Is the Body the Temple of the Soul?

Hatha-yoga in Western culture is often perceived as the practice of physical exercises (practice of the asana position), usually done to improve one’s health and emotional state. Even if that is the case, it is still based on the rule of “the silencing of the modifications of the mind.” It is about a containment of mind dispersion in terms of non-important, minute, everyday issues, which are not important for the basis of our existence, balance and inner harmony, the unity of body and mind. Even if we train only for our health and for improvement of our physical fitness, then the end result, in the case of many physical and sports activities, is stopping mind movement. The full concentration on one action, on one point in space, might not have any metaphysical meaning for us, but it still remains full concentration. This can be achieved by patiently practicing hatha-yoga.

Foreword (Michał Szczepanik) 8 Introduction 10 Chapter 1. Philosophy and hatha-yoga practice. Para-religious aspects of hatha-yoga 22 1.1. Introduction 22 1.2. Yoga – the perspectives of religious studies scholar and the perspective of yoga practitioner 23 1.3. Yoga and society – “religion of everyday life” 30 1.4. Conclusions 36 Chapter 2. The social world of yoga practice 40 2.1. What is the social world? 40 2.2. Hatha-yoga practitioners and their social world – arenas and legitimization 41 2.3. The intersection of the worlds 49 2.3.1. Intersection of the world of yoga practice and the world of climbing 49 2.3.2. Intersection of the world of conventional medicine and alternative medicine 49 2.3.3. Intersection of the world of business corporations and the world of yoga practice 51 2.3.4. Intersection of the world of yoga and pop-culture 54 2.4. A disagreement about hatha-yoga origin. The vision of Marc Singleton 55 2.5. Conclusions 68 Chapter 3. Commonsense definitions of yoga and its meaning for practitioners 70 3.1. Introduction 70 3.2. Individual interpretations of hatha-yoga 71 3.3. Conclusions 81 Chapter 4. The process of becoming a hatha-yoga practitioner 84 4.1. Introduction 84 4.2. Introductory phase – construction of motives and first steps 86 4.2.1. Constructing motives 86 4.2.2. First steps – beginning of the practice 92 4.2.3. Noticing the effects 99 4.3. The phase of fuller recognition of psychophysical effects, and ascribing appropriate meanings to them 106 4.4. Phase of fuller recognition of the spiritual (para-religious) aspects of hatha-yoga 118 4.5. Conclusions 137 Chapter 5. Visual transmission of knowledge and the meaning of corporality and gestures in the social world of yoga practice 142 5.1. Introduction 142 5.2. The method of studying corporality with the usage of visual techniques 148 5.3. What do I see and feel when I practice? Analysis of the interviews data 151 5.3.1. What do I see when somebody else practices? The analysis of films from the Internet used for interviews 153 5.3.2. What do I feel when I practice? Analysis of the movie-elicited interviews 160 5.3.3. Non-passable knowledge. Difficulties with verbal interpretations and description of asanas 160 5.3.4. Body empathy based on visualization 163 5.4. The role of the teacher and the correctness of asana performance 174 5.5. Conclusions 175 Chapter 6. Emotions and yoga practicing. Working on emotions and achieving “emotional culture” without emotions 178 6.1. Introduction 178 6.2. Working on emotions – explanations based on practitioners’ statements 184 6.3. Conclusions 191 Chapter 7. Teacher and guru in hatha-yoga practice 196 7.1. Introduction 196 7.2. Teacher-student interactions 198 7.3. Conclusions 208 Conclusions 210 Bibliography 218