Series, by practicing the Primary Series for a sufficient length of time.
Have built a sufficient amount of strength and endurance.
Let’s look at each of these conditions separately.
PROFICIENT PERFORMANCE OF POSTURES
Attempting the Intermediate Series too soon is like building a second story on a house before the concrete in the supporting pillars of the first story has cured. Inevitably, your building will soon show cracks. The cardinal postures of the Primary Series are Pashimottanasana and Baddhakonasana, and you should display sufficient proficiency in these two postures. It is difficult, however, to define the required level of proficiency. You need to be flexible enough in both forward bending and hip rotation so that you can satisfactorily perform the three energetically most effective and important postures of the Primary Series, namely Marichyasana D, Supta Kurmasana (which includes Kurmasana, a vinyasa of Supta Kurmasana), and Garbhapindasana. You can read about the importance of these three postures in Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and Philosophy.
ATTAINMENT OF YOGA CHIKITSA
Yoga Chikitsa means “yoga therapy” and refers to the process of eliminating the basic causes of diseases and balancing the doshas in the body (vata, pitta, and kapha) and gunas in the mind (tamas, rajas, and sattva) through regular practice of postures. Some dancers, gymnasts, and very flexible people can do the postures of the Primary Series right at the beginning. But this is not enough. They need to practice the Primary Series until the health and balance of Yoga Chikitsa is achieved.
Patanjali lists the obstacles to yoga.9 The first, sickness, results primarily from an imbalance of the doshas; Yoga Chikitsa improves this balance. Attaining Yoga Chikitsa does not mean that you will never become sick again, since disease stems primarily from its root cause, the mind, and also from the environment and from karmic influences. Yoga Chikitsa will, however, improve your health and increase your resistance to disease and your capacity to recover quickly.
Yoga Chikitsa can be obtained by practicing the complete Primary Series every day for approximately one year. Please note that this is only a rough guideline, and the time required varies from person to person. Only a qualified teacher can determine if you have achieved Yoga Chikitsa.
Patanjali states that practice can succeed only when it is sustained uninterruptedly, for a long time and with a devotional attitude.10 So, as indicated previously, the Primary Series needs to be performed daily and in an uninterrupted fashion for an entire year. If the student is not able to practice daily in a devoted fashion, then she or he is not ready to commence the Intermediate Series.
ATTAINMENT OF STRENGTH AND ENDURANCE
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
