Patanjali, in his Yoga sutras, outlines the growth of yoga in the human system as an eight-limbed organism. From the external practices of Yama, Niyama, Asana and Pranayama to the internal practices of Pratyahara and Dharana, leading to internal ‘states’ of Dhyana and Samadhi. Notice the difference between internal practices and internal states. While you can perform a practice, a state happens to you, you cannot practise it. In fact, you arrive at these internal states by proper configuration. You are your own experimental apparatus; you have to calibrate and configure both your body and mind, internally and the externally. Only then will samadhi happen in you, it is a matter of preparation and readiness. Yoga is the science of theory and experimentation both. The internal and external practices of yoga must go hand in hand, together, for yoga to take birth and mature in the human system.
Yoga takes birth, and it consummates when the external and internal practises convert into internal states.
Yama and Niyama: What the modern world knows as ‘Religion’
The external practises of Yama and Niyama are the basics, the foundation of the yogic process. It is greatly embarrassing and frustrating for a consummate Yogi to watch these two preliminary, basic ideas make up the whole of religion in our modern world. Modern religion begins and ends at Yama and Niyama. Naturally, the ‘God’ which emerges from them is a ridiculous caricature. Laughable. It is no surprise that the atheists abhor this cardboard cut-out of a ‘God’.
Such a God does not and must not exist. Nor should such an inane, retarded ideology as religion. Only unintelligent fools could have created a monster out of these basic ideas of Yoga.
Yama is the ‘code of conduct’, the art of living honestly in society. It allows society to function well and to maintain itself. As a social being, man is responsible towards his family and community, he must not hurt and harm others. Simple. Any other posture of ‘holiness’ or ‘morality’ attached to this code of conduct is illusory and dangerous. It is ridiculous to watch yamas or codes of conduct take such an important part of our modern religions. It is sad to watch the orthodox watchdogs of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism make adherence to codes such a grave, frightful matter. Grave enough to ostracize, punish and kill. Grave enough for terrorism and war. It is heartbreaking because these religious codes means nothing, in and of themselves.
No moral merit will arise out of dressing, behaving and praying a certain way. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Atheists and absolutely right.
The truth is that the guardians of religion who enforce these codes of conduct are wrong, and many times outright egregious. They are either deluded from fear of a God which will punish transgressors, or they are simply playing for power. Because such a God who cares for your posture; what you wear and how you conduct yourself does not exist. It matters little if you are not doing anything apart from adhering to these rules
In the Yogic paradigm, you purify your actions through these roughly outlined codes of conduct to prepare yourself for meditation. They, in themselves do not directly relate to happiness or morality. Such virtue is a torturous illusion. It will not deliver you to eternal life and heaven, whatever that means for the retards of religion. It is an elementary step of the Yogic process, and even though important, it does not have a decisive impact on the end goal of the Yoga. Bandits and devilish seeming people have become consummate Yogis too. Outward appearances of virtue do not matter, in fact, they have become hindrances in the search for truth.
Niyama, rituals and observations, are intended for internal purification. You need to clean up your body, mind and psyche so they can together hold high states of meditation. End of story.
Remember, you ritual obsessed religious fanatics, no moral merit will arise form simply ‘doing’ rituals. None. As we have discovered, rituals are only ‘action metaphors’ to express and propagate the ineffable, intangible internal processes which were impossible to express and teach through language. Rituals and observations are important to discipline the body-mind so it becomes stable enough for deep meditation.
This will feel counter-intuitive, but Yama and Niyama do not matter to a consummate yogi, inside whom yoga has reached its peak state. For one who has attained Samadhi, Yama and Niyama become superfluous. Unnecessary, yet automatic. Natural, not a matter of following rules. At unevolved Yogic states, Yama and Niyama (modern religion) is about rules and duty alone. However, at evolved states, when samadhi is a personal experience, a personal phenomenon, they become at once both unnecessary and natural.
A man who has seen samadhi becomes moral without trying. Also, that morality is quite far removed from the morality we recognise in society.
What an embarrassment it is to see modern man’s quest for existential fulfillment beginning and ending at this step! Don’t you see that Yamas and Niyamas are only elementary preparations, like tilling and watering land on which you have planned a garden? Yes, that is all that modern religion is. Nothing will come out of it alone.
To imagine that believers and atheists pass verdicts about ‘God’ at this elementary level, before they have even readied the soil, watered it, planted saplings or seen their garden grow! A tragedy of Greek proportions!
It is critical to understand here that the Yogic principles of cognitive renovation and emotional processing carry in themselves the intentions of Yama and Niyama, and much more deeply and comprehensively at that. While ‘Yama’ and ‘Niyama’ are majorly about unthinking adherence, cognitive renovation and emotional processing have a permanent, lasting impact.
Modern religious rituals and codes are like band-aid for wounds that need surgery. Nothing will result from it.
Modern day Yoga: Just about Asana and Pranayama
Asana and Pranayama are the other two external practices to discipline your body and breath as you prepare for meditation. Asana brings harmony and stability to the body-mind so that high meditative states can anchor themselves. Pranayama brings discipline to the breath because breath links intimately with meditation.
These two steps are akin to the process of adding fertilizer to the soil and planting seeds /saplings into it, for our metaphorical garden of Yoga.
