An Introduction to the Philosophy of Yoga

by Swami Krishnananda

Make three columns: 1, 2, 3. In the first column, write the Heading: "What do you want?" In the second column, "Can you achieve it?" In the third column, "What is the way to it?"

Now, take the first item. "What do you want?" What are you in search of? What do you wish to know? All these questions imply almost one and the same thing, and are attempted and answered in the system of studies usually known as "Philosophy". So put this under column No. l, which comes under philosophy.

Then, comes the second column. "Can you achieve this goal or knowledge, of search, of aspiration, of asking?" The analysis of your own capacities in this great search of that which you seek or want, comes under what is known as "Psychology". This is under No. 2.

Then, is the third section. "What is the way?" Taking for granted that you have the capacity, the equipment, the endowment, which is requisite, what is the methodology that is to be adopted? This is the "practical" aspect of your search. Thus, there is a "philosophical" aspect, a "psychological" aspect and a "practical" aspect of the whole subject. This is to make a broad division of our approach to the entire question of life in its completeness.

Properly speaking, the subject of philosophy is concerned with the nature of Truth, or Reality. It is quite obvious that we are not after unrealities, phantoms or things that pass away; we are not in search of these things. We require something substantial, permanent. And what is this? What do you mean by the thing that is permanent, which is the same as what you call the Real? The search for Reality is the subject of philosophy.

Then we come to the second issue, the individual nature, the structure of our personality, the nature of our endowments. An analysis of the entire internal structure of ourselves as individuals in search of anything is comprehended under the various branches of psychology and even what we call "psycho-analysis". They all are subsumed under this single head of an internal analysis of the individual.

Now, we have the third thing, under the third column – the way to the achievement of this ideal, the Reality; the methodology, the practice of it, is what we are concerned with essentially. This is what we generally hear of as "yoga". Yoga is practice, though it is preceded by certain philosophical and psychological studies and discussions.

What is this Reality which we are in search of? What do we mean by the Real? Well, if we put a question generally to a layman, there will be an immediate answer, "What I see with my eyes, is the real." And what do "I see with my eyes"? "The World." This is the reality. The world in which we live is the real thing; that is the object which we regard as real. It is permanent. "It was there even before I was born; it is now, and it may be there, even when I shall pass away. The world is my reality and I cannot conceive of any other reality."

In the section on psychology, I may ask you a question, "What are you?" A simple answer will come forth, viz. "I am such and such," "so and so," "a person," a usual reply. If you are asked, "Who are you", you know what sort of answer you will give. It is quite clear. Perhaps you will imply as an underlying current of your answer that you have a mind, an intellect, a reason, a thinking power – that is all. One cannot go beyond these simple definitions of oneself. And if you are asked, "What are you supposed to do? What is the practical aspect of your life?"- here too, you have a very simple, off-hand answer. "We have to work, for the maintenance of ourselves, in relationship to this world, in the context of the atmosphere of human society, and various other factors."

This is a prosaic and naive approach of the common person in regard to the problems of life, the duties of life and the values of life, but these are to touch the subject only on the surface, even as we can have a very inadequate and unscientific diagnosis of the illness of a person by merely looking at the body of the person, or by just passing the hand over the body of the individual, without investigating into the internal complications which give rise to the discomfort of disease. We are impelled to search for things on account of a discomfort we feel in life. Otherwise, there would be no impulsion for search in respect of anything.

Dissatisfaction is regarded as the mother of all philosophy. Philosophy is the child of a recognition of the inadequacies in life. There are many kinds of dissatisfaction. We can write a book on what dissatisfaction means, because we are dissatisfied with everything, practically. It is difficult to imagine that we can be satisfied with anything permanently, or even for an elongated period. We cannot be satisfied with summer for a long time. We cannot be satisfied with winter for a long time. We cannot be satisfied with any atmosphere for a long time, and so on are our grievances. There is an ingredient of dissatisfaction in the very structure of our existence in this world. This is something very strange. How is it that we should be kept restless and longing throughout our life? Each one of you, just for a few seconds, withdraw your minds and contemplate your lives from the time of your birth, or at least from the time you can recollect yourselves. Were you satisfied at any time? You were always asking for something, and if you obtained that thing, you would ask for another thing. If you get the second thing, you ask for a third thing.

