{"id":953,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:33","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=953"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:33","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:33","slug":"47-hathayoga-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20\/47-hathayoga-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-47_Hathayoga.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nChapter XXVII<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/span>Hathayoga<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n


\nT<\/font><\/span><\/b>HERE<\/span><\/font> are almost as many ways of arriving at
\nSamadhi as there are different paths of Yoga. Indeed so great is the importance
\nattached to it, not only as a supreme means of arriving at the highest
\nconsciousness, but as the very condition and status of that highest
\nconsciousness itself, in which alone it can be completely possessed and enjoyed
\nwhile we are in the body, that certain disciplines of Yoga look as if they were
\nonly ways of arriving at Samadhi. All Yoga is in its nature an attempt and an
\narriving at unity with the Supreme, \u2013 unity with the being of the Supreme, unity
\nwith the consciousness of the Supreme, unity with the bliss of the Supreme, \u2013
\nor, if we repudiate the idea of absolute unity, at least at some kind of union,
\neven if it be only for the soul to live in one status and periphery of being
\nwith the Divine, sālokya<\/i>,
\nor in a sort of indivisible proximity, sāmīpya<\/i>.
\nThis can only be gained by rising to a higher level and intensity of
\nconsciousness than our ordinary mentality possesses. Samadhi, as we have seen,
\noffers itself as the natural status of such a higher level and greater intensity.
\nIt assumes naturally a great importance in the Yoga of knowledge, because there
\nit is the very principle of its method and its object to raise the mental
\nconsciousness into a clarity and concentrated power by which it can become entirely
\naware of, lost in, identified with true being. But there are two great
\ndisciplines in which it becomes of an even greater importance. To these two
\nsystems, to Rajayoga and Hathayoga, we may as well now turn; for in spite of
\nthe wide difference of their methods from that of the path of knowledge, they
\nhave this same principle as their final justification. At the same time, it
\nwill not be necessary for us to do more than regard the spirit of their
\ngradations in passing; for in a synthetic and integral Yoga they take a
\nsecondary importance; their aims have indeed to be included, but their methods
\ncan either altogether be dispensed with or <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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used only for a
\npreliminary or else a casual assistance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hathayoga is
\na powerful, but difficult and onerous system whose whole principle of action is
\nfounded on an intimate connection between the body and the soul. The body is
\nthe key, the body the secret both of bondage and of release, of animal weakness
\nand of divine power, of the obscuration of the mind and soul and of their
\nillumination, of subjection to pain and limitation and of self-mastery, of
\ndeath and of immortality. The body is not to the Hathayogin a mere mass of
\nliving matter, but a mystic bridge between the spiritual and the physical being;
\none has even seen an ingenious exegete of the Hathayogic discipline explain the
\nVedantic symbol OM as a figure of this mystic human body. Although, however, he
\nspeaks always of the physical body and makes that the basis of his practices,
\nhe does not view it with the eye of the anatomist or physiologist, but
\ndescribes and explains it in language which always looks back to the subtle
\nbody behind the physical system. In fact the whole aim of the Hathayogin may be
\nsummarised from our point of view, though he would not himself put it in that
\nlanguage, as an attempt by fixed scientific processes to give to the soul in
\nthe physical body the power, the light, the purity, the freedom, the ascending
\nscales of spiritual experience which would naturally be open to it, if it dwelt
\nhere in the subtle and the developed causal vehicle.<\/span><\/p>\n

To speak of
\nthe processes of Hathayoga as scientific may seem strange to those who
\nassociate the idea of science only with the superficial phenomena of the
\nphysical universe apart from all that is behind them; but they are equally
\nbased on definite experience of laws and their workings and give, when rightly
\npractised, their well-tested results. In fact, Hathayoga is, in its own way, a
\nsystem of knowledge; but while the proper Yoga of knowledge is a philosophy of
\nbeing put into spiritual practice, a psychological system, this is a science of
\nbeing, a psycho-physical system. Both produce physical, psychic and spiritual
\nresults; but because they stand at different poles of the same truth, to one
\nthe psycho-physical results are of small importance, the pure psychic and
\nspiritual alone matter, and even the pure psychic are only accessories of the
\nspiritual which absorb all the attention; in the other the physical is of
\nimmense importance,
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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the psychical a considerable
\nfruit, the spiritual the highest and consummating result, but it seems for a
\nlong time a thing postponed and remote, so great and absorbing is the attention
\nwhich the body demands. It must not be forgotten, however, that both do arrive
\nat the same end. Hathayoga, also, is a path, though by a long, difficult and
\nmeticulous movement, duhkham āptum<\/i>,
\nto the Supreme.<\/span><\/p>\n

