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Yoga presupposes two factors that account for the creation of the world: (1) Ishwar or God and (2) Avidya or Maya. While the former is all intelligent, the latter is altogether unintelligent. Man too is a combination of these two basic principles. Jiva or the individual soul though intrinsically of the same essence as that of God, is encased in mind and matter. The soul, conditioned as it is in the time-space-cause world, has but an imperfect perception and cannot see the reality, the atman or the Divine Ground, in which it rests and from where it gets it's luminosity. While antahkaran, or the mind, is the reflector, the atman is the illuminator, the light of which is reflected through the senses that perceive the world. The world then is the conjunction of the “seer” and the “seen.” The detachment of this conjunction is the escape, and perfect insight is the means of escape. Salvation therefore lies in the isolation of the seer from the seen, the complete detachment of the subjective from all that is objective: physical, mental and causal, so that the “Self” which is the seer, may see itself in its won luminosity or “Light of the Void,” as it is called. To free the individual soul from the shackles of mind and matter, yoga insists on (1) concentration, (2) active effort or striving, which involves the performance of devotional exercises and mental discipline. The highest form of matter is cit, the unfathomable lake of subliminal impressions, and yoga aims at freeing the inner man or spirit from these fetters. It is the finest and rarefied principle in matter that constitutes chit or the little self (ego) in man. Though in itself, it is essentially unconscious, it is subject to modifications by the operation of the three-fold gunas. It has also the capacity to contract and expand according to the nature of the body in which it is lodged from time to time, or according to the surrounding circumstances. This chit or mind, though apparently bounded in each individual, is in fact a part of the all-pervading universal mind. The yoga systems aim at transforming the limited and conditioned mind into limitless and unconditioned Universal Mind, by developing the satva (pure) and by subduing the rajas (active) and tamas (dense) gunas. In this state, yogins acquired omniscience, being one with the Universal mind (Brahmandi orNij manas). Chit is the reflecting mirror for the soul, and exists for chaitanmaya, or matter quickened by soul, which is self-luminous and in whose spiritual light takes place all perception, including the light of knowledge, mental and supramental. The subliminal impressions in the chit cause desires and interest, which in turn produce potencies, and these lead to personality, thus setting the wheel of the world in perpetual motion. When once the soul is freed from the chit, manas, budhi, and ahankar, it comes into its own, and becomes passionless and depersonalized. This is the great deliverance which yoga promises to yogins. At this severance from the four-fold fetters of the mind, the embodied soul (jiva) becomes a freed should (atman), unindividualized, self-luminous, and attains realization as such. “Self-realization” then is the highest aim of yoga. |