, take an inhalation that might,
might, let's say, take 12 seconds, then after this inhalation, for example, a practitioner may
hold the breath for another 12 seconds, or for however many seconds they can, then even they get
this also very slowly exhale for however long it's actually, you know, is suggested at this
particular practice, and then hold your breath after extra exhalation, for example. So there are
different many patterns, many different patterns, patterns, but the idea is that breathing is very
conscious, also very kind of slow, slow down, slow down from almost to as long as possible gradually,
and this is accompanied, for example, by asana practice. So you're going to be moving your body
extremely slowly, in synchrony with the breath, so the slower you breathe and the slower you move,
and of course, as you may imagine, this is not an easy practice, and actually, you know, the
once the more you get used to it, the easier it becomes, but for a beginner practitioner,
this is of course going to be challenging with tracking, this technically you're not encouraged
to, you know, leave your comfort zone, so that what is important to actually go to to a state where
you're completely short of breath. Nonetheless, there's always quite a lot of, quite a lot of
substantial effort involved. And so I was trying to, like, you know, critically explore this
experience, I was doing these practices myself on observing how it feels like, and seeing whether,
you know, this experience might actually, you know, tell me something and give me some,
you know, metaphors to, to maybe understand, you know, for example, what, what the sicker child is
writing in his book. So I realized that this experience of this difficult breathing that
actually at the beginning gives you an idea that there's, you know, there's something like almost
stuck in your throat is very actually compatible with the way that a sicker child writes about
yeah, the body and the build up of rubbish in the body. So his idea is basically that yes, the,
you know, impurities, the rubbish is stuck inside of the body.
And by doing these breathing practices, we can remove, well, basically through breath,
ultimately, the rubbish will be removed through the mouth. It won't be it's not as easy to remove
it first, you have to actually burn it with your the fire of the abdomen. But once it is burned,
it can be removed. So there's this idea that first, there's something that obstructs
the inside of the body obstructs basically a breathing tract. And then you can, once you
through appropriate practices, once you burn it and remove it, it is gone through your body. So
it seems that this particular way of breathing, this particular breathing practice might is like
it's a strong contender for explaining why this model of, you know, there being rubbish in the
body and the rubbish being removed from the body is present in in the theoretical theoretical
interpretations or to get this guitar. Another method that's interesting is the practice of
aspartia. So, as I said, Patanjumi says that this is the aspartia means
it's just, let's say, a recitation practice. However, as we know, there was this idea that,
you know, you should repeat repeatedly besides the mokshas, the treatises on liberation,
the authoritative text on mokshas. And already Swami Vivekananda at the end of the 19th century
rephrased this concept. Interpreting aspartia was basically, you know, reading authoritative texts,
so you can, you know, gain knowledge from reading these texts. So this idea of recitation practice
is kind of shifted towards just, you know, and kind of analytical reading of, you know, kind of
more academic kind of reading, I would say, you know, thoughtful reading of a text. So this idea
of thoughtful reading is associated with the idea of studying, right? So you are studying a text.
