Mudra – to manipulate and stimulate pranas (subtle energies).

Pranayama – to gain control over the breath.

It is interesting to know that some teachers explain Hatha as Ha (sun) + Tha (moon) yoga, because of the fact that Hatha Yoga helps to purify our solar (Pingla) and lunar (Ida) channels. So if you practice any yoga asanas or pranayama exercises you are practicing Hatha. In simple words, you can say all the yoga poses and pranayama exercises can be classified as Hatha Yoga. It is the simpler version (without Yamas and Niyamas) of Raja Yoga. Asana is just one of the six practices in this path. In samadhi the yogi becomes free from the illusion of form, time, and space. But it is the austere practice of asana, pranayama, dharana, and dhyana to achieve the sublime state of samadhi. Generally, people think of Hatha Yoga only as asana practice. So Hatha Yoga practice means the stubborn practice of yoga, without the interference of the five senses and the mind.

Hatha in Sanskrit literally means ‘stubborn’. This blog will give you an overview of the underlying philosophy and the traditional principles of Hatha Yoga. In this blog, I aim to explain the principles of ancient Classical Hatha Yoga. When, in 2007, I came to Europe I was surprised to see that Hatha Yoga was considered to be a soft and easy style of yoga and in fact, there is a Western version of Hatha Yoga being taught as Classical Yoga. His classes were strict and challenging and followed the classical Hatha Yoga tradition and syllabus. Over the next eight years, I had lessons from him. Our Gur ji was a traditional teacher from a respected priest cast.

Apart from Veda classes we also had Hatha Yoga asana classes every morning with our Guruji. I began my yoga journey at the age of eight years at my school.

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