[MUSIC PLAYING]
[FIRE CRACKLING]
>> From the primitive
drawings of the ancients
to the sophisticated
science of quantum physics,
the desire to transcend the
human condition and go beyond
our ordinary existence into the
very essence of what we call
consciousness is a deeply
rooted human impulse.
>> There's this
incredible mystery.
And that is why yoga, and
the great master Buddha said,
awakening is not the end.
It is the beginning.
>> A tradition over
5,000 years old,
yoga is thought to be practiced
by 2 billion people worldwide.
How did this ancient
practice evolve into the yoga
we know today, and what
is the sacred promise it
holds for our future?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In this series, Gaia
travels to India,
considered the
birthplace of yoga,
to help answer these timeless
questions through the thoughts
of scholars and
students who have
dedicated their lives to yoga.
>> We're trying to cultivate
our intellectual capacity to do
rather deeper questioning and
understanding about the nature
of ourselves and life around us.
>> You know, the yogic
world is a very vast world,
and every seed, every being
does different translations
of different things.
It depends on which perspective
you're looking at it.
So you're also right,
and I am also right.
So both of us are right.
[CHUCKLES]
>> The answers to the
questions depends on context,
depends on lineage, depends
on the type of practice
you're doing, depends on the
goal of the practice that
you're doing, and then the
answer changes in relation
to all those factors.
So the more profound the
question, the more difficult
it's going to be to answer
in any general sense.
>> While the world of
yoga can be challenging
to contextualize, one
thing is crystal clear,
With dozens of different
paths and infinite ways
of practicing, yoga is much
more than spiritual gymnastics.
>> The goal of yoga is freedom.
Freedom.
Freedom from self.
Freedom from the burden of life.
>> Yoga is meant
to shape the life.
It's way of living.
>> Basically, yoga is understood
by physical practices,
and that is very,
very unfortunate.
>> It's the transcendence
of the body.
Transcendence of the ego.
The surrender of the
ego to the divine.
>> Unless we learn to
accept life as a whole,
we haven't learned yoga.
>> The eight basic paths or
forms of yoga we will touch
on in this series
are Hatha yoga,
widely known as the seed of
all modern yoga, Bhakti, Karma,
and Jnana yoga, sometimes
seen as the paths of devotion.
We will dive deep into the often
misunderstood ritualistic path
of Tantra and Raja,
considered one
of the most difficult paths
requiring great self-discipline
and practice.
Nada, the path of union with
the absolute through sound,
Kundalini and Kriya, the yogas
of physical action and energy.
And lastly, we explore ancient
archetypes and mythology.
All are ways to
attain the same goal--
to awaken-- but are in no
means the complete story.
>> All these yogas
are interdependent.
You can't separate
them, actually.
You can't be an Jnana yogi
without practicing Karma yoga
and showing Bhakti yoga
and having Raja yoga.
And you can't do Karma yoga
without the understanding
of Jnana yoga and without
the devotion of Bhakti yoga.
They're all interconnected.
It's just the way you
look at the picture that's
the difference.
>> You'll find that there are
some systems of yoga that focus
on postures mostly, for
alignment, and stretching,
and dealing with the
strengthening of the body.
There are those who might
just focus on meditation.
Those who might focus just
on mastering the breath.
Others who would focus
on the philosophy.
Understanding the knowledge
of it, and the wisdom of it,
and the science behind it.
But yoga embraces all
of that, which makes
it a very complete science.
[CHANTING]
>> The very word
"yoga" means unity.
But unity with what?
Self, God, the universe?
>> It's not just a union
of our breath to our body.
That's part of it.
Not just a union of our
mind to our muscles.
Yes, that's part of it.
And certainly not just
a union of our nose
to our knees, or our
fingers to the ground.
It's a union of
this self, meaning
this self I identify as,
with the capital S self.
The supreme, the universe.
It's an awareness
that we are that.
>> One of the purpose of yoga
is uniting the individualized
consciousness with the
universal consciousness.
We need to do practice,
what is called sadhana.
Sadhana means learning
the method of meditation.
And then you get connection
with the infinite
in the form of ineffable
peace, ever-new joy.
