Ashtanga Yoga Poses – The Sooner You Get Over Them, The Better …

I did a Google Search for “ashtanga yoga pose” today, just to see what will come up. All ten first-page results gave me exactly what I didn’t want … It gave me websites about the wrong ashtanga yoga.

There’s more than one Ashtanga yoga?

No, not really … but in recent times the word “ashtanga” has been attached to a dynamic system of yoga-based exercises … and it’s become so popular that it has literally taken over the word ashtanga yoga as its own, leaving many practitioners of the traditional system of ashtanga yoga baffled and dismayed.

To them, yoga is a sacred, disciplined, eight-limbed science for personal development and inner transformation … a system that includes much more than what is utilized in the newer, fitness centered pop-ashtanga version.

How many limbs do you have?

The first steps in astanga yoga are the yamas and niyamas. If you’ve read anything about yoga, I’m sure you’ve heard about these morals and ethics. Yogis seemed so obsessed with them … Come on though, who doesn’t know that we should be good people?

Step three though … now we’re getting into the good stuff … those yoga poses! If Jennifer Aniston keeps looking younger everyday with them, then I definitely want to do yoga too!

Yeah, we’ve all heard about step 4 too … the BORING yoga breathing … Ok, five minutes of that is enough. I know how to breathe …

But what really comes next?

After these first four step, yoga gets very hazy for most people. Even most yoga teachers get pretty new-age flakey when they start to talk about the higher levels of yoga. It seems that the lack of student interest in the higher stages of yoga is rivalled only by the lack of enthusiasm by teachers to educate about them.

But guess what … It’s in the higher four stages, where yoga actually begins!

If that’s true, what’s the point of the first 4 limbs then?

Preparation. The first four limbs can be referred to as Hatha Yoga … the last 4 as Raja Yoga. And as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (a classic yoga text) tells us, Hatha and Raja are two ends of the same pole … “Hatha is a ladder for ascending to Raja, and Raja is the goal of Hatha.”

So yama and niyama, asana, and pranayama all prepare us for the higher stages, where REAL YOGA starts to happen. Hatha yoga is a necessary part of the yoga journey, but if we get stuck there, we’re going to miss the best part of the trip!

Why didn’t your teacher mention that?

Well, to be honest, very few students have enough dedication and discipline to get to those higher yoga levels. Which is probably a good thing, because there are also very few yoga teachers who have really made it there themselves (unfortunately, becoming a certified yoga teacher today doesn’t require mastery of yoga.)

To be fair, these higher levels of yoga are no walk in the park … but that doesn’t change the facts. If we really want to experience the amazing transformative power of yoga, we need to climb higher. Most people, I know, prefer to remain in the land of endless preparation. My only question for them is … what exactly are you preparing for?

By: Yogacharya Michael

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Yogacharya is the Director of International Yogalayam www.discover-yoga-online.com , and creator of The Yoga Tutor, a step-by-step online yoga training website. For your FREE TRIAL of The Yoga Tutor, visit www.theyogatutor.com You may freely republish this article, provided the text, author credit, the active links remain intact.