Hatha Yoga: A Valid Approach?

Date Unknown

Question:

It is good to start with the body, it is necessary. But it is not sufficient. There are many problems with Hatha Yoga particularly for those in the West, because the system of Hatha Yoga and its related techniques were all developed in a very different milieu - really, for very differently constituted bodies as well as for different minds.

Not only is the mind different today than it was when these techniques were developed, but the body is also not the same. Everything has become artificial. The whole environment has been so changed by science that you do not have the same kind of body that people had before. Your body is different. Your mind would not be different unless your body had become different.

When you start with a modern body, the same techniques will not do. Something else has to be added. Hatha Yoga can be used beneficially when the body exists in a very natural condition, a very natural, very innocent condition - childlike. Then these techniques are miraculous. But we do not have such innocent bodies now; we have very complex bodies. They are not natural. Changes in the environment have done much to change our bodies, medicine has done much. The whole chemical milieu in which we live is different; even the air is different.

You have a very unnatural body. It is unnatural not only because it has been conditioned by the outside, but also because of too much mental suppression inside. There are very complex suppressions in your body and unless these body complexes are released, Hatha Yoga will not help - or, it can help only to a certain extent.

Read the work of the German psychologist Wilhelm Reich. He was a disciple of Freud's. He worked continuously for forty years with the suppressions in the body, not in the mind. For example, he said that if you have suppressed anger than your jaw will be different, it will not be natural. You will have a different jaw; your teeth will be different. Violence is concentrated in the teeth and in the fingers.

When an animal is angry and in a wild mood, his whole energy moves to his teeth and nails. They are his weapons. The same thing happens to man also. If you feel anger and do not express it, the energy does not leave the teeth and the nails. There is no mechanism for it to go back; it is a one-way process. When a dog becomes angry he expresses it, but when a man becomes angry he may not express it. The energy that has moved to the teeth and nails cannot go back where it came from, the chemicals released into the blood cannot go back. They remain where they have moved to and tension begins to be accumulated at these particular points in the body. So the first thing that has to be done is that this accumulation in the body has to be released.

Hatha Yoga does not take this into account because in former times a suppressed mind and suppressive attitude were not prevalent, particularly in India. In those days India was one of the least suppressive countries. Now that is not so. And in the West, Christianity has caused so much suppression that everybody is crippled inside. These suppressions in the body have to be released first.

Otherwise you start out with a body that is not right, not natural, and many unnecessary problems may be created by it. That is why something totally unknown to Hatha Yoga has to be introduced now: the body must go through a catharsis first. To bring about this catharsis, a totally new science will be needed because this suppression is something new.

For example, if you have suppressed sex a lot, then kundalini cannot move up. It is blocked. The whole structure from where the kundalini can move up is simply blocked, blocked by the suppressed sex energy. Or, if you have indulged too much in sex, then you have no energy left to move upward.

These are the two problems: either you have a suppressed mind and the energy has become blocked or you have indulged too much so that no energy is left to move within you. You are not in a natural state, your energy is not balanced. It is not a natural flow that comes from either suppressing or indulging. With balanced energy, Hatha Yoga can be used very easily, but otherwise it creates problems.

Another thing is that all these hatha yoga techniques were developed for use in monasteries. They are monastic techniques intended for people who are totally involved in them for twenty-four hours a day, not doing anything else. Then too, you have to work with them for a very long period, for years.

If hatha yoga is taught to a person who is not totally involved in it, who only comes to do hatha yoga once or twice - or even for an hour a day, but who is involved for twenty-three hours a day in quite a different world, a work that is quite the contrary - it is not going to help much Whatsoever you have gained is lost every day. The very method is a monastic method. Now we have to develop the methods, nonmonastic methods that will not be undone by the rest of the activities of your life.

This is a problem, this is one of the most significant problems for those whose who are interested in yoga. In India, people just go on in their traditional way. They have tradition so they follow it without

thinking of whether something has to be changed or something new has to be added The whole world has become so different now that hatha yoga techniques are irrelevant in many ways, but they go on being taught because they have because they have become traditional.

