Why this book was written
The first idea to write this book appeared quite long ago when, after some years of practicing yoga, I finally understood how asanas «work». After this unfortunately I found out that most of modern books on yoga give asanas the wrong way. The picture can be nice, but tiny inaccuracies that only a professional can notice, make such performance useless. In one posture the back is not stretched enough, in the second one — the heap is sticking out, in the third one the pelvis or the neck is not straight. From the point of view of gymnastics these are details, but, if you understand the energy aspects of asana, it is obvious, that such performance is not only useless, but to some extent harmful. So I wanted to get all those bad examples from many books and to explain what troubles may ensue from such practice. But the principles of ahimsa didn’t allow me to write such book.
Later on, teaching how to do right asanas and pranayamas, I understood, that people do them wrong not because they aren’t aware of how to do it right — they just practice according to their actual energy bearing. And I mean not those difficult asanas, demanding extraordinary flexibility, but quite simple at first blush postures. This discovery underlay the brand new understanding of hatha-yoga as a method of spiritual evolution and not just a physical development of a person. Eventually on the base of this understanding I built my own principles of teaching yoga.
The second problem that encouraged me to write this book was this very unpleasant tendency to «religionize» yoga, which in fact is a profoundly rational and pragmatic teaching. Various Schools are arguing about how to do this or that technique appealing to original sources and treatises or citing Teachers. Apprentices are trying to find those «genuine», «traditional», «authentic» practices. Some people try to sit in lotus position for many years, thinking that there is no yoga without it. They forget the essential: that yoga is a creative teaching, people oriented, not canon oriented. Ancient Indian canon, as any other, was meant for a certain kind of person, living in a certain ambience — natural and cultural. Does it always suit a modern European? Humanity approaches ancient knowledge differently and finds new ways to understand esoteric learning. On the other hand practices that used to work 30–50 years ago, are irrelevant today and just don’t «work». That is why, if you want to gain from a canon, you should deconstruct it: you must get to the essential principle of those techniques and recreate new ones, appropriate to modern conditions and contemporary life. Nevertheless I didn’t find books, where such work would be done. Feeling a need for such research I came back to my idea of writing a book, that would namely describe principles of yoga.
But this book still had to wait for many years. New subjects were appealing to reflection, other books were being written, my methods were maturing. Yoga Federation was founded and started to grow. The need in a comprehensible yoga manual became urgent. I couldn’t put off writing this book anymore.
What this book is about
The book you are holding speaks about principles that underlie yoga practice. I mean principles and criteria — not just exercise, methods, procedures and philosophy, although you will find those too.
Whom was this book written for?
I wrote this book first of all for my students. But I think, not only them will find it interesting. It is for all practitioners of yoga and esotericism, who try to understand what lies deep inside of their practice. Those who just started practicing yoga and want to learn about this system «from outside» can also use it. This book will be interesting for physicians, practicing psychologists and fitness experts.
Book structure
The book is structured to guide its reader from the most essential and fundamental points and notions in yoga to subtleties and details. This will allow experienced practitioners to conceptualize crucial elements of yoga, while beginners would break in and get into its terms and language. The description of practices is also given in ascending order of their complexity: starting with easy ones and going to more sophisticated techniques. The total level of given knowledge correspond with two classes in yoga School (as for the hatha-yoga). In other words this book doesn’t conclude of yoga, which extends much further.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to all who helped me to write this book. My special acknowledgement to Sergey Shashkin (Donetsk) for valuable discussions of medical aspects of yoga.