And what happens with, for example, Tika Vidyasikachara, and the same thing happens with
Dikayas Iyengar and Iyengar Yoga, that this idea of Svaad here, so Svaad with this prefix would be,
let's say, would indicate reflectively to the self, to mean to the self,
is understood as the studying of the self. So whereas it seems that for Patanjali, this Svaad,
this prefix Svaad just meant that this was a practice performed on your own, so, you know,
in the comfort of your own, whatever, wherever you were doing the practice, here it becomes the
practice of your, of studying, of the studying of yourself. But what does this mean? What does the
study of yourself mean for Tika Vidyasikachara? To get close to yourself, this is a very strange
concept, as if you had to step out of yourself and from the outside, you know, kind of get closer,
which is kind of coherent with this idea that you're seeing a reflection of yourself,
or, you know, so basically you have an external object, which is a mirror. And in that mirror,
you can see yourself kind of, you know, from all directions it is set. And importantly,
this mirror that reflects yourself is either a certain text, an authoritative text, or a teacher,
or another person. And to better understand this idea that you kind of, you know,
look at yourself from the outside, it's, I think it's easier to understand it also
when you look at the concept of Ishvara Pranithana. So we learn here that Ishvara Pranithana
means concentrating on the quality of your steps. So we have the idea of walking,
stepping, step after step, walking in a direction. There's clearly an idea that there is a goal at
the end of our walk. But rather than looking towards that goal, you know, in moving while
with our gaze fixed on the goal, we should look down and look at the steps, just, you know,
concentrate of one step after another. And so two things are important here. When,
you know, performing Ishvara Pranithana, which is a part of yoga practice, you can't look around,
you know, you can't see yourself because you're focused on basically, you know,
each step that you take. So you will need another way to kind of, but still there's this idea that
you have to kind of check yourself, you know, you have to be able to kind of scrutinize whatever
will sell what is going on with you during your yoga practice. So you will need that external
perspective. And this external perspective is offered to you by either an authoritative text
or by a teacher. And now how does this relate to the concept of yoga practice and yoga movement
in this style of practice? So I already told you about being yoga being this practice of
synchronizing movement with the breath. This is one thing, another thing that's very important to
notice that movement is really of paramount importance here. Because at the outset of a
Vinayoga practice, the practitioner is not simply meant to, you know, take up an asana and stay in
it. But rather, they're supposed to move in the asana, kind of move forward and backward. So usually,
for example, very often the practice will may start with a standing posture. But rather than
just staying in a posture, the practitioner is going to enter the posture and move out of it,
enter a posture and move out of it. So basically, they engage in kind of a backward and forward
movement. And this movement is also represented very linearly. So you don't really focus on the
particularity of the movement. But for example, if you're just, you know, bending forward, let's say,
so you perform the simple posture, which says upanasana, which is just basically, you know,
forward bend, will first have to lift your arm with inhalation, then very slowly go down to a full bend
while exhaling, then inhale and come up again, and then remove your arms down. And then you will do
that for like, you know, six to 12 times in a rollover slowly, kind of back and forth, arms up,
down, arms up, arms down, all that is synchronized with your breathing. So as you when you
experience this kind of movement, you kind of realize that your arms are kind of, you know,
going along the line, back and forth, your body kind of moves back and forth along the line,
and what becomes really very salient in this practice is this, yes, this linearity, this
like, you know, although you're not moving ahead, you're stuck in one place, because you're actually,
you know, performing this back and forth movement, you really do experience this kind of linear
motion. And very importantly, while you do that, you don't look around the very, very common,
so basically, in Vinayuga, a practitioner either has their eyes completely closed, this is happening
when the person sits down, when the person lies down. But for example, in all standing postures,
the eyes are always down, you don't look ahead, you don't never look up, you're always supposed
to have your eyes really low. So we can see that with the Sikhachal, this idea of looking down,
rather than ahead or around was very present in his practice. And it seems to have
influenced also how, you know, interpreted certain concepts. So when you practice yoga,
your head, your eyes are humbly down. And this is also your kind of embodied
representation of Ishvara Pranithana walking. But when you do that, so when you do your practice,
you know, kind of real gay, with your focused gaze, there's always an instructor present. So in
Vinayuga, the most, I mean, there are different forms of practice, there are also group practices.
But the most typical classical form of practicing is a one to one class with an instructor. So there
will be an instructor and the instructor never practices with the practitioner. So we are very
used, sorry, we are very used in modern yoga classes, that there's a big group as the instructor,
like, you know, somewhere in front of the group, they probably will practice with the group
in synchrony. This does not happen in Vinayuga. The instructor is there on the side, sitting or
standing and just telling in a very simple, very, very rudimentary words, telling to some guiding,
let's say the practitioner, you know, by counting the breath, by telling them which movement to make,
but they're always kind of on the outside. And apart from this practice, the instructor before
the practice, after the practice may have some consultations with, with, with the practitioners
that then they may, you know, offer some advice, prescribe diet, prescribe further practice,
whatever. So there's this idea that it's always, you know, that the instructors always sit in there
on the outside, and he or she is the eye that sees the practitioner from all directions,
which practitioner has no ability to do, because they're focused on their own gaze. And
so my claim is that, for example, the concept of Isvana Prayampana
and of Swati Aya is very much informed by this particular situation, this particular form of
practice and the practitioner-instructed relation that happens during practice. And by the way,
for example, the concept of Purusha, presented by Ayenga is, is very similar, very also related to
this construct. So Purusha basically is this seeing being that seated at the departure point
way of a road, of a path, and sees all. So it seems that the figure of the instructor,
the teacher is also kind of present in the interpretation of the notion of Purusha.