India invented many things. But after a certain period the discovering stopped. It happens so many times. Now the same thing is happening in the West, particularly in America In America, technology has become so developed now that it can change everything. But because the changes are happening so fast, people are beginning to be against technology now. Whenever something comes to a peak it becomes threatening to many of the traditional values and a dialectical process develops in the same society. Many people begin to oppose continued progress. In America, the new generation is moving more and more against technology. If this opposition continues, as it is bound to, technological progress will stop and no further technological discoveries will be made.

Then the mind will become static.

The same thing happened in India with yoga. India developed a very subtle technology for inner development It was an inner science. Once the development came to a peak it became a danger to everything, because if the whole mind of a country becomes concentrated on yoga, everything else is bound to suffer.

India reached a peak of affluence. Then it became poor. This was a logical conclusion because if there is too much concern with the inner world, you are bound to become poor. You are not concerned with outward progress, the whole balance is lost. You become introverted. And once the whole society becomes introverted, outward conditions begin to deteriorate. Because of this inwardness, the whole progress of the country stopped. Finally, people began to oppose this over- concern with inwardness then.

Since the time of Buddha, India has not discovered anything new in terms of inner growth. Nothing is new since then; it has just been a repetition. And when it comes to bringing these same things to the West, there is a big gap - a tremendous gap.

For the West, many new things have to be done, many new things have to be conceived of and experimented with. I myself am trying many things. To me, the first thing that is needed is a catharsis. A catharsis releases everything inside you that is wrong, everything that is suppressed inside. You throw out all your suppressions, releasing them. Now, many new things have to be added to the traditional methods - a 2,000 year gap is there! - and this catharsis, to me, is the most important thing that has to be added. First, your body must go through a renewal...

When something becomes suppressed in the body, you are not aware of it. It goes into the unconscious, it is never conscious. the body is run by the unconscious mind not the conscious mind. The whole mechanism of the body is nonvoluntary.

You cannot feel whether your fingers have accumulated anger in them because if you could feel it, it would be difficult to live. Your fingers would feel so burdened that they would pull you down to earth.

There is a natural mechanism that allows you not to feel the suppressed anger in your fingers. You must not feel it, you must forget it is there. It becomes part of the structure of the body, but the mind has no awareness of it.

The mind becomes aware of something in the body only when something has gone wrong. For example, ordinarily you cannot feel that your blood is moving, but if you break a vein and the blood flows out of it, you can feel the movement of the blood. It has only been three hundred years since man has discovered that blood circulates. Before that we did not know that blood circulates because it could not be felt. Circulation is never felt. It is not a conscious thing; the body simply goes on doing it.

The entire body mechanism works unconsciously. You are not conscious of it. Whenever something moves from the mind to the body, it moves from the conscious to the unconscious. The body is unconscious. If you are angry you are conscious of the anger but not conscious of the chemicals that are released into the body. How can you be conscious of it? Whether you express your anger or you do not express your anger, you do not know what happens to those chemicals that are released into the blood stream or to the particular energy that creates aggression. If you have not used it, it must remain somewhere. You develop a complex: the aroused energy becomes a part of your muscular structure, it becomes a part of your body.

Wilhelm Reich had to arrange for two bodyguards when he was treating his patients because when he would push a particular point in the body, the patient would become wild. Many would become so violent that they would attack him without any reason. Reich would be just pushing a person's teeth and suddenly the person would become angry for no reason. The whole body has so many different points where so many emotions have been suppressed.

In England there was also a man whose techniques are worth reading about. If hatha yoga is to become a modern science now, then the techniques of Wilhelm Reich and this second man, Alexander, will have to be added to it. Alexander worked with the postures of the body. He discovered that someone has a particular posture because he has a particular mind. If the posture is changed, the mind will change. Or if the mind is changed, the posture will change. The two have a deep association.

In the past, people in India never used chairs. Chairs change your body posture in particular ways.

Hatha yoga has no posture to help you if you have been sitting on chairs It has no techniques to deal with this because chairs were not used in former times. But when you sit in a chair, a certain posture is created and by and by it becomes a fixed part of you. This has to be changed, you have to become more natural, but hatha yoga has no technique to bring about the change.

Western bodies have to be studied in a different way. What you have been doing with your body has to be studied. People in a society that does not prohibit the expression of emotions will have different kinds of postures from people in a suppressive society. In a society where people can weep easily or laugh easily, without inhibitions, the people have a different type of body structure.

