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Project Gutenberg The Upanishads translated by Swami Paramananda

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Advaita Vedanta

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Advaita Vedanta (IAST advaita vedānta; Devanagari अद्वैत वेदान्त; IPA [ədvaitə vé:dα:ntə]) is probably the best known of all Vedanta schools of philosophy of Hinduism, the others being Dvaita and Vishishtadvaita (total six). “Advaita” literally means “not two”, and is often called a monistic or non-dualistic system which essentially refers to the indivisibility of the Self (Atman) from the Whole (Brahman). The key texts from which all Vedanta (lit., end or the goal of the Vedas) texts draw are the Upanishads (twelve or thirteen in particular), which are usually at the end of the Vedas, and the Brahma Sutras (also known as Vedanta Sutras), which in turn discuss the essence of the Upanishads.

Adi Sankara: The Pillar of Advaita

The first person to consolidate the principles of Advaita was Adi Sankara (आदि शंकर, pronounced as /α:di shənkərə, 788-820 CE, i.e., 788-820 AD). He is also known as Śankarāchārya (शंकराचार्य, pronounced as /shənkərα:chα:ryə/). Continuing the line of thought of some of the Upanishadic teachers, and also that of his own teacher’s teacher Gaudapada, (Ajativada). Sankara expounded the doctrine of Advaita — a nondualistic reality. According to Advaitins (followers of Advaita), Sankara exposed the relative nature of the world and established the supreme truth of the Advaita by analysing the three states of experience — being awake (vaishvanara), dreaming (swapna), and being in deep sleep (sushupti). The supreme truth of the Advaita is said to be the non-dual reality of Brahman, in which atman (the individual soul) and Brahman (the Supreme Consciousness) are identified absolutely. (Brahman is not to be confused with Brahma, the Creator and one-third of the Trimurti along with Shiva, the Destroyer and Vishnu, the Preserver.)

Adi Shankara, with his disciples. [1]Psychologically, Advaita is a state in which the subject and object lose their independent identities — in which one can no longer differentiate on the basis of any material characteristics. The three states mentioned earlier are said to be mere transformations of this (fourth) state of experience of non-duality turiya.

This idea of a fourth state of consciousness is borrowed from the Taittariya Upanishad, dating back to about 1000 BCE. It may be noted that another school of non-dual (but agnostic) thought, Buddhism, also talks of such a similar transcendental state (as vinnanam anidassanam, in the Brahmanimantanika Sutta (Majjhima-Nikaya)). The idea of such a state of enlightenment has been a favorite with ancient Indian philosophers, and still continues to be.

Sankara’s contributions to Advaita are crucial. His main works are the commentaries on the Prasthanatrayi and the Gaudapadiya karikas. Another treatise on Advaita, popularly attributed to him by the more enthusiastic followers of the system, is the Viveka Chudamani. Note that many other followers believe that this is not the work of Sankara, citing several differences in style and ideas. Many philosophers after Sankara have criticized him of being hypocritical or pracchanabauddha (Buddhist in disguise), mainly due to this work. This is because the Buddhist positions which Sankara refutes in the Brahma Sutra Bhashyas seem to be wholly advocated in the Viveka Chudamani.

Sankara is also well known for propounding a system of bhakti (selfless devotion) and composing several bhajans (devotional songs), which he believed brought one closer to God. Some of his well-known bhajans are Bhaja Govindam, Saundaryalahari and Śivānandalahari.

Salient Features of Advaitism

Indian philosophy
Hindu philosophy
Samkhya
Nyaya
Vaisheshika
Yoga
Purva Mimamsa
Uttara Mimamsa
Advaita Vedanta
Vishishtadvaita
Dvaita
Carvaka philosophy
Jain philosophy
Buddhist philosophy
Logic

Three levels of Truth

The transcendental or the Pāramārthika level in which Brahman is the only reality and nothing else;
The pragmatic or the Vyāvahārika level in which both Jiva (living creatures or individual souls) and Ishvara are true; here, the material world is completely true, and,
The apparent or the Prātibhāsika level in which even material world reality is actually false, like illusion of a snake over a rope or a dream.

Brahman

According to Sankara, God, the the Supreme Cosmic Spirit or Brahman (pronounced as /brəh mən/; nominative singular Brahma, pronounced as /brəh mə/) is the One, the whole and the only reality. Other than Brahman, everything else, including, universe, material objects and individuals are not true. Brahman is (at best) described as that infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, incorporeal, impersonal, transcendent reality that is the divine ground of all Being. It (gramatically neutral, but exceptionally treated as masculine), though not a substance, is the basis of the material world, which in turn is its illusionary transformation. Brahman is not the effect of the world. Brahman is said to be the purest knowledge itself, and is illuminant like a source of infinite light.

Due to ignorance (avidyā), the Brahman is visible as the material world and its objects. The actual Brahman is attributeless and formless (see Nirguna Brahman). It is the Self-existent, the Absolute and the Imperishable (not generally the object of worship but rather of meditation). Brahman is actually indescribable. But Sankara says that Brahman cannot be identified with Shunya or zeroness of Buddhism. It is at best, “Sat” + “Chit” + “Ananda”, ie, Infinite Truth, Infinite Consciousness and Infinite Bliss. Also, Brahman is free from any kind of differences. It does not have any sajātīya (homogeneous) differences because there is no second Brahman. It does not have any vijātīya (heterogeneous) differences because there is nobody in reality existing other than Brahman. It has neither svagata (internal) differences, because Brahman is itself homogenous.

Though Brahman is self-proven, some logical proofs have also been proposed by Shankara:

Shruti—the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras describe Brahman in almost exact manner as Shankara. This is the testimonial proof of Brahman.
Psychological—every person experiences his soul, or atman. According to Shankara, atman = Brahman. This argument also proves Brahman.
Teliological—the world appears very well ordered; the reason for this cannot be an unconscious principle. The reason must be Brahman.
Essential—Brahman is the basis of this created world.
Perceptible Feeling—Many people, when they achieve the turīya state, claim that their soul has become one with eveything else. The feeling of this transcedental perception is regarded as the best proof for Brahman.

Māyā

Māyā (/mα: yα:/) is the most important contribution of Sankara. Māyā is that complex illusionary power of Brahman which causes the Brahman to be seen as the distinct material world. It has two main functions — one is to “cover up” Brahman from the human minds, and the other is to present the material world in its stead. Māyā is also indescribable. It is neither completely real nor completely unreal—hence indescribable. Its shelter is Brahman, but Brahman itself is untouched by the profanity of Māyā, just like a magician is not tricked by his own magic. Māyā is temporary and is destroyed with “true knowledge”. This Māyāvāda of Sankara was highly criticized and misunderstood. Bhaskaracharya, a Hindu mathematician, described Shankara to be indebted to the Buddhists for his concept of Māyā. But Guff, Cowell and other writers claim to find the concept of Māyā in a germinating form in the Vedas and the Upanishads. Shankara had used the terms Māyā and avidya (ignorance) in the same sense, but the later Advaitins called Māyā as the positive force of God and avidyā as a negetive knowledge.

The concept of Māyā seems to be a hypothesis. Since according to the Upanishads only Brahman is real, but we see the material world to be real, Shankara explained the anomaly by the concept of this illusionary power Māyā.

Ishvara

Ishvara (pronounced as /ī:sh vərə/, lit., the Supreme Lord) — when man tries to know the attributeless Brahman with his mind, under the influence of Maya, Brahman becomes the Lord. Ishvara is Brahman with Maya — the manifested form of Brahman. Shankara uses a metaphor that when the “reflection” of the Cosmic Spirit falls upon the mirror of Maya, it appears as the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Lord is true only in the pragmatic level — his actual form in the transcendental level is the Cosmic Spirit.

Ishvara is Saguna Brahman or Brahman with innumerable auspicious qualities. He is all-perfect, omniscient, omnipresent, incorporeal, independent, Creator of the world, its ruler and also destroyer. He is causeless, eternal and unchangeable — and is yet the material and the efficient cause of the world. He is both immanent (like whiteness in milk) and transcendent (like a watch-maker independent of a watch). He may be even regarded to have a personality. He is the subject of worship. He is the basis of morality and giver of the fruits of one’s Karma. However, he himself is beyond sin and merit. He rules the world with his Maya — his divine power. This association with a “false” knowledge does not affect the perfection of Ishvara, in the same way as a magician is himself not tricked by his magic. However, while Isvara is the Lord of Maya and she (ie, Maya) is always under his control, the living beings (jīva, in the sense of humans) are the servants of Maya (in the form of ignorance). This ignorance is the cause of the unhappiness and sin in the mortal world. While Ishvara is Infinite Bliss, humans are miserable. Ishvara always knows the unity of the Brahman substance, and the Mayic nature of the world. There is no place of a Satan or devil in Hinduism, unlike Abrahamic religions. Advaitins explain the misery because of ignorance. Ishvara can also be visualized and worshipped in anthropomorphic form like Vishnu, Krishna or Shiva.

Now the question arises that why the Supreme Lord created the world. If one assumes that Ishvara creates the world for any incentive, this slanders the wholeness and perfection of Ishvara. For example, if one assumes that Ishvara creates the world for gaining something, it would be against his perfection. If we assume that He creates for compassion, it would be illogical, because the emotion of compassion cannot arise in a blank and void world in the beginning (when only Ishvara existed). So Shankara assumes that Creation is a sport of Ishvara. It is His nature, just as it is man’s nature to breathe.

The sole proof for Ishvara that Sankara gives is Shruti’s mentions about Ishvara, as Ishvara is beyond logic and thinking. This is similar to Kant ’s philosophy about Ishvara in which he says that “faith” is the basis of theism. However, Shankara has also given few other logical proofs for Ishvara, but warning us not to completely rely on them:

The world is a work, an effect, and so must have real cause. This cause must be Ishvara.
The world has a wonderful unity, coordination and order, so its creator must have been an intelligent being.
People do good and sinful work and get its fruits, either in this life or after. People themselves cannot be the giver of their fruits, as no one would give himself the fruit of his sin. Also, this giver cannot be an unconscious object. So the giver of the fruits of Karma is Ishvara.

Atman

The swan is an important motif in Advaitism. It symbolizes two things — firstly, the swan is called hamsah in Sanskrit (which becomes hamso if the first letter in the next word is /h/). Upon repeating this hamso indefinitely, it becomes so-aham, meaning, “I am That”. Secondly, just like a swan lives in water but its feathers are not soiled by water, similarly a liberated Advaitin lives in this world full of Maya but is untouched by its illusion.The soul or the self (Atman) is exactly equal to Brahman. It is not a part of Brahman that ultimately dissolves into Brahman, but the whole Brahman itself. Now the arguers ask that how can the individual soul, which is limited and one in each body, be the same as Brahman? Shankara explains that the soul is not an individual concept. Atman is only one and unique. It is a false concept that there are several Atmans. Shankara says that just as the same moon appears as several moons on its reflections on the surface of water covered with bubbles, the one Atman appears as multiple atmans in our bodies because of Maya. Atman it self-proven, however, some proofs are discussed—eg., a person says “I am blind”, “I am happy”, “I am fat” etc. So what is this ego here? Only that thing is the ego which is there in all the states of that person — this proves the existence of Atman, and that consciousness is its characteristic. Reality and Bliss are also its characteristics. By nature, Atman is free and beyond sin and merit. It does not experience happiness or pain. It does not do any Karma. It is incorporeal.

When the reflection of atman falls on Avidya (ignorance), atman becomes jīva — a living being with a body and senses. Each jiva feels as if he has his own, unique and distinct Atman, called jivatman. The concept of jiva is true only in the pragmatic level. In the transcendental level, only the one Atman, equal to Brahman, is true.

Salvation

Liberation or Moksha (akin to Nirvana of the Buddhists) — Advaitins also believe in the theory of reincarnation of souls (Atman) into plants, animals and humans according to their karma. They believe that suffering is due to Maya, and only true knowledge of the Brahman can destroy Maya. When Maya is removed, there exists ultimately no difference between the Jiva-Atman and the Brahman. Such a state of bliss called Moksha can even be achieved while living (jivana mukti). While one is in the pragmatic level, one can (and MUST) worship God in any way and in any form, like Krishna as he wishes. Sankara himself was a proponent of devotional worship or Bhakti. But Sankara believes that Vedic sacrifices, puja and devotional worship can lead man to true knowledge, however, they cannot lead him directly to Moksha. Moksha is the outcome solely of true knowledge.

Other points

The famous mantra of Shankara was “Brahma Satyam Jagat Mithyā, jīvo Brahmaiva nāparah”, ie, Brahman is the only truth, the world is unreal, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self.
Shankara also explicitly condemned the caste or varna system of the Hindu society, calling it utterly foolish. This is in contrast to other schools like Vishishtadvata, Dvaita and Mimamsa who believe that since caste is based upon one’s karmas in previous life, it should be unscrupulously followed. Sankara also condemned many other superstitions.
Shankara established four monastries (mathas) in the four corners of Hinduism to guide the Hindu religion in the future. Each matha was assigned one Veda. The mathas are Jyothir Math at Badrinath in northern India with Atharva Veda; Sharada Math at Shringeri in southern India with Yajur Veda; Govardhan Math at Jagannath Puri in eastern India with Rig Veda and Kalikā Math at Dwarka in western India with Sama Veda. Each of the abbots of these four mathas also have the title of Jagadguru Shankaracharya — and are regarded as Patriarchs of Hinduism by many Hindus. Sometimes, the title of Shankaracharya is also applied to the abbot of the Kamakoti Math at Kanchi, the place where Adi Shankara reportedly passed away.

Are the world and God wholly false?
Status of the world

People often get confused by Advaita teachings that the universe is false. Shankara says that the world is not true, it is an illusion, but this is because of some logical reasons. Let us first analyse Shankara’s definition of Truth, and hence why the world is not considered true.

Shankara says that whatever thing remains eternal is true, and whatever is non-eternal is untrue. Since the world is created and destroyed, it is not true.
Truth is the thing which is unchanging. Since the world is changing, it is not true.
Whatever is independent of space and time is true, and whatever has space and time in itself is untrue.
Just as one sees dreams in sleep, he sees a kind of super-dream when he is waking.The world is compared to this conscious dream.
The world is believed to be a superimposition of the Brahman. Superimposition cannot be true.
On the other hand, Shankara claims that the world is not absolutely false. It appears false only when compared to Brahman. In the pragmatic state, the world is completely true—which occurs as long as we are under the influence of Maya. The world cannot be both true and false at the same time; hence Shankara has classified the world as indescribable. The following points suggest that according to Shankara, the world is not false (Shankara himself gave most of the arguments):

If the world were false, then with the liberation of the first human being, the world would have been annihilated. However, the world continues to exist even if a human attains liberation.
Shankara believes in Karma, or good actions. This is a feature of this world. So the world cannot be false.
The Supreme Reality Brahman is the basis of this world. The world is like its reflection. Hence the world cannot be totally false.
False is something which is ascribed to inexistent things, like Sky-lotus. The world is a logical thing which is perceived by our senses.
Consider a scientific logic. A pen is placed in front of a mirror. One can see its reflection. To our eyes, the image of the pen is perceived. Now, what should the image be called? It cannot be true, because it is an image. The truth is the pen. It cannot be false, because it is seen by our eyes.

Status of God

Some people claim that in Shankara’s philosophy, there is no place for a personal God (Ishvara), because Ishvara is also described as “false”. He appears as Ishvara because of the curtain of Maya. However, as described earlier, just as the world is true in the pragmatic level, similarly, Ishvara is also pragmatically true. Just as the world is not absolutely false, Ishvara is also not absolutely false. He is the distributor of the fruits of one’s Karma. In order to make the pragmatic life successful, it is very important to believe in God and worship him. In the pragmatic level, whenever we talk about Brahman, we are in fact talking about God. God is the highest knowledge theoretically possible in that level. Devotion (Bhakti) will cancel the effects of bad Karma and will make a person closer to the true knowledge by purifying his mind. Slowly, the difference between the worshipper and the worshipped decreases and upon true knowledge, liberation occurs.

Status of ethics

Some claim that there is no place for ethics in Advaitism, because everything is ultimately illusionary. But on analysis, ethics also has a firm place in this philosophy—the same place as the world and God. Ethics, which implies doing good Karma, indirectly helps in attaining true knowledge. The basis of merit and sin is the Shruti (the Vedas and the Upanishads). Truth, non-violence, service of others, pity, etc are Dharma, and lies, violence, cheating, selfishness, greed, etc are adharma (sin).

Shankara’s theory of creation

In the pragmatic level, Shankara believes in the Creation of the world through Satkaryavada. It is like the philosophy of Samkhya, which says that the cause is always hidden into its effect—and the effect is just a transformation of the cause. However, Samkhya believes in a sub-form of Satkaryavada called Parinamvada (evolution)—whereby the cause results in an action. Instead, Shankara believes in a sub-form called Vivartavada. According to this, the effect is merely a superimposition of its cause—like its illusion. eg., In darkness, a man often confuses a rope to be a snake. But this does not mean that the rope has actually transformed into a snake.

In the pragmatic level, the universe is believed to be the creation of the Supreme Lord Ishvara. Maya is the divine magic of Ishvara, with the help of which Ishvara creates the world. The serial of Creation is taken from the Upanishads. First of all, the five subtle elements (ether, air, fire, water and earth) are created from Ishvara. Ether is created by Maya. From ether, air is born. From air, water is born. From water, earth is born. From a proportional combination of all five subtle elements, the five gross elements are created, like the gross sky, the gross fire, etc. From these gross elements, the universe and life are created. This series is exactly the opposite during destruction.