So now, moving on to Sanyama. This, this also maybe, maybe somewhat surprising quotes should
make some sense in relation to what I've just said. So Dharana, holding the concentration of,
or focus of attention in one direction. This is quite conservative, holding, holding the
concentration, like super familiar, especially that Dharana comes from the, from the route to
called the grip. But he talks about focusing attention in one direction. So he doesn't talk
about so much the object of focus as the direction of focus. So this moving in a particular direction,
this maybe establishing a direction is already present. And here was once again, I would say that
this seems to be this concept seems to be very strongly related to this experience of this kind
of, you know, creating a direction of movement in asana practice, going forward or sideways,
or sideways, always in simple lines that really make this notion of direction very in a very
salient. He also talks about establishing contact. So she says that Dharana is establishing contact
with the object of focus. Whereas Dharana next step is establishing a link between the self and
the object, it's communicating with the object. And further, Dharana is the ability to develop
interactions. So what was interpreted as this passive law of attention between the, let's say,
meditating subject at the object and the object of focus for the signature becomes communication
becomes something that is like reciprocal, you know, there's this notion of reciprocity,
which, in my experience, is also very strongly related to the concept of, of a student and
practitioner, student or an instructor or practitioner and instructor relation video.
And generally in, in the sikachas writing, the idea of interpersonal contact of developing,
you know, relations with other people is super important. And this was definitely of all the,
all the three, you know, more than poster yoga founders, he seems he was like the most pro
social person him for him, this interpersonal contact was clearly very important. And it also
entered his, his way of thinking about Dharana. Semadhi has a somewhat different construal.
And I would only focus on this of this one, because he talks about Samadhi in a few parts
of his book. This particular quote seems especially interesting. Samadhi is the state where the mind
has no impressions of any thought and nothing is beyond its reach. So it turns out that the
measure of reaching was also very present in the sikachas writing in, you know, different
interpretations. Actually, his entire concept of yoga is in yoga is reaching towards something.
And I would like to refer to what I said earlier about him, you know, this fast enough practice
involving a lot of hand movements, and it's very often it is that your arms are those who actually
are the best to guide your movement. So if you want to go to a forward bend, you don't just bend,
but you extend your arms very slowly. And to quote, like a typical class, arms lead the movement,
very often it is arms or one arm, if you're going sideways or sideways or you twist the arm leads
the movement. So what do you do when you, you know, the most fundamental association with,
you know, arms like this or like that is the act of reaching. Usually when you
outstretch your arms, you use that, you do that to get something that's out of your reach, right?
So it seems that normally in asana practice, a practitioner will not reach for anything,
that just, you know, the object is indiscriminate. It's not, it's just done for the purpose of kind
of, you know, marking the direction that you move, but still it seems that the experience of reaching
is just actually a super fundamental experience, you know, that becomes super important already
for very young children who will reach for whatever is out of their reach, becomes a strong,
like, you know, metaphorical domain. So you can start, so the seeker just starts to talk about
different concepts using the idea of reaching. And he claims that in samadhi nothing is beyond
reach. So you do not have to reach anymore. It's like the mind has already arrived to a point where
there is no need for reaching. And of course, at first he talks about the blending of the mind with
the object meditation, which is not exactly what Patanjali meant, but definitely the idea of kind
of removing the subject of the object distinction in some way, but in case of
the cachar, it seems that this, you know, loss of distinction between the subject and the object.
