Ron Shane, Ph.D., O.M.D., N.D., Olivia Meyer, and Regina Woo
B.K.S. Iyengar’s work entitled Light on Yoga was the first major text
depicting the medicinal efficacy of this meditative art. Currently, in every
major city in the U.S. there are a bevy of yoga studios as well as health
clubs, universities, and recreational centers offering some kind of Hatha
Yoga classes. Yoga is now erroneously considered as an exercise protocol. A
multitude of articles have been written celebrating yoga as an exquisite
regime for body sculpting, and it has likewise been touted as an intriguing
protocol to tone a woman’s torso. It also has been viewed as a viable weight
loss protocol. B.K.S. Iyengar is quite lucid in terms of delineating the
exacting nature of this meditative art.
The blasphemy of American commercialism has derogated the sacred principal
intent of this medicinal and meditative art. Iyengar in his Light on Yoga,
which is not being utilized by most yoga-teaching programs, is quite clear
on what he defines to be the fundamental basis of this ancient, static,
meditative art. For B.K.S. Iyengar, yoga is absolutely not an exercise
strategy nor a body conditioning regime. It will not improve the aesthetic
symmetry of a male of female torso. This strategy will not enhance bodily,
cardiovascular functionality. Yoga is not a protocol to induce muscle
genesis or mitigate subcutaneous adiposity. This meditative art does not
upregulate the body’s metabolic rate. Most instructors who are educating
their students regarding the benefits of yoga do not necessarily understand
the intrinsic dynamics of this meditative art.
Yoga has been remodeled as a result of American commercialism in a manner to
turn profits rather than to be an ancient art to invigorate the body’s
arcane metaphysiology. It is most comedic how yoga is now being represented
in the 21st century in a way which is diametrically opposed to how Iyengar
and other authentic yoga masters have regarded this sacred, meditative art.
There are now yoga clothing lines, books, DVDs, franchise instructor
training courses, as well as nationwide studio systems. Each particular yoga
training franchise has its own vision of yoga as well as a unique marketing
strategy. The American pathogenic phenotype is aggressively seeking some
time of strategy to mitigate the body’s pathophysiology. Yoga’s popularity
is still escalating, and it appears to be correlated with its fallacious
commercial viability. Any human entity can easily execute the asanas of this
meditative art, as it absolutely takes no motor coordination to execute the
asanas of Hatha Yoga.
Most yoga instructors in the United States only mimic the standing and
sitting asanas of yoga as they do not fully comprehend the deeper
machinations of this meditative art. This vacuous vision of yoga makes it
difficult for a nascent practioner to experience yoga’s heuristic merit.
Hatha Yoga is absolutely not a robust exercise strategy nor a movement art
to induce chi circulation. It is a medicinal way as well as a requisite
meditative art for the practice of kundalini or tantric yoga. Contemporary,
yoga instructors don’t understand the explicit intent of Hatha Yoga. Thus,
the efficacy of this ancient internal art has become virulently mitigated
and it is now without any viable veracity.
The asanas or postures of Hatha Yoga must be executed with the intent of
activating the body’s first, second, and third chakras. If an instructor is
not capable of educating students to experience this kind of sentient praxis
then it is not authentic Hatha Yoga. The over activity of the conceptual
circuits of many super cortical pathways must be tempered where the
sympathetic nervous system is no longer upregulated; and this should be the
major focus of authentic yoga instructors. The translocation of
consciousness is not possible unless there is a homeostatic regulation of
the autonomic nervous system. The pejorative commercialism of improperly
trained yoga instructors who fail to educate students as to how to mitigate
the anxious and stressful meanderings of their central nervous system’s
conceptual workings relegate it to be meaningless and vacuous.
