Sathya Sai Vahini - Post 28

 

In Today's post, we start with the essence of the 2 path- Raja Yoga and Jnana Yoga, as written by Swami, covered in the previous post

 

Raja Yoga (Royal Path, as Swami puts it)

 

• When the mental abilities are focused on one effort, knowledge can be acquired quicker and from a wider field. And that is the only way by which knowledge can be earned.

•   Concentration will enable one, whoever one is, whatever the activity engaged in, to finish it much better than otherwise. 

•  Whether in material assignments, ordinary day-to-day work, or spiritual exercises (sadhana), concentration of mental energies is a must if success is to be achieved. It is the key that can open the treasure chest of wisdom (jnana). This is the most important aspect of royal yoga.

•   Millions of unwelcome, unwanted, unnecessary, and even harmful thoughts enter our minds and confound their activities. These have to be kept out; the mind has to be guarded and controlled and kept under our rigorous supervision. Royal yoga is the one refuge for persons endeavoring to win this victory.

 

Swami Vivekananda, whose writing, and teachings on “Raja Yoga”, is one of the most authentic teachings on this Royal Yoga.

Glimpses from the introductory chapter on Raja Yoga by Swamiji is given below.

"Yoga is the science which teaches us how to get these perceptions. It is not much use to talk about religion until one has felt it. Why is there so much disturbance, so much fighting and quarreling in the name of God? 

There has been more bloodshed in the name of God than for any other cause, because people never went to the fountain-head; they were content only to give a mental assent to the customs of their forefathers, and wanted others to do the same. 

The science of Râja-Yoga proposes to put before humanity a practical and scientifically worked out method of reaching this truth. In the first place, every science must have its own method of investigation. 

If you want to become an astronomer and sit down and cry "Astronomy! Astronomy!" it will never come to you. The same with chemistry. A certain method must be followed. You must go to a laboratory, take different substances, mix them up, compound them, experiment with them, and out of that will come a knowledge of chemistry. 

If you want to be an astronomer, you must go to an observatory, take a telescope, study the stars and planets, and then you will become an astronomer. 

Each science must have its own methods. I could preach you thousands of sermons, but they would not make you religious, until you practiced the method. 

The knowledge of the mind, of the internal nature of man, of thought, can never be had until we have first the power of observing the facts that are going on within. It is comparatively easy to observe facts in the external world, for many instruments have been invented for the purpose, but in the internal world we have no instrument to help us. 

The science of Raja-Yoga, in the first place, proposes to give us such a means of observing the internal states. The instrument is the mind itself. The power of attention, when properly guided, and directed towards the internal world, will analyse the mind, and illumine facts for us. 

The powers of the mind are like rays of light dissipated; when they are concentrated, they illumine. This is our only means of knowledge. 

Everyone is using it, both in the external and the internal world; but, for the psychologist, the same minute observation has to be directed to the internal world, which the scientific man directs to the external; and this requires a great deal of practice. 

To turn the mind as it were, inside, stop it from going outside, and then to concentrate all its powers, and throw them upon the mind itself, in order that it may know its own nature, analyse itself, is very hard work. Yet that is the only way to anything which will be a scientific approach to the subject.

What is the use of such knowledge? In the first place, knowledge itself is the highest reward of knowledge, and secondly, there is also utility in it. It will take away all our misery. 

In the study of this Raja-Yoga no faith or belief is necessary. Believe nothing until you find it out for yourself; that is what it teaches us. Truth requires no prop to make it stand. 

This study of Raja-Yoga takes a long time and constant practice. A part of this practice is physical, but in the main it is mental. 

According to the Raja-Yogi, the external world is but the gross form of the internal, or subtle. The finer is always the cause, the grosser the effect. So the external world is the effect, the internal the cause. 

A Yogi must avoid the two extremes of luxury and austerity. He must not fast, nor torture his flesh. He who does so, says the Gita, cannot be a Yogi: He who fasts, he who keeps awake, he who sleeps much, he who works too much, he who does no work, none of these can be a Yogi (Gita, VI, 16).

 

In the next post, we will take up Jnana yoga.

 

Love.