Tag: vedas

Sri Aurobindo : The Great Hindu Mystic and Visionary

Post author By admin
Post date August 15, 2014
2 Comments on Sri Aurobindo : The Great Hindu Mystic and Visionary

“The will of a single hero can breathe courage into the hearts of a million cowards “

Sri Aurobindo was one of the greatest philosophers, revolutionary ,mystics and visionaries of modern history. He was a major leader in India’s freedom movement. Later in life he became a sage and scholar. His teachings have attracted many people from all around the world. The ashram that he founded is still thriving today, and centres bearing his name can be found in many countries.

The Early Years

Born in Calcutta, Sri Aurobindo was sent to England for his studies at the tender age of six. After his schooling he went on to study at Cambridge University in 1890.

Sri Aurobindo’s father had been very eager to send his son to England for his studies. Like many other Indians at the time he thought that the only way to save and uplift the country was by a full-scale imitation of European habits and customs.

He even made sure that Aurobindo as a child didn’t learn his mother tongue! This attempt at imitation is a typical psychological phenomenon that affects the people of any colonised country.

While in England, Aurobindo had observed the society first hand, and learnt its strengths and weaknesses. He figured that it wouldn’t be in anybody’s interest to blindly imitate European ideas without understanding the basis of one’s own culture and civilisation.

From what he had so far seen it would serve humanity better if India could recapture her own Hindu essence and project it into a reinvigorated vision for the future.

Return to India

It was in 1893 that Sri Aurobindo returned to India. At that time the struggle for India’s freedom was in its early stages. Straightaway he became involved in the movement. He began by writing a series of fiery articles in a daily newspaper, while he was aged just 21. The column had to be stopped following pressure on the newspaper’s editor, due to sharp criticism of the British colonial government and the slavish Indian leaders of the time.

After this, he became a teacher, and eventually the Principal of Baroda College. He gradually became enraged at the education system at colleges and schools, which was being used as a tool by the British for creating a deep inferiority complex and cultural alienation amongst the people.

Freedom Fighter

Sri Aurobindo soon left his job and devoted all his energy towards India’s renaissance. His work was many sided. It included spreading awareness and knowledge through his role as editor of newspapers and magazines, creating authentic Hindu education in schools and colleges, encouraging social work to alleviate sickness and poverty, and even initiating armed rebellion.

Lord Minto who was then Viceroy of India wrote the following about him:

“He is the most dangerous man we have to deal with at present. I attribute the spread of seditious doctrines to him personally in a greater degree than to any other single individual…”

Aurobindos Spiritual Realisation in Jail

In 1908 the British authorities arrested and jailed Sri Aurobindo following an assassination attempt on a judge, in which he was implicated. A legal campaign by one of his followers, Chittaranjan Dass, enabled his release after one year. In jail Sri Aurobindo’s life took a decisive turn. Before jail Aurobindo had practiced spiritual disciplines, but he had always wished to do so more intensely. In jail he devoted himself to spirituality and had a series of direct experiences and realisations .In prison he had a vision of Lord Krishna and the spirit of Swami Vivekananda spoke to him.Its during his sentence he had a complete realization of the vision and essence of Sanatan Dharma.

When he was released from jail he gave a famous speech in which he described what had been revealed to him, known as the ‘Uttarpara Speech’ (click here to access the full text of the speech).

Escape to Pondicherry,

Soon after his release, the British administration was out to silence him once more, demanding his arrest for inflammatory writing. Sri Aurobindo entered Pondicherry, which was a French colony in India. The British had no power there. He set up a residence, which soon flourished into an ashram where friends, disciples and seekers gathered around him.

Sri Aurobindo continued writing for the public through a monthly magazine called the Arya. He gradually withdrew into increasingly intense spiritual practice, leaving the material responsibility of the disciples and the growing ashram to a lady named Mira, who is affectionately called “The Mother”. In these years of deep meditation he delved deep into the depths of the spirit. His aim was to fully discover and map out the path to a divine future for the world. The discoveries he made were through direct realisation of many divine mysteries, in the same way as the Vedic Rishis.

The great books and literature

Sri Aurobindo wrote extensively and has left behind a breath-taking legacy of works, most of which are in English. He wrote works on the Vedas and Mahabharata, a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads.

He also wrote plays, poetry and stories. He presented a Hindu view on international issues such as war, self-determination, the possibility of international unity, as well as the shortcomings and potentials arising from the League of Nations which had been set up following the First World War.

He wrote important books presenting what he called an “aggressive defence of Hindu culture” because he felt that it was necessary to reverse the process of Hindus getting affected and alienated by constant negative propaganda.

He even wrote commentaries on those non-Indian non-Hindu philosophers for whom he had respect, such as Plato. His most famous works are the descriptions of his own spiritual life and thought.

15th August 1947, First News Paper of INDEPENDENT INDIA

In all these years, Sri Aurobindo never lost track of happenings in the outside world. He continued to keep in touch with many disciples through letters and he read newspapers regularly to stay aware of important happenings. He issued public statements from time to time.

When India’s Independence Day came, it fell on the same day as Aurobindo’s birthday. It was a fitting tribute that this should be so.

Hijacking Aurobindo

The religious culture which now goes by the name of Hinduism … gave itself no name, because it set itself no sectarian limits; it claimed no universal adhesion, asserted no sole infallible dogma, set up no single narrow path or gate of salvation; it was less a creed or cult than a continuously enlarging tradition of the Godward endeavour of the human spirit. An immense many-sided and many-staged provision for a spiritual self-building and self-finding, it had some right to speak of itself by the only name it knew, the eternal religion, Sanatana Dharma…. (Sri Aurobindo, 1919)

Of recent years there has been an academic controversy amongst the more scholarly followers of Sri Aurobindo on the subject of whether he should be considered a Hindu and whether his teachings could be classed as Hinduism. Unfortunately there are many western or westernised Indian followers of Hindu gurus who will do their utmost to dissociate themselves from the word “Hindu” which Hindu author and writer Rajiv Malhotra refers to the syndrome as the U- Turn

Such individuals who try their best to escape any association with the word Hindu typically feel that their sage/guru is of universal importance, belonged to the whole world, and cared about everyone – Hindu or non-Hindu alike. Therefore it is a travesty for such a great universal teacher to be called a Hindu. What they fail to realise is that the basic teachings of Hinduism (the Vedas, Upanishads, Gita and other sacred literature) are every bit as universal as their own cherished guru.

Hinduism and Universal are synonymous

All the thousands of true Hindu sages through the passage of time have always said that their teachings are universal, and have had a concern for all humanity. This does not make them non-Hindu. This just means that at its core – Hinduism itself is universal and embraces the whole of humanity, allowing all to drink the nectar of its wisdom without giving up their identity. But they don’t want to attribute the quality of universalism to Hinduism, because it is unfashionable; Hinduism being associated in the media with backwardness and social ills.

“But to limit Sri Aurobindo to Hinduism is like characterising modern science and technology as purely Christian, since by and large they originated in the Christian countries.”(Mangesh Nadkarni)

This is quite wrong. Sri Aurobindo acknowledges (and nobody would dare argue otherwise) that he first achieved direct spiritual experience reflecting upon and practicing the yoga of the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads, with intense devotion to Krishna. Without these he would not have been able to achieve his spiritual realisations, and develop his philosophical teachings. On the other hand, modern science was not developed by persons who were following a Christian line of thought or enquiry. It was developed by enquiry and study into material reality, independently of religion.

Hence, the relationship between Sri Aurobindo and Hinduism is quite different to the relationship between modern science and Christianity. Sri Aurobindo’s teachings can be said to be unique and universal – but these teachings would not have developed without the creative field of experimentation that Hinduism provides. Sri Aurobindo was a heroic spiritual experimenter, like the ancient Vedic sages, who wanted to use his experiences and knowledge to transform and save the world. It is accurate to say that the teachings of Sri Aurobindo flowed out of traditional Hinduism.

The development of modern science did not flow out of Christianity. In some respects it developed in spite of Christianity. The Church often tried to silence persons whose research led them to propose hypotheses that went against certain Christian notions such as the world being 6,000 years old, the world being flat, and the sun going round the Earth, opposition to the theory of evolution etc. By contrast, Sri Aurobindo faced not one iota of difficulty or persecution from the Hindu orthodoxy in publishing whatever he wanted to and pursuing whatever line of spiritual enquiry and experiences he preferred.

To summarise, I’m not saying that one has to “limit Sri Aurobindo to Hinduism” if they don’t want to, but it is ridiculous to say that “to limit Sri Aurobindo to Hinduism is like characterising modern science and technology as purely Christian, since by and large they originated in the Christian countries”. The relationship between Sri Aurobindo’s teachings and Hinduism is radically different to the relationship between modern science and Christianity.

Hardly known in India

Aurobindo erased out of Indian education

Presently Sri Aurobindo is more well known outside India as a great philosopher and mystic but hardly is known in his own country shamelessly. International French journalist and writer Francois Gautier correctly says :

If we, in France, had a great man such as Sri Aurobindo, who was not only as a revolutionary and a yogi, but also a tremendous philosopher and peerless poet, we would cherish him endlessly. His poetry would be taught to children, his philosophical works would be part of the university curriculums, books would be written about him, museums would be built…. In fact, France’s outspoken ambassador in India, Jerome Bonnafont, is an ardent admirer of Sri Aurobindo’s political works.

But today, amongst Indian politicians (apart from Dr Karan Singh, a scholar on Sri Aurobindo), everybody quotes conveniently from Gandhi, although nobody applies his ideals of charkha, non-violence, khadi and birth control by sexual abstinence. No journalist ever mentions this extraordinary yogi, whose sayings of one hundred years ago are still one hundred per cent relevant today. Not only is he absent from schools and universities, in some manuals written by the Congress, he is branded a ‘terrorist’. Shame on India!

Maybe now is the Time for Indians and the rest of the world to rediscover Sri Aurobindo and his legacy of empirical spiritual insights to change the world forever ………

Others on Sri Aurobindo,

“And it needed the supreme cultural genius of a Sri Aurobindo, the like of whom the spirit and the creative vision of India alone can create, to give a yet bolder or rather the boldest manifestation to a synthesization of insights in philosophic, cultural and religious or spiritual wisdom and experience and to an invaluable integral conception of the triple Reality”.

Swami Sivananda, founder of the Life Divine Society

At the very first sight I could realise he had been seeking for the Soul and had gained it, and through this long process of realisation had accumulated within him a silent power of inspiration. His face was radiant with an inner light…I felt the utterance of the ancient Hindu Rishis spoke from him of that equanimity which gives the human Soul its freedom of entrance into the All. I said to him, “You have the word and we are waiting to accept it from you. India will speak through your voice to the world, Hearken to me … O Aurobindo, accept the salutations from Rabindranath.”

Rabindranath Tagore,was a Bengali philosopher, poet, and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913.

“Sri Aurobindo is one of the greatest thinkers of Modern India … the most complete synthesis achieved upto the present between the genius of the West and the East… The last of the great Rishis holds in his outstretched hands, the bow of Creative Inspiration”

Romain Rolland, French writer, awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1915

As in the past China was spiritually conquered by a great Indian, so in the future too she would be conquered by another great Indian, Sri Aurobindo, the Maha-Yogi who, “is the bringer of that light which will chase away the darkness that envelops the world to-day.”

