God is the eternal Root, the Ground of our being, our greater Self.
Yoga
"Yoga"Is a Sanskrit word that means"to join.”Yoga is both union
and the way to that union.
What do we join through yoga? First, we join our awareness to our
own essential being: the spirit whose nature is pure consciousness.
In yoga philosophy this is known as the atman or self. Next, we join
our finite consciousness to the Infinite Consciousness, God, the
Supreme Self (Paramatman). In essence they are eternally one.
According to yogic philosophy the spirit originally dwelt in the
consciousness of that oneness. But it descended into the material
world for the purpose of evolving and extending its scope of
consciousness. In that descent the spirit lost its awareness of the
eternal union, and lost the capacity to live in and manifest the
union on a practical level. Through yoga the lost consciousness can
be regained and actualized in the individual's practical life
sphere.
Regarding this, a yogi-adept of the twentieth century, Dr. I. K.
Taimni, remarked in his book The Science of Yoga: "According to the
yogic philosophy it is possible to rise completely above the
illusions and miseries of life and to gain infinite knowledge,
bliss, and power through enlightenment here and now while we are
still living in the physical body. And if we do not attain this
enlightenment while we are still alive we will have to come back
again and again into this world until we have accomplished this
appointed task. So it is not a question of choosing the path of yoga
or rejecting it. It is a question of choosing it now or in some
future life. It is a question of gaining enlightenment as soon as
possible and avoiding the suffering in the future or postponing the
effort and going through further suffering which is unnecessary and
avoidable. This is the meaning of Yoga Sutra 2:16: 'the misery which
is not yet come can and is to be avoided.' No vague promise of an
uncertain postmortem happiness this, but a definite scientific
assertion of a fact verified by the experience of innumerable yogis,
saints, and sages who have trodden the path of yoga throughout the
ages.”
So profound and so necessary is yoga to the evolving consciousness,
there is no more important subject in the world.
Yoga philosophy
Yoga is a philosophy—a philosophy which stimulates its investigators
to engage in practice through which they will experience and
demonstrate its truth and worth. What begins as theory develops into
practice which culminates in realization. Yoga is philosophy,
discipline, and experience. It is a revelation of consciousness.
Since rational thought precedes rational action, we should begin
with the philosophical side of Yoga.
Then and now
In India's most beloved scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna the
teacher tells Arjuna the student: "There was never a time when I did
not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings. Nor is there any future
in which we shall cease to be.”1 We are eternal beings, without
beginning and without end.
Originally we were points of conscious light in the Infinite Ocean
of Conscious Light that is God. We were gods within God. And so we
still are, for it is not possible to be outside of Infinity. Yet we
are also here in this ever-changing world—a place that completely
overwhelms the truth of our immortal life within God. For countless
life-cycles we have found ourselves embodied in material cases,
little body-prisons within the greater prison of the cosmos. And
that is where we are right now.
There is a law that governs the place and kind of our embodiment.
That law is karma, the principle of exact and inevitable reaction to
our own actions and mental states, resulting in a seemingly endless
domino effect of continual birth and death. Yoga offers us the
possibility of ending this chain of embodiments by awakening-
transformation from time and mortality into eternity and immortality.
God the Lord
In writings on Yoga, the word for God or Lord is Ishwara—the Ruler,
Master, or Controller possessing the powers of omnipotence,
omnipresence, and omniscience. Ishwara is the Supreme Power,
Parameshwara. It is toward this Ishwara that our life is to be
directed if we would attain perfection in yoga. In Yoga Sutra 1:23,
Patanjali says that samadhi, the state of superconsciousness where
Absoluteness is experienced, is produced by Ishwarapranidhana—the
offering of one's life to God. This is not merely dedicating our
deeds and thoughts to God, but is the merging of our life in the
greater life of God and making them one.
God and gods
We are gods within God, finite spirits within the Infinite Spirit.
