The difference between fasionable wellnes yoga and authentic personality work

Prashant Iyengar (son of the founder of Iyengar yoga):
The 18 Maha Kriyas of Yogasana    Chapter 6     (2013)

In modern pseudo-yog feelings of beatitude, solace and sense of well-being have become essential features. Bliss, beatitude, tranquility, transcendence are all on the surface mind or peripheral mind. It is only the temporal mind which gets a sense of wellbeing or a “top of the world” feeling. This mind generated by neurons of the brain is but a tip of the iceberg.

Essential Yog works on, if I may say so, ‘mineral mind’, which is ad the ocean-depth of our minds. When the water of a lake is crystal-clear, our gaze reaches down to its basin, its floor-depth, we hardly notice the water. Similarly this mind is just the surface – the tip; there are yet greater depths of mind (why not see the bottom of the ice-berg, why always the tip?), which in this context I refer to our ‘mineral mind’ or ‘mineral consciousness’.

We pay a premium today for mineral water, because it is extracted from mountains and deep valleys and is rich in the nutrients of this earth. Similarly the submerged mind, the mind at bottom of the embodiment/citta also comes as a premium; it is not sighted easily but has to be mined from deep within.

Modern Yog is but a neat consumer package. “Feel fine” is the goal of the pseudo yog, but wheter one feels fine or not is not important as to ‘become and be fine’. The essential bliss in the mind is not a naked mind perception or sensation; like in scientific evaluations, the naked-eye perceptions are hardly consideration worthy or much less than those analyses of findings conducted with strong probes and/or scopes. Similarly here, the pseudo yog’s naked faculty feelings are worthy of neglect.[…]

In the material plane of life one hardly gets the chance to exercice and explore the more sensitive, philosophical and/or meditative states of mind. They remain neclected. But in yogic pursuits the mind gets a deep philosophical exploration and develops trance potentials too.