Tan Yun-Shan, Director of Chinese studies at Visva-Bharati University, China’s cultural Ambassador to India in 1939.

“Sri Aurobindo, the Master, the highest of mystics, happily presents the rare phenomenon an exposition clear as a beautiful diamond, without the danger of confounding the layman. This is possible because Sri Aurobindo is a unique synthesis of a scholar, theologian and one who is enlightened”

Gabriela Mistral , a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist who was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945.

“Sri Aurobindo is no visionary. He has always acted his dreams … So from individual self-discipline he has gone to the life of humanity. The Psychology of Social Development, Ideals and Progress and The Ideal of Human Unityshould be carefully considered by all those who are busy preparing blue-prints for the future ”

Times Literary Supplement[London]

This 2 rupee coin was issued under BJP Government in 1998 to commemorate the 125th birth Anniversary. Sri Aurobindo

Sri-Aurobindo statue at Auroville India

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Tags british, Francois Gautier, freedom movement, Gita, hindu, hindu human rights, hinduism, india, indian education, Pondicherry, rajesh patel, Rajiv Malhotra, Sri Aurobindo, U-turn, upanishads, vedas

Historical Figures

Sri Ramana Maharshi : The Sage of Arunachala

Post author By admin
Post date July 29, 2014
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India is an amazing country and unique in several aspects. For example, in every age great spiritual personalities appear who are aware of their true nature and act as guides to the truth. One such outstanding personality in recent times was Ramana Maharshi, who left his body in April 1950 at the foot of Arunachala Hill in Tiruvannamalai. His teaching is as up to date as it can be. He has distilled the essence of India’s ancient wisdom into one single question. It is the ultimate science and the ultimate fulfilment: to know “Who am I?”

What made this man so special, who sat for years mostly silently on a couch, wearing only a loin cloth? What is the reason that even today many well-known spiritual teachers consider him to be their inspiration? Why do so many people from all over the world keep coming to the place where he had lived – over 60 years after his death?

The reason is that the name Ramana Maharshi guarantees for quality in a field where impostors also roam. His life is an open book. And whoever reads in it will be touched by his simplicity and compassion.

Ramana Maharshi was above average. Yet he would not agree. He saw clearly and stressed it all his life: the essence in everyone is the same as in him – the one, eternal Atman, in English translated as ‘Self’, ‘real I’ or ‘pure consciousness’. This continuous, ever-present I is the only ‘thing’ that truly exists. Everything else is nothing but insubstantial, fleeting thoughts – the countless personal egos and the great, big world included.

Ramana was 16 when he experienced this out of the blue. Until then he was a normal boy, tall, strong, a good football player and swimmer. In studies also he was not bad thanks to his phenomenal memory.
Then suddenly, one afternoon, he experienced a terrible fear that he was going to die ‘right now’. He was healthy and the fear inexplicable, yet very real. He was lying down and observed what was happening. On that afternoon he realised that there was an eternal I present in him that cannot die. From then on, this I kept drawing his attention. It was incredibly attractive, fascinating and most beloved. Even playing football had lost its charm for him.

Six weeks later he secretly left his home and went to the holy Arunachala hill. He reached there on September 1st, 1896, threw away his clothes except the loin cloth, had his head shaven and went into deep meditation for weeks together in a dark dungeon beneath the temple in Tiruvannamalai.

Sheshadri Swami, a well-known saint in Tiruvannamalai, noticed him, carried him out and looked after him. Ramana had festering wounds from the vermin in that cellar and from stones which boys had thrown at him to find out whether he was real or a statue, as one of them later confessed.

Ramana stayed about four years at the foot of Arunachala and then moved higher up on the mountain to the Virupaksha cave. Wherever he went now, people followed him. They simply sat with him in silence; even children ran up the hill and sat with him quietly. His glance was full of peace. He seemed absorbed in the pure Being that is the basic reality of all appearances. But now he remained conscious of his environment. The trance states became less frequent. Yet he still did not talk.

The news spread that there was an extraordinary young swami up on the hill and more people came to see him – people who had been on the spiritual path for years, who had read books, met gurus, practised sadhana and yet had not found inner peace. Among them were some who had themselves already followers, like Ganapathy Muni, a famous, brilliant scholar and poet.

Ganapathy Muni was one year elder to Ramana and not yet 30, when he climbed up the hill in the midday sun. He knew the scriptures and had practised almost all possible methods but had reached a dead end. “What is the right striving for self-realisation?” he asked Ramana who sat alone on his veranda. Ramana wrote down the answer: “Observe from where the I-feeling emerges. Go to its source. If you go to this source, you will dissolve in it. That is the right striving for self-realisation.”

This was one of the first instructions of Ramana Maharshi.

Ramana stayed for 17 years in the Virupaksha cave and five more years in a cave, called Skandashram, further up on Arunachala. Now, several people lived with him, among them his mother and younger brother.
In September 1896 his mother had not resigned herself to the fate that her son had disappeared. She did everything to find him and four years later she stood before him. Yet her plea to come home did not meet with success. Ramana wrote for her on a chit:

….what is destined not to happen, will not happen even if one does everything to make it happen and what is destined to happen, will happen even if one does everything to prevent it. That is certain….

Several years later, after her eldest son had died, his mother came to Ramana and stayed with him till she died. After her death in 1922, Ramana moved to the foot of Arunachala on the southern side, where slowly an ashram came up, because people wanted to stay near him. Some years earlier he had started to talk and now he became the great teacher as whom the world knows him.

Paul Brunton, an Englishman, had travelled in India in the 1930s and had, on the recommendation of the highly revered Shankaracharya Sri Chandrasekharananda Saraswati of Kanchipuram, come to meet Ramana. Brunton was greatly impressed by him. Through his book “Search in Secret India”, Brunton made Ramana known in the west. Foreigners now also found their way to the ashram, among them well-known personalities, like Sommerset Maugham and Maurice Friedman.

Ramana Maharshi showed a direct way: “Find out who you are”, was his advice. It is the core of his teaching. Many might have noticed only then that they did not really know themselves and that the ideas they held were not tenable when deeply questioned. Was it possible that they were something completely different from what they thought they were?

Ramana Maharshi pushed every questioner back to face himself. Paul Brunton for example had asked some questions.
Maharshi: “Who is the I who asks this question?”
Brunton: “I, Paul Brunton.”
Maharshi: “Do you know him?”
Brunton: “All my life.”
Maharshi: “That refers only to the body. Who are you?

A thread runs through whatever Ramana Maharshi says:
There is only one Atman (I or Self). Everybody is That. Always. Ever. Right now. Everybody is basically perfect. Nothing is to be attained. Everybody is always only the one Self. The whole point is to get rid of a wrong idea – the idea that ‘I’ am this separate person and this body.

Thoughts are the cause for this feeling that one is the body. Thoughts dim the splendour of the Self, foremost among them the I-thought, which is the basis of all other thoughts. There is not a big I and a small I next to it. There is only one real I, from which an I-thought regarding the individual emerges. This I-thought has no substance. It is not real, yet it pretends to be the real I. This insubstantial I is the basis for everything that happens in our life and in our world. Everything revolves around this personal I which is nothing but thought.

This individual, thought-based I exists only in the waking state. In deep sleep it is not there. Yet I am no doubt continuously there – in waking, dreaming and sleeping. The personal, pseudo I emerges from the real I on waking up.

Ramana advised to make use of the moment of waking up. The awareness of ‘I’ or ‘I am’ appears a little before thoughts regarding the world crowd the mind. This short transition is ideal to realise the truth because the I-thought without the trail of other thoughts is the source that Ramana had mentioned in his instruction to Ganapathy Muni. “Find out its source and remain there,” he had advised. And added, “That is all what you can do. From then on you are helpless. No kind of effort can get you further. From then on, That which is beyond thoughts and which is present in everyone takes over. Nobody is without this all powerful and all-knowing Atman. It is the ever present inner guru.

An incident illustrates the power of the inner guru:
A devotee of Ramana Maharshi found himself once in a life-threatening situation. Anguished, he cried out for help to his guru. Ramana appeared to him and saved him.
On his next visit to the ashram, the devotee asked his guru, “Did you know that you came to my rescue at that time?” Ramana replied, “The guru need not know. The one consciousneess takes that particular form that the devotee calls out for and that is dearest to him.”

Some of Ramana Maharshi’s listeners were worried, whether they would be able to function normally after self-realisation, probably having his early trance states in mind. But Ramana Maharshi cleared their doubts:
An actor dresses, acts and feels the role which he plays, but he knows that in real life, he is not that role but someone else. The fact that the actor knows who he truly is, does not obstruct him playing his role well. In the same way, remaining in the Self will not be an obstruction to fulfil one’s duties with care.

Ramana took the analogy even further: in the same way, as the role of an actor is determined, so are the actions of a body. Does this mean the individual has no free will? He clarified: As long as one considers oneself to be an individual person, one has free will and has to use it well – and this concerns probably all of us. On the other hand, Ramana claimed, “the purpose of one’s birth will be fulfilled whether you will it or not.” And then intriguingly added: “Let the purpose fulfil itself.”

If this sounds confusing, he once explained that the whole discussion about free will is basically irrelevant, and gave an analogy of his times: people listen to a song from a radio. Then they discuss whether the person sitting in the radio can sing as he wants or whether he has to sing as the radio station decides….
Well, only small children will believe there is a person in the radio. There is no person. Similarly, there is only the one Consciousness, Atman, that shines through each person. So when there is in truth no separate individual, the question whether this individual has free will is indeed irrelevant.

Ramana Maharshi was once asked, whether he thinks. He replied that usually he does not think. “But I see you talk to people”, the questioner persisted. “When I talk, of course, I think. But usually I don’t”, he replied. “And I see you read newspaper”, the questioning continued. “When I read newspaper, I think, but normally I don’t”, Ramana answered.

The issue is basically for the ego with its myriad thoughts and feelings to get out of the way for Atman to shine through. How much light of Atman comes through in each bodily form depends mainly on the degree of egolessness. In some persons, the light is dim, in others bright.

Ramana Maharshi was certainly one of those rare cases through whom the light shone brightly. He did not identify with the body and was not compelled to think incessantly.

Shortly before he died he said, “People say that I am going. Where can I go? I am always here.” By ‘here’ he surely did not mean the place at the foot of Arunachala and by ‘I’ not to the person known as Ramana Maharshi.

By Maria Wirth

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Tags Arunachala Hill, Ganapathy Muni, hinduism, Paul Brunton, Ramana Maharshi, Sheshadri Swami, Tiruvannamalai, vedas

Analysis

The Arya Samaj and Vedic Monotheism

Post author By Dr Koenraad Elst
Post date April 12, 2013
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Is there a Vedic monotheism?

The occasion for this paper on monotheism and its presence or absence in Hinduism is an upsurge in the Arya Samaj’s long-standing campaign to convince Hindus of the superiority and Vedic basis of monotheism.

