(First published 27/7/09) Here are some thoughts about yoga and practice for you to contemplate and explore during the sultry, stormy and changeable summer months. TKV Desikachar, renowned yoga teacher based in Chennai (Madras), India, was asked “Can anyone practice yoga?” He responded: “Anybody who wants to, can practice yoga. Anybody can breathe: therefore anybody [...]
Category Archives: Philosophy
Inside Yoga 19
(First published 7/3/09) Following on from the last chapter of Inside Yoga, about the mind, I want to speak about the heart, not the physical blood engine that sustains us, but the emotional heart. “Chitta also means the heart and dwells in the heart. This is not the physical heart but the central core of [...]
Inside Yoga 18
(First posted 23/2/2009) “The mind is the vital link between the body and the consciousness,” says BKS Iyengar. In my classes, I often refer to the mind, in connection with the breathing and the physical body. But what is the mind? The mind is the collection of our thoughts on one hand, and on the [...]
Inside Yoga 17
(First posted 17/1/09) One of the most important principles of a yoga practice, and specifically, asana yoga practice, is the teaching of “sthira” and “sukha”. In the foremost yoga text, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, he describes an asana (yoga posture) as having two important qualities: sthira and sukha. Sthira is steadiness and alertness. Sukha refers to [...]
Inside Yoga 14
(First published 10/11/2008) The body is mentioned frequently in yoga, in relation to the breath, and in relation to the mind. There is a vast selection of postures available in yoga, from gentle resting positions to complicated athletic positions that seem impossible to get into. But is it all about the body? It is possibly [...]
Inside Yoga 10
(First published 27/6/2008) All of us, to varying degrees, are aware of the different stages of the 24-hour daily cycle: there is dawn, the morning, afternoon, dusk or sunset, and night. But how many of us notice how the levels of energy fluctuate through this daily cycle, how there is a rhythm both outside of [...]
Inside Yoga 9
(First published 25/5/2008) In this chapter of Inside Yoga, we turn to the final three aspects of Hatha Yoga’s eight limbs: dharana, dhyana and samadhi. As a reminder, the first five parts were yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, and pratyahara. The sage Patanjali, author of the yoga sutras, groups dharana, dhyana and samadhi under the word, [...]
Inside Yoga 8
(First published 5/5/2008) So far I have introduced the first four parts from the eight limbs of yoga: yama, niyama, asana and pranayama. The fifth limb is called pratyahara, which is usually translated as “withdrawal of the senses”. This is either the silencing of the senses and keeping them in their position passively, or the [...]
Inside Yoga 7
(First published 13/4/2008) Following on from the last chapter in which I introduced pranayama. Prana refers to “that which is infinitely everywhere”, it is the life force and the energy that is within us and in the world around us. In the ancient texts of India, it says that someone who is troubled, restless, or [...]
Inside Yoga 6
(First published 21/3/2008) In the first chapter of Inside Yoga I have introduced the first three parts in the eight limbs of hatha yoga: yama, niyama, and asana. There is a thread that connects the various aspects of yoga and that is the breath. Breathing is essential to life – it feeds us and sustains [...]
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