hatha yoga

Constant practice is the secret to success. —Dharma Mittra

A standard cliché about asana practice is that its purpose is to prepare the body for spiritual practice, but that asana itself is nothing but bodily movement that does not transform one in fundamental ways. Many simply accept and reiterate this view, without thinking about it critically or examining the unstated assumptions that underlie it.

The most basic assumption underlying this view is that asana practice is not spiritual because th…

“Why do I practice yoga?” For a long time, I let that question marinate. Of course, I could find a hundred reasons why I was practicing the limbs of yoga—but I was inquiring about the heart of practice. After years of daily practice, it dawned on me that purification of our “five bodies” is the purpose of the right-handed path of yoga.

According to yogic philosophy, we are in fact composed of five bodies. We have a physical body, which the yoga tradition calls the “food body.” We have an energy b…

Among the five elements—earth, water, fire, air, and space—water is the only one that can transform into all others. When waters contracts it becomes the earth element. When water expands and speeds up it becomes air. Fire is the element that bridges water and air. (Indeed fire expresses watery and airy qualities in its undulations.) The element of air spreads continuously eventually turning into space. So water we might conclude (not earth) is the ground element, the one from which all others d…