Myswizard

Consciousness

Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one’s environment. It is a subject of much research in philosophy of mind, psychology, neurology, and cognitive science.

Some philosophers divide consciousness into phenomenal consciousness which is experience itself and access consciousness which is the processing of the things in experience (Block 2004), while others consider this distinction to be mistaken (Dennett 1991). Many cultures and religious traditions place the seat of consciousness in a soul separate from the body. Conversely, many scientists and philosophers consider consciousness to be intimately linked to the neural functioning of the brain dictating the way in which the world is experienced.

Humans (and often other animals as well) are variously said to possess consciousness, self- awareness, and a mind, that contains our sensations, perceptions, dreams, lucid dreams, inner speech and imagination etc.. Each of us has a subjective view. There are many debates about the extent to which the mind constructs or experiences the outer world, the passage of time, and free will.

An understanding of necessary preconditions for consciousness in the human brain may allow us to address important ethical questions. For instance, to what extent are non-human animals conscious? At what point in fetal development does consciousness begin? Can machines ever achieve conscious states? These issues are of great interest to those concerned with the ethical treatment of other beings, be they animals, fetuses, or in the future, machines.

In common parlance, consciousness denotes being awake and responsive to one’s environment; this contrasts with being asleep or being in a coma. The term ‘level of consciousness’ denotes how consciousness seems to vary during anesthesia and during various states of mind such as day dreaming, lucid dreaming, imagining etc. Nonconsciousness exists when consciousness is not present. There is speculation, especially amongst religious groups, that consciousness may exist after death or before birth.

Etymology
“Consciousness” derives from Latin “conscientia”, which primarily means moral conscience. Literally, “conscientia” means knowledge-with, that is, shared knowledge. The word first appears in Latin juridic texts by writers such as Cicero. Here, conscientia is the knowledge that a witness has of the deed of someone else. In Christian theology, conscience stands for the moral conscience in which our actions and intentions are registered and which is only fully known to god. Medieval writers such as Thomas Aquinas describe the conscientia as the act by which we apply practical and moral knowledge to our own actions (Aquinas, De Veritate 17,1 c.a.). René Descartes was the first to use “conscientia” in a way that does not seem to fit this traditional meaning, and consequently, the translators of his writings in other languages like French and English coined new words in order to denote merely psychological consciousness. These are, for instance, “conscience psychologique”, “consciousness”, and “Bewusstsein”. See Catherine G. Davies, Conscience as Consciousness, Oxford 1990, and Hennig, Cartesian Conscientia.

Consciousness and language
Because humans express their conscious states using language, it is tempting to equate language abilities and consciousness. There are, however, speechless humans (infants, feral children, aphasics), to whom consciousness is attributed despite language lost or not yet acquired. Moreover, the study of brain states of non-linguistic primates, in particular the macaques, has been used extensively by scientists and philosophers in their quest for the neural correlates of the contents of consciousness.

Cognitive neuroscience approaches
Modern investigations into and discoveries about consciousness are based on psychological statistical studies and case studies of consciousness states and the deficits caused by lesions, stroke, injury, or surgery that disrupt the normal functioning of human senses and cognition. These discoveries suggest that the mind is a complex structure derived from various localized functions that are bound together with a unitary awareness.

Several studies point to common mechanisms in different clinical conditions that lead to loss of consciousness. Persistent vegetative state (PVS) is a condition in which an individual loses the higher cerebral powers of the brain, but maintains sleep-wake cycles with full or partial autonomic functions. Studies comparing PVS with healthy, awake subjects consistently demonstrate an impaired connectivity between the deeper (brainstem and thalamic) and the upper (cortical) areas of the brain. In addition, it is agreed that the general brain activity in the cortex is lower in the PVS state. Some electroneurobiological interpretations of consciousness characterize this loss of consciousness as a loss of the ability to resolve time (similar to playing an old phonographic record at very slow or very rapid speed), along a continuum that starts with inattention, continues on sleep and arrives to coma and death.

Loss of consciousness also occurs in other conditions, such as general (tonic-clonic) epileptic seizures, in general anaesthesia, maybe even in deep (slow wave) sleep. The currently best supported hypotheses about such cases of loss of consciousness (or loss of time resolution) focus on the need for 1) a widespread cortical network, including particularly the frontal, parietal and temporal cortices, and 2) cooperation between the deep layers of the brain, especially the thalamus, and the upper layers; the cortex. Such hypotheses go under the common term “globalist theories” of consciousness, due to the claim for a widespread, global network necessary for consciousness to interact with non-mental reality in the first place.

Brain chemistry affects human consciousness. Sleeping drugs (such as Midazolam = Dormicum) can bring the brain from the awake condition (conscious) to the sleep (unconscious). Wake-up drugs such as Anexate reverse this process. Many other drugs (such as heroin, cocaine, LSD, MDMA) have a consciousness-changing effect.

There is a neural link between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, known as the corpus callosum. This link is sometimes surgically severed to control severe seizures in epilepsy patients. This procedure was first performed by Roger Sperry in the 1960’s. Tests of these patients have shown that after the link is completely severed, the hemispheres are no longer able to communicate, leading to certain problems which usually arise only in test conditions. For example, while the left side of the brain can verbally describe what is going on in the right visual field, the right hemisphere is esentially mute, instead relying on its spatial abilities to interact with the world on the left visual field. Some say it is as if two separate minds now share the same skull, but both still represent themselves as a single “I” to the outside world.

The bilateral removal of the Centromedian nucleus (part of the Intra-laminar nucleus of the Thalamus) appears to abolish consciousness, causing coma, PVS, severe mutism and other features that mimic brain death. The centromedian nucleus is also one of the principal sites of action of general anaesthetics and anti-psychotic drugs.

