An Introduction to the Philosophy of Yoga

by Swami Krishnananda

We have been moving along the lines of Patanjali's system of yoga, to culminate in meditation. In the same way as the other systems of yoga have their own techniques, Patanjali has a novel method. He has prescribed various psychological techniques of controlling the mind, all which are supposed to tend finally to a cosmic type of meditation. The true yoga of Patanjali commences with what he calls samyama, samapatti, or samadhi. We are likely to be surprised that yoga should start with samadhi, rather than end with it. The reason behind this definition that "yoga is samadhi" is that yoga is essentially a method as well as the attainment of union with reality. The great revolution spiritually takes place when samyama starts. Until that time one is just a novice in yoga. The terms samyama, samapatti and samadhi are not identical in their literal meanings or even in their particular connotations. They signify different shades of implication in the process of self-absorption.

Only an expert who has mastered the entire technique can take to samyama or total concentration. The word "samyama" has a specific intention and it is used in the system of Patanjali to designate a whole and thorough concentration of self on the given object. There are two difficulties in the practice of samyama, viz., the procedure to be adopted in collecting oneself into an integration or wholeness of being, and the art by which to conceive the object of meditation itself. Both these are problems enough.

While in ordinary types of concentration, a faculty may be utilised for the purpose on hand, in samyama it is not merely one of the psychic faculties that is employed, but the whole of one's being. To prepare yourself for this total concentration called samyama, you are asked to train yourself in the lesser types of concentration which go by the name of dharana and dhyana, the art of fixing your attention on any given thing, for the matter of that, to the exclusion on any other thought.

A distinction has got be drawn between the stages of dharana, dhyana and samadhi – concentration, meditation and absorption or union. The stages gradually intensify themselves as they go higher and higher. But they are not basically different in their qualitative essence. In the art of concentration, in the technique of fixing the attention, dharana, there are only four aspects, and the four become three, finally converging into a single continuity of experience, wherein even the duality is not experienced. In dharana, or mere attention or concentration, there are four simultaneous practices involved.

The exclusion of all extraneous thoughts is the first thing to be done in dharana. Thoughts which are irrelevant to the task on hand, ideas which have no vital connection with the idea that you are expected to entertain, feelings which have no real connection and which are not going to be helpful in any way, are to be regarded as extraneous and are to be shut out. This shutting out of extraneous thoughts is the first step in concentration.

The next stage is to gather together those ideas which are positively necessary for the purpose of concentration. Even among the ideas that are necessary there may be a diversity. It does not mean that you have only one thought always, for there may be many thoughts in the mind. Suppose you are going to concentrate on a tree. You know very well that it is not only one thought that is there in the mind at this moment. There are various thoughts meeting at a total of the thought of the tree. When you look at a painted picture or any other object, you have various ideas connected with that object. These are the positive ideas as different from the negative ones which are the extraneous features to be shut out, yet maintaining a variegatedness requiring to be brought together into a focus. When you think of a tree, you may have the thought of the seed from which it has arisen, the way in which it has grown, the nature of the trunk, the branches, the foliage, etc. All these varieties of thoughts concerning the tree, which is the object on hand, have an internal relationship among themselves though they appear to be diversified on account of the variety of structure in name and form. The emphasis on this internal relation is the second step.

The third aspect is the concentration on the structure of the object itself. The objective side is as important as the subjective. You bring together all the thoughts that are necessary, positively, to fix the attention on the object, and then try to visualise the object in an impersonal manner, i.e., as the object is in its own status and not as it appears to your mind. Everything has its own status. You will see that there is a difference between the way in which I think of you and the way in which you think of yourself, or rather, to put it more precisely, the status of your own individuality. The subjective ideas of the object are to be set in harmony with the objective nature of the object.

Herein is involved the connection between yourself and the object. This is the subject of Epistemology, the process of sensation, perception, cognition, etc. All these take place simultaneously as it were in dharana, or concentration, though they are capable of being distinguished one from the other, theoretically, or logically. But, in practice, they appear to suddenly arise as events in the mind. But when you go further, when concentration deepens, when attention becomes meditation, when dharana becomes dhyana, the four aspects boil down only to three. There is no necessity to worry about the extraneous thoughts now. They have been shut out completely and now you are wholly absorbed in the idea of the object. There is only the contemplator, the contemplated and the process of contemplation; the seer, the seen and the seeing process; the knower, the known and knowledge.

In dhyana, or meditation, these three processes take place automatically and simultaneously. The culmination of dhyana is what true yoga is. As you might have heard, yoga is union – that is, when the union is established, you are in a real state of yoga. You cannot be said to be in a real state of yoga or in union with anything if the harmony between yourself and the object is not wholly established and you somehow retain an individuality of your own. The requirement is something like two friends who have one soul and one way of thinking, though they have two different bodies. Such friends do not really exist, for it is not easy to see one consciousness uniformly functioning in two forms. However, the subject and the object unite in some such way, only to lose their separatist identities in the union.

There is the rising of dharana and dhyana into samapatti or samadhi, where an equilibrium is established in consciousness. There is a harmonious flow of awareness, on account of whose emergence the distinction between the seer and the seen gets diminished and is reduced to the minimum. The gulf between the subject and the object is narrowed down almost to a point of identity, or oneness. In dhyana, this union does not take place, but there is a tendency to this union. In samadhi, there is absolute union. This is the fourth state of the effort in yoga.

Now we come to the forte, or the main point, which Patanjali makes out in his Sutras, as his final message in yoga, towards which all other teachings move as preparatory stages. If you read the Sutras of Patanjali directly, you would not be able to understand as to what you are expected to concentrate upon. You will be in a mess even after you read all the Sutras, because he does not specifically mention that you have to develop any concept of God in a theological sense. Though there is a mention of Ishvara or God in some place, it is stated as a method of concentration, one among the many ways, and not necessarily the only method, or as the goal of yoga. The point that Patanjali makes out in his Sutras as the final plunge is difficult to understand, because he is precise and concise in his expressions, and does not dilate upon the theme.