A large number of people, both in the East and the West are genuinely interested in the subject of Yoga. This is natural because a man who has begun to question life and its deeper problems desires something more definite and vital for his spiritual needs than mere promise of heavenly joy. Those who have lost faith in orthodox religion and yet feel that their life is not a meaningless phenomenon, naturally turn to the philosophy of yoga for the solution of problems connected with higher life.
The philosophical of yoga deals with some of the great problems of life and the universe and so it is but natural to be associated with a spiritual atmosphere. If the doctrines of yoga are studied in the light of both ancient and modern thought, it is much easier for the student to understand and appreciate them. The discoveries made in the field of science are especially helpful in enabling the student to understand certain facts of yogic life, for there is a certain correspondence between the laws of higher life and the life on the physical plane.
Some teachers of yoga have attempted to meet the difficulty by taking out of the philosophy and techniques of yoga, those particular practices which are easy to understand and practice. Many of these practices like Asana and Pranayama are more of a physical nature and when divorced from the higher and essential teachings of yoga, they are reduced to a mere system of physical culture. This over-simplification of the problem of yogic life has greatly minimized the importance of yoga and produced a wrong impression about the real purpose and technique of yoga.
What is needed for the average student of yoga is clear, intelligible presentation of its philosophy and technique which gives a correct and balanced idea of its aspects in terms of modern thought. The general philosophy and the broader aspects of its technique can be understood by a student who is familiar with the main trends of philosophical thought, and is prepared to bring to his study an open and eager mind. It is only when he enters the path of practical yoga and brings about a new orientation in his thought that he can hope to gain real insight into the problems of yoga and their solution.
The science of yoga is comprehensive in its nature and profound in its doctrines so much so that it cannot be fitted into the frame work of any particular philosophy, ancient and modern. It stands in its own right as a science based upon the laws of the higher life and does not recognize the support of any science or philosophical system to uphold its claims. Its truths are based on the experiences and experiments of an unbroken line of saints and sages who have realized and borne witness to them throughout ages. Although an attempt has been made to explain the teachings of yoga on a rational basis so that the student may be able to grasp them easily, the facts of higher life gained through the practice of yoga, appeal more to the intuition than to the intellect.
“The acceptance of authority of the scriptures by the different systems of Indian thought is an admission that intuitive insight is greater than intellectual understanding in the abstruse problems of philosophy.” Buddha emphasizes the importance of Bodhi or enlightenment. This Bodhi amounts to realizing in life basic unity of existence. Sri Shankara regards Anubhava or integral experience as the highest kind of apprehension. Buddhaghosh makes pragna or intuitive knowledge superior to Vignana or logical understanding. Different names are given to this intuitive knowledge which is not due to senses or inference, such as Pratibha, Arsagnana, Siddhadarshana and Yog-pratyaksha. “While the dominant feature of Indian thought is its insistence on creative intuition, the Western systems are generally characterized by a greater adherence to critical intelligence.”
The cognitive experience resulting a knowledge of the Real is produced in three ways, they are sense experience, discursive reasoning and intuitive apprehension. Sense experience helps us to know the outer characters of the external world by means of it we obtain an acquaintance with the sensible qualities of the objects. Logical knowledge is obtained by the process of analysis and synthesis which yields conceptual explanation. This conceptual knowledge is indirect and symbolic in character. Bergson opines that logical knowledge takes us away from the individual and the actual into a world of abstractions, while intuitive knowledge gives us an insight into the nature of the real. For by intuitive knowledge we see things as they are, as unique individuals and not as members of a class or units in a crowd. Intuitive knowledge is non-sensuous, immediate and direct. In yoga it is termed Aparoksha which means knowledge that arises from an intimate fusion of mind with reality. It is knowledge by identity and not by senses or by symbols.
The illustration of intuitive insight given by yoga is knowledge of the Self, to become aware of our Self directly by a sort of identity with it. “Self knowledge is the presupposition of every other kind of knowledge whether sensuous or logical.” All experience is to the ‘I’, and the ‘I’ is implicit in all awareness. This ‘I’ is not the body however intimate it may be. The ‘I’ implicit in all knowledge is not something either sensed or inferred by logic, but something immediately lived and known by experience.
The Greek aphorism ‘Know Thyself’ is akin to the Upanishad precept ‘Atmanam Vidhi’. By a process of abstraction we get behind the layers of body, and intellect and reach the universal Self. In the philosophy of Upanishads the Self or the Atman is everything; it is even identified with Brahman, the universal Soul. In the sixth chapter of the Chandogya Upanishad there is a characteristic dialogue between Uddalaka and his son Shwetaketu in which all the examples conclude with the famous sentence ‘Tatwamasi’, Tho are that; that is to say thy soul is one with the universal soul.
