In recent years yoga has become a popular, even fashionable, activity. Many people who have seen yoga on television or in videos, or who take part in one of its popular forms, equate it with physical exercises such as standing on one's head, putting the body into various postures or practicing breath control. To Western minds yoga may seem something strange, imported from the East and of no practical value. Yet in some respects yoga resembles the traditional spiritual practices of the West. It is a universal technique of self-discovery, neither Eastern nor Western.
Hatha Yoga and Mantra Yoga
The popular forms of yoga in the West have tended to focus on a single system of this great science. That system, which makes use of various physical exercises including controlled breathing, is known as hatha yoga; but like all other systems of yoga, it too includes the practice of meditation. Although hatha yoga emphasizes the training of the physical body, the purpose of that training is to master the body and so make it subservient to the spiritual Self within.
Some of the physical disciplines of hatha yoga are valuable for spiritual growth; but when practiced without an understanding of the basic aim of yoga, they are no more than an outer shell. Done without proper preparation and guidance, they can also strain the body. For this reason other methods of yoga may be more suitable for many Westerners.
Another system that has become widespread in the West is mantra yoga, which is based on the repetition of sacred phrases or words with intense attention. This system involves a knowledge of the esoteric power of sound. Its aim is to tune the personal nature to a keynote subtler than ordinary waking consciousness, so that one may eventually hear the inner Divine Voice.
Mantra yoga resembles certain practices in the West: Gregorian chant (plainsong), praying with a rosary, reciting a verse over and over, or the "Jesus Prayer" of Eastern Christianity, in which the name of Jesus is repeated. All of these are techniques for focusing the mind and intensifying spiritual awareness.
Yoga: Union
Even this brief look at the two systems that have attracted Western students is enough to show that the aim of yoga is to transform the personal nature and make it more responsive to an inner Self. The word itself gives a clue to what yoga is really about. "Yoga" is a Sanskrit word from the same ancient root as the English "yoke" and the Latin "jungere" (which lives on in English words such as "junction," "juncture" and "join"). This root means "union."
The union that is the aim of yoga can be experienced at various levels. First, our bodily and mental powers, which often pull us in different directions, need to be brought together in harmony and unity. The unified body and mind then need to connect with something deeper, with what we may call the Soul or the immortal Self, our true identity behind the fluctuating personality. Finally, there is the ultimate union of our individual Soul with the Universal or Supreme Soul, which is both within and beyond all things, within and around each one of us.
Union with the Infinite is the highest goal of yoga, and the various systems of this ancient science are all designed to lead, in the end, to this supreme union. Because the aim of all the systems is the same, the word "yoga" is used for any method that leads to union. Each method is a technique of self-discovery, involving a system of self-training that leads to the goal.
Many methods of yoga overlap in some techniques, and all of them accept the validity of certain basic disciplines: right physical discipline, right breathing, right moral conduct toward others and oneself, and the practice of meditation. The harmonizing and integration of all aspects of one's nature (physical, emotional, mental and spiritual) is both the aim of yoga and the basis of all the disciplines taught by the various systems.
The true practice of yoga is no easy matter, because it requires bringing one's whole being into harmony. It also requires that one's motive for self-realization be selfless, free from any thought of self-glorification or of gaining power over others. Yoga is a vehicle of altruism or agape (Greek: unconditional, divine love), that is, of divine love finding expression in our lives.
Four Paths for Western Students
Among the various systems of yoga, four are especially valuable for Western students. They are suitable because practicing them successfully requires less guidance and direction than some other methods. These four systems are interrelated and in no way exclude one another. Each focuses on one aspect of our whole being and therefore complements the others.
Karma Yoga
One of the systems is called karma yoga. It is a path of action; it enables those who feel a passionate sympathy with suffering in particular to do something about it. Those who follow this path purify their motives, removing every stain of self-interest. This is the path of those who, like Mother Teresa, devote their lives to service.
But we do not need to join a religious community or move to India in order to practice karma yoga. Every helpful act, every unselfish thought or word, is a practice of karma yoga. By sincerely caring for the good of others, all of us can become followers of karma yoga; we can understand life more deeply and reach a closer union with the Divine Life present in all things and all beings.
