Light on Yoga

Is this one on your bookshelf?

Whenever I ask people to tell me about the yoga books they have read, the first most common answer is Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Coming in second is B.K.S. Iyengar's Light on Yoga.

It makes sense that lots of folks have read Light on Yoga. Originally published in 1966, it has been described as setting the standard for books about yoga and been called the most influential do-it-yourself yoga book of all time.

What many people don't realize - even folks who have Light on Yoga on their bookshelf! - is that this book is Iyengar's take on the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

The Sanskrit word pradīpikā (प्रदीपिका) means ‘flame, lamp, light, or lantern’. In other words, 'haṭha yoga pradīpikā' as a phrase means ‘light or exposition on the effort of

yoga’, which is why Iyengar named his book Light on Yoga.

While Iyengar’s international best-selling version was intended to provide instructions in yoga for the everyday person, the text in its original form was definitely not intended for the masses. It was a text written by an acharya (आचार्य), a teacher of yoga techniques, as notes for a guru (गुरु), a spiritual teacher who may or may not be well-versed in instructing specific physical techniques. The original text was never intended to be a comprehensive guide to yoga as Iyengar’s version aspired to be.

And what the medieval yogis had to say in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika with detailed descriptions of asana, pranayama, mudras, bandhas and the states of consciousness is totally fascinating.

In the next Yoga Book Club, we are skipping Iyengar's rambling tangents in Light on Yoga and reading Brian Dana Akers' more direct translation of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

No previous experience with this text or yoga philosophy is required for you to join us to check out all of the odd metaphors, esoteric ideas, and lots of entertaining hyperbole in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

We meet online for 5 weeks on Wednesdays at 7:30 pm starting September 23. No reading is required before our first meeting and all of the discussions are recorded so you can catch up if you have to miss the live-streams.

Learning more about yoga philosophy by reading source texts with a well-travelled guide is the best! I'm here to walk you through it. If you haven't joined a book club yet, this is a fun one to get you started.