Founded in 1875, the Ârya Samâj, in effect “Society of Vedicists”, was a trail-blazer of Hindu revivalism and anti-colonial nationalism until Independence. It worked bravely for the reconversion of Indian Muslims, the only humane solution to India’s communal problem. Some of its spokesmen gave their lives for speaking out on Islam, most notably Pandit Lekhram in 1897 and Swami Shraddahananda (co-founder of the Hindu Mahasabha) in 1926.

The Arya Samaj also led the way in the abolition of caste discrimination and the acceptance of widow remarriage, both as a matter of Vedic principle and in order to free Hindu society of its weaknesses which its enemies were exploiting to their advantage.

Unfortunately, in its opposition to the predatory religions of Islam and Christianity, it interiorized some of their beliefs and attitudes. Foremost among these was the assumption that monotheism, the belief in a single God annex the condemnation of all worship offered to any being but Him, is the supreme form of religion. Hence, the Arya Samaj decreed that the Vedic religion had always been monotheistic, so that Islamic and Christian missionaries had nothing to teach the Vedicists about the true religion of the One God.

If Hinduism now seemed like the polytheistic religion par excellence, this was partly due to post-Vedic degenerative developments and partly to textual misinterpretation of the seemingly numerous god-names in the Vedas. In reality, or so the Arya Samaj claimed, these many gods were only different faces of the One God.

Until Independence (completed by the struggle against the Nizam of Hyderabad for Hyderabad’s accesion to the Indian Union in 1948, in which the later Arya Samaj president Vandematharam Ramachandra Rao took a leadership role), this monotheistic reinterpretation of the Vedas could be excused as a tactical device useful in the Arya Samaj’s main struggle, viz. against the predatory monotheistic religions.Ever since, however, and especially in the recent most decades, the Arya Samaj seems to have forgotten its original mission, and is now turning the bulk of its polemics against fellow Hindus who have not embraced this monotheistic reading of the Vedas. In effect, the Arya Samaj has become Christianity’s and Islam’s first line of attack against Hindu polytheism.

As an organization, the Arya Samaj is no longer very powerful or important, but its message has spread far and wide in educated Hindu society. The same is even more true of a similar movement, the Brahmo Samaj (°1825), a flagbearer of the Bengal renaissance which tried to translate Hinduism into rational-sounding concepts acceptable to the British colonizers and the first circles of anglicized Hindus.Whereas the Arya Samaj embraced a Christian-like religious theism, the Brahmo Samaj tended more towards a modern Enlightenment-inspired deism, i.e. the philosophical acceptance of a distant cosmic intelligence rather than a personal God biddable by human imprecations and sacrifices. But like the Aryas, the Brahmos rejected Hindu polytheism as a degenerate aberration from the true Vedic spirit.

In the course of the 20^th century, the Arya and Brahmo views of Hindu tradition have become mainstream among English-speaking Hindus. Many introductory textbooks on Hinduism used in India, and most of those used in NRI-PIO circles, deny Hindu polytheism and insist that the many Hindu gods are merely faces of the One God.

Thus, among the textbook edits proposed by two Hindu foundations that triggered the California textbook controversy of 2005-2009, a prominent one was the replacement of “gods” with “God”.Before entering the specifics of the monotheism argument, let us say beforehand that we don’t believe the contents of this argument have been decisive in the Arya Samaj’s prioritizing the struggle against polytheism nor in its abandonment of its original alertness against Islamic and Christian aggression. On both issues, the organization is simply riding with the tide.

Now that Nehruvian “secularism” has become the norm, it is just not done to criticize Christianity or Islam (except by the brave) or to describe their conversion offensive as a problem. The Arya Samaj has abandoned its own raison d’être (“reason for existence.”).

We may not be able to counter anyone’s opportunistic reasons for being on the safe side of an existing trend; but we are in a position to refute the theological justification which the Arya Samaj proclaims for its adoption of “Vedic monotheism”.

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Tags Arya Samaj, hinduism, swami dayananda saraswati, vedas, Vedic Monotheism

Historical Figures

Erwin Schrödinger : Vedantist and Father of Quantum Mechanics

Post author By Professor Subhash Kak
Post date April 4, 2013
8 Comments on Erwin Schrödinger : Vedantist and Father of Quantum Mechanics

There is a legend about a magic tree, kalpataru, that fulfills all wishes. Indian civilization is this tree of riches and wisdom. Kings and emperors sought to conquer India for its material wealth; the campaign of Alexander, the unceasing attacks of the Turks, the voyage of Columbus, the British empire—these had India as the focus. Indian sages, philosophers and mystics have held out a shining vision that has appealed to the world. Even Alexander took Indian yogis back to Greece with him. Indian thought influenced not only China and Southeast Asia, it may also have provided key impulses to Western thought. We find the Indic people in West Asia in the second millennium BC in the Kassite kingdom of Babylon and the Mitannis of Syria. The father of the famous Queen Kiya of Egypt was the Mitanni king Tushratha (or Dasharatha). The Indic element has been seen in the beginnings of Greek art. It is quite conceivable that the religious traditions of West Asia preserve a remembrance of their Indic past.The modern mind was shaped after adoption by the West of the twin beliefs of living in harmony with nature and search for a scientific basis to reality. In the past 300 years, these ideas of universality and a quest for knowledge have transformed European and American society. Many of the greatest writers and scientists of the past 100 years have taken inspiration from these Indic ideas.

Erwin Schrödinger

Perhaps the most remarkable intellectual achievement of the twentieth century was quantum theory, which is at the basis of our understanding of chemistry, biology, and physics and, consequently, it is at the basis of the century’s astonishing technological advances. One of the two creators of this theory was Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961). In an autobiographical essay, he explains that his discovery of quantum mechanics was an attempt to give form to central ideas of Vedanta which, in this indirect sense, has played a role in the birth of the subject. In 1925, before his revolutionary theory was complete,

Erwin Schrödinger wrote:

This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of this entire existence,but in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear: tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as “I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world.”

Schrödinger’s influential What is Life? (1944) also used Vedic ideas. The book became instantly famous although it was criticized by some for its emphasis on Indian ideas. Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the DNA code, credited this book for key insights that led him to his revolutionary discovery. According to his biographer Walter Moore, there is a clear continuity between Schrödinger’s understanding of Vedanta and his research: The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics. In 1925, the world view of physics was a model of a great machine composed of separable interacting material particles.

During the next few years, Schrödinger and Heisenberg and their followers created a universe based on superimposed inseparable waves of probability amplitudes. This new view would be entirely consistent with the Vedantic concept of All in One. He became a Vedantist, a Hindu, as a result of his studies in his search for truth. Schrödinger kept a copy of the Hindu scriptures at his bedside. He read books on Vedas, yoga, and Sankhya philosophy and he reworked them into his own words, and ultimately came to believe them. The Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita were his favourite scriptures.

According to his biographer Moore, “His system—or that of the Upanishads— is delightful and consistent: the self and the world are one and they are all. He rejected traditional western religious beliefs (Jewish, Christian, and Islamic) not on the basis of any reasoned argument, nor even with an expression of emotional antipathy, for he loved to use religious expressions and metaphors, but simply by saying that they are naive.” Schrödinger was a professor at several universities in Europe. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1933. During the Hitler era he was dismissed from his position for his opposition to the Nazi ideas and he fled to England. For some years he was in Ireland, but after the conclusion of the World War II he returned to Vienna where he died in 1961.

Quantum mechanics goes beyond ordinary logic. According to it reality is a superposition of all possibilities which is very different from classical physics. It is quantum mechanics which explains the mysteries of chemical reactions and of
life. In recent years, it has been suggested that the secrets of consciousness have a quantum basis. In a famous essay on determinism and free will, Schrödinger expressed very clearly the sense that consciousness is a unity, arguing that this

“insight is not new From the early great Upanishads the recognition Atman = Brahman (the personal self equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self) was in Indian thought considered, far from being blasphemous, to represent the quintessence of deepest insight into the happenings of the world. The striving of all the scholars of Vedanta was, after having learnt to pronounce with their lips, really to assimilate in their minds this grandest of all thoughts.”

He thought the idea of pluralization of consciousness and the notion of many souls to be naive. He considered the notion of plurality to be a result of deception (maya): “the same illusion is produced by a gallery of mirrors, and in the same way Gaurisankar and Mt. Everest turned out to be the same peak seen from different valleys.”

Schrödinger was a very complex person. But he had a sense of humor and paradox. He called his dog Atman. Perhaps he did this to honour Yudhishthira whose own dog, an incarnation of cosmic justice (Dharma), accompanied him on his last march to the Himalayas. More likely, he was calling attention to the unity that pervades the web of life.

Erwin Schrödinger Quotes

‘The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics. In 1925, the world view of physics was a model of a great machine composed of separable interacting material particles. During the next few years, Schrodinger and Heisenberg and their followers created a universe based on super imposed inseparable waves of probability amplitudes. This new view would be entirely consistent with the Vedantic concept of All in One’

‘Vedanta teaches that consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves.’

‘Nirvana is a state of pure blissful knowledge.. It has nothing to do with individual. The ego or its separation is an illusion. The goal of man is to preserve his Karma and to develop it further – when man dies his karma lives and creates for itself another carrier.’

‘There is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction….The only solution to this conflict insofar as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.’

‘The multiplicity is only apparent. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not of the Upanishads only. The mystical experience of the union with God regularly leads to this view, unless strong prejudices stand in the West.’

‘After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.’

“Some blood transfusion from the East to the West” to save Western science from spiritual anemia.”

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Tags Erwin Schrödinger, Featured, hinduism, Quantum Mechanics, slid, upanishads, vedanta, vedas

Gods of Science and Discovery

Speed of Light discovery by Vedic Scholar Sayana

Post author By Professor Subhash Kak
Post date April 3, 2013
5 Comments on Speed of Light discovery by Vedic Scholar Sayana

Imagine that archaeologists, digging a thousand year old virgin site in Antarctica, come across an inscription deep underground that shows the sun, and next to it the numbers 186,000 miles per second, the speed of light. What would the world do? More likely than not, this find will not be accepted by scholars. A fraud, they would say, committed for cheap fame. The reputation of the archaeologists will be ruined. If they didn’t hold tenure, they will lose their jobs.

Only lunatics will support them, claiming that this proves that aliens have visited the earth from time to time. The high priests of the academy will say that even if the find was genuine it proves nothing;
at best it is a coincidence.

But what an astonishing coincidence! Just the right number out of an infinite different numbers!

The speed of light was first determined in 1675 by Roemer who looked at the difference in the times that light from Io, one of the moons of Jupiter, takes to reach earth based on whether it is on the near side of Jupiter or the far side. Until then light was taken to travel with infinite velocity. Even Newton assumed so.

But why are we talking about the absurd scenario of the archaeologists in Antarctica? Because, we are confronted with a situation that is quite similar! I am an archaeologist of texts. I read old texts from the point of view of history of science. One such book is the celebrated commentary on the Rigveda by Sayana (c. 1315-1387), a minister in the court of King Bukka I of the Vijayanagar Empire in South India.

In a hymn addressed to the sun, he says that it is ``remembered that the sun traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha.”

This statement could either relate to the speed of the sun or to that of light. The units are well known. For example, the Indian epic “Mahabharata”, conservatively dated to 400 BC – 400 AD, defines 1 nimesha to be equal to 16/75.3 seconds; 1 yojana is about 9 miles.

