Do you struggle to stay motivated to practice Hatha Yoga? Sadhguru’s explanations of the far-reaching benefits of classical yogasanas, which go far beyond regular exercises or stretches, may help you get on the mat and into the postures. Discover how Hatha Yoga can elevate your consciousness, establish greater balance in body and mind, and support you on your journey to ultimate wellbeing.
Questioner: Namaskaram, Sadhguru. Can you tell us about the science behind asanas?
Sadhguru: The word asana literally means “posture.” Every posture the body can assume is an asana. After a profound and thorough exploration of the human system, we arrived at 84 yogasanas, through which you can transform your body and mind into a great possibility for your ultimate wellbeing. In these postures, the body will not be a barrier but a stepping stone for your growth and development.
When you are trying to do Hatha Yoga, the biggest barriers are the limitations of your body. This is true for whatever human beings want to do. Instead of being stepping stones, the body and mind have turned into the greatest obstacles, simply because you have not explored them sufficiently.
If I ask you in the morning to stretch your body, you want to rest. If you hold an asana and we ask you to stretch further, you do not want to do that. But if we ask you to sit unmoving, your body wants to stretch. Likewise, the body has to eat, sleep, and relieve itself – it needs so many things.
The body is a constant manifestation of various levels of compulsiveness, depending on the type of information that has been imprinted upon your physiological system. This information, which is referred to as the karmic body, determines how much compulsiveness you suffer from, and how much freedom you naturally enjoy within yourself.
In Hatha Yoga, we are not concerned with who our fathers and forefathers were, what kind of genetic and karmic material we received from them, or what we have imbibed in the process of living. It does not matter what has happened until this moment – we have decided to take charge of our life.
In the Indian tradition, if you are a serious practitioner of Yoga, no astrologer will want to make a prediction for you because they understand that you have taken charge of your life. This is what a yogasana means – taking charge of your life. You are transforming your body and mind into a possibility in your life.
Every posture that you hold for a period of time induces distinct physiological, psychological, emotional, energy, and chemical changes in your body. Conversely, for every emotional and psychological experience, and for different states of consciousness that you experience, your body naturally tends to assume a certain posture.
If you are angry, you sit one way. If you are peaceful, you sit another way. If you are in turmoil, you sit one way. If you are tranquil, you sit another way. Similarly, for different states of consciousness that you experience, your body tends to assume certain postures. The science of asanas is based on that.
By consciously getting your body into a certain posture, you can elevate your consciousness. The very way you think, feel, perceive, and understand life can be altered by the way you sit. Yogasanas are ways to transform the body from a compulsive mode to a conscious mode. When your body is in a compulsive mode, you do not like to be in a certain position. Only when it is in a conscious mode, can you remain in the position and benefit from it.
The process of transforming the body and changing the fundamental information in the body that makes it engage in certain compulsive patterns, requires determination, forcefulness, and adamancy. It means you are not willing to give in to the cycles of compulsiveness – you go the way you want to go.
Ha and tha describe sun and moon. Hatha is about bringing a balance between the two. If these two dimensions are balanced within you, naturally, the body becomes a conducive place to live in for your being. If you mess up the place around you, you can move elsewhere. But if you mess up the body from within, you cannot go elsewhere until you die. As long as you live, the body is the abode of your existence.
It is important that the atmosphere is conducive, rather than being compulsive. If your home is a very compulsive place, you will feel suffocated. Every situation and atmosphere is set up for a certain purpose. Your home may be set up for one purpose. The ashram is set up for another purpose. An industry or a business may be set up for a different purpose. Every atmosphere should serve the purpose that we have set it up for.
You must decide what purpose your body should serve, and we will do the appropriate Yoga for that. If your idea of a good life is being one step ahead of others, we will do one type of Yoga. If you do not compare yourself to others, but you want to find your ultimate potential in terms of activity, we will do another kind of Yoga. If all you want to do is dissolve into the ultimate nature of existence, we will do yet another kind of Yoga. We can practice Yoga in different ways.
The 84 fundamental yogasanas are 84 ways to make the body into a passage. It is actually not necessary for everyone to do 84 asanas – one can be enough. Those who take Hatha Yoga as their path to liberation usually practice only one asana. It is difficult for a thinking mind to understand why someone would spend their whole life trying to sit in a particular way.
If you learn to sit right or hold your body right, you can internally know everything you need to know in this universe. This is known as asana siddhi. If you can stay in one posture stably and comfortably for 2 1/2 hours, we say you have attained to asana siddhi.
How is it possible to know everything that can be known by staying in one posture? It is like having a television at home. The television is just a box with some electronics in it, but it can become a world by itself, simply because there is a receiver. If you adjust the receiver properly, the whole world streams into this box that we call television. If the receiver is not set right, the same instrument cannot do anything. That is applicable to human beings as well.
An individual human being becomes who they are only because of what they perceive. You are who you are right now only because of what you have perceived until now, and you will be who you will be in the future only because of what you will perceive. The whole system of Yoga is about enhancing perception.
If you hold a posture correctly, with the right alignment, it matches with the cosmic alignment in some way. The 84 yogasanas represent 84 alignments because existence as we know it now is seen as the 84th creation. The memory of these 84 creations is reflected in our body. We are trying to release and activate this memory.
If one gets into these 84 postures, or if one masters a single posture and approaches the remaining 83 through that, one can know everything that has happened in creation until now because the memory of that is coded into one’s system. If this memory touches another dimension outside of oneself, it can be activated and ignited.
Yogasanas are a powerful means to connect. Yoga means union. Union means two have become one. Fundamentally, there are only two in existence – you and the rest of existence. You may identify individual entities within the rest of existence, but essentially, there are only two – you and the rest of existence because there are only two dimensions of experience – inner experiences and outer experiences.
Yoga is about creating a union between these two dimensions – inner and outer, you and the rest, you and the other. When there is no “you” and “the other,” when there is just “you” and “you,” that is Yoga. Asanas are physical ways of approaching this ultimate union because the physical body is the easiest thing to work with.
If you try to come to this union with your mind, it will play too many tricks. With the body, you will know whether it is doing it right or not, whether it is cooperating or not. If you push the mind too hard, it will make you believe all kinds of things and dump you the next day. The body is more reliable. If you work with it sensibly, yogasanas can definitely lead to ultimate union.
Until this alignment with the ultimate happens, getting into the yogasanas will lead to inner alignment, which will create a chemistry of healthfulness, joyfulness, blissfulness, and, above all, balance. Balance is something that modern societies have neglected, and they are paying a huge price for it. No matter your intelligence, competence, education, and qualifications – if you lack the necessary balance, you will not succeed. You will not go far in life.
The most important thing for those who seek success in any field is balance. Only if you have a balance that is not disturbed by external situations, are you capable of making use of the competence and intelligence within you. Otherwise, even the most wonderful qualities that one may have will go waste, simply because of lack of balance. Hatha Yoga brings this balance.