Neurophysiological studies in awake, behaving monkeys performed by neuroscientists (e.g., Steven Wise, Mikhail Lebedev, Nikos Logothetis) point to advanced cortical areas in prefrontal cortex and temporallobes as carriers of neuronal correlate of consciousness.

Philosophical approaches
Some philosophers suggest that consciousness resists or even defies definition. Others believe it can be usefully distinguished between phenomenal consciousness and access or psychological consciousness, while still others disagree. There are many philosophical stances on consciousness, including: behaviorism, dualism, idealism, functionalism, phenomenalism, physicalism, emergentism, and mysticism.

Phenomenal and access consciousness
Philosophers call our current experience phenomenal consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness is simply experience, it is moving, coloured forms, sounds, sensations, emotions and feelings with our bodies and responses at the centre. These experiences, considered independently of any impact on behavior, are called qualia. The hard problem of consciousness was formulated by Chalmers in 1996, dealing with the issue of “how to explain a state of phenomenal consciousness in terms of its neurological basis” (Block 2004). Daniel Dennett(1988) identifies qualia with the results of judgements and consequent behaviour, he extends this analysis (Dennett (1996)) by arguing that phenomenal consciousness can be explained in terms of access consciousness, and hence denies the existence of both qualia and the “hard problem”.

Access consciousness is the phenomenon whereby information in our minds is accessible for verbal report, reasoning, and the control of behavior. So when we perceive, information about what we perceive is often access conscious; when we introspect, information about our thoughts is access conscious; when we remember, information about the past (e.g. something that we learned) is often access conscious; and so on. Chalmers thinks that access consciousness is less mysterious than phenomenal consciousness, so that it is held to pose one of the easy problems of consciousness. Dennett disagrees, asserting that the totality of consciousness can be understood in terms of impact on behavior, as studied through heterophenomenology.

Events that occur in the mind or brain that are not within phenomenal or access consciousness are known as subconscious events.

The description and location of phenomenal consciousness
Although it is the conventional wisdom that consciousness cannot be defined, philosophers have been describing phenomenal consciousness for centuries. Rene Descartes wrote Meditations on First Philosophy in the seventeenth century, and this contains extensive descriptions of what it is to be conscious. Descartes described conscious experience as imaginings and perceptions laid out in space and time that are viewed from a point. Each thing appears as a result of some quality (qualia) such as colour, smell etc. Other philosophers, such as Nicholas Malebranche, John Locke, David Hume and Immanuel Kant, also agreed with much of this description, although some avoid mentioning the viewing point. The extension of things in time was considered in more detail by Kant and James. Kant wrote that “only on the presupposition of time can we represent to ourselves a number of things as existing at one and the same time (simultaneously) or at different times (successively)”. William James stressed the extension of experience in time and said that time is “the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible”. These philosophers also go on to describe dreams, thoughts, emotions etc.

When we look around a room or have a dream, things are laid out in space and time and viewed as if from a point. However, when philosophers and scientists consider the location of the form and contents of this phenomenal consciousness there are fierce disagreements. As an example, Descartes proposed that the contents were brain activity seen by a non-physical place without extension (the Res Cogitans) which he identified as the soul. This idea is known as ‘Cartesian Dualism’. Another example is found in the work of Thomas Reid who thought the contents of consciousness are the world itself which becomes conscious experience in some way. This concept is a type of Direct realism. The precise physical substrate of conscious experience in the world, such as photons, quantum fields etc. is usually not specified. Other philosophers, such as George Berkeley, have proposed that the contents of consciousness are an aspect of minds and do not involve matter at all. This is a type of Idealism. Yet others, such as Leibniz, have considered that each point in the universe is endowed with conscious content. This is a form of Panpsychism. The concept of the things in conscious experience being impressions in the brain is a type of representationalism and representationalism can be a form of indirect realism.

Some philosophers, such as David Armstrong and Daniel Dennett, believe that conscious experiences exist in terms of judgements or beliefs about things in the world, and is therefore meaningless except when separated from behavior, while other philosophers insist that experience constitute qualia which cannot be understood in terms of belief.

It is sometimes held that consciousness emerges from the complexity of brain processing (see for instance the Multiple Drafts Model of consciousness). The general label ‘emergence’ applies to new phenomena that emerge from a physical basis without the connection between the two explicitly specified. Some theorists hold that phenomenal consciousness poses an explanatory gap, and have proposed scientific theories such as Quantum mind, space-time theories of consciousness and Electromagnetic theories of consciousness, to explain the correspondence between brain activity and experience. As yet there is little evidence from brain studies to support these theories. Evidence from parapsychology of psychokinesis or telepathy, if substantiatied, might support the theory that the location of consciousness is not confined to the brain.

Access consciousness
There have been numerous approaches to the processes that act on conscious experience from instant to instant. Philosophers who have explored this problem include Gerald Edelman, G. Spencer-Brown, Edmund Husserl and Daniel Dennett.

Some philosophers have concentrated on reflexive processes to link one instant to the next, some on discriminations, differerences and differentiation between things in conscious experience and and others on the overall behaviour of the organism.

G. Spencer-Brown provides an example of the analysis of consciousness as a process, the process in this case being differentiating one thing from another.G. Spencer-Brown proposes in Laws of Form that the root of cognition is the ability to perceive dualism, i.e., in its most simple construct, the capability of differentiating a “this” from a “that.” A mathematician, he captured this concept of elementary content-in-context in an abstraction: an algebraic and tautological symbol he referred to as the “Mark,” also referred to as a “distinction.” Francisco Varela, a co-founder of the Integral Institute, and Humberto Maturana also identify “distinction” as the elementary act of cognition. By definition, this concept extends the notion of “consciousness” well beyond that solely evidenced by humans and lends itself to the idea of a “scale” of consciousness.

