Subtle Body Yoga

For yoga, we may assume that everyone begins doing either physical postures, and/or meditation. Meditation passes under several Sanskrit words like pratyahar, dharana, dhyana and samadhi. Patanjali gave a collective as samyama, which is the three higher stages of yoga, according to his delineation. These three are dharana, dhyana and samadhi as one sequential event, leading one into the other in any direction, up from dharana or down from samadhi or even beginning in the middle with dhyana and then staying there or moving higher to samadhi or lower to dharana. Besides this there is breath infusion or pranayama which though important is not popular.

While in Western psychology, the considerations are about a physical body alone as the self with psychological aspects as its mentality and feelings, I present inSelf Yoga™ as a system of practices which concern the physical, subtle and causal bodies but focusing on the physical and subtle with the causal being neglected out of necessity for the time being. The causal is left out because of its abstraction or subtlety.

It is difficult enough to come to grips with the subtle, to perceive it distinctly, hence for the time being until the subtle becomes a distinct perception and is no longer an abstraction, the causal is neglected.

While some methods are all or nothing, meaning it concerns mastering the physical and transferring to the Absolute only. inSelf Yoga™ related to the physical and subtle with several levels of the subtle and with conquest of the subtle as the main objective. This neglects the pursuit of the Absolute for the time being. It does so because of its extreme abstraction.

If an inSelf yogi can be integrated into the subtle body before his having to relinquish the physical one, that is a worthy achievement. Once he is transferred into the subtle world fully and is no longer being represented through a physical form, he can gather his wits and aspire for the Absolute. This would be the Absolute according to his view. If his view is incorrect, he may discover that. In which case, he could adapt his aspirations.

inSelf Yoga™ attributes the subtle body as the mental and emotional collective self. Whatever is mental and whatever is emotional which is identified as being the self at the time of identifying as a physical body should be regarded as the subtle body. This is in contrast to the idea of Western psychological, where the only body is the physical one and the mental/emotional aspects do not comprise a body but are regarded as parts of the physical system only.

When doing inSelf Yoga™, one should detect during practice when the physical system is affected and when the subtle body is affected either by a physical or by a subtle practice. A physical exercise, for instance a posture, will affect the physical body and it may as well affect the subtle form. The yogi should develop such keen perception that he knows when a purely physical practice, affects the subtle body. He should also recognize when a purely mental or feelings practice affects the physical system.

A physical stretch for instance which is a yoga posture will be limited as to its maximum length. This is seen with physical eyes. During that stretch, the yogi may further extend his subtle body but that extension will not be seen with physical eyes. The yogi may feel (not visualize) the extension and if he developed psychic vision, he may see it as well.

In the kundalini yoga practice, when there is breath infusion, and when kundalini bursts occur, the physical body is held in muscular locks and stretches which limit its expansion. But while this happens the subtle body may extend beyond the physical one and this extension will not be seen with physical eyes but will be felt as feelings movement, feelings expansions and contractions and feelings shifts and forms. This gives the yogi confidence that he practices subtle body yoga so that his identity interest is transferred to the subtle form as it is extracted from the physical system.