The final condition that one must fulfill before starting the Intermediate Series is to possess a sufficient amount of strength and endurance. The Intermediate Series is much more demanding than the Primary and requires more lengthy practice. You will need to have ample reserves built up before embarking on the long trek through the Intermediate Series.
You probably have adequate strength if you can cleanly jump from Dandasana to Chaturanga Dandasana and move from Downward Dog to Dandasana in a controlled fashion. Sufficient endurance is indicated by the ability to sustain indefinitely a six-day-per-week practice of the full Primary Series. In addition, you should be able to perform the Primary Series with ease on your worst days, energetically speaking.
Before you commence the Intermediate Series, ask yourself whether you have the extra time and energy to invest in your practice. If you are not confident that the answer is yes, staying with the Primary Series for another year until you have made the space in your life is a safer bet.
A Final Word on Readiness
Each person begins his or her practice at a different level of readiness and progresses at a unique pace. This concept is central to Vedic teaching. One needs to practice that stage (bhumika) of practice that one is fit or ready for (adhikara). The term adhikara is formed from the verb root kri, “to do,” and the prefix adhi-, meaning “on either side” (as opposed to above or below). Adhikara, therefore, means to do that which is at your level and not something that is beyond your understanding or capability (or not challenging enough).
Indian scriptures generally state who is qualified to perform the actions described therein. Such an injunction may consist of only one stanza or even only one word. For example, the Yoga Sutra starts with the statement “atha yoga anushasanam,” which can be translated as “Here starts the discourse of yoga for the benefit of those who have realized that the objects of this world cannot quench their thirst.” Much of this message is encrypted in the important word atha. The author, Patanjali, wishes to express that those who still believe that they can achieve freedom merely by becoming smart, sexy, powerful, and wealthy are not qualified (adhikarin) to receive this instruction. Other texts devote several lengthy stanzas — usually titled adhikarin or adhikara — to the recitation of an entire catalog of conditions that the yogi needs to meet before embarking on his or her practices.
In days past, many yogic disciplines severely limited their audiences by imposing hard-to-meet conditions. The schools were concerned with not the quantity but rather the quality of the students. Many yogic schools targeted a very particular bandwidth of students, and all applicants above or below that bandwidth were sent off to look somewhere else. In the ancient days, teachers did their best to drive students away rather than collect them. It is a modern phenomenon for teachers to project the idea that their teaching suits everybody’s needs. Traditionally, it was the teacher who chose what type of practice the student was ready for.
In days of yore, teachings were categorized according to bhumika. Bhumika means step, degree, or stage. As there were people of many different stages of evolution, there were many different teachings to suit the various stages. The right teaching for a particular person was considered the teaching that accommodated the person’s present stage and was capable of lifting him or her to the next higher stage. Nowadays, influenced by the democratization of society, everybody wants to have the highest teaching, whether it is suitable or not. The highest teaching is generally accepted to be Jnana Yoga (also called the Brahma Vidya), the discipline in which only pure knowledge and no form of practice is used (see the more detailed discussion in chapter 1). For this reason Jnana Yoga has gained many fans in Western society. However, according to the traditional view only a few are qualified (adhikara) for this highest path. Further, if you do not practice the path you are fit for, not only will you achieve no results; you will also waste your time and that of your teacher. To prevent this, you need to judge objectively which practice you are fit for (adhikara). Once you have reached a certain stage, you then progress to the next higher stage (bhumika) without attempting to skip ahead.
Patanjali provided an easy way of navigating this problem when he created the eight limbs, which are neatly organized according to stage. That he adhered to the bhumika doctrine becomes clear when we read “tasya saptada pranta bhumih prajna.”11 This sutra says that complete and authentic knowledge of objects (prajna) is arrived at in seven stages.
If you have the time and energy to continue your journey through Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga by embarking on the Intermediate Series, you will find that you have an incredible tool at your disposal. Although the Intermediate Series initially requires a great deal of energy, time, and determination, the outcome is worth the effort. The daily practice of the full Intermediate Series deepens your quality of life so much that once you are established in this regimen, you simply will not want to live in a body that does not undergo this type of yogic training.
1 Yoga Sutra II.29.
2 Hatha Yoga Pradipika I.1.
3 The oldest excavated Indian city, Mergarh, is now confirmed as being eight thousand years old. It had 25,000 inhabitants.
4 Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad 4.3.33.
5 My translation, from P. D. Ouspensky, Auf der Suche nach dem Wunderbaren [In Search of the Miraculous] (Munich: Otto Wilhelm Barth Verlag, 1982), p. 52.
6 According to yoga, the intellect is made up of three gunas (qualities), which are tamas (dullness), rajas (frenzy), and sattva (wisdom). The first two qualities need to be reduced through practice, study, and devotion.
7 Some modern teachers claim that when Patanjali wrote about asana, he was referring only to the sitting posture of meditation. But the Rishi Vyasa has spelled out in his commentary on the Yoga Sutra that posture in yoga is not just sitting with one’s head, neck, and back in a straight line but is the practice of a complete course of yogic asanas (Swami Hariharananda Aranya, Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983, p. 228).
8 Terminology courtesy of Richard Freeman.
9 Yoga Sutra I.30.
10 Yoga Sutra I.14.
11 Yoga Sutra II.27.
Jnana, Bhakti, and Karma : The Three Forms of Yoga