Physical approaches
Even at the dawn of Newtonian science, Leibniz and many others were suggesting physical theories of consciousness. Modern physical theories of consciousness can be divided into three types: theories to explain behaviour and access consciousness, theories to explain phenomenal consciousness and theories to explain the quantum mechanical (QM) Quantum mind. Theories that seek to explain behaviour are an everyday part of neuroscience, some of these theories of access consciousness, such as Edelman’s theory, contentiously identify phenomenal consciousness with reflex events in the brain. Theories that seek to explain phenomenal consciousness directly, such as Space-time theories of consciousness and Electromagnetic theories of consciousness, have been available for almost a century but have not as yet been confirmed by experiment. Theories that attempt to explain the QM measurement problem include Pribram and Bohm’s Holonomic brain theory, Hameroff and Penrose’s Orch-OR theory, Spin-Mediated Consciousness Theory and the Many-minds interpretation. Some of these QM theories offer descriptions of phenomenal consciousness as well as QM interpretations of access consciousness. None of the quantum mechanical theories has been confirmed by experiment, and there are philosopher who are that QM has no bearing on consciousness.

There is also a concerted effort in the field of Artificial Intelligence to create digital computer programs that can simulate consciousness.

Spiritual approaches
Spiritual approaches to consciousness involve the idea of altered states of consciousness or religious experience. Changes in the state of consciousness or a religious experience can occur spontaneously or as a result of religious observance. It is also maintained by some religions and religious factions that the universe itself is consciousness.

In shamanic practice the change in state of consciousness is induced by mind altering drugs or as a result of activities that induce trance. The experience that occurs is interpreted as entering a real, but parallel, world. In many polytheistic religions a change in emotional state is often attributed to the action of a god, for instance love was ruled by Aphrodite and Eros in Ancient Greek polytheism. In Hinduism the change in state is induced by the practice of yoga. Yoga means “joining” and is intended to produce a state of oneness between the practitioner and the divine. In Islam and Christianity the change of state can occur as a result of prayer or as a religious experience.

The change in state of consciousness in Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam is reported to be quite similar. The pursuit of yoga and the Buddhist Jhanas involve feelings of oneness with the world that give rise to a state of rapture. This is also reported by those undergoing some forms of Christian (or Islamic) religious experience, for instance James (1902) provides the following report:

I cannot express it in any other way than to say that I did “lie down in the stream of life and let it flow over me.” I gave up all fear of any impending disease; I was perfectly willing and obedient. There was no intellectual effort, or train of thought. My dominant idea was: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me even as thou wilt,” and a perfect confidence that all would be well, that all was well. The creative life was flowing into me every instant, and I felt myself allied with the Infinite, in harmony, and full of the peace that passeth understanding. There was no place in my mind for a jarring body. I had no consciousness of time or space or persons; but only of love and happiness and faith.
Meditation is used in some forms of yoga such as Raja Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Transcendental meditation, the Buddhist Jhanas, the Buddhist Immaterial Jhanas (there are several versions of the jhanas in different types of Buddhism), in the practices of Christian monks and Islamic scholars such as Sufis. Meditation can have a calming influence on practitioners as well as changing the state of consciousness. Therevada Buddhism views the Jhanas and some yogic practices view the early stages of meditation as a preliminary “serenity meditation” in which it is demonstrated that states such as rapture are delusions, products of mind rather than the soul. In most types of Buddhism serenity meditation is followed by a philosophical “insight meditation” that focusses on the idea that the universe is consciousness only, one that is perhaps indistinguishable from Monism.

Functions of consciousness
We generally agree that our fellow human beings are conscious and that much simpler life forms, such as bacteria, are not. Many of us attribute consciousness to higher-order animals such as dolphins and primates; academic research is investigating the extent to which animals are conscious. This suggests the hypothesis that consciousness has co-evolved with life, which would require it to have some sort of added value. People have therefore looked for specific functions of consciousness. Bernard Baars (1997) for instance states that “consciousness is a supremely functional adaptation” and suggests a variety of functions in which consciousness plays a role: prioritization of alternatives, problem solving, decision making, brain processes recruiting, action control, error detection, planning, learning, adaptation, context creation, and access to information. Antonio Damasio (1999) regards consciousness as part of an organism’s survival kit, allowing planned rather than instinctual responses. He also points out that awareness of self allows a concern for one’s own survival, which increases the drive to survive, although how far consciousness is involved in behaviour is an actively debated issue. Many psychologists, such as radical behaviourists, and many philosophers, such as those who support Ryle’s approach, would maintain that behaviour can be explained by non-conscious processes akin to artificial intelligence and might consider consciousness to be epiphenomenal or only weakly related to function.

Tests of consciousness
As there is still not a clear definition of consciousness, no empirical tests currently exist to test consciousness as a whole. Some have even argued that empirical tests of consciousness are intrinsically impossible. However, some researchers have devised tests to detect what they feel are certain aspects of consciousness. A test similar to this was used in the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” by Philip K. Dick to see if a person was a robot or an actual human. In the Ridley Scott movie, Blade Runner, which was inspired by that book, it is known as the “Voigt-Kampf” test and tests the subject for empathy.

Turing Test
Alan Turing proposed what is now known as the Turing test to determine if a computer could simulate human conversation undetectably. This test is commonly cited in discussion of artificial intelligence. The application to consciousness is that, according to some philosophers, anything capable of passing the Turing test as well as a person is necessarily conscious. Other philosophers say that a philosophical zombie could pass the test yet fail to be conscious. This matter is heavily disputed. Still others take it for granted that computers can think since this is what they were designed to do; Edsger Dijkstra’s commented that “The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim”.

