Hatha Yoga Pradīpikā

Yoga as we have it today has come a long way in the West (and in the East) over the last 150 years. Some of the classical texts have been recovered, and its various elements amplified in various ways.

Aside from the opening statement from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras - which reminds the reader that ‘yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind’ - there are a small number of other ‘classical’ texts that are frequently mentioned yet, unfortunately, remain as frequently un-studied - even within yoga teaching programmes. One of these is undoubtedly Swatmarasama Hatha Yoga Pradīpikā.

Here the book is divided into four small sections: the first on Asanas; the second on Pranayama; the third on the Bandhas; and the fourth on states of Samadhi. Though there is much overlap with the Yoga Sutras, there is also much that remains not only distinct, with excursions into important considerations for Consciousness - or what we may at times refer to as ‘spiritual awakening’. One such brief statement, or a prelude to the experience, is in Chapter 4, verse 16:

‘Remaining in the most suitable place, having found how to penetrate Shushumna and make Prana flow through the middle channel, it should be constrained within brahmarandhra, the centre of higher consciousness’

There are, of course, various translations (and even more commentaries), each of which brings light to the meaning of the practices - and it is the practices that are of greater importance than the texts, which remain manuals for development through practice.