Hatha yoga who famously studied with the yogis and other mystics. Hatha yoga remained popular in rural India. Negative impression for the Hatha yogis continued during the British colonial rule era. According to Mark Singleton, this historical negativity and colonial antipathy likely motivated Swami Vivekananda to make an emphatic distinction between "merely physical exercises of Hatha yoga" and the "higher spiritual path of Raja yoga". This common disdain by the officials and intellectuals slowed the study and adoption of Hatha yoga. Modern hatha yoga, of the type seen in the West, has been greatly influenced by the school of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who
Bhakti movement concept of the Ultimate Reality as formless, without attributes or quality. "Saguna" Brahman, in contrast, was envisioned and developed as with form, attributes and quality. The two had parallels in the ancient pantheistic unmanifest and theistic manifest traditions, respectively, and traceable to Arjuna-Krishna dialogue in the Bhagavad Gita. It is the same Brahman, but viewed from two perspectives, one from "Nirguni" knowledge-focus and other from "Saguni" love-focus, united as Krishna in the Gita. "Nirguna" bhakta's poetry were "Jnana-shrayi", or had roots in knowledge. "Saguna" bhakta's poetry were "Prema-shrayi", or with roots in love. In Bhakti, the emphasis is reciprocal love