The type of yoga most often practiced in the West, especially in yoga studios, is called Hatha Yoga and refers to the physical practices that most Westerners associate with yoga. In Sanskrit, the ancient language from the Indus Valley civilization that gave birth to yoga, and is the mother of all the romance languages, including English, Ha translates as ‘Sun’, Tha as ‘Moon’ and Yoga as ‘yoke’ or harness, merge, or balance, depending upon the translation. Thus Hatha Yoga can be translated as harnessing the sun and the moon, where the sun represents masculine and the moon, feminine.
Hatha Yoga taps into the reciprocal feedback responses linking mind and body. By changing our posture we can affect consciousness, and by directing our thoughts appropriately, we can enhance our physical practice. Thus our physical practice becomes meditation. Although Hatha Yoga was originally designed to help healthy people higher states of physical and mental well being, it has been found to help with a surprisingly large variety of illnesses and conditions.
