Posts archive: All Collected Yoga Articles, Views & Posts Timeline

The Force of the Past within the Face of the Present…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

“Working together with and directed by past impressions,
the three Guṇa, Sattva, Rajas and Tamas determine
whether the mind is calm, agitated or dull.”
– T Krishnamacharya on Yoga Sūtra Chapter One verse 4

“Past impressions also determine the
mind’s direction and quality of perception.”
– T Krishnamacharya on Yoga Sūtra Chapter One verse 4

The less we act from within the field of the present moment,
the more we re-act from within the field of past memories.
– Paul Harvey on Yoga Sūtra Chapter One verses 4

“The mind acts in countless ways and all of them
stem from the power of past Karma Vāsanā.
This is why individuals differ from one another.”
– T Krishnamacharya on Yoga Sūtra Chapter One verse 6

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108 Prāṇāyāma Practice Pointers – 26 – You are presuming when working with Prāṇāyāma…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

You are presuming when working with Prāṇāyāma
that the student has already put three things in place.
1. A physical possibility in terms of access to a steady seat.
2. An energetic possibility in terms of access to open channels.
3. A psychological possibility in terms of access to concentration.

Link to Series: 108 Prāṇāyāma Practice Pointers

Glossary of Āsana and Mudrā Practice Techniques
– Grouped into Standing, Kneeling, Lying,
Inverted, Backbend, Seated & Sitting Categories

Glossary of Prāṇāyāma & Bandha Practice Techniques
– Grouped into Primary, Secondary & Ancillary Techniques

108 Yoga Sūtra Study Word Pointers – 10 – Abhyāsa

Posted on by Paul Harvey

The aim of this Series, and its companion page (Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Questions), with its Sūtra by Sūtra guided study question within a parallel flow, is to progress through a themed reflective journey across the four chapters or Pāda that comprise the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali.

In this post, a word will be listed as a symbol for a specific verse or set of verses as we progressively traverse each chapter. It will offer an exploration, via a link to the Saṃskṛta Glossary, of all the connected quotations and posts, collated from within the website these past 12 years, to invite the reader to form their own opinion as to what is implied.

On the companion page, a question will be proffered as a reflection and inquiry into a single verse. Here each verse in the text will be explored successively, via a link to its translation, word by word breakdown and added commentaries collated from the website, again to invite the reader to form their own opinion as to what is implied.

My wish is to offer an insight into the spectrum of Yoga teachings received from T Krishnamacharya mainly via TKV Desikachar, in terms of both breadth and depth.

108 Yoga Sūtra Study Word Pointers – 10

ABHYĀSA

Chapter One verses 12-14

Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Keywords – Collected & Collated into Chapters
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Questions – Collected & Collated into Chapters
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Reflections – Collected & Collated into Chapters

108 Sūtra Study Pointers – 140 – We observe what we experience through the eye of the Indriya…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

We observe what we experience
through the eye of the Indriya
The eye of the Indriya observes
through the I of the Manas
The I of the Manas observes
through the I of the Ahaṃkāra
The I of the Ahaṃkāra observes
through the I of the Buddhi
The I of the Buddhi observes
from the eye of the Puruṣa.
– Paul Harvey on Yoga Sūtra Chapter Four verse 18

T Krishnamacharya Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
TKV Desikachar Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
Paul’s Yoga Mālā – A Thread of Pearls from Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Keywords – Collected & Collated into Chapters
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Questions – Collected & Collated into Chapters

108 Sūtra Study Pointers – 139 – Our relationship with Yoga is more concerned initially with we get…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

Initially, our relationship with Yoga is more
concerned with what we get out of our practice.
From this point, it can evolve into us being more
concerned with what we put into our practice.
Ultimately, it is neither what we get out nor what we
put in, as there is a cessation of intentions in practice.
– Paul Harvey on Yoga Sūtra Chapter Four verse 25

T Krishnamacharya Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
TKV Desikachar Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
Paul’s Yoga Mālā – A Thread of Pearls from Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Keywords – Collected & Collated into Chapters
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Questions – Collected & Collated into Chapters

108 Sūtra Study Pointers – 138 – According to Patañjali, the process of Abhyāsa needs to be in place before……

Posted on by Paul Harvey

According to Patañjali, the process of Abhyāsa needs
to be in place before Vairāgya is a viable reality,
as one is an increasingly subtle developmental process
arising from the initial engagement with the other.

Hence Abhyāsa is the attentive and consistent effort
to remain there and Vairāgya is our relationship with
what arises from and within our effort to remain there.

