the yoga scholar elliott goldberg comments that the photographs of krishnamacharya's schoolboy pupils in the poses "don't truly capture yogins using their body as a tool for spiritual development either. in fact, the photos demystify whatever spirituality may obtain to the exercises." he adds that the group photographs are "showy ... eye-catching tricks", with boys in familiar asanas but arranged in a pyramid. the vinyasa system of yoga, too, was in goldberg's view "spectacularly different" from anything practised in india at the time; he is dismissive of krishnamacharya's "spurious claim for the ancient origin of vinyasa yoga", citing singleton's analysis in "yoga body" of its origins in surya namaskar, suggesting "self-aggrandizement and self-protection" as the motives. despite all this, goldberg states that krishnamacharya's main interest in yoga was to nourish spirituality ("adhyatmika krama"), quoting his words in "yoga makaranda": "once you stop the oscillating nature of mind, you can reach the level[s] of dhyana, nididhyasanam, and samadhi [the highest levels of patanjali's eight-limbed yoga]" and through that you can see the atma[n]. he notes that krishnamacharya was following the traditional interpretation of patanjali's "yoga sutras", that the eight limbs formed a sequence of steps.