Meditation Practice, Esoteric Knowledge, Spiritual Teacher, History of Yoga

Originally, Yogis developed asanas and pranayamas as preliminary practices of dynamic meditation-in-movement and through heightened awareness of breath and pranic flow, leading to the deeper meditative processes in which “body and mind completely fall away” (to use the felicitous phrase of the great Zen teacher Dogen), producing states of higher consciousness that eventually blossom into the ultimate realization of oneness with the Absolute, referred to as the state of nirvikalpa samadhi.

Over time, however, asanas and pranayamas—and even, for some, asanas alone—became for some practitioners an end in itself, de-emphasizing the more advanced concentration and meditation processes, and leaving out entirely the ethical and devotional elements of Sat Yoga. They began to call this new approach centered on the physical practices Hatha Yoga. More recently, this Hatha Yoga approach has become increasingly hard-edged, and new styles have emerged that make the practice more like an aerobic workout and less a meditative practice.

Our approach defers the practice of asana and pranayama until after the consciousness has stabilized at the viveka point, beyond the control of the lower egoic agencies. This keeps the practice free of distortion into an egoic diversion from deeper inner work.

Asanas and pranayamas are ways of working with energy. Sat Yoga distinguishes nine different kinds of energy at play in interwoven lattices that create an intricate feedback mechanism. The energies that we gradually sensitize ourselves to include: the spectrum of physicochemical energies (including gravity, subatomic and quantum mechanics), pranic flows, psychic energies, kundalini shakti, chakra vortexes, archetypal energy, the energy field of Atman, karmic energy, and the subtlest yet most powerful energy of Brahman, the Absolute. The interactions between these forces are responsible for the complexity of human existence and the difficulty in attaining a sense of inner unity and stillness.

The Sat Yoga Approach returns asanas and pranayamas to their proper place in the larger context of total biopsychospiritual development. It is true that asanas have wonderful positive effects on our bodily health, strength, balance, and flexibility. But first and foremost, we employ the practice of asanas for what the Russian self-development teacher G.I. Gurdjieff called “self-remembering.” It must be emphasized that the concept of self-remembering involves self-forgetting. When the ego-self is forgotten, the Real Self emerges, and we enter a flow state.

The asanas and pranayamas provide opportunities for slowing down, centering, becoming more profoundly aware of our organic existence, our various energetic lattices, and more present in our essential nature as luminous and loveful awareness. So our practice of asanas is slower than other styles, softer, more internalized. It is much more like the practice of chi kung, which originally developed out of the ancient Sat Yoga approach to asanas, once it was brought from ancient India to China. We combine the softer movements gradually with those that require greater tension and flexibility—always keeping the focus on the dance of presence and inner joy that is our aim to resurrect. Pranayamas act to silence the mental chatter and increase the flow of prana through the organs, enhancing the sense of wellbeing, of fullness and inner security, and thus enable the mind to let go of its tendency to worry, to seek, to grasp, and to fear. As the vibrational disharmony known as anxiety dissipates, our natural state of peace, clarity, and desireless, fearless love re-emerges.