May 2011

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Extract from Yoga Scotland Magazine May 2011

The Roots of Hatha Yoga - the cleansing practices

By Jayanti & Bijam

The idea of running a day seminar exploring the roots of hatha yoga arose from reading in Swami Niranjanananda’s book “Yoga Darshan - vision of the Yoga Upanishads” - that originally the practices of hatha yoga were divided into six groups or shatkarmas (sometimes known as kriyas, but not to be confused with the complex meditation practices of Kriya Yoga).

The day was planned around the link described in “Yoga Darshan” between the six cleansing practices and the koshas.

This article - created from the notes prepared for the seminars - first appeared in the January 2011 issue of the Newsletter of the Scottish Satyananda Yoga Network.

A reference list is available on request, from bijam.yogini@yahoo.co.uk

So what are the Shatkarmas?

The Sanskrit word shat means six and karma means action. Each practice has effects on different koshas, starting with the gross physical effects and becoming more subtle and refined in progressing to meditation.

Purification of Annamaya kosha - the physical level. Aim to eliminate toxins and impurities caused by incorrect dietary habits.

1. Neti - for the head, nostrils etc. (But it also has psychological effects). Usually done with saline - jala neti

2. Dhauti - gentle washing -cleaning the teeth, tongue, ears. Kunjal kriya (regurgitating saline) is a variety of dhauti for cleansing the stomach

3. Basti - intestinal wash -shankaprakshalana (full or laghoo)

Purification of Pranamaya kosha - the energetic level

4. Nauli (can be preceded by agnisara kriya and uddiyana bandha)

Agnisara kriya is also regarded as a type of dhauti - activating the digestive fire. Nauli awakens manipura chakra and balances the entire pranic body

Manomaya kosha - the mental level

5. Kapalbhati - begins as a physical practice but then raises pranic energy and concentrates it at ajna chakra

6. Tratak - a way of achieving optimum concentration of awareness and mind.

In summary, the first three practices purify the physical structure in preparation for awakening the subtle energies in the body Nauli balances the pranic body; kapalbhati cleanses the mind; and tratak is a dharana technique that focuses the mind on one point.

There are three generally recognised root texts for Hatha Yoga -the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (HYP), Shiva Sambita and Gheranda Samhita. There are some differences between them with regard to the cleansing practices. For example, HYP says that only those students who have a lot of phlegm and mucus (to use the Ayurvedic classification, having an excess of kapha) need to practice them and that for others the practices of pranayama described in the text will bring about purification. The Shiva Samhita does not mention cleansing at all; but Gheranda Samhita devotes the whole of its first chapter to the shatkarmas and clearly intends all students to practice them prior to embarking on pranayama practices.

We discussed the first three and then practised in a “dry run” the asanas associated with laghoo shankaprakshalana. (This is the short version of shankaprakshalana and can be practised as required, according to one’s constitution and needs. Full shankaprakshalana can only be practised twice a year at most, in Spring and Autumn.)

From there we moved on to practices leading up to nauli, for the energetic body; it seemed like a good idea to boost the digestive fire just before lunch! In the afternoon we looked at a prepared table summarising the key aspects of three classic texts - Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Shiva Samhita and Gheranda Samhita, noting particularly the descriptions of mudras in the two Samhitas. We then practised kapalbhati and mahamudra. The day was completed with the practice of the sixth shatkarma, tratak, using a candle flame as the point of concentration.

A second day has now been held during which the practices of laghoo shankaprakshalana, kunjal kriya and jala neti were performed.

All of yoga is of course a process of self-purification; saucha, cleanliness, being one of the niyamas of Patanjali’s yoga. Purification is a key part of Swami Sivananda’s 6 principles of yogic living -Serve Love Give Purify Meditate Realize. Swami Veda Bharati has written in his book “The Philosophy of Hatha Yoga” that hatha yoga was devised by raja yogis as a process of both physiological and psychological purification for the practice of meditation.

“Whether young or old, very old, sick or feeble, one can attain perfection in all the yogas by practising.

Perfection results from practical application. Without practising, how can it happen? Just by reading the shastras perfection in yoga will never be attained.

Neither by wearing the garb of a siddha, nor by talking about it is perfection attained. Only through practical application does one become a siddha. This is the truth without a doubt.”

Hatha Yoga Pradipika chapter one, verses 64-66

A (very) potted history of hatha yoga

Hatha yoga is generally assumed to have developed in the so- called “post-classical” era of Indian Yoga, a few hundred years after the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. However many yoga scholars say that the philosophy and techniques of hatha yoga are at least 5000 years old; they were just not written down until HYP appeared in the 14th century AD. The written texts refer to the teachings as originating from Shiva himself.