>> We start to
understand the mind,
recognize the mind
for what it is,
and learn how to work with it,
and change it in a positive way
that we choose so we
can become, essentially,
kings of kings or
queens of queens.
Really, masters of our
own mind rather than
victims of our mind.
>> One of the great examples
we have in our history,
yogic history, Krishna.
He was in the world, yet
he was not in the world.
He had a yogic consciousness.
That is the consciousness, and
that is known as a Raja yoga.
When you apply the teachings
in your day-to-day life,
you know how to talk,
you know how to listen,
you know how to sit,
you know how to serve.
Then you are Raja yogi.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
>> No one really
knows when yoga began.
Its comprehensive
nature seems as
vast as the heavens themselves.
>> When we are speaking
in the yogic traditions,
all teachings are
ultimately channeled.
This is not of human realm.
It's not from a path.
It is from a mystical experience
that when you get into that
state, you're having a download,
like when you're creating
a piece of music that
changes life, like Mozart's.
Ultimately, all teachings
are being downloaded
from the cosmic womb.
The Akashic.
Everything.
Einstein did not make
up theory of relativity.
The general theory of
relativity was always at work.
Gravity did not come all of
a sudden when Galileo came.
It's inspired action.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
>> Yoga can be seen in two
different forms, the exoteric,
or external form, and the
esoteric, or internal practice.
>> The exoteric side are the
general beliefs and worldviews
of the religion, the
beliefs of the religion.
The esoteric is something
that's open to everybody,
but very few people
are interested in.
It requires a different
type of temperament.
In the West, a yogi is anybody
who practices any type of yoga.
But a yogi in
India usually means
somebody who's very full-time
committed to esoteric practice.
The hidden secrets of religion.
>> Exoteric yoga is the more
recognized physical form
of yoga, with its postures,
breathing practices,
and techniques.
And while both forms
are meant to develop
a complete individual, often,
one begins with the exoteric,
and gradually, over
time, integrates
more and more of the esoteric,
or internal yoga techniques.
[CHANTING]
>> In our practices, we are
working on all dimension
of being.
We are not ignoring your body.
We are not ignoring our energy.
We are not ignoring
of our thoughts.
We are not ignoring
our belief system.
You address all aspects, and
thereby creating an integrated
being, instead of lopsided.
If you're just doing
only on a body level,
you're doing 21
poses after 21 poses
every day, that's
all you're doing,
it's lopsided development.
You're maintaining the
body's strength so much
but the energy is weak.
Your conscious is not releasing.
Your emotional body
is all over the place.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
>> Passed down through oral
transmissions in the beginning,
yoga's written history dates
back to the Indus-Sarasvati
civilizations in northern India
circa 1,500 to 1,000 BCE when
the word "yoga" was first
mentioned in the Rigveda.
The Rigveda is the oldest
of four collections of hymns
and sacred texts
known as the Vedas.
>> Veda means-- it
is Sanskrit word.
Veda means known knowledge.
Whatever known up to now
by human mind, heart.
So veda means knowledge
about nature, about yourself,
and your relation with nature.
>> The view is God is perfect
in an atom as in whole universe.
If in an atom, God can exist,
God can exist everywhere.
That is our view.
>> This existential knowledge at
the very core of yoga can only
be grasped through a
basic understanding
of the extraordinarily complex
language that birthed it.
>> [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
For thousands of
years, Sanskrit has
been considered a kind
of revealed language,
a divine language.
It's also called Devavani, which
means the language of the gods.
And the word "Sanskrit" itself
means refined, perfected,
polished.
What's different about Sanskrit
from some everyday language
like English is
that the vibration
of the syllables
themselves is understood
as a vehicle for transmission.
Sanskrit is thought to
encode something fundamental
about the nature of reality.
>> Om.
>> Many of us have experienced
that om is a fundamental
vibration.
>> Om.
Om is that underlying
vibration of everything.
And yet om is also
a word in Sanskrit.
It's a word with
specific meaning.
It means yes, or so be
it, even at the same time
that it transcends meaning.
>> [NON-ENGLISH CHANTING]
>> Every language, there's
a certain element which is
dominating.
