Yoga

“ The fire of Yoga burns the cage of sin that is around a man. Knowledge becomes purified and Nirvâna is directly obtained. From Yoga comes knowledge; knowledge again helps the Yogi. He who combines in himself both Yoga and knowledge, with him the Lord is pleased. Those that practice Mahâyoga, either once a day, or twice a day, or thrice, or always, know them to be gods. Yoga is divided into two parts. ”

“ Here is, in truth, the whole secret of Yoga, the science of the soul. The active turnings, the strident vibrations, of selfishness, lust and hate are to be stilled by meditation, by letting heart and mind dwell in spiritual life, by lifting up the heart to the strong, silent life above, which rests in the stillness of eternal love, and needs no harsh vibration to convince it of true being. ”

“ Each branch of Yoga is but a path leading toward the one end—unfoldment, development, and growth. He who wishes first to develop, control and strengthen his physical body so as to render it a fit instrument of the Higher Self, follows the path of "Hatha Yoga." He who would develop his will-power and mental faculties, unfolding the inner senses, and latent powers, follows the path of "Raja Yoga." He who wishes to develop by "knowing"—by studying the fundamental principles, and the wonderful truths underlying Life, follows the path of "Gnani Yoga." ”

“ The Bhagavad Gita, however, points out that the methods of yoga are all-embracive. Its techniques are not meant only for certain types and temperaments, such as those few who incline toward the monastic life; yoga requires no formal allegiance. Because the yogic science satisfies a universal need, it has a natural universal applicability.
A true yogi may remain dutifully in the world; there he is like butter on water, and not like the easily-diluted milk of unchurned and undisciplined humanity. ”

“ Yoga enables the devotee to switch off or on, at will, life current from the five sense telephones of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Attaining this power of sense-disconnection, the yogi finds it simple to unite his mind at will with divine realms or with the world of matter. No longer is he unwillingly brought back by the life force to the mundane sphere of rowdy sensations and restless thoughts. Master of his body and mind, the KRIYA YOGI ultimately achieves victory over the "last enemy," death. ”

“ So is it in the application of the laws of psychology that we call Yoga. Systematized knowledge of the unfolding of consciousness applied to the individualized Self, that is Yoga. As I have just said, it is by the world that consciousness has been unfolded, and the world is admirably planned by the LOGOS for this unfolding of consciousness; hence the would-be yogi, choosing out his objects and applying his laws, finds in the world exactly the things he wants to make his practice of Yoga real, a vital thing, a quickening process for the knowledge of the Self. ”

“ By a study of your own mind, you can find out how far you are ready to begin the definite practice of Yoga. Examine your mind in order to recognize these stages in yourself. If you are in either of the two early stages, you are not ready for Yoga. The child and the youth are not ready to become yogis, nor is the preoccupied man. But if you find yourself possessed by a single thought, you are nearly ready for Yoga; it leads to the next stage of one-pointedness, where you can choose your idea, and cling to it of your own will. ”

“ We must connect our Yoga with the evolution of consciousness everywhere, else we shall not understand it at all; for the laws of evolution of consciousness in a universe are exactly the same as the laws of Yoga, and the principles whereby consciousness unfolds itself in the great evolution of humanity are the same principles that we take in Yoga and deliberately apply to the more rapid unfolding of our own consciousness. ”

“ If you see it in that light, it seems to me that Yoga will be to you a far more real, practical thing, than it is when you merely read some fragments about it taken from Sanskrit books, and often mistranslated into English, and you will begin to feel that to be a yogi is not necessarily a thing for a life far off, an incarnation far removed from the present one. ”

“ Renunciation and yoga by action both lead to the highest bliss; of the two, yoga by action is verily better than renunciation of action. He who is harmonized by yoga, the self-purified, self-ruled, the senses subdued, whose self is the self of all beings, although acting, yet is such an one not affected. ”

