Yoga for the three stages of life: developing your practice as an art form, a physical therapy, and a guiding philosophy

274 Pages·2001·5.351 MB·English

by  Ramaswami, Srivatsa

Yoga
for the
Three Stages of Life
This page intentionally left blank.
for the
Three Stages of Life
Developing
Your Practice
As an Art Form,
a Physical Therapy,
and a Guiding
Philosophy
. .
´ - - - -
Srivatsa Ramaswami
Inner Traditions
Rochester, Vermont
Inner Traditions International
One Park Street
Rochester, Vermont 05767
www.InnerTraditions.com
Copyright ©2000 by ˛r•vatsa R¡masw¡m•
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information stor-
age and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
LLIIBBRRAARRYYOOFFCCOONNGGRREESSSSCCAATTAALLOOGGIINNGG--IINN--PPUUBBLLIICCAATTIIOONNDDAATTAA
R¡masw¡m•, ˛r•vatsa.
Yoga for the three stages of life : developing your practice as an art form, a
physical therapy, and a guiding philosophy / ˛r•vatsa R¡masw¡m•
p. cm.
Includes index.
ebook ISBN 978-1-59477-586-4
print ISBN 978-0-89281-820-4
1. Yoga, Haòha. 2. Yoga. I. Title.
RA781.7 .R34 2000
613.7'046—dc21
00-059781
Printed and bound in India by Replika Press Pvt. Ltd.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Text design and layout by Virginia L. Scott-Bowman
This book was typeset in Times with Bauer Bodoni as the display typeface
1
OM
.
´ - -
Sri Rama Jayam
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO the memory of my mother, who said early in
my life “There is more to life than making a living”; to my father, who encouraged
me in all my endeavors; to my guru, who had so much to give, and from which I
could take so little; and to Lord Almighty—˛r• Kriß∆¡rpa∆amastu.
1
Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction 1
-
PART ONE: Yoga Siddhanta, or Theory
1 My Studies with ˛r• T. Kriß∆am¡c¡rya and Others 4
2 The Story of Patañjali 21
3 What Is Yoga? 30
4 Advanced Yoga 36
5 Mantrayoga 62
6 The Eight-Part Yoga and Its Ten Commandments 87
-
PART TWO: Yoga Sadhana, or Practice
7 Standing Postures 94
8 Supine Postures 126
9 Sarv¡©g¡sanaand ˛•rß¡sana 135
10 Prone Postures and the Spine 149
11 Pa≈cimat¡nam 156
12 Padm¡sanaand Other Postures for Yoga S¡dhana 165
13 Yogic Breathing Exercises and Their Health Benefits 189
14 Yoga for Women 212
15 Yoga Texts 227
16 Antara©ga S¡dhana 236
17 Freedom 242
©
Glossary 246
Index 260
1
Acknowledgments
I WISH TO THANK my wife, Dr. Um¡ R¡masw¡m•, for her encouragement and
her help, especially with the technical details of writing this book.
I also wish to state my sincere appreciation and thanks to several people who
have directly or indirectly helped me to teach yoga and write this book. To my sons
Prasanna and Badri, who encouraged me, sometimes like buddies, in the writing of
this book and in other yoga activities. They have been a great source of joy.
To the late Rukmini Dev• and ˛ankara Menon, former directors of Kal¡kßetra
Institute, and Mr. Rajaraman, its present director, for the opportunity afforded me
to teach there for two decades. To the late M. C. Subramanian of the Public Health
Centre for the opportunity to introduce yoga in the hospital. My thanks are due to
C. S. Sampath of Public Health Centre Hospital, Professor Janardhanan of Kal¡kße-
tra, S. Chitra of Padma Seshadri Schools, and K. Gopalakrishnan for studying this
system and teaching for more than twenty years. To John Coon, the dynamic direc-
tor, and other senior students and teachers of Yoga Center of Houston, Texas, for
studying the viny¡sakrama in depth and teaching in Houston and elsewhere in the
United States, I am grateful. Many students and their students have helped in the
development of the book by contributing several of their yoga pictures. They ranged
in age from ten to seventy-five and comprised schoolchildren, medical students,
physiotherapists, a renowned artist/painter, an athlete, classical Bharatnatyam
dancers, teachers, corporate executives, and, of course, a couple of yoga teachers.
Girija Menon has done exquisite but difficult postures for the chapter on women and
yoga. Pam Johnson, Hilary Nixon, and John Coon have portrayed several ¡sana
sequences artistically and with vigor. R. Soundrarajan, M. Parvati, and S. Ramya
have done several other yoga sequences beautifully. Others whose pictures appear
C viii
in the book are C. S. Sampath, Jaya Reddy, Jayashree Soundararajan, R. Sowmya,
C. Vidya, Maanasaa, A. Yamini, and Prentis Fatherree. ˛r•m¡n Srinivasan of
Krishna Photos shot all the pictures done in Chennai and made special prints of all
pictures in this book. To them all, my sincere thanks. To the late ˛r• Harigopal
Agarwal for the tremendous enthusiasm, encouragement, and opportunities given to
me to teach in the huge free yoga camps conducted for nearly ten years at the yoga
brotherhood; to Mr. H. M. Mahesh of Sangeetha and Mr. Murali of HMV for pro-
ducing and marketing my audiocassettes; and to M. Gopalakrishnan, my always
optimistic and cheerful cousin, for all his work and support.
To the respected pa∆∂it ˛r• R¡jama∆iji for the opportunity to give introductory
lectures on yoga and workshops and classes at the Himalayan Institute at Hones-
dale, and also for the great support; to Sandy Anderson, Mary Gail, and Rolf Sovik,
and to Nishit Patel and Virat Xavier for offering introductory programs and work-
shops and classes in yoga at the Himalayan Institutes in Buffalo, New York, and
Chicago; to my cousin Dr. Ambujam, my niece Chitra, and other cousins; to Dr. M.
Subramaniam and Mr. M. Hariharan; and to Dr. Sundara Gandhi, Dr. Senthamarai
Gandhi, Dr. Sundaraman, Dr. J. L. Sarma, and Dr. Sethuraman, many thanks for
hosting and helping me talk about this system of yoga to selected groups. To Pro-
fessor T. K. Parthasarathy, vice chancellor, and Professor S. Rangaswamy, head of
the Holistic Health Center, ˛r• Ramachandra Medical University, Chennai, for their
efforts to introduce yoga as a program of optional study for both faculty and students
of the university, and for the opportunity afforded me to teach there.
My sincere thanks are due also to Kala for the beautiful line sketches she pre-
pared; to Sujay¡, a senior teacher of the Kriß∆am¡c¡rya method of yoga, for her
critical input in the writing of this book; to my nephews Dinesh, my Internet
provider, and Kartik, my software consultant, for their ready and sustained assis-
tance; and to Professional Touch for their services in having the whole manuscript
typed.
My sincere thanks are due to Dr. Nagalakshmi Narayanan of Osmania Univer-
sity, India, for reading through the manuscript and making valuable suggestions,
especially in the chapter on Patañjali. My thanks are also due to Dr. Laurel Smith
for her help and suggestions in making useful changes to the manuscript. Again my
thanks are due to Ehud Sperling, president, and Rowan Jacobsen, managing editor,
Inner Traditions, for their efforts in publishing the book. I am much beholden to
Cannon Labrie for bringing his vast experience and knowledge of Indology and
Sanskrit to bear on the editing of the book.
ix D