Here is a psychological drama where the internal play
of our neuroses acts itself out on the stage of the mind.
Though at least, with our efforts with Abhyāsa, the inner
audience can look at the play, rather than from the play.

Until we embrace the skills to remain there consistently,
we cannot consistently engage within the very erratic
relationship we have with the neurotic characters
that populate the drama/mystery/romance plays we
stage on a daily basis in our mind, as if a plat du jour.

Essentially until we choose to desist from not stopping,
we cannot begin to observe how much movement there is.

Thus, firstly there needs to be a consistent effort at
Abhyāsa Dhyānam, then we have the developmental
correlative of Vairāgya to help contend with what arises.
– Paul Harvey on Yoga Sūtra Chapter One verse 12

T Krishnamacharya Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
TKV Desikachar Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
Paul’s Yoga Mālā – A Thread of Pearls from Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Keywords – Collected & Collated into Chapters
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Questions – Collected & Collated into Chapters

108 Yoga Practice Pointers – 101 – Another facet to the practice tool of Pratikriyāsana…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

Another lesser-known facet to the practice tool of Pratikriyāsana
is the application of it in the practice planning steps, not in the
more usual sense of its perception as a postural counterpose,
rather its application in order to reduce a negative state of being
and the impact that we are currently experiencing, whether at a
physical, energetic, psychological or emotional level of being.

In this context, Pratikriyāsana means the practice planning steps
when choosing and arranging Āsana that will effect an counter action
on our current state of negativity expressing itself and impacting on
our sense of well-being, whether body, mind, energy or emotions.
Thus, opposite action Āsana to a currently unhelpful sense of being.

Link to Series: 108 Yoga Practice Pointers

Āsana and Mudrā Practice Techniques Glossary
– Grouped into Standing, Kneeling, Lying,
Inverted, Backbend, Seated & Sitting

Laṅghana Kriyā has two functional dimensions…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

Laṅghana Kriyā is a Viniyoga methodology with its reducing, lightening or contractive potentials within the practice of Āsana, Mudrā and Prāṇāyāma. As a practice process it is actualised through an understanding of the primary principles that inform Haṭha Yoga and Āyurveda.

The Viniyoga, or application of Laṅghana Kriyā effects a concentration of Agni from the periphery to the core. This outcome is approached traditionally through effecting systemic changes, primarily in the systemic energies of digestion and elimination. Thus from an Āyurveda perspective, the use of practices which bring about a functional energetic change in the qualities of Vāta, Pitta and Kapha Doṣa.

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108 Sūtra Study Pointers – 137 – Duḥkha is the Space in the Heart…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

“Duḥkha is the Space in the Heart
feeling constricted because of
‘not getting what I want’, or
‘getting what I don’t want’.”
– Paul Harvey on Yoga Sūtra Chapter Two verse 16

T Krishnamacharya Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
TKV Desikachar Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
Paul’s Yoga Mālā – A Thread of Pearls from Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Keywords – Collected & Collated into Chapters
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Questions – Collected & Collated into Chapters

Design and Experiment with a Practice around Parśva Uttānāsana and Janu Śīrṣāsana…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

Design and Experiment with a Practice around
Parśva Uttānāsana and Janu Śīrṣāsana practicing each
Dynamically 4 Times followed by Static 4 Breaths each side

The Vinyāsa Krama or planning steps in the practice will be for a total of 60 working breaths.

– It will be based around Āsana especially Parśva Uttānāsana and Janu Śīrṣāsana.
– In this instance, the practice will not include any Mudrā, Prāṇāyāma or Dhyāna.
– In the planning structure, any link Āsana such as Samasthiti, Śavāsana, Vajrāsana, do not count in the breath tally.
– Make notes on what you have discovered from this practice
– Justify to yourself your choice of supporting or compensatory Āsana within the scheme.
– This planning question was first proffered within Study and Practice Courses whereby the student’s responses would be shared during the next meeting along with being offered a sample response.
Accordingly, I will post this example by adding it as a PDF resource to this post after 10 days.

To Download or View this Question as a PDF Study Sheet

To Download or View a Sample Practice Response as a PDF

Yoga Practice Planning and Theory Questions – Collected & Collated

108 Postural Practice Pointers – 37 – The most important standing Āsana is Samasthiti…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

We might want to consider the notion that the
most important standing Āsana is Samasthiti.
Its role is to ensure we engage with the next Āsana
from a place of attention and aware anticipation,
and after it, return to a place of fullness and reflection.
As if we are experiencing the fullness of the aftertaste
that naturally follows the ingestion of well-cooked food.
It’s learned Bhāvana is a quality of stillness within any
moment of inaction, ere to a transition to the next action.

