Other people may not understand that, but for the person who is going through it, that is the biggest thing. Right now if you have a backache, the biggest thing in the universe is your backache. When it is hurting badly it is hard to aspire for anything higher because that becomes the biggest thing. Suppose some part of your body – your hand, leg or back, for instance – is hurting. The body can become a means for your spiritual growth or it can become a major barrier. If you consciously get your body into different postures, you can elevate your consciousness.ĭedicating a certain amount of effort and time to see that the body does not become a barrier is important. The converse of this is the science of asanas. For every different level of consciousness or mental and emotional situation that you go through, your body naturally tends to assume certain postures. If you have observed yourself, when you are angry, you sit one way if you are happy, you sit another way if you are depressed, you sit another way. There are other dimensions to this, but to put it in the simplest way, just by observing the way someone is sitting, you can almost know what is happening with him, if you have known him long enough. “Asana” means a “posture.” That kind of posture which allows you to reach your higher nature is a yogasana.

Understanding the mechanics of the body, creating a certain atmosphere, and then using body postures to drive your energy in specific directions is what hatha yoga or yogasanas are about. You want to get up, but your body says, “Shut up and sleep.” It has its own way, doesn’t it? Hatha yoga is a way of working with the body, a way of disciplining, purifying and preparing the body for higher levels of energy and possibilities. Let us say you decided, “Starting tomorrow, I will get up at five in the morning and go for a walk.” You set the alarm. The body itself has its own attitudes, its own ego, its own nature. The science of using the body to hasten your evolutionary process is hatha yoga. The body is a very large part of who you are right now. There is really no division as such yoga employs all aspects of who you are.

It is important that all of them are addressed in a very balanced way, all at once, as one single unit. Like this, many steps have been created, but they are only different facets of yoga. You work with the body, then you move to the breath, then to the mind, then to the inner self. To attain that unity within you, there are many ways. Sadhguru: When you experience everything as oneness in your consciousness, then you are in yoga.

Isha hatha yoga sequence pictures