Let’s start with the most important part: Why should we care that there are myths surrounding yoga, and that perhaps it matters to debunk them?
Maybe you love your yoga practice the way it is, and you don’t really care what exists beyond the four corners of your mat. It works for you—and why fix it if it isn’t broken?
Totally understandable. Yoga is powerful in all of its different expressions. But if you think you’re experiencing benefits now, just wait until you understand more about it. For all the enjoyment you’re getting out of your postural practice, that’s a fraction of the pure bliss you are capable of experiencing through yoga.
The ultimate myth: That yoga = physical postures
Yoga as a concept was brought to the West through some key players. Swami Vivikananda is credited with the first introduction, sharing yoga in the form of lectures/knowledge. Paramahansa Yogananda followed, lecturing on yoga in the 1920’s and sharing simple Kriya Yoga practices.
From there, yoga was largely brought to the West in the form of asana—the physical shapes and poses that make up 99% of what we practice today. Certain teachers like Indra Devi and B.K.S. Iyengar sparked a cultural movement of asana, which branched off in countless directions.
Postures were essentially the vessel of choice to start bringing yoga from India to the West. This was a very intentional choice, actually. The West has always been largely materialist and body-centric. We were always going to be more open to physical postures than other mediums of yoga.
That the rich and transformative practice of yoga could be shared from India is a gift no matter how you look at it. But “postures” is not the meaning of yoga. Postures are one vessel of yoga; a fraction of what yoga really is.
It’s time to look beyond the physical practice
Since yoga was brought west through the vessel of physical practice—there have been ongoing offshoots. When people started practicing asana in the early 1900s, it was mostly Hatha yoga as developed by T. Krishnamacharya, and Ashtanga (a style established by one of his students, Pattabhi Jois).
But then came Vinyasa, Bikram yoga, Kundalini yoga, power yoga, Jivamukti yoga… Then came the CorePower Yogas of the world establishing their own formats, “Hot Power Fusion.” Then came goat yoga, aerial yoga, yoga-spin classes, Buti yoga… There’s nothing “wrong” with this—but it is dilution, by definition.
The question is: do we need more flavors of yoga? Or is it time to spend that energy expanding our understanding of yoga?
Yoga means something more
When we talk about yoga postures, we are talking about asana. As mentioned, asana is one sliver of the larger ideology of yoga.
Yoga is a science of life. It is an integrated system for the union of the individual body, mind, and spirit. It is an art of merging with Nature, the universe, or however you refer to “something greater.”
Yoga is the knowledge that allows us to live a life of unity. You don’t unroll the mat on that. You spend a life devoted to that.
You don’t pot a tomato plant from the store and claim to be a master gardener. You don’t bake a cake and claim to be a chemist. You don’t hike three miles and claim to be a mountaineer. To only practice asana and claim to understand yoga also doesn’t quite add up.
It’s okay if we never realized how vast yoga is. It’s okay if we mistook the part for the whole. If the postural obsession is what’s loudest, it will be hard to hear the whispers that there’s more.
Thankfully, the whispers here in the West are growing louder.
The bigger picture of Yoga
It’s important to recognize where asana actually sits in the bigger picture of Yoga. As mentioned, yoga is the knowledge of life—and the yogis and rishis of the world have been cognizing this knowledge for thousands of years.
The first rishi to systematize this knowledge was the sage Patanjali, who shared The Eight Limbs of Yoga. One way of understanding the Eight Limbs is as a map, from here to unity (though, admittedly, there’s much more to it). This is the most simple version of the Eight Limbs but it will give you an idea of where asana is situated:
The Eight Limbs of Yoga
Yamas: Ethical restraints
Niyamas: Personal observances
Asana: Postures
Pranayama: Breath/energy control
Pratyahara: Sensory withdrawal
Dharana: Concentration
Dhyana: Meditation
Samadhi: Unity
Each of the limbs is a world of its own. Postures matter—they’re a critical aspect of yoga, but they’re not the whole of yoga.
What comes next
It’s a wild feeling to be ten years into your posture yoga practice, only to realize you only had a toe dipped in. We’ve all been there.
To see a more comprehensive picture of yoga and feel daunted or overwhelmed is a beautiful thing. The overwhelm quickly turns into curiosity and inspiration, so long as you’re open to the heart-opening journey that yoga ultimately requires.
What comes next is actually remarkably simple: start learning. Start listening. Start seeing. Once we stop seeing yoga as just postures, new paths start to appear. Or, the paths that have been there all along start calling with a mesmerizing tone that we can no longer ignore.
When the student is ready, the teacher appears. If the mind is open, then we can learn. Let the journey begin.
Note: We do not claim to be experts of yoga, only very devoted students of it. We do our best to practice appreciation of yoga, and to help guide ourselves and others away from appropriation. We acknowledge that we won’t always get it right. We won’t ever know “everything” about yoga, and we won’t ever claim to. We remain open to feedback and growth. We also do not tolerate trolling or hate. Thank you for participating in our content.