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Q: In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the section on Yama does not talk about helping others, being compassionate and loving to others. Why is this?

First, because yama (See “The Ten Commandments of Yoga“) means “self-restraint”–what we do not do. However, since the qualities of non-violence and non-injury (ahimsa), truthfulness and honesty (satya), non-stealing and non-misappropriativeness (asteya), unselfishness (aparigraha), peacefulness (santosha), and spiritual orientation (Ishwarapranidhana), are listed by Patanjali as part of Yama, a yogi will have a truly positive attitude toward others and be very considerate of them.

Patanjali focuses only on yoga in a very specialized sense. A continual, in-depth study of the Bhagavad Gita will give a full picture of authentic spiritual life. For the Gita embodies the wisdom of the upanishads and the discipline of the Yoga Sutras in a totally practical manner. It is the guide to higher consciousness in all aspects of life.

More reading on the subject:

• The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
• Foundations of Yoga

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Success is one of the gods of the modern world–but only material success. Krishna, however, is interested in success of spirit, and we should be, too. So he begins this seventh chapter of the Gita, saying:

“Devote your whole mind to me, and practice yoga. Take me for your only refuge. I will tell you how, by doing this, you can know me in my total reality, without any shadow of doubt.” 1

Perhaps one of the reasons Vyasa chose a battlefield as the setting for the immortal dialogue of the Gita is the necessity for cutting straight to the facts without delays. Once the battlefield is entered, diplomacy is left behind–if it had not failed there would be no battle. Only the facts–the immediate facts–now matter. It is no surprise, then, that in all spiritual traditions we find military references and symbols to some degree. This verse certainly embodies the factuality and urgency of battle–traits that we require in our own personal battle for higher consciousness. Here then are the factors necessary for our success.

“He must consider the necessity of making yoga practice the core of his life.”

Devote your whole mind to me, and practice yoga. It is only to be expected that an inquirer will not commit to such an intense involvement with yoga, that first some experience of its value must be gained. But it is absolutely essential that once the aspirant comes to see the value of yoga he must consider the necessity of making yoga practice the core of his life–everything else must become secondary. In fact, anything found to conflict with the practice of yoga must be eliminated from the yogi’s inner and outer life. Without this complete dedication success in yoga is impossible.

I am not saying that everything in a person’s life is to be displaced by yoga, that yoga is supposed to crowd out everything so that nothing else remains, but only that yoga must be central to the yogis life and be given first priority. This is because every element in our life must be looked at from a yogic perspective and ordered accordingly. Since most people’s lives are conglomerates of addictions rather than principles or rational choices, this can be a very difficult matter indeed. With this in mind, toward the end of the Gita Krishna tells Arjuna: “Who knows the Atman knows that happiness born of pure knowledge: the joy of sattwa. Deep his delight after strict self-schooling: sour toil at first but at last what sweetness, the end of sorrow.” 2 To reach the sweet we must first go through the bitter. It would not be honest to tell you otherwise.

There should be no “hidden charges” in yoga. Right from the first we should know what will be required of us if we intend to persevere. And we must decide to meet the requirements. Otherwise it is all a waste of time for everyone. The mind must be totally dedicated to God as the Supreme Goal and the Supreme Means. This is because real yoga is nothing less than communion with God right from the start, however faint or tenuous it may be. For “the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”3

Take me for your only refuge. That is, we must make God the only answer to our internal problems, and not resort to mental and emotional gimmicks that will only hide the troubles. Even though we should sensibly do our best in a practical manner in relation to our external difficulties, even there God should have priority so our external tangles will not turn into mental turmoils.

If we will observe these two principles, Krishna assures us: “by doing this, you can know me in my total reality, without any shadow of doubt.” Then he continues: “I will give you all this knowledge, and direct spiritual experience, besides. When a man has that, nothing else in this world remains to be known.” 4 Then we will be ready to get out of what a friend of mine used to call “this dumb kindergarten” and move up to a higher level of evolution. About time!

The few

The benefits of yoga are so marvelous, yet: “Who cares to seek for that perfect freedom? One man, perhaps, in many thousands. Then tell me how many of those who seek freedom shall know the total truth of my being? Perhaps one only.” 5 Why so few? Because few will devote their whole mind to God, practice yoga, and take refuge in God alone, making God the Sole Reality in their life. Such persons are rare, but we must at some time or other in the round of rebirths become one of them. Why not now, rather than later?

Read more on this subject: Krishna Teaches Us How To Meditate.

