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As the man indicates and implies, it means “the royal road to reintegration;” the reintegration of soul which is now in a state of disintegration, having lost it's cohesion through the diversifying influence of the mind running into so many outgoing chanels. This path offers a scientific approach God ward and is best suited to person offers a scientific approach God ward and is best suited to person gifted with a scientific approach God ward and is best suited to person gifted with a scientific mind and scientific outlook, both within and without, and given to experimentation. It is based on the assumption that the true self in man is quite different form, and more wonderful than, what it is commonly supposed and appears to be in the workaday life where it is subject to limitations that crowds in and press upon it from all sides, making it look for all practical purposes a finite element and not the limitless reality it really is. Again, the experiments involved in raja yoga are to be performed on ones own self, unlike those in other sciences, in which the whole process involved is one of experiment on outside Nature. A raja yogin is not expected to take things for granted or to blindly accept an authority, scriptural or other wise. His is essentially a path of self-experiment in the laboratory of the mind and he proceeds slowly but steadily, step by step, and never stops until the goal is reached. Man, according to raja yoga, is a “layered entity” and is clothes in so many folds, one within the other, e.g., body, bodily habits, mode of life, inherited and acquired, senses and addictions, vital airs, restless mind with innumerable mental vibrations, ever active, will and egocentricity, etc., all of which form koshas or veils covering the atma. Within these lies the crest jewel being itself, the ever abiding self underneath the phenomenal personality. Thus complete liberation (mukti), consists in complete release from the countless finitizing process enveloping the infinite ocean of the creative life principle, so as to have all Power, all life, all wisdom, all joy, all bliss and everything else in it's fullness. In other words, it means depersonalization of the soul by literally tearing down the personality or the mask, which an actor dons when he comes on to the stage to play his role. The job of a raja yogin then, is to unmask or false identifications, and thereby to separate the great self from the enshrouding sheaths by which it is encumbered. Ashtang yoga or the eightfold path of patanjali leads to what is commonly known as raja yoga. It is the ladder whereby one achiees nirbij samadhi, unmani, sehaj awastha or the efflorescence O the yogic art. It deals with the training of the mid and its psychic Powers to an extent which may lead to enlightenment, whereby true perception is attained and one gains an equipoise, a state is the pinnacle of all yogic endeavors and practices, and once attained, the yogin while living in the world, is yet no longer of the world. This is how taj rishi janak and Lord Krishna, the prince of the yogins, lived in the world, ever engaged in worldly is yet no longer of the world. This is how taj rishi janak and Lord Krishna, the prince of the yogins, lived in the world, ever engaged in worldly pursuits and activities, carrying the wheel of the world in their hands in perpetual motion, yet with a still center fixed in the divine plane. All of their actions were characterized by activity in inactivity. Such in the apex in the yoga system, a state in which the senses, the mind and the intellect come to a standstill. In the katha Upanishad, we have: When all the senses are stilled, when
the mind is at rest, when the intellect wavers not –that, say the wise, is the
highest state –the kavalaya pad (the state of supreme realization). It aims at samadhi (the final step in patanjali’s yoga system.) whereby the individual is deindividual and perceives within his the totality, unbounded and unembodied, limitless and free, all pervading like the ether. It is seeing all things in the aspect of eternity. A few words about the state of samadhi may not be amiss here. samadhi may be conscious of the remains conscious of the object, while in the other, there is am inner calm in which one sees and gets a real insight, as if in a flash, of the objects as it really is. it is seeing with the soul (or the inner spiritual eye), when our bodily are shut. This is immediate and direct perceptual knowledge as distinct from meditate knowledge, i.e, through the medium of the smoke colored glasses of the senses, the mind and the maddening world outside. It is a mystical state in which chit. Manas, budhi and ahankar all lose their respective functions and the disentangled and deindividualized self alone shines in it's own luminosity. It is about this state that vyasa tells us: “yoga can best be known only through yoga, for yoga becomes manifested through yoga.” (yoga bhasya iii:6). The most sacred syllable with the raja yogins in aum. In mandukya Upanishad, we have a detailed account of this word. it is the same as the holy word in the gospel of st. John. It is the kalma or bang I qadim of the muslims, the akash bani or vak devi of the ancient rishis, the