Yoga Sagar

SR No.: 014011
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Paramhamsa Satyananda
Publisher: Bihar School of Yoga Munger
Publication Year: 1994
Total Pages: 436
Language: English
Classification: Seminar & Articles
File Size: 24 MB

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SUMMARY Dr. Swami Shankardevananda Saraswati
Most of us, as yoga practitioners, are really only practising asana and pranayama. This is the preliminary stage of yoga. It is just the introduction to a much greater and more wonderful goal. If we want to go further in our lives as yoga practitioners, then we must incorporate into our daily practices the use of bandha and mudra. These sublime techniques can only really be understood when we have purified our physical body, so that the consciousness, the capacity to understand and to feel the body, is changed, transformed. We must first transform the gross, physical structure, so that our consciousness can move through the nadis, so that we can feel our body, so that we can become more embodied, not less embodied.
The awakening of kundalini is to become more embodied, is to enter with consciousness into the heart of matter. As Paramahamsa Satyananda has said many times in his lectures, kundalini is awakened when we pierce the heart of the atom with our consciousness. In the atom resides this nuclear force. Before we can hope to have an understanding of kundalini and to experience the fruit of the awakening of prana, of the subtle pranas in the body and mind, first of all, we must start with asana and pranayama. But to just finish with asana and pranayama, and not go on, is to go only half the way, half the journey. It is like starting a journey from Bombay to Munger, but stopping off at Jabalpur, instead of completing the journey. You won't have the experience of the convention. To carry you on, you must move into the other more subtle and profound practices of bandha and mudra.
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