A thought experiment which is intended to show problems with the Turing Test is as follows. Imagine a computer in which are stored a very large number of questions and a very large number of actual human responses to these questions. If the number of questions and answers was large enough, then the computer would be able to mimic consciousness by a purely mechanical procedure. Of course, this is a purely hypothetical example, because any attempt to create a lookup table for all possible responses would entail a device of truly gigantic proportions. For this reasons, some consider this thought experiment to be misleading. See Chinese room.

Mirror test
With the mirror test, devised by Gordon Gallup in the 1970s, one is interested in whether animals are able to recognize themselves in a mirror. Such self-recognition is said to be an indicator of consciousness. Humans (older than 18 months), great apes (except for gorillas), and bottlenose dolphins have all been observed to pass this test.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Consciousness”.

Yoga
Yoga is a form of mysticism that developed on the Indian subcontinent in the Hindu cultural context. Its origin is impossible to trace, because it dates back to before recorded history. Yoga comes in many forms specifically designed to suit different types of people. As a result, some forms of yoga have gained significant popularity outside India, particularly in the West during the past century.

Introduction
The word Yoga originates from the Sanskrit word “Yuj” (”to yoke”) and is generally translated as “union” or “integration”. According to Yoga experts, the union referred to by the name is that of the individual soul (”atma”) with the cosmos, or the Supreme (”Brahma,”).
The many Yoga disciplines are of course the religious practices of Hinduism and taught by qualified Hindus. The basic, progressive forms of Yoga are: Karma Yoga (ethics), Bhakti Yoga (devotions), Raja Yoga (meditations) and Jnana Yoga (enlightenment).

Yoga has both a philosophical and a practical dimension. The philosophy of yoga (”union”) deals with the nature of the individual soul and the cosmos, and how the two are related. The practice of yoga, on the other hand, can be any activity that leads or brings the practitioner closer to this mystical union - a state called self-realization. Over thousands of years, special practical yoga techniques have been developed by experts in yoga, who are referred to as Yogis (male) and Yoginis (female).

These Yoga techniques cover a broad range, encompassing physical, mental, and spiritual activities. Traditionally, they have been classified into four categories or paths: the path of meditation (Raja Yoga), the path of devotion (Bhakti Yoga), the path of selfless service to the Divine (Karma Yoga), and the path of intellectual analysis or the discrimination of truth and reality (Jnana Yoga). The most conspicuous form of yoga in the West, Hatha Yoga - consisting of various physical and breathing exercises and purification techniques - is actually the third and the fourth stages of Ashtanga Yoga of Yoga Sutras by Patanjali.

This statue of a yogini goddess was created in Kaveripakkam in Tamil Nadu during the 10th century. There were 64 such yoginis worshiped in a cult later incorporated into Hinduism.

Different forms of yogic movements which occur automatically in the body during meditation.

History
Pre-Vedic (ca. 6000 - 3000 BCE [?])
The history of yoga may go back anywhere from two to eight thousand years ago, depending on the perspective the historian. However, its basic text is the Yoga Sutras by Patañjali (c. 2nd century BC?). It is associated with the land of India, and while it is supposed by some scholars that yogic practices were originally the domain of the indigenous, non-Aryan (and pre-Vedic) peoples, it was first clearly expounded in the great Vedic shastras (religious texts).

Pre-Vedic findings are taken, by some commentators, to show that “yoga” existed in some form well before the establishment of Aryan culture in the north Indian subcontinent.

A triangular amulet seal uncovered at the Mohenjo-daro archeological excavation site depicts a male, seated on a low platform in a cross legged position, with arms outstretched. His head is crowned with the horns of a water-buffalo. He is surrounded by animals (a fish, an alligator, and a snake) and diverse symbols. The likeness on the seal and understandings of the surrounding culture have led to its widely accepted identification as “Pashupati”, Lord of the Beasts, a prototype and predecessor of the modern day Hindu god Shiva. The pose is a very familiar one to yogins, representing Shiva much as he is seen today, the meditating ascetic contemplating divine truth in “yoga-posture.”
(Ref. 1, 2)

Vedic (ca. 2000-1500 BCE)
David Frawley, a Vedic scholar, writes: “Yoga can be traced back to the Rig Veda itself, the oldest Hindu text which speaks about yoking our mind and insight to the Sun of Truth. Great teachers of early Yoga include the names of many famous Vedic sages like Vasishta, Yajnavalkya, and Jaigishavya.”

Ideas of uniting mind, body and soul in the cosmic one, however, do not find real yogic explication until the most important mystic texts of Hinduism, the Upanishads or Vedanta, commentaries on the Vedas.

Upanishadic (ca. 800-100 BCE)
Explicit examples of the concept and terminology of yoga appear in the Upanishads (primarily thirteen principal texts of the Vedanta, or the “End of the Vedas,” that are the culmination of all Vedic philosophy)
While protracted discussions of the ultimate, infinite Self, or Atman, and realization of Brahman, are the true legacy of the Upanishads, the first principal Yoga text was the Bhagavad Gita (”The Lord’s Song”), also known as Gitopanishad.

In the Maitrayaniya Upanishad (ca. 200-300 BCE) yoga surfaces as:
“Shadanga-Yoga - The uniting discipline of the six limbs (shad-anga), as expounded in the Maitrayaniya-Upanishad: (1) breath control (pranayama), (2) sensory inhibition (pratyahara), (3) meditation (dhyana), (4) concentration (dharana), (5) examination (tarka), and (6) ecstasy (samadhi).”

