Throughout life they go about naked, saying the body has been given by the Deity as a covering for the soul. They hold that god is light . God is with them the Word, by which term they do not mean articulate speech, but the discourse of reason, whereby the hidden mysteries of knowledge are discerned by the wise. This light, however, which they call the word, and think to be god, is, they say, known only to the Brachmans themselves, because they alone have discarded vanity, which is the outermost covering of the soul. The members of this sect regard death with contemptuous indifference, and, as we have seen already, they always pronounce the name of the deitiy with a tone of peculiar reverence, and adore him with hymns.
So the Upanishad Brahmins claimed that they knew the truth’, which for them was the same as saying, they knew the One’ (brahman) – they knew knowledge/ reason/ truth’. And they spared no opportunity to demonstrate this to the public: they constantly chanted their mantras and behaved in a way, which signalled that they had discarded vanity, desire and fear of death. By doing this we can see that they needed to substantiate and legitimise their mystical insight by resorting to ascetic and ritual discourses and practices.
Hence, the Upanishads are not just teachings but also a discourse of difference -generating symbolic capital. They documented and claimed that those who mastered the content of their secret knowledge were indeed special beings. It was in this context that some Brahmins found it opportune to mention that they mastered yoga, because that confirmed their possession of special knowledge.
Let us look further into the conflict sociology underlying the rise of the early-yoga discourse.
Prop: A chair. Avoiding pitfalls: Avoid overworking the Yoga hosers arms and neck to achieve the twist. Keep the pelvis and legs stable and aligned as Yoga hosers instructed. Sit sideways in a firm chair without arms, with your right side close to the chair back. Set your legs hip-width apart and parallel, with your knees vertically over your ankles. Firm your leg muscles, manually widen your buttocks and upper thighs as in Pressure Cooker above, then sit tall with awareness of your spine as your central core. Reach your tailbone lightly downward and lift your lower belly to lengthen and stabilize the lower spine. Inhale, lengthen through your whole torso, and retract your shoulder blades together behind you so that the actions of your arms will affect your torso and spine.
