3. ASHTANG YOGA AND MODERN MAN

 

This then is the long and the short of the yoga system as originally propounded by Hiranyagarbha, and expounded to the world by Gaudapada and expounded to the world by Gaudapada and patanjali, the well – known philosophers and thinkers. In these few pages, an attempt has been made to give a brief  account of the yoga philosophy as it has come down to us from the hoary past, and which is still considered the keystone of the ancient wisdom of India .

 

The yoga system is a discipline involving intense and solitary  meditation coupled with physical exercises and postures  to discipline and control the mind and the pranas, so as to make them run in a particular manner that may help in subduing the senses. As such , it is meant for the purification of the body and mind , and prepares the way for the beatific vision. Devotion to God or Ishwara also plays an important part in the yogic realization. The personal God of the yoga philosophy stands apart in the yoga system because the final goal for some of the yogins is the separation of atman from the mind and not union with God. This system, therefore, always works in the domain of dualism. Its principal aim is the separation of the layered jiva from the embodied state so as to become atman, freed from the condition state of mind and matter. Both the understanding will and become stilled, thus liberating the soul to shine in own true and native light.

The yogic exercises genrally yield health, strength and longevity, and help to a certain extent in defying disease, decay and early death. One may also acquire psychic and supernatural powers by controlling Nature and Nature’s laws. By the hightened power of the senses, the yogins can hear from and see at long distances, penetrate into past and the present and even into the future, transmit thoughts and perform miracles.

 

Many modern scholars, more so those with Western modes of thought, have when first confronted by yoga, tended to dismiss it as no more than an elaborate means of self-hypnotism. Such an attitude is quite unscientific even though it often parades under the garb science. It is generally the result of prejudice born of ignorance or a superficial knowledge of the subject. It is natural for us to attempt to relegate to the realm of superstition, phenomena with which we are unfamiliar and which defy our habitual ways of thought about life, for to study them, to understand them, to test and accept them, would require effort and perseverance of which most of us are incapable. It is not unlikely that some so –called yogins may justify the label of “self – hypnotists.” But those few who genuinely merit the name of yogins are too humble to who court publicty and have nothing about them to suggest the neurotic escapist. They invariably display a remarkably sensitive awareness to life in all its complexity and variety, and this awareness to life in all it's complexity and variety, and this – delusion quite inapt, irrelevant and even ridiculous. For, to seek the Unchanging behind the changing, the Real behind the phenomenal, is certainly not to “ridiculous. For, to seek the Unchanging behind the changing, the Real behind the phenomenal, is certainly not to “hypnotize” oneself. If anything, it displays a spirit of enquiry that is exceptional in it's honesty and integrity, that is content with nothing less than the absolute truth, and the kind of renciation it demands is most difficult to practice. Hence it is , that as time passes, as knowledge is gradually undermining ignorance, the former philistinism is steadily wearing a way. The new developments of the physical sciences have had no small share in furthering this process, for by revealing that everything in this physical universe is relative and that matter is not matter per Saints but ultimately a form of energy, it has confirmed, at the lower level of the yogic concept at least, the conception of the world inherent in the yogic system, giving it a scientific vaidity which was earlir doubted. Nevertheless, even if one accepts the basis of Ashtang Yoga as it is far from easy to us from patanjali, one must confess that it is far from easy to practice. Even Gaudapada admitted that to pursue it was first developed it demanded a highly rigorus discipline of life, and the ideal of the four ashramas was the inevitable consequence. If one was to achieve any thing substantial, one had to begin from infancy itself. The first twenty – five years of brahmcharya were to be utilized in the physical and spiritual health capable of withstanding life’s rigors. The next twenty – five years, grehastya, were to be lived as supporter to the wife, and asound teacher to the children. Obligations to society performed, death drawing nearer, and life tasted to society performed, death drawing nearer, and life tasted to society performed, death drawing nearer, and life tasted to the full, one was free to seek its inner meaning and ripe for it's understanding. And so, the succeeding twenty – five years were to be spent in vanprasth, in the solitude of strenuous meditation one had gained enlightenment. Now at last one was fit to be called a sanyasin and able to devote the last quarter of the century – span as envisaged in the perfect life, to the task of assisting one’ s fellow men in their search for spiritual freedom.

 

Even in olden days, the ideal of the four ashramas was not an easy one. Little wonder then that yoga was restricted to the chosen few and was not propagated as a course to be followed by the common peole, continuing only as a mystery school whose torch was passed on from guru to chela (sadhak) in a restricted line. If anything, modern conditions have rendered it's pursuit in this form even more difficult and well nigh impossible. As life has become more complex and the various professions more complex and the various professions more specialized, men no longer find it possible to devote the first twenty five years of their life solely to the cultivation of body and mind in preparation for the final quest. They must spend them in schools, colleges and institutes, which employ most of their resources in training them for a career. Nor, with the ever growing population, is it feasible to expect one fourth of the members of society –grehastis –to provide the means of physical sustenance for the remaining three quarters, as was once perhaps possible.

 

As if this were not enough, the integrated eight fold yoga of patanjali seems to have grown more specialized and complicated with the passage of time. each of it's branches and complicated with the passage of time. each of it's branches has developed to a point where it almost seems a complete subject in itself. Little wonder then that man, practicing in their various details the various yamas and niyams, or mastering the difference asanas or learning to control the pranic to mansic (mental) energies, begins to imagine that his particular field of specialization is not, as patanjali envisaged, just a rung in the ladder of the integrated yoga, but yoga itself. No doubt, he drives some benefits, by distracting his attention from the ultimate goal, become a positive hindrance to real progress instead of being aids to it. only a very few men of exceptional physical endurance, long life and an extraordinary capacity for not forgetting the distant goal, can, in our time, pursue patanjalis ashtang yoga to it's logical conclusion, it's highest purpose: at one ment with brahma. For the rest it, must remain either too difficult to practice, or a process that, by encouraging them to mistake the intermediate for the final, the means for the end, defeats it's own purpose.

 

If spirituality must entail a slow ascension through all the rungs of this intricate and involved of yoga, then it cannot choose but remain a closed secret to mankind at large. If , however, it is to become a free gift of Nature like the sun, the air and the water, then it must make itself accessible through a technique which places it within the reach of all, the child no less than the adult, the weak no less than the strong, the householder no less than the samnyasin. It is of such technique that kabir and Nanak gave us hope and will be dealt with later.