Reference: http://www.orientalia.org/term3923.html
In the Katha Upanishad yoga surfaces as:
“When the five instruments of knowledge stand still, together with the mind and when the intellect does not move, that is called the Supreme State. - III.10

This, the firm Control of the senses, is what is called yoga. One must then be vigilant; for yoga can be both beneficial and injurious. - III.11″
“Having received this wisdom taught by the King of Death and the entire process of yoga, Nachiketa became free from impurities and death and attained Brahman. Thus it will be also with any other who knows, in this manner, the inmost Self. - III.18″

Commentary
“In the Kathopanishad there is a hint given to us as to how we can practice Yoga. There are one or two verses in the Kathopanishad which give the sum and substance of the practice of Yoga, which is also the same Yoga explained in greater detail in the system of Patanjali. The Kathopanishad says, in these verses, that the subtle essences of objects are superior to the sensory powers, they are higher in their degree and in quality. Higher than these essences of objects is the mind; higher than the mind is the intellect; higher than the intellect is the cosmic intellect called Mahat. It is also called Hiranyagarbha. Higher than that is the peaceful undifferentiated causal state called Avyakta. Higher than that is supreme Absolute, Purusha. The same Upanishad mentions the system of practice in another verse. The senses have to be rooted in the mind. The mind has to be centered in the intellect. The intellect has to be fixed in the Cosmic Intellect, and the Cosmic Intellect has to be united with the Peaceful Being. Sometimes this Peaceful Being, Shanta-Atman, is identified with the Isvara of the Vedanta. This is how we have to control the mind.”

Reference The Essence of The Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads by Swami Krishnananda The Divine Life Society Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India [1]
See also: Wikisources - Aitareya Upanishad, Wikisource - Taittiriya Upanishad

Classical (ca. 200 CE)
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
After the Bhagavad Gita, the next seminal work on Yoga is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The Yoga Sutras are a compilation of Yogic thought that is largely Raja Yogic in nature, it was codified some time between the 2nd century BC and the 3rd century by Patanjali, and prescribes adherence to “eight limbs” (the sum of which constitute “Ashtanga Yoga”) to quiet one’s mind and merge with the infinite. These eight limbs not only systematized conventional moral principles espoused by the Gita, but elucidated the practice of Raja Yoga in a more detailed manner. Indeed, his “eight-limbed” path has formed the foundation for Raja Yoga and much of Tantra Yoga (a Hindu deific, Shiva-Shakti yoga system) and Vajrayana Buddhism (Buddhist Tantra Yoga) that came after. It goes as follows:
• Yama (moral codes)
• Niyama (self-purification and study)
• Asana (posture)
• Pranayama (breath control)
• Pratyahara (sense control)
• Dharana (concentration)
• Dhyana (contemplation)
• Samadhi (veridical meditation)

Patanjali, whose own life is virtually unknown, had the impact of further spreading in compact form the essence of Raja Yoga. Some legends speak of his being Adinaga, the first snake, the lower half of his body being that of a snake, upon which the great Hindu God Vishnu reclines. Many say that he was the same Patanjali who wrote commentaries on Panini’s singular masterwork on Sanskrit grammar. Others speak of the legends of his birth. A few even dispute his existence and attribute the Yoga Sutras to many authors, but this is highly unlikely due to the structural, linguistic and stylistic uniformity of the short work. His base is Hindu Samkhya philosophy and shows itself to have been highly influenced by the Upanishads.

His Yoga Sutras espouse a threefold system for attainment of samadhi through tapas (austerities; discipline; literally “heat”), swadhyaya (self-study) and ishwar-pranidhana (contemplation of God).

While Patanjali accepts the idea of what he terms “ishta-devata” (worship of deities as manifestations of the single Brahman), his overall “ishwar” is not a conventional God with personal form and speaks more to a universal, attributeless Brahman, an impersonal, unknowable, infinite force that is all and transcends all.

Together, the Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Sutras form the theoretical and philosophical base of all yoga. However, as far as Raja Yoga (meditation yoga) goes, it is most precisely captured by Patanjali’s Yoga-Sutras.

450 - 850 CE
The Yoga-bhasya, Veda Vyasa’s commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali could have been written as early as 450 CE. Professor J. H. Woods, places the date of the Yoga-bhasya between 650 CE to 850 CE. Trevor Leggett places the date closer to 600 CE based on a commentary to the Yoga-bhasya published in Sanskrit in 1952 in the Madras Government Oriental Series #94 by Polakam Sri Rama Sastri and S. R. Krishnamurti Sastri. Evidence strongly suggests that this sub-commentary was written by Sankara who lived about 700 CE.

Vacaspati Mishra’s Tattva Vaisharadi, a commentary on the Yoga-bhasya was written in ca. 850 CE. An authoritative translation of this work can be found in “The Yoga System of Patanjali” by Professor James Haughton Woods.
Reference: “Sankara on the Yoga Sutras” Trevor Leggett, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi, ISBN 81-208-1028-7
Reference: “The Yoga System of Patanjali” James Haughton Woods, Harvard Oriental Series, 1914, (out of print) ISBN 81-208-0577-1 (reprint: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi)

This statue of a yogini goddess was created in Kaveripakkam in Tamil Nadu during the 10th century. There were 64 such yoginis worshiped in a cult later incorporated into Hinduism.

1350 - 1400 CE
Hatha Yoga Pradipika In the West, outside of Hindu culture, “yoga” is usually understood to refer to “hatha yoga.” Hatha Yoga is, however, a particular system propagated by Swami Swatamarama, a yogic sage of the 15th century in India.