Modern Yoga is another tragic irony, like religion. It comprises just the two external aspects of Asana and Pranayama and them alone. As the modern world understands it, Yoga reduces mind-body stress, increases health and well-being. Sadly, people who did not understand enough minimised it this way. They devalued the most significant and crucial phenomenon for human evolution. They reduced the essence of human existence, marginalised it to the fringes of modern life.
Pratyahara and Dharana: Shutting down the mind and senses
Prathyahara and Dharana are internal practices that kick-start the engine of Yoga after you have cleaned and oiled it with your external practices. While the external practices were about preparing the soil and planting of seeds, these internal practices are about tending to seeds which have sprouted.
Pratyahara is the process of putting your organs of action to rest and withdrawing your senses of perception. When Pratyahara succeeds, it is a state devoid of all bodily activity and all responses to external stimuli. It stills the body and pulls your senses inward. Stilling the body is an easy task compared to controlling the senses which urge outwards wildly, as we know too well.
After the mind stops working and the senses turn inward, Dharana must take over. Dharana is the process of cutting away all extraneous thought and perception to focus on one object/image alone. The purpose of chanting or concentrating on an image is just that, to focus on that ‘subtle’ object alone. Concentrating on an object is not an end in itself, it is the path towards complete mental stillness.
Meditation and mantra chanting has been receiving some attention in ‘spiritual’ circles by ‘spiritual’ people who have minimised and reduced them too. Even the word spiritual is a sad mish-mash; half-baked, self- righteous and downright annoying. It represents crystals, tarots, beads, incense, some relaxing music and chanting in our world today. What a tragedy! For this flavour of spirituality, meditation and chanting are a tool to relax and feel good. That they can be, and only that, if practised for those mere five minutes. “Meditate for five minutes daily and see your life change!”, they advise you. Another hack, another shortcut, another false promise, a constant feature of our modern world. Does anybody achieve anything worthwhile in the short term? Never. Don’t let this mistaken, smug fashion fool you.
Dhyana and Samadhi: Internal happenings, not practices
Dhyana and Samadhi are the resultant internal states which follow from internal and external practices. Dhyana and Samadhi happen, you cannot practise or do them. If you have calibrated and configured well, both internally and externally, if you have prepared your psyche-mind-body enough, they will just happen. These are states that overcome you, just like sleep does. Sometimes you try hard to sleep, and then at others it just overpowers you, no?
Dhyana is a lower kind of meditative absorption, a bridge towards Samadhi, the highest kind; the end goal of yoga. When the highest Samadhi establishes itself in your system, again and again, you achieve states of ultra-cognition and ultra-sensory bliss. Super-knowing and feeling which you cannot achieve any other way.
Ultra cognition because the cognition that ‘happens’ in Samadhi is beyond any mental process. Since Dharana has shut down your mental faculties, they do not contribute to this knowing, this cognizance. The mind does not generate it, hence it is extra-mental.
Ultra-sensory because Pratyahara has shut down the senses, withdrawn all your senses inward. The senses do not generate or hold this kind of bliss, hence it is extra-sensory.
In this state you know and feel beyond what the senses and mind could have known and felt. You could call Dhyana the mature, developed tree in your metaphorical garden. A fully grown tree which yields this unimaginable, exquisite, exotic, sweet fruit of Samadhi. This ethereal fruit is the end goal of Yoga and of human existence.
Dhyana and Samadhi are states which are literally unknown to most the world, and so is the true essence of Yoga. Its true meaning, it true goal. Also, since the ultra-knowing and ultra-feeling comes from a ‘space’ beyond the senses and mind, it is very difficult to explain what it means, within the framework of the mind and senses.
Don’t you see? The senses and the mind don’t have the vocabulary to explain it because it did not arise in these sensory and mental paradigms.
One cannot tell you what it feels like or what you will know. You will have to see and know for yourself.
This analogy can explain what I am trying to say: Can you explain the relative nature of time in terms of Newtonian mechanics? You cannot because time is fixed in Newton’s laws. Can you explain the probability of an event in everyday physics? No way. In everyday life, things happen or they don’t, there are no probability wave functions of an event. However, relative time and probability wave functions exist, as relativity laws and quantum mechanics tell us? These are realities of two different realms, both true at their respective scales.
Beyond the senses and mind: Time is relative and probability waves exist even if they don’t affect in our ordinary lives!
Remember how we talked of relativity of world views, relativity in models of physics? Scientists have three different models of science, for three different ‘realms’ depending on the scale of observation. The microscopic Plank sizes, the human cell size and the cosmological sizes produce the models of Quantum Mechanics, Newtonian mechanics and Relativity Mechanics. These models don’t overlap, their rules are different, their forces are contra distinct. Of course, work is on to discover the Grand Unified Theory, one which can encompass all three, but is still in the works. Relativity exists, but we want it not to. We want a grand unified theory, the theory of everything. Don’t we?
Similarly, our ordinary existence, our every day experiences have a more fundamental state too! Yoga underpins our existence whether we are aware of it or not. Ultra-cognition and ultra-sensory bliss of Yoga arise from a realm outside of our sensory and mental paradigms. It is a different realm where the rules and forces are different. Just like the different realms of physics have different models and equations, the laws of Yoga have a different language, different semantics. A different vocabulary.
Yoga is that most fundamental state of human existence, the grand unified theory of existence. It might not only explain but also consummate our human experience.