• home
• about
• new
• essays
• AI
• book

David Christopher Lane, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy, Mt. San Antonio College Lecturer in Religious Studies, California State University, Long Beach Author of Exposing Cults: When the Skeptical Mind Confronts the Mystical (New York and London: Garland Publishers, 1994) and The Radhasoami Tradition: A Critical History of Guru Succession (New York and London: Garland Publishers, 1992).

SEE MORE ESSAYS WRITTEN BY DAVID LANE

The Yoga of Bodysurfing

An Illustrated Guide to Water Pranayama

David Lane

Download book as Free PDF

Hatha yoga has a long history and is deeply embedded in Indian culture which is replete with all sort of religious and mythological ideas about the practice's ultimate significance. Despite variations among differing schools of hatha yoga, several core elements have emerged and become widely adopted worldwide. These include: mastery of body postures known as asanas; mastery of hand positions known as mudras; mastery of breath control known as pranayama; and mastery of concentration known as dhyan. The combinatorial aim of this four-fold methodology was to achieve liberation during one's lifetime from the sufferings of human existence. Achieving such an enlightened state is known by various names including moksha or nirvana.

What is much less known is how yoga, shorn of its theological overlays and spiritual ultimacies, is similar in many ways to the art of bodysurfing. At first glance this may seem like a gross exaggeration, but on closer inspection it is clear that a bodysurfer adept at riding waves actually employs yoga's four-fold technique.