When you laugh, it is not simply a laugh. Your whole body changes. If the society you have been brought up in has inhibited laughing, then your abdomen will have a different shape than if you were brought up in a society that encourages laughter. People brought up in certain societies cannot really laugh because laughter has been inhibited. Their speech is affected by it; everything becomes unnatural, a mannerism Then you cannot breathe deeply, because if you cannot laugh you cannot

take a deep breath. And in the same way, if you cannot weep easily, you cannot breathe easily.

Everything in the body is interconnected.

Alexander used to give his patients an exercise called the AH Exercise. It was the first exercise he gave to every patient. First one has to relax. Then he has to say, "AH AH!" so many times. If you can say ah, the whole system of the breathing changes.

In hatha yoga breathing, more emphasis is given to taking the breath in, but Alexander used to put the emphasis on the exhalation. And he is right because a suppressed mind can easily take breath in but has difficulty in letting go of it, in releasing it.

It is easy for the suppressed mind to take anything in, but to release it is difficult. So a suppressed mind will become constipated in a way. Everything will be taken in and nothing will be thrown out.

The body will begin to be greedy it will begin to accumulate. Even the excreta cannot be thrown out.

For this type of mind, the breath cannot be thrown out so easily.

Alexander worked for forty years. He developed a certain technique that is not related to yoga. He did not know anything about yoga - and it is good, because it meant that he had to find out many things through experience and through working with the bodies of westerners.

In the West, much body work has to be done. Alexander and Reich did much to help. Now there are also many sensitivity groups working in America, helping to create more sensitivity in the body. It is needed, because western bodies have become insensitive You touch and the touch is dead; there is no feeling in it. You can even kiss without kissing, with no inner feeling to it. Sensitivity has been lost, but unless a body is deeply sensitive, it is not alive.

The primary thing that has to be done is to make the body alive. So many different things have to be tried, but hatha yoga is not concerned with these things because it was developed for natural, primitive bodies. Primitive bodies are very alive; cultivated bodies are dead.

To be in the body means to be alive. I can use my hand just as an instrument but then it is dead. I can move my leg as an instrument, but then it is dead. If 'I' am not moving inside my leg, then the leg is dead. More sensitivity is needed now, so different postures have to be developed. And first, much catharsis is needed.

Someone was here, an American boy. He came to learn meditation. He had been wandering in and out of many ashrams in India, and then he came here. I told him, "Meditation cannot be started yet.

Between you and meditation, there is a gap. You can go on learning techniques forever, but it will not help because you are not yet at the point where the journey can begin."

So I gave him an exercise. He sat with me and I gave him a pillow and told him to beat it and to do whatever he liked to the pillow.

He said, "This is nonsense!"

I told him, "Do it! Start!"

The first day, he tried. In the beginning he was not very good at it, but by the end he was feeling much. He told me, "It's absurd. In the beginning I had to act, but for the last ten minutes I have been feeling much."

He continued the technique. Within a week, he was as angry with the pillow as you can imagine. It was so authentic and real. Then on the eighth day, he came with a dagger - though I had not asked him to. He said, "Now the problem is too much! I want to kill the pillow! Unless I kill it, if the anger is not released, I feel so agitated that I'm afraid I may kill somebody. So let me kill this pillow, murder it."

So he murdered.... On the eighth day he murdered the pillow, he completely destroyed it. Then for at least half an hour, he fell into a deep relaxation.

Finally I asked him, "What is your feeling about the pillow?"

He said, "The pillow remained just a pillow for four days. Later on, it became my father. I have not killed the pillow; I have killed my father. It has been a longing in me for three years. Now finally I can go back to my home, to my father. I'm not angry any more. On the contrary, I feel much pity for my father. The violence has disappeared."

Then I said, "Now you can start meditating." And the very first day, he went into deep meditation.

Through catharsis, his anger was released. Only then was he ready for meditation.

Everyone is stuck in certain grooves. First it is necessary to ungroove a person, and for this there are many, many methods.

One of the methods that I give people to do is ten minutes of chaotic breathing - as chaotically as possible. Just chaotic breathing: in/out, in/out. Just become a bellows. Forget yourself, do not interfere. Whatever movement happens, allow it. If you begin to strike at the air, then strike. If you begin to scream, then scream. If laughter comes to you, if weeping comes to you, if jumping comes to you, do it. Whatever happens to your mind, whatever you feel, do!