udgit or naad of the Upanishads, the sraosha of zoroaster, and the Naam or Shabd of the Master. The world and the Vedas all originated from this syllable aum. In gita it is said, “the Brahmin, who reciting and thinking upon aum, goes, forth, abandoning the body, goes on to the highest path.” Lord Krishna speaking of himself says, “I am omkar, I am pranva in all the Vedas, in speech I am ek akshra (the one syllable).” In the Upanishad it is stated, “aum is the bow, the mind arrow; brahma is the target with singleness one with the target, the individual soul will become identified with the Brahman.” A single vibration in brahman (eko aham bahusiam) caused all the lokas, and with it brought into being all planes, spiritual, casual, astral and physical, with their countless divisions and subdivisions. The physical, with their countless divisions and subdivisions. The physical vibration in man correspond to the Universe, with all its trinities, like Brahma, Vishnu and Siva; Sajas Rajas and Tamas; Jagrat, Swapan and Sushupti, all which are contained in Aum, the Lord of the three worlds. Lord Yama, the God Death, exhorting Nachiketa said, “The goal uniformly extolled by all the Vedas, and for which man strives with all his tapas, is in brief, Aum.” Similarly, the term pranva means something ever new and fresh, unchanging and eternal (kutastha nitya) , like the relation between Shabda and it's meaning , as opposed to parinama nitya, which is eternally changing . From the above, it follows that each of the four classical forms of yoga is but an integral part of the yoga system as a whole as given by patanjali, with a special emphasis on one or the other aspect of the system, and that these forms constitute a progressive development from Mantra Siddhi to Raja yoga, each step paving the way for the next higher stage on the yogic path. To make yoga more practicable, distinctions were made in later time, for different types of people, based on individual temperaments and vocational pursuits. While the persons who were highly intellectual and reasoned out everything very often took to Jnana Yoga or “the yoga of knowledge,” those with an emotional temperament were offered Bhakti Yoga or “the yoga of Devotion,” consisting of devotional exercises like singing and chanting of hymna and psalms (as did princess Mira and chaitanya Mahaprabhu). Again, those who were primarily engaged in the outer activities of the world, were considered as best fitted for Karma Yoga or “the Yoga of Action,” consisting of austerities like fasts and vigils, performance of yajnas and other charitable acts, meritorious deeds like pilgrimages to holy places and reading of scriptures, etc., and above all the path of selfless duty. In this way there arose the three types of” popular yogas,”namely those of head, heart and hand, signifying Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Karma Yoga. These yogas find their first clear and unequivocal exposition in the Bhagavad Gita, and Lord Krishna stands in the same relationship to them as does patanjali to four traditional types.
But it must be noticed that these three types cannot be classified into water- tight compartments. Each of them can hardly be practiced by itself to the total exclusion of the others. They simply indicate the preominant and inherent traits be practiced by itself to the total exclusion of the others. They simply indicate the preominant and inherent traits in the Nature of the aspirants. A mere theoretical knowledge of yoga, without devotion and action, is just like a tree bereft of foliage and fruit, fit only for the woodcutter’s axe. Again, devotion per se is meaningless, unless one has an intellectual grasp and a factual experience of the thing and actively grasp and a factual experience of the thing and actively strives for it. Actions by themselves, whether good or bad, without devotion and knowledge, keep one in perpetual bondage, like fetters of gold or of steel as the case may be, for both sorts have an equally binding force and efficacy. This world is karma kshetra, or field of action, and all acts performed on the plane of the senses without discriminating knowledge and loving devotion bear fruit, which the doer has of necessity to gather up, whether he wills it or not. It is only action performed without attachment and desire for the fruit thereof that can bring freedom. one has therefore to become Neh Karma in this karma Bhoomi to escape from the wheel of karmic bondage. The law of Karma is stern and inexorable, and one should not unnecessarily go on doing karmas endlessly and remain in eternal bondage. He alone is free from the binding
effect of karmas, who communes with the holy word. -GURU AMAR DAS The yoga system, thus, is in essence one integrated whole and cannot be split into any artificial classifications. In Bhagavad Gita or the song Celestial, which pre-eminently is a yoga sutra, the prince of yogins, Lord Krishna, gives a clear exposition of the various types of yogas to the Kshatriya prince Arjuna, so as to bring home to him the importance of Swadharm, or the path of duty, as defined from various angles, for work is nothing but worship, in the true sense of the word, if one realizes it as such and does it without attachments to the fruit thereof. |