Now, where is this quest going to end? Is a person going to be satisfied with anything at all? How is it that we are under the grip of the demon, as it were, of endless asking, an asking for that of which we have no clear knowledge in our minds? We are demanding endless things, in a variety of ways, constantly, throughout our lives, because it has not yet become clear to our minds as to what we want finally. We are only experimenting with situations: "Perhaps this is what I want, perhaps that is what I want"; and when we go to these things, we realise that these were not the things that we sought to have.

It is like experimenting with various medicines and finding that none of them will suit our illness. We have been experimenting with persons, with things, with professions and the various other facets of our longings. They have not satisfied us. Even today, we are not satisfied – neither you, nor I, nor anybody else. It is impossible to imagine a condition of complete satisfaction, where we will have to say nothing, where, perhaps, we have to think also of nothing, where everything is obtained for ever. The state of obtaining all things is, indeed, beyond even the stretch of imagination. We cannot imagine whether such a state is possible, that is, to have all things that we need.

It looks, many a time, that we have to pass away from this world in despair with everything. If we read the history of the minds of human beings, if there is any such thing as a history of psychology of human nature as such, we will be surprised to observe that it is impossible to pin-point even one individual who has left this world with genuine satisfaction, save those few who are the salt of the earth. There has always been a gap, an unfinished something with which the person had to quit. Everyone goes with something left incomplete. It will never be finished. This is the seamy side of things, the unhappy facet of life, which seems to be the outer picture of this world painted before us.

But we have also a peculiar solacing and satisfying inner core, which always eludes our grasp. There is something in us, in each one of us, which escapes our notice every moment. We can never visualise it with all our effort, and yet there is that mysterious and tremendous something which keeps us somehow hoping for the possibility of success in the end. This peculiar something in us, which keeps us positively hoping for the practicability of our enterprises in life, and expecting a victory at last – that is the glory of our personality.

Man has remained a wretched suffering individual in this world, it is true, but he is also a glorious something, a majestic and incomprehensible mystery, a combination of two contraries, as it were, which is just the miracle of man. Every human being is a miracle by himself. It is not possible for us to know ourselves wholly. If it had been possible, we would not be in search of things and running about here and there. There is a peculiar eluding difficulty on account of which we are in search of things and yet are not able to get anything; with all the search, we seem to be receiving nothing in the end. Yet, we cannot withhold this quest. This is another peculiarity. On the one hand, it appears that we are going to get nothing, because we have got nothing up to this time, after so many years of suffering. If, for the last twenty-five, thirty or forty years of search and effort we seem to have achieved nothing, what is the guarantee that we are going to gain anything satisfying in another ten years? Perhaps they will also pass in the same way as the last twenty-five or thirty years have gone. "Impermanent and joyless, verily, is this world (anityam, asukham)."

This is a very depressing picture before us, indeed. But that it is not to be the all, is a voice that we hear from within ourselves; otherwise, we would not be here, listening to people speaking in a weird language, in search of longed-for things, in forests, in hills and dales, in monasteries, in temples, in libraries, etc. We have something in us, definitely, different from what we see with our eyes. This is our mystery, our glory, our reality and our solace. This mystery in us keeps us happy somehow, in spite of all the unhappiness in life. On the one side, we are terribly unhappy; on the other hand, there is an undercurrent of a possibility of permanent success and happiness beckoning us from a remote distance. This intriguing picture, which is the shape that we see of life before us, is the object that is investigated into and studied in philosophy. If the subject had been so simple as an apple dropping from above, there would have been no need for researches, studies and investigations. It is an intermixture of contrary elements and enigmatic factors and, therefore, an intense training is necessary, in a technical manner, in order to fathom the depths of these mysteries.

Well, we have another mystery simultaneously with it. Are we having in us the capacity, are we endowed with the equipments necessary to make these investigations? Or, are we just hopeless specimens with an utter impossibility behind this very quest? The magnitude of the problem seems to be so large, and our individuality appears to be so puny, that oftentimes it may look that it is a fruitless task.