Thinking in Āsana is an exploration of three popular lineages of modern postural yoga – Viniyoga, Iyengar Yoga, and Ashtanga Yoga. The book describes in detail the different styles of yoga practice advocated within the three lineages, and traces the influence of this practice on the corresponding “yoga philosophies”. While Viniyoga, Iyengar Yoga, and Ashtanga Yoga name the yoga of Patañjali as the source of their teachings, the interpretations of Patañjali’s system differ significantly between the three lineages. A careful examination suggests that these differences can be accounted for by referring to the differences in the kinds of movement experienced during yoga practice. Linguistic theories of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson provide methodological groundwork for such examination. By deconstructing the experience of movement specific to modern postural yoga practice, and by juxtaposing it to a linguistic analysis of a textual corpus, Thinking in Āsana argues that there is a systematic relation between how yoga is practiced and how yoga philosophy is understood. In doing so, the book not only gives a detailed, insightful look at modern postural yoga in practice and theory, but it also emphasises the role of movement in human meaning-making activity.

This part of the monograph introduces the theme of the study as well as its basic methodological assumptions. It gives an overview of my aims related to pursuing this study and discusses briefly my position as a researcher and an author. It provides the general information about the yoga systems I discuss and summarises the basic tenets of enactivism. It elucidates some technical issues regarding methodology and terminology, and clarifies some reservations pertaining to the scope of the study and its claims. It also summarises the contents of the rest of the book, providing the reader with its outline.

This chapter provides a detailed discussion of the methodological foundations of the study. It gives an overview of the different approaches to cognition and the mind within cognitive science. It reviews some aspects of the body-mind dualism and summarises the so-called computational model of cognition (first proposed by Jerry Fodor), to eventually juxtapose it to the enactive model (as introduced by Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch). I begin the discussion of cognition as enaction with remarks on the significance of motion and interaction with the environment for the development of what may be deemed “intelligent behaviour”. Using arguments stemming from disciplines ranging from biology to robotics, I explore the relation between cognition and life itself (drawing mainly on the arguments of Humberto Maturana). The later parts of the chapter focus on the notion of meaning and the emergence of language. I discuss the social origins of language and its role as a means to regulate and modulate social interactions. I elaborate on the post-kinetic nature of language (described so by Maxine Sheets-Johnstone), i.e. the significance of early-life kinaesthetic experience for the development of abstract thinking and linguistic expression. Finally, I explain the basic concepts from cognitive linguistics (drawing from the work of George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, and Ronald Langacker) that I later apply in the analytical part of the study. The closing part of the chapter is a detailed summary of my research project and of how the methodological assumptions I chose to follow shape its structure.

The second chapter provides the reader with a broad, multidimensional look at the phenomenon of yoga. Basing my arguments on existing academic scholarship on yoga (represented by authors such as Joseph Alter, Jason Birch, Elizabeth De Michelis, James Mallinson, Philipp A. Maas, Mark Singleton, and David G. White, among others), I describe the transformations that the concept of yoga underwent from its nascence up to modernity, thus providing a background for the discussion of the three lineages of modern yoga presented in the third chapter. I discuss the trans-sectarian nature of yogic practices and philosophies. I describe– from a historical perspective– yoga’s role as a factor allowing to negotiate an individual’s involvement with the society and its norms. I summarise yoga-related cosmo-, soterio- and anthropologies, including yogic models of the human body. I describe the variety of yoga practices, including posture (āsana), breath retention (prāṇāyāma), and techniques of cognitive constraint. Throughout the chapter, I explain the tenets of the yoga of Patañjali, with its underlying ontology, assumptions regarding human consciousness, and its system of practice. I define the key concepts known from the Pātañjalayogaśāstra that made their way into modern yoga, and whose modern reinterpretation I discuss in the third chapter.

In the third chapter, I present my main argument. The three subchapters– each of them focused on one of the three studied yoga lineages– present the specifics of movement characteristic of the particular style of yoga practice, the interpretation of the religiophilosophical model that corresponds to this practice, and, ultimately, the relation between the two. When discussing āsana and prāṇāyāma performance, I describe not only its objective characteristics, but also its subjective experience. By explaining how different postural and breathing techniques feel to the practitioner, I point to the kinds of recurrent kinaesthetic patterns they allow the practitioner to experience. I expand my analysis beyond individual practice and onto social interactions occurring both within and outside of yoga halls. Later I argue how these recurrent kinaesthetic patterns provide a means to construe abstract religiophilosophical concepts drawn from the Pātañjalayogaśāstra, and to interpret and regulate social interactions. When presenting the particular “yoga philosophies” of Desikachar, Iyengar, and Jois, I account for their different facets. On the one hand, I try to reconstruct the more general worldview of the three yogins as inflected by the concepts borrowed from the yoga tradition. On the other hand, I present their systematic elaboration of the technical religio-philosophical terms drawn for the yoga of Patañjali. Finally, 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.

The final section of the book is a summary of its argument. It recapitulates the findings of the third chapter and rephrases them in terms of the enactive approach to life and cognition. It redefines yoga practice as a cognitive activity that gives the practitioner the embodied tools to construe their identity, their position in the world, and their capacity to adapt to this world through continuous transformation.