All Yoga
\nproceeds in its method by three principles of practice; first, purification,
\nthat is to say, the removal of all aberrations, disorders, obstructions brought
\nabout by the mixed and irregular action of the energy of being in our physical,
\nmoral and mental system; secondly, concentration, that is to say, the bringing
\nto its full intensity and the mastered and self-directed employment of that
\nenergy of being in us for a definite end; thirdly, liberation, that is to say,
\nthe release of our being from the narrow and painful knots of the
\nindividualised energy in a false and limited play, which at present are the law
\nof our nature. The enjoyment of our liberated being which brings us into unity
\nor union with the Supreme, is the consummation; it is that for which Yoga is
\ndone. Three indispensable steps and the high, open and infinite levels to which
\nthey mount; and in all its practice Hathayoga keeps these in view.<\/span><\/p>\n

The two main
\nmembers of its physical discipline, to which the others are mere accessories,
\nare āsana<\/i>, the habituating of
\nthe body to certain attitudes of immobility, and prāņāyāma<\/i>, the regulated direction and
\narrestation by exercises of breathing of the vital currents of energy in the
\nbody. The physical being is the instrument; but the physical being is made up of
\ntwo elements, the physical and the vital, the body which is the apparent
\ninstrument and the basis, and the life energy, prāņa<\/i>, which is the power and the real instrument. Both
\nof these instruments are now our masters. We are subject to the body, we are
\nsubject to the life energy; it is only in a very limited degree that we can,
\nthough souls, though mental beings, at all pose as their masters. We are bound
\nby a poor and limited physical nature, we are bound consequently by a poor and limited
\nlife-power which is all that the body can bear or to which it can give scope.
\nMoreover, the action of each and both in us is subject not only to the <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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narrowest limitations,
\nbut to a constant impurity, which renews itself every time it is rectified, and
\nto all sorts of disorders, some of which are normal, a violent order, part of
\nour ordinary physical life, others abnormal, its maladies and disturbances. With
\nall this Hathayoga has to deal; all this it has to overcome; and it does it
\nmainly by these two methods, complex and cumbrous in action, but simple in
\nprinciple and effective.<\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nHathayogic system of Asana has at its basis two profound ideas which bring with
\nthem many effective implications. The first is that of control by physical
\nimmobility, the second is that of power by immobility. The power of physical
\nimmobility is as important in Hathayoga as the power of mental immobility in
\nthe Yoga of knowledge, and for parallel reasons. To the mind unaccustomed to
\nthe deeper truths of our being and nature they would both seem to be a seeking
\nafter the listless passivity of inertia. The direct contrary is the truth; for
\nYogic passivity, whether of mind or body, is a condition of the greatest
\nincrease, possession and continence of energy. The normal activity of our minds
\nis for the most part a disordered restlessness, full of waste and rapidly
\ntentative expenditure of energy in which only a little is selected for the
\nworkings of the self-mastering will, \u2013 waste, be it understood, from this point
\nof view, not that of universal Nature in which what is to us waste, serves the
\npurposes of her economy. The activity of our bodies is a similar restlessness. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is the
\nsign of a constant inability of the body to hold even the limited life energy