Yeah, actually Patanjali talked about something absolutely different than the loss of distinction,
but let's say in popular interpretation, this is what very often happens, this is the idea
that kind of, you know, a subject and object become one. And in this case, they become one
because nothing is like, because the object is no longer beyond the mind's reach, which seems like
quite an idiosyncratic interpretation. So to give context, to show something just completely
different now, a few quotations because Ayenga. So once again, we go to the concept of Kriya Yoga.
So tapas, the, well, the austerity related with usually with an idea of heating up.
For Ayenga is the blazing desire to burn away the impurities of the body,
senses and mind or a burning effort that involves purification, self-discipline and austere practice.
So as we see that there's also the idea of destroying the impurities that's already present
in Patanjali, but, you know, the idea of heating up is turned into the blazing desire of a burning
effort. So the idea of burning is actually understood metaphorically as zeal. So it's not
literal fire, it's the metaphorical fire of just being passionate about your practice.
But this last quote, I think is most interesting. So tapas is that inner hymnsa, inner violence,
which we create this, yeah, this spelling error here. But anyway, it really created the
possibility of outer ahimsa. So there is an idea in Ayenga's writing that
you can perform acts of inner violence, which might sound pretty, yeah, also idiosyncratic.
And only this inner violence, this violence performed somehow inside of the body
can make us ethical and be, you know, cultivate ahimsa on the outside.
And to commend that, so basically, Ayenga yoga practice is a practice of, as compared to,
this is something that's not present in yoga, which in which the attitude of these tractors
was very gentle, very welcoming, and very accepting. Because Ayenga was known as a very
harsh teacher. And for very long, definitely very recently, this idea of harshness was very
strongly associated with the practice. I mean, practice is uncomfortable and difficult and
demanding in many different ways. But also there's this idea of creating kind of
great enthusiasm towards this practice, but also through quite harsh means, you know, shouting,
sometimes, Ayenga would go as far as just shouting at students, slapping students somehow, this kind
of boot camp, you know, attitude, with actually bits of something that we would nowadays
identify as active acts of violence. So, and you know, Ayenga, of course, always always claimed
that he was also, you know, exerting the same attitude on himself. So I mean, it's not when
you when you go to an Ayenga yoga class, and you that actually has this, not all classes
are that, and I think with time less, and less of them are like that. But this kind of, you know,
energetic and, let's say, attitude, verging on the forms of use, it was very often present in
these classes. The idea of, you know, this burning effort becomes, you know, and basically, at the
same time, people are just getting tired, basically, because, for example, they have to stay in a
particular position for a very long time, because Ayenga yoga usually us and us are held for a long
time. So it is very easy to, to experience this concept of tapas during practice. But what's very
interesting here is the idea of inner hymnsa. So, and to understand this idea of inner hymnsa,
it's good to look at, for example, the interpretation, Ayenga's interpretation of Svaatkaya,
because, like in the case of Dikadhi Desikachar, Svaatkaya becomes the studying, the study of the
self. So like, you know, direct it towards the self. But this time, he says it's a study of
oneself from the body to the inner self. And here, actually, he refers to a particular concept of
kosha. So the sheets, different kinds, sheets of different kinds of subtlety, but also, he goes,
also talks about journeying from the skin to the core and back again. So basically, there's the
idea that Svaatkaya is going deeper, deeper and deeper into the body until you use you reach the
core of the body. And actually, in many parts of his writing, he actually kind of describes this
experience, how this inner journey should look like, how you travel, not only through these
kosha, so through these postulated sheets of the body, but actually how you should travel through
the physical body, getting to know every part of the body as you go on. And this is something that
Ayyenga not only writes about in, you know, like in his theoretical books, let's say, like
the Vipampatandari, but he also introduced that in practice. And a very, like one of the thing
trademarks of Ayyenga Yoga is that during us to a practitioner is put in an asana, so they're made
to perform an asana, and the person is stuck in an asana, and then the instructor will give a person
a whole gamut of instructions that are aimed at feeling what a particular part of the body feels
like. So now, for example, you're supposed to feel your toes, and adjust the positioning of your
toes, you're supposed to feel your knees, adjust the position of your knees, you're supposed to
feel your buttocks, and adjust the position of your buttocks. Once you progress, you're actually
told to feel more and more inward parts of the body. So the, you know, the more advanced
practitioners, the most, the less focus you will have on his toes or knees, because this is already
taken care of. But the more they will think about, you know, there will be tools to take out their
kidneys about the, you know, inner layer, inner layers of their whatever mucous membranes or the
lining of their inner ribs or other parts of the inside of the body.
