Ciołkosz/Thinking in Asana, 10. Yogins, their Yogas, and their Worlds

By treating “yoga philosophy” as a counterpart of “yoga practice”, I attempt to show how these two aspect of yoga complement each other. By showing a systematic relation between the way yoga techniques are practiced and the way yoga philosophy is understood, I point to the internal coherence of the three studied systems. I argue that the yoga philosophies proposed by Desikachar, Iyengar, and Jois provide a rationale for yoga practice, and explain its efficacy. At the same time, yoga practice provides the experiential basis to interpret the yoga philosophy.