There are certain schools of philosophy which deny the existence of self, and there are a few for which the self is everything. Yoga maintains the reality of self but it is of opinion that the self is a notion which is relative in the sense that there is no self without, the Supreme, without an other which is not wholly other, a beyond that is within. This relation of the Self and the Supreme varies with the evolutionary level of the individual. For the savage or the primitive man the self is his body, the whole physical support of his joys and appetites. For the man who has learnt to think a little and who no longer identifies himself completely with his physical body, the self becomes a psychic being. His body does not belong to the self but enters the realm of the not self. Then comes a further stage, the one described by Descarte in his famous sentence, Cogito ergo sum; I think therefore I am. Here man has learnt to identify himself with his thinking principle; he has learnt to dominate his body and his emotions which are no more the essence of his self. Through his mental self he puts himself in tune with all the thinkers and understands them, whether they belong to the present or the past.
There exists a still higher faculty in man; it rises within him in rare moments of deep self-recollection or a great wave of enthusiasm. This faculty is known as intuition with which I have already dealt with. It is constantly present with some of the pioneers of humanity, the great sages, the mystics and the yogis. By impersonal love and by wonderful attunement of his vibrations, man enters into direct communion with the Supreme from within.
Thus there exists an ascent of the self and the Supreme in succession. Each time the ‘I’ or the Self becomes a deeper and more interior reality, the realm of the Supreme with which the self comes into contact, becomes larger and richer. In the light of this ascent one understands better this passage of Chhandogya Upanishad – “This self within the heart is smaller than a grain of rice, smaller than a corn of barley, smaller than a mustard seed……this self within the heart is greater than the earth, greater than the sky, greater than the heaven, greater than all these worlds.” Let us use another image and say that the self is smaller than the atom, smaller than the kernel of the atom, smaller than an electron but never-the-less greater than this vast universe. What does all this mean? It means that at one end the self is individual and at the other end it is universal, and the universal is immanent in the individual. In the words of Christ the self is the Kingdom of Heaven which is present in the heart of one and all.
In the gospels many parables are devoted to the kingdom of Heaven, and this Heaven is not only the paradise of the devout people, it is also the divine self in man. It is in this sense that the parables find their significance. The Kingdom of Heaven is at the same time that which is the smallest and that which is the greatest, and Christ uses in this connection an image very similar to the Chhandogya Upanishad: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man too and sowed in his field….which is indeed the least of all seeds, but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs and bemoth a tree so that the birds of air come and lodge in the branches there of.” “Like the self, the Kingdom of Heaven penetrates and vivifies all things, for it is”. “Like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened.” Again the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a pearl for the acquisition of which a merchant sold all that he had.”
The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea and gathered fish of every kind…….which when it was full they drew to shore and gathered the good but cast the bad away.”
Man is indeed an eternal fisher: constantly he casts in the ocean of life the net of his desires, of his thoughts and of his deeds. Most of his activities are vain and the net he draws ashore is almost empty or filled with a useless booty. However, from time to time he fishes a feeling of devotion, a thought of understanding, an act of sacrifice, a sentiment of love and at each such time he comes a little nearer to the Kingdom of Heaven, to the Divine Self within. This kingdom, this deeper self can only be approached by dint of simplicity and purity, that is why in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, man must become as a little child and lose all the complications of his inner life. To become as a little child means to pass through a new birth, a birth into the spiritual. Man is born into the world of matter and of necessity but he is to be reborn in the world of spirit and of affinity. This rebirth denotes the spiritual life which is nothing else than the living understanding of the unity that binds us all to our fellow beings and to the rest of the world. This unity may be intellectually perceived as a universal law, a supreme synthesis of ever greater laws. This road is being trodden by the man of science. But this unity has to be felt and realized in the depth of the being. It is this sense of unity; it is this intuitive grasp of unity that characterizes the yogi. Man will have accomplished his mission on earth when he has found his real self, when the great lesson of universal unity has been thoroughly apprehended.
The raw material of one world is present but it must become an organized psychological unity. “In human development the process of civilization has resulted in the formation of a number of separate sovereign states and this fragmentation of human society into hundred and more sovereign states in a world which is getting more and more integrated by the communications is the root cause of many ills.” We have to rethink human life in terms of spiritual value and re-educate the nations to develop a world conscience. If we are to speed up this process and achieve in greater measure, the point of view of world citizenship, we should cultivate a universal mental outlook. Today human society can only be saved by universalism. Religion has failed to bring about this universalism because it has been busy with intellectual dogmas and cult egoism. Science has also failed to bring about this universalism, in spite of its humanitarian outlook. Science is not an access of deeper insight into the nature; it is rather an artificially separated view of reality or a peep of the world seen from a particular angle. Hence science cannot give us knowledge of the real nature of man. All the sciences taken together cannot do this, not to say anything of physical and psychological sciences alone. Alexis Carrel in his ‘Man the Unknown’ deplores this state of things and suggests that “only possible remedy for this evil is much more profound knowledge of ourselves” It is this profound knowledge of ourselves that mainly characterizes Yoga.