So in a practice, the practitioner is basically constructed to, instructed to not only imagine
like an inward map of the body, but to actually feel it to experience it. So literally, this
practice is like this conceptual journey through the body. And this. So yeah, then, you know,
you're stuck in the position of thinking how your alleged kidneys, kidneys feel. So, and this is
exactly as far as the eye. So this is a super embodied concept of this, of this, you know,
category coming from Patanjali. And then when you think about that, like thinking about this inner
himself also makes sense, because in the practice of Asana, you're not really concentrated,
concentrating so much on the, you know, the outside of your body, or so much in the relation,
you know, on the on the movement of the body in the external environment, as in the case of Vinic,
you know, as much as on the inside of the body. So actually, it's the inside of the body that
becomes your main focus. So when you are doing your practice, and when you're exerting tapas,
you know, when you're supposed to experience your tapas, it's also directly towards the inside of
the body. And this control also ties nicely to the concept of Isvara Pranithama, which,
yeah, once again, there's this idea of kind of, you know, surrendering to, to Isvara, who in this
case is interpreted as God. But also Isvara Pranithama is something that brings the inner being
to his creator. And this interpretation, bringing the inner being to his creator is also very
strongly related to this kind of experience on the inside of the inside of the body during the
practice. Because basically, what the practitioner does is, let's say they put the awareness or the
attention, you know, whatever, however you may construe that in the inside of the body, right.
And what that results in, and this is also something that's good, this is guided kind of
through practice instructions, is this awareness is kind of objectified. So let's say that you
concentrate on a particular part of your body, there's this idea that your awareness is now in
this part of the body. So if your focus, let's say on, I don't know, yeah, on your left kidney,
whatever, your awareness is in the left kidney. So ultimately, your inner being, you know, is in
your left kidney. And this inner being is usually associated actually with the category buddhi. So
one of the components of chitta or sometimes chitta, sometimes mudhi. So these kind of, you know,
cognitive components in Patanjali Yoga Shasta, or in general in Sangha Yoga, they are located inside
the body. So you may, so let's say your intelligence of buddhi is now in your kidney,
or it can be in your little finger, it can be in your left buttock, wherever you're concentrating.
So this is this really strange anthropomorphization when your body becomes kind of, you know,
all the little people, all the little, you know, consciousnesses, all the awarenesses that are
placed all around your body. And so in this process, of kind of, you know, being conscious
of the inside of your body, you're also supposed to meet Ishvara. So Ishvara is here, it's, it's a
very converted concept, which Ishvara becomes kind of the highest god, it becomes like Paramatvan,
he uses the terms chitta sometimes, yeah, kind of these are interchangeable for Ayyenga,
but also the universal self, he also uses the term the universal self. So it's a very
vague and kind of, you know, conception of highest, whatever, god, that's very actually,
you know, transdomination, yeah, transdomination, denominational. But also there is this idea that
you meet this god who's the creator, the, you know, Paramatman, you meet this being in the body.
So basically, you can meet God in your knee or your toe or your kidney. And yeah, Ishvara
Kannidhana is what brings you gradually to this meeting. This meeting is actually some
art that is understood by Ayyenga as this kind of union with the divine self inside of the body.
So I had the following idea, because I have been going on for quite a long time. And I could
stop right now and ask you simply for questions and comments. And if there's anything, you know,
that the further part of the presentation will,
will cry, I find that I will move, because basically what I've given you the structure
already, I still have a few more examples coming from the Ayyenga yoga and from Shtanga yoga.
But I think I've made my point right now. So I will be happy if you have any questions or comments.
And then I'll be happy to try and answer them.