Substituting in Sayana’s statement we get 186,536 miles per second. Unbelievable, you’d say! It cannot be the speed of light. Maybe it refers to the speed of the sun in its supposed orbit around the earth. But that places the orbit of the sun at a distance of over 2,550 million miles. The correct value is only 93 million miles and until the time of Roemer the distance to the sun used to be taken to be less than 4 million miles. This interpretation takes us nowhere.

What about the possibility of fraud? Sayana’s statement was printed in 1890 in the famous edition of Rigveda edited by Max Muller, the German Sanskritist. He claimed to have used several three or four hundred year old manuscripts of Sayana’s commentary, written much before the time of Roemer. Is it possible that Muller was duped by an Indian correspondent who slipped in the line about the speed? Unlikely, because Sayana’s commentary is so well known that an interpolation would have been long discovered. And soon after Muller’s “Rigveda” was published, someone would have claimed that it contained this particular “secret” knowledge. The fact that the speed in the text corresponds to the speed of light was pointed out only recently by S.S. De and P.V. Vartak. Also a copy of Sayana’s manuscript, dated 1395 AD, is available.

Further support for the genuineness of the figure in the ancient book comes from another old book, the Vayu Purana. This is one of the earliest Puranas, considered to be at least 1,500 years old. (The same reference is to be found in the other Puranas as well.)

In Chapter 50 of this book, there is the statement that the sun moves 3.15 million yojanas in 48 minutes. This corresponds to about 10,000 miles per second if considered as speed of light, and 135 million miles for the distance to the sun, if considered as the speed of the sun. Sayana’s speed of light is exactly 18 times greater than this speed of the sun! Mere numerology? For the rationalists these numbers are a coincidence. Given the significance of these numbers, they’d look very carefully at the old manuscripts of Sayana’s commentary.

There are others who would say that consciousness, acting on itself can find universal knowledge. Look, they’d say, by examining biological cycles one can know the periods of the sun and the moon. So why shouldn’t it be possible to know other universal truths? They’d add that ancient texts speak — and this is true — of embryo transplants, multiple births from the same fetus, air and space travel, slowing or speeding of time, weapons that can destroy the entire world.

They’d say that it is more than ancient science fiction, it shows that the human imagination can envision all that can happen. This brings us back to the question of whether the figure of 186,000 miles per second in Sayana’s book is a astonishing coincidence, an example of the powers of intuition, or a meaningless number.

Notes:
1. The Rigvedic hymn number is 1.50.
2. For a discussion of the technical issues download the file speedlight.ps from the ftp directory on my homepage or see http://www.ee.lsu.edu/kak/ and then check the file speedlight.ps
You can also read this paper called “The speed of light and Puranic cosmology” on the Los Alamos Physics Archive hysics/9804020.

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Tags ancient hindus, Mahabharata, Max Muller, Speed of Light, Vayu Purana, vedas, Vedic Scholar Sayana, Vijayanagar Empire

Gods of Science and Discovery

Masters of Language

The events of September 11 remind us how words can convert ordinary people into mass murderers. But there are good words and bad words. Here we speak of three people whose words have done a lot of good for more than two thousand years. One could even say that these three people transformed the world.

Although most ancient narrative is as myth, a code language intermixing history, psychology, astronomy and metaphysics, three ancient sages wrote about language with great directness. Euclid (c 300 BC) in his Elements describes the language of mathematical ideas, Panini (c 450 BC) in his Ashtadhyayi describes the language of universal grammar, and Bharata Muni (c 450 BC) writes about the languages of gesture, dance and music in his Natya Shastra. Of these three we are reasonably certain of the dates of Panini and Euclid but much less of Bharata.

Euclid, educated in Plato’s academy, did his work in Alexandria. He presented Greek mathematics and geometry in terms of axioms and theorems. His approach was so elegant that his book remained the textbook of elementary geometry and logic up to the early twentieth century. Its formal method became the standard to be emulated for every new discipline. The idea of a short constitution to which all pay allegiance may ultimately be traced to Euclid’s framework.

Panini described the grammar of Sanskrit algebraically in complete detail, an achievement that has not been matched for any other language until today. Panini’s grammar is as intricate in its structure as the most powerful computing machine. The scope of his achievement qualifies Panini as one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived. Not only did he influence attitudes in the East for centuries, his ideas led to the development of the subject of philology in the West.

Sadly, good ideas can be used for evil deeds. Philology became the underpinning of a racist attitude to history that was used to justify European colonialism, leading ultimately to Nazism. This racist attitude persists today in many departments of Sanskrit and Indian studies. It was embraced by the left in India, where it remains an ugly underside of the political discourse. Arcane philological controversies can garner headlines in the left’s political magazines in India.

Bharata Muni’s Natya Shastra not only presents the language of creative expression, it is the world’s first book on stagecraft. It is so comprehensive that it lists 108 different postures that can be combined to give the various movements of dance. Bharata’s ideas are the key to an understanding of Indian arts, music and sculpture. They provide an insight into how different Indian arts are expressions of a celebratory attitude to the universe.

Five of the thirty-six chapters of the Natya Shastra are devoted to music. Bharata speaks of the 22 shrutis of the octave, the seven notes and the number of shrutis in each of them. He explains how the vina is to be tuned. He also describes the dhruvapada songs that were part of musical performances.

The concept of rasa, enduring sentiment, lies behind the aesthetics of the Natya Shastra. There are eight rasas: heroism, fury, wonder, love, mirth, compassion, disgust and terror. Bharata lists another 33 less permanent sentiments. The artist, through movement, voice, music or any other creative act, attempts to evoke them in the listener and the spectator. This evocation helps to plumb the depths of the soul, thereby facilitating self-knowledge.

Euclid and Panini are well known to scholars and the general public. Euclid’s formal system became the exemplar for European science. Panini’s algorithmic approach to knowledge was the model for scientific theories in the Indic world, extending from India to the east and Southeast Asia. The ideas of the Natya Shastra make intelligible the sculpture, temple architecture, performance, dance and story telling of the culture of east and Southeast Asia.

But Bharata’s great text lay forgotten in India for almost a thousand years, his ideas remembered mainly through secondary sources. This is surprising considering this work has a sweep broader than that of Euclid or Panini. It is easy to understand success in devising a method of geometrical reasoning or finding the algebra of grammar as they are inherently structured. But imagine the audacity of creating a language for gesture, dance and music! Also, Euclid and Panini wrote for the scholar, whereas Bharata’s work influenced millions directly or indirectly. For these reasons alone, the Natya Shastra is one of the most important books ever written.

To appreciate the pervasive influence of the Natya Shastra, just consider music. Bharata’s work helps us see that ancient Greek music was similar to Indian music. The comprehensiveness of the Natya Shastra forged a tradition of tremendous pride and resilience that survived the westward movement of Indian musical imagination through the agency of itinerant musicians. Several thousand Indian musicians were invited by the fifth century Persian king Behram Gaur. Turkish armies used Indians as professional musicians.

The large Roma exodus from north India as a consequence of the Ghaznavid invasions gives us a clearer link between Indian music and the West. The Roma in Europe, living as tinkers, craftsmen, horse traders and entertainers — a despised minority in the fringes of society — were able to maintain cultural continuity, especially in music.

Their devotion to their ways earned them grudging respect for exemplifying ‘freedom’ which by the late 18th century had caught the imagination of Europe fighting the suffocation of the Church. Slowly, the Roma (Gypsy) singers began to enjoy the patronage of the middle-class and the aristocracy.

According to Linda Burman-Hall: “Gypsy bands… travelled from village to village accompanying the ‘strong’ dancing of soldiers who recruited continuously for Nicolas the Magnificent’s military operations. The style of this verbunkos (the so-called ‘recruiting’ music), — a deliberate fusion of earlier Gypsy music (such as the 16th century works preserved in organ tablature) and elements of the western European tradition, — influenced Haydn and other classical composers because it was favored by public taste. As a national fashion this style remained popular through the 19th century with composers such as Beethoven, Hummel, Schubert, Brahms, von Weber, Doppler and especially Liszt writing in a ‘style Hongrois’ influenced by the jagged rhythms and fantastic cadences of the verbunkos style.”

Bharata stresses the transformative power of creative art. He says, “It teaches duty to those who have no sense of duty, love to those who are eager for its fulfillment, and it chastises those who are ill-bred or unruly, promotes self-restraint in those who are disciplined, gives courage to cowards, energy to heroic persons, enlightens men of poor intellect and gives wisdom to the learned.”

Our life is spent learning one language or another. Words in themselves are not enough, we must learn the languages of relationships, ideas, music, games, business, power, and nature. There are some languages that one wishes did not exist, like that of evil. But evil, resulting from ignorance that makes one act like an animal, is a part of nature and it is best to recognize it so that one knows how to confront it. Creative art show us a way to transcend evil because of its ability to transform. This is why religious fanatics hate art.

Modern inquiry began as a search for the language of inanimate nature. Science slowly expanded into living systems and now with investigations into behavior and cognition it has come close to the ancient meaning of the term. The languages of cognition and music may be seen as the pinnacle of this journey of science. Bharata Muni’s text is a most useful guide to the weary traveler on this path.

by Professor Subhash Kak

Resources: To understand the milieu in which Panini and Bharata Muni arose, read G. Feuerstein, S. Kak, D. Frawley, In Search of the Cradle of Civilization: New Light on Ancient India. (Quest Books, 2001)

The best translation of the Natya Shastra is by Manomohan Ghosh (Manisha Granthalaya, Calcutta, 1967). Unfortunately, it is out of print. I am hoping this column will inspire some reader to arrange for its reprint.

Subhash Kak is an Indian American computer scientist. He is Regents Professor and Head of Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater who has made contributions to cryptography, neural networks, and quantum information

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Tags Bharata Muni, Euclid, hindu drama, hindu music, hinduism, Natya Shastra, Panini, roma, sanskrit, vedas

Fountainhead of Yoga

The Vedic Yoga and Yoga as a Whole

Post author By Vamadev Shastri
Post date November 30, 2012
3 Comments on The Vedic Yoga and Yoga as a Whole

[box_light]In classical Indian thought, Yoga in the general sense refers to a particular way of spiritual practice and as such has been taken up by most of the spiritual traditions in India, Hindu, Buddhist and Jain . In this regard, Yoga suggests to us characteristic practices of asana, mantra, pranayama and meditation.[/box_light]

Yoga in this broader sense as spiritual practice has five basic types.

1) Jnana Yoga, the Yoga of Knowledge, using meditation for Self-realization

2) Bhakti Yoga, the Yoga of Devotion, seeking union with God as the Divine Father or Divine Mother

3) Karma Yoga, the Yoga of Service, emphasizing ritual worship of the Divine and service to living beings

4) Raja Yoga, the Royal Yoga of higher techniques and methods, mainly of mantra and meditation.

5) Hatha Yoga, the Yoga of Effort or of lower techniques and methods, mainly asana and pranayama.

All schools of Indian spiritual thought, orthodox and unorthodox, employ one or more of these approaches of Yoga, which they may define in different ways or use relative to different philosophical backgrounds. Many groups employ an integral approach using aspects of all five of these.

