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CONTENTS YOGA FOR YAHOOS First Lecture. First Principles Second Lecture. Yama Third Lecture. Niyama Fourth Lecture. Asana and Pranayama YOGA FOR YELLOWBELLIES First Lecture Second Lecture Third Lecture Fourth Lecture
… time in his life, he has become really unconscious of the body. Life has been one endless suffering; and now, so far as this particular Asana is concerned, the plague is abated. I feel that I have failed to convey the full meaning of this. The fact is that words are entirely unsuitable. The complete and joyous awakening from the lifelong and unbroken nightmare of physical discomfort is impossible to describe. 21. The results and mastery of Asana are of use not only in the course of attainment of Yoga, but in the most ordinary affairs of life. …
…so regular, with gradually increasing slowness, that we become unconscious of their operation. 6. Let us deal first with the question of Asana. It might be thought that nothing would be more soothing than swinging or gentle massage. In a sense, and up to a certain point, this is so. But the activity cannot be continued because fatigue supervenes, and sooner or later the body protests by going to sleep. We must, therefore, make up our minds from the start to reduce bodily rhythm to its minimum. 7. I am not quite sure whether it is philosophicall…
…have but one result: to fuddle your brain for the rest of your incarnation. 4. I am going to try to simplify. The main headings are: (a) Asana, usually translated 'posture,' and (b) Pranayama, usually translated 'control of breath.' These translations, as usual, are perfectly wrong and inadequate. The real object of Asana is control of the muscular system, conscious and unconscious, so that no messages from the body can reach the mind. Asana is concerned with the static aspect of the body. Pranayama is really the control of the dynamic aspect o…
…ptomatic of your state of progress. 20. Breaks are classed as follows: Firstly, physical sensations; these should have been overcome by Asana. Secondly, breaks that seem to be indicated by events immediately preceding the meditation: their activity becomes tremendous. Only by this practice does one understand how much is really observed by the senses without the mind becoming conscious of it. Thirdly, there is a class of break partaking of the nature of reverie or 'day-dreaming.' These are very insidiousone may go on for a long time without r…
…s at least comparatively reliable people have said that they saw it happening to me. I do not think it proves anything. These practices, Asana and Pranayama, are, to a certain extent, mechanical, and to that extent it is just possible for a man of extraordinary will power, with plenty of leisure and no encumbrances, to do a good deal of the spade-work of Yoga even in England. But I should advise him to stick very strictly to the purely physical preparation, and on no account to attempt the practices of concentration proper, until he is able to …
…f your life. There are no longer these crude, savage reactions of pleasure and pain. The new knowledge is assimilated. 13. So it is with Asana. The chosen posture attracts you; you purr with self-satisfaction. How clever you have been! How nicely the posture suits all conditions! You absolutely melt with maudlin good feeling. I have known pupils who have actually been betrayed into sparing a kindly thought for the Teacher! It is quite clear that there is something wrong about this. Fortunately, Time, the great healer, is on the job as usual; Ti…
YOGA FOR YAHOOS FOURTH LECTURE. ASANA AND PRANAYAMA. The Technical Practices of Yoga. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 1. Last week we were able to go away feeling that the back of the job had been broken. We had got rid of bad ways, bad wives, and bad weather. We are comfortably installed in the sunshine, with no one to bother us. We have nothing to do but our work. Such being our fortunate state, we may usefully put in an hour considering our next step. Let us recall, in the first place, what we decided to be the quintessence …
… cover the ground very satisfactorily by classing our remarks under these eight headings. 6. These headings are: 1. Yama. 2. Niyama. 3. Asana. 4. Pranayama. 5. Pratyahara. 6. Dharana. 7. Dhyana. 8. Samadhi. Any attempt to translate these words will mire us in a hopeless quag of misunderstanding. What we can do is to deal with each one in turn, giving at the outset some sort of definition or description which will enable us to get a fairly complete idea of what is meant. I shall accordingly begin with an account of Yama. Attend! Perpend! Transc…
…f Yoga practices themselves. I assume that in the fortnight which has elapsed since my last lecture you have all perfected yourselves in Asana and Pranayama; that you daily balance a saucer brimming with sulphuric acid on your heads for twelve hours without accident, that you all jump about busily like frogs when not seriously levitated; and that your Mantra is as regular as the beating of your heart. The remaining four limbs of Yoga are Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. I will give you the definition of all four at a single stroke, as e…
…time; three or four such periods twice or three times a day. In the earliest stages of all it is not necessary to have got very far with Asana, because all you can get out of the early practices is really a foreshadowing of the difficulties of doing it. 18. I began by taking a simple geometrical object in one colour, such as a yellow square. I will quote the official instructions in The Equinox. "DharanaControl of thought." "1. Constrain the mind to concentrate itself upon a single simple object imagined. The five tatwas are useful for this pu…
…se instinctively the arrival of the moment when you can throw yourself suddenly into the mental act of concentration. In other words, by Asana and Pranayama you have worked yourself into a position where you are free, if only for a few seconds, to attempt actual Yoga processes, which you have previously been prevented from attempting by the distracting activities of the respiratory and muscular systems. 24. And so? Yes. Pranayama may be described as nice clean fun. Before you have been doing it very long, things are pretty certain to begin to h…
…ntend that this form of ritual forced upon me, first by external and next by internal circumstances, was anything else but a new form of Asana, Pranayama, Mantra-Yoga, and Pratyahara in something very near perfection; and it is therefore not surprising that the Magical exaltation resulting from such ceremonies was in all essential respects the equivalent of Samyama. On the other hand, the Yoga training was an admirable aid to that final concentration of the Will which operates the magical ecstasy. 11. This then is reality: direct experience. Ho…