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Sadhaka :
Will you please explain the meaning, nature and purpose of Yoga?
Gurudev : The
word Yoga comes from the Sanskrit root 'yuj' which means 'to join'. Yoga
is the science that teaches us the method of uniting the individual soul
with the Supreme Soul, of merging the individual will in the Cosmic Will.
To live in God, to commune with God is Yoga. Yoga is life in God, life
in perfection, peace, lasting happiness and eternal Bliss. Life in God
brings eternal Bliss. Yoga shows you the way, unites you with God, and
makes you perfect and Immortal.
Swamiji :
The meaning of the Sanskrit term: 'a state of union with the Divine; or
an experience of oneness with the great Reality'. Yoga means to direct
your mind towards God, to realise your oneness with the Divine Consciousness.
It implies any effort that the soul may make in its endeavor to attain
God. Yoga makes available to you the scientific method for approaching
God. All the techniques, which eventually bestow upon the practitioner
the experience of Divine Consciousness, may also be designated by the
one word 'Yoga'.
If you define Yoga in the simplest term, it is the steady
movement of the individual soul towards the Supreme Soul. Yoga is a steady
ascent to the Divine. Yoga and Vedanta are universal in their scope. They
are the property of all mankind. Yoga uses a technique by which you overcome
the bondage of body through restraining your senses, mastering your mind,
and controlling your thoughts and desires. Going beyond them, you reach
the inner depth of your all-perfect and divine being. Yoga is a path that
leads up to the state of supreme blessedness and peace. Its practices
constitute the techniques for the purification and preparation of human
consciousness for entering into the experience of the supreme blissful
Divine Reality.
Yoga is an exact science. The science of Yoga makes a
study of man himself and declares that he is a triune being:
a) Firstly, with a gross and bestial nature;
b) secondly, endowed with reason but full of impurity;
c) thirdly, with all-pure and all-perfect divine nature which lies deep
within.
1) The foremost feature in the yogic pattern of life is the process of
purifying the lower nature. Purity is the foundation of yogic life. One
has to be rooted in goodness, purity, truth and selflessness. Half of
the process of Yoga is in thus getting perfectly established in ideal
moral conduct. Yoga transforms one's lower nature into the Divine nature.
Yoga shows how to overcome the imperfections of the lower nature and how
to gain complete mastery over the mind and senses. Yoga is elimination
of the negative traits of the animal nature through purification and refinement.
2) Yoga tells you not to be deluded by these passing
objects which are perishable and therefore temporary. Yoga is a process
of controlling the animal nature and eliminating the negative traits of
that animal nature, and purifying and refining your psychological nature,
so that the mind, the thoughts and sentiments are now directed towards
the Supreme Divine Reality, and ultimately awakening the sleeping Divinity
within. It is giving an upward trend to your psychological nature, to
your emotions, sentiments and reasoning processes.
3) Man is essentially all-perfect. Yoga is the technique
of attaining Divine Perfection and Immortality. Yoga is the art and science
of divesting and directing your entire human personality potential beyond
your present state of sorrow, restlessness, isolation and fear into a
higher state of Consciousness characterised by bliss, peace, fullness
and fearlessness. Thus unfolding this awakened Divinity and trying to
enter into an experience of radiant, unfolded and awakened Consciousness
and to become established in this Consciousness of perennial Bliss, peace
and blessedness is Yoga. Yoga is to awaken the sleeping Divinity within,
to unfold it and make it radiantly manifest in your thought, word and
deed, and enter into an experience of the all-perfect divine nature, and
abide in Bliss and Peace.
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