10/26/2019
There is no way to avoid starting with "What is Yoga?"
We say we are born to life and we say we die. We come and we go. It seems we just appear and disappear. Have you ever wondered - where do we come from and where do we go? What are we doing here and what are we here for? I sincerely hope that each and everyone has already wondered or at least will wonder one day about this mystery because a stance on this shapes not only our lives but also our quality of life and experience as well as our actions and reactions. And not only individual ones, but also common because we are all interrelated and connected to each other.
There are many theories and speculations and everyone can find one that suits them. Here I would like to lay a simplified, easily understandable perspective from a school of Yoga Ta**ra Philosophy.
According to Ta**ra Yoga, everything is consciousness - everything, from an animate to an inanimate object. From an object like a stone, a piece of furniture, to a plant, an animal and a human being. Everything is consciousness manifesting in a different form. Therefore, we can say that Yoga Ta**ra Philosophy is a strict monotheistic philosophy - there is only consciousness and nothing else, nothing outside it, beside it, or next to it. Everything is consciousness itself.
All this world, all our experience, our life is nothing but a cosmic cycle of creation, a divine play called 'Lila' in Sanskrit. It is a cycle because consciousness undergoes a transformation and the endpoint is the same as the starting point.
Imagine that there is a big whirlpool, a whirlpool of consciousness that is called Parama Purusha or Brahma, God, The Universal Self, The Energy, The nucleus, or whatever name we like to ascribe to this mystery. This Parama Purusha has two aspects, two components to Itself that cannot be divided, cannot be separated. One side of it is called Purusha. Purusha is the cognitive principle, witnessing, ever-present, conscious, but an inactive part. The other part is called Prakrti, which can be seen as an attribute of Purusha. Prakrti is the operative principle, the energy, the power, the force (shakti), the active part and is the inherent tendency of Purusha. Prakrti is a blind force that Purusha controls and witnesses. Although it is dual in theory, Parama Purusha is single in spirit. Their collective body is just like that of fire. We cannot think of fire without its quality to burn and we cannot think of Parama Purusha without its force Prakrti that creates and manifests in numerous forms of creation.
Although Purusha does not need an object to exist, Purusha binds itself and creates an object due to Prakrti, It's the active counterpart. Purusha binds Itself through Prakrti and transforms into an object. It becomes an object, It crudifies Itself into an object. In other words, by creating an object, Purusha subjectivates Itself, meaning that it makes Itself to be the subject and witnesses an object that It becomes.
This means that the universe does not revolve around us, the universe revolves around Purusha and we are part of that universe, we are objects that revolve around It having come from It.
This force, this power, Prakrti, is a constituent of three immanent, binding principles, three forces called 'gunas' in Sanskrit. Namely, sentient, mutative and static. The whole creation sprouts due to the clash between them.
The stronger they bind consciousness, the cruder the object. The cruder the object, the lesser there is awareness. We, human beings are said to be the most conscious creature in this world because we know that we exist, we have consciousness on our own. However, we all must have noticed that even among all of us human beings, we can see that there are various degrees of consciousness manifesting - some people are more conscious of our unity, community and others only see differences, division and are obsessed by greed, fame, pleasure.
Despite that, being conscious also implies that we question, we question our own existence. Knowing that we exist, we want to know why do we exist and what for and ultimately, we want to be happy and truly enjoy this existence.
So to answer the questions I started with "what do we exist for, why are we here", an answer is intuitive now - we exist to serve the manifested Consciousness in our form, to manifest it fully and do whatever is necessary to fulfill our potentiality from a Ta**ra Yoga perspective; creation is a cycle and we come from Parama Purusha to ultimately go back to it, back to Consciousness. But it is not really back, but forward, it is a cycle and, therefore, we must go forward in order to go back to where we have come from; We shall live in such a way that would bring us closer to our Consciousness, closer to our humanness and ability to direct our mental propensities from crude to subtle. We are here - to experience, to live, to serve and help each other, to grow, to evolve, and to blossom in full colors given to us.
And so finally, what is Yoga?
Ta**ra Yoga has been in India for thousands of years and because of such a long history Yoga is defined by many different schools in many different ways.
The most popular are two sources where Yoga is clearly defined, that is Bhagavad Gita, a story that is part of an epic poem of Mahabharata and in Patanjali Yoga Sutras.
Bhagavad Gita gives the two most famous definitions:
yōgas haḥ ku u ka āṇi saṅgaṁ yak vā dhanañjaya|
s ddhyas ddhyōḥ sa ō bhū vā sa a vaṁ yōga ucya ē||2.48||
buddh yuk ō jahā ha ubhē suk a duṣk ē|
as ādyōgāya yujyasva yōgaḥ ka asu kauśala ||2.50||
- 'Samatvam yoga ucyate' which can be translated as 'Equinimity is called Yoga" and 'Yogah karmasu kausalam', translated as "Yoga is skill in action".
Patanjali defines Yoga in ||1.2 sutra||as: Yogash citta vrtti nirodha, and can be translated as yoga is the cessation of the modifications, or fluctuations, of the mind. These definitions lack the sentiment and deeper feeling of yoga and because of this, the definition that comes closest is by Sri Sri Anandamurti and says 'Samyogo yoga ityukto jivatma Paramatmanoh' . It can be translated as "The unification of a unit consciousness with the Supreme Consciousness, is Yoga".
Therefore, Yoga is a goal, an aspiration, and a purpose. Yoga is also the means to the goal, a lifestyle, a way of living, being, seeing, and making sense of the world an ideology for living in the world. Yoga is also tools, techniques, methods and practices.
Ultimately, yoga is the subjective experience of the truth, of the self and a journey to the internal peace, contentment, joy. It is a UNION with the Consciousness, as the literal meaning of the word.