“ He that is desirous of attaining to high prosperity should become pure in mind, and betaking himself to austere practices in respect of the body and the senses, should devote himself to yoga without desire of fruits. The universe is pervaded by yoga power secretly circulating through every part of it and illumining it brightly. ”

“ Another word in India which is synonymous with large power and merit is Yoga. It is inculcated in the Yoga philosophy and is supposed to stand for a high mental discipline which speedily qualifies one for absorption into the Deity. It is manifested in the form of abstract meditation and austerity—an austerity embodied in asceticism and self-mortification. From early times this method has been held high in honour, and today is universally esteemed as the most powerful and speedy boat wherewith to cross the sullen stream of human existence. ”

“ We must now deal with the mental body, which is taken as equivalent to mind for practical purposes. The first thing for a man to do in practical Yoga is to separate himself from the mental body, to draw away from that into the sheath next above it. And here remember what I said previously, that in Yoga the Self is always the consciousness plus the vehicle from which the consciousness is unable to separate itself. All that is above the body you cannot leave is the Self for practical purposes, and your first attempt must be to draw away from your mental body. ”

“ Yoga has produced, in every age of India, men who became truly free, truly Yogi-Christs.
Like any other science, yoga is applicable to people of every clime and time. The theory advanced by certain ignorant writers that yoga is "unsuitable for Westerners" is wholly false, and has lamentably prevented many sincere students from seeking its manifold blessings. Yoga is a method for restraining the natural turbulence of thoughts, which otherwise impartially prevent all men, of all lands, from glimpsing their true nature of Spirit. ”

“ That is not myself," he is coming nearer and nearer to his highest point, to consciousness in a single film, in a single atom of matter, a Monad. For all practical purposes of Yoga, the man, the working, conscious man, is so much of him as he cannot separate from the matter enclosing him, or with which he is connected. Only that is body which the man is able to put aside and say: "This is not I, but mine." We find we have a whole series of terms in Yoga which may be repeated over and over again. ”

“ The Yoga or contemplative philosophy of the Hindus, is rich, exuberant, grand and sublime, in as much as it comprehends within its ample sphere and deep recesses of meditation, all that is of the greatest value, best interest and highest importance to mankind, as physical, moral, intellectual and spiritual beings—a knowledge of the cosmos—of the physical and intellectual worlds. ”

“ That which we know as Yoga is the method by which evolution is quickened in the individual, and all the powers of the Self, up to the threshold of divinity, may by it be brought into manifestation in the man of the present. That is why Yoga training was necessary for the ancient scientist; he must develop in himself the three aspects of God, if he were to understand them as manifested in the universe around him. ”

“ There are a number of great souls, living in American or European or other non-Hindu bodies today who, though they may never have heard the words YOGI and SWAMI, are yet true exemplars of those terms. Through their disinterested service to mankind, or through their mastery over passions and thoughts, or through their single hearted love of God, or through their great powers of concentration, they are, in a sense, yogis; they have set themselves the goal of yoga-self-control. ”

“ The sage indicated several thick envelopes on a table. “I correspond with a few societies there whose members are interested in yoga. They are discovering India anew, with a better sense of direction than Columbus! I am glad to help them. The knowledge of yoga is free to all who will receive, like the ungarnishable daylight.
“What rishis perceived as essential for human salvation need not be diluted for the West. Alike in soul though diverse in outer experience, neither West nor East will flourish if some form of disciplinary yoga be not practiced.” ”

“ The term Yoga is held to mean unity or communion with God, and the Yogi by virtue of his painful discipline and mental and physical exercises considered himself divine. “The adept acquires the knowledge of everything past and future, remote or hidden; he divines the thoughts of others, gains the strength of an elephant, the courage of a lion, and the swiftness of the wind ”