In the post-classical period there seems to have been a framework that the body is a hindrance to spiritual life and is foul and disgusting, with appetites that have to be controlled and eliminated or better still transcended. Of course this was also the case in other religious traditions including Gnostic Christianity. For example:

From the Maitrayaniya Upanishad (about the same time as the Yoga Sutras) appears the following:

Venerable, in this ill-smelling, unsubstantial body (which is nothing but) a conglomerate of bone, skin, sinew, muscle, marrow, flesh, semen, blood, mucus, tears, rheum, faeces, urine, wind, bile and phlegm - what good is the enjoyment of desires?. In this body which is afflicted with desire, anger; greed, delusion, fear despondency envy separation from the desirable, hunger thirst, senility death, disease, sorrow and the like - what good is the enjoyment of desires?

However around 500 AD, led by the adepts of Tantra - practices generally thought to go back to at least 3000 BCE, pre-dating the Vedic period -there began to emerge a new attitude towards the human body and bodily existence in general. The Tantric revolution led away from the model of the body as “an inflated bladder of skin “and towards a view of it as a temple of the Divine, and the only way through which knowledge of Reality - or enlightenment - can be acquired. The practices were said to create an adamantine body immune from mortal decay. The underpinning psychic physiology including nadis, chakras etc is attributed to the hatha yoga texts, these ideas hardly being mentioned in the Yoga Sutras.

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Yogi Swatmarama, a disciple of Yogi Goraknath, dated to about 1350 AD, is generally recognised as THE classic text on Hatha Yoga. The word “pradipika” comes from the Sanskrit verb “to flame forth” and means a light, lamp or lantern. The yoga of HYP has 4 stages, with a chapter devoted to each.

The Shiva Samhita was composed slightly later but certainly before the 16th century, by an unknown author. According to the Introduction in James Mallinson’s edition (see reference list) it contains teachings not found anywhere else. The text is Shiva addressing his consort Parvati. It has 5 chapters describing philosophy, the 4 stages of yoga, mudras and meditation.

The Gheranda Samhita, from the 17th century, the youngest of the 3 classic texts, is in the form of a dialogue between Sage Gheranda and the enquirer Chandra Kapali. It is unique in teaching a sevenfold path or means of perfecting the person (one chapter for each).

In 19th century India hatha yoga appears to have been very much scorned - it isnt even mentioned by swami Vivekananda in his presentation of yoga to the western world in 1892. This seems to have been partly because mendicant hatha yogis were seen as mere tricksters. It seems that Swami vivekananda was at one point deeply interested in working with a hatha yoga guru, but received visions of his guru Ramakrishna rather fiercely warning him off pursuing this.

An interesting description published early in the 20th century confirms the somewhat scornful attitude towards hatha yogis:

“The science of yoga is divided into several branches. Hatha Yoga is tha branch of the yoga philosophy which deals with the physical body - its care - its wellbeing - its health - its strength - and all that tends to keep it in its natural state of health …. There have been many and most valuable works written on the other branches of yogi philosophy, but the subject of hatha yoga has been dismissed …………. This is largly due to the fact that in India there exists a horde of ignorant mendicants of the lower fakir class, who pose as Hatha yogis, but who have not the slightest conception of the underlying priciples of that branch of yoga. These people content themselves with obtaining control over some of the involuntary muscles of the body, thereby acquiring the ability to perform certain abnormal “tricks” which they exhibit to amuse and entertain (or disgust) Western travellers. These mendicants are akin to the class of fanatics in India who assume the title “yogai” and who refuse to wash the body for religious reasons, or who sit with uplifted arm until it is withered; or who allow their fingernails to grow until they pierce their hands; or who sit so still that birds build nests in their hair.”

From “Hatha Yoga” attributed to Yogi Ramacharaka

However from early in the 20th century many yogis includingSwami Sivananda, Swami Kuvalayananda, Sri Krishnamacharya and many others revived and popularised the practices, to the extent that in the West hatha yoga is often thought of as the only yoga there is.

In 1979 Swami Satyananda taught in Dublin that “Hatha yoga is also known as the science of purification, not one type of purification but six types. Besides purifying the physical body we have to pruify the nadis. The body has to be cleansed in six different ways for six different impurities Hatha yoga is the preparation for pranayama. If you practice pranayama, you do not have to worry about the mind, the wild mind does not exist for you”.

Might it be that over emphasis on asana has led to a relative neglect of other key aspects of hatha yoga including the importance of the cleansing practices as preparation for intensive pranayama and meditation? We hope that by continuing to run seminars on the six shatkarmas we can play a small part in correcting that.

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