Hatha Yoga was originated taking into considerations of all the challenges that a modern day aspirant faces. Hatha yoga is based on the fundamentals of transcending the mind as well as the matter. It is also known as thr science of purification. In 6th century BC in India, there was a great deal of spiritual evolution happening & it stayed this way for many centuries. One of the greatest personality was born during those times and became internationally well-known in the name of Buddha. Buddha’s system of spiritual awakening became very popular and was followed by people from all over the world. His two well-known teachings were vipassana & Anapanasati.
While Buddha’s popularity led people to follow meditation but many of them weren’t able to fully resonate or follow the path as the system lacked the preparatory practices needed to perform meditation. Meditation if performed without purifying the energy channels & attaining a certain level of mastery over mind then, meditation will not give the desired results. And that’s exactly what happened. People started to lose faith over meditation as a practice and it’s popularity declined drastically.
500 hundred years later, few of the Indian yogis re introduced yoga considering the challenges that people were facing in the realm of spirituality. This gave birth to a new system of yoga called Hatha Yoga. Matsyendranath, gorakhnath and other rishis of India created Nath Cult which believed that before taking the practice of meditation, one must purify the body & it’s elements. This is the theme of Hatha Yoga
Gorakhnath was a good disciple of rishi Matsyendranath and he used to write stories, verses & poems on Hatha Yoga.
Later Swatmamarma compiled an entire system of Hatha yoga in sanskrit in the name of Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Pradipika means “self illuminating” meaning a system that illiminates the aspect of the mind, body & matter. Swatmamarma’s text interestingly avoided yamas & niyamas completely. This was quite a controversial step at that time as buddha’s teachings as well as sage Patanjali’s teachings started off with yamas & niyamas.
While Hatha Yoga believed that for an aspirant, it’s very difficult to control & have a Disciplined mind right from the beginning.
One must have a certain level of mental strength to be able to do that. Hence, in Hatha yoga, shatkarmas /purification practices is a must. The order of practices were different here.
1. Shatkarmas (purification practices)
2. Pranayama & Mudras
3. yoga
1. Shatkarmas is a very crucial step to begin with. When we start to purify our body, our mind also gets purified. What happens when one performs meditation but energy channels are blocked, then we might not experience meditation as a blissful activity. Due to the blockages of the 72,000 + energy channels, meditation inturn can feel frustrating or irritating Or it can make you sick as well. There are 6 ways to purify your body. These are : Neti, Dhauti, Basti, Kapabhati, Trataka & Nauli.
2. Pranayamas is an entire system of cleansing & expanding one’s prana shakti with the help of breathing practices. One can control their mind if they can control their breath. In Hatha yoga, it doesn’t matter if your mind is weak or strong, it simply asks you to strengthen your pranayama practice to gain the mental strength & self discipline. Mudra is a special system where you form hand postures that aligns with your energy channels (nadi) for proper coordination and harmony of these channels. That’s why Hatha yoga is also called as the science of Harmony.
3. Asanas are the basic body level practices that helps us to ground ourselves as well bring in a proper alignment between the mind & the matter. Asanas is a powerful practice to transcend our body & mind to something beyond. That’s how the entire science of Hatha yoga originated & spread amongst people very quickly. It was easy for a common man to follow these practices as it took into considerations of all the challenges that a modern day aspirant faces.
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