Читать книгу Ashtanga Yoga - The Intermediate Series - Gregor Maehle - Страница 15

Modern (and particularly modern Western) practitioners of yoga can easily jump to the conclusion that yoga postures are mere gymnastic exercises, without spiritual or philosophical significance. One purpose of this book is to correct this misconception, to make it very clear that the asanas are part of a spiritual culture that aims at nothing short of bringing practitioners to a state of complete and absolute freedom in which they realize their innermost divine potential.

For the majority of modern people, mere sitting in meditation is not sufficient to achieve any lasting spiritual progress or transformation. If you practice only sitting meditation or self-inquiry or the study of scripture, you can easily fool yourself about your state of attainment. True knowledge is not something that occurs in one’s mind alone; it has a physical dimension as well. The Armenian mystic George I. Gurdjieff expressed this in the words, “True knowledge is of a chemical nature.”⁵ What he meant is that authentic knowledge has a biochemical and bioelectrical component; it has substance. This component is what traditional yogis called siddhi, which is sometimes translated as “supernatural power” or “proof.” Asana lays the groundwork for achieving the biochemical and bioelectrical changes in our bodies that are necessary for gaining true knowledge.

Sitting in meditation is sufficient only for those fit to practice Jnana Yoga. The term Jnana Yoga is more closely investigated in chapter 1, but in a nutshell it refers to gaining freedom by the mere contemplation of the fact that one’s true self is identical with the infinite, pure consciousness, without resorting to any other techniques. Jnana Yoga and the associated seated meditation (that is, sitting upright with the head, neck, and spine in one line) can be practiced only if one’s intelligence is completely freed from the stains of rajas (frenzies) and tamas (dullness).⁶ If you are not tainted by these states, go right ahead and try to achieve samadhi through sitting. If, however, your intellect oscillates, as mine does, between frenzy and dullness (with some bright moments in between), then the practice of asana will be useful for you.⁷

Richard Freeman, in his collection of discourses called Yoga Matrix, likened the practice of postures to going through your body with a fine-tooth comb. Thoughts and emotions that are powered by rajas or tamas leave imprints in your bodily tissue that make it more likely that rajasic or tamasic states will be repeated. These imprints are released through posture practice, thus forming the bedrock for higher yogic technique.