After the Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Sutras, the most fundamental text of Yoga is the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, written by Swami Swatamarama, that in great detail lists all the main asanas, pranayama, mudra and bandha that are familiar to today’s yoga student. It runs in the line of Hindu yoga (to distinguish from Buddhist and Jain yoga) and is dedicated to Lord Adinath, a name for Lord Shiva (the Hindu god of destruction), who is alleged to have imparted the secret of Hatha Yoga to his divine consort Parvati. It is common for yogins and tantriks of several disciplines to dedicate their practices to a deity under the Hindu ishta-devata concept (see Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras) while always striving to achieve beyond that: Brahman. Hindu philosophy in the Vedanta and Yoga streams, as the reader will remember, views only one thing as being ultimately real: Satchidananda Atman, the Existence-Consciousness-Blissful Self. Very Upanishadic in its notions, worship of Gods is a secondary means of focus on the higher being, a conduit to realization of the Divine Ground. Hatha Yoga follows in that vein and thus successfully transcends being particularly grounded in any one religion.

Hatha is a Sanskrit word meaning ’sun’ (ha) and ‘moon’ (tha), representing opposing energies: hot and cold, male and female, positive and negative, similar but not completely analogous to yin and yang. Hatha yoga attempts to balance mind and body via physical exercises, or “asanas”, controlled breathing, and the calming of the mind through relaxation and meditation. Asanas teach poise, balance & strength and were originally (and still) practiced to improve the body’s physical health and clear the mind in preparation for meditation in the pursuit of enlightenment. “Asana” means “immovable”, i.e. static, and often confused with the dynamic 108 natya karanas described in Natya Shastra and, along with the elements of Bhakti Yoga, is embodied in the contemporary form of Bharatanatyam.

By balancing two streams, often known as ida (mental) and pingala (bodily) currents, the sushumna nadi (current of the Self) is said to rise, opening various chakras (cosmic power points within the body, starting from the base of the spine and ending right above the head) until samadhi is attained. Ida and pingala are represented in the dynamism of natya yoga by lasya (female) and tandava (male) aspects, and bear direct reference to the Taoist dualism.

By forging a powerful depth of concentration and mastery of the body and mind, Hatha Yoga practices seek to still the mental waters and allow for apprehension of oneself as that which one always was, Brahman. Hatha Yoga is essentially a manual for scientifically taking one’s body through stages of control to a point at which one-pointed focus on the unmanifested Brahman is possible: it is said to take its practitioner to the peaks of Raja Yoga.

In the West, hatha yoga has become wildly popular as a purely physical exercise regimen divorced of its original purpose, and thus, devoid of its original efficacy. Currently, it is estimated that about 30 million Americans practice hatha yoga. But in the Indian subcontinent the traditional practice is still to be found. The guru-shishya (teacher-student) relationship that exists without need for sanction from non-religious institutions, and which gave rise to all the great yogins who made way into international consciousness in the 20th century, has been maintained in Indian, Nepalese, and some Tibetan circles.

In India, whose Hindu population combines to a staggering 800 million, Yoga is a daily part of life. It is common to see people performing Surya Namaskar (a yogic set of asanas and pranayam dedicated to Surya, the Hindu God of the Sun) in the morning or speaking about food diets and body therapy entirely based on Yoga or the Hindu healing system of Ayurveda. The age-old tradition of Yoga has continued uninterrupted by the its popularity in the west (although more established schools like the Bihar School of Yoga work from within India to produce Yoga texts to send abroad).

In addition, hundreds and thousands sanyasins (renunciates) and sadhus (Hindu monks) wander in and out of city temples, village country sides and are to be found smattered all across the foothills of the Himalaya and the Vindhya Range of central India. For India’s holy-men, Yoga is as fundamental as lifeblood. To see a man meditating at the steps of a temple, or even wondering contemplatively on the roadside, is not uncommon even to the more Westernized crowds. It is the same in Tibet, where the Buddhist establishment’s lifestyle is permeated with Yoga or yogic practices, which is ultimately not a once-a-day routine, but a constant immersion in self-discovery.

Western development of yoga has taken less of a spiritual approach and focused more on the mind/body connection. While Yoga is a religion to many, most practitioners in the west separate yoga from their spiritual beliefs, causing yoga to strictly stay within the containment of an exercise class or just within the “keeping healthy” aspect of life.

Yoga Terminology
Due to its Indic roots, Yoga philosophy makes heavy use of Sanskrit. Because these Sanskrit terms reflect a specific world-view and historical development of thought, many Sanskrit terms do not have precise equivalents in other languages, and consequently are translated in various ways. As differences in translation can be confusing, it is often more expedient and precise to use the original Sanskrit terms. Most yoga guidebooks include glossaries of these terms with local language explanations.
Today, the word yoga is written in different ways: יוגה, योग, Joga, Ioga, Jooga, zh:瑜伽, ja:ヨーガ. Yoga (the most common around the world), Yôga.

Yoga Philosophy
Yogic philosophy is primarily Upanishadic with roots in Samkhya, and some scholars see some influence by Buddhism. It is a universal philosophy that enjoins the practitioner to pursue his or her own path to enlightenment, depending on personality and inclination. It is very much in line with its Vedic roots and the traditional pluralism of Hinduism. For this reason, it is easy for a “Christian”, for example, to see Jesus the Christ as his or her own ishta-devata (personal deity). “Christ the Yogi” is not an uncommon concept in the world of Yoga today. Most religions, when viewed through their ethical and spiritual standpoints without the trappings of dogma, are easily reconcilable with Yoga philosophy in general because of its transcendental message.

Yoga a Religion?
In the context of Hinduism, yoga is one of the six major schools of Hindu philosophy and as such means specifically Raja Yoga. In light of this and yoga’s Indic origins, some people consider it to be a part or subset of Hinduism, implying that all yoga practitioners are Hindus. Although opinions on this may vary, most yogis would probably agree that there is nothing inherently religious about most yoga techniques. The sole exception to this is Bhakti yoga, which is a special yoga path designed for practioners who are religiously inclined. Even Bhakti yoga, however, does not prescribe any particular form of worship and specifically allows for and encourages its practice in the context of any religion, including but not limited to Hinduism. All said and done though, Yoga is a concept that emerged out of Sanatan Dharma (or Hinduism) and as such credit cannot be denied.

