Why I Chose Classical Hatha Yoga

I think I was around ten years old when my mother began waking me up at 3:30 every morning on weekends to attend a free yoga class at a nearby temple.

At that age, I didn't really understand what yoga was or why I was learning it. I simply went because my mother wanted me to.

What I remember most from those mornings wasn't the practice itself, but the excitement of being able to perform the postures well. Whenever I could do something better than the other children, I felt immensely proud. The teacher would often help lift my legs higher or physically place me into a posture, and I would return home excitedly demonstrating everything I had learned to my parents.

Looking back today as a Classical Hatha Yoga teacher, I feel grateful that I was introduced to yoga so early in life. That small beginning stayed with me in ways I couldn't have imagined.

At the same time, I also realise how little I understood then about what yoga truly is. The emphasis was largely on achieving the posture rather than understanding the science behind it or the way it is traditionally meant to be approached.

Years later, that same curiosity led me to register for a Classical Hatha Yoga program in 2021 January.

Even before the program began, I noticed something was different.

I received detailed instructions about maintaining an empty stomach, arriving on time, wearing appropriate clothing, and preparing myself before stepping into the class. They seemed like small details, but together they created a certain atmosphere of involvement and respect.

During the sessions themselves, something surprised me even more.

The teacher didn't move around physically adjusting participants. Instead, He was sitting still giving instruction and the practices were demonstrated with great precision while each of us was expected to observe carefully, pay attention, and take responsibility for our own involvement.

There was a certain discipline in the way everything was offered.

Nothing felt casual.

Nothing felt improvised.

Every instruction seemed intentional.

I walked into that program thinking I was learning another form of yoga. I walked out realising I had only just begun to understand what yoga actually meant.

That experience changed something within me.

For the first time, I realised that yoga was not simply a collection of physical postures. It was a carefully preserved science that deserved to be approached with sincerity, attention, and respect.

Looking back, the practices didn't just change how I moved. They quietly changed how I responded to life.

From that moment, my understanding of yoga began to change.

Today, it pains me to see how casually the word yoga is often used.

We hear terms like beer yoga, cat yoga, aerial yoga, and countless other variations. At the same time, yoga is often reduced to a display of flexibility—as though the ability to bend further somehow determines the depth of one's practice.

I don't say this to criticize these activities. Many of them encourage movement, discipline, and physical fitness, and those are valuable in their own way.

But I don't believe everything should be called yoga.

The word itself carries a depth that deserves to be understood.

Yoga literally means union—a state where the boundaries between you and existence begin to dissolve. It is the possibility of experiencing life not as something separate from you, but as something you are deeply connected with. It is a path of exploring both the creation and the creator within oneself.

Because of this, the word yoga is not simply a label that can be attached to any activity. It represents an entire way of approaching life and inner growth.

This is why I chose Classical Hatha Yoga.

Classical Hatha Yoga belongs to an ancient yogic tradition that has been carefully preserved and offered in its classical form. The practices I learned were offered by Sadhguru through the Isha Classical Hatha Yoga program with the intention of preserving their integrity, while drawing from a lineage that, in the yogic tradition, traces back to Adiyogi (Shiva) and the Saptarishis.

Whether one approaches that lineage symbolically, historically, or devotionally, what matters most to me is the integrity with which these practices have been preserved and offered.

Classical Hatha Yoga is not merely about improving flexibility or physical fitness. Those may happen naturally, but they are not the destination.

To me, it is a science that creates the possibility of bringing the body, mind, energies, and emotions into alignment. In doing so, it opens the door to experiencing dimensions of ourselves that lie beyond our habitual patterns of thought and identity.

Today, when someone asks me why I chose Classical Hatha Yoga, I don't think about flexibility or fitness. I think about the integrity with which it has been preserved, the discipline with which it is offered, and the possibility it opened within me.

That is why I continue to learn it, practise it, and share it.