Patanjali starts off his Yoga process with a set of do’s and don’ts almost akin to Buddha’s steps for right way of living. These steps are meant to prepare the right mental condition needed for Yoga practice.
Most modern Yoga Gurus either totally ignore these steps or just offer lip service to them. They claim that these are not really needed since they become automatic when one reaches the final stage of Yoga.
They say that instead of getting stuck at preparing the right mental makeup, one needs to straight away jump into meditation and try to attain the culminating stage of Samadhi. Once Samadhi is attained, all mental drawbacks automatically get corrected.
They have a point to some extent. Even Patanjali says that Samadhi undoes lot of preset mental impressions. But still he insists that one should first start with effortfully undoing wrong mental makeup before going further in Yoga practice. Was he wrong then?
The problem is, if you start off with an ill conditioned mindset, it is likely that you may falter in your Yoga practice and may never reach Samadhi at all. Even if you somehow manage to reach it, you may not be able to remain in that state for long due to the strong pulls of a bad mental setup. We have several cases of modern Yoga Gurus and self-claimed realized masters who are caught up in sex scandals and such other crime.
As we will discuss later, Samadhi is not a one step process. It takes time, and one needs to go through several stages even in the Samadhi before one gets to a stage when the chicken starts laying eggs – I mean, one attains a perfect mental condition automatically.
Besides, even if someone gives up Yoga half way though, either because of inability to reach the final stage, or for some other reason; a good starting mental condition is always a boon not only to the person but also to the society. At least we end up with a better society with or without self-realized individuals.
In the passing I would like to draw your attention to the fact that all great masters of the past emphasized on them, albeit in different words. Jesus spelt them out in his sermon on the mount, Mohamad codified them in Quran, Buddha called it ‘right way of living’.I have discussed elaborately on these similarities in my books “Was Jesus really in India?”, “Towards a better understanding of Islam”, and “Buddha’s soul”. It is only that Patanjali further formalized these ideas.
While precursor to modern Yoga namely the Hatayoga also gives a long list of Do’s and Don’ts, it does not go unnoticed that it is just a lip service since in the same breath the texts declare that the actual first step of Hatayoga is body postures! Afterall, Hatayoga is body oriented and is concerned more with Kundalini and such other mystic ideas. So, naturally the focus is more on body.
Since most modern Yoga teachers propagate some form of Hatayoga, it is natural that they deemphasize the first two steps of Patanjali Yoga which are about do’s and don’ts.
The real reason why many Gurus drop these first steps of Patanjali could also be that they are worried that they may lose some prospective disciples who may be averse to living a disciplined life.
But Patanjali is very clear about his Goal as well as the means to reach that goal. In the very beginning of his Yoga Sutra, he declares that
“Yohashcitta Vrtti Nirodha
Yoga is about restraining the activities of the Mind”
In the subsequent episodes, I will start with the Yoga of Patanjali. I will discuss the step by step process. I will follow the discussions by providing insights into the scientific basis of these steps and their necessity.
Let us meet again in the next episode.
A series revolving around Mind – Science of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Notions of reality, Mind modulation, Domains beyond Mind, and so on. © Dr. King 2019
No comments:
Post a Comment