The early writings of Shri Yogendraji (sixty four years ago) are very interesting and instructive even today.
The Science of Yoga, as the Indian mythology goes, was first originated and practised by Shiva, who revealed it to various yogis later on. But the ancient literature tells us that the original philosophy known as the Samkhya Darsanam- from which some of the fundamental principles of Yoga were supposed to be borrowed, dates from the time of Kapila. However from the time it was first revealed, about three thousand years ago1, it was successively interpreted and preached in India. Patanjali, the father of the Yoga philosophy, merely tried to put it into words. But the real philosophy remained to be learned only by practice.
Following the general belief, the philosophy of the Samkhyas can be regarded as approximately the origin of the so-called system of Yoga. But apart from this conclusion, it can be also assumed that both Patanjali and Kapila may have been students of one common school of philosophy and might in time have developed their own branches. Even before Kapila and Patañjali we find the germs of the system in the Jain and Buddhist Yoga and later in the earlier Upanishads.
In the beginning, Yoga was more of a practice than a theory. But the system of practice was probably always kept secret by the teachers who never went out of their own circle. Afterwards it became the religion of those who followed it, with all its religious and moral precepts put into practice. So far it was all spiritual, but as time passed, the intelligent students wanted to investigate it further and apply their spiritual experiences to the more subtle and the grosser plane of life. This progress changed the philosophy into proper science both of mind and body.
Thus Yoga developed itself in course of time into philosophy, religion and science. Mr. Havell speaks of Yoga as both science and philosophy, remarking that "whereas, the western mystic seems to have allowed himself to be catried away more or less unconsciously, by an unbalanced and uncontrolled emotionalism, the practice of Yoga in India, recognised as a branch of philosophy, was from the earliest times reduced to a scientific system. It is the knowledge of the sthula or physical which is Science; the knowledge of sukshma or mental is philosophy, religion and metaphysics.
The science and philosophy of Yoga has many sub-divisions of which Hatha-yoga or Rāja-yoga are only two. Even so it is its philosophy and religion which is not limited to the teachings of Rāja, Bhakti or Karma-yoga only, but is common to all the other Yogas also. And though some commentators were led to believe that Patanjali's Yoga sūtra expound the philosophy of Raja-yoga it is not, how-ever, only in Raja-yoga that the whole Yoga philosophy is complete.
'Yoga' in original Sanskrit means, as far as the word is concerned, "Ekāgratä" or 'oneness'. It is derived from the Sanskrit root 'Yuj’ to join or to unite and literally means 'union'. We have the word 'yoke' in English which means the same thing. Again in Latin we have the word 'jugare’ to yoke or to join. And it is this junction or better call it conjunction (con-to-gether), putting of the two things to-gether so as to make one, that is Yoga. Prof. Max Muller, however, tried to take the meaning of the word 'Yoga' in the light of 'disunion' rather than 'union', in his work on the Six Systems of Indian Philosophy. He understands it by some-thing like 'Viyoga' and not as 'Samyoga'. In a way, his meaning is partially right, though not wholly. His is the side of negation and is only reliable from its own stand-point and not otherwise. But the true meaning can only be completely understood by the act of merging so as to lose the individual-consciousness into the object. That is called real Yoga. Later on, as the philosophy developed itself into a science, Hatha-kriyās1, dhyāna, dhārņā and such other various means of attaining that union came to be known as Yoga. But these are all mere processes and not the real philosophy. They are parts and not the whole. The true philosophy is quite different from what all those fragments can show us. So if a man from one of its accessories as pranayama- the Science of Breath, Asana or posture, concludes that it is something which concerns the body, he is wrong so much so that he is not talking of the whole philosophy but only a part of it. Nor is concentration or samadhi the only aim of the whole science. It is some-thing far above these things, the totality of all those various branches even of knowledge, love and action, through which we realize that ultimate union.
Patañjali, the first commentator on the Yoga philosophy2 writes that "Yoga is the scientific process of restraining the mindstuff (citta) from taking various modifications"3. It is a philosophy which first establishes, through pure commonsense and logic, the necessity of such a restraint of the various mental modifications as a means of the highest attainment of Absolute Freedom. So the system that teaches us to restrain all the
See Prof. Dasgupta’s “A History of Indian philosphy” p.229
activities of the mind and the senses so as to make them one-pointed for the ultimate Union with the object is Yoga. Majnun (a devoted lover) con-trolled all his internal and external energies un-consciously through love for the union with his desired object, Laila. This was through one of the branches of Yoga which fall under the division of Bhakti or Love.
In this sense, every one of us passes under a series of minor Yogas, in every day life-activity. Suppose you want to go out urgently and you put on your clothes but cannot find your shoes. Then what you naturally do is to get rid of all other ideas except that of "shoes". Thus you restrain your mind-stuff for a time being from taking any kind of form or modