Though I don't wish to add the prefix ‘Yoga’ to this exercise, I will add it to satisfy the masses who think that it is part of Yoga 😉
I don’t know the exact origins of this exercise which is quite popular these days. It may be a few decades old. It tries to combine various aspects of Patanjali Yoga as well as Hatayoga in one single ‘one fit for all’ kind of exercise.
It has many of the Hatayoga asanas, breathing regimes, devotion, mantra chanting, aesthetics, all combined in one. Some Gurus even try to superimpose it with figurative aspects of Yama and Niyama as well!
It is the so called Soorya Namaskaara or Sun Salutation. It is a cleverly created series of Hatayoga postures knitted back to back. As if a beautiful garland of Asanas!
Different Gurus choose slightly different Asanas in this series. Some pick 12, some 10. But they have taken lot of care about aesthetics and given it a religious tone as well. Obviously, this is by far the most popular Yoga exercise today.
It may be difficult for me to describe each Asana in this series, given the short time I have in this episode. If you are looking at my blog page, you can see the image of the exercise performed as per one school of Yoga, I guess Iyengar school. I have dealt in more detail about each Asana shown there in my book “How and why of Yoga and Meditation”.The key aspect of this series is that you synchronize the transitions from one posture to the next with your inhalation and exhalation. So, it is a posture + some Pranayama.
Many Yoga Gurus miss out this most crucial aspect, and project it just as a series of Asanas. I am afraid that that would not be very beneficial. Some of my readers have told me that their Yoga teachers never told them about it!
The selection of Asanas is such that it covers almost every body part and every pose. There are standing postures, bending postures, stretching postures, prostrating postures and so on. The body is aesthetically made to gradually transition from an erect pose to a horizontal pose and once again brought back to erect pose in a step by step fashion.
To make this exercise further beneficial, it is normally recommended that it should be done early in the morning, facing the rising Sun. The mild Sun rays at that time, are believed to be beneficial to health.
Some clever Gurus have even added Mantra chanting to this series of Asanas. They make their disciples chant a specific name of Sun before they start one round of this series. It is as if they are praying to the Sun God. That is the reason why this series of exercises is called Soorya Namaskaara or Sun salutation. Soorya means Sun and Namaskaara means salutation.
But unfortunately, these Gurus don’t explain the reasons behind combining all these aspects into this one single Yoga exercise. Probably, they themselves are not aware and are just mimicking what their teachers have taught them 😉
One of the Yoga practitioners told me that he performs 36 rounds of Namaskaaras each day. The number 36 puzzled me. Why 36 – a strange number? It could have been 30 or 40. Why 36?
He had no answer. He said that his Guru has told him that the rounds should be done in multiples of 12. Why 12? No answer again!
Actually, the reason could be that as per the Hindu belief, there are 12 Suns in this universe, called Dwadasha Adityas. Each Sun has a name and this name is uttered before you start a round.
So, to salute 12 of these Suns you need to do 12 rounds. If you do more than 12, then it should be multiple of 12 so that you don’t leave out any of the Suns and offend them 😉
But our friend was blindly following his Guru without asking questions. That is what happens if you don’t explain the idea behind an action. Faith takes the place of reasoning.
I have seen some Gurus proudly boasting that they do over hundred – 108 to be religiously correct, salutations each day. They also exhibit how quickly they do it.
But unless your purpose is to burn calories, all this kind of gimmick is not going to do any good. If your aim is to minimize stress and improve health, then ‘slow and steady’ is the key. Also, paying attention to breathing is most important. Mere twisting and turning may not be any more beneficial than any other kind of physical exercise.
It is quite obvious, but maybe I should add that there is nothing ‘Hindu’ about this nice garland of exercises. So, non-Hindus need not be over worried about following a Hindu practice. If that suites you, you can even replace the Sun’s name by your own God’s names. It hardly matters!
After all these episodes on ‘Asana’ part of Yoga, let us move on to next step of Yoga, namely Pranayama in the next episode.
A series revolving around Mind – Science of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Notions of reality, Mind modulation, Domains beyond Mind, and so on. © Dr. King 2019-2020
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