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Just before going to India for the first time in 1962, I had the great good fortune to meet and hear Sri A. B. Purani, the administrator of the renowned Aurobindo Ashram of Pondicherry, India. From his lips I heard the most brilliant expositions of Vedic philosophy; nothing in my subsequent experience has equaled them. In one talk he told the following story:

In ancient India there lived a most virtuous Brahmin who was considered by all to be the best authority on philosophy. One day the local king ordered him to appear before him. When he did so, the king said: “I have three questions that puzzle-even torment-me: Where is God? Why don’t I see Him? And what does he do all day? If you can’t answer these three questions I will have your head cut off.” The Brahmin was appalled and terrified, because the answers to these questions were not just complex, they were impossible to formulate. In other words: he did not know the answers. So his execution date was set.

On the morning of that day the Brahmin’s teenage son appeared and asked the king if he would release his father if he-the son-would answer the questions. The king agreed, and the son asked that a container of milk be brought to him. It was done. Then the boy asked that the milk be churned into butter. That, too, was done.

“The first two of your questions are now answered,” he told the king.

The king objected that he had been given no answers, so the son asked: “Where was the butter before it was churned?”

“In the milk,” replied the king.

“In what part of the milk?” asked the boy.

“In all of it.”

“Just so, agreed the boy, “and in the same way God is within all things and pervades all things.”

“Why don’t I see Him, then,” pressed the king.

“Because you do not ‘churn’ your mind and refine your perceptions through meditation. If you do that, you will see God. But not otherwise. Now let my father go.”

“Not at all,” insisted the king. “You have not told me what God does all day.”

“To answer that,” said the boy, “we will have to change places. You come stand here and let me sit on the throne.”

The request was so audacious the king complied, and in a moment he was standing before the enthroned Brahmin boy who told him: “This is the answer. One moment you were here and I was there. Now things are reversed. God perpetually lifts up and casts down every one of us. In one life we are exalted and in another we are brought low-oftentimes in a single life this occurs, and even more than once. Our lives are completely in His hand, and He does with us as He wills.”

The Brahmin was released and his son was given many honors and gifts by the king.

Read more articles on Meditation.

The upanishads teach us the truth of the unity of the atman and Brahman. Therefore that truth is known as advaita, “not two,” meaning that there is no separation of the atman and Brahman at any time. Simplistic thinkers, especially in the West, immediately begin to decry the idea of tapasya, yoga, or any other discipline, insisting very shrilly that there is no need for such, that to engage in spiritual practice is to affirm a delusion of separation between us and God. They usually end up denying that either we or God even exist, advocating a kind of petulant, bullying nihilism, reminding any sensible person of Krishna’s indictment: “These malignant creatures are full of egoism, vanity, lust, wrath, and consciousness of power. They loathe me, and deny my presence both in themselves and in others. They are enemies of all men and of myself.” (Bhagavad Gita 16:18)

Drastic words, these, but they address a drastic mental and spiritual aberration. Read the entire sixteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita for a full outline of such kinds of people. This is but one of the reasons why a continual study of the Gita is necessary for those who do not wish to go (or be led) astray in their spiritual pursuit. No student of the Gita could ever fall into such absurd pitfalls as these “advaitans” whose only unity is their absorption in the illusion of the ego.

The true perspective

The truth is that the realization of God not only can but must be pursued. We do not pursue God, understand, for God is everywhere and always one with us. Rather, we pursue the revelation of that eternal oneness and its manifestation on all levels of our present existence. Regarding this, a yogi-adept of the twentieth century, Dr. I. K. Taimni*, remarked in his book The Science of Yoga:

“According to the yogic philosophy it is possible to rise completely above the illusions and miseries of life and to gain infinite knowledge, bliss, and power through enlightenment here and now while we are still living in the physical body. And if we do not attain this enlightenment while we are still alive we will have to come back again and again into this world until we have accomplished this appointed task. So it is not a question of choosing the path of yoga or rejecting it. It is a question of choosing it now or in some future life. It is a question of gaining enlightenment as soon as possible and avoiding the suffering in the future or postponing the effort and going through further suffering which is unnecessary and avoidable. This is the meaning of Yoga Sutra 2:16: ‘The misery which is not yet come can and is to be avoided.’ No vague promise of an uncertain postmortem happiness this, but a definite scientific assertion of a fact verified by the experience of innumerable yogis, saints, and sages who have trodden the path of yoga throughout the ages.”

It is absolutely sure: “Seek, and ye shall find.”

