What is Yôga?
Is it gymnastics? A religion? A fighting style? A flower arrangement?
Want to know what Yôga is really all about? This is a brief history on how this life-philosophy was first created, and the difference between what it really is, versus what most people think it is.
Once upon a time a famous dancer improvised instinctive movements that were extremely sophisticated due to his virtuosity, and, as a result , absolutely beautiful. His body language was not exactly a dance, but it had undeniably been inspired by it.
The captivating beauty of the technique moved all those who watched; they were overwhelmed with its expressiveness, and asked the dancer to teach them his art. And so he did. In the beginning, the method had no name. It was something spontaneous that came from within and only echoed in the hearts of those who had been born adorned by a more refined sensibility.
As the years passed, the great dancer was able to convey a good part of his knowledge until one day, long after, the Master passed on to the invisible planes. His art, however, did not die. The most loyal disciples preserved it and assumed the mission of re-transmitting it. The pupils of this generation also understood the importance of becoming teachers, and not modifying nor altering any of the eternal teachings of the first Mentor (Master).
At some moment in History, this art received the name integrity, integration, union: in Sanskrit, Yôga! Its founder was entered into mythology with the name of Shiva and with the title of Natarája, King of the Dancers.
These events occurred more than 5,000 years ago in the Northeast of India, in the Indus Valley, populated by the Dravidian people. Therefore, we will study the origins of Yôga in this period and discover (or, uncover) its original purpose, so that we can identify authentic teachings and distinguish them from others that have been compromised by consumerism and fusion with alien and incompatible methods.
Yôga, Tantra and Sámkhya
Yôga, Tantra and Sámkhya, were developed by these admirable people. Their civilization, which is also one of the most advanced of ancient times, was lost and forgotten for thousands of years until archaeologists, at the end of the 19th century, encountered evidence of its existence and excavated two important archaeological sites, where they discovered the cities of Harappá and Mohenjo-Daro. Later, more and more sites were uncovered. Today, there are already thousands of sites distributed over an area larger than that of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
The archaeologists were impressed with what they encountered. Their excavations of the cities revealed urban planning. Instead of tortuously narrow roads, wide avenues of up to 14 meters, running from North to South and East to West, were found. Among these, there were streets for pedestrians on which ox-carts did not travel. On these streets, the middle class houses had two stories, internal atriums, indoor lavatories and running water! Don’t forget that we are talking about a civilization that flourished over 3,000 years before Christ.
This is not all, however. Lighting on the streets and covered sanitation systems, children’s toys such as cars having wheels that turned as well as detailed images of bulls’ heads and dolls with implanted hair were found. Imposing barns that had an ingenious system of ventilation and elevated platforms to facilitate the loading and unloading of ox-carts were uncovered.
In other cultures of the same period, the buildings of the sovereigns showed opulent palaces and majestic royal tombs while the people subsisted in filthy shacks. On the contrary, in the Dravidian culture people lived well and the architecture of the public administration was simple.
Gaston Courtillier noted another significant difference between this and other civilizations. “We are truly surprised that, in those profoundly religious times, we did not find temples or remnants of statues, not even of adoration or of divinity for oration, which was the rule in other regions throughout ancient times.” For us, (SwáSthya Yôgins), this makes sense, after all, we know that in Ancient India, Sámkhya had its moment of splendour; and in pre-classic India, the Niríshwarasámkhya variety, (Sámkhya without divinities) was even more naturalistic than Classic Sámkhya.
The Dravidian society has been identified as matriarchal, which is also coherent with our sources, which show Yôga came from a Tantric culture.
Even farther below the ruins of the first cities, archaeologists discovered other cities. To their surprise, further down they encountered yet another, which was still more ancient. They dug more and found another city below that one. And yet another. And yet another. What called their attention was the fact that, the deeper they excavated, the more advanced the technology was, not only in terms of the architecture but also in regard to the tools they had. This continued until, eventually, they reached an underground aquifer and their excavations were forced to halt. In light of these discoveries, what we must ask ourselves is: how many other cities were there under those and how much more evolved would they have been?
In any case, it was from this Dravidian civilization, a Tantric (matriarchal) and Sámkhya (naturalistic) civilization, which Yôga emerged.
Around one thousand five hundred years after the earliest city uncovered in the excavations had flourished, historical facts show that the civilization of the Indus Valley was invaded by a sub-barbarian people, the Áryas or Arians, who came from Central Europe. It has beenshown using current historical facts that the Arians destroyed the Dravidian civilization, absorbing some parts of their culture into their own and exterminating almost all those who were conquered and enslaving the few survivors. Others escaped, migrating to the extreme south of India and Sri Lanka, where their descendants live until today, whom are referred to as the Tamil.