Yogic methods can be found in all branches of Indian spiritual and religious literature, whether the Vedas, Epics, Puranas, Agamas and Tantras, as well as in many special Yogic texts or Yoga Shastras. The integrative approach of Yoga pervades the culture of India as well, including its literature, drama, music, dance, science, medicine, and even grammar. It is this broader approach to the meaning of Yoga that we find in Vedic teachings going back to the Rigveda, not simply Yoga as asana as in modern parlance.

However, besides this general meaning and not to be confused with it, Yoga in a specific sense refers to one of the six classical schools of Vedic thought, those philosophies that accept the authority of the Vedas. This is the Yoga school or Yoga Darshana, which is also called ‘Samkhya-Yoga’ owing to its connection with the Samkhya school of Vedic thought, with which it is intimately associated. Unfortunately many people, particularly in the West, confuse Yoga as a general term with Yoga as one of the six Vedic schools, which breeds many distortions. They tend to see Yoga Darshana, particularly the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as the basis of all Yoga, when it is more accurately the main text of one important branch of Yoga, but not the entire field of Yoga. There are Shaivite, Vaishnava and other Yogas as well, which have their own primary Yoga texts and teachings.

Yoga and the Vedas: Vedic Mantra Yoga

It is difficult to think of the Vedas without thinking about Yoga, as the Vedas promote spiritual knowledge born of meditation, the way to achieve which is the practice of Yoga. Yoga is a term that is first found in the Vedas, where the root for Yoga, ‘yuj’, meaning to unite, yoke or harness is common, not only relative to horses and chariots, but also relative to the mind and senses. Even the yoking of the Vedic chariot (ratha) is symbolic of deeper Yoga practices of controlling the mind.

Sometimes people today fail to see the yogic nature of the Rigveda because we are approaching Yoga with a recent modern idea of Yoga as mainly asana or physical postures. Asanas do not have a major role either in the Vedas or in classical yogic texts, including the Yoga Sutras, which only devotes two of two hundred sutras to them.

The Vedas do address with Yoga in an obvious but different way. The Vedas as mantras begin with Mantra Yoga. This is not uncharacteristic of Yoga as a whole as even the Yoga Sutras emphasizes Pranava or the Divine Word as a prime principle of Yoga practice, implying importance to Mantra Yoga The Vedas are themselves mantras and reciting them is itself a path of Mantra Yoga.[i] Even later Mantra Yoga continues to use Vedic mantras like Gayatri as well as resting upon the Sanskrit language, the origin of which is in the Vedas.

Yet mantra has an application in action, which is ritual or karma. Vedic Mantra Yoga has its corresponding Karma Yoga. The Vedas outline the original rituals behind the practice of Karma Yoga, which in India today still extensively employs Vedic fire offerings. Mantra is meant to teach Dharma or the laws of life. As such, the Vedas encourage sacrifice, giving and helping others that is the basis of Seva or service, another important aspect of Karma Yoga.

Ritual can be defined as a way of sacred action in which we use name and form to approach the nameless and the formless. The implements, substances and materials used in the ritual are not employed for their literal or practical value, though there are correlations. The Vedic fire offerings are not done to produce heat or cook food but to carry messages to the higher worlds. The consecrated Vedic fire is not simply a fire. The substances offered into it are not used merely as fuel for the fire. They indicate movements and offers of the heart. Ritual is way of bringing the sacred or Brahman into action. When that ritual action is turned within, it becomes Yoga.

Yet this Vedic ritual is not only outward but also inward. The inner sacrifice involves the offering of speech, prana and mind to the deity within the heart. Yoga can be traced to this inner sacrifice (antaryaga) that includes mantra, pranayama and meditation, a point already noted.

Just as the Vedas imply Yoga, so does Yoga imply the Vedas. The science of Yoga arose in a Vedic context and employs a Vedic terminology like the Purusha and the use of OM, the great Vedic mantra. Most of the great Yoga teachers who have come to the West have been steeped in Vedic teachings as well. Many have been Swamis in Vedantic orders.

The term Yoga arises in the Rigveda itself and is first explained in more obvious terms in s early Upanishads like the Svetashvatara and Katha, which are said to be Yoga Shastras or Yoga texts. Many great Vedic Rishis were regarded as great Yogis including Vasishta, the most famous among them. Hiranyagarbha, the reputed founder of the Yoga tradition, is a Rigvedic deity often connected to Savitar, the Vedic Sun god, with Vasishta as his main disciple

Some modern scholars – generally not trained in the inner meaning of the Vedas – have tried to separate Yoga from the Vedas because Yoga as a specific term is not common in the Rigveda. They fail to note that many other synonyms of Yoga practice do occur in the Rigveda, including karma, yajna, mantra, tapas, svadhyaya, and dhyana.[ii] The Vedic rishi or seer is also a Yogi who has higher powers of consciousness, can commune with the deities, and becomes a deity as well.

The Vedic Yoga and Other Yoga Texts and Teachings

Yoga is a common topic in all Hindu teachings whether the Tantras, Puranas, Mahabharata or Vedas. The Mahabharata, which includes the Bhagavad Gita, has long sections on Yoga. The Upanishads teach the main principles of Vedantic philosophy and Samkhya that the Yoga system uses. The Upanishads deal with the themes of Yoga as Om, mantra, meditation, control of the mind, knowledge of the Purusha, and so on that are of value in Yoga. Many Upanishadic sages like Yajnavalkya (who represents the solar line of Vedic thought) were regarded as great yogis as well. In addition there is a whole set of Yoga Upanishads that arose at a later period.

The Vedic Yoga is arguably the origin and seed of the other Yogas. The Rigveda with its thousand hymns is one of the longest Yogic texts and reflects the teaching of the greatest number of rishis and Yogis. Many yogic and Vedantic teachings, starting with the Upanishads, look back to Vedic teachings or paraphrase them. Others recast Vedic teachings but in a new language. Yet for others Vedic principles are there, like Agni and Soma, which are common in Tantras that do not explain specifically their Vedic connections.

The Mahabharata, the great epic in which the Bhagavad Gita, occurs has many explanations of Vedic teachings in its Moksha Dharma section, which like the Gita deals with the highest Self-realization. The Gita is filled with allusions to the Vedic Yoga, but largely recast in a later language around the figure of Lord Krishna. Krishna says that he taught the original Yoga to Vivasvan, who in turn taught it to Manu. This specifically identifies Krishna’s Yoga with the Vedic Yoga. Among the seers, Krishna says he is Ushanas, who is the foremost among the Bhrigus.

Shaivite Yoga goes back to Shiva, along with Rudra and the Maruts in the Vedic language. Rudra is said to be the personification of the Vedic sacrifice, as in the famous Rudram chant of the Krishna Yajur Veda. Shaivite Yoga was earlier called the Pashupati Yoga in the Mahabharata, from Shiva as Pashupati or the lord of the wild animals.

Vedic Yoga and the Yoga Sutras

Yamas and Niyamas

Among the most obvious connections of the Vedic Yoga with classical Yoga can be found in the Yamas and Niyamas, the yogic principles and life-style practices that constitute the first two of the eight limbs of Yoga, and the three aspects of Kriya Yoga. The Vedas are first of all an attempt to embody and teach dharma. Classical Yoga, as a Vedic tradition, rests upon the dharmic foundation of the Yamas and Niyamas, the Yogic principles of right living.

The Yamas and Niyamas of Yoga are nothing new but a summation or essence of Vedic Dharmic principles found throughout older Vedic texts.[iii]The Yamas and Niyamas reflect the Vedic idea that one must have a dharmic foundation in daily life in order to truly approach the spiritual path.

Kriya Yoga of the Yoga Sutras consists of the three principles of Tapas, Svadhyaya and Ishvara Pranidhana, which form the foundation of the Niyamas. Tapas is perhaps the key principle of Vedic practice, relating specifically to Agni, the basis of the Vedic Yoga and is often identified with the Yajna or the Vedic sacrifice. The Rigveda states that it is through Tapas that the universe is created.[iv] Agni gives us the power of tapas, self-discipline, aspiration, will-power, and inner heat. Agni is connected with Tapo Loka or the realm of Tapas, in Puranic thought. Tapas is the first word of the second section of the Yoga Sutras.

Svadhyaya commonly means study of the Vedas in Vedic texts, including the Upanishads.[v] It does not simply refer to Self-study in a general sense but to the study of those specific Vedic teachings that were part of one’s family background or given by one’s guru. Its fruit in the Yoga Sutras is the vision of the Ishta Devata,[vi] or chosen form of the Divine that one worshipped in traditional India. These were the prime Hindu Gods and Goddesses of Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Surya, Ganesha, and the many complimentary forms of the Goddess or Divine Mother.

Yet perhaps the most obvious connection between Patanjali Yoga with the Vedic Yoga is the emphasis on Ishvara Pranidhana. Ishvara pranidhana involves surrender to the Divine as the supreme inner power, which is reflected in the Vedic Bhakti or Namas Yoga that involves surrender to the deity in the form of the Vedic Ishta Devatas. Ishvara, or the Lord, is a synonym for Indra, the ruler of the Vedic Gods. Ishvara-pranidhana is primarily Indra-pranidhana in Vedic terms.

Relative to Ishvara Pranidhana, Patanjali emphasizes the importance of Pranava, the primary Pranava which is OM.[vii] As the Vedas are the development of Pranava, he is thereby referring to not just the chanting of OM but the study of the entire Vedas. This makes sense as Patanjali was also a famous Sanskrit grammarian. Sanskrit grammar is also said to develop from Pranava or Om. It is one of the Vedangas or limbs of the Vedas.

The Yamas are common dharmic principles in Vedic texts. Ahimsa or non-violence is a key principle of Yajna or sacrifice, and is commonly extolled in the Bhagavad Gita and Mahabharata. Sacrifice or Yajna does not mean harming other creatures. It means offering everything to God. Even the rare animal sacrifices that were performed in Vedic times, like Native American ritual killing of the buffalo, were mainly for people who depended upon animals for food.

Satya or truthfulness is one of the main principles of Vedic thought. In the Rigveda, the Vedic Gods are called satya, particularly Indra. The triune principle of Satyam Rtam Brihat, the truth, the right and the vast is a prime Vedic principle.

Brahmacharya is a key Vedic principle meaning dwelling in Brahman, not simply celibacy but the internal consecration of all one’s energies. It is widely extolled in Vedic texts. Saucha is an important Vedic principle of cleanliness, particularly various forms of ritual bathing that were done on a daily basis. The text Yogi Yajnavalkya goes into great detail into various forms of Snana or bathing as a Yogic practice including the Mantra Snana or using mantra to bathe the mind.