Seminal Works on Yoga

Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita is the archetype of Yoga scripture. Capturing the essence and at the same time going into detail about the various Yogas and their philosophies, it was the groundstone to Yogic thought, and constantly refers to itself as such, the “Scripture of Yoga” (see the final verses of each chapter).

It is spoken in the format of Lord Krishna, self-identified as the Supreme Lord, to Arjuna, a warrior and friend who is loathe to go to battle that would involve his killing his own gurus (teachers) and family members. The book is contained within the Mahabharata, and is thought to have been written some time between the 5th and the 2nd century BC.

Bharata Natyam dancer. The right hand is in Bhramara (bumblebee) Hasta. The bumblebee is regarded as auspicious. The left hand is in Alapadma Hasta, the rotating lotus of spiritual light. The eyes are directed towards the Supreme Lord. The left leg is lifted, symbolizing the swift ascent of the consciousness in one step from the Earth to the Heaven.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Yoga is also one of the six darshanas (schools) of Vedic/Hindu philosophy, and as such specifically refers to Raja Yoga, the royal path of divine meditation on the one Brahman, which was codified by the sage Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras.

Hatha Yoga Pradipika
The most famous of the traditional Hindu schools of yoga, and a basis for nearly all modern systems, is Hatha Yoga. It is representative of all non-Bhakti-Karma-Jnana Yoga that has become so popular over the past century. The seminal work on Hatha Yoga is the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, written by Swami Svatmarama.

Natya Shastra
The guide to Natya Yoga was written by Bharata Muni. Sage Narada along with Gandharvas were the first to practise Natya Yoga, which comprise all the four main yoga’s. Natya Yoga was practised by the medieval devadasis, and is currently taught in a few orthodox schools of Bharatanatyam and Odissi.

Yoga and Tantra
Yoga is often mentioned in company with Tantra, but the two are not the same. The principal difference is that Yoga sees body consciousness as the root cause of bondage and rising above body consciousness as the goal, while Tantra views the body as a means, rather than as an obstruction, to understanding. For more information see the article on Tantra.

While the Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Sutras and Hatha Yoga Pradipika are clearly founded on Upanishadic and Brahmanical thought, much of Yoga has been influenced by and expanded into Tantra. Tantra is more ritual based, having its roots in the first millennium CE, and incorporates much more of a deist base. Almost entirely founded on Shiva and Shakti worship, Tantra visualizes the ultimate Brahman as Param Shiva, manifested through Shiva (the passive, masculine force of Lord Shiva) and Shakti (the active, creative feminine force of his consort, variously known as Ma Kali, Durga, Shakti, Parvati and others). It focuses on the kundalini, a three and a half-coiled ’snake’ of spiritual energy at the base of the spine that rises through the chakras until union between Shiva and Shakti (also known as samadhi) is achieved.

It views the body as means, rather than as obstruction, to understanding, and as such incorporates mantra (Sanskrit prayers, often to gods, that are repeated), yantra (complex symbols representing Shakti in her various forms through intricate geometric figures) and rituals that range from simple murti (statue representations of deities) or image worship to meditation on a corpse! While much tantra certainly, through its many texts (see kaularvatantra, mahanirvana tantra) and teachers (e.g. Abhinava Gupta, Ramakrishna, a saint who practiced Kali bhakti, Advaita Vedanta and tantra, etc.) seems odd and highly arcane at times, it is transparent as being completely yogic. Also, injunctions are made that most people are not suitable for Tantra, especially those of pashu-bhava (animal disposition). This implies that anyone who has not observed celibacy, honesty, respect of elders, bodily cleansing, ritual cleansing through prayer, and various other processes for up to twelve years at a time, and still retains base desires, greed, sexual motivations, etc. one is not fit to practice Tantra. For this reason, even more stringently than other Yogas, Tantra, both Hindu and Buddhist, remains a strictly Guru-initiated system that as yet finds few true adepts outside of India.

Teachers
Traditionally, knowledge of yoga has been passed down through the generations from teacher to student. In Sanskrit, the teacher is called the guru, and a disciple is called shishya. Emphasized to varying degrees by all schools of yoga, in some the Guru takes on quasi-divine proportions. The Guru guides the shisya (student) through yogic discipline from the beginning. When doing yoga, the student is urged to look long and hard for a sadguru (True Teacher) and then devote himself to imbibing that Guru’s learning.

Beginning with the arrival of Swami Vivekananda in 1893, there has been a steady flow of learned teachers that have brought the transcendental message of Yoga to the West. Although the influence of these Yogins is deeply inscribed into the surface of the modern yogic ethos, both in India and America, a proliferation of ‘yoga clinics’ and non-spiritual yoga systems has been seen in the West, especially in the United States. While many Americans view it as an exercise system that simply enhances one’s health, a much greater number in India (and a minority in America) still see it as it has been for over 5,000 years, whether in the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras, the writings of the Dalai Lama, or the “Yoga Boom” of the twentieth century, a system of spirituality universal in its application.

Great Modern Yogis
First brought into America as early as the 1890s by the great yogi and disciple of Shri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, the Hindu representative in the Chicago Parliament of World Religions, Yoga has also been transported in the arms of many other great yogis and formed into stratified schools seeking to propagate Yoga in its great spiritual context. But these teachers have made their imprint in both India and America, and continue to serve as modern embodiments of Yoga.