English has water as
the dominating language.
That's why everybody
more or less
speaks this language, because
of the water element in it.
It flows.
Sanskrit, it has the akash
as the dominating element.
The sound of the
akash is silence.
This language was not
invented by the human mind.
It is the language of
the gods, of the ethers.
This language exists
in the universe.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
>> [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
>> We believe, by
vibrating these sounds,
you stimulate that
specific element in you.
So when you recite the sounds
that carry the perfect sound
current, you get
freed from imbalances
as far as the physical
body is concerned,
as far as the mental
body is concerned,
as far as your energetic
body is concerned.
>> [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
>> These divine sounds, refined
through the songs, mantras,
and rituals performed by
the Brahmins and Rishis,
carried yoga's message for
thousands of years until
the last of the
Vedas, the Upanishads,
appeared somewhere
around 800 to 500 BCE.
This series of sacred texts
containing over 200 scriptures,
along with the other
Vedas, are thought
to have provided
the spiritual core
and philosophical foundations
for the future development
of both yoga and Hinduism.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Then, beginning around 1000
CE and lasting over 800 years,
India was invaded, and
entire cities were burnt down
and the populations massacred.
Not only were their
lives in danger,
but their entire culture
was facing extinction.
Yoga went underground,
and the mystical teachings
that had been so patiently and
devotedly distilled and refined
were fractalized.
>> Many of these
practices were banned.
Yoga was banned.
Martial art was banned.
If they were caught, they
were imprisoned for life.
So much of these ancient
teachings became hidden,
and it was practiced only
by some of the masters.
>> What emerged was a mish-mash
of various ideas, beliefs,
and techniques that often
conflicted and contradicted
each other.
And then, some time between
300 and 1,000 years later,
Patanjali emerged and
is thought to have
created the Yoga Sutras, the
first systematic presentation
of yoga.
>> Who is Patanjali?
We have some stories.
We don't really know for sure.
Some scholars think that he
just went around, and collected
practices, and
encapsulated them.
Others think that there
were various texts
that he drew straight from
and knitted them together.
His brilliance was
that he refused
to allow himself to be pinned
down to any one tradition.
But Patanjali's Yoga
Sutra encapsulates,
in less than 200
short sentences,
the problem, the path,
and the resolution.
>> And so it's explaining
how, through these various
practices, you can
achieve enlightenment,
which is termed within
the text kaivalya.
>> The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
refers to the eight limbs
of yoga and systematically
outlines a process
of encountering, examining,
and transcending each
of the various gross and subtle
levels of false identity,
or ego, until only the jewel
of the true self is left.
Because one limb
builds on another,
the eightfold path has sometimes
been depicted as a tree.
The trunk is the common life
of egoic self-involvement.
The branches are the
uncommon realizations
of the inner world.
The leaves and fruit are
the self beyond the ego.
The eight limbs of Yama, Niyama,
Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara,
Dharana, Dhyana, and
Samadhi offer guidance
on how to live a meaningful
and purposeful life,
and will be covered in
more detail in episode 2.
>> It's a very systematic
way to learn how to, one,
recognize the mind, two,
purify the mind, three,
focus the mind, and then
ultimately learn how to subdue
or silence the mind so we
get an expanded awareness
and consciousness when
the mind becomes quiet.
>> What's interesting
to note is that while
Patanjali's eightfold path is
seen to provide all one needs
to live an intentional life, it
mentions no poses at all other
than the seated
meditation posture.
In fact, the Sanskrit
word "asana," as used
in the Yoga Sutras,
means posture or seat,
and are intended
as ways you could
sit for extended amounts of
time with the sole purpose
of cultivating awareness.
>> At least 2,000 years ago,
you start seeing the Buddha
and the Jain saints
in Lotus position,
and other postures that are
suitable and provide a kind
of steady, solid
base for meditation.
The way yoga is understood
in those early texts
is as a way of just
completely stilling the body
and stilling the mind, so
anything that is uncomfortable
that couldn't be
held indefinitely
is really not going to
wash in that context.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
One of the purest
understandings of asana
is as the throne of the divine.
The remembering
through our practices
that we are divinity
in human form.