Yôga was the product of a non-warring, naturalist and matriarchal civilization. From 1,500 B.C. on, it began to be absorbed by another people (the Arians), which were their polar opposite: warring, mystical and patriarchal. Around twelve hundred years after the invasion (which is by no means a short period), Yôga was formally ‘arianized’ with the celebrated work Yôga Sútra by Pátañjali. This work inaugurated a re-reading of Yôga and from that point on, it would be known as Yôga Darshana, or Classic Yôga, which proposed nothing less than the opposite of the behavior proposed by the Yôga of Dravidian origin. The Yôga of the Dravids was matriarchal, sensorial and non-repressive or, in a single word, Tantric. This new ‘arianized’ interpretation was patriarchal, anti-sensorial and repressive, in other words, brahmácharya.
The most interesting aspect of this process of disruption is that if it weren’t for Pátañjali, Yôga would have disappeared from the History records. As a result of his efforts, which were obviously well intentioned and wise, today, his codification of Classic Yôga is widely respected and considered to be one of the oldest remaining documents registering Yôga techniques. By adapting Yôga to the Arian culture, in which typically everything Dravidian was discriminated against because of its matriarchal characteristics (considered subversive by the dominant patriarchal society), Pátañjali made Yôga acceptable to Arian society and its constituent powers of that time, and thus the tradition has reached us today.
Following Pátañjali’s influence, in the Middle Ages, Yôga suffered another grave disfigurement when the grand Master of Vêdanta philosophy, Shankaráchárya, converted a large part of the population to Vêdántism. As a result, the Vêdánta philosophy was reflected in Yôga, with the majority of Indians practicing Yôga having been converted to Vêdánta. The Vêdánta influence became official when public opinion and its leaders also conferred a spiritualistic1 format to Yôga, separeting Yôga even further from its Dravidian origins, which even during the Classic Period, were fundamentally based on a Sámkhya or naturalistic philosophy.
In the 20th century, Yôga suffered yet another tremendous blow: it was presented to the Occident and, of course, ‘westernized’. It became utilitarian, consumerist, something amorphous, ugly and dull.
Legitimate Yôga, however, is beautiful to watch; fascinating to practice; and excellent as a philosophy of life. It is dynamic; it is strong, it is for the young. Everyone who visits us and watches a video demonstrating the method are left in awe. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgfJ5OH7spc&feature=related,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF4QOaLo0Dk&feature=related ). They imagined that Yôga was something subdued, to the point of requiring extreme patience, or something supposedly recommended for the elderly! If anyone elderly decided to begin practicing genuine Yôga, they would run the risk of going into cardiac arrest. And, if it were not a genuine Yôga, but rather a result of successive simplifications, accumulative adaptations and unscrupulous ‘westernization’, then, it would not be worth calling such an anomaly Yôga.
The problem is that many people without the proper certification have erroneously designated themselves as Yôga teachers, and, since they lack an extensive repertoire of techniques, they mix a little of gymnastics, a bit of esoterism, a tad of hypnotism, a pinch of spiritism, a touch of tai-chi language, and some macrobiotics concepts. Then, they temper it all in an alternative, therapeutic atmosphere, and package it for consumption in a soft voice with new-age music. For the inexperienced, who do not have the slightest idea of what Yôga is, aside from a stereotyped and false vision, this fallacious miscellaneous version satisfies. But, it has nothing to do with Yôga.
We should not forget that the word Yôga means integrity, therefore, it must be represented integrally and in its entirety. In the following knols you will be introduced to SwáSthya Yôga, a modality of Yôga that is fascinating, absolutely beautiful, extremely satisfying to practice and capable of leaving anyone amazed. SwáSthya Yôga is a Pre-Classical, Pre-Arian, Pre-Vedic Yôga, the Proto-Historic Yôga of Shiva, an ultra-integral Yôga that has preserved the original philosophical characteristics of Yôga, Tantra and Sámkhya, and its execution is reminiscent of a dance, recovered from the most remote layers of the collective unconscious!
1 Do not mistake spiritualism for spirituality. Spirituality is a patrimony of what it is to be human. Yôga, of any modality, as long as it is authentic, develops spirituality. Spiritualism is an institutionalization of spirituality or a system that takes as its core, the spirit as opposed to the matter, basing itself on the dichotomy between the body and the soul as separate and opposing things.