Pranayama and the Other Limbs of Yoga

The dominant deities of the Vedas are those of the Pranic sphere like Indra, Vayu and Vata, Rudra, the Ashwins and the Maruts. Indra as the Supreme Deity of the Vedas is first of all the cosmic and supreme Prana. He is the lord of the air and atmosphere. While we find specific pranayama practices taught in Vedic texts, we do see many hints about them, as well as a frequent extoling of the power of Prana and Vayu. The five Pranas are discussed in detail in the Yajur Veda.[viii]

The Vedas also deal with meditation and particularly with Samadhi. The Rigveda itself speaks of various states of bliss, spiritual intoxication or the flow of Soma. These are not simply drug-based inebriations but a poetic rendition of the Vedic experience of Samadhi that was the goal of all the teachings embodied in the Soma hymns.[ix]

Tantric Yoga and Hatha Yoga

Traditional Tantric Yoga consists of using ritual, mantra, pranayama and meditation, much like the Vedic approach, including recognizing Agni and Soma or the cosmic fire and nectar powers. Agni relates to the Kundalini Shakti and the three lower chakras that are the seat of Agni in Tantric thought. Soma relates to the nectar of immortality or the Moon in the crown chakra and the three higher chakras in general. In this way, Tantric Yoga develops from the Agni-Soma Yoga of the Rigveda, but recasts Agni as the Goddess and Soma as Shiva as its dominant symbolism. The inner Vedic Yoga of Agni and Soma could easily be called Vedic Tantra and supplemented with all the practices of later Tantric Yoga, which may reflect older secret Vedic practices as well. Tantric Yoga rests upon the mysticism of the Sanskrit alphabet whose roots are in the Vedas. It includes the use of many mantras, including a number of Vedic chants like the Gayatri Mantra.

The main different between the Vedic and Tantric Yoga is that the Vedic Yoga rests upon a symbolism of light whereas the Tantric reflects a more anthropomorphic symbolism of male and female energies. This gives Tantra an iconic presentation, whereas the Vedic is naturalistic. But even here there is considerable overlap.

It is actually easy to see the Vedic basis of traditional Hatha Yoga, because Hatha Yoga is first of all a Yoga of the Sun and the Moon, which are Agni and Soma. Hatha Yoga looks at the Sun and the Moon through the solar and lunar nadis or the Ida and the Pingala. It looks at Agni as Kundalini and the digestive fire, and Soma as the crown Chakra.

Primary Practices of the Vedic Yoga

The Vedic Yoga like classical Yoga is a complex and many-sided discipline designed to address the needs of all the different levels and temperaments of human beings. The Vedic Yoga addresses all of life and works with all of nature, like a symphony using many instruments, with many movements, scales, tones and harmonics. Though it has its practical methodology and precise application, the Vedic Yoga cannot be reduced to any simple pattern, formula or method. One could compare it to a great banyan tree, with roots in both the air and on the ground, and many trunks and branches, on which many creatures can live and find nourishment. Its very complexity is daunting as it reflects the teachings of numerous seers over many centuries. Yet we can still access it today, if we learn how to reorient our vision and awareness in the right way.

Vedic deities represent various yogic approaches, principles and values but in a symbolic or hidden form. This is one reason why later Yogas, philosophies and Vedic sciences could find their inspiration in looking at Vedic mantras in different ways. Yet it also caused some later thinkers to hold that the Vedic teaching lacked depth and spirituality and was only ritualistic in nature. To enter into the Vedic Yoga requires an inward turning of the mind and heart, a turning away from our current civilizational boundaries, and an ability to embrace the language and mentality of an earlier humanity.

However, beyond its seemingly immense intricacy and labyrinthine maze of forces, the Vedic Yoga follows a coherent and structured process that unfolds in each human being in a similar way. Though we are all different at one level, at another level, we are all part of the same species, the same life, and the same consciousness, following the same rhythm of action and expression. In our inmost souls, we are all part of the onrush of an imperious Divine Will to reach the Supreme, which power has its own law and follows its own seasons. Once we understand the basic principles of the Vedic Yoga, we can begin to discern how its apparently discrete elements fit together into an integral and organic whole. That is why in the end, whatever Vedic deity is followed, one merges the deity into light, bliss, oneness and transcendence.

Vedic Deity or Devata Yoga

The Vedic is a ‘Deity Yoga’ or Devata Yoga, just as is common in Hindu, Buddhist and Native traditions, including Tantric and Puranic approaches. The Vedic Yoga requires that we awaken the deities within our own minds and hearts and learn to work with them in all the forces of the universe. The Rigveda in particular is the Vedic book of the deities or Devatas, revealing their names, natures and functions. It is through these Divine powers that the Vedic Yoga and Vedic Dharma proceeds.

Mere practice of Vedic mantras or techniques is not enough to constitute a true Vedic Yoga. It is the Vedic deities that are the agents and the instruments of the Vedic Yoga, not we ourselves, our ordinary minds or human personalities. To understand the Vedas, we must understand the meaning the Vedic deities and come to a living experience of their manifold powers.

Each Vedic deity represents an important approach to inner knowledge, energy and delight. It is both a reflection of the Supreme Godhead and a way to its realization. We can experience these Vedic deities like Indra and Agni as vividly as any other Divine form or manifestation. Ultimately, the Vedic Yoga requires that we understand the deities or cosmic powers behind all that we do. This begins with the biological forces behind our body, breath, and senses and extends to the spiritual principles behind the cosmos

Agni, Awakening the Soul’s Search for Divinity through its Many Lives

The first step not only of the Vedic Yoga, but also of most inner development, consists of awakening the soul or the deeper consciousness of immortality within us. Yoga in the inner sense is a process for the soul or our eternal being to unfold. Yoga is not for the profit or entertainment of our transient personality caught in the illusions of this present birth. Yoga’s purpose is to develop the greater potentials of our inner being, of which our outer personality and self-image is but a veil or an impediment. One must first be willing look beyond the ego self, its urges, demands and expectations to even approach Yoga in the classical sense of the term.

In yogic thought, what could be called the soul or inner being is the individual Self, our internal or core consciousness that persists throughout the karmic cycle of birth and death, the Jivatman of Vedantic thought. The soul has many bodies, many lives and many personalities. Yet behind these outer formations, the soul has an inherent sense and sure awareness of its own immortality, its Divine purpose, and its Divine goal. For Yoga to be an authentic spiritual practice, it must be done by the soul. Yoga done by the ego or by the mind is a Yoga done only in the shadows, in the darkness of ignorance, not in the light of higher awareness. Our practice of Yoga should be a practice of the heart beyond any social, commercial, personal or cultural concerns. Yet this Yoga of the heart is not a Yoga of the physical, emotional or psychological heart. It is a Yoga of our immortal essence as an eternal soul, whose true labor in its many lives is Yoga, the search to realize its divine and cosmic potential.

Awakening the soul of Yoga requires bringing our inner fire or soul flame forward as the guide and master of our being. It means awakening to our inner guru and linking up with the inner tradition of truth. This usually requires the light of the outer guru, teaching and tradition, in one form or another, to help us. Lighting our inner fire and keeping it burning through our daily lives and throughout all our states of consciousness as waking, dream and deep sleep is the foundation of all deep Yoga and meditation. This ‘Yoga of the Inner Fire’ or Agni Yoga consists of the cultivation of higher awareness through mantra, inquiry and meditation.

For this there is a wonderful Vedic verse that Sri Aurobindo emphasized:

The mantras love him who remains awake. The harmonies come to him who remains awake. To him who remains awake the Soma says, I am yours and have my home in your close friendship.

The fire remains awake, him the mantras love. The fire remains awake, to him the harmonies come. The fire remains awake, to him the Soma says, I am yours and have my home in your friendship.

Rigveda V.44.14-15

At first, this Agni or sense of God-consciousness is but a spark, a flicker or a small flame hidden deep in the subconscious mind, a mere latent potential. The Vedic Yoga rests upon a surrender to that fire, a cultivation of that fire until it can guide us back to the universal light that is its origin and goal. Yoga consists of various offerings of body, speech, senses, mind and heart into that inner fire. The fire in turn grows with each offering, granting us greater illumination, understanding and well-being.

Eventually that small spark becomes a mighty flame that consumes all impurity – and then expands into a great spiritual Sun within us, full of truth and light, with unlimited powers of illumination. The power of Agni, its tapas-shakti, purifies, heats, ripens, transforms and delivers us from the darkness to the light. We cultivate that fire through right intention, consecration, mantra, inquiry and meditation. This inner fire develops through a higher power of the will, attention, concern, higher values, and a deeper search and inquiry in life.

Through this power, our own spiritual striving, all the other Divine powers have a place to manifest within us, and do so in various ways to different degrees.

Developing Indra, the Master Force of Self-realization

Once the flame of the soul is awakened and has come forth to guide our development, manifesting the Gods or Divine powers, we must soon contact and set in motion the master force, the Divine consciousness in order to achieve the ultimate goal.

The Vedic God Indra represents the cosmic consciousness that descends into the human being as the lightning flash of direct perception that reveals the highest truth. This descent of grace from above links up with the ascending power of our soul fire from below. Indra is the God-consciousness within us that carries the cosmic and supracosmic Divine in seed form. As ascending and descending forces, Agni and Indra complement one another and comprehend the yogic quest.

This Indra consciousness enters through the fontanel and takes its seat in our heart along with Agni. Indra manifests through the perceptive power of the higher or great Prana (Maha Prana), the master life-force behind the universe that is ever seeking greater self-expression, self-mastery and self-realization, ever marching forward to the goal of realizing the entire universe within the mind. These two great powers of Indra and Agni, enlightened Prana from above and awakened will-power from within, overcome all obstacles and manifest all the other Gods or truth principles.

The cultivation of the master force consists of pranayama, discriminating insight, and deep meditation. It involves a revolution at the core of our consciousness itself. This means an inner battle between the powers of light and darkness, a movement from the darkness to the light, in which we can no longer accept anything limited or superficial into our being. Indra is the spiritual warrior who causes us to see the supreme.

Though the Indra force begins to manifest at an early phase of the Vedic Yoga, it is only when the Yoga is complete that his full power can be known. Otherwise that Indra energy must face various obstacles and opposition, the various enemies that he must defeat and conquer along the way.

Developing Surya, the Enlightened Mind

There are many Vedic Sun Gods, called Adityas, which mean ‘powers of unbounded energy and forces of primal intelligence’. The Adityas represent the different powers and principles of the illumined mind and heart. Following a solar symbolism, they are usually said to be seven or twelve in number. The Adityas reflect the principles of Dharma and modes of conduct. Each indicates a teaching that is necessary for our higher realization.

Most important of the Adityas are the pair Varuna and Mitra, who much like Soma and Agni – which they are often identified with – represent the overall cosmic duality. Varuna and Mitra are great Lords of Dharma and instill in us Dharmic values, allowing us to lead a Dharmic life.

In terms of sadhana, Varuna, which means the vastness, represents the discrimination between truth and falsehood, the recognition of karma and the necessity for purification. There is something stern about our meeting with Varuna, who effaces the ego into the higher truth. Yet Varuna protects the Soma principle or cosmic waters, which his grace releases once we have purified ourselves.

Along with Varuna is Mitra, who is the deity of compassion and love, opposite to and complementary to Varuna’s stern judgment. Mitra, which means friend, is the Divine Friend who leads us like a friend and causes us to seek friendship and harmony with all. Mitra connects us to Agni as the principle of light and the inner guide.

Besides these Mitra and Varuna as the third Aditya is Aryaman, the one who holds the power of nobility and refinement (Arya). Aryaman represents law and force in action, the ability to help, mediate and harmonize. Mitra, Varuna and Aryaman govern the three higher luminous heavens (rochanas) beyond the ordinary three realms of earth, Atmosphere and Heaven.

