What is Hatha Yoga?

Question submitted by Luceli L.

Dear Luceli,
As you may know Yoga has been around for probably more than five thousand years.
Yoga means "to yoke, to harness." The term Yoga has been used as a way to awaken spirituality through the control of the mind. Yoga is a system of techniques that allows the practitioner to achieve Samadhi or Enlightenment.

There are many schools or branches of Yoga. One way to achieve that self-control and attainment of Samadhi is via Hatha Yoga which translation means "forceful Yoga" In "The Shamabhala Encyclopedia of Yoga" by Georg Feuerstein, the term hatha yoga is "applied in general to the vast body of doctrines and practices reared toward Self-realization by means of perfecting the body."

Commonly you will hear yoga teachers mention that "Ha" usually refers to the solar energy and "tha" to the lunar energy. Hatha Yoga therefore is the union of those energies to bring Self-Realization.

All the poses that you take in a regular yoga class, have been developed trough time and many have been recorded in ancient texts. All comes down to the understanding of how the body moves in relation to space.

The poses in sanskrit are called asana (seat) and depending on different texts you can find from 16-200 poses that are more useful to human beings.

Hatha Yoga is also one of the limbs of the Eight fold path. In the practice of Hatha Yoga, the teacher instructs the students in the use of Locks (bandhas) and seals (mudras) "all of them designated to control and regulate the flow of life force (prana) in the body" Feurstein Encyclopedia of Yoga.

Next time you come to your mat, take time to breath and center your energies, be present and mindful during all the poses as they have not only an effect on your body but also on your mind.





Reference:
The Shamabhala Encyclopedia of Yoga by Georg Feurstein pp. 34-35, 118-121