But what is spirit? Yoga tells us that spirit is consciousness. We
are eternal consciousnesses, each of us individual and distinct. Yet
we are more. We do not have an existence independent either of God
or of one another. Each of us takes our being from God as the wave
takes its existence from the ocean, at the same time sharing it with
all the other waves.
God is the eternal Root, the Ground, of our being, our greater Self.
We are not God, but in some ineffable manner God is us—the Self of
our self, the Spirit of our spirit. God is all, and we are the parts—
each of us possessing an eternal and irrevocable distinction. That
is why Krishna told Arjuna: "There was never a time when I did not
exist, nor you, nor any of these kings. Nor is there any future in
which we shall cease to be.”
"Both the individual self and the Universal Self have entered the
cave of the heart, the abode of the Most High, but the knowers of
Brahman see a difference between them as between sunshine and
shadow.”2
God and creation
God, the infinite Spirit, is pure consciousness, but has extended or
emanated Himself3 as the cosmos: physical, astral, and causal. This
seemingly dual nature of God as Light and Power, as Consciousness
and Matter, has puzzled the minds of even the wise.
God, the Original Being, projects Himself as the ever-changing dance
of creation, as the evolving light that is the cosmos. God projects
the creation, evolves it, and withdraws it back into Himself in a
perpetual cycle. The creation can be thought of as God's body—that
God becomes incarnate in creation again and again. And as parts or
reflections of God we do exactly the same through reincarnation.
And us...
All conscious beings have existed eternally within the Being of God,
one with Him, distinct though not separate from Him. Rooted in the
infinity of God, they have within themselves an innate impulse to
transcend their finitude and attain the boundlessness of their
Origin. This is impossible, since they are as immutable as God—the
only infinite Being. The soul can become godlike, but it cannot
become God. Yet the urge for transcendence is part of their nature.
The solution to this dilemma is simple. The individual
consciousnesses cannot alter their natural state of finitude, but
they can come to share and participate in the infinite Consciousness
of God. Even though they cannot become infinite themselves, they can
experience the infinity of their divine Source. A psychically
sensitive person can experience the thoughts and feelings of others
without becoming them. In the same way, spirits can evolve to
experience the Consciousness of God while remaining in their
naturally limited state.4 They do not become God the Absolute, but
they enter into that Absolute Life and are one with it.
As Shankara explains in his Yoga Sutra commentary: "When the light
of several lamps appears simultaneously, it cannot be made out which
is the light of which.”Consequently liberated spirits experience
the infinite Being of God—infinite Consciousness—as their own being.
Krishna has described it this way: "When you have reached
enlightenment, ignorance will delude you no longer. In the light of
that knowledge you will see the entire creation within your own
atman and in me.”5 Buddha called this"seeing with the Divine Eye.”
When the spirits are unshakably established in that Consciousness
the goal has been attained.
All they need do is develop the capacity for such a state of
awareness. This is done by learning to fully experience the state of
existence of a being completely different from themselves—while
retaining the awareness of their true identity. They can put on
the"costume"of a consciousness utterly different from theirs, and
not just experience that other mode of consciousness, but become
able to function as that other kind of being.
Evolutionary creation
To enable the spirits to enter into this process, God breathes forth
His own Self as the Power from which is manifested all the realms of
relative existence, from the most subtle worlds of nearly-perfected
beings to the most objective worlds of atomic matter. They can then
enter into relative existence by taking on coverings, or"bodies,"
of varying grades and patterns of vibratory energies. They descend
into this material world and begin working their way up the ladder
of ever-evolving forms. Beginning with forms whose scope of
consciousness is vastly less than theirs, they work their way
upward, entering into higher and higher levels of awareness until
they can surpass their original breadth of consciousness and begin
to partake of a life of awareness much beyond their own.
In the intervals between embodiments the spirit spends time in the
astral regions where awakening and growth also take place. Upward
and upward they evolve until their capacity for awareness is
developed to such a perfect state that they can experience and
participate in God's all-embracing Consciousness, thenceforth to
live in His infinity.
