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manifest automatically from within. If a practitioner of yoga is not aware of, or is lacking these things then he won't be able to get into the advanced practices.
Not only this, even if one has the requisites and takes up hatha yoga, the results may not be attained. If there is an excessive application of mind during the four stages of asana, kumbhaka, nadanusandhana and samadhi, then the correct result will not be experienced. Also, even in asana, whether it be a meditative posture or a physical posture, if you are not focusing your mind where you are supposed to while accomplishing the posture, the posture will not be considered accomplished. It will not be called an asana, certainly not a hatha yoga asana, so strong is the role of the mind in hatha yoga.
During the course of these practices or as a result of these practices, we go into psychic experiences, such as during the practice of moorcha pranayama, or the fainting pranayama. On the other hand, one does not experience fainting on the psychic level during the practice of bhramari pranayama or the humming bee pranayama. So, Swatmarama is of the opinion that it is the specific hatha yoga force and not the hatha abhyasa or practice of hatha yoga that causes the psychic experience that makes hatha yoga an experiential science.
He has also observed mind in its third form and he explains it very beautifully. What is mind? It is knowledge. If the knowing is renounced, knowledge is lost; since knowledge and mind are one, both are lost. Then mind also ceases to .exist. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika shows the way to renounce the known through nadanusandhana which is not music of the MTV or any audio visual music, but subtle inner sound or nada. For harmonizing the mind through nadanusandhana, different states of mind have been explained. The first state is the vishayasakta mian, mind addicted to sensual pleasures. The second state is nadasakt mind, mind addicted to sound, and the third state is manolaya, dissolution of mind. Hatha yoga is a journey which takes the practitioner from vishayasakt via nadasakt to manolaya. In other words hatha yoga turns the mind that was addicted to pleasure into a mind addicted to sound, or the sound within, before it finally dissolves it.
In this way, through the analysis of mind, Swatmarama provides us with a doctrinal basis for hatha yoga. So we can also say that yoga is nothing but disciplining the mind through
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| SR No. | 014011 |
| Book Title | Yoga Sagar |
| 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 |