Book review: Hatha Yoga Pradipika

The required reading list for my yoga teacher training is turning out to be more varied and extensive than I could have imagined.  I'm not getting a Master's Degree or anything, although it seems like I'm going to be putting in the same amount of time!  When I got my regular Master's Degree (EdM), I don't recall any one class having more than 2 books as "suggested reading".  For this training which I'm about to embark on, I have 6 books that are not merely suggested, but required.  And some of them are pretty thick!

I've been dipping in and out of them as the deliveries arrive from Amazon or Barnes and Noble, and when The Hatha Yoga Pradipika arrived, I thought to myself, "This is more like it"...if only because the book is a lightweight 113 pages long - and every page contains at least half Sanskrit with the English translation right underneath!  (here's what Wikipedia says about the Hatha Yoga Pradipika).

I thought I'd whiz right through this one and then be able to indulge in some good old fiction before summer is over (Gone Girl, anyone?).  I read the introduction (yeah, yeah, the author/translator is telling the reader how he's staying true to the translation, how some things are not recommended, but it's in the Sanskrit, so he's including it....etc etc) and then got to the text.  There are only 4 chapters!  On page 3, there are pictures!  I start wishing that the other textbooks were like this.

But no, it doesn't stay this easy.  For a book that is only 113 pages, half in a language I can only admire for it's unfamiliar, elegant curliques and upside-down appearance, and almost 1/8 full of pictures, this was no easy read.  I'm not just saying that because it's summertime and it's hard for me to focus on academia in the heat.  There are lots of references to different Yogi Masters, and you have to keep flipping back and forth to keep them straight.  There are recommendations for postures as well as bizarre rituals to help you, the fledgling yogi, avoid death.  In fact, Svatmarama (the original author) is rather obsessed with beating death.  I mean, I thought I was bad, fruitlessly scouring the shelves at Sephora for a creme to eliminate the deep furrow between my eyebrows (a casualty of teaching Middle School, I'm convinced), but no.  This guy is constantly referencing poses to make it possible to digest deadly poisons (yeah, like I was ingesting those anyway), postures which destroy disease, and recommends rituals to avoid death.

I'm not poking fun or belittling this text in anyway.  I've read it, and I don't "get it" just yet, and that first instinct to find fault in something that is not understood is kicking into gear.  I'm hopeful that the directors of the training program will enlighten us, both to the message of the text and the reason we're reading it.  By the way, it was fairly easy to pick out the portions of the original text that this translator did not recommend (gradually elongate your tongue by cutting, shaking, and stretching it until it touches your forehead?  So THAT's how the ancient yogis could do that...!) but for it's overt mystic qualities, this book seems worthwhile, if only for putting your mind "in the zone" to receive your yoga training.

Don't worry about me....unless you see me walking around licking my eyebrows.

Samadhi appears automatically in the yogi whose shakti is awake and who has abandoned all actions - Svatmarama, The Hatha Yoga Pradipika.