Some people have criticized that these principles are against Satkaryavada. According to Satkaryavada, the cause is hidden inside the effect. How can Ishvara, whose form is spiritual, be the effect of this material world? Shankra says that just as from a conscious living human, inanimate objects like hair and nails are formed, similarly, the inanimate world is formed from the spiritual Ishvara.

Comparison with the Buddhist school of Shunyavada

The Buddha had not answered philosophical questions like God, the world and its creation. So the later Buddhist schools developed their own theory. The Madhyamika school of Mahayana Buddhism developed a theory, called Shunyavada, which is quite similar to Advaitism.

Similarities between the two:

The world is not believed to be eternal, nor true.
Both have defined different levels of truth. the Madhyamikas have defined two levels of truth.
The Madhyamikas believe that the eternal voidness (Shunyata) is the cause of this material world. This occurs because of illusion.
Differences between the two:

The Shunyata of the Madhyamikas is neither real nor false—it cannot be described at all. In contrast, Brahman is infinite Truth, infinite Consciousness and supreme Bliss.
The soul is believed to be false in the Madhyamika school, but true in Advaitism.
Some people interpret the Shunya to be falsehood. So the world of these Buddhist seems to evolve from a void—from a false thing. In Advaitism, the world evolves from the true Brahman. Shankara had given only one criticism against the Madhyamikas—The Shunyavada, “being contradictory to all valid means of knowledge, we have not thought worth while to refute.” [2]
In Advaitism, the personal God (Ishvara)is the manifestation of the Brahman (God). Among the Madhyamikas, there is no place for a personal God.

Adi Sankara’s thoughts in a summary

Adi Sankara’s treatises on the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras are his principal and almost undeniably his own works. Although he mostly adhered to traditional means of commenting on the Brahma Sutra, there are a number of original ideas and arguments. He taught that it was only through knowledge and wisdom of nonduality that one could be enlightened.

Sankara’s opponents accused him of teaching Buddhism in the garb of Hinduism, because his non-dualistic ideals were a bit radical to contemporary Hindu philosophy. However, it may be noted that while the Later Buddhists arrived at a changeless, deathless, absolute truth after their insightful understanding of the unreality of samsara, historically Vedantins never liked this idea. Although Advaita also proposes the theory of Maya, explaining the universe as a “trick of a magician”, Sankara and his followers see this as a consequence of their basic premise that Brahman is real. Their idea of Maya emerges from their belief in the reality of Brahman, rather than the other way around.

Sankara was a peripatetic orthodox Hindu monk who traveled the length and breadth of India. The more enthusiastic followers of the Advaita tradition claim that he was chiefly responsible for “driving the Buddhists away”. Historically the decline of Buddhism in India is known to have taken place long after Sankara or even Kumarila Bhatta (who according to a legend had “driven the Buddhists away” by defeating them in debates), sometime before the Muslim invasion into Afghanistan (earlier Gandhara).

Although today’s most enthusiastic followers of Advaita believe Sankara argued against Buddhists in person, a historical source, the Madhaviya Sankara Vijayam, indicates that Sankara sought debates with Mimamsa, Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika and Yoga scholars as keenly as with any Buddhists. In fact his arguments against the Buddhists are quite mild in the Upanishad Bhashyas, while they border on the acrimonious in the Brahma Sutra Bhashya.

The Vishistadvaita and Dvaita schools believed in an ultimately saguna Brahman. They differ passionately with Advaita, and believe that his nirguna Brahman is not different from the Buddhist Sunyata (wholeness or zeroness) — much to the dismay of the Advaita school. A careful study of the Buddhist Sunyata will show that it is in some ways metaphysically similar as Brahman. Whether Sankara agrees with the Buddhists is not very clear from his commentaries on the Upanishads. His arguments against Buddhism in the Brahma Sutra Bhashyas are more a representation of Vedantic traditional debate with Buddhists than a true representation of his own individual belief. (See link: Sankara’s arguments against Buddhism)

The Impact of Advaita

Advaita Vedanta philosophy had a tremendous impact on the Hindu system of Tantra and also served to bolster Yogic (see Yoga) ideas of the ultimate Self, Brahman/Atman, being One. Advaita rejuvenated much of Hindu thought and also spurred on debate that led to the expounding of Vishishtadvaita (qualified nondualism) and Dvaita (dualism). Advaita served to bring to the fore the Hindu/Vedic philosophy whose seed can be seen in the Rig Vedic statement “Truth is One, though the sages see it as many.” Advaitism is definitely the deepest and the most influential philosophy of India. Even today, pious Hindus regard material wealth and money as “Moha-Maya”.

Advaita and Science

According to some followers of Advaita, it may very well be a place where the scientific world intersects with the spiritual world. They point to the relationships between mass, frequency, and energy that 20th century physics has established and the Advaitic ‘Unity of the Universe’ as the common ground. They feel that these relationships, formalized as equations by Planck and Einstein, suggest that the whole mesh of the Universe blend into a One that exhibits itself as many (namely, mass, energy, wave etc), and that this follows Advaita’s view that everything is but the manifestation of an omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent “One”. It must be remembered however, that none of these physicists have talked of an ‘omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent “One”‘.

They also connect the De Broglie waves of modern physics to Aum in Hindu philosophy. However, scientists in India and abroad clarify that the de Broglie waves (or matter waves) are neither optical nor acoustic waves, but are “just functions of a probability distribution of finding a particle, which may be represented as a Fourier sum of constituent probability waves.”

However, notable scientists like Erwin Schrödinger and Robert Oppenheimer were also Vedantists. Fritjof Capra’s book, The Tao of Physics, is one among several that pursue this viewpoint as it investigates the relationship between modern, particularly quantum, physics and the core philosophies of various Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism.

It must be noted that Advaita does not share the same ground on Science as other schools of philosophy do. For example, Sankara rejected the idea of momentariness of the Universe in his Brahma Sutra commentary since Brahman is immanent in the Universe, while Buddhists affirm that the universe on its own accord, due to the causality of the dharmas, is constantly changing. The dvaita-enthusiasts on the contrary, blame Sankara for inconsistency, since he adopts the view that the Universe is momentary in many of his other works like the Upanishad bhashya. Dvaita-enthusiasts see the Universe as a creation of God, while Advaitins see it as a manifestation of Brahman; Buddhists on the other hand see it as a flux of changes, originating from natural phenomena leading to its formation.

Mahavakya

Mahavakya, or “the great sentences,” state the unity of Brahman and Atman. They are 4 in number and their variations are found in other Upanishads.

Sr. No. Vakya Meaning Upanishad Veda
1 प्रज्नानम ब्रह्म prajnānam brahmā Brahman is knowledge aitareya Rig Veda
2. अहम ब्रह्मास्मि Aham brahmāsmi I am brahman brihadāranyaka Yajur Veda
3. तत्त्त्वमसि tattvamasi That thou art chhandogya Sama Veda
4. अयमात्मा ब्रह्म Ayamātmā brahmā This Atman is Brahman mandukya Atharva Veda

Founders & key texts

Sri Adi Shankaracharya - (attributed work) Viveka Chudamani, the Brahma Sutra Bhashya Bhagavad Gita Bhashya, Upanishad bhashya.
Upanishads
Vedanta Sutras
Vedas
Traditional life history of Adi Shankara - Historical record accepted by scholars worldwide. Written by Madhava Vidyaranya, English translations by Swamy Tapsyananda of Ramkrishna Ashram, Mylapore, Chennai.
mahavkyas are six in number-

1-aham brahmasmi

2-ayam atma brahma

3-tat tvam asi

4-sarvam khalvidam brahma

5-pragyanam brahma

6-soaham

Demigods, Sages, and Saints of Advaitins

Lord Shri Rama
Lord Shri Krishna
Marici
Angiras
Atri
pulaha
kratu
pulastya
Vashishta
Kashyapa
Vishwamitra
Jamadagni
Gautama
Bharadwaja
Bhrigu
Agastya
Shri Dattatreya
Shri Ashtawakra
Vyasa

Later teachers and proponents

Shri Ramakrishna (1836-1886) well-known modern proponent of Advaita; the primary source book, Gospel of Shri Ramakrishna (Shri Ramakrishna Kathamrita), was written by an eyewitness devotee ‘M’. It documents his later life and conversations with disciples/devotees and serves as the key reference for his philosophy/teachings
Sai Baba of Shirdi (c. 1838-1918), a mystic philosopher of Maharashtra, he was followed devotedly by Hindus and Muslims alike and practiced a blend of Vedantic Hinduism and Sufi Islam.
Shri Narayana Guru (1856-1928)- Vedic scholar, mystic philosopher, prolific poet and social reformer, who, after Adi Shankara, was the next greatest proponent of Advaita Vedanta from the present-day Kerala.
Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), disciple of Shri Ramakrishna, wrote books on four Hindu Yogas: Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga and Raja Yoga. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda contains a complete collection of transcribed lectures. Spoke at the 1893 Parliament of Religions at the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago.
Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Bengali philosopher-sage who synthesized Advaita thought with Western theories of evolution.
Shri Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) the silent sage of Tamil Nadu who had a profound realization of nonduality
Shri Swami Tapovan Maharaj - A virakta mahatma
Shri Swami Sivananda (1887—1963), Divine Life Society. Bestowed samyasa initiation of Swami Chinmayananda, scholar, and author of over 300 books on Hinduism, many available on the web.
Shri Swami Chinmayananda Jnana diksha bestowed under Shri Swami Tapovan Maharaj in Uttarkashi. Disciples founded the Chinmaya Mission. ‘Chinmaya’ = “pure consciousness of bliss”.
Shri Swami Dayananda Saraswati, a contemporary Advaitin who united disparate Hindu sects under a single body known as the Arya Samaj.
Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj A twentieth-century master of Neo-Advaita
Shri Sathya Sai Baba, whose philosophy draws on Hindu philosophy while also acknowledging other major religions.
Master Nome (aka Jeffrey Smith), founder of Society of Abidance in Truth. Teaches in tradition of Ramana Maharshi. Co-translator into English of Adi Sankara’s Svatmanirupanam (The True Definition of One’s Own Self) and the Ribhu Gita. Translator of Adi Sankara’s Nirvana-satkam (Six Verses on Nirvana).

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

Adi Shankara

Adi Shankara with the Four DisciplesAdi Shankara (Śaṅkara, Shri Shankaracharya, Adhi Shankaracharya, Ādi Śaṅkarācārya; ‘the first Shankara’ in his lineage), reverentially called Bhagavatpada Acharya (the teacher at the feet of the Lord) (approximately 8th century, but see below) was the most famous advaita philosopher, who had a profound influence on the growth of Hinduism through his non-dualistic philosophy. He advocated the greatness and importance of the important Hindu scriptures, the Veda (most particularly on the Upanishads), spoke to a spirituality founded on reason and without dogma or ritualism, and gave new life to Hinduism at a time when Buddhism and Jainism were gaining popularity. He is considered the founder of the Dasanami sannyasin.

Life

Shankara was born in Kalady, a small village in Kerala, India, to a Namboothiri brahmin couple, Shivaguru and Aryamba. The traditional source for accounts of his life is the Shankara Vijayams, which are essentially hagiographies. The most important among them are the MadhavIya Shankaravijaya, the AnandagirIya Shankaravijaya, cidvilAsIya Shankaravijaya, and keralIya Shankaravijaya. What follows is the standard story of Shankara’s life; some of it is clearly mythical, but a substantial portion is historical, according to most scholars. In fact some of them are blatantly misleading. For example it is mentioned in Madhaviya Sankaravijaya that Adi Sankara had an encounter with a great tantric Abhinavagupta of Kamarupa. In fact the great scholar Abhinavagupta, who wrote Tantraloka and Tantrasara among his many books, was a contemporary of Abhinava Sankara and was from Kashmir and not Kamarupa.

Birth

Shankara’s parents were childless for many years, and prayed at the Vadakkumnathan (vRashAcala) temple in Thrissur, Kerala, for the birth of a child. Legend has it that Shiva appeared to both husband and wife in their dreams, and offered them a choice: a mediocre son who would live a long life, or an extraordinary son who would not live long. Both Shivaguru and Aryamba chose the latter. The son was named Shankara, in honour of Shiva.

Formal education

Shivaguru died while Shankara was very young. The child showed remarkable scholarship, and is said to have mastered the four Vedas by the age of eight. Following the common practice of that era, Shankara lived and studied at the home of his teacher. It was customary for students and men of learning to receive Bhiksha or alms from the laity; on one occasion, while accepting Bhiksha, Shankara came upon a woman who had nothing to eat in her house except a single dried amlaka fruit. Rather than consume this last bit of food herself, the pious lady gave away the fruit to Sankara as Bhiksha. Moved by her piety, Shankara composed the Kanakadhara Stotram on the spot. Legend has it that on completion of the stotram, golden amlaka fruits were showered upon the woman by the goddess Lakshmi.

Renunciation

From a young age, Shankara was attracted to asceticism and to the life of a renunciate. However, his mother, Aryamba, was entirely against his becoming a sannyasi, and consistently refused him her formal permission, which was required before he could take Sannyasam. Once when Shankara was bathing in the river, a crocodile gripped him by the leg and began to drag him into the water. Only his mother was nearby, and it proved impossible for her to get him away from the grip of the crocodile. Shankara then told his mother that he was on the verge of death; if she would give him her formal permission verbally, he would at this moment renounce the world and die a Sannyasi or ascetic. At the end of her wits, his mother agreed; Shankara immediately recited the words that made a renunciate of him, entered Sannyasa, and awaited death. But inexplicably, the crocodile released him from its very jaws and swam away. Shankara emerged unscathed from the river, now a Sannyasi.

Seeing in this incident the hand of God, Aryamba put no further obstacles in the path of her son. Shankara then left Kerala and travelled thoroughout India. When he reached the banks of the river Narmada, he met Govinda Bhagavatpada, the disciple of the Advaitin Gaudapada. Shankara was initiated as his disciple.

Travels

Shankara travelled extensively, while writing commentaries on the Upanishads, Vishnu sahasranama, Brahma Sutras, and the Bhagavad Gita. He engaged in a series of debates with Buddhist scholars, and with scholars of the Purva Mimamsa school, which helped in cementing his spiritual ascendancy. One of the most famous of these debates was with the famed ritualist Mandana Mishra.

His most famous encounter was however with an untouchable. On his way to the Vishwanath temple in Kashi, he came upon an untouchable and his dog. When asked to move aside by Shankara’s disciples, the untouchable asked: “Do you wish that I move my soul, the Ātman and ever lasting, or this body made of clay?” Seeing the untouchable as none other than the Lord Shiva, Shankara prostrated himself before Ishwara, composing five shlokas (Manisha Panchakam). It was from Benaras (Kashi) that he started his Vishwa Vijaya Yatra (journey to conquor the world).

Once he was saved by Sri Narasimha from being sacrificed to goddess Kali by a Kapalika. He then composed the Laksmi-Nrsimha stotra. Another famous composition of Sri Adi Shankara is his Bhaja Govindam, in praise of Vishnu.

It is a traditional belief that Adi Sankara installed at Srirangam a yantra called janakarshana to attract pilgrims to this sacred temple, just as at Tirupati he installed the dhanakarshana yantra. Indeed, Srirangam is the most visited Hindu temple in the world, and Tirupati is the richest.

Shankara is believed to have visited the Sarvajnapitha (lit., the Throne of Omniscience) in Kanchi, where he attained samadhi. A later day famous Abhinava Sankarachaya is known to have visited the Sarvajnapitha in Kashmir before he withdrew to Kedarnath and attained samadhi. The Kamakshi Amman temple at Kanchipuram also has a vrindavanam where he is believed to have attained siddhi. He died at Kanchi when only thirty-two years of age. (A variant tradition expounded by keraliya Shankaravijaya places his place of death as Vadakkumnathan (vRashAcala) temple in Thrissur, Kerala.)

Shankara’s dates

Modern scholarship is agreed on dates in the 8th century, though it has proved impossible to reach agreement on Shankara’s precise dates of birth or death. Some religious institutions dedicated to Shankara, such as Shankara mathams, however, ascribe much earlier dates to him. If these dates were true, they would require moving back the date of Buddha (which serves as an anchor for modern academic history of India).

Of the major Shankara Mathams active today, the Kanchi, Dwaraka, and Puri ascribe the dates 509–477 BCE to Shankara. The Sringeri Peetham, on the other hand, accepts the 788–820 CE dates. (See also below.)

According to Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati’s biography of Shankara, published in his book Sannyasa Darshan, Shankara was born in Kalady, Kerala, in 686, and attained mahasamadhi at Kedarnath, Uttaranchal, in 718.

Philosophy and religious thought

At the time of Shankara’s life, Hinduism had lost some of its appeal because of the influence of Buddhism and Jainism. Shankara stressed the importance of the Vedas, and his work helped Hinduism regain strength and popularity. Although he did not live long, he had travelled on foot to various parts of India to restore the study of the Vedas. His philosophy is known as Advaita Vedanta.