Link to Series: 108 Postural Practice Pointers

Āsana & Mudrā Practice Techniques Glossary
– Grouped into Standing, Kneeling, Lying,
Inverted, Backbend, Seated & Sitting

108 Yoga Teaching Path Pointers – 45 – Krishnamacharya’s approach to teaching children Āsana….

Posted on by Paul Harvey

Krishnamacharya’s approach
to teaching children Āsana,
was more about cultivating
strength in Prāṇa Sthāna and
movement in Apāna Sthāna.
Whereas for teaching adults
Āsana, the approach was
now more about cultivating
movement in Prāṇa Sthāna
and strength in Apāna Sthāna.

Link to Series: 108 Teaching Path Pointers

108 Yoga Practice Pointers – 100 – Progressing from Movement to Stillness…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

Progressing from Movement to Stillness,
as in from Dynamic Āsana to Static Āsana,
is a perceived goal within every Yoga practice.
However, within the Viniyoga of Āsana, this is not
a purposeful goal to expect within every Āsana.

Link to Series: 108 Yoga Practice Pointers

Āsana and Mudrā Practice Techniques Glossary
– Grouped into Standing, Kneeling, Lying,
Inverted, Backbend, Seated & Sitting

Yoga and the 21st Century – Interview with TKV Desikachar

Posted on by Paul Harvey

YOGA AND THE 21st CENTURY

TKV Desikachar was in Narbonne, in the South of France, for a symposium on “Yoga and the XXIst Century” during May 1999. The purpose of the symposium was to consider the role of Yoga for the coming century in the three fields of Health, Psychology and Spirituality.

The following interview was an introductory presentation.

1. The relevance of Traditional Teaching.

Question:
Do you think that the teaching you received from your father is still relevant today, particularly in the West?
Desikachar:
It looks like it because, wherever I speak, more and more people come, and from all sorts of different backgrounds. It is relevant, and it is going to be.

Question:
You studied the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali many times with your father. Could you say a few words about this text, and since it is about 2,000 years old, do you think its message is still valid today and for the future?
Desikachar:
This text is very old, and it deals with the mind. Anything we do, or intend to do, involves this instrument, and all pains and pleasures are rooted here.

Patañjali was very prophetic, because he spoke not only of yesterday’s mind, but also of tomorrow’s. His message concerns clarity, and it will become more and more pertinent as time goes by, because people are now questioning much more than before.

Earlier there was belief, and so people did not have to question, or even to think. Now, we all want to have more responsibility in what happens to us. Therefore, we need to have a clearer mind, and this is why the Yoga Sūtra is still valid and will remain so.

I believe that, unless a new religious order comes to the world in which case belief will take over, this text will have a wider and wider impact in times to come.

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108 Sūtra Study Pointers – 136 – Yoga talks about the possibility of  a state of being expressing motiveless action

Posted on by Paul Harvey

Even though Yoga talks about the possibility of
a state of being expressing motiveless action,
for the rest of us there is always an ulterior motive.

The issue is what it truly is, rather than just whether it
had what we believed as a white, grey or black intention.
Also, whether this intention is what we wanted to believe,
or is there another truth lurking within our sense of right?
Thus, the outcome may well differ from what we believed.

However, as many of our motives fall within the grey spectrum,
a deeper introspection into the reality of intention is important.
To at least minimise Viparyaya, existing as a flight of fancy, or
posing as if a truth convincing in its rightness to exist, when in
reality, merely an opinion, even if not its deeper partner Avidyā.
– Paul Harvey on Yoga Sūtra Chapter Four verse 7

T Krishnamacharya Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
TKV Desikachar Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
Paul’s Yoga Mālā – A Thread of Pearls from Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Keywords – Collected & Collated into Chapters
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Questions – Collected & Collated into Chapters

In the Indian tradition, stress would be the situation where a person exhibits the Udvega…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

TKV Desikachar teaching at Gaunts House

“In the Indian tradition,
stress would be the situation where a person
exhibits the Udvega, attitudes or behaviour
which take over a person and control him.
The origin of the Udvega lies in the Ṣad Ūrmi,
the six enemies.

These six are:
– Kāma: desire
– Krodha: anger
– Lobha: possessiveness, greed
– Moha: darkness;
though not actually dark it is as if darkness exists
because the person is so sure of himself
and his opinions that he is unable to see.
– Mada: arrogance,
the refusal to accept or give in.
– Mātsarya: jealousy,
to resent the success of others
and to be happy at their failures.

These are Āyurveda‘s Mano Roga.
If any one of these six is dominant in a person,
that person is sure to experience Udvega in one form or the other.”