\nthat enters into or is generated in it, and consequently of a general
\ndissipation of this Pranic force with a quite subordinate element of ordered
\nand well-economised activity. Moreover in the consequent interchange and
\nbalancing between the movement and interaction of the vital energies normally
\nat work in the body and their interchange with those which act upon it from
\noutside, whether the energies of others or of the general Pranic force
\nvariously active in the environment, there is a constant precarious balancing and
\nadjustment which may at any moment go wrong. Every obstruction, every defect,
\nevery excess, every lesion creates impurities and disorders. Nature manages it
\nall well enough for her own purposes, when <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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left to herself; but the
\nmoment the blundering mind and will of the human being interfere with her
\nhabits and her vital instincts and\u00a0 <\/span>intuitions,
\nespecially when they create false or artificial habits, a still more precarious
\norder and frequent derangement become the rule of the being. Yet this
\ninterference is inevitable, since man lives not for the purposes of the vital
\nNature in him alone, but for higher purposes which she had not contemplated in
\nher first balance and to which she has with difficulty to adjust her
\noperations. Therefore the first necessity of a greater status or action is to
\nget rid of this disordered restlessness, to still the activity and to regulate
\nit. The Hathayogin has to bring about an abnormal poise of status and action of
\nthe body and the life energy, abnormal not in the direction of greater
\ndisorder, but of superiority and self-mastery.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first
\nobject of the immobility of the Asana is to get rid of the restlessness imposed
\non the body and to force it to hold the Pranic energy instead of dissipating
\nand squandering it. The experience in the practice of Asana is not that of a cessation
\nand diminution of energy by inertia, but of a great increase, inpouring,
\ncirculation of force. The body, accustomed to work off superfluous energy by
\nmovement, is at first ill able to bear this increase and this retained inner
\naction and betrays it by violent tremblings; afterwards it habituates itself
\nand, when the Asana is conquered, then it finds as much ease in the posture,
\nhowever originally difficult or unusual to it, as in its easiest attitudes
\nsedentary or recumbent. It becomes increasingly capable of holding whatever
\namount of increased vital energy is brought to bear upon it without needing to
\nspill it out in movement, and this increase is so enormous as to seem
\nillimitable, so that the body of the perfected Hathayogin is capable of feats
\nof endurance, force, unfatigued expenditure of energy of which the normal
\nphysical powers of man at their highest would be incapable. For it is not only
\nable to hold and retain this energy, but to bear its possession of the physical
\nsystem and its more complete movement through it. The life energy, thus
\noccupying and operating in a powerful, unified movement on the tranquil and
\npassive body, freed from the restless balancing between the continent power and
\nthe contained, becomes a much greater and more
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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effective force. In
\nfact, it seems then rather to contain and possess and use the body than to be
\ncontained, possessed and used by it, \u2013 just as the restless active mind seems
\nto seize on and use irregularly and imperfectly whatever spiritual force comes
\ninto it, but the tranquillised mind is held, possessed and used by the
\nspiritual force.<\/span><\/p>\n