Shankara’s theology maintains that spiritual ignorance (avidya) is caused by seeing the self (Ātman) where self is not. Discrimination needs to be developed in order to distinguish true from false and knowledge (jnana) from ignorance (avidya). Shankara proposed that, while the phenomenal universe, our consciousness and bodily being are certainly experienced, they are not true reality, but are rather maya. He considered that the ultimate truth was Brahman, the single divine foundation, which is beyond time, space, and causation. Brahman is immanent and transcendent, but not merely a pantheistic concept. Indeed, while Brahman is the efficient and material cause for the cosmos, Brahman itself is not limited by self-projection, and transcends all binary opposites or dualities, especially such individuated aspects as form and being.

We must pierce through a hazy lens to understand our true being and nature, which is not change and mortality, but unmitigated bliss for eternity. If we are to understand the true motive behind our actions and thoughts, we must become aware of the fundamental unity of being. How, he asks, can a limited mind comprehend the limitless Ātman? It cannot, he argues, and therefore we must transcend even the mind and become one with Soul-consciousness.

Shankara denounced caste and meaningless ritual as foolish, and in his own charismatic manner exhorted the true devotee to meditate on god’s love and to apprehend truth. His treatises on the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and Vedanta Sutras are testaments to a keen and intuitive mind that did not want to admit dogma but advocated reason. His greatest lesson was that reason and abstract philosophising alone would not lead to moksha (liberation). It was only through selflessness and love governed by viveka (discrimination) that a devotee would realise his inner self. Charges that his philosophical views were influenced by Buddhism are unfounded, as both Buddha and Sankara’s views were based on the ancient shastras. Buddhas shunyata is misconstrued by many as negation of being. Nagarjuna in Mulamadhyamakakaika clearly states that shunyata of Buddhism is neither nothingness nor no-nothingness. It is like the Nisadiya sutra of the Rig veda telling that the ultimate reality is neither existence nor non-existence. Sankara believed that the unmanifest Brahman manifested itself as Ishwara, the loving, perfect being on high who is seen by many as being Vishnu or Shiva or whatever their hearts dictate. Shankara is said to have travelled throughout India, from the South to Kashmir, preaching to the local populaces and debating philosophy (apparently successfully, though no documentation exists) with other Hindu and Buddhist scholars and monks along the way.

His beliefs form the basis of the Smarta tradition, or Smartism and influenced Sant Matha lineages such as Advait Matha. [1]

Even though he lived for only thirty-two years, his impact on India and on Hinduism cannot be stressed enough, as he countered the increasing sacerdotalism (the belief that priests can mediate between humans and god) of the masses, and reintroduced a purer form of Vedic thought. He presented a face of Hinduism that could reasonably contend with Buddhist ideas and spread it, as well as reformist measures, across the land, travelling from as far up as Kashmir from areas in South India. His Hindu revival movement paved the way for the strict theistic movements of Ramanuja and Madhva. The historians like Vincent Smith suggested that it was due to Adi Sankaracharya there was decline of Buddhism in India. Other argue that it was due to the Muslim invasion (of Bakhtyar) that Nalanda was routed and the library there was burned and thousands of Buddha viharas were destroyed subsequently.

Works

Adi Shankara has authored many works of stotras, and bhashyas, many of these are debated and questioned but below are a list of Books certainly written by Adi Shankara:

The “Crest-Jewel of Discrimination” or Viveka Chudamani, one of his most famous works, which summarises his ideas of non-dual Vedanta
The commentary Bhashya on the Brahma Sutra
The commentary on the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
The commentary on the Taittiriya Upanishad
The Thousand Teachings or Upadesasahasri
A hymn to Krishna as the Herder of Cows, known as Bhaja Govindam
Benedictory invocation to Shiva and Shakti, namely Shivanandalahari and Saundaryalahari respectively
Commentary on Vishnu Sahasranama
Books he probably wrote are:

The commentary on Gaudapada’s Karika to the Mandukya Upanishad

The commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, though there is no scholarly agreement on this.

Mathas (monasteries)

Shankara is said to have founded four maṭhas (a matha is a monastery or religious order), which are important to this day, to guide the Hindu religion in the future. These are at Sringeri in Karnataka, in the south; Dwaraka in Gujarat in the west; Puri in Orissa in the east; and Jyotirmath (Joshimath) in Uttaranchal in the north. He put in charge of these mathas his four main disciples: Sureshwaracharya, Hastamalaka, Padmapada, and Trotakacharya respectively; the heads of the mathas trace their authority back to them. Each matha was assigned one Veda. The Jyothir Math near Badrinath in northern India is assigned with Atharva Veda; Sharada Math at Shringeri in southern India with Yajur Veda; Govardhan Math at Jagannath Puri in eastern India with Rig Veda and Kalikā Math at Dwarka in western India with Sama Veda. Each of the abbots of these four mathas also have the title of Jagadguru Shankaracharya — and are regarded as Patriarchs of Hinduism by many Hindus. However, some claim that there is no concrete evidence for the existence of these mathas before the 14th century.

The matha at Kanchipuram or Kanchi in Tamil Nadu claims that it was also founded by Shankara. According to this matha, it was where he settled in his last days and attained mahāsamādhi (i.e. left his body), but there are other, accounts which claim that he attained mahāsamādhi at Kedarnath.

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

The Upanishads, translated by Juan Mascaro, is a beautiful translation, which, like Mascaro’s translation of The Bhagavid Gita, breathes simplicity and purity throughout. The Upanishads are maxims on the spiritual life, and are poetry, scripture, guidance all in one. “The truth is hidden by a circle of gold. Unveil the truth, oh God of light, that I might see!” “It is not for the love of the husband that the husband is dear, but for the soul that is in the husband.” “Behold, all that lives and walks on earth. Leaving the transient, take refuge in the eternal, set not your heart on another’s possession. Working thus, a man can wish for a life of one hundred years. Only actions done in God, bind not the heart of man.” (I paraphrase). This collection is truly wonderful, and should be a part of everyone’s spiritual library, along with the major scriptures of all the world’s faiths…Amazon review

The Yoga Sutras - III

PATANJALI AND THE YOGA SUTRAS

Almost nothing is known about the sage who wrote the Yoga Sutras. The dating of his life has varied widely between the fourth century B.C.E. and the sixth century C.E., but the fourth century B.C.E. is the period noted for the appearance of aphoristic literature. Traditional Indian literature, especially the Padma Purana, includes brief references to Patanjali, indicating that he was born in Illavrita Varsha. Bharata Var-sha is the ancient designation of Greater India as an integral part of Jambudvipa, the world as conceived in classical topography, but Illavrita Varsha is not one of its subdivisions. It is an exalted realm inhabited by the gods and enlightened beings who have transcended even the rarefied celestial regions encompassed by the sevenfold Jambudvipa. Patanjali is said to be the son of Angira and Sati, to have married Lolupa, whom he discovered in the hol-low of a tree on the northern slope of Mount Sumeru, and to have reduced the degenerate denizens of Bhotabhandra to ashes with fire from his mouth. Such legendary details conceal more than they reveal and suggest that Patanjali was a great Rishi who de-scended to earth in order to share the fruits of his wisdom with those who were ready to receive it.

Some commentators identify the author of the Yoga Sutras with the Patanjali who wrote the Mahabhashya or Great Commentary on Panini’s famous treatise on Sanskrit grammar sometime between the third and first centuries B.C.E. Although several scholars have contended that internal evidence contradicts such an identification, others have not found this reasoning conclusive. King Bhoja, who wrote a well-known commentary in the tenth century, was inclined to ascribe both works to a single author, perhaps partly as a reaction to others who placed Patanjali several centuries C.E. owing to his alleged implicit criticisms of late Buddhist doctrines. A more venerable tradition, however, rejects this identification altogether and holds that the author of the Yoga Sutras lived long before the commentator on Panini. In this view, oblique references to Buddhist doctrines are actually allusions to modes of thought found in some Upanishads.

In addition to our lack of definite knowledge about Patanjali’s life, confusion arises from contrasting appraisals of the Yoga Sutras itself. There is a strong consensus that the Yoga Sutras represents a masterly compendium of various Yoga practices which can be traced back through the Upanishads to the Vedas. Many forms of Yoga existed by the time this treatise was written, and Patanjali came at the end of a long and ancient line of yogins. In accord with the free- thinking tradition of shramanas, forest recluses and wandering mendicants, the ultimate vindication of the Yoga system is to be found in the lifelong experiences of its ardent votaries and exemplars. The Yoga Sutras constitutes a practitioner’s manual, and has long been cherished as the pristine expression of Raja Yoga. The basic texts of Raja Yoga are Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the Yogabhashya of Vyasa and the Tattvavaisharadi of Vachaspati Mishra. Hatha Yoga was formulated by Gorakshanatha, who lived around 1200 C.E. The main texts of this school are the Goraksha Sutaka, the Nathayoga Pradipika of Yogindra of the flfteenth century, and the later Shivasamhita. Whereas Hatha Yoga stresses breath regulation and bodily discipline, Raja Yoga is essentially concerned with mind control, meditation and self-study.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is universal in the manner of the Bhagavad Gita, including a diversity of standpoints whilst fusing Sankhya metaphysics with bhakti or self-surrender. There is room for differences of emphasis, but every diligent user of Patanjali’s aphorisms is enabled to refine aspirations, clarify thoughts, strengthen efforts, and sharpen focus on essentials in spiritual self-discipline. Accommodating a variety of exercises — mind control, visualization, breath, posture, moral training — Patanjali brings together the best in differing approaches, providing an integrated discipline marked by moderation, flexibility and balance, as well as degrees of depth in meditative absorption. The text eludes any simple classification within the vast resources of Indian sacred literature and a fortiori among the manifold scriptures of the world. Although it does not resist philosophical analysis in the way many mystical treatises do, it is primarily a practical aid to the quest for spiritual freedom, which transcends the concerns of theoretical clarification. Yet like any arcane science which necessarily pushes beyond the shifting boundaries of sensory experience, beyond conventional concepts of inductive reasoning and mundane reality, it reaffirms at every point its vital connection with the universal search for meaning and deliverance from bondage to shared illusions. It is a summons to systematic self- mastery which can aspire to the summits of gnosis.

The actual text as it has come down to the present may not be exactly what Patanjali penned. Perhaps he reformulated in terse aphoristic language crucial insights found in time- honoured but long-forgotten texts. Perhaps he borrowed terms and phrases from diverse schools of thought and training. References to breath control, pranayama, can be found in the oldest Upanishads, and the lineaments of systems of Yoga may be discerned in the Maitrayana, Shvetashvatara and Katha Upanishads, and veiled instructions are given in the ‘Yoga’ Upanishads — Yogatattva, Dhyanabindu, Hamsa, Amritanada, Shandilya, Varaha, Mandala Brahmana, Nadabindu and Yogakundali — though a leaning towards Sankhya metaphysics occurs only in the Maitrayana. The Mahabharata mentions the Sankhya and the Yoga as ancient systems of thought. Hiranyagarbha is traditionally regarded as the propounder of Yoga, just as Kapila is known as the original expounder of Sankhya. The Ahirbudhnya states that Hiranyagarbha disclosed the entire science of Yoga in two texts — the Nirodha Samhita and the Karma Samhita. The former treatise has been called the Yoganushasanam, and Patanjali also begins his work with the same term. He also stresses nirodha in the first section of his work.

In general, the affinities of the Yoga Sutras with the texts of Hiranyagarbha suggest that Patanjali was an adherent of the Hiranyagarbha school of Yoga, and yet his own manner of treatment of the subject is distinctive. His reliance upon the fundamental principles of Sankhya entitle him to be considered as also belonging to the Sankhya Yoga school. On the other hand, the significant variations of the later Sankhya of Ishvarakrishna from older traditions of proto-Sankhya point to the advantage of not subsuming the Yoga Sutras under broader systems. The author of Yuktidipika stresses that for Patanjali there are twelve capacities, unlike Ishvarakrishna’s thirteen, that egoity is not a separate principle for Patanjali but is bound up with intellect and volition. Furthermore, Patanjali held that the subtle body is created anew with each embodiment and lasts only as long as a particular embodiment, and also that the capacities can only function from within. Altogether, Patanjali’s work provides a unique synthesis of standpoints and is backed by the testimony of the accumulated wisdom derived from the experiences of many practitioners and earlier lineages of teachers.

Some scholars and commentators have speculated that Patanjali wrote only the first three padas of the Yoga Sutras, whilst the exceptionally short fourth pada was added later. Indeed, as early as the writings of King Bhoja, one verse in the fourth pada (IV. 16) was recognized asa line interpolated from Vyasa’s seventh commentary in which he dissented from Vijnanavadin Buddhists. Other interpolations may have occurred even in the first three padas, such as III.22, which some classical commentators questioned. The fact that the third pada ends with the word iti (’thus’, ’so’, usually indicating the end of a text), as it does at the end of the fourth pada, might suggest that the original contained only three books. However, the philosophical significance of the fourth pada is such that the coherence of the entire text need not be questioned on the basis of inconclusive speculations.

Al-Biruni translated into Arabic a book he called Kitab Patanjal (The Book of Patanjali), which he said was famous throughout India. Although his text has an aim similar to the Yoga Sutras and uses many of the same concepts, it is more theistic in its content and even has a slightly Sufi tone. It is not the text now known as the Yoga Sutras, but it may be a kind of paraphrase popular at the time, rather like the Dnyaneshwari, which stands both as an independent work and a helpful restatement of the Bhagavad Gita. The Kitab translated by al-Biruni illustrates the pervasive influence of Patanjali’s work throughout the Indian subcontinent.

For the practical aspirant to inner tranquillity and spiritual realization, the recurring speculations of scholars and commentators, stimulated by the lack of exact historical information about the author and the text, are of secondary value. Whatever the precise details regarding the composition of the treatise as it has come down through the centuries, it is clearly an integrated whole, every verse of which is helpful not only for theoretical understanding but also for sustained practice. The Yoga Sutras constitutes a complete text on meditation and is invaluable in that every sutra demands deep reflection and repeated application. Patanjali advocated less a doctrinaire method than a generous framework with which one can make experiments with truth, grow in comprehension and initiate progressive awakenings to the supernal reality of the Logos in the cosmos.

The word yoga is derived from the Sanskrit verbal root yuj, ‘to yoke’ or ‘to join’, related to the Latin jungere, ‘to join’, ‘to unite’. In its broadest usages it can mean addition in arithmetic; in astronomy it refers to the conjunction of stars and planets; in grammar it is the joining of letters and words. In Mimamsa philosophy it indicates the force of a sentence made up of united words, whilst in Nyaya logic it signifies the power of the parts taken together. In medicine it denotes the compounding of herbs and other substances. In general, yoga and viyoga pertain to the processes of synthesis and analysis in both theoretical and applied sciences. Panini distinguishes between the root yuj in the sense of concentration (samadhi) and yujir in the sense of joining or connecting. Buddhists have used the term yoga to designate the withdrawal of the mind from all mental and sensory objects. Vaishesika philosophy means by yoga the concentrated attention to a single subject through mental abstraction from all contexts. Whereas the followers of Ramanuja use the term to depict the fervent aspiration to join one’s ishtadeva or chosen deity, Vedanta chiefly uses the term to characterize the complete union of the human soul with the divine spirit, a connotation compatible with its use in Yoga philosophy. In addition, Patanjali uses the term yoga to refer to the deliberate cessation of all mental modifications.

Every method of self-mastery, the systematic removal of ignorance and the progressive realization of Truth, can be called yoga, but in its deepest sense it signifies the union of one’s apparent and fugitive self with one’s essential nature and true being, or the conscious union of the embodied self with the Supreme Spirit. The Maitrayana Upanishad states:

Carried along by the waves of the qualities darkened in his imagination, unstable, fickle, crippled, full of desires, vacillating, he enters into belief, believing I am he, this is mine, and he binds his self by his self as a bird with a net. Therefore a man, being possessed of will, imagination and belief, is a slave, but he who is the opposite is free. For this reason let a man stand free from will, imagination and belief. This is the sign of liberty, this is the path that leads to brahman, this is the opening of the door, and through it he will go to the other shore of darkness.

Thus, yoga refers to the removal of bondage and the consequent attainment of true spiritual freedom. Whenever yoga goes beyond this and actually implies the fusion of an individual with his ideal, whether viewed as his real nature, his true self or the universal spirit, it is gnostic self-realization and universal self-consciousness, a selfsustaining state of serene enlightenment. Patanjali’s metaphysical and epistemological debt to Sankhya is crucial to a proper comprehension of the Yoga Sutras, but his distinct stress on praxis rather than theoria shows a deep insight of his own into the phases and problems that are encountered by earnest practitioners of Yoga. His chief concern was to show how and by what means the spirit, trammelled in the world of matter, can withdraw completely from it and attain total emancipation by transforming matter into its original state and thus realize its own pristine nature. This applies at all levels of self-awakening, from the initial cessation of mental modifications, through degrees of meditative absorption, to the climactic experience of spiritual freedom.