As Shakespeare wrote," all the world's a stage"With the individual
spirits wearing their costumes and playing their parts. Just as
actors begin with small parts and progress to bigger roles by
demonstrating their skill in those smaller parts, so also do the
spirits advance to higher and more complex forms of existence and
consciousness, at last returning home to God. The Sufi poet, Rumi,
wrote:
A stone I died and rose again a plant.
A plant I died and rose an animal;
I died an animal and was born a man.
Why should I fear? What have I lost by death?
As man, death sweeps me from this world of men
That I may wear an angel's wings in heaven;
Yet e'en as angel may I not abide,
For nought abideth save the face of God.
Thus o'er the angels' world I wing my way
Onwards and upwards, unto boundless lights;
Then let me be as nought, for in my heart
Rings as a harp-song that we must return to Him.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of many great Americans whose belief in
reincarnation is overlooked, wrote in his poem, The Chambered
Nautilus:
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul!
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
That is the purpose of creation and our place in it.
The religion of Yoga
It is commonly said that Yoga is not a religion. But since religion
is derived from the Latin word religere, which means"to bind back,"
and yoga means"joining," practically speaking yoga is the only
religion. The many systems of dogmas and doctrines are by their very
nature not really religions at all, and in most instances are
systems of superstition—either by the nature of their ideas or
practices or by the attitudes of their adherents toward their
beliefs and disciplines.
It is yoga alone which reunites the consciousness of the individual
to its infinite Source, restoring the lost unity. Earlier I quoted a
paragraph from I. K. Taimni's book The Science of Yoga about the
purpose of yoga, but omitting his preceding words regarding the
relation of yoga to religion—or rather, their difference. Here they
are now, for I think you will find them relevant:
"The Orthodox religious ideal which requires people to be good and
moral so that they may have a happy life here and hereafter is
really a concession to human weakness and the desire to prefer the
so-called happiness in life to enlightenment.
"In this respect the philosophy of yoga differs fundamentally from
most of the orthodox religions of the world which offer nothing
better than an uncertain and nebulous happiness in the life after
death. They say in effect 'Lead a good life to ensure happiness
after death, put your faith in God and hope for the best.' According
to yogic philosophy death no more solves your spiritual problem than
night solves your economic problem. If you are poor you do not
expect on going to bed that your economic problem will be
automatically solved next day. You will have to get up the next day
and begin where you left off the previous night. If you are poor
economically you do not expect to get rich overnight and if you are
poor spiritually, bound by illusions and limitations of all kinds,
you cannot expect to become enlightened [by simply being reborn] or,
if you do not believe in reincarnation, in the vague and unending
life which is supposed to follow death.”
Yoga is the way we answer for ourselves the prayer:
Lead me from the unreal to the Real.
Lead me from darkness to the Light.
Lead me from death to Immortality.
Yoga
www.atmajyoti.org/me_om_yoga_book_02.asp
Notes:
1) Bhagavad Gita 2:12
2) Katha Upanishad 1:3:1
3)"This universe, before it was created, existed as Brahman. 'I am Brahman;' thus did Brahman know himself. Knowing himself, he became the Self of all beings.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1:4:10)
4) The master yogi, Dr. I. K. Taimni, in The Ultimate Reality and Realization, says this: "It is only when the realization of being a pure spirit or atma has been attained that it is possible to achieve the final goal of union of the atma with the Paramatma, the Supreme Spirit which exists eternally beyond the manifested universe and from which the manifested universe is derived. When this final realization has been attained and union of atma with Paramatma has been brought about there is not only a complete sharing of consciousness between the two but also of the infinite Power which is inherent in the Universal Consciousness....It is necessary to distinguish between the powers which are acquired on the realization that he is a pure spirit or atma and those which are attained when he is able to destroy the last vestige of egoism and his consciousness becomes united with that of Paramatma. The former, though tremendous in some respects, are still limited, while the latter which are really the Powers of the Supreme Spirit are infinite and can manifest through the center of consciousness of a self-realized individual because there is fusion of the individual consciousness with the Supreme Consciousness and the channel between the two is open.”
5) Bhagavad Gita 4:35
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