Hatha Yoga

System of religious discipline (yoga)
based on a series of bodily postures
known as asanas. Practicing this yoga is
widely believed to provide various physical benefits, including increased bodily
flexibility and the ability to heal chronic
ailments. Yet in the Yoga Sutras written
by Patanjali, the earliest systematic
treatment of yoga, these asanas are only
one part of an eight-step program that
also includes such practices as breathing exercises and meditation. The purpose of hatha yoga is to train and
strengthen the body so that the practitioner can sit comfortably in meditation. Although Hatha yoga’s emphasis is
on the body, it assumes a spiritual and
religious context that in contemporary
times has often been either evaded or
ignored—leading some Hindus to disparage such yoga as simply a technique
to develop better sexual control.
A more esoteric meaning of hatha
yoga comes from the Nathpanthi
ascetics, who understand hatha yoga as
referring to processes in the subtle
body. The subtle body is an alternate
physiological system believed to reside
on a different plane of existence than
the actual body, but with certain correspondences to the actual body. It is visualized as a set of six psychic centers
(chakras) running roughly along the
course of the spine; above and below
these centers are found the two divine
principles, Shiva (awareness) and
Shakti (power), the latter as the latent
spiritual energy known as kundalini.
The aspirant aims to combine kundalini
with the Shiva principle at the crown of
the head; through this union, the physical body will become immortal.
According to the Nathpanthis, the
phoneme ha refers to the sun, a symbol
for Shakti, and the phoneme tha to the
moon, which is a symbol of Shiva. Hatha
yoga is interpreted as the union of the
sun and moon—that is, these two centers of power are believed to exist in the
subtle body.