Yoga. Life. What's the Point?
In this article I will discuss;
The meaning of Life.
How we can each engage with that meaning in order to bring fulfillment and joy into our own life.
The wisdom that Yoga offers to guide and support that.
When I say "Yoga" I refer to to my understanding of the ancient texts of Yoga, primarily the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
And to my experience of the results of practising the principles therein.
(More of these in future articles)
What wisdom did the great yogi sages, the ascended masters, offer us?
That Life as a whole, everything, the universe, has a point/meaning/direction/purpose.
And so, as inseparable parts of that whole, we share that purpose.
That we can know that point.
That we can directly experience, live, be, the understanding of it.
So how does Yoga relate to that?
Yoga and Life share the same purpose
Yoga practice is conscious engagement with Life's overall purpose on an individual level.
It is a deliberate journey to a specific destination.
Yoga is a hands-on, applied-science/philosophy of Life.
It says ... "This is what Life's purpose is, and here's some practical ways to do your part in fulfilling that purpose".
What is the purpose?
The Big Question, huh?
The only question, perhaps.
According to Yoga ( a Vedic philosophy - more later), the Big Answer is ...
Absolute Truth is the purpose.
The Truth of ourselves, and through that, the Truth of the universe.
The Knowing and Being of that which we Are, of that which Is.
The Absolute Truth of our Self has many names in the relative universe.
Yoga refers to It as Purusha (in Sankrit), which I will translate here as Soul.
Quantum mechanics calls it Consciousness.
While the Soul is a portion of the Whole, It is also the Whole.
That which has no boundaries, no form, can have no measurement, cannot be divided.
We are a part and we are the Whole, in the same way that a hologram has the entire whole in every part.
Yoga refers to that Whole as Isvara. (aka The Great Spirit, God, Love, Freedom, Atman, Brahman, Isvara, Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah, Om, Jah, Krishna, Shiva, All-Glorious, Satnam, One-ness, The Is, The All ... so many many more names for that which has no name).
Hence, Soul/Consciousness is Isvara/God.
We are God (please insert whichever name pleases you).
Absolute Truth is before words, beyond words, and words can only ever be relative/subjective.
Words are limited.
They are signposts that point in the direction of understandings/knowings/experiences/things (ooooer ... more words), they are not the things, themselves.
Words have different meaning to different people and at different moments.
If we do not understand the language being spoken, they mean nothing.
It is the personal individual experiencing of Truth that is the goal, not just an intellectual/superficial/incomplete understanding which is all that words (or indeed any other symbols) can provide.
Yoga posits that Infinite Soul (Purusha) is forever interacting/dancing/flowing with Infinite Energy (Prakriti) to create all the manifest universe.
Everything in the manifest universe coalesces around Soul, and Soul, ultimately, governs that manifestation.
Thus we are creators of our own universe.
We are God (or whatever, as above).
Yoga says that coming to Knowing, and fully Being this eternal creative dance, is the goal of our existence.
How does Yoga help with that?
Yoga says there are only three ways to know a thing.
- Inference/deduction: Someone has come into the house dripping wet... it must be raining.
- Reliable testimony: A friend says "It's raining".
- Direct experience: We go out, we get wet.
Of these #3 is the only absolute sure way to Know a thing.
Yoga says that, ultimately, we do not need words, that we can directly experience the Truth/Self/Soul.
Yoga offers "this is likely to happen" ... "that is what you may find" ... "here is an understanding" ...
But the sages say "don't take our words for it, you too can know Truth for yourself".
It is made very clear that we can, and must, find our own way, our own Truth.
The Truth is in there.
We are Infinite Soul, just like all the ascended masters and sages.
We have all knowledge, all wisdom inside us.
We must refer to our own authority as the ultimate teacher.
Always in the awareness that that authority is based in the True Soul/Self, not in the erroneous ego/small-self.
Yoga states that we live in darkness/ignorance/error (avidya).
We do not know what we Are.
This ignorance is caused by distortions in the mind, due to our conditioning and our karma from past lives.
It is the source of all our ills and suffering.
Thus, in order to find our way out of the dark, we must clear the mind.
The clearer our mind becomes, the more we experience what we really Are.
So, Yoga is a clarifying/mastering/calming of the mind.
Yoga is a mental process.
Yoga offers a broad spectrum of tools (way beyond the bending and stretching we usually associate with it) to assist us in coming to this knowing.
More detail of these tools in future articles.
What will happen as we progress?
There are stages/landmarks along the way to full Knowing.
We will probably experience plateaus with periodic leaps-forward.
But, with commitment/dedication/courage (abhyasa) and non-attachment/surrender to the outcomes (vairagya), progress and success are certain.