>> Which means that we
as the creation have all
of the qualities, the
fullness, the wholeness,
the completeness, the
divinity of the divine.
So that's who we are.
>> The Yoga Sutras went in and
out of popularity many times
in the years that followed.
Its austere nature appealed
more for aesthetics and holy men
than common householders.
>> A lot of people don't realize
that Patanjali's Yoga Sutra was
written for and intended for
Brahmin men who had renounced
worldly life and were doing
full-time ascetic yogic
practice.
And so a lot of the
teachings and practices
in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra make
sense within that context.
And this is precisely
why modern readers
find that text so inaccessible.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
>> Then, in the
mid 20th century,
a 5 foot 2 inch giant
hit the yoga scene.
Born in a small Indian
village, T. Krishnamacharya
ascribed therapeutic
value to specific asanas,
and refined the postures
in a sequential order,
making them an integral
part of meditation
instead of just a step
leading toward it.
Krishnamacharya's
yoga instruction
reflected his beliefs
that yoga could
be both a spiritual practice
and a mode of physical healing.
>> He brought yoga for
the general public.
Down to earth, he did that so
a common man will adopt yoga.
And that is what is needed.
Otherwise, everybody
has got a picture
in the mind quite different.
Oh, if you are to
become a yogi, you
have to be completely
a different person,
or having different personality,
having different ethnicities.
But here, Krishnamacharya
introduced it
to the normal, common people.
>> He repackaged, reformulated
yoga for a global audience that
perhaps had different needs from
it than what was prior to him.
He's clearly-- whatever
the influences were,
he came up with
something very special
which has captured people
all around the world
and continues to do so.
>> Though he never left his
native home of India, today,
it's difficult to find a yoga
tradition Krishnamacharya
hasn't influenced.
His transformation of
Hatha yoga is covered more
in depth in our next episode.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
>> So whether you find
transcendence in prayer,
meditation, asana postures,
or a combination of all three,
one thing is clear.
All of them play
a significant role
in becoming a practicing yogi.
>> You find your path by
trying anything that you want.
There's no mistakes.
But in order to find out
what really works for you,
you have to get
out there and just
do stuff, and see what happens.
If it doesn't work,
you try something else.
>> We are holistic beings.
We have bodies, and emotions,
and thoughts, and intellects,
and spirit, for lack of a better
term, for the part of ourselves
that we can't name.
All of that needs
to be addressed.
All of that, like
so holistic yoga
is internally
coherent in addressing
all the layers of our
being under whatever name.
Now the question
is, is my practice,
and is what I'm
learning, does it
address all aspects of my being
and allow me to integrate them
all into my spiritual life,
or is something left out?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
>> Ultimately, yoga,
or any discipline,
any spiritual discipline, should
take you more and more inward
to understand and appreciate
your own inner extraordinary
nature.
That's the goal of yoga.
That's the goal
of spiritual life.
>> Zen teachers often say that
the teachings are like a finger
pointing at the moon.
The finger is useful
because of what
it points us toward, not
as an object of study
for its own sake.
Yogic path's aim is to deepen
your understanding of this very
sacred practice with
the ultimate goal
of raising the consciousness
of the entire planet.
>> I think best-case scenario
is that more and more people are
going to take in
yoga and be moved,
probably through the physical
practice to begin with,
to really start to explore
our own consciousness
and to recognize that the
consciousness in me is not
different than the
consciousness in you,
even though our
personalities are different,
we speak different languages,
our skin is a different color,
et cetera, et cetera.
But the knower, the seer,
the lover within us is one.
And we need to know that.
Before the planet floods up,
we actually need to know it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
>> Coming up.
>> In the West, Hatha yoga,
which is seen as the kind
of easy, relaxed,
postural practice.
But actually, the
word "Hatha" in Hindi
means force, means hardcore.
It really means hardcore.
>> Power is power.
It's kind of like fire.
You can use it to cook
food or burn down a house.
>> And then.
>> Longing is really
grace in the first place.
Without that grace, you wouldn't
be looking for anything.
You get born, you drink beer,
you watch TV, and you die.
That's it.
It's the longing that saves us.