– Yoga Sūtra on Stress – An interview with TKV Desikachar

108 Postural Practice Pointers – 36 – When moving from Standing to Lying Āsana…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

When moving from Standing Āsana to Lying
Āsana, consider the role of Samasthiti to be one
of recovery from the efforts of, and exploration
of the effects from, the preceding standing Āsana.
Whilst also considering the role of Śavāsana to be one
of transition to lying and the exploration of lying Āsana.
Rather than the other way around, in that, we are taking
Śavāsana as a place of recovery from our preceding efforts.
In other words, choose to stay in stillness within Samasthiti
until you feel as if you do not need to lie down to recover.

Link to Series: 108 Postural Practice Pointers

Āsana & Mudrā Practice Techniques Glossary
– Grouped into Standing, Kneeling, Lying,
Inverted, Backbend, Seated & Sitting

108 Sūtra Study Pointers – 135 – Pratyāhāra is not feeding the minds identification with the senses……

Posted on by Paul Harvey

pratyahara

Pratyāhāra is not feeding the tendency of the Citta
to automatically form a positive, negative, or neutral
identification with whatever stimuli the senses present to it.
From that, we can begin to understand how their external gathering
activities stimulate our conscious and especially, unconscious choices.

From this, we can begin to understand how the impact
of this sensory knowing can lead us to travel in different directions
and trigger different levels of response, often without us being really
conscious of how deeply their input stimulates our psychic activities.

From these responses, there will be the inevitable re-actions,
again quite possibly unconscious and multilevelled,
according to our psychic history in terms of our memory,
habit patternings and deeper memory processes.

From those initial insight, we can begin to understand
and interact in how we can resist unconsciously slipping
into the trance states that can so often culminate with
the  Kleśa manifesting fully in the entrancing dance of
Udārā Rāga, or Udārā Dveṣa, or Udārā Abhiniveśa,
the potent and profligate children of Avidyā.
– Paul Harvey on Yoga Sūtra Chapter Two verse 54

View or Download as a PDF

T Krishnamacharya Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
TKV Desikachar Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
Paul’s Yoga Mālā – A Thread of Pearls from Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Keywords – Collected & Collated into Chapters
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Questions – Collected & Collated into Chapters

The Wisdom of the West as a guide to appreciating the Wisdom of the East…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

Patanjali Yoga Sutra

The Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali

Chapter One Samādhi Pādaḥ

The Wisdom of the West as a guide to appreciating the Wisdom of the East arose
from a project for trainee Yoga practitioners being asked to prepare and present a
‘book’ featuring a chosen translation of each verse from the Yoga Sūtra Chapter One,
supported and complemented by a personally chosen quote from a Western source.

 “A short saying often contains much wisdom.”
– Sophocles

It was met with an enthusiastic response to the point where I said I would also
contribute a ‘version’. It is offered here, as a PDF in both A4 and US Letter formats,
in the spirit of Paramparā with an appreciation for my years of learning in India.

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart……”
– William Wordsworth

It is not © in the spirit of open source community commons,
though acknowledgement of the source could be appropriate.

View or Download as an A4 PDF
View or Download as a US Letter PDF

Links to Related Material:

T Krishnamacharya Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
TKV Desikachar Yoga Sūtra Study Quotes Collected and Collated
Paul’s Yoga Mālā – A Thread of Pearls from Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Keywords – Collected & Collated into Chapters
Paul’s Yoga Sūtra Study Questions – Collected & Collated into Chapters

Finding your starting point within Āsana to set a direction and route towards a goal…

Posted on by Paul Harvey

“In order to know where we are going to,
we must first know where we are coming from.”

Often in the Āsana aspect of Yoga practice, whether within our personal practice or a teaching environment, the student is directed towards a goal.

This may be to do with a physical or structural foci such as the:

  • Basic Performance of the Āsana
  • Continuing Improvement of the Āsana
  • Specific Intensification of the Āsana
  • Introducing Stay into the Āsana

However, the common factor within all of these options is that they are goal-based.

This is fine as a general principle however as in any area of our lives, setting off towards any goal requires that we also have a clear idea of our starting point. For example, if I am wanting to travel to London I need to know whether I am starting from Birmingham or Brighton in order to set a direction and distance to navigate from. So it is with Āsana.

This notion of establishing the starting point in terms of setting goals and establishing the number of steps, as in Vinyāsa Krama, was one of the fundamental principles within any aspect of practice taught to me by Desikachar. It is also an inherent factor within the notion of the Viniyoga or application of Āsana, in that how can we make and apply an intelligent arrangement without knowing both where the student is starting from as well as going towards.

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