Patanjali organized the Yoga Sutras into four padas or books which suggest his architectonic intent. Samadhi Pada, the first book, deals with concentration of mind (samadhi), without which no serious practice of Yoga is possible. Since samadhi is necessarily experiential, this pada explores the hindrances to and the practical steps needed to achieve alert quietude. Both restraint of the senses and of the discursive intellect are essential for samadhi. Having set forth what must be done to attain and maintain meditative absorption, the second book, Sadhana Pada, provides the method or means required to establish full concentration. Any effort to subdue the tendency of the mind to become diffuse, fragmented or agitated demands a resolute, consistent and continuous practice of self-imposed, steadfast restraint, tapas, which cannot become stable without a commensurate disinterest in all phenomena. This relaxed disinterestedness, vairagya, has nothing to do with passive indifference, positive disgust, inert apathy or feeble-minded ennui as often experienced in the midst of desperation and tension in daily affairs. Those are really the self-protective responses of one who is captive to the pleasure-pain principle and is deeply vulnerable to the flux of events and the vicissitudes of fortune. Vairagya implies a conscious transcendence of the pleasure-pain principle through a radical reappraisal of expectations, memories and habits. The pleasure-pain principle, dependent upon passivity, ignorance and servility for its operation, is replaced by a reality principle rooted in an active, noetic apprehension of psycho-spiritual causation. Only when this impersonal perspective is gained can the yogin safely begin to alter significantly his psycho-physical nature through breath control, pranayama, and other exercises.

The third book, Vibhuti Pada, considers complete meditative absorption, sanyama, its characteristics and consequences. Once calm, continuous attention is mastered, one can discover an even more transcendent mode of meditation which has no object of cognition whatsoever. Since levels of consciousness correspond to planes of being, to step behind the uttermost veil of consciousness is also to rise above all manifestations of matter. From that wholly transcendent standpoint beyond the ever-changing contrast between spirit and matter, one may choose any conceivable state of consciousness and, by implication, any possible material condition. Now the yogin becomes capable of tapping all the siddhis or theurgic powers. These prodigious mental and moral feats are indeed magical, although there is nothing miraculous or even supernatural about them. They represent the refined capacities and exalted abilities of the perfected human being. Just as any person who has achieved proficiency in some specialized skill or knowledge should be careful to use it wisely and precisely, so too the yogin whose spiritual and mental powers may seem practically unlimited must not waste his energy or misuse his hard-won gifts. If he were to do so, he would risk getting entangled in worldly concerns in the myriad ways from which he had sought to free himself. Instead, the mind must be merged into the inmost spirit, the result of which is kaivalya, steadfast isolation or eventual emancipation from the bonds of illusion and the meretricious glamour of terrestrial existence.

In Kaivalya Pada, the fourth book which crowns the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali conveys the true nature of isolation or supreme spiritual freedom insofar as it is possible to do so in words. Since kaivalya is the term used for the sublime state of consciousness in which the enlightened soul has gone beyond the differentiating sense of ‘I am’, it cannot be characterized in the conceptual languages that are dependent on the subject-object distinction. Isolation is not nothingness, nor is it a static condition. Patanjali throws light on this state of gnosis by providing a metaphysical and metapsychological explanation of cosmic and human intellection, the operation of karma and the deep-seated persistence of the tendency of selflimitation. By showing how the suppression of modifications of consciousness can enable it to realize its true nature as pure potential and master the lessons of manifested Nature, he intimates the immense potency of the highest meditations and the inscrutable purpose of cosmic selfhood.

The metapsychology of the Yoga Sutras bridges complex metaphysics and compelling ethics, creative transcendence and critical immanence, in an original, inspiring and penetrating style, whilst its aphoristic method leaves much unsaid, throwing aspirants back upon themselves with a powerful stimulus to self-testing and self-discovery. Despite his sophisticated use of Sankhya concepts and presuppositions, Patanjali’s text has a universal appeal for all ardent aspirants to Raja Yoga. He conveys the vast spectrum of consciousness, diagnoses the common predicament of human bondage to mental ailments, and offers practical guidance on the arduous pathway of lifelong contemplation that could lead to the summit of self-mastery and spiritual freedom.

Hermes, January 1989 Raghavan Iyer

The Yoga Sutras - IV

Samadhi Pada
Through study let one practise yoga.
Through yoga let one concentrate on study.
By perfection in study and in yoga
The Supreme Soul shines forth clearly.

-Vyasa

The classic text of Patanjali opens with the simplest statement: “atha yoganushasanam’, “Now begins instruction in yoga. ” The typical reader today might well expect this terse announcement to be followed by a full explanation of the term yoga and its diverse meanings, perhaps a polemical digression on different schools of thought and some methodological guidance concerning the best way to use the text. None of this occurs. Rather, Patanjali set down his most famous words: “yogash chitta-vritti-nirodhah”, “Yoga is the restraint of the modifications of the mind.” He stated the essential meaning of yoga without any argument or illustration, as if he were providing a basic axiom. He thus showed at the very start that he was concerned with practical instruction rather than theoretical exposition. He thereby took for granted that the user of the text already had some understanding of the task of yoga and was ready to undergo a demanding daily discipline.

Yoga psychology differs radically from more recent, and especially post-Freudian, schools of thought in its stress on self-emancipation rather than on self-acceptance in relation to social norms or psychic tensions. Most modern varieties of psychology, including even the recent humanistic preoccupation with self-actualization as propounded by Abraham Maslow and elaborated in different directions by Carl Rogers and Rollo May, essentially aim at an integration and harmonizing of otherwise disparate and conflicting elements in a person in contemporary society. For Patanjali, all these identifiable elements — thoughts, feelings, intentions, motives and desires (conscious and unconscious) — are chittavrittis, mental modifications which must be seen as hindrances to contemplative calm. Even if they are deftly balanced and fully integrated, the individual would at best be a mature person marked by thoughtful and creative responses in a world of suffering and ignorance. Conquering, not coping, transcending, not reconciling, were Patanjali’s chief concerns. For him, the latter were by-products of the former, and never the reverse. The psychology of self-emancipation means the deliberate and self-conscious restraint of everything that is productive of mental confusion, weakness and pain.

Patanjali’s stipulative definition of yoga might seem dogmatic, but this reaction springs from ignorance of his central purpose and unstated presuppositions. Patanjali wrote not from the standpoint of revealed scripture, academic scholarship or of theoretical clarification, but from the standpoint of concrete experience through controlled experiment. If truth is ontologically bound up and intimately fused with self-transcendence, then what from the standpoint of self- emancipation is a stark description is, from the standpoint of the unenlightened, an arbitrary prescription. What would be the naturalistic fallacy on a single plane of manifested Nature becomes a necessary line of thought when multiple planes of unmanifested Nature are taken into account. The ability to alter states of consciousness presupposes the capacity to emulate the architectonics of a higher and less differentiated plane on a lower and more fragmented plane of percepts and concepts. In other words, yoga is that science in which the descriptions of reality necessarily function as prescriptions for those who have not experienced it. The analogy would be closer to music or mathematics than to the visual arts or the empirical sciences as normally understood.

Skilful methods are those which provide apt descriptions, giving the instructional guidance needed. Hence, in the hands of a spiritual master, the actual method to be pursued varies with each aspirant, for it is the vital and original link between the adept’s transcendent (taraka) wisdom and the disciple’s mental temperament and devotion (bhakti). There is a reciprocal interaction between the readiness to receive and the mode of giving — of disciple and master. For Patanjali, the true nature of chitta, the mind, can be known only when it is not modified by external influences and their internal impresses. For as long as modifications persist without being deliberately chosen for a purpose, the mind unwittingly identifies with them, falling into passivity, habitude, and the pain which results from a state of fragmentation and self-alienation.

Since mental modifications ramify in myriad directions, their root causes need to be grasped clearly if they are to be firmly removed. The essential principle to be understood is central to the second and third of Gautama Buddha’s Four Noble Truths. Those persistent misconceptions which, directly or indirectly, produce discontent and suffering have a distinctive set of causes which, if eliminated, inevitably ensure the cessation of their concomitant effects. Patanjali pointed to five chittavrittis which are distinct and yet share the common tendency to be pleasurable or painful. Whilst yoga psychology fully acknowledges the strength of the pleasure principle — the propensity to be drawn towards pleasurable sensations as if by a magnet and to be repelled by painful ones — it denies its relevance to real individuation as a moral agent, a Manushya, whose name comes from manas, ‘mind’, the root of which is man, ‘to think’. Self- emancipation, the culmination in yoga of self-transcendence, requires the complete subordination of the pleasure-pain principle to the reality principle. Reality, in this view, has nothing to do with involuntary change, the inherent propensity of prakriti, matter, and not purusha, spirit, whilst pleasure and pain are necessarily bound up with conditioning and change. This is why the most attractive states of mind seem so readily and recurrently to alter into the most repugnant states. In general, mental modifications obscure and obstruct the intrinsically blissful nature of pure consciousness, the serene state of mind of the “spectator without a spectacle”.

The five types of mental modifications are: correct cognition, based on direct perception, valid inference and verbal testimony; misconception, based upon something other than itself, namely the five kleshas or sources of sorrow — ignorance, egoism, attachment, hate and the fear of death, according to the Yogabhashya; fantasy, engendered by words and concepts, when and to the degree that they do not refer to reality; sleep, which occurs when other modifications cease and the mind is emptied of mental contents; and memory, which is the result of clinging to, or at least not letting go of, objects or images of subjective experiences. The chittavrittis can be diagrammatically depicted as follows:

Although this array of mental modifications is easy to outline, its implications are extensive and radical. When Patanjali included correct cognition amongst the mental modifications, he was adhering to strict theoretical and practical consistency. He was concerned to deny that mundane insight, discursive thought and even scriptural authority can free the mind from bondage to delusion and suffering. Yet without a preliminary apprehension of yoga philosophy, how could one adopt its methods and hope to achieve its aims? In part the answer lies in a proper grasp of the pervasiveness of maya or illusion. If everything that conceals the changeless Real is maya, then the human being who seeks to know the Real by conventional methods is trapped in some sort of metaphysical split or even schizophrenia. Philosophers from the pre-Socratics and Platonists to Descartes and Spinoza recognized that a substance cannot become what it is not. To say that human beings are intrinsically capable of attaining kaivalya, self-emancipation or transcendence of maya, is to affirm that they are quintessentially what they seek. Their inmost nature is one with the Real. On the other hand, to say that they have to strive in earnest to realize fully what they essentially are implies that they have allowed themselves to become captive to maya through persistent self-limitation.

Given this delusive condition, the mere temporary cessation of modifications, such as occurs in sleep, will not help to liberate man’s immortal spirit. As maya is pervasive illusion, humanity as it knows itself is a part of it. Ignorant or involuntary withdrawal from its action only makes it unconscious, and this is why sleep is classed as one of the chittavrittis. Rather, one has to master the rules of maya and learn how to extricate oneself gradually from it. Otherwise, one only makes random moves, embedding oneself in deeper ignorance and greater suffering. Patanjali taught that deliverance can only come through abhyasa, assiduous practice, and vairagya, dispassionate detachment. Abhyasa is the active opposite of passive sleep, and vairagya frees one from all attachments, including the kleshas, which induce misconceptions. Together, these two mirror in the world of change that which is changeless beyond it. In the language of the Isha Upanishad, one has to find the transcendent in the immanent, and for Patanjali, abhyasa and vairagya constitute exactly that mode of awareness.

For Patanjali, however, abhyasa is not just striving to do something; it is rather the effort to be something. “Abhyasa is the continuous effort to abide in a steady state.” According to the Yogabhashya, abhyasa is the attempt to preserve prashantavahita, continuity of mind or consciousness which is both fully awake and without fluctuations. Like all such spiritual exercises, abhyasa becomes richer, more refined and more relaxed with persistence that comes from repeated effort, moral earnestness and joyous devotion. Abhyasa is the constant criterion for all effort, and the indispensable tool, whenever and however taken up.

Vairagya cannot be merely passive disinterest in the content of experience any more than sleep can substitute for wakeful serenity. It is true detachment whilst being fully aware of the relative significance of objects, and this element of self-conscious maintenance of calm detachment is exactly what makes it real vairagya. Through vairagya, one comes to know the world for what it is because one recognizes that every object of sense, whether seen or unseen, is an assemblage of evanescent attributes or qualities (gunas) of prakriti, whereas the enduring reality, from the standpoint of the seeker for emancipation, is purusha, the Self of all. Shankaracharya stated: “The seer of purusha becomes one who is freed from rejecting or accepting anything…. Detachment is extreme clarity of cognition.”

Abhyasa and vairagya are fused in the intense yet serene mental absorption known as samadhi. Patanjali characterized samadhi (which means ‘concentration’, ‘contemplation’ and ‘meditation’, depending on the context) in relation to a succession of stages, for if samadhi signifies a specific state, the contemplative seeker would either abide in it or fail to do so. But Patanjali knew that no one can suddenly bridge the gap between fragmented, distracted consciousness and wholly unified meditation. Rather, concentration (samadhi) proceeds by degrees for one who persists in the effort, because one progressively overcomes everything that hinders it. In the arduous ascent from greater degrees of relative maya towards greater degrees of reality, the transformation of consciousness requires a calm apprehension of those higher states. The conscious descent from exalted planes of being requires the capacity to bring down a clearer awareness of reality into the grosser regions of maya. Continuous self-transformation on the ascent must be converted into confident self-transmutation on the descent.

Patanjali saw in the evolving process of meditation several broad but distinct levels of samadhi. The first is sanprajnata samadhi, cognitive contemplation, in which the meditator is aware of a distinction between himself and the thought he entertains. This form of meditation is also called sabija samadhi, or meditation with a seed (bija), wherein some object or specific theme serves as a focal point on which to settle the mind in a steady state. Since such a point is extrinsic to pure consciousness, the basic distinction between thinker and thought persists. In its least abstracted form, sanprajnata samadhi involves vitarka (reasoning), vichara (deliberation), ananda (bliss) and asmita (the sense of ‘I’). Meditation is some sort of bhavana, or becoming that upon which one ponders, for consciousness identifies with, takes on and virtually becomes what it contemplates. Meditation on a seed passes through stages in which these types of conditioning recede and vanish as the focal point of consciousness passes beyond every kind of deliberation and even bliss itself, until only asmita or the pure sense of ‘I’ remains. Even this, however, is a limiting focus which can be transcended.

Asanprajnata samadhi arises out of meditation on a seed though it is itself seedless. Here supreme detachment frees one from even the subtlest cognition and one enters nirbija samadhi, meditation without a seed, which is self-sustaining because free of any supporting focalization on an object. From the standpoint of the succession of objects of thought — the type of consciousness all human beings experience in a chaotic or fragmentary way and a few encounter even in meditation on a seed — nirbija samadhi is nonexistence or emptiness, for it is absolutely quiescent consciousness. Nonetheless, it is not the highest consciousness attainable, for it is the retreat of mind to a neutral (laya) centre from which it can begin to operate on a wholly different plane of being. This elevated form of pure consciousness is similar to a state experienced in a disembodied condition between death and rebirth, when consciousness is free of the involvement with vestures needed for manifestation in differentiated matter. Just as an individual becomes unconscious when falling into deep dreamless sleep, because consciousness fails to remain alert except in conditions of differentiation, so too consciousness in a body becomes unconscious and forgetful of its intrinsic nature on higher planes. Samadhi aims to restore that essential awareness self-consciously, making the alert meditator capable of altering planes of consciousness without any loss of awareness.

For earnest practitioners, Patanjali taught, samadhi is attained in several distinct but interrelated ways — through shraddha (faith), virya (energy), smriti (retentiveness) and prajna (intellectual insight) — which are vital prerequisites for the metapsychological yoga of samadhi. Shraddha is the calm and confident conviction that yoga is efficacious, coupled with the wholehearted orientation of one’s psychic, moral and mental nature towards experiential confirmation. Undistracted shraddha of this sort leads naturally to virya, energy which releases the resolve to reach the goal and the resourceful courage needed to persist in seeking it. In The Voice of the Silence, an ancient text of spiritual discipline, virya is viewed as the fifth of seven keys required to unlock seven portals on the path to wisdom. In this text, virya follows upon dana, shila, kshanti and viraga (vairagya) — charity, harmony in conduct, patience, and detachment in regard to the fruits of action — all suggesting the hidden depths of shraddha which can release dauntless energy in the pursuit of Truth.

Smriti implies the refinement of memory which helps to extract the essential lesson of each experience without the needless elaboration of irrelevancies. It requires the perception of significant connections and the summoning of full recollection, the soulmemory stressed by Plato wherein one awakens powers and potentialities transcending the experiences of a lifetime. Prajna, released by such inner awakenings, enables consciousness to turn within and cognize the deeper layers of oneself. Seen and strengthened in this manner, one’s innate soul-wisdom becomes the basis of one’s progressive understanding of the integral connection between freedom and necessity. In time, the ‘is’ of external facticity becomes a vital pointer to the ‘ought’ of the spiritual Path and the ‘can’ of one’s true self-hood.

Supreme meditation, the most complete samadhi, is possible for those who can bring clarity, control and imaginative intensity to daily practice. Yet Patanjali’s instructions, like those of an athletic coach who guides the gifted but also aids those who show lesser promise, apply to every seeker who sincerely strives to make a modest beginning in the direction of the highest samadhi as well as to those able to make its attainment the constant target of their contemplations. He spoke explicitly of those whose progress is rapid but also of those whose efforts are mild or moderate. An individual’s strivings are stimulated to the degree they recognize that they are ever reaching beyond themselves as they have come to think of themselves through habit, convention, weakness and every form of ignorance. Rather than naively thinking that one is suddenly going to surmount every obstacle and obscuration in one’s own nature, one can sedulously foster bhakti, total devotion and willing surrender to Ishvara, the Supreme Spirit immanent in all souls, even if one has hardly begun to grasp one’s true self- hood. Such sustained devotion is ishvarapranidhana, the potent invocation of the Supreme Self through persistent surrender to It, isomorphic on the plane of consciousness with abnegation of the fruits of all acts to Krishna on the plane of conduct, as taught in the Bhagavad Gita.