B.K.S. Iyengar purports that meditative aspect of yoga requires a
transposition of consciousness from the labyrinth of ratiocination to the
prodigiousness of the arcane body. This level of energy modulation sometimes
takes years for a practitioner to execute whereas the actual physical
aspects of the asanas can be manifested by someone in a few minutes. The
outward simplicity of yoga is illusionary as most modern instructors lack
the proficiency to translocate consciousness to the esoteric aspects of the
body. The activation of the lowest chakras is even more difficult and
challenging to enact than calming the over activity of the brain’s outward
ruminations.
Chinese energy practitioners discerned, a few thousand years ago, that
moving many of yoga’s standing asanas was a much more effective strategy for
activating the lower chakras and enhancing the powers of the mental
eye/sixth chakra as well as inducing ameliorative chi circulation. Hatha
Yoga must then be regarded as an excellent meditative art, but has
limitations compared to the movement arts like Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do, or
ballet as a methodology for activating the lower chakras with the intent of
arousing the etheric body’s kundalini complex. Some advanced practitioners
of the hand and foot martial arts can readily generate the energy prowess to
unfurl kundalini complex.
It is more difficult to utilize Hatha Yoga as an energy art to unleash the
kundalini as compared to executing the movement patterns of I.T.F. Tae Kwon
Do or Traditional Kung Fu. Kundalini or tantric yoga as explicated by Joseph
Campbell in his work entitled The Mythic Image is a universal meta-phenomena
which humans have experienced for millenniums, and is not an exclusive
province of India’s esoteric arts. The author’s work entitled The Mystique
of Energy is where he argues that Hatha, Kundalini, Raja yogas can be viewed
as an integrative system of ethereal metamorphosis; however, the furtive
genesis of the numinous body can be more readily experienced in other energy
systems like traditional Kung Fu and Tae Kwon Do.
Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell have sagaciously revealed that there are many
distinctive strategies to develop the numinous aspects of the etheric body.
Raja yoga, as discussed in the author’s text entitled The Etheric Power of
the Mental Eye depicts the actual machinations as to how to actualize the
body’s arcane mental eye. Many cultures have employed the movement arts to
actualize the puissance of the numinous body. Thus, raja yoga can be
regarded as one methodology for activating this essential, primordial facet
of the etheric body. The author’s work The Dimensions of the Mystical
Erotic: The Internal Art of Tantra, shows that the prodigious mental eye is
a requisite for the advanced practice of India’s ecstatic tantric yoga
practices. Thus, practitioners of this esoteric ritualism had to be very
sophisticated in their utilization of this sphere of the etheric body.
Hatha Yoga must then be regarded as a kind of meditative art or a way to
mitigate the over activity of the sympathetic nervous system. The
dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system prohibits a practitioner from
executing esoteric energy arts like Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do, or classical
ballet. All of these complex, movement arts mandate that a practitioner
temper the CNS’s excessive, conceptual ruminations. Furtive consciousness or
opulent perception for it to exist must be translocated to the etheric body.
Thus, authentic Hatha Yoga can be viewed as a way to activate somatic
consciousness, and provide flexibility to a practitioner’s muscle/skeletal
system, which is then a prerequisite to ardently practice the energy arts
like the hand and foot martial arts and classical ballet.
Hatha Yoga for most practitioners in the U.S. is an endless execution of
standing and seated postures devoid of the body’s interior edification. Yoga
requires absolutely no complex motor coordination or athleticism like the
authentic martial arts or classical ballet. Thus, parts of the motor cortex,
cerebellum and subcortical regions of the brain are not being thoroughly
developed as in the case of the movement arts, which requires the
practitioner to develop complex motor coordination. Yoga can be quite
beneficial if taught in a manner analogous to Chi Gung which should be a
precursor to Kung Fu or Tae Kwon Do training. Yoga is not the ultimate body
and mind training regime; and instead is a protocol to prepare an individual
for robust martial art conditioning, indigenous ritualistic dance, or
classical ballet training.