Bhakti Yoga
Another system is bhakti yoga, the path of devotion. In this system the emphasis is on love, not merely as an emotion but as devotion and surrender to the Supreme Reality conceived in a particular form. This form may be an incarnation of God, such as the Christ or Krishna. It may be a great sage, a God-realized or enlightened person whom the devotee follows. Or it may be a mental image of the divine, such as the Divine Mother.
This is the yoga on which Christianity and some other great religions are based. This path, which has helped many people begin the climb toward the summit of spiritual union, is the path of those with a devotional temperament, of those who delight in losing themselves in their adoration of the Divine. But all of us can follow this path by honoring the sources of wisdom and compassion wherever they appear.
Jnana Yoga
The third system is called jnana yoga. It emphasizes knowledge, not merely ordinary factual knowledge but insight into the eternal truths underlying the surface facts of life. The word "jnana" is related to the English "know" and the Greek "gnosis" (knowledge, wisdom). It denotes knowledge born of direct experience of reality.
H. P. Blavatsky said that jnana yoga is especially the yoga of the West. Whoever follows it strives continually to grasp the meaning of life more fully and more deeply. Like a good scientist, the follower of jnana yoga is not afraid to set aside outworn theories or views of reality, but always seeks an unbroken vision of the whole. Each of us can practice this yoga by examining all the ideas around us with critical discernment and by refraining from passing judgment on things we do not understand.
Raja Yoga
The fourth system gathers into itself the essential features of the others and is called raja yoga. This royal path includes disciplines for ordering one's life, purifying one's emotions, broadening one's understanding and uniting all the components of one's being in a single intention. Its aim is for one to separate oneself from the fluctuating personality and to realize oneself as something more than it, a divine and immortal being, identical with the universal Divine Life.
Followers of raja yoga usually turn to the aphorisms of Patanjali, the great Indian sage who lived in the second or third century BCE, the Yoga Sutras. These aphorisms first set out the preparatory stages of yoga practice and then describe the practice proper. The preparation includes right conduct in thought, word and deed (living according to the ethical principles found in every religion) and the physical discipline appropriate to yoga.
The practice proper is a regular introspection that brings about awareness of the Self within. It begins with finding a quiet place, relaxing the body and closing the windows of the senses; for a time one shuts oneself off from the distractions of the world and prepares to shift one's consciousness from outer states to inner ones. This is not a practice to be done now and then; to be done rightly and bear fruit, it must be kept up regularly.
Concentration, Meditation and Contemplation
Patanjali attached great importance to the control and stilling of the mind. Indeed, he defined yoga as "the restraint of the modifications of the mind" and proposed three stages to this end: concentration, meditation and contemplation. In practice these merge into one another, but they are defined separately to make study easier.
One must begin with concentration, because the mind does not want to settle: it fills with memories, desires and all manner of trivial fancies; it is made restless by worries and details. The aim of concentration is to help this restless mind focus on an object or idea, and so to shut out all irrelevant and distracting thoughts. It is useful to begin with a simple object of attention, physical or mental, and to give oneself wholly to it.
Meditation, the stage after concentration, is an orderly flow of thought about the object, which may be a flower, an abstract quality, a great teacher or an abstract idea. Meditation is a deeper process than concentration; it leads to a state in which one enters into what one is thinking about, realizes it and becomes it. In this way one goes beyond mere appearances and forms and becomes identified with the life within them.
The culmination of contemplation comes when one is no longer concerned with an object, idea or being but goes beyond it and reaches an absolute stillness (a dynamic, not a passive, state). Then an illumination and insight, a sense of unity and wholeness, may flash from the spiritual Self into the mortal mind. Contemplation is a positive experience of awareness; it is therefore far more than an emotional feeling or perception of the kind that can be artificially aroused. In stillness it brings the realization of wholeness and dynamic peace. It does not suspend consciousness or self-control; it transforms the person and brings an illumination and inner certainty that can be of great practical benefit in daily life.
The Ultimate Goal
Union with the Supreme Soul, the ultimate goal of yoga, is called samadhi or (in Zen Buddhism) satori. Whatever term is used, it means the liberation of the individual soul from the prison of worldly and limited consciousness. This state of unified bliss has been described in the words "The Dewdrop slips into the shining Sea." Paradoxically, it can also be described as the sea slipping into the dewdrop.
In addition to all this, there is the teaching of Agni Yoga given to us by the Master Morya; this teaching is also studied at Işığın Mücevherleri.