Ishvara is saguna brahman, the supreme repository of all resplendent qualities, in contrast to nirguna brahman, the attributeless Absolute. Ishvara is purusha, “untouched by troubles, actions and their results” (I.24), immanent in all prakriti. Cherishing the one source of all is the means by which one moves through degrees of samadhi, culminating in the complete union of the individual and the cosmic, the state of kaivalya or isolation. Like Kether, the crown in the Kabbalah, Ishvara is at once the single motivating force behind the cosmic activity of prakriti and the utterly transcendent (nirguna) purusha or pure spirit. What exists in each human soul as the latent bud of omniscience is awakened and it expands into the realm of infinitude in Ishvara itself. Untouched by time and therefore untrammelled by ordinary consciousness which is time-bound, Ishvara is the supreme Initiator of all, from the ancient Rishis to the humble disciple sitting in meditation. Ishvara is OM, the primal sound, the basic keynote of all being, the source of the music of the spheres, mirrored in the myriad manifestations of prakriti. Surrender to Ishvara is aided by the silent repetition of the sacred OM and by deep meditation upon its mystery and meaning. When bhakti flows freely in this rapturous rhythm, consciousness readily turns inward and removes all hindrances to progress in samadhi.

Surrender to the luminous core of one’s consciousness, which is more powerful than one’s strongest proclivities, initiates a mighty countervailing force against the cumulative momentum generated by the chittavrittis. As the mind has grown accustomed to indulge, identify with and even cherish ceaseless modifications, any attempt to check those modifications runs against the self-reproducing tenacity of longestablished habits, impressions and tendencies. The chittavrittis are virtually infinite in their discrete manifestations and yet are amenable to broad classification on the basis of essential traits. The hindrances which aggravate mental distraction, fragmented consciousness and continual modification are disease, dullness, doubt, heedlessness, indolence, addiction to objects of sense, distorted perception, and failure to stabilize the mind in any particular state. Though distinct from each other, these distractions are all accompanied by sorrow (duhkha), depression, bodily agitation and irregular breathing. They can, however, be most effectively eliminated through abhyasa, or constant practice of a single truth or principle. Whilst any profound truth which deeply moves one can be chosen, to the degree that it is true — and so to the degree that it is efficacious over time — it is ekatattva, the one principle, which in Sankhya philosophy is purusha or pure spirit.

Overcoming mental obstructions through abhyasa in respect to one principle requires the progressive purification of the mind, freeing it from the froth and dross of old patterns fostered by feeble and fickle attention. Most seekers typically find easiest and most effective a concerted effort to expand the feeling of friendliness towards all beings, compassion for every creature, inward gladness and a cool detachment in regard to pleasure and pain, virtue and vice. On the physical plane of human nature, one can learn to make one’s breathing calm and even, steady and rhythmical. Through intense concentration, one can begin to awaken subtler perceptions which are not subject to hindrances in the way the ordinary sense-organs are, to an almost grotesque extent. One may even activate a spark of buddhi, pure insight and deep penetration, sensing the vast ocean of supernal cosmic light which interpenetrates and encloses everything. Some seekers will find it more feasible to contemplate the lustrous splendour of a mythic, historical or living being who is a paragon of supreme self-mastery. Others may benefit by brooding on flashes of reminiscence that recur in dreams or come from deep dreamless sleep. Patanjali also pointed out that one could gain mental stability by meditating intently upon what one most ardently desired. In the words of Charles Johnston, “Love is a form of knowledge”, when it is profound and sacrificial, constant and unconditional.

All such efforts to surmount the hindrances which distract the mind are aids to deep meditation, and when they have fully worked their benevolent magic, the becalmed mind becomes the effortless master of everything which comes into the horizon of consciousness, from the atomic to the infinite. When all the hindrances disappear, mental modifications cease and the mind “becomes like a transparent crystal, attaining the power of transformation, taking on the colour of what it rests on, whether it be the cognizer, the cognized or the act of cognition”.(I.41) When the mind is distracted through discursive trains of thought, it tends to oscillate between passive disorientation and aggressive attempts to conceal its ignorance through contentious and partisan fixations. But when the memory is purged of external traces and encrusted conditionality, and the mind is withdrawn from all limiting conceptions — including even its abstract self-image, thus focussed solely on ekatattva, truth alone — it is free from obscuration, unclouded (nirvitarka), and sees each truth as a whole. It notices the subtle elements behind shifting appearances, including the noumenal, primordial and undifferentiated sources and causes of all mental modifications. This serene self-emancipation of consciousness is called sabija samadhi, meditation with a seed, the fulcrum for gaining all knowledge. In this sublime condition, the mind has become as pellucid as crystal and mirrors the spiritual light of purusha, whence dawns direct insight (prajna) into the ultimate Truth.

Unlike other methods of cognizing truth — which concern this or that and hence are involved with samvritti satya, relative truths, though truths nonetheless — prajna has but one single object for its focus, the Supreme Truth itself (paramartha satya). Its power displaces and transcends all lesser forms of truth, exiling them permanently from consciousness. Beyond this lies only that indescribable state called nirbija samadhi, meditation without a seed, wherein the mind lets go of even Truth itself as an object. When the mind ceases to function, the Yogabhashya teaches, purusha becomes isolated, pure and liberated. Mind has become the pure instrument that guides the soul ever closer to that threshold where, when reached, spirit steps from false finitude into inconceivable infinitude, leaving the mind behind, passing into kaivalya, total isolation or supreme freedom. The last psychic veil is drawn aside and the spiritual man stands with unveiled vision. As M.N. Dvivedi commented, “The mind thus having nothing to rest upon exhausts itself. . . and purusha alone shines in perfect bliss and peace.” “The Light”, I.K. Taimni remarked, “which was up to this stage illuminating other objects now illuminates Itself, for it has withdrawn beyond the realm of these objects. The Seer is now established in his own Self.”

Having depicted the entire path leading from ignorance and bewilderment to beatific illumination, Patanjali saw only two tasks remaining: (1) to explain in detail the diverse means for attaining concentration and meditation, and (2) to elucidate the idea of kaivalya or isolation, insofar as it is possible to convey it through words.

Hermes, February 1989 Raghavan Iyer

The Yoga Sutras - V

Sadhana Pada
A person without self-discipline cannot attain perfection in yoga…. An undisturbed course of self-purificatory conduct should be practised.
Yogabhashya

Patanjali initiated his teaching concerning praxis by calling attention to the three chief elements in the discipline of yoga: tapas, austerity, self-restraint and eventually self-mastery; svadhyaya, self-study, self-examination, including calm contemplation of purusha, the Supreme Self; and ishvarapranidhana, self-surrender to the Lord, the omnipresent divine spirit within the secret heart. The threefold practice or sadhana can remove the kleshas or afflictions which imprison purusha and thus facilitate samadhi or meditative absorption. This arduous alchemical effort was summed up succinctly by Shankaracharya: “Right vision (samyagdarshana) is the means to transcendental aloneness (kaivalya)…. Yoga practice, being the means to right vision, comes before it…. Ignorance is destroyed when directly confronted by right vision.” The kleshas, though varied in their myriad manifestations, are essentially five: avidya, ignorance; asmita, egoism; raga, attachment; dvesha, aversion; and abhinivesha, tenacious clinging to mundane existence. Ignorance, however, is the broad field in which all the other kleshas arise, because they are no more than distinct specializations of ignorance.
Ignorance is a fundamental inverted confusion which mistakes prakriti for purusha, the false for the true, the impure for the pure, and the painful for the pleasurable a persisting malaise which might have been difficult to comprehend in the past but which is now a familiar condition in contemporary psychology. Springing from fundamental ignorance, egoism (asmita) confuses the potency of the Seer (purusha) with the power of sight (buddhi). Attachment (raga) is the pursuit of what is mistaken to be pleasurable, whilst aversion (dvesha) flees from what is believed to be painful. These two constitute the primary pair of opposites on the psychological level in the field of ignorance, and all other pairs of opposites are derived from them. Clinging to phenomenal existence (abhinivesha) is the logical outcome of the operation of ignorance, and once aroused is self-sustaining through the inertia of habit, so that countervailing measures are needed to eradicate it, together with the other kleshas.

Through ignorance (avidya) there is an obscuration of the cosmic Self (purusha), a fundamental misidentification of what is real, a persistent misconception which carries its own distinct logic within the complex dialectic of maya:

Since the kleshas are engendered by a persistent error, at root mistaking prakriti for purusha, or attributing the essential characteristics of purusha to one or another aspect of prakriti, they can be eliminated only by a radical reversal of the downward tendency of alienation and retreat from truth. This fundamental correction, as far reaching as the entrenched habit of inversion which necessitates it, is dhyana, meditation, together with the mental and moral exercises which strengthen it. To say, as Hindu and Buddhist thinkers alike assert, that karma is rooted in avidya is to imply that the ramifying results of karma now experienced, or yet to be experienced in a future incarnation, are all rooted in the kleshas.
In the graphic language of spiritual physiology, the kleshas constitute a psychic colouring or peculiar obsession which forms a persisting matrix of karma, the results of which must eventually be experienced, and also creates mental deposits which channel mental energies into repeatedly reinforcing the kleshas. Dhyana alone can effectively eradicate these mental deposits while providing the clear detachment (vairagya) and cool patience (kshanti) to exhaust and dissolve the karmic matrix over time. As long as the kleshas remain, involuntary incarnation into bodies captive to the pleasure pain principle is inescapable. Elation and depression are the inevitable effects of such embodiment. Since these are the product of egoism and the polarity of attraction and aversion, rooted in ignorance and resulting in the tenacious clinging to mundane existence, the discerning yogin comes to see that the truth of spiritual freedom and the rapture of limitless love transcend the kleshas entirely. All karma brings discord and distress, including the insistent pains of loss and gain, growth and decay.

Karma means parinama, change, and this invariably induces the longing to recover what is receding, to enhance what is emerging, or to sustain a static balance where no thing can endure. To be drawn to some objects and conditions and to be disinclined towards others is indeed to foster tapa, anxious brooding over what might be lost or what one might be forced to encounter. All experiences leave residual impressions, samskaras, which agitate the mind and stimulate desires to have or to avoid possible future experiences. In general, the gunas or root qualities of prakriti — sattva, rajas and tamas: luminosity, action and inertia; purity, restlessness and languor; or harmony, volatility and fixity persist in ceaselessly shifting permutations which continually modify the uncontrolled mind. For these reasons, Patanjali taught, all life without spiritual freedom is fraught with sorrow. Through yoga, it is not possible to avoid consequences already set in motion, but it is feasible to destroy the kleshas and thereby remove the causal chain of suffering.

Metaphysically, buddhi, intuitive intellect, is closer to purusha than any other aspect of prakriti. Nonetheless, buddhi is still what is seen by purusha, the Perceiver, and it is through confounding the Perceiver with what is perceived at the super-sensuous level that suffering arises. Prakriti, consisting of the gunas, is the entire field, enclosing the objective world and the organs of sensation. It exists solely for the sake of the soul’s education and emancipation. The Yogabhashya teaches that identification of the Perceiver with the seen constitutes experience, “whilst realizing the true nature of purusha is emancipation”. In the realm of prakriti, wherein the Perceiver is captive to the ever- changing panorama of Nature, the gunas, which may be construed as the properties of perceptible objects but which are really propensities from the standpoint of psycho-mental faculties, act at every level of conscious awareness.

At the level of differentiated consciousness, vitarka, wherein the mind scrutinizes specific objects and features, the gunas are particularized (vishesha). When consciousness apprehends archetypes, laws and abstract concepts (vichara), the gunas are archetypal (avishesha). When the gunas are discerned as signs and signatures (linga), objects are resolved into symbols of differentiation in a universal field of complete objectivity, and consciousness experiences ecstasy (ananda). Though discrete, objects are no longer distinguished in contrast to one another or through divergent characteristics; they are distinct but seen as parts of a single whole. They are apprehended through buddhi or intuitive insight.

The gunas are alinga — signless, irresolvable, undifferentiated — and lose their distinction from consciousness itself when objects dissolve in the recognition that consciousness and its modifications alone constitute the noumenal and phenomenal world. Hence, pure consciousness (lingamatra), which is the simple, unqualified sense of ‘I’, subsists in a pristine noumenal condition (alinga) wherein it does not witness the ceaseless operation of the gunas. This divine consciousness is the highest state of meditative absorption, beyond which lies complete emancipation, purusha without any tincture of prakriti. The Perceiver is pure vision, apprehending ideas seemingly through the mind. Once final emancipation, which is the ultimate aim and purpose of all experience, is attained, purusha no longer encounters the confusion of spirit and matter through mental modifications. As experience, correctly understood, culminates in eventual self-emancipation, kaivalya, Patanjali held that “the very essence of the visible is that it exists for the sake of the Seer, the Self alone” (II.21).

The world does not vanish for all others when a man of meditation attains kaivalya; they remain in confusion until they also attain the same utterly transcendent state of awareness. Here Yoga philosophy exhausts its conceptual and descriptive vocabulary. Whether one asserts that there is an indefinite number of purushas, each capable of attaining kaivalya, or one states that purusha attains kaivalya in this instance but not that, is a matter of indifference, for one perforce invokes enumeration, time and space terms properly applying to prakriti alone to characterize a wholly transcendent reality. The pervasive existential fact is that prakriti persists so long as there are beings trapped through ignorance, and the vital psychological truth is that no being who attains the transcendent (taraka) reality of unqualified, pure purusha can do so vicariously for another. Through their hard-won wisdom and compassion, emancipated seers and sages can point the way with unerring accuracy. They know how to make their magnanimous guidance most effective for every human being, but each seeker must make the ascent unaided.

If the cosmos as considered in contemporary physics resolved itself into a condition of undisturbed entropy, or if, in the language of Sankhya, the gunas achieved total and enduring equilibrium, Nature (prakriti) would cease to exist, since there would be nothing to be perceived. Ignorance and its inseparable concomitant, suffering, arise from a broken symmetry in Nature. In contemporary thought there is no adequate explanation for the origin of that ‘cosmic disaster’, for the emergence of sentience is said to occur within the broken symmetry. If the scientific community were trained to use the language of Sankhya and Yoga philosophy, it would have to speak of the origin of purusha, consciousness, within the evolutionary permutations and convolutions of prakriti. Sankhya and Yoga teach, however, that purusha, sempiternal and independent, perceives prakriti and indirectly gives rise to the broken symmetry itself, the anti-entropic condition which is the activity of the gunas. For Patanjali, prakriti must necessarily exist, for it is through experience conjunction with prakriti that purusha knows itself as it is. But when purusha wrongly apprehends prakriti, as it must until it knows itself truly as it is, ignorance and all the entangling kleshas arise. When purusha attains kaivalya, emancipation, it sees without error, and this is gained through experience in self-correction and self-mastery. From the highest standpoint, this means that purusha preserves its freedom and intrinsic purity by avoiding mistaken assumptions and false conclusions. From the standpoint of any individual involved in prakriti, unbroken discriminative cognition (vivekakhyati) is the sole means to emancipation, for it releases the abiding sense of reality (purusha) in him. The dual process of removing the kleshas and reflecting on the Self (purusha) assures the progressive and climactic attainment of emancipation (kaivalya) such that ignorance does not arise again.

Having delineated the path to kaivalya, Patanjali discoursed in some detail on the seven successive stages of yoga which lead to samadhi, full meditative absorption, but he insisted that, even though each stage must be passed in succession, truth and wisdom dawn progressively upon the aspirant to stimulate his endeavour. Yoga is successive, gradual and recursive, the path of ascent which alone leads from darkness to light, from ignorance to transcendental wisdom, from death and recurring rebirth to conscious immortality and universal self-consciousness. Although the stages through which consciousness must ascend are sequential in one sense, the practice of Taraka Raja Yoga involves eight limbs or aspects which are logically successive but ethically and psychologically simultaneous. In fact, one can hardly pursue one part of Patanjali’s eight-limbed yoga (ashtangayoga) without also attending to its other divisions. Just as a human being, despite his ignorance, is an integrated whole, so too ashtangayoga, despite its logical sequence, is an integral unity. Patanjali enumerated the eight (ashta) limbs (anga) of this Taraka Raja Yoga as five which concern karma and lay the foundation for meditation, and three which constitute meditation itself: restraint (yama), binding observance (niyama), posture (asana), regulation of breath (pranayama), abstraction and withdrawal from the senses (pratyahara); concentration (dharana), contemplation (dhyana) and complete meditative absorption (samadhi).

