Yoga for Hackers

The Sanskrit word Hatha is derived from the verb hath, meaning “to force” or to “hold firmly.” When Hatha is broken into two separate words you get “Ha” and “Tha”, which mean “Sun” and “Moon” respectively. These are references to the two primary Nadis channels: Pingala, the solar channel and Ida, the lunar channel. When these two opposing forces are balanced they will bring peace to the body and create a stable environment (physically, emotionally, and mentally) in which to practice meditation.

 

Hatha yoga is the practice of asana, or postures, and often the movement from one posture to the next. Asana is from the root word As which means “to sit” or “to be”. Originally asana was a reference to the

platform that yogis sat upon for meditation—it wasn’t until the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali that the word asana was used as a “physical posture” or “yoga posture,” which is it’s most common use today. In the ancient yogic texts there are references to more the 840,000 asanas, only 83 of them are benificial for most people. 

 

While it took us a little while, we should now know enough to come up with a good definition of what Hatha Yoga is: “Hatha Yoga is the practice of physical force, through asana, that purifies the physical and energy bodies by balancing the opposing internal forces of the sun and the moon.”