Chapters: Kuṇḍalinī, Yoginīs, and ‘Does yoga liberate or constrain?’ (2025)

BookYoga Studies in Five Minutes
EditorsTheo Wildcroft and Barbora Sojkova
Date2025
Available athttps://equinoxreligionlibrary.com/projects/yoga-studies-in-five-minutes

Yoga Studies in Five Minutes

Does yoga liberate or constrain? pp. 51-54

In the premodern period yoga is freedom (mokṣa) from the causal doctrine of retributive reaction (karma), the round of repeated death and birth (saṃsāra) and suffering (duḥkha). In modern contexts, yoga is presented, and experienced, as release from ill-health. Paradoxically however the opposite view is also valid: becoming liberated may entail constraining behaviours and practices.

What is Kuṇḍalinī? pp. 145-148

The concept of the coiled, snakelike kuṇḍalinī, who awakens and rises upwards during yoga, is intrinsically connected with yoga in the modern and premodern periods. The awakening and forceful rising upwards of kuṇḍalinī, by which she breaks through the energetic vortices (cakras) and locks (granthis), is definitional of haṭhayoga: the yoga of force.

What is a yoginī? pp. 149-152

The meaning of the term yoginī varies considerably according to context, and can include: a class of tantric goddesses, a designation for the Great Goddess, intermediary beings/demigoddesses, ghosts, witches, female ascetics, tantric practitioners, women consecrated to a deity, and persons with a special affinity for Indian religion.