The yamas or restraints are five, constituting a firm ethical foundation for spiritual growth, starting with ahimsa (nonviolence) and including satya (truth), asteya (nonstealing), brahmacharya (continence) and aparigraha (nonpossession). Shankaracharya held that ahimsa — nonviolence, harmlessness, defencelessness in Shelley’s phrase — is the most important of the yamas and niyamas, and is the root of restraint. Like all constraints and observances, ahimsa must not be interpreted narrowly but should be seen in its widest sense. For Shankaracharya, this meant that ahimsa should be practised in body, speech and mind so that one avoids harming others in any way, even through an unkind thought. Ahimsa can be taken to include the classical Greek sense of sophrosyne, a sense of proportion which voids all excess, the state of mind which can avoid even unintentional harm to a single being in the cosmos. In employing ahimsa as a talismanic tool of political and social reform, Gandhi exemplified the central importance and far-reaching scope of ahimsa. For Patanjali, however, ahimsa and the other yamas and niyamas constitute the daily moral discipline needed to pursue Taraka Raja Yoga. Taraka Raja Yoga is not a narrowly technical or specialized practice to be added to other instrumental activities in the world; it is rather the indispensable means for radically transforming one’s essential perception of, and therefore one’s entire relation to, the world. From the standpoint of Self-knowledge, which is ultimate gnosis, there are no greater disciplines. Hence the yamas are not altered by condition and circumstance, social class or nationality, nor by time nor the actual level of spiritual attainment. Together they constitute the awesome mahavrata or Great Vow, the first crucial step to true spiritual freedom.

The niyamas or binding observances are also five, constituting the positive dimension of ethical probity. They are shaucha (purity), santosha (contentment), tapas (austerity, self-discipline), svadhyaya (self-study) and ishvarapranidhana (surrender to the Lord). Like the yamas, the niyamas cannot be fully grasped as specific and bounded concepts. First of all, they should be seen as evolving conceptions — for example, purity of thought is deepened through purity of conduct — and then they will rapidly unfold subtler levels of meaning as the aspirant attains more intensive depths of meditation. Purity of volition is thus ever enriched and refined. The greatest obstacles to the restraints and binding observances are those thoughts which run in the opposite direction — thinking of impure things or acts, wishing to do harm for a perceived injustice, self-indulgence, self-deception and self-assertion. Such illicit and destructive thoughts are perverse precisely because they belie and defeat the initial commitment to the yamas and niyamas. Instead of suppressing such scattered thoughts or wallowing in hideous self-pity, one must firmly and deliberately insert into the mind their potent opposites — love for hate, tenderness for temerity, sweetness for spite, virile confidence for the devilry of self-doubt, authentic self-conquest for compulsive self-indulgence. Thus what begins as a shrewd defence against deleterious thoughts becomes a deft substitution of one kind of thought for another and results in sublimation, the skilful transformation of the tonality and texture of consciousness. Strict and consistent measures are needed to deal with subversive thoughts, not in order to repress them or to hide guilt for having them, but only because they induce depression and self-loathing, with predictable and pathetic consequences. Facing unworthy thoughts firmly, and thereby exorcising them, is to free oneself from their nefarious spell.

When any object is forcibly confined, it exerts crude pressure against its external constraints. In the ethical realm, effortless self-restraint produces a powerful glow of well-being which others can appreciate and even emulate. When, for example, one is established in ahimsa, others do become aware of an encompassing and inclusive love, and latent or overt hostility dissolves around one’s radius of benevolence. Satya, truth, is the path of least resistance amongst the shifting ratios of the gunas, and when one is clearly established in truth, the predictable consequences of thought, word and deed are constructive and consistent. Similarly, strengthening oneself through asteya (nonstealing), one desists from every form of misappropriation, even on the plane of thought and feeling, and discovers what is apposite on all sides. Nature protects and even provides for those who do not appropriate its abundant resources. Brahmacharya, selfless continence in thought and conduct, fosters vitality and vigour. Aparigraha, nonpossessiveness, promotes noetic insight into the deeper meaning and purpose of one’s probationary sojourn on earth.

Expansiveness too has its compelling effects. Shaucha, inward and outer purity, protects the mind and body from moral and magnetic pollution, and prevents one from tarnishing or misusing others. One acquires a dependable degree of serenity, control of the senses and one-pointedness in concentration, thus preparing oneself for the direct apprehension of purusha, the Self. Santosha, deep contentment, assures satisfaction not through the gratification of wants (which can at most provide a temporary escape from frustration), but rather through the progressive cessation of craving and its prolific yearnings and regrets. Tapas, austerity, penance or self-discipline, removes pollution inherited from one’s own past and releases the full potentials of mind, senses and body, including those psychic faculties mistakenly called supernormal only because seldom developed. Svadhyaya, self-study, calls for careful study and calm reflection, including the diligent recitation and deep contemplation of texts, thus giving voice to potent mantras and sacred utterances. It achieves its apotheosis through direct communion with the ishtadevata, the chosen deity upon whom one has concentrated one’s complete attention, will and imagination. This exalted state readily leads to ishvarapranidhana, one-pointed and single-hearted devotion to the Lord. Such devotion soon deepens until one enters the succeeding stages of meditative absorption (samadhi).

With the firm foundation of yamas and niyamas, one can begin to benefit from the noetic discipline of intense meditation and become modestly proficient in it over a lifetime of service to humanity. Since the untrained mind is easily distracted by external and internal disturbance, real meditation is aided by an alert and relaxed bodily vesture. To this end, a steady posture (asana) is chosen, not to indulge the acrobatic antics of the shallow Hatha Yogin, but rather to subdue and command the body, whilst retaining its alertness and resilience. The correct posture will be firm and flexible without violating the mind’s vigorous concentration and precise focus. Once the appropriate asana is assumed by each neophyte, the mind is becalmed and turned towards the Infinite, becoming wholly impervious to bodily movement and change, immersed in the boundless space of the akashic empyrean. Thus the impact of the oscillating pairs of opposites upon the volatile brain mind, captivated by sharp contrasts and idle speculations, and the agitation of the body through recurring sensations are at least temporarily muted. In this state of serene peace, the effortless regulation of rhythmic breath (pranayama) becomes as natural as floating on the waters of space. Just as the mind and body are intimately interlinked at every point, such that even holding a firm physical posture aids the calming of the mind, so too pranayama points to silent mental breathing as well as smooth respiration.

Prana, which includes the solar life-breath, is the efflux of the constant flow of cosmic energy, regulated by the ideation of purusha and radiating from the luminous substance of pure prakriti. From the nadabrahman the Divine Resonance and perpetual motion of absolute Spirit and the global respiration of the earth reverberating at its hidden core, its slowly rolling mantle and its shifting crust, to the inspiration and expiration of every creature in the cosmos, the ocean of prana permeates and purifies all planes of being. In the human constitution, irregular, spasmodic or strained, uneven breathing can disturb the homeostatic equilibrium of the body and cause fragmented, uncoordinated modes of awareness. Proper breathing oxygenates the physical system optimally, and also aids the mind in maintaining a steady rhythm of unbroken ideation, fusing thought, will and energy. Pranayama begins with deliberate exhalation, so that the lungs are generously emptied and the unusable matter expelled into them is made to exit the bodily temple. Thereupon, slow inbreathing invites oxygen to permeate the entire lung system and penetrate the blood, arteries, nerves and cells. Holding the breath in a benevolent pause permits the respiratory system to adjust gently to the next phase of oxygenation and detoxification. When these rhythmic movements are marked by due measure and proportion, mantramically fused into the inaudible OM, there is a distinct improvement in psychophysical health and a remarkable increase of vigilance and vigour.

The fourth step in pranayama transcends the physiological dimensions of respiration for which they are a preparation. The highest pranayama becomes possible when one has gained sufficient sensitivity through the earlier stages of pranayama to sense and direct the divine flow of prana throughout one’s entropic psychophysical system. Then one may, through mental volition alone, fuse mental serenity and single-mindedness with psychophysical equilibrium, and also convey subtle pranic currents, charged with selfless ideation, to various padmas or vital centres (chakras) in the body. Since each of the seven padmas is precisely correlated with the corresponding state of concentrated consciousness, the fearless equipoise needed to activate these magnetic centres and the benevolent siddhis or theurgic powers thereby released requires the commensurate and controlled alteration in the tonality and texture of consciousness. When the highest padma is effortlessly and gently touched by mind-directed prana, nonviolent consciousness simultaneously attains full samadhi. “Thus is worn away”, said Patanjali, “the veil which obscures the light” (II.52), thereby pointing to the subduing of the kleshas and the neutralization of karma through the progressive awakening of discriminative insight and intuitive wisdom.

The process of purification is not an end in itself, but the necessary condition to prepare the mind for dharana, complete concentration. Pranayama, delusive and dangerous when misappropriated for selfish purposes pursued through subtle enslavement by the kleshas, is hereby integrated into Patanjali’s eight-fold yoga as a preliminary step towards subduing the restless mind, freeing it to become the servant of the immortal soul, seeking greater wisdom, self-mastery and universal self-consciousness. Pratyahara, abstraction and disassociation of sensory perception from sense-objects, is now accessible. Withdrawal of the senses from their objects of attraction does not destroy them. Rather, the subtler senses take on the plastic and fluidic nature of the serene mind itself. Without the myriad distractions of familiar and strange sense-objects, the senses become subtilized and pliant, no longer pulling consciousness towards internal images, external objects or captivating sense data. Instead, the noetic mind firmly expels images and subdues impulses, gaining sovereign mastery over them. Patanjali ended the second pada here, having shown the pathway to proper preparation for profound meditation. The significance of the last three interconnected angas or stages of yoga is indicated by the fact that Patanjali set them apart in the third pada for his authoritative exposition.

The preparatory discipline or sadhana of the second pada has been thus strikingly extolled by Rishi Vasishtha:

He engaged in the practice of Raja Yoga, remaining silent and graceful in countenance. He abstracted his senses from their objects as the oil is separated from the sesamum seed, withdrawing their organs within himself as the turtle contracts his limbs under his hard shell.
With his steady mind he cast all external sensations far off from himself, as a rich and brilliant gem, shedding a coating of dust, then scattered its rays to a distance. Without coming in contact with them, he compressed his sensations within himself, as a tree in the cold season compresses its sap within its bark….

He confined his subdued mind in the cave of his heart, as a great elephant is imprisoned in a cavern of the Vindhya Mountain when it has been brought by stratagem under subjection. When his soul had gained its clarity, resembling the serenity of the autumnal sky, it forsook all unsteadiness, like the calm ocean unagitated by any winds.

Yoga Vasishtha Maharamayana

Hermes, March 1989 Raghavan Iyer

The Yoga Sutras - VI

Vibhuti Pada
Attention is the first and indispensable step in all knowledge. Attention to spiritual things is the first step to spiritual knowledge.
Charles Johnston

Patanjali commenced the third pada of the Yoga Sutras with a compelling distinction between three phases of meditation. Dharana is full concentration, the focussing of consciousness on a particular point, which may be any object in the world or a subject chosen by the mind. The ability to fix attention is strengthened by the practice of the first five angas of Patanjali’s ashtangayoga, for without some cultivation of them the mind tends to meander and drift in every direction. Dhyana is meditation in the technical sense of the term, meaning the calm sustaining of focussed attention. In dhyana, consciousness still encounters some modifications, but they all flow in one direction and are not disturbed by other fluctuations of any sort. Rather like iron — consisting of molecules clustered together in various ways, their axes oriented in different directions — undergoes a shift of alignment of all molecules in a single direction when magnetized, so too consciousness can become unidirectional through experiencing a current of continuity in time.
Samadhi, broadly characterized as ‘meditative absorption’ or ‘full meditation’, signifies the deepening of dhyana until the chosen object of meditation stands alone and consciousness is no longer aware of itself as contemplating an object. In samadhi consciousness loses the sense of separateness from what is contemplated and, in effect, becomes one with it. Like a person wholly lost in their work, “the object stands by itself”, in the words of the Yogabhashya, as if there were only the object itself. Although these three phases can be viewed as separate and successive, when they occur together in one simultaneous act they constitute sanyama, serene constraint or luminous concentration. The novice who nonetheless is capable of entering samadhi may take a long time to move from dharana to deep samadhi, because he experiences the entire movement as a radical change in consciousness. But the adept in sanyama can include all three in a virtually instantaneous act, thus arousing the ability to move from one object of contemplation to another almost effortlessly.

Prajna, cognitive insight, the resplendent light of wisdom, or intuitive apprehension, comes as a result of mastering sanyama. Although prajna is the highest level of knowledge to which philosophy can aspire, it is not the supreme state, for it halts at the threshold of vivekakhyati, pristine awareness of Reality, which can be neither articulated nor elucidated. Sanyama, Patanjali taught, is not completely mastered all at once. Rather, once sanyama is attained, it is strengthened in stages by deft application to different objects and levels of being. Each such application reveals the divine light as it manifests in that context, until the adept practitioner of exalted sanyama can focus entirely on purusha itself. In sanyama the patient aspirant glimpses the divine radiance, the resplendent reflection of purusha, wherever he focusses attention, but in time he will behold only purusha. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna asked Arjuna to see Himself in all things, but in the climactic cosmic vision, Arjuna witnessed the cosmic form (vishvarupa) of the Lord. Sanyama is wholly internal, whilst the first five yoga practices are external. Though all the angas are crucial to yoga, the last three, harmoniously synthesized in sanyama, constitute yoga proper. Since this is the central aim of everything stated so far in the Yoga Sutras, sanyama received considerable emphasis from Patanjali.

Nirodha, restraint, cessation or interception, is essential to sanyama because it is concerned neither with different states nor objects of consciousness, but chiefly with the process of transformation or replacement of the contents of consciousness. In sanyama the definite shift from one object of attention to another — and these can be wholly abstract and mental objects — involves a change of mental impression. As an object fades from mental view, another appears on the mental horizon to take its place. But like the pregnant moment just before dawn, when night is fleeing and the first light of day is sensed but has not yet shown itself, there is a suspended moment when what is fading has receded and the new object of focus is yet to appear. This is nirodhaparinama, the moment, however fleeting, between successive modifications when, according to the Yogabhashya, “the mind has nothing but subliminal impressions”. (III.9) Should the mind lose its alertness at just that point, it would fall into a somnolent state, for in sanyama, consciousness is wholly absorbed in the object of consciousness, whilst in nirodhaparinama that object has vanished. But if it remains fully awake, it gains a powerful glimpse of the tranquil state of nonmodification, and may thus pass through the laya or still point of equilibrium to enter into a higher plane. With sufficient practice, the yogin learns to extend nirodha and abide in it long enough to initiate this transition. The less accomplished, if they do not get caught in the torpor of the penultimate void, may notice the passage of nirodha as a missed opportunity. With persistent effort, the yogin learns to remain in nirodha, relishing the peaceful, smooth flow of cosmic consciousness and reaching the highest samadhi.

Samadhiparinama, meditative transformation, occurs when nirodha is experienced not simply as a negation of objects of consciousness but rather as a positive meditation on nothingness. One-pointedness of consciousness has been so mastered through the progressive displacement of all distractions that ekagrata, one-pointedness, alone subsists, and this becomes ekagrataparinama, total one-pointedness. It is as if the seed of meditation, first sought and recovered every single time the mind wandered and was sharply brought back to a focus, then firmly fixed in focus, had been split asunder until nothing remained but the empty core upon which the mind settles peacefully. Here the besetting tendency to fluctuate has become feeble, whilst the propensity to apply restraint is strong. Since all states of consciousness are necessarily correlated with states of matter, both being products of the gunas stimulated to action by the presence of purusha, the depiction of consciousness also pertains to matter. The powerful transformation of consciousness is precisely matched in the continual transformations of matter, though the ordinary eye fails to apprehend the critical states in the transformation of matter, just as it remains largely unaware of nirodha. Nonetheless, there is a single substratum, dharmin, which underlies all change, whether in consciousness or in matter, and this is prakriti, the primeval root of all phenomena. For Patanjali, this means that all transformations are phenomenal in respect to prakriti the prima materia in its essential nature, and, like purusha, ever unmodified. The ceaseless fluctuations of mind and world are merely countless variations of succession owing to alterations of cause. Realizing this, the yogin who has mastered sanyama, and thereby controls the mind at will, can equally control all processes of gestation and growth.

Having elucidated the nature of concentration as the sole means for discovering and transforming consciousness at all levels, Patanjali turned to the remarkable phenomenal effects possible through sanyama. Any fundamental change in consciousness initiates a corresponding change in and around one’s vestures. A decisive shift in the operation and balance of the gunas, in thought, focus and awareness, reverberates throughout the oscillating ratios between the gunas everywhere. Since any significant refocussing of the mind produces dazzling insights and diverse phenomena, Patanjali conveyed their range and scope. For yoga they are not important in themselves because the goal is kaivalya, liberation, but they are vitally important as aids or obstacles on the way to achieving the goal. Patanjali could not dismiss or overlook them, since they are real enough and inescapable, and so he delineated them clearly, knowing fully that all such arcane information can be abused. One who willingly uses such knowledge to stray off the arduous path to emancipation brings misery upon himself. One who would use this knowledge wisely needs to understand the many ways one can be misled into wasting the abundant resources accessible to the yogin. Profound alterations in states of consciousness through sanyama can bring about awakened powers called siddhis, attainments, many of which may seem to be supernatural and supernormal to the average person. They are, however, neither miraculous nor supernatural, since they suspend, circumvent or violate no laws. Rather, they merely indicate the immense powers of controlled consciousness within the perspective of great Nature, powers that are largely latent, untapped and dormant in most human beings. They are suggestive parameters of the operation of the vast scope and potency of consciousness in diverse arenas of prakriti.

