Hatha Yoga for Beginners

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Back of the Book

Ha(sun) and tha (moon) imply that Hatha Yoga is a means of balancing and harmonizing the body’s currents by exercising and stretching, so as to make it a vital instrument of mind and soul, to give it a longer life, and to keep it healthy.

Based on personal experiences, this book presents elements that prepare the practitioners for the eventual awakening of the kundalini.

Swami Atmananda (formerly Professor Ravindra Kumar) is a Ph.D. in mathematics from IIT Delhi. He has taught in ten countries. His kundalini is awakened. He is Founder President of Academy of Kundalini Yoga and Quantum Soul (AKYQS), and guides people in yoga/meditation for self-realisation.

Preface

Hatha Yoga is a marvellous means of exercising, stretching, and purifying the body so as to make it healthy, and a vital instrument of the mind and soul. In Sanskrit, ha means the sun, tha means the moon. It is, therefore, a practice of harmonizing the body’s currents (feeling, thinking, willing, and acting) until they are in perfect balance. The awareness is raised to the level of the super-conscious state.

The book presents the elements of Hatha Yoga in a simple and short way for those who have no time to go into rigorous studies. It is based on my own practice and personal experiences with Kundalini, while laying the foundations of the Academy of Kundalini Yoga and Quantum Soul at New Delhi, Copenhagen, Florida and London.

Thanks are also due to Jytte Kumar Larsen for providing computing facilities and related help.

Introduction

The Vedas advocated three different paths for the search of Truth-knowing the Self or Atma: Bhakti Yoga, the path of devotion for those whose heart is more developed than the mind; Jnana Yoga, the path of knowledge for those whose mind is more developed than the heart; Karma Yoga, the path of selfless action for those who have their heart and mind more or less equally developed. In the medieval ages, the yogis of the Nath sect thought that there would be people who would have neither the heart nor the mind reasonably developed. So how should such people known the Self? Guru Gorakh Nath and others thus created Hatha Yoga, the path of austerity for people to begin searching for Truth from scratch.

The word “yoga” is derived from the Sanskrit root yuj which means “harnessing horses to the chariot” This, therefore, is the preparation for liberating oneself from the clutches of the five physical senses and putting oneself on the path of divine reality. It began with experiential and non-intellectual practices in the past; but today, however, it has developed into a deep philosophy.

Hatha Yoga is the most popular form of yoga today, especially in the West, but more often than not, it is mainly practiced for health and vitality only. However, few dedicated men and women unite finite life with infinite life and live in abundant well-being and universal harmony. This book deals with the subject of physical well-being and freedom at large, and yet paves the way towards the higher goal of self-realisation.