* Dr. I. K. Taimni was a professor of chemistry in India. He wrote many excellent books on philosophy and spiritual practice, including The Science of Yoga, a commentary on the Yoga Sutras. For many years he was the spiritual head of the Esoteric Section of the Theosphical Society headquartered in Adyar, Madras (Tamilnadu), and traveled the world without publicity or notoriety, quietly instructing many sincere aspirants in the path to Supreme Consciousness.

For more on this subject, read Two Views on Meditation–and a Third.

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A continued commentary on “Those who meditate with perseverance, constantly working hard at it, are the wise who experience Nirvana, the ultimate freedom from chains.”
–Dhammapada 23

We are bound by millions (if not billions) of chains, yet meditation pursued rightly will dissolve them all. In the meantime we have to make sure we are not binding more chains on us, like the washed dog that immediately runs out and rolls in the filth to counteract the cleanliness. Here, too, meditation is the answer, for the insight born of meditation enables us to see the folly of bondage and the understanding to turn away from more involvement in chaining up of ourselves.

Nirvana

The purpose of all this is Nirvana. Just as a child cannot comprehend adulthood, so we cannot really understand just what Nirvana is. But one thing we can know: it is the opposite of where we now find ourselves! Attempts at definition are risky. Some time back I saw a television show on which a reputed “authority” on Buddhism was asked by an interviewer to describe Nirvana. He proceeded to give a checklist of the characteristics of Nirvana–every one of which is listed by Buddha in the Pali sutras as NOT Nirvana, though many mistake them for Nirvana. It was sort of like hearing a Christian recite the opposite qualities listed by Jesus in the Beatitudes or a Jew reciting the exact opposites to the Ten Commandments.

But let us give ourselves at least an approximation, a whiff, of what Nirvana surely entails: “It is a supramundane state that can be attained in this life itself. It is also explained as extinction of passions, but not a state of nothingness. It is an eternal blissful state of relief that results from the complete eradication of the passions.” So says the Venerable Narada Thera.

And so seek all of us.

Read the first part of this article: Meditation–Realization vs. Speculation

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“Those who meditate with perseverance, constantly working hard at it, are the wise who experience Nirvana, the ultimate freedom from chains.”
–Dhammapada 23

One time a man asked me if he could speak with me about some problems and questions he had. “Why bother?” brayed an eavesdropper, “All he will do is tell you to meditate!” Yes, it is true: meditation is the only solution. Many things are needed to support our meditation and ensure its success, but meditation is the whole idea for those seeking real freedom of being.

Paramhansa Yogananda, writing about Yogiraj Shyama Charan Lahiri, one of nineteenth-century India’s greatest yogis, said: “The great guru taught his disciples to avoid theoretical discussion of the scriptures. ‘He only is wise who devotes himself to realizing, not reading only, the ancient revelations,’ he said. ‘Solve all your problems through meditation. Exchange unprofitable religious speculations for actual God-contact. Clear your mind of dogmatic theological debris; let in the fresh, healing waters of direct perception. Attune yourself to the active inner Guidance; the Divine Voice has the answer to every dilemma of life. Though man’s ingenuity for getting himself into trouble appears to be endless, the Infinite Succor is no less resourceful.’”

Long before these wise words of Lahiri Mahasaya, Buddha made clear to his students again and again that meditation was the way to freedom.

Perseverance

Wonderful as it is, meditation is no magic trick. Only those gain its benefit who “meditate with perseverance, constantly working hard at it.” So two things must characterize our meditation practice: constancy and effective effort. We keep on and keep on, never stopping for a moment in the endeavor to continually direct our awareness toward Reality. And that endeavor cannot be done in a lackadaisical manner. The Path is walked, or even run, along, not shuffled or moseyed along.

The great twentieth-century Roman Catholic philosopher, Dietrich van Hildebrand, wrote in his masterful study of spiritual evolution, Transformation in Christ, that the majority of people suffer from what he calls “discontinuity.” That is, most people simply cannot sustain either effort or thought unless driven by the base passions. In other words, they have no real freedom of mind and will, though they think they do. Addictions impel us, but wisdom does not, for freedom is both its goal and its requisite. Hence, our sustained effort at meditation must come directly from within us as a fully conscious and wilful choice. Every day this is true: each step on the path is a conscious choice–clear to the end. This is not a path for the timid or the lazy or the merely curious.

Next: Gaining Freedom from the Chains of Delusion

Read more Teaching of Buddha.

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