The fourth Aditya is Bhaga, who holds the power of bliss and delight. He is much like a masculine counterpart of the Goddess Lakshmi, granting not only worldly wealth but spiritual abundance and the richness of devotion. Along with Mitra, Varuna and Aryaman, Bhaga forms the four kings or great rulers of Dharma. Bhaga is connected to Savitar, the transformative aspect of solar energy, which represents the ascending Divine will in creation.

Our Agni, the flame of our inner mind as it develops unfolds the truth principles or dharmic powers represented by the Solar Godheads. They show a progressive development and expansion of the light of truth from the flame to the Sun. They complement the master force and insight of Indra, with various powers of knowledge and illumination. The Yoga of the higher mind (Buddhi) includes meditation on the Adityas and awakening their powers within us. Indra is also present behind the Sun Adityas as their ruling force.

Developing Soma: The Ecstasy of Samadhi

Yoga is a methodology of achieving the state of Samadhi, the level of bliss or Ananda, in which the mind is absorbed in God or in the Self that is its origin. Soma is the Vedic deity of Samadhi, in which all the Vedic deities merge. Soma is lauded as the king of the Gods. All Vedic deities drink the Soma, are energized by the Soma, and are themselves manifestations of the Soma power of bliss. This Soma or bliss is the creator of all but also the goal of all.

Agni is enkindled to prepare the Soma. Indra reaches its fullness of power by the Soma or ecstatic essence of delight that he is the main drinker of. It is his drinking of the Soma that energizes Indra and affords him his master power. The Sun as an enlightenment force exists to take us to the higher bliss of Soma. Soma is the food, milk and lifeblood of all the Vedic deities. It is the unfoldment of the inner Soma that makes one into a rishi or a seer and gives great creative powers. The Vedic Yoga reaches its culmination in the free flowing of Soma that is the highest Samadhi. In Samadhi one learns to drink the immortal Soma that is the consciousness of immortality.

Other Vedic Deities

The many other Vedic deities that we find lauded in the hymns serve mainly supplementary roles, generally relative to the sphere of the main deity that they relate to as Earth, Atmosphere or Heaven, which are the spheres of Agni, Indra and Surya (Aditya).

There are many forms of Surya or the solar force of light and dharma of the world of heaven. We have mentioned several. There is a group of deities the Adityas. There is also Ushas as the Goddess of the Dawn. The solar deities reflect the principles of Dharma or illumined intelligence.

There are many deities of the atmosphere that connect to Indra. These include Rudra and Brihaspati. In addition, there are group deities the Maruts, Rudras and Ashvins. These atmospheric deities reflect Prana and energy.

Agni and Soma do not have so many associated deities but there are some and they have many hymns of their own. With Agni is most commonly the group of deities the Vasus. With Soma are various watery deities and Goddesses.

The Yoga of Light

The Vedic deities are primarily in their natural symbolism forms of light, with four forms being most prominent: Agni or Fire, Soma or Moon (reflected light), Indra or lightning, and Surya or the Sun (illumination). Yet these aspects of light function not only in the outer world but also in the inner world. In the psyche, Agni or Fire is will, Soma or Moon is the reflective aspect of mind and emotion, Indra or lightning is the energetic aspect of the mind as the power of perception, Surya or the Sun is the illuming power of the mind as awareness. There are four related light centers in the subtle body:

Surya – Sun	Spiritual Heart	Awareness
Soma – Moon	Crown chakra	Reflection
Indra – Lightning	Third Eye	Perception
Agni – Fire	Root	Speech

Through understanding these four energy centers, we can see how the subtle body and its chakra system was well known to the Vedic seers and integral to the Vedic mantras. The Vedic Devatas or Godheads of light reflect the deepest energies of our own consciousness and their integral unfoldment.

[i] Pranava in Yoga Sutras

[ii] However it is true that classical Yoga came from the late Vedic period and does not always reflect its Vedic roots. Yoga also was employed to some degree by non-Vedic schools like Buddhism and Jainism, but these also employed other Vedic factors like using the mantra Om, Vedic like fire rituals and other Vedic deities and mantras.

[iii] This simple observation seems to be lost on scholars who would like to see Jain or Buddhist influences in the Yamas and Niyamas, rather than common Dharmic values for Dharmic traditions. The Yamas and Niyamas are Vedic principles like tapas and svadhyaya, or related to them like Saucha and Santosha. They do not require any extra Vedic origin.

[iv] Rigveda X.

[v] Note Taittiriya

[vi] Yoga Sutras

[vii] Yoga Sutras Pranava

[viii] Five pranas Yajur Veda

[ix] Note author’s Soma in Yoga and Ayurveda

(27013)

Tags david frawley, Hindu history, hindu yoga, hinduism, mantra, tantra, vedas, vedic yoga

Fountainhead of Yoga

The Vedic Basis of Classical Yoga

Post author By Vamadev Shastri
Post date November 25, 2012
2 Comments on The Vedic Basis of Classical Yoga

[box_dark]Many people today look to Patanjali, the compiler of the famous Yoga Sutras, as the father or founder of the greater system of Yoga. However, while Patanjali’s work is very important and worthy of profound examination, any extensive study of the ancient literature on Yoga reveals that the Yoga tradition is much older than Patanjali – and that its main practices already existed long before his time. Patanjali was a compiler, not an originator of Yoga teachings.[/box_dark]

The traditional founder of Yoga Darshana or the ‘Yoga system of philosophy’ – which the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali represents – is usually said to be Hiranyagarbha. It is nowhere in classical Yoga literature said to be Patanjali. The Mahabharata (Shanti Parva 349.65), the great ancient text in which the Bhagavad Gita of Sri Krishna occurs and which is sometimes called the ‘fifth Veda’, states: “Kapila, the teacher of Samkhya, is said to be the supreme Rishi. Hiranyagarbha is the original knower of Yoga. There is no one else more ancient.”

Elsewhere in the Mahabharata (Shanti Parva 342.95-96), Krishna states, identifying himself with Hiranyagarbha: “As my form, carrying the knowledge, eternal and dwelling in the Sun, the teachers of Samkhya, who have discerned what is important, call me Kapila. As the brilliant Hiranyagarbha, who is lauded in the verses of the Vedas, ever worshipped by Yoga, so I am also remembered in the world.” Note that Krishna identifies yogic Hiranyagarbha with the deity of the same name in the Vedas.

Other yogic texts like the Brihadyogi Yajnavalkya Smriti XII.5 similarly portray Hiranyagarbha as the original teacher of Yoga, just as they do Kapila as the original teacher of the Samkhya system. So do commentaries on the Yoga Sutras. For example, Vijnana Bhikshu, the great Samkhya teacher in his Yogavartika commentary on the first sutra of the Yoga Sutras, also explains Hiranyagarbha as the Adiguru or primal guru of Yoga, quoting the Yogi Yajnavalkya.[i] While the depth, clarity and brevity of Patanjali’s compilation is noteworthy, it is the mark of a later summation, not a new beginning.

The vast literature of the Vedas, Mahabharata and Puranas speak of numerous great yogis but does not mention Patanjali, who was of a later period.[ii] Even the Yoga literature that is later in time than Patanjali, like that of Kashmir Shaivism, Siddha Yoga or Hatha Yoga, does not make Patanjali central to its teachings, though they my mention him, but rather emphasize the deity Shiva as Adinath or their original guru.

The earlier Yoga literature before Patanjali can perhaps be better called the Hiranyagarbha Yoga Darshana as it is said to begin with Hiranyagarbha. In fact, most of the Yoga taught in Vedas, Upanishads, Gita, Mahabharata and Puranas – which is the main ancient literature of Yoga – appears to be part of this Hiranyagarbha tradition. Such ancient Pre-Patanjali texts speak of a Yoga Shastra or the ‘authoritative teachings on Yoga’ and of a Yoga Darshana or ‘Yoga philosophy’, but by that they mean the older tradition traced to Hiranyagarbha.

Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras is only referred to as a compiler, not as an inventor of the Yoga teachings. He himself states, “Thus is the teaching of Yoga” (Yoga Sutras I.1). This is quite unlike Krishna, the avatar of Yoga, who states, “I taught the original Yoga to Vivasvan” (Bhagavad Gita IV.1).

Patanjali is sometimes regarded as a devotee of Vishnu/Narayana, whose main human avatar is Krishna. This suggests that Patanjali himself was a devotee of Krishna. Traditional Sanskrit chants to Patanjali laud him as an incarnation of Lord Sesha, the serpent on which Lord Vishnu/Narayana resides. This Sesha attribution links Patanjali and his darshana to Krishna/Vishnu. Yet others view Patanjali as a Shaivite Yoga, for his emphasis on Ishvara and Om, which are more commonly associated with Shiva than any other deity formulation.

However, it is the Bhagavad Gita is the primary text lauded as a Yoga Shastra or ‘definitive Yoga teaching’ in the ancient literature. This connection can be carried to the Mahabharata as a whole, in which the Gita occurs. Bhishma in the Mahabharata (Shanti Parva 300.57) also speaks of a Yoga teaching “established in many Yoga Shastras.” The Anu Gita section of the Mahabharata (Ashvamedha Parva 19.15) has an interesting section that begins, “Thus I will declare, the supreme and unequalled Yoga Shastra.”

Several Upanishads like the Katha, Kena and Svestasvatara are said to be Yoga Shastras, besides numerous Yoga Upanishads that also do not emphasize Patanjali and have Yoga taught by a variety of teachers, including famous Vedic figures like Yajnavalkya and Shandilya. The Puranas, which are large encyclopedic works of traditional knowledge going back to medieval and ancient periods, contain many sections on Yoga but do not give importance to Patanjali. When such texts teach Yoga, they often do so with quotes from the older Vedas, as we mentioned with the Svetasvatara Upanishad in the previous chapter.

This means that the Patanjali Yoga Darshana is a later subset of the earlier Hiranyagarbha Yoga Darshana. It is not a new or original teaching meant to stand on its own. Such Sutra literature like the Yoga Sutras or Brahma Sutras were regarded as short axioms that required interpretation in the light of the existing more detailed traditions, mainly through authoritative commentaries. The topics addressed in the Yoga Sutras from yamas and niyamas to dhyana and samadhi are already taught extensively in the older literature. In the Mahabharata (Shanti Parva 316.7), the sage Yajnavalkya speaks of an “eightfold Yoga taught in the Vedas.” The Shandilya Upanishad (1) refers to an eightfold or ashtanga Yoga but does not mention Patanjali.

While no Hiranyagarbha Yoga Sutras text has survived, quite a few of teachings of the Hiranyagarbha have remained. In fact, the literature on the Hiranyagarbha Yoga tradition may be as large as that of the Patanjali Yoga tradition, which itself represents a branch of it. This means that we cannot speak of a Patanjali Yoga tradition or of a Patanjali Yoga literature as apart from an older set of Yoga teachings rooted in the Hiranyagarbha tradition.

The Patanjali Yoga teaching occurs in the context of a broader Yoga Darshana that includes other streams. This Yoga Darshana existed long before Patanjali and was taught in many ways. It is the Yoga Darshana originally attributed to Hiranyagarbha and related Vedic teachers.