“ This is the excellent illustration propounded by persons conversant with Yoga. When the bearer of a body adequately beholds the soul in Yoga, he then has no one that is master over him, for he then becomes the lord of the three worlds. [34] He succeeds in assuming diverse bodies according as he wishes. Turning away decrepitude and death, he neither grieves nor exults. The self-restrained man, concentrated in Yoga, can create (for himself) the godship of the very gods. ”

“ Learn to take the mind out and to see that it is
separate from the body. We endow the body with sensation and life and then think it is alive and real. We have worn it so long that we forget that it is not identical with us. Yoga is to help us put off our body when we please and see it as our servant, our instrument, not our ruler. Controlling the mental powers is the first great aim in Yoga practices. The second is concentrating them in full force upon any subject.
You cannot be a Yogi if you talk much. ”

“ The only way you can know Him is by diving into yourself. There you will find Him, and know that He is without as well as within you; and Yoga is a system that enables you to get rid of everything from consciousness that is not God, save that one veil of the nirvanic atom, and so to know that God is, with an unshakable certainty of conviction. ”

“ Many of the later Upanishads are largely concerned with the Yoga doctrine. The lawbook of Manu in Book VI. refers to various details of Yoga practice. Indeed, it seems likely, owing to the theistic point of view of that work, that its Sānkhya notions were derived from the Yoga system. The Mahābhārata treats of Yoga in considerable detail, especially in Book XII. It is particularly prominent in the Bhagavadgītā, which is even designated a yoga-çāstra. Belief in the efficacy of Yoga still prevails in India, and its practice survives. ”

“ In consequence of this distinction, the real meaning is that the commencing the Yogaśástra is that which primarily [242] claims our attention; while the "yoga," or the restraint of the modifications of the mind, is what is to be expounded in this Sáśtra. "But as we read in the lists of roots that the root yuj is used in the sense of 'joining,' should not the word yoga, its derivative, mean 'conjunction,' and not 'restraint'? And indeed this has been said by Yájñavalkya: [381] —
'The conjunction of the individual and the supreme souls is called yoga.'" ”

“ I propose now to deal first with the two great methods of Yoga, one related to the Self and the other to the Not-Self. Let me remind you, before I begin, that we are dealing only with the science of Yoga and not with other means of attaining union with the Divine. ”

“ The intellect has no answer for these questions; hence the rishis evolved yoga as the technique of spiritual inquiry.
Kriya Yoga is the real “fire rite” often extolled in the Bhagavad Gita. The purifying fires of yoga bring eternal illumination, and thus differ much from outward and little-effective religious fire ceremonies, where perception of truth is oft burnt, to solemn chanted accompaniment, along with the incense! ”

“ It is absolutely necessary in the first stages of Yoga for everyone. But to a Yogi who has mastered these, it is not necessary, if he wants to follow the left-hand path. For you must remember that there is a Yoga of the left-hand path, as well as a Yoga of the right-hand path. Yoga is there also followed, and though asceticism is always found in the early stages, and sometimes in the later, true morality is absent. The black magician is often as rigid in his morality as any Brother of the White Lodge. ”

“ Self-realized masters in every century have hallowed her soil; modern Christlike sages, like Lahiri Mahasaya and his disciple Sri Yukteswar, rise up to proclaim that the science of yoga is more vital than any material advances to man's happiness and to a nation's longevity. ”

“ Yoga, therefore, means yoking the Mind to the Spirit of God by concentration. Hatha Yoga consists in cleaning and disciplining the outer and inner physical body by the practice of certain postures of sitting, processes of moving the muscles and fixing the eye upon some external object or the tip of the nose. These, in time, induce mental poise. Karma Yoga is performing good actions, and practising spiritual formulas which contribute to the purification of the mind and, finally lead to the unfoldment of the soul. Rāja Yoga is stopping the functions of the mind's volitions. ”

“ When the perceptions of Yoga, arising from earth, water, light, fire, ether, have taken place, then Yoga has begun. Unto him does not come disease, nor old age, nor death, who has got a body made up of the fire of Yoga. ”