Yoga scriptures do tell us what we might expect on our journey.
We become freer, in body and mind, as we increasingly express Soul.
We become more whole.
We become happier, more fulfilled in each moment.
Our relationships with each other and the world are more harmonious and joyful.
Our actions are more in balance with the laws of Nature.
We become settled/stable/peaceful in our own Being.
Our innate hidden powers/strengths (siddhis) develop and blossom.
We suffer less, less pain, less dis-ease, less conflict.
Our hidden Divinity shines more and more into our daily life.
The caterpillar gradually becomes the butterfly.
We blossom.
I can confirm this.
And when we arrive at Full Knowing?
I don't Fully Know . :b
Here's some words ... which we currently have to take as the testimony of reliable witnesses ( the great yogis);
We come to know ourselves as, and act as, Soul, as streams of Consciousness all flowing from the One, from Source.
We become masters of the eternal dance of Consciousness and Energy.
We become Free.
No more are we limited by our error/misperception, or by illusions of time/space/form.
We ascend to our highest Self, beyond our current ability to conceive.
We become free of suffering, pain, dis-ease.
We stop re-incarnating, released from the birth-death-rebirth cycle, immortal, eternal.
We are no longer bound to physical density.
We are endless potential/possibility.
Limitless power.
Infinite joy.
Yes, please.
Conclusion
Life has inbuilt, innate, fundamental, purpose/pattern/cohesion/meaning/harmony ... like an endless grand symphony.
We, each individual, are conductor, musician and instrument playing in that symphony.
But we are playing out-of-tune.
We can become in tune.
There are ways to become in tune.
When we become in tune ... the beauty of the music will be beyond our imagination.
absolutely the right approach. but in the bustle of life - you do not have time to think about the future and man thinking about money only(((
Thanks for your reply.
Indeed ... the pressures of modern living can get in the way of our practice and thus our progress.
Our practice should always be appropriate to our circumstances.
A monk has more chance to practice than the working, debt-laden mother of 4 children, for example.
We are best to accept where we are and work with what time/resources we have to improve our situation.
If we truly recognise the value of the spiritual path for then we will always find the time to focus on it.
In my experience, time spent in practice/meditation amply repays us with increased energy, focus and productivity the rest of the time.
Some wise man or other said ... "Meditate for 20 minutes a day. Unless you do not have time, in which case meditate for an hour"
The man who thinks only of money is, sadly, missing the point of his life.
Sure, we need money (as things stand anyway).
But it is best seen as a means to an end, rather than the only thing there is.
Not always easy, I know :)
Love Peace & Freedom
Thank you for this detailed description of Yoga.
The following words really hit home with me:
I've intuited this through my own experimentation with self-searching/ remembering and I've always seemed to struggle with the non-attachment/ surrender part. I realize that it's the small-self (ego) trying to stay along for the journey, subtly trying to have it all go its way. I can sense too that the more I keep my attention focused on what's real about this I, which is at the core of my existence, the weaker the sense becomes of desiring to control outcomes and desiring to know how everything will play out; the less tense I feel; the freer and more contented I become as the identification with the person whom has such fears fades more and more into the background of awareness.
There's a definite ebb and flow to this growing realization, along with moments of stagnation and sudden leaps forward, as you mentioned.
I liken my own experience of spiritual growth to a stock that's trending upwards on a macro-scale (say on the year, or decade, time-frame), but experiences intermittent shorter timescale downtrends (such as the hourly, daily, weekly or monthly time-frames). I find that it's easy to get caught up in the drama of the present situation, making it appear for some time like all the past insights are forever lost, just like a trader can easily lose sight of the big picture in the daily or weekly price movements, unwittingly allowing oneself to be fooled into trading out of their original plan, only to have the stock behave exactly as they had originally figured that it would.
The main factor, common to both contexts, is that the truth, or direction, is always easier to determine with a clear mind that's not caught up in the immediate action or happenings of the moment, and the right decision comes far more frequently when I am in that head-space (silent mind).
I'm certain that the right decision will only come more and more frequently the more I live from that space and the more I come to know the Truth. Once the little-I merges with the One (Existence), then only right decisions can come - this is me extrapolating and theorizing a bit, which I feel isn't the best practice to develop, as it seems to me that conceptualizing what Truth is, or could be, creates a high potential for unnecessary mental road-blocks to actually seeing what is (Truth).
You have touched so many concepts in this one post.
The clarity of your thought and knowledge confirms that you have spent considerable amount of time in absorbing this knowledge. I can also sense your enthusiasm in this branch of spirituality.
Liked what I read. All the best.
Thank you again, Sir.
Love Peace & Freedom