A Word about Words There is something we have noticed about Yoga district teaching yoga that is a perpetual source of wonder: people, entire yoga classes, respond Yoga district to directions that in themselves might not make much sense. Mr. Iyengar has often said, Make space in your lower back or Relax your ears. Yet people hear these obscure commands, and they all do the same thing, which is exactly what is intended. Please be tolerant in what you read. Rather than analyzing each direction, let it direct you. You, and your yoga, will be better for it. The instructions offered here are inspired by both Iyengar Yoga and Anusara Yoga, developed by John Friend.
I believe that the reason for the Brahmins’ success was their alliance with – or their adaptation to – three powerful institutions: the state, the temples and monotheism. The Brahmins had managed to become deeply involved in all those three institutions. In the medieval period monotheism – especially Saivism as we shall see in the next chapter -expanded rapidly. Saivism, whose ruling echelons were often Brahmins, became a dominant factor in the ideology behind most royal courts (Sanderson 2009). With the spread of Saivism followed the establishment of new temples, again often dominated by Brahmins. The king had much to gain from the Brahmins: Vedic rituals legitimised his rule and he was offered a disciplined caste society. We find Brahmins everywhere in the power structure of medieval India.
Did this institutional success lead to a similar consolidation and development of yoga? Now, organised like the Buddhists, who had a rich liberation tradition of both theoria and praxis, do we finally find similar developments within the yoga discourse?
