I recently read two interesting books on yoga, Alistair Shearer is an expert translator in Sanskrit, a yoga historian. First is his translation and comment on Patanjali's yoga scriptures. This is often used as a reason for Hatha Yoga, which has evolved primarily into what Shearer calls “body yoga” with a focus on stretching and other physical exercises. Apart from a brief guided meditation at the end of the course, there is usually no emphasis on “thinking yoga”, usually lying on “Corpse Pose". This is not to say that this type of class is not valuable, I have taken many classes and found them very useful for stress relief and keeping curved people. This is the age of our age. This is hardly mentioning the types of poses used in yoga classes.

The scriptures are a series of short proverbs, and in general, a meditation manual. Eight yoga taught. The first two refer to moral behavior, a series of 5 "DOS" and 5 "no". The third one is about asanas, which is about the chaos of Hata Yoga. Asanas are poses or poses that are common in yoga classes. But in the scriptures, it is obvious that what is being talked about is the correct posture of meditation, essentially an upright spine that can help you comfortably for a long time, but is not conducive to falling asleep. The fourth limb is pranayamaor breathing exercises, are designed to calm us down and prepare us for meditation. The rest of the eight limbs is a continuous stage of meditation, from “retraction of the senses”, then concentration, meditation, and finally Samadhi or a combination with our true nature. Yoga really refers to the focus of the whole effort.

In the second book Yoga StoryToday, cut into pieces together and possibly the entire history of yoga. He made a clear difference in the evolution of "mind" and "body" yoga in the book. Tracing history is difficult because it disappears into the fog of time, and written records are often insufficient. But it's still an interesting story. We are very lucky in the West that this great gift of perennial wisdom has been moved here from India.