It is important that a beginning practitioner of the movement arts acquire
the acumen to homeostatically regulate the sympathetic nervous system or to
temper the over activity of the stress pathway; and more importantly,
translocate consciousness to the arcane sphere of the numinous body. Yoga
could be employed by advanced energy practitioners to activate the body’s
lower chakras even though it is not as effective of a strategy in comparison
to Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do or classical ballet. Atavistic humans evolved
ritualistic movement systems to incense the lower chakras where the earth’s
fiery fervidness could blend with the body’s libidinous prowess to generate
the force to unleash the kundalini energy dynamics.
Many cultural traditions evolved movement arts, which employ some standing
asanas of yoga with the principal intent of enabling practitioners to
prodigiously move energy or stimulate chi throughout all nuances of the
body. The mental eye or sixth chakra cannot efficaciously be developed by
practicing the rudimentary standing postures of yoga. The traditional
martial arts, classical ballet, or ecstatic ritualistic movement arts
enables an advanced practitioner to activate the powers of the mental eye
where this principal facet of the numinous body can then alleviate any kind
of chi obstruction; and more importantly, develop the energy dynamics of the
etheric body.
Those persons who have been executing the postures of yoga in the preceding
decade should evolve their training practice as they are now physiologically
capable of pursuing an intriguing movement art, which would enhance bodily
chi circulation, the activation of the kundalini, as well as the development
of the ardent fervidness of the mental eye which regulates the energy
processes of the etheric body. Masterful black belts who execute the complex
patterns of a martial art where they are moving for over an hour while they
are utilizing their torso as well as upper and lower extremities do so with
the intent of vibrantly moving chi throughout the numinous body as well as
developing the prowess of the mental eye. This kind of training also
stimulates cardiovascular health, muscle skeletal strength, and motor
coordination which optimizes neurophysiology in a number of regions of the
central nervous system. Furthermore, the esoteric benefits of the martial
arts or classical ballet is far superior to anything which can be
experienced from the simplistic praxis of Hatha Yoga’s asanas.
Authentic masters of the hand and foot martial arts experience the puissance
of the mental eye which results in the development and metamorphic
enhancement of the numinous body. The mind’s eye must develop energy coils
or channels which extend throughout the arcane body to regulate the sphere
of the physical torso. Ki or Chi is the esoteric force, which should
circulate throughout the ethereal body. Advanced master black belts have not
only achieved the ardent prodigiousness of the mental eye with channels
emanating as well as incensing the etheric body, but likewise stimulating
ardent chi circulation.
Most martial art masters strive on a daily basis to ascend their kundalini
beyond the physical limitations of their skull where its plumed marvelment
interfaces with the celestial sphere. B.K.S. Iyengar likewise referred to
the etheric body’s ontological genesis in his writings. This Hatha Yoga
master likewise argued that the purpose of executing his asanas must be with
the intent of experiencing the ascendant kundalini as well as the mental eye
to be splendidly robust. The traditional martial arts, ballet, or indigenous
movement ritualism are more efficacious strategies compared to Hatha Yoga
for achieving this kind of mystical activation of the etheric body.
The puerile commercialism of the 21st century has limited the benefits of
Hatha Yoga as a medicinal meditative art. Those motivated, authentic
practitioners of Hatha Yoga need to comprehend that the arcane movement arts
can provide them with exquisite protocols to develop the body’s physicality
and stimulate the arcane genesis of the ethereal essence. The pursuit of
Hatha Yoga for mystical development in the United States is an
impossibility. Those individuals who are seeking higher interior
consciousness must seek after the edifying movement arts which can provide
them with advanced chi circulation, and enable them to develop the
relationship between the naval center of the body and the earth’s vibrancy,
and most importantly, the blitheful, ecstatically of the kundalini.
Ron Shane, Ph.D., O.M.D., N.D., is a 7th degree I.T.F. Tae Kwon Do black
belt and is currently a research scholar at U.C. San Diego, working in the
field of neuroendocrinology and optimal physiology.