Not all practitioners can jump to that highest level. They have to climb, step by step from the physical sphere to reach the spiritual sphere. If it is treated as exercise it is not the fault of yoga but of the practitioners.

Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day-to-day life and endows skill in the performance of one's actions.

Action is movement with intelligence

I also say with backbends, you have to be cautiously bold. Not carelessly bold. You have to descend to the dictation of the spine. You cannot command from the brain to do the poses. As you play with a child, guarding the child from injuries, similarly you have to play in backbends, guarding your spine.

The back is like a frame, the front body, the painting that it throws into relief.

Savasana is being without was, being without will be. It is being without anyone who is.

Asanas penetrate deep into each layer of the body and ultimately into the consciousness itself.