As Anil Domkawle walked through his yoga class, with his students holding a stretching pose, he sounded like the polar opposite of a sports coach.

"We're not here in a hurry," he preached to 11 students in a rented room of a church in Bloomington. "We're not here for a competition,"

This is yoga, after all. The goal is to do an exercise posture correctly, creating healthy strain without pain or injury.

In ways, Domkawle's class contrasts with Western yoga, as well. Western yoga is dominated by the series of exercises that has become synonymous with the word yoga. But these exercises, by Domkawle's accounting, represent one of eight aspects of yoga in full.

Yoga's goal isn't to have a slimmer tummy, although that may ensue. Rather, it is communion with the Almighty, in whatever form an individual practitioner's faith takes.

Yoga, Domkawle told the class, means "connect."

Yoga's ambition, as the 31-year-old teacher explained it, is to help practitioners achieve enlightenment and enable them to live the virtues common to civilization. It creates happiness. Wider still, it seeks to improve society in its entirety, he said.

Western yoga classes have varying degrees of spiritual infusion. Some have no spiritual teaching at all. Others, like Main Street Yoga classes in downtown Bloomington, go beyond the physical conditioning of yoga to teach meditation and the breath-work part of yoga called pranayama.

But to Americans, a yoga "class" typically means the exercises.

Domkawle and others in the McLean County India Association want to present the fuller program: Yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahaar, dhyan, dharana and samadhi. (See accompanying item for an explanation.)

In late April, the association began its first course, solely for members of the association, in a tiled room at the Unitarian Universalist Church; the class runs through December. Just a couple weeks into Domkawle's class, the teacher and Vinod

Thaker already shared larger visions of offering lessons to the community as a whole. They haven't developed the broader program yet.

Thaker, president of the McLean County India Association, thinks of yoga as India's "gift to the world." But the other end of that giving is yoga's teaching that everyone has duty to give back to the world.

Domkawle (pronounced DOM-cow-lee) decided to pursue yoga in 1995, when he heard the yogi Manoharji Harkare give a talk at Pune University near Bombay, India. Domkawle studied mechanical engineering at the school.

At the time, he had commonplace personal goals: Education, job, family.

He studied with the guru, known affectionately as Kakaji (uncle), and studied his writing and tapes.

Interestingly, Kakaji had worked internationally to spread yoga. He taught the Indian and yoga community in Bloomington-Normal in 1997. He taught with Main Street Yoga's Debra Risberg then and afterward. Domkawle came to Bloomington in 2003, about the time Kakaji died, having lived into his late 80s.

The student continues the teacher's work, often crediting the teacher.

Through the yoga of the guru, he said, "the color of my life changed."

He has education, a wife and a job. His is a mechanical engineer for Patni Computer Systems. But the path is greater - a responsibility to better himself and society, a connection to the Almighty and no thought to limiting what degree of enlightenment he will attain.

Part of what drew him to the teacher was Kakaji's interest in science, and Domkawle, like the guru, uses science to help explain yoga.

He compares yoga to a titration experiment, which involves the gradual introduction of one liquid into another. The new liquid eventually changes the property of the original liquid. Its very essence has changed.

There's a joy to this transmission of ancient yoga lessons and unfamiliar body poses. In class, there are giggles as people put their bodies into new positions, such as a standing pose known as the tree in which the body is outstretched. In the tree-pose variation taught by Domkawle, the practitioner tries to stand on tiptoes.

At other times there is silence, or there is only the sound of the teacher's voice.

Domkawle began the recent session with his students in a seated position, legs crossed, eyes closed, as he stood and recited a mantra, a worshipful song, in the ancient Sanskrit language. Class took on a sacred quality.

Those with at least a smattering of background recognized some of the words.

"Vishnu" - Hindu God of ultimate power.

"Guru" - The teacher, Kakaji.

"Shanti" - Peace.

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Yoga's parts

These eight parts or limbs of yoga are open teachings. There are no "secrets" to it. But there are complexities and different schools of teaching and learning. So, bear in mind this is a highly condensed simplification. The source of the information, yoga instructor Anil Domkawle, credits his knowledge of yoga to that passed to him by his guru, Manoharji Harkare.

• Yama - Refers to understanding the course of nature, the way of the universe.

• Niyama - The deriving of benefit of that course. Think of everyone driving on the right side of the road to prevent chaos.

• Asana - The development of the physical frame through exercises.

• Pranayama - "Breathing exercises" provides an incomplete translation. Channeling of the breath also is a channeling of energy and life force. Like asana, it is a very active form of the yoga practice.

• Pratyahaar - Like food for the mind, this is the cultivation of ethics.

• Dhyan - Use of meditation to help the person experience the Almighty.

• Dharana - Human values - like love, benevolence, fellowship - become ingrained in the person's very essence, transcending mere beliefs, through the study and practice of the other aspects. "It becomes your identity."

• Samadhi - Achievement in becoming one with the Almighty. "God is within you, not without."