The body,
\nthus liberated from itself, purified from many of its disorders and
\nirregularities, becomes, partly by Asana, completely by combined Asana and
\nPranayama, a perfected instrument. It is freed from its ready liability to
\nfatigue; it acquires an immense power of health; its tendencies of decay, age
\nand death are arrested. The Hathayogin even at an age advanced beyond the
\nordinary span maintains the unimpaired vigour, health and youth of the life in
\nthe body; even the appearance of physical youth is sustained for a longer time.
\nHe has a much greater power of longevity, and from his point of view, the body
\nbeing the instrument, it is a matter of no small importance to preserve it long
\nand to keep it for all that time free from impairing deficiencies. It is to be
\nobserved, also, that there are an enormous variety of Asanas in Hathayoga, running
\nin their fullness beyond the number of eighty, some of them of the most
\ncomplicated and difficult character. This variety serves partly to increase the
\nresults already noted, as well as to give a greater freedom and flexibility to
\nthe use of the body, but it serves also to alter the relation of the physical
\nenergy in the body to the earth energy with which it is related. The lightening
\nof the heavy hold of the latter, of which the overcoming of fatigue is the
\nfirst sign and the phenomenon of utthāpana<\/i>
\nor partial levitation the last, is one result. The gross body begins to acquire
\nsomething of the nature of the subtle body and to possess something of its
\nrelations with the life-energy; that becomes a greater force more powerfully
\nfelt and yet capable of a lighter and freer and more resolvable physical
\naction, powers which culminate in the Hathayogic siddhis or extraordinary
\npowers of garimā, mahimā,
\nanimā and laghimā<\/i>. Moreover, the life ceases to be entirely
\ndependent on the action of the physical organs and functionings, such as the heart-beats
\nand the breathing. These can in the end be suspended without cessation of or
\nlesion to the life. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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All this,
\nhowever, the result in its perfection of Asana and Pranayama, is only a basic
\nphysical power and freedom. The higher use of Hathayoga depends more intimately
\non Pranayama. Asana deals more directly with the more material part of the
\nphysical totality, though here too it needs the aid of the other; Pranayama,
\nstarting from the physical immobility and self-holding which is secured by
\nAsana, deals more directly with the subtler vital parts, the nervous system.
\nThis is done by various regulations of the breathing, starting from equality of
\nrespiration and inspiration and extending to the most diverse rhythmic
\nregulations of both with an interval of inholding of the breath. In the end the
\nkeeping in of the breath, which has first to be done with some effort, and even
\nits cessation become as easy and seem as natural as the constant taking in and throwing
\nout which is its normal action. But the first objects of the Pranayama are to
\npurify the nervous system, to circulate the life-energy through all the nerves
\nwithout obstruction, disorder or irregularity, and to acquire a complete
\ncontrol of its functionings, so that the mind and will of the soul inhabiting
\nthe body may be no longer subject to the body or life or their combined limitations.
\nThe power of these exercises of breathing to bring about a purified and
\nunobstructed state of the nervous system is a known and well-established fact
\nof our physiology. It helps also to clear the physical system, but is not entirely
\neffective at first on all its canals and openings; therefore the Hathayogin
\nuses supplementary physical methods for clearing them out regularly of all
\ntheir accumulations. The combination of these with Asana, \u2013 particular Asanas
\nhave even an effect in destroying particular diseases, \u2013 and with Pranayama
\nmaintains perfectly the health of the body. But the principal gain is that by
\nthis purification the vital energy can be directed anywhere, to any part of the
\nbody and in any way or with any rhythm of its movement.<\/span><\/p>\n

The mere function
\nof breathing into and out of the lungs is only the most sensible, outward and
\nseizable movement of the Prana, the Breath of Life in our physical system. The
\nPrana has according to Yogic science a fivefold movement pervading all the
\nnervous system and the whole material body and determining all its
\nfunctionings. The Hathayogin seizes on the outward move- <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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ment of respiration as a
\nsort of key which opens to him the control of all these five powers of the
\nPrana. He becomes sensibly aware of their inner operations, mentally conscious
\nof his whole physical life and action. He is able to direct the Prana through
\nall the Nadis or nerve-channels of his system. He becomes aware of its action
\nin the six Chakras or ganglionic centres of the nervous system, and is able to
\nopen it up in each beyond its present limited, habitual and mechanical
\nworkings. He gets, in short, a perfect control of the life in the body in its
\nmost subtle nervous as well as in its grossest physical aspects, even over that
\nin it which is at present involuntary and out of the reach of our observing
\nconsciousness and will. Thus a complete mastery of the body and the life and a
\nfree and effective use of them established upon a purification of their
\nworkings is founded as a basis for the higher aims of Hathayoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

All this,
\nhowever, is still a mere basis, the outward and inward physical conditions of
\nthe two instruments used by Hathayoga. There still remains the more important
\nmatter of the psychical and spiritual effects to which they can be turned. This
\ndepends on the connection between the body and the mind and spirit and between
\nthe gross and the subtle body on which the system of Hathayoga takes its stand.
\nHere it comes into line with Rajayoga, and a point is reached at which a transition
\nfrom the one to the other can be made. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 513<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter XXVII   Hathayoga    THERE are almost as many ways of arriving at Samadhi as there are different paths of Yoga. Indeed so great is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","wpcat-20-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}