On a recent yoga retreat, I wrote down a few thoughts that I wanted to share.
To learn, evolve, and transcend, we use witness, comparison, and our own insight. We draw on our own conclusions through previous experience. But to go beyond ourselves, we have to subscribe to a practice, yoga teaching, or doctrine. Our own lives are so short, it would seem inefficient to rely solely on our own knowledge and experience for our growth and transformation and risk leaving so many proverbial stones unturned. The question then is, who or what do we subscribe to? Whose voice? Who’s teaching yoga? The ideals of a transcendentalist are not worldly, but the human beings who subscribe to the ideals are of this world.
What is philosophy?
The English word philosophy is borrowed from the Greek word philosophia, which means “the love for wisdom”. But philosophy, for some, is that bastion of wisdom that puzzles its way through even the thorniest questions. It is also the philosophy of subjecting human knowledge and practice to a critical understanding.
Why Yoga Philosophy ?
Yoga philosophy is one of the six āstika schools of Hindu philosophical traditions. However, the essence of yoga and yogic practices is getting overpowered because modern-day yoga is all about posting pictures of asanas. Yes, asana is important in yoga, but it doesn’t seem fair to flood every digital screen like the one we’re certain you’re reading at the moment, with pictures of asana without at least taking a look at all the other arms of the practice of yoga — things like truth, pratyahara, karma, dhyana, bhakti, and countless other ideas born out of the various yoga schools.
Just as a farmer plants a thousand seeds and only a few hundred grow, money spent on farming the hundred supports the farms themselves. Similarly, also, real yoga, or union, is possible, though only one of the yoga schools is understood and practiced in real earnest.
Yoga Philosophy: Building a strong foundation of discernment for the purpose of being alive and as an additional measure of perspective. It also helps to replace worthwhile acts instead of the non-essential of life.
Thus, objects and personas of transcendental nature are created for aspiration, as aspiring to other human beings is very limited and sometimes a slippery slope, considering inherent faults. We must be careful where our values are placed within our ideals, as some may play a minuscule role within spiritual transformation, whereas other ideals require a lifelong subscription.
Considering the relation between the human and non-human ideals, the question of the actual existence of deities and truth rooted in religious practice becomes irrelevant because our relationship to them is beyond reality. The values they represent and the paths we adhere to are rooted in the context of the immaterial. Can you touch love? Can you mass-produce kindness and sell it at a profit? Can you fashion durable goods out of compassion?
Some yoga teachings from the Bhagavad Gita that portray this idea.
One on the path of the Krishna Consciousness is dear to every living being and every living being dear to him because he cannot see anything as separate from Krishna. One with the Krishna consciousness is a servant to all. A man with controlled senses cannot be offensive to anyone.
A person of Krishna consciousness is not involve in immediate and remote causes. Doer, work, situation, endeavor and fortune because he is engaged in the transcendental service. What are important matters are higher than the material and trivial.
A person that subscribes to this belief has already begun the method of elevating his status beyond that of the typical human condition, thus changing his perception of reality which alters the methods in which he reacts to his environment and those in it and ultimately augmenting the human condition as well as potentially affecting those he comes in contact with. The question of whether or not Krishna exists is irrelevant (the devotees belief notwithstanding.)
One who neither rejoices in the pleasant nor laments upon obtaining the unpleasant. One who is self-intelligent, unbewildered, and knows the science of God is situated in transcendence; self-intelligence is steadiness of mind. Control the forces of speech, anger, mind, stomach, genitals, and tongue. These principles of discipline and self-mastery are integral teachings in a 200 hour yoga teacher training in Rishikesh, where students not only learn the physical aspects of yoga but also the deeper philosophical foundations that support inner transformation.
Desires, when not satiated, generate anger. Anger agitates the body. Transcendentalists (of all cultures) typically try strenuously to control desire and mitigate or eliminate anger. Those who have control over their senses, their mind and their actions are typically more calculated in the methods of how they react externally, through words and actions towards those within their environment and also, internally towards their own bodily processes and mental faculties.
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Final words
It is my opinion that any yoga teaching, doctrine, practice, or religion that encourages people to transcend their inherent condition and aspire to be either, depending on culture, our true awakened self, or saved by the grace of a higher power through moral edification, moves people towards progression of the human spirit. The important caveat is that the supporting ideals of any said belief system should transcend the human condition.
This would, unfortunately, exclude any transient tool or deity that contains the lesser of the human conditions, such as anger, greed, jealousy, etc. In light of these considerations, elevated ideals would seem an important factor for choosing a transcendental path, but not so elevated that one is left with only the option to simply minister but also embody that which they subscribe to.