Swami Ramalal Siyag It may be possible to explain the yogic cure of acquired diseases like AIDS, but it is not possible for medical science to cure congenital or hereditary ailments. This impossible looking task has also been made possible by the Indian Yoga Philosophy. A patient of Haemophilia, Master Hemant, has been completely cured through Siddha Yoga. His cure is an open challenge to physical sciences. For details see http://the-comforter.org/html/yoga.html .

According to Vedic Psychology, whole Universe is present within human body. Therefore, Biologists, Astronomers, Geologists and all other scientists can also find solutions to their problems through this Yoga.

Swami Rama Tirtha, who came from a deep yoga tradition in the Himalayas of India, was the founding spiritual head of the Himalayan Institute. He was the first yogi to come to America and be subjected to the scrutiny of modern science. Among other things, he stunned doctors by stopping the beat of his heart completely for several minutes.

Many modern schools of Hatha Yoga derive from the school of Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who taught in Mysore, India from 1924 until 1947, at which time he moved to Madras, where he taught until his death in 1989. Among his students prominent in popularizing Yoga in the West were Sri K. Pattabhi Jois famous for popularizing the vigorous Ashtanga Vinyasa style, B.K.S. Iyengar who emphasizes alignment and the use of props, Indra Devi and Krishnamacharya’s son T.K.V. Desikachar who developed the Viniyoga style. Desikachar founded the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in Madras (now Chennai), with the aim of making available the heritage of yoga as taught by Krishnamacharya.

Other great yogis are Paramahansa Yogananda, practitioner of Kriya Yoga who arrived in America as a powerful example of the universality of Yoga. Sporting a cross, he came to the U.S. with the Hindu Bhagavad Gita in one hand and the Christian New Testament in the other, speaking to his disciples in pluralist ideology with Yoga as the binding force.

Sri Aurobindo, referred to as Aurobindo Ghosh by those who consider him as merely a philosopher rather than an Avatar, was not simply an intellectual genius born in West Bengal and educated in the best university in England. His masterful translations and interpretations of Hindu and Yogic scriptures are mystic and esoteric, and often are the opposite of what you will find in Max Muller’s and other purely intellectual translations of the sacred Sanskrit texts, among which his translations/commentaries on the Hindu texts of the Upanishads and Gita are mystic in nature, and his epic Hindu/Yoga poem Savitri is a treasure of Hindu Yogic literature, formally being the longest poem ever written in English. Beyond this, his personal life is a fascinating testimony of the life of a true yogi. After the goddess Sri entered his being, he became Sri Aurobindo. Besides his influence and scholarly writing on Yoga, he also founded Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, that continues to propagate the practice of Integral Yoga, which is a Tantric synthesis of the four main Yogas (Karma, Jnana, Bhakti and Raja).

Gopi Krishna was a Kashmiri office worker and spiritual seeker who was born in 1903, and wrote autobiographical accounts of his spiritual experiences with Yoga. His most famous one is “Kundalini”: Path to Higher Consciousness.” Gopi Krishna’s graphic accounts of his experiences stand out as among the clearest journals documenting a spiritual transformation. They are highly recommended as reading for anyone interested in Yogic phenomena.

Swami Sivananda (born in Pattamadai, Tamil Nadu, India in 1887), one of the greatest yoga masters of 20th century has authored over 200 highly inspiring books on yoga. Sivananda has also established Sivananda ashram of Rishikesh, India and is the founder of Divine Life Society. His disciple, Swami Satyananda (born in Almorah, Uttar Pradesh, India in 1923), has established International Yoga Fellowship movement, Bihar School of Yoga and Bihar Yoga Bharati, world’s first university on yoga. The university is now headed by his disciple, Swami Niranjananda. Another disciple of his, Swami Vishnu-Devananda, has founded the international yoga vedanta centers in the west.

Swami Ramdevji Maharaj the modern Indian yogi who has hold mass campainings all over India is revolutionising the feild of yoga. The actual processes and exercises of yoga were kept secret in India because yogi didn’t want the knowledge to be spread. So the entire concept of yoga remained merely some exercises even in Indian society. The exercises viz. asana is only a limb or a part of the astanga yoga discovered by Maharshi Patanjali. While the important part the pranayama was neglected and feared due to its lack of popularity and its side effects resulting from improper and wrong practices. Swami Ramdevji Maharaj broadcasted it over a satellite channel AASTHA and held mass campainings all over the country to teach pranayama acurately. His teaching of Yoga has permanently cured millions of sufferers and patients of diabetics, athesma, cancer, hepatites B, mental stress, hernia, cervical spondilysis,heart blockage, angina, psorasis, liver damages, renal impairment,fibrosis,hypertension, eye disoder etc, which medical science had failed to cure. His works is creating a stir all over india.

He is also looking forward to create The Patanjali Yoga Pith, a multi-million dollar rescearch project to investigate on the theory of yoga scientifically. The proffs and proper documentation of the cure and clinical statements are present with him and his trust Divya Yoga Mandir, Kirpalubagh, Haridwar,Uttaranchal,India. For more details and sceptics see [1]

Shrii Shrii Anandamurti, Bengal, India, 1921-1990 is a great master of tantric yoga. His teachings incorporated full system of Raja Yoga with advanced meditation techniques from the tantras. Social movement Ananda Marga is based on his teachings called Ananda Sūtram given in traditional form of slokas (aphorisms) in sanskrit language.

Mahamandaleshwar Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda (Swamiji) comes from Rajasthan, India, and has been living in Vienna, Austria since 1972. Swamiji is the author of the scientific master-system Yoga in Daily Life and founder of the International Sri Deep Madhavananda Ashram Fellowship and Yoga in Daily Life ashrams and centres worldwide. He also inspired the foundations of the Yoga in Daily Life Youth Union and the Ayurveda Academy of Yoga in Daily Life.

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