At my meditation camps, I watch people doing chaotic breathing for ten minutes and then allowing spontaneous movements to happen for ten minutes. At least fifty percent or more of the people make movements that are obviously sexual. Anyone can see that their movements are sexual; that it is sexual energy that is moving. Ten minutes of chaotic breathing disturbs the fixed pattern of your personality. Then the unconscious surges up and takes over.

Question:

If you are co-operative, it is very easy. What is the problem? It is the easiest thing in the world if you are co-operative. But if someone is not able to co-operate with his own energy, if he is not able to allow his body suppressions to be released, then he can be hypnotized and under hypnosis he can be told to allow what is in the unconscious to be expressed. Then, he can begin.

Only rarely can someone not be hypnotized. Only someone who is insane or who is below normal, someone who is not intelligent enough, cannot be hypnotized. You cannot hypnotize a madman; you cannot hypnotize an idiot.

Question:

A person of lower intelligence cannot be hypnotized; it is impossible. The greater the intelligence, the greater the hypnotizability. The more intelligent you are, the higher your I.Q., the more susceptible you are. A genius can be hypnotized very easily, but an idiot cannot be hypnotized at all. Your conception is wrong, but it's a prevalent mistake. What you are saying is wrong, it is absolutely unfounded, there are no grounds for it, but it is a very prevalent concept - that people who can be hypnotized are not intelligent. It is absolutely wrong.

Question:

If one method does not affect you, another method m3y. There are hundreds of methods. If one does not work for you then another one can be given or something else can be done. If a person is intelligent and co-operative then it is very easy. On the other hand, if he is intelligent and non co-operative, then it is a long process. But it is still not difficult, not impossible.

If a person cannot be hypnotized, then his body can be worked with directly, through touch. If you have suppressed anger in your fingers, you have a very different vibration near the fingers. A person who has felt many, many hands can feel in your hand the different vibration that a suppressed anger gives to the fingers. And in the same way, your spine can be felt, all the centers of your body can be felt, the whole body can be felt. Wherever there is suppression it can be felt. It is very subtle - a slight warmth or a slight coldness - but it can be felt.

Wilhelm Reich's method was to feel the body. After you have been feeling many bodies you become aware of these things. It is an art. It comes to you; you begin to feel the subtleties. There are also various esoteric methods. For example, your aura can be studied It reveals many things about you.

Or your dreams can be studied. They also give much information.

Or, certain situations can be created. Through these situations, you can be studied without your knowing it. Gurdjieff used to create many situations. You would come into a room and no one would look at you, no one would pay any attention to you. Twenty persons might be sitting there and they would all behave as if you were not there. You would begin to behave in a certain way which would be studied.

You are here A situation can be created in which you are forced to be angry. Then you can be studied. Or, you come in and everyone begins to laugh at you. Suddenly you are a different person.

These are situational methods. Gurdjieff was a master at creating situations; that was the way he worked.

Study Gurdjieff also. For the last fifty years he has been the most important person in the West as far as yoga is concerned - even though he was not directly concerned with yoga at all. Through Sufi methods he was trying to do many things. He would create situations in which your unconscious would be suddenly revealed without your knowing it.

Every moment you are revealing your unconscious. I can say certain things about you right now, or at any given moment, because of the way you sit, the way you walk into a room, the way you talk, the way you look. Everything is connected, everything is deeply related. You say that you cannot be hypnotized. That shows your attitude: a firm, deep attitude. It means much.

Question:

Nothing will happen because the very trying will be the barrier. In hypnosis, no active co-operation is needed. Only passive co-operation. If you are actively co-operative, your very activity will become the barrier. Hypnosis needs a deep passivity so if you are too concerned with being hypnotized, that will be the barrier. Your very effort will be the undoing. If a person is actively co operative, different methods have to be used - methods that use active co-operation.

That is the problem. Certain methods use nonactive co-operation, passivity, and other methods use active co-operation. First your activity has to be exhausted. You have to be made tired before you can be passive. Then the method works.

But for you, hypnosis can be a deep help, a very deep help.