Sanyama, the electric fusion of dharana, dhyana and samadhi, can release preternatural knowledge of past and future; the yogin gains profound insight into the metaphysical mystery of time. The future is ever conditioned by the past, and the past is accurately reflected in every aspect of the future. The present is strictly not a period of time; it is that ceaselessly moving point which marks the continual transition from future to past. Comprehending causality, seeing the effect in the cause, like the tree in the seed, the yogin perceives past and future alike by concentrating on the three phases of transformation experienced in the present and which, at the critical points of transformation, indicate the eternal, changeless substratum hidden behind them. Once conscious awareness is fixed beyond the temporal succession of states of consciousness, causality ceases to be experienced as a series of interrelated events — since the succession is itself the operation of past karma — and is perceived as an integrated whole in the timeless present. Thus past and future are seen from the same transcendent perspective as the timeless present. Freeing oneself from captivity to the mechanical succession of moments in clock time, one can rise beyond temporality and grasp causality noetically rather than phenomenally.

Although language is often viewed as an arbitrary and conventional system of communication, interpersonal understanding and mental telepathy as well as rapport between receptive and congenial minds are based on more than mere convention. Just as time is experienced as internal to the subject when the mind is mechanical, whilst causality is not necessarily time-bound, the evolution of language cannot dispense with intersubjectivity, shared clusters of concepts, rites and rituals, habits and customs, races and cultures. The deepest meaning of sounds is subtle and elusive, dissolving meanings and expectations. The linkage connected to the possibility of speech as well as to the potency of the primordial OM, the secret name of Ishvara, is sphota, the ineffable and inscrutable meaning intimated by sounds and speech. Through sanyama, the yogin can so deftly discern sound, meaning and idea that he instantly grasps the meaning, whatever the utterance of any person. Not only does he readily understand what is said by anyone, however awkward, disingenuous or deceptive the utterance, but he also apprehends the meaning of any sound uttered by any sentient being, whether birds and beasts, insects; trees or aquatic creatures.

The focussing power of sanyama enables the yogin to explore the subtlest impressions retained on the mental screen, and in so doing he can summon them into the light of consciousness. In this way, he can examine his entire mental inheritance and even discern previous lives. Knowing the exact correlations between states of consciousness and external conditions, he can recognize the linkage between latent memories and the traumas they induce, as well as the integral connection between past impressions and their inevitable karmic effects, thereby recollecting the patterns of previous incarnations. Similarly, by directing his yogic focus on the pratyaya or content of any mind functioning through a set of vestures, he can cognize that mental condition. Since all such mental contents are mirrored in the features and gestures of another, he can read the thoughts of another by looking at the person, and he can make the same determination by examining any portion of the expressed thought of another. Rather like a hologram, each and every aspect of an individual reflects the evolving structure of the whole being. Through sanyama, any facet of the person can reveal his psychic and mental make-up. Such attention will not, however, unveil the underlying structure of another’s deepest consciousness, since that is hidden even to the person scrutinized. To discover the inward depths of the person, the yogin has to take the subject as the sole object of his sustained concentration and not merely that subject’s mental contents. The ultimate question “Who are you?” can be resolved only in the way the question “Who am I?” is taken as a theme of intense meditation.

For Patanjali, as for different schools of Indian thought and for Plato (Republic, Book VI), seeing is a positive act and not merely a passive reception of light refracted from an object in the line of sight. Seeing involves the confluence of light (an aspect of sattvaguna) from the object of sight and the light from the eye of the seer, an active power (another aspect of sattva). The yogin can direct sanyama to the form and colour of his own body and draw in the light radiating from it, centring it wholly within his mind, manas, so that the sattva from the eye of another cannot fuse with it. Thus the body of the yogin cannot be seen, for he has made himself invisible. Similarly, by meditation upon the ultimate basis of any sensory power, the element essential to that sense, and its corresponding sense-organ, the yogin can become soundless, intangible and beyond the limited range of all the bodily senses. With the proper inversion of the process, he can dampen or delete any senseimage, like glaring lights or background noise, either converting them into mild sensations or blanketing them entirely.

If the yogin should choose to practise sanyama on his past karma, he can obtain unerring insight into every causal chain he once initiated. Recognizing which tendencies are being expended and at what rates, as well as those lines of force which cannot bear fruit in this life, he may discern the time of his death — that point wherein the fruition of karma ensures the complete cessation of vital bodily functions. At the same time, such knowledge readily gives warnings of future events, all of which are the inevitable fruition of karma, and thus the yogin readily sees in each moment signs and portents of the future. He does not perceive, in such instances, something that is present only to his penetrating gaze. Rather, he is only reading correctly the futurity which ever lurks in present events, just as gold ore inheres in the dull rock even though only the trained eye of the prospector can see it and know it for what it is. Whilst such practical wisdom allows the yogin to foresee mental and physical conditions, he can also discern more fundamental changes which are due to the inexorable working of overlapping cycles, and, even more, he can focus on those critical points which trace the curve of potentiality for permanent spiritual change, or metanoia.

By focussing on maitri, kindliness, or any similar grace of character, the yogin can fortify that virtue in himself, thereby increasing his mental and moral strength and becoming the shining exemplar and serene repository of a host of spiritual graces. The yogin can activate and master any power manifest in Nature and mirrored in the human microcosm, refining its operation through his vestures, honing his inward poise and inimitable timeliness in its benevolent use. Thus, by contemplating the sattva or light within, discarding the reflected lights imperfectly and intermittently transmitted through the sensory apparatus, the yogin can investigate and come to cognize every subtle thing, whether small, hidden, veiled or very distant. He can discern the atom (anu) by deploying the light within, for all light is ultimately one. Should he choose to practise sanyama in respect to the sun, he can come to know the harmonies of the solar system from the standpoint of its hidden structure as a matrix of solar energies. Further, he can know all solar systems by analogy with ours, and so his comprehension of cosmic forces expressed in, through and around the sun is more than mere familiarity with the structure of a physical system. He also grasps the architectonics — psychic, mental and spiritual — of all such systems. Similarly, his concentration on the moon yields insights into the intricate arrangements of the stars, since, like the moon, they are all in motion around multiple centres. By concentrating on the pole-star — whose arcane significance is far more than what is commonly assumed on the basis of its visible locus in the sidereal vault — he discerns the motions of the stars in relation to one another, not just on the physical plane but also as the shimmering veil of Ishvara, the manifested Logos of the cosmos.

Directing the power of sanyama upon the soul’s vestures, the yogin can calmly concentrate on the solar plexus, connected with the pivotal chakra or psycho-spiritual centre in the human constitution, and thus thoroughly grasp the structure and dynamics of the physical body. By concentrating on the pit of the throat, connected with the trachea, he can control hunger and thirst. Since hunger and thirst are physical expressions at one level of being which have corresponding correlates and functions at every level, his concentration can also affect mental and psychic cravings, since he has mastered the prana or vital energy flowing from this particular chakra. More specifically, by concentrating on the nadi, or nervecentre called the ‘tortoise’, below the trachea, the yogin gains mental, psychic and physical steadiness, facilitating enormous feats of strength.

If sanyama is directed to the divine light in the head, the yogin can come to see siddhas, perfected beings. This supple light is hidden in the central sushumna nerve in the spinal column, and emanates that pristine vibration (suddhasattva) which is magnetically linked to the sun and is transmitted through the moon. Concentrating on that supernal light, the yogin can perceive those perfected beings whose luminous and translucent vestures are irradiated by the light of the Logos (daiviprakriti). Similarly, concentration on the laser light of spiritual intuition, kundalini released by buddhi, results in flashes of inward illumination. This light emanates from pratibha, the pure intellect which is self-luminous and omnidirectional, constant and complete, unconnected with earthly aims and objects. Focussing on its radiance releases taraka jnana, the transcendental gnosis which has been aptly termed ‘the knowledge that saves’. This primeval wisdom is wholly unconditioned by any temporal concern for self or the external world, is self- validating and self-shining, the ultimate goal of Taraka Raja Yoga. It puts one in close communion with Ishvara whilst preserving a vital link, like a silver thread, with the world of woe, illusion and ignorance. Pratibha is that crystalline intellection exemplified by Bodhisattvas who have transcended all conditionality, yet seek to serve ceaselessly all souls trapped in the chains of bondage. By concentration on the secret, spiritual heart — the anahata chakra — the yogin becomes attuned to cosmic intellection, for the anahata is man’s sacred connection with cosmic consciousness, reverberating until near death with the inaudible yet ever pulsating OM.

Should the yogin master all these marvellous siddhis, he would still remain ensnared in the world which is pervaded by pain and nescience, until he is prepared to take the next, absolutely vital step in the mastery of taraka jnana. Any individual involuntarily participates in the stream of sensory experience by blindly assenting to the pleasurepain principle. This will last as long as he cannot discriminate between purusha, the cosmic Self, and the individuating principle of spiritual insight, sattva. Even the subtlest light shining in the incomprehensible darkness of pure Spirit, purusha, must be transcended. The Yogabhashya states the central issue: “It has therefore been asked in the Upanishad: By what means can the Knower be known?” Sanyama must be entirely directed to purusha so that it is perfectly mirrored in the serene light of noetic understanding (sattva). Buddhi that intuitive faculty of divine discernment through which the highest sattva expresses itself, becomes a pellucid mirror for purusha. Just as purusha, cosmically and individually, penetrates and comprehendsprakriti, so too the highestprakriti now becomes the indispensable means for apprehending purusha. This is the basis for svasamvedana, ultimate self-knowledge, the paradigm for all possible self-study at any and every level of consciousness and being. Once this fundamental revolution has occurred, self-consciousness can turn back to the world of objects — which once plunged it into a state of delusion and later gave rise to a series of obstacles to be surmounted — and adopt a steadfast, universal standpoint flowing from allpotent, pure awareness. What once needed various mental and psychophysical mechanisms can now be accomplished without adventitious aids, thereby dispensing altogether with all conditionality and systemic error.

In practice, the yogin can now freely and directly exercise the powers commonly connected with the lower sense-organs, without dependence on sensory data. Hence his sight, hearing, smell, taste and especially touch are extrasensory, far greater in range and reach than ever before, precisely because there is no longer reliance on imperfect sensory mechanisms conditioned by physical space and psychological time. What were once obstructions to the deepest meditation (samadhi) can now serve as talismanic aids in benefitting both Nature and Humanity. The yogin can, for example, choose at will to enter another’s body with full consent, because his mind is no longer entangled with a physical or astral vesture and because he knows the precise conduits through which minds are tethered to bodies. Having risen above any and all temptation to gratify the thirst for sensation or the craving for experience, he can employ his extraordinary powers and extra-sensory faculties solely for the sake of universal enlightenment and the welfare of the weak.

Having gained complete self-mastery, the yogin can now exercise benevolent control over invisible and visible Nature (prakriti) for the Agathon, the greatest good of all. Since even his own vestures are now viewed as external to him, his relation to them has become wholly isomorphic with his conscious connection to the vital centres in the Great Macrocosm. By mastering udana, one of the five currents of prana, chiefly connected with vertical motion, the yogin makes his body essentially impervious to external influences, including the presence of gravity and the inevitability of death. By mastering samana, the current of prana which governs metabolic and systemic processes, he can render his body self-luminous and radiant, as Jesus did during his climactic transfiguration and as Moses is said to have done during his salvific descent from Mount Sinai. Knowing the integral connection between the inner ear and akasha, the supple light and etheric empyrean in invisible space, the trained yogin can hear anything that ever impressed itself, however distantly, upon that universal, homogeneous and supersensuous medium. Similarly, knowing the vital connection between the astral body and akasha, he can make his body light and even weightless, and also as pliable and versatile as a superb musical instrument.

From the standpoint of self-consciousness, the yogin who has mastered taraka jnana can practise mahavideha, the power of making the mind wholly incorporeal, so that it abides in pure and perfect awareness beyond even buddhi. Such a state of cosmic consciousness is indescribable, though it can be identified as that exalted condition in which no light anywhere is absent from his mental horizon. From the standpoint of Nature, the perfected yogin has total control of matter and can fully comprehend it in its subtlest and most minute forms. He can manifest through his vestures the entire spectrum of possibilities of universal self-consciousness and effortless control over matter — merging into the atom, magnifying himself into the galactic sphere, making the human temple worthy of every perfection, including grace, beauty, strength, porosity, malleability and rock-like hardness. Controlling the seven sense-organs, the masterly yogin knows precisely how they function on the spiritual, mental, moral and physical planes, and he can instantaneously cognize anything he chooses. Comprehending and controlling pradhana, the common principle and substratum of invisible Nature, he can direct every change and mutation in material prakriti. He is no longer subject to the instruments he employs, for the entire cosmos has become his aeolian harp and sounding-board.

The yogin’s total grasp of the elusive and ever-shifting distinction between purusha and prakriti, especially between the universal Self and the individuating principle of understanding (sattva), between subject and object at all levels, becomes the basis for his unostentatious sovereignty over every possible state of existence. His complete comprehension of the Soundless Sound (OM), of the Sound in the Light and the Light in the Sound, results in what is tantamount to serene omnipotence and silent omniscience. Yet although the perfected yogin is a Magus, a Master of gnosis, wholly lifted out of the sphere of prakriti and supremely free, self-existent and self-conquered, he does not allow even the shadow of attachment to transcendental joy to stain his sphere of benevolence to all. Complete and invulnerable non-attachment, vairagya, can destroy the lurking seeds of self-concern and susceptibility to delusion, and he may thus approach the threshold of kaivalya, supreme self-emancipation. If, however, he is enthralled by the glorious deities and celestial wonders he encounters in the spiritual empyrean, he could rekindle the dormant yearning for terrestrial life, with its fastproliferating chain of earthly entanglements. But if he steadfastly practises sanyama on the kalachakra, the Wheel of Time, and even more, penetrates the last veil of kala, the mystery of Being, Becoming and Beness, the infinitude of the Eternal Now hidden within the infinitesimal core of the passing moment, he can dissolve without trace the divine yogamaya of conditioned space-time. Such unfathomable depths of consciousness transcend the very boundaries of gnosis and cannot be conveyed in any language, conceptual or ontological .

The purest and most perfect awareness is indistinguishable from the direct apprehension of ultimate Reality wherein, in the words of Shankaracharya, the very distinctions between seer, seeing and sight, or knower, knowing and known, wholly vanish. Here, for example, the Leibnizian principle of the identity of indiscernibles collapses in thought and language. Knowing eternityintime in its irreducible moments, even indistinguishable events or objects can be instantaneously separated in an ecstatic, simultaneous apprehension of the One without a second, of the One mirrored in the many, of the many copresent in the One, of the tree of knowledge within the tree of life. And yet nothing is known by species, genus or class: each thing is known by its instantaneous co-presence. Taraka jnana is thus not only omniscient in its range but simultaneous in its scope. The yogin knows at once all that can possibly be known, in a world of commonalities, comparisons and contrasts, and infinitesimal parts within infinite wholes.

Supreme emancipation, kaivalya, dawns only when purusha shines unhindered and sattva receives the full measure of light. Purusha is no longer veiled, obscured or mirrored by the faculties and functions of prakriti and buddhi becomes unconditional, untainted by any teleological or temporal trace. There is no more any consciousness of seeking the light, which the aspirant legitimately entertains, or of radiating the light, which the recently omniscient yogin experiences. There is now solely the supernal and omnipresent, everexisting light of purusha, abiding in its intrinsic splendour of supreme freedom, and this is kaivalya, the supreme state of being “aloof and unattached, like akasha” (Srimad Bhagavatam Vl). Since this is the ultimate goal of Taraka Raja Yoga, in terms of which each spiritual potency, skill and striving must be calibrated, Patanjali devoted the concluding fourth pada to this exalted theme.

