Old School Yoga

One may rightly ask, why should we study this ancient material? What value does it have for our society that is so much more technologically advanced? Samkhya was the dominant world view of its time and many Hindu texts, especially the Yoga Sutras, were written from its point of view. If we attempt to read the Yoga Sutras, for example, from our own frame of reference, we will not be able to understand it. We must first understand the author’s frame of reference before we can make sense of his work.

Samkhya philsophy was the closest thing the ancient world had to science. While not up to modern standards, it demonstrates remarkable intelligence in many ways. And while the Samkhya tattvas may not be scientifically proved in the modern sense, they are nevertheless useful for the purposes of yogic introspection, and they seem to work.

I first became aware of Samkhya philosophy early in my study of yoga, having come across the term while reading the Bhagavad Gita. Since then, I’ve studied it in a fair amount of depth, which has greatly aided my understanding and progress in the practice of yoga. In recent years, the text that I’ve relied on the most has gone out of print, that is, The Samkhya Philosophy by Nandalal Sinha, originally published in 1915. This has created a need for materials that can continue to transmit the philosophy. Toward that end, Old School Yoga will be publishing a short introduction to the philosophy here on the website.

The primary focus of Old School Yoga is on the understanding and practice of Yoga. With that in mind, the topics to be covered will be those that are most relevant to that purpose.

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Production of this material is currently in progress. Please check back for updates.