Hindus have heard about Yoga from childhood, looked at the yoga sutras of Patanjali. There is no death, instead body only dies, and spirit is reborn. If person is good, they will be reborn to a better life, and vice versa.
The goal is to achieve liberation or liberty, freedom from troubles, as is God. Yoga provides the path to that state of nirvana or bliss.
The word Yoga means 'union'. The goal of yoga is to reach union with the Divine Being (God), to become enlightened, in nirvana. This means becoming liberated from the body and the mind and reaching the Beyond (as the Buddhists describe it), the That (= Beyond) as opposed to the This (body and mind).
Yoga Sutras call it 'the state of oneness' or 'independence'. This Independence is the Self and to know this self is the goal of yoga. This is similar to the concept of Freedom from Vedanta philosophy. For Christians, the goal is the Kingdom of God.
In the Yoga Sutras eight limbs
are prescribed. The first two are concerned with ethics and morality i.e. 1.
Abstention (Yama) and 2.
Observance (Niyama).
The Abstentions are: (1) non-injury, (2) truthfulness, (3) non-theft, (4)
spiritual conduct, (5) non-greed.
The Observances are: (1) cleanliness, (2) contentment, (3) austerity, (4)
self-study, (5) attentiveness to God.
The last three of the eight limbs of yoga
are 6. Concentration
(Dharana), 7. Meditation
(Dhyana), and 8. Contemplation (Samadhi).
Taken together, as one operation, 'the three in oneness are poise'.
Contemplation can be with consciousness of an object, or without it. When
there is an object in mind, there are two stages, inspectional (more concrete
characteristics) and investigational (subtle or abstract). These can be
further subdivided to give also non-inspectional and non-investigational.
Ultimately the realisation comes that the body is not conscious, but we are conscious of the body, and the mind is not conscious, but we are conscious of the mind. In this super-conscious state, it is possible to contemplate God, the Absolute, Consciousness, Self, Reality.
In Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga, three deal with the body: 3. posture (asana), 4. breathing (pranayama), 5. control of senses (pratyahara).
The practice ofpranayama is the voluntary control of inbreathing (puraka), holding (kumbhaka), and outbreathing (rechaka). The purposes are to create a new way of breathing that becomes habitual, to develop some special techniques (e.g. the 1:4:2 healing breath), and to acquire a quieter and slower kind of breathing for meditation ('attention without tension').
The term asana or seat covers a large variety of bending and stretching postures. There are two groups, those intended to be retained for a long time during meditation, and those that promote bodily fitness most of which are held for only a short time.
The posture used for meditation should be one that is comfortable and that can be held easily so as to allow 'attention without tension'. There are over 80 asanas, but usually only a few are performed regularly.
According to Indian philosophy, mankind is troubled and endangered by three kinds of things, the material world, other living beings, and worst of all, himself. From here originates the idea that the yogi has to purify and develop himself. Hence the need for the subjects of this chapter.
The yogi becomes very aware of himself and what he is feeling. His senses in relation to himself become heightened. On the other hand, to meditate, he needs to avoid distraction and so withdraws his senses.
In hatha yoga, purification is brought about by six practices:
There are six kinds of purifying action: general cleansing, washing the intestines, cleaning the nostrils, loosening the abdominal contents, clearing the vision and clearing the skull.
Some examples are abdominal uplift (uddiyana bandha), bee breathing, looking between the eyes or eyebrows, alternate nostril breathing, mantras.
Laya-yoga states that there is a latent force coiled up at the base of the spine. Kundalini means coiled up, and yoga literature speaks of it as a goddess, who is the mother of all the gods and goddesses associated with the chakras. If this latent force is awakened, it can travel along the nadis or channels outside the body on the left (ida) and right (pingala), and up fine channel in the spine, the chitrini, which links the chakras. The practices that awaken the Kundalini are called thelaya-yoga.
Each chakra has a colour, a god or godess, a sound (mantra), a lotus with differing number of petals, an animal, letters of the alphabet, an 'element' (earth, water, fire, air, ether).
The Brow Centre is the chakra of the mind (manas) and it governs the other five chakras. It weaves together the messages from the five senses and actions, so creating an intelligent understanding of the world. Its colour is white like the moon, its deity is Shiva, the symbol is a phallus, denoting creativity.
When Kundalini is awakened, she travels up the chitrini in the spine, through the five chakras, to the Brow (ajna) chakra,and then on to the crown centre (sahasrara chakra) at the top of the head, where she joins Shiva.As she passes each chakra, the lotus there turns from down-facing to up-facing. When the meditation is over, she retraces her path back down to the Basal Centre, vitalizing the centres as she goes.
Kundalini is awakened by sitting in siddhasana, filling the lungs, holding the breath (some say with a chin lock) and applying an anal lock. There are various variants.
Harmony of body and mind increases vitality.
Tantric yoga uses sounds, mantras.
Om is the mantra of the Brow Centre, the highest of the chakras. It is pronounced as a-u-m, with the a-u joined as 'o' and the m extended and ringing. Above the m is a crescent moon on its back (nada) and a dot or point (bindu). These signify the prolongation of the sound that dies away to an undetectable point.
Mantras have four levels:
The Bhagavad Gita is a compendium of spiritual inspiration. Each chapter is entitled a form of yoga. The chapters are summarised.
Description of the eight limbs of yoga as the path to unity with the infinite divine being, or self-realisation (the real man).
Discussion about the relationship between the mind and the world (fourth part of Patanjali's yoga sutras). The mind, like the body, is temporary, for this incarnation only. The mind can reflect on objects even when they are absent and the senses are not being stimulated, thus it can respond in a wider way, calling on latencies resulting from past karmas. The mind is not self-illuminate - we are conscious of the mind, but the mind itself is entirely unconscious. It exists, not for its own enjoyment, but for the sake of the real man. In the course of meditation, the five sources of trouble must be dealt with and the actions to which they lead. Then comes the end of the series of transformations in the field of Nature, and independence, freedom, has been won.