Yet even this Yoga Darshana that is connected to the Samkhya system, and could also be called the ‘Samkhya-Yoga darshana’, is not the only line of Yoga. The Mahabharata and other ancient texts speak of the Vaishnava Yoga that relates to Krishna and the Shaivite or Pashupata Yoga that goes back to Shiva himself. Indeed the main Yoga traditions in India are largely Shaivite and only use the Yoga Sutras in a peripheral manner. This includes the traditions of Hatha Yoga and Siddha Yoga, which are more rooted in the Shaivite Yoga than in the Yoga Sutras. While we should certainly honor this Samkhya-Yoga tradition, we should remember the greater diversity of yogic paths.

[box_dark]Parallel With the Samkhya Tradition[/box_dark]

A similar situation, in which the main Sutra text of a Vedic philosophy is later in time than its original teachings, also occurs relative to Samkhya. The main sutra text on Samkhya philosophy is the Samkhya Karika of Ishvara Krishna. Ishvara Krishna (who is not the Krishna of the Gita) is a figure of the early centuries AD who debated with Buddhist teachers near the time of Vasubandhu, the main teacher of Yogachara Buddhism. Ishvara Krishna is a much later teacher than the original founder of the Samkhya system, the sage Kapila, who is regarded as legendary even at the time of the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita. Ishvara Krishna is more recent than Patanjali, though Patanjali Yoga rests upon the Samkhya philosophy.

There are many Samkhya teachings in the Vedic and Puranic literature older than the Samkhya Karika. The Samkhya Karika has its prominence as a late and clear compilation of an older tradition, not the original presentation. This means that there is no need to regard the main text on a Vedic darshana as the original teaching, or its compiler as the founder of the tradition.

[box_dark]Hiranyagarbha and Vedic Mantra Yoga[/box_dark]

Who then was Hiranyagarbha, a human figure or a deity? The name Hiranyagarbha, which means “the gold embryo”, first occurs prominently as a Vedic deity, generally a form of the Sun God, which has many names involving Hiranya or gold.[iii] There is a special Sukta or hymn to Hiranyagarbha in the Rig Veda X.121, which is commonly chanted by Hindus today in their daily rituals, in which Hiranyagarbha refers to the Supreme Being or Ishvara.

The Mahabharata speaks of Hiranyagarbha as he who is lauded in the Vedic verses and taught in the Yoga Shastra (Shanti Parva 339.69). As a form of the Sun God, Hiranyagarbha can be related to other Sun Gods (Adityas) like Savitri, to whom the famous Gayatri mantra used in many Yoga traditions is addressed, and is important in many early Yoga teachings including Vedic mantras and the Svestasvatara Upanishad. Therefore, the Hiranyagarbha Yoga tradition appears to be a Vedic tradition strongly rooted in the use of Vedic mantras. We could accurately call it the Hiranyagarbha Vedic Yoga tradition. It would place the origins of Yoga in the mantras or Mantra Yoga of the Vedas. As mantra is central to all Yoga traditions, this may not be surprising. Indeed if we b begin Yoga with mantra and sacred sound, rather than the current fixation on asana, we can easily understand the Vedic basis of Yoga.

Krishna states in the Bhagavad Gita (IV.1-3) that he taught the original Yoga to Visvasvan, another name of the Sun God, again suggesting Hiranyagarbha. Vivasvan was said to have taught this Yoga to Manu, the original man or first king, making it into the prime Yoga path for all humanity. Here, however, Krishna gains prominence over Vivasvan/Hiranyagarbha as the original teacher of Yoga.

The Mahabharata (Shanti Parva 340.50) additionally identifies Hiranyagarbha, as other texts do, with Brahma or Prajapati, the creator among the Hindu trinity, who among other things represents the Vedas and is the source of all higher knowledge. Most of the Vedic sciences are said to have been first taught by Lord Brahma, who represents the cosmic mind. The Mahabharata also identifies Hiranyagarbha with the Buddhi or Mahat, the higher or cosmic mind (Mahabharata 302.18).

Hiranyagarbha appears more as a deity than a human figure, though it is possible that a teacher of that name once existed. The chief disciple of Hiranyagarbha in the ancient texts is said to be the Rishi Vasishta, the foremost of the Vedic seers (seer of the seventh book of the Rig Veda), who passed on the Yoga teachings to Narada (Mahabharata Shanti Parva 308.45). Vasishta teaches the Yoga Darshana in the Mahabharata (Shanti Parva 306.26): “The Yoga Darshana has so been declared by me according to the truth.” Vasishta also passes on his knowledge to his son, Parashara, in whose line was born Veda Vyasa, who compiled the Vedas and wrote the Mahabharata.

Vasishta is the prime early human teacher of other Vedic disciplines as well like Advaita Vedanta (the tradition of Jnana Yoga or the Yoga of Knowledge), and carrying on the Yoga teachings of the deities Shiva and Vishnu as well as that of Hiranyagarbha. There are several important Yoga texts in the Vasistha line including the Vasishta Samhita and Yoga Vasishta, the latter of which is often regarded as the greatest work on both Yoga and Vedanta. While these texts are much later than the Vedic Vasishta, they do show a continuity of tradition, as well as its diversity.

The original Yoga darshana tradition appears not as the Patanjali tradition but the Hiranyagarbha tradition. It teachings are found not only in the Yoga Sutras but in the Mahabharata, including the Bhagavad Gita, Moksha Dharma Parva and Anu Gita, which each contain extensive teachings on Yoga. These in turn connect to the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and Tantras, which address Yoga in many forms like mantra, ritual (Karma Yoga), knowledge (Jnana Yoga), devotion (Bhakti Yoga), and so on. The Hiranyagarbha Yoga tradition appears to be the main Vedic Yoga tradition. The Patanjali Yoga tradition arises as an offshoot of it or a later expression of it.

Samkhya, Yoga and Vedanta – the three main Vedic philosophical systems – are presented as interrelated aspects of the same tradition in the Mahabharata. Ayurveda and Vedic astrology are set forth important aspects of its outer application. If we want to go back to the traditional roots of Yoga and restore the original teachings of Yoga, we should examine the Hiranyagarbha Yoga Darshana. In addition, we should look to its Vedic connections and associations with all Yoga paths and branches. This will take us back to the original Vedic Yoga that encompasses all the Vedic deities

[box_light]Misinterpretations of the Yoga Sutras[/box_light]

Much of modern Yoga rests upon a misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the Yoga Sutras. The first problem is that many people try to look at the Yoga Sutras as an original text that stands in itself, when it is a later compilation that requires knowledge of its background in order to make sense of it. This causes people to separate Yoga from the earlier traditions that form the context of Patanjali’s teachings, which is why the Hiranyagarbha tradition is so little known in the world of Yoga today.

The second problem is that the Yoga Sutras, consisting of short enigmatic aphorisms, can be easily slanted in different directions according to the inclinations of the interpreter, particularly if they do not give credence to the classical commentaries and connections to earlier teachings. This causes people to invent or imagine meanings in the Sutras that may actually not be there in the original.

Third, the Yoga Sutra tradition has been made into something sectarian, for example, opposing Yoga and Samkhya as competing Vedic philosophical systems to Vedanta. This causes people to separate Yoga from related Vedic spiritual traditions that also employ Yoga practices.[iv] This complication is not something of the modern age only, but occurs in debates between Indian philosophical systems going back to the Middle Ages, a time in which precise logical analysis was often emphasized over broader synthesis.

The original Hiranyagarbha Yoga teachings, such as we find it in the Mahabharata, however, is presented there as in harmony with Samkhya and Vedanta. The synthesis of these three systems is in fact as old as Krishna, if not older.

Such an older integral Yoga is the same general type of Yoga-Vedanta taught by many of the great modern Yoga gurus of India like Vivekananda, Yogananda, Aurobindo, Shivananda and his many disciples, as well as many others – the very teachers who first brought Yoga to the West in the last century. They teach the Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads together as part of the same broader tradition. The differences between Samkhya, Yoga and Vedanta are regarded by them as minor variations within the same greater tradition.

So, how can we best approach the Yoga Sutras in order to understand their real intent? It is arguably best to do so in the context of the older and broader Yoga Darshana. There is one greater Yoga Darshana that exists like a thread through all the texts and traditions of Yoga. There is no Patanjali Yoga Darshana as an entity in itself apart from the older Hiranyagarbha Yoga Darshana, nor is the Hiranyagarbha tradition rigidly delineated from other Yoga teachings.[v]***

If we want to understand the meaning of the technical terms in the Yoga Sutras, we should do so with recourse to the older literature, not by inventing our own meanings, or by trying to make these terms unique to the Yoga Sutras. Whether it is the yamas and niyamas (particularly tapas, svadhyaya and Ishvara pranidhana), the different types of samadhi, or the different aspects of Yoga practice – such terms often alluded to briefly in the Sutras can be found explained clearly and in detail in the older and broader literature.

In addition, we should look at the Yoga Sutras in light of Vedanta, not only the Bhagavad Gita but also the Upanishads, which the Yoga Sutras as a Vedic philosophy accept as authoritative While Patanjali emphasizes the Purusha rather than Brahman (the Absolute), we must remember that the Hiranyagarbha tradition gives Brahman its place and that Brahman and Purusha are often synonyms. We can also look to Vedanta for a greater description of Ishvara or God, which Patanjali only alludes to, but which Vedantic texts examine in great detail. This includes both the traditions non-dualistic (Advaita) and dualistic (Dvaita) traditions of Vedanta, which have their important Yoga teachings.

We should discriminate between the greater tradition of Yoga, which includes all branches and types of Yoga, and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, placing the latter in the context of the former. We should look at Yoga not only through the Yoga Sutras but use the Sutras to lead us into the greater tradition of Yoga. This includes the ancient Yoga literature before Patanjali and the later Yoga literature after him, the various lines of Vaishnava, Shaivite, Shakta and Vedantic Yogas, regardless of their philosophical differences.

Besides looking at Patanjali in a new light, we should work to restore the teachings of the Hiranyagarbha Yoga Darshana. These can be compiled from the Mahabharata, Upanishads, and other ancient Vedic teachings. Through the Hiranyagarbha tradition, we can gradually reclaim the older Vedic Yoga that was regarded as its basis. In this way, we can restore the spiritual heritage of the Himalayan rishis and yogis in all of its grandeur. This is an important task for the next generation of Yoga aspirants, if they want to go back to the origins of Yoga, particularly as a spiritual practice.

[i] Vijnana Bhikshu, Yoga Sutras

[ii] There is not a single reference to Patanjali that I have found in this literature, though I have not examined all the Puranas.

[iii] Hiranyapani most notably

[iv] Non-dualistic or Advaita Vedanta, for example, teaches Jnana Yoga or the Yoga of Knowledge, while dualistic or Dvaita Vedanta emphasizes Bhakti Yoga or the Yoga of Devotion.

[v] For example, the Mahabharata also gives prominence to the Shaivite Yoga tradition called the Pashupata line, which is also very ancient.

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Tags krishna, patanjali, Shiva, vedas, vedic yoga, yoga sutras