In the memorable words of the Sage Kapila to Devahuti, the daughter of Manu:

The moment his mind ceases to discriminate, by reason of the activities of the senses, between objects which are not intrinsically different, looking upon some as pleasant, on others as not, that moment he sees with his own mind his own SELF, equable and self-luminous, free from likes and dislikes, and completely aloof, serenely established in the intuition of transcendental rapture. Pure Consciousness is spoken of variously as parabrahm, paramatman, Ishvara or purusha. The Lord, the One without a second, masquerades as the multiplicity of seer, seen and so on. The one goal of all yoga, practised perfectly with all its ancillary disciplines, is the attainment by the yogin of total detachment from the world….
At the same time he should learn to see the SELF in all creatures, and all creatures in the SELF, making no difference between them, even as in all creatures he recognizes the presence of the gross elements. Just as fire looks different in the diverse logs that it burns, owing to the difference between the logs, so too does the SELF seem different in the varied bodies it indwells. The yogin, vanquishing thus the inscrutable maya of the Lord, which deludes the jiva and is the cause of the phenomenal world, rests secure in his own true state.
Srimad Bhagavatam

Hermes, April 1989 Raghavan Iyer

The Yoga Sutras - VII

Kaivalya Pada

With the fulfillment of their twofold purpose, the experience and the emancipation of the SELF, and with the cessation of mutations, the gunas cannot manifest even for a moment.
Yogabhashya

Patanjali provided a vast perspective on consciousness and its varied levels, as well as the necessary and sufficient conditions for sustained meditation. He set forth the essential prerequisites to meditation, the persisting obstacles to be overcome by the conscientious seeker, and the awesome powers and exhilarating experiences resulting from the progressive attainment of samadhi. In the fourth pada, the heart of which is kaivalya, the ultimate aim and transcendental culmination of the discipline of Taraka Raja Yoga, Patanjali epitomized the entire process from the standpoint of the adept yogin in meditation. He was thus able to offer a rounded exposition which might otherwise remain obscure. The Yoga Sutras is for daily use, and not dilettantish perusal. Its compelling logic is intrinsically self validating as well as capable of continuous self testing. Its reasonableness and efficacy are endorsed by a long succession of accredited seers and seekers.
The siddhis, or arcane, supernormal and spiritual powers, may be inborn in any incarnation. Although they may appear spontaneous or superfluous to the superficial eye, they are strictly the products of profound meditations in previous lives, as they depend for their development on mastery of the mind and its myriad correlations amongst the manifold elements in the cosmos. Since individual consciousness may have undergone such strenuous discipline in prior incarnations but not in the present life, the imprint of these practices in the immortal soul can be retained without conscious remembrance of the fact. If, however, it is not supported and strengthened by conscious discipline (abhyasa) in this life, the manifestation of unusual mental capacities and uncommon siddhis may be sporadic, relatively uncontrolled and precariously inconstant. Furthermore, because all knowledge is recollection, in a Platonic sense, and the residues of the past linger in the present, siddhis can sometimes be stimulated by hallucinogenic drugs and herbs like verbena, or by sacred chants and time honoured incantations, although the effects of external aids are notoriously uneven and ever unpredictable. Systematic austerities (tapas) may also release something of the attainments of previous incarnations, but true samadhi alone provides the rigorous, progressive and reliable pathway to self-mastery and sovereignty over the subtle forces of Nature. With such complete command of the gunas or modes of prakriti as it manifests in the mind and in the external world, the adept yogin can alter his nature from one class of being (the human) to another (a deva or god, in a broad sense of the term), if the karmic conditions in life are congenial and conducive to rapid development. Even then, the wise practitioner would not pursue this discipline except from the highest of motives, for anything less would hinder prakrityapurat, the ‘flow of prakriti’ needed for its safe and smooth accomplishment.

No significant change of human nature would be possible if it merely depended upon instrumental causes, for these can only rearrange components or unveil hidden but pre-existent features. Hence, doing good deeds cannot transform one’s composite nature, nor need they bear that burden, for one’s inmost nature is purusha, Self alone, and this is reflected by pure consciousness, buddhi. Right conduct on the moral and mental planes can remove various obstructions to the rapid unfoldment of the vast potential of consciousness and that complete realization of purusha known as self-emancipation (kaivalya). To the yogin, his mind serves as the director of any number of mental matrices or emanated minds which can carry out semiindependent functions under its supervision. Just as the presence of purusha quickens and facilitates the fertile expansion of consciousness, so too the controlled mind of the yogin stimulates intellection everywhere. The yogin can work through the receptive minds of mature disciples, aiding all humanity by strengthening its spiritual aspirations. Whether mental aspects of the yogin or the sympathetic minds of others, no matrix of consciousness is free of samskaras or mental deposits, save the yogin ’s mind born of meditation. Only the consciousness integrated by pure dhyana is devoid of all impediment.

The yogin is above good and evil acts, not because he has become indifferent to the consequences of action, but rather because he is naturally disposed to remove all obstructions and mental deposits. Good conduct as well as bad bears fruit for the doer, but the yogin acts in such complete accord with Nature that what he does responds to necessity, being neither pure (sattva) nor polluted (tamas) nor mixed, like that of most human beings. His conduct follows a fourth course, that of nishkama or desirelessness, so that he cannot be said to do what he wishes, but rather he only does what needs to be done. Nishkama karma, the fruition of pure desireless action, neither returns nor clings to the yogin. Being one with Nature, he ceases to be a separative centre of focus or agency, and his actions, strictly speaking, are no longer ‘his’, being the spontaneous play of prakriti before purusha. Hence, he leaves no impressions or residues in his consciousness even whilst doing his duty with single minded precision, since he acts as the willing instrument of purusha immanent in prakriti. He has only former mental deposits, resulting from past karma, which he meticulously removes to attain total freedom.

The yogin’s assiduously nurtured capacities disallow the emergence of fresh karma, the results of which could adhere to him because he is no longer subject to vasana, the force of craving and the unchecked impulse for life in form, with its attendant consequences. But he cannot instantly dissolve karma generated long ago, for whatever was the result of vasana in the past must inevitably linger, although the yogin is aware of its antecedents and does not become distracted or discouraged by it. In addition to the results that are already manifest, the force of craving and the vasanas (identifiable traces of unfulfilled longings and the cumulative karma they rapidly engender) deposit unconscious residues in the mind. These are more difficult to discern, for they are not recurring modifications of consciousness such as those induced by specific objects of desire, but are subtle tinctures or discolorations in the lens of cognition, hard to detect, recognize and remove. Being unconscious, and unknown to the thinker, they will appear only when conditions are ripe, and the yogin must patiently wait for their emergence in order to eliminate them. Even though immense periods of time and many incarnations may intervene between the initial insertion of the vasanas into consciousness and their eventual emergence, they are neither dissolved nor transformed, for they are retained in a stream of soul reminiscence which is not brain dependent, and which indeed provides a basis of continuity. This stream of latent reminiscence is revealed in the sometimes sudden appearance of surprising tendencies that seem out of character, but are nonetheless inescapable in the strict operation of karma.

Although any specific vasana could, in principle, be traced to a particular point in time — some previous incarnation — when the stream of consciousness encountered a similar cluster of thoughts, feelings or acts, vasana or desire in general is atemporal. It is coeval with mind (chitta) and with the cosmos. Whilst any distinct vasana could first appear only when a congenial psychophysical structure arose to make its manifestation possible, vasana as a force is an inextricable element in the matrices of differentiated matter. Just because the propensity to enjoyment or self-indulgence is an integral aspect of the cosmic process — the captivating dance of prakriti before purusha — the overcoming of all such propensities demands a deliberate choice maintained over time through Taraka Raja Yoga, the discipline of transcendental detachment. Vasana finds its support in the mutable mind, which is the action of prakriti owing to the proximity of purusha. Only when the mind is fully awake, wholly focussed and serenely steadfast will vasana vanish. This is equivalent to the potential ability of prakriti to behold purusha qua purusha without wavering, and this is only possible as a deliberate act — buddhi reflecting purusha without distortion or fluctuation.

Considered from the temporal standpoint, the protracted continuity of vasana as a strong force and the specific vasanas as persisting matrices of memory suggest the arbitrariness of the divisions of time into past, present and future. Each vasana is but a seed which inevitably grows into a plant and bears appropriate fruit: knowing the seed, one can cognize all future states of development. In the present lie latent the past and the future, just as the present was contained in the future and will remain until it slides speedily into the past. The underlying reality cannot be understood without seeing the present as no more than a moving phase through the limitless continuum of time, all of which is latent save for the swiftly passing moment. When all the vasanas have been consigned to the past, and when even the very basis of desire ceases to bother consciousness, kaivalya alone abides. All continuous change and the ramifying consequences of change are the tumultuous activity of the gunas, and when that relentless activity belongs to the past, no longer swaying the mind of the yogin, the gunas have ceased their incessant interplay in the stream of consciousness. Becoming latent, they have ceased to manifest and have become dormant or homogeneous, leaving intact the luminous vision of serene self emancipation (kaivalya).

An object is what it is not because of some unique substratum, for the ultimate substratum of everything is the same. An object is distinct only because of the complex configuration of the gunas, the ceaseless interplay of which constitutes its nature. The fluid geometry of Nature, with the shifting ratios of gunas, permits some objects to persist longer than others, but the principle remains the same and endurance is merely relative. Even though an object survives for a time, the mutual activity of the gunas which constitutes each mind is different and alters at varying rates. Hence each person cognizes the object distinctively. The object is independent of each and every mind, though all apprehension of the object is entirely mind-dependent. Whether an object is known or not is the result of whether or not a particular mind is attracted to it. Purusha, however, cannot be a mental object. Rather, it is seen directly when the mind remains focussed upon it and does not move. Significantly, direct awareness of purusha occurs when the mind ceases to act, which in Sankhya philosophy is equivalent to saying that the mind ceases to be what it is. Purusha witnesses all mental modifications and is the true Knower precisely because it does not alter or waver.

The mind is not self-luminous and cannot know itself by its own effort. Subject to change, it can be seen as an object by another, and ceaselessly changing, it cannot know itself, for change cannot discern change, just as relativities cannot calibrate relativities. Purusha, the ever changeless, is alone the Knower, whose reflection is cast upon consciousness, which thenknows derivatively. Since the mind moves from moment to moment, it cannot both function as that which cognizes and that which is cognized. Hence, that which cognizes the mind whilst it cognizes objects (and so undergoes modification) is above the mind. Since consciousness operates on many levels, the level of awareness which apprehends consciousness necessarily transcends the level of the apprehended consciousness. Ultimately, purusha comprehends all consciousness. One cannot speak of one mind knowing another within itself, as if the human being were constituted by many minds — an erroneous view encouraged by the limitations of descriptive and conceptual languages; one would have to posit an infinite regress of such minds, each knowing the one ‘below’ or ‘in front of’ itself, since none could know itself. The absurdity of an infinite series of minds within the consciousness of each individual is shown clearly by the problem of memory. Which mind would then remember? All of them? An infinitude of interacting memories would result in utter confusion of consciousness.

Self-cognition is possible when the relativating nature of the mind — its constant fluctuation which is the activity of the gunas — ceases. Pure consciousness desists from deploying the mind and so can know it, and when it does so, it ceases to be involved in any sort of movement from moment to moment. “The self-knowledge spoken of here”, W. Q. Judge wrote, “is that interior illumination desired by all mystics, and is not merely a knowledge of self in the ordinary sense.” Likening consciousness to light and the mind to a globe, I. K. Taimini suggested a striking metaphor: “If a light is enclosed within a translucent globe, it reveals the globe. If the globe is removed, the light reveals itself.” This revelation is not knowledge in any ordinary sense, because within it there is no subject/object distinction, no separation of perceiver, perceived and perception; there is only the eternal Reality of the Self-illuminated purusha. Although the mind, acted upon by the gunas and so consisting wholly of prakriti, is not consciousness, it is tinctured by purusha and receives its luminous hue from it, even whilst suffused with the gaudier colours of the world of objects. It seems to be both conscious and nonconscious, and so those who do not know purusha but experience its effects in prakriti mistake the mind, an instrument, for consciousness itself, when in fact the true cognizer of objects impressed upon the mind is purusha. This root error — mistaking the organ of perception for the power of perception — is the origin of all ignorance, illusion and sorrow.

The mind, which is essentially an assemblage,” the Yogabhashya teaches, “cannot act on its own to serve its own interests.” (IV.24) Modified by a chaotic series of new impressions and weighed down by myriad deposits from past impressions, the mind cannot act for itself even though it thinks it does. From a teleological standpoint, the mind exists solely for purusha, and despite an individual’s deep-seated, ignorant confusion — the inexorable cause of sorrow — all mental activity arises in association with the Self, which it unknowingly seeks. Impressions engender a maya of independent activity which is dispelled in samadhi wherein the nature of the mind is discerned. When the Perceiver, purusha, sees beyond the confusion of ordinary cerebrations, there is no identification of the power of sight with the instrument of seeing, and it is entirely unaffected by the attributes, tendencies and images of the mind. The fully awakened, alert and tranquil mind, settled in the supreme stillness of samadhi, speedily learns correct cognition and moves steadily in the direction of kaivalya, self-emancipation. In fact, it is purusha hidden behind the gossamer veils of intellection whose light illumines the way, but, in the apt analogy of I. K. Taimini, like the magnet attracting iron filings, the mind seems to move towards the magnetic purusha, when in truth the invisible power of purusha draws the mind to itself. At this exalted stage, the individual seeks nothing except the total freedom of self emancipation. Even when the mind, like a guided missile locked on to its target, moves without the slightest wavering or change of course towards the luminous purusha, old impressions will cyclically reassert themselves, owing to their unspent momentum. They can be eliminated by the same methods developed for dissolving the kleshas or afflictions, except that here the yogin knows them already for what they are and can instantaneously destroy them, or return them to complete dormancy, through undisturbed discernment (vivekakhyati) of the True Self (purusha).

When the yogin abides in this peaceful state wherein purusha alone stands at the focal point of his entire consciousness, he verges on prasankhyana, omniscience or complete illumination. Since any lurking attachment can be a hindrance to self realization, he must renounce even the desire for the highest illumination, save insofar as it may elevate all existence. From the inception of his spiritual quest in lives long past, viveka (discrimination) and vairagya (detachment) have been crucial to his endeavours. As viveka culminates in vivekakhyati (discernment of the Real), so too vairagya culminates in paravairagya, supreme detachment towards the highest conceivable fruit of effort, prasankhyana. When this occurs, samadhi becomes dharmamegha, the rain cloud of righteousness, which is perpetual discernment of purusha or unending enlightenment. The circle is closed, the line returns upon itself, and the yogin passes from linear time into the omnidirectional realization of purusha, the Self, rising above time to the Eternal Now which transcends every moment though implicit in temporal succession. All the residues of the afflictions (kleshas) simply drop away as water runs off an impervious surface, and the yogin finds self-emancipation even in embodied life. Dharmamegha samadhi destroys the residuum of karma and the kleshas at the root, so that they can never arise again. The yogin has attained that supreme felicity from which there is no falling away.

The yogin’s cognition becomes infinite and without any limit whatsoever, for of the three gunas, rajas and tamas have ceased to be active. But even this cognition is transcended, for the stilling of rajas and tamas deprives sattva of a contrasting field for expression, and so all three gunas become quiescent. This can be conceived as their merger into homogeneous latency or as their cessation, for they no longer sustain the process of ceaseless transformation. Without such transformation, there is no existence as evident in Nature (prakriti), and yet since they remain latent they still exist for all those who live in ignorance. As all knowledge depends upon transformations of consciousness which occur through the succession of moments (kshanas), knowledge is limited by the discontinuity of moments. For the yogin who has reached the threshold of kaivalya, the succession of moments is seen as a discrete continuum and is wholly transcended. His knowledge is no longer bound by temporal succession because he beholds the process as a whole. Rather than being subject to the transformations of the world, he sees them as an endless succession of discrete states, whilst his transcendental (taraka) knowledge is continuous and complete. He is now the Perceiver (purusha), utterly unaffected by the passing show of phenomenal Nature (prakriti).

The gunas, no longer stirred to activity by the presence of purusha, are reabsorbed into absolute latency, and purusha abides in its own essential nature, without any trace of ignorance, misconception, confusion and sorrow. For the yogin, experience comes to an end, for he has become one with his true nature, which is purusha, the energy of pure consciousness — devoid of moments — which is cosmic ideation, upon which all noumena and phenomena depend. This is complete emancipation, kaivalya, and supreme peace, nirvana. Kaivalya is the ineffable state of stillness — though such terms are wholly inadequate, metaphysically and metapsychologically — which is the self-existence of purusha in and as itself. The yogin is no longer captive to the central duality postulated in Sankhya philosophy, for he beholds purusha, which is himself, in the entire cosmos, and the entire cosmos, which is also himself, in purusha.For him, as in Mahayana mysticism, nirvana is samsara and vice versa. Since there is no separation between the two, there is no room for even the subtlest error, and so sin and sorrow vanish forever. Sat-chit-ananda, Being, Consciousness and Bliss, constitute for him the fullness of purusha, which nonetheless abides beyond them as the attributeless Self.

What, one might ask, does the yogin do now? Does he abide forever in unalloyed bliss? Such questions cannot be raised, for the yogin is no longer a creature of time and space. Rather than being now or doing then, he always was, is and will be, for he lives in the Eternal Now. Even though consciousness, bound by time, change and error, makes of such an inconceivable condition a frozen ecstasy, no picture of it can be anything but a fantasy rooted in ignorance. The yogin is entirely free and moves through sublime states of awareness which the unenlightened mind can neither imagine nor articulate, and therefore Patanjali, a true Sage, remained silent. When the yogin ceases to be a part of the temporal process and becomes indistinguishable from it — on the principle of the identity of indiscernibles — he becomes its creator. He was there in the beginning and he is its eschaton, the end and goal beyond which there is only Silence.

In the memorable words of Shrimad Bhagavatam, Book XI:

The yogin, having discarded the notions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, though experiencing the objects of the senses in all their diversity, is no more addicted to them than the wind to the places where it happens to blow. The yogin who has realized the SELF, though he seems to identify with the properties of the material vesture he inhabits, is no more attached to them than the breeze is attached to the fragrant scent it carries. Even whilst remaining in the body, the Sage should think of his soul as unattached to the body and the like, and unlimited just as the sky is, not only because it is present in all Nature, animate and inanimate, as the invariable concomitant, but being identical with the Supreme, it is also all pervading….

Pure and kind-hearted by nature, the Sage is like water, in that he is a sanctifying influence in the lives of those who purify themselves by seeing, touching or speaking of him. Radiating power, enhanced by austerities, possessing nothing, yet imperturbable, the yogin who has steadied his mind remains unsoiled like the fire, regardless of what he may consume…. While the creation and destruction of the bodies that the SELF assumes proceeds every moment at the hands of Time, which rushes like a swift stream, the SELF remains unnoticed, like the emergence and subsidence of tongues of flame in a burning fire.

Hermes, May 1989 Raghavan Iyer

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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