The body can make its contributions, too, in this work of a spiritual aspirant following the religious path--the path of devotion and worship and prayer--rather than the yogic path of mental control and mental silence. I have devised a series of physical attitudes to be used in what I have called Philosophical Prayer, so that each different kind of prayer has its corresponding position of the body. For such a person the attitudes assumed physically in prayer are important because they help the work of inducing the feelings and thoughts appropriate to each kind. For others, who wish to follow the yogic path, there is, of course, the way of hatha yoga as a means of bringing the body into obedience to the will and aspiration while seeking to bring the thoughts into concentration and under control. This, too, this hatha yoga, has its own physical postures and breath rhythms, its way of sitting or squatting, its tensions and relaxations.
-- Notebooks Category 5: The Body > Chapter 9 : Prayer > # 1
