In most of the western world, the word Yoga often evokes the image of folks practicing certain body poses and movements with breath control under the guidance of instructors, sitting on rubber mats on floors in wide open spaces, mostly indoors in places called studios. This physical practice of Yoga with all its attendant health benefits for the body, is an important contribution of ancient India to the rest of the world.
However, there is much more to Yoga than the physical practice alone. The word Yoga comes from the phrase, ‘to unite or to yoke,’ and is often translated as ‘union.’ In India’s spiritual texts, there are four general classifications of the practice of Yoga — Karma Yoga (of action), Bhakti Yoga (of devotion), Jnana Yoga (of knowledge) and Raja Yoga (of meditation and beyond). All of these forms of Yoga are succinctly summarized in the spiritual classic, The Bhagavad Gita (Song of the Divine), which is a part of the Indian epic, The Mahabharata (The Great War).
What was ‘The Great War’ really about? As you can perhaps surmise, it was a fight for justice, a fight for goodness through righteousness (or dharma) to prevail over evil. The main protagonist of good, Prince Arjuna, when faced with the protagonists of evil who were his own step brothers numbering a hundred, lays down his bow and arrows on the battlefield and says to his teacher — “I shall not fight, for how can I slay my own brothers?”
The Bhagavad Gita, all seven hundred verses of it, is the message of his teacher, Krishna, who exhorts Arjuna to do his duty in order to preserve the path of dharma, of of goodness and wisdom, for both current and future generations. The principles of Karma Yoga – how to unite oneself to the path of action, and Jnana Yoga – how to unite oneself to the path of knowledge, are expounded to Arjuna by his charioteer, mentor and guide, the divine incarnate, Shree Krishna.
The inner conflicts between good and evil, the question about what is the best path of action, the confusion about what is the best source of knowledge, the dilemma about whether action is better than knowledge — some or all of these may be familiar to you. The Gita makes it clear that no one Yoga path is better than another, and that there are multiple paths available to us. We are free to choose the path or Yoga that is best for us depending on our spiritual station in life and the inclination of our heart.
Yoga principles say that the key to spiritual growth, to the flourishing of the heart, is in the consistent practice of our chosen path. If we choose the Karma Yoga path of detached action, it does not give us a free pass to be attached to inaction. We also need to pay attention to the correct spirt of performing our actions, don’t we? If we are on the path of knowledge, how do we use our knowledge to live in the world in a way that bring us closer to a universal sense of unity?
Regardless of the path, the questions remain. What is the sorrowless state? What is moksha or liberation? What is a stable intelligence? As the answers unfold on our spiritual walk, we can come to the awareness that when Yoga is performed by uniting our heart to contemplation of the light within, it can lead us to to inner peace and hence true happiness.
Such is the promise of Yoga at any and all stages of our lives, that it inspires us to unite our hearts with our own peaceful nature, and thus become beacons of unity for our fellow companions pursuing their own paths.
With light and love,
Kumud
Join us for our weekly gathering and conversation in #Spiritchat on Twitter, Sunday June 16 at 9amET. We will discuss some Yoga practices and more. Namaste. @AjmaniK
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