“Man as he is, is not to be regarded as the crowning glory of evolution. The story of life on earth goes back to a thousand million years. In each geological period there appear creatures which might be represented as the highest type of creation. Yet these forms of life have been superseded by others. When we look at the steady climb of life in the path of evolution. It is unwise to assume that man, the latest product, is the last word of evolution and with his arrival the steps of evolution have come to a sudden close. If the past is any clue to the future we cannot regard mankind as anything more than a stage in life’s progress, and a mile stone on the path of evolution towards a greater future. The next stage of development is not in his physic but in his psyche, in his mind and spirit, in the emergence of a larger understanding and awareness and of a new integration. We have to gain this integration first in ourselves then in the world outside. Yoga enables us to achieve this integration.
Science has already launched out a new method to discover truth and this new departure in scientific method is inevitable as a result of evolution in the consciousness in man. However much the new departure may be criticized, it is bound to spread more and more as time goes on, for the next step in evolution is the development of the subtler senses, the awaking of the intuitive faculties. The aim of yoga is to develop the dormant intuitive faculties, to reveal the transcendent spirit, to explore deeper levels of consciousness and to evince wider possibilities and higher potentialities. To achieve this aim the transformation of human nature is essential. All work is done in nature by the transformation of one kind of energy into another. But spiritual transformation consists in an entire reversal of the ordinary self-seeking attitude of the mind towards man and things and this reversal brings about an entirely new set of circumstances. Thus the desire for a certain pleasure is abandoned, cut off at its source and not allowed to have any place in the consciousness but the mental force which that desire represents is not annihilated; it is transferred to a higher region of thought, transmuted into a purer form of energy. The force shut up in a lower direction is liberated in higher realms of spiritual activity. Psychology maintains that the energy of passion, if it is not wholly expended in its channels of expression, may function as a reinforcer of purely intellectual activities in situations that make no appeal to the instinct. If the repressed forces are reinforced by a moral training and aesthetic ideals they manifest themselves as higher powers indispensable to the advanced culture of mankind. Stated otherwise it means that the transformation of the energies of passion into the moral powers and aesthetic ideals is essential to the higher life of mankind. For instance, when a fruit is unripe it is sour, bitter, astringent and unwholesome to eat; when it has been exposed to the sun and air it becomes sweet, luscious and wholesome to eat. Yet it is the same fruit and the astringent qualities are not lost or destroyed but transformed and enriched. This transformation is the main cause of its sweetness. Likewise passion without which there is no life to begin with, should be transformed into peace without which there is no life to end with. When passion tends to pass over into the love of the infinite then peace flames forth unchecked by any limitation.
Yoga philosophy affirms that the universe is law-governed; both the macrocosm and microcosm are governed by the law. Within the universe there are grades or planes and yoga recognizes the gradation of planes as a whole, as a great connected complex movement. Each is governed by law. Philosophy is the rational use of a natural law on each and every plane of existence, coextensive with the universe. Yoga admits freedom to be the essential condition of life, but freedom within the law and not from the law. Within the region of law there is nothing that can be accomplished without the knowledge of that law and the obedience to the law. “The material world has evolved life in obedience to pressure from the vital plane; the vital world has evolved mind in obedience to a pressure from the mental plane. Now the mental world is struggling to evolve super-mind in obedience to a pressure from the supra-mental plane.” The progress of our humanity in this period is till Maharlok, that is, supra-mental plane.” It is the utility of yoga that it shows us a way of escape out of the ordinary manhood into the super-manhood.
We have already seen that yoga is the study of the cosmic mind. Human mind is only a fragment of the cosmic mind. This plane of the cosmic mind is described as the cosmic medium which is beyond the plane of normal, sensual perceptions, yet inter-penetrating and binding up the material world. It is the arche-typal world which is identical with the Yesod of Kabalah and the perfect land of the old Egyptian religion in which spirit forms of all created things are held to exist. In the word of philosophy, it is the plane of eternal objects which entering into the flux of events, confer upon the physical world the characteristics which it is seen to possess. The cosmic plane is regarded as constituting the cosmic memory where the images of all things and events are preserved as they are preserved in the memory of man. There are concepts of future creation are present in their completeness in the eternal now. On this theory prophesy, that is to read past and future is possible only if the eyes of mind open upon this time-less supra-mental plane. There is a cosmic memory at the root of all growth and progress which is an informing and sustaining principle in the process of evolution. The cosmic memory which is inherent in all life is infallible in its reproduction of experiences.
This plane is regarded as a cosmic agent which connects soul with soul, since all beings live and move there in an ineffable completeness and unalterable oneness. In that plane is the Logos or Pragna who is the locus of all souls and is a power of effective will and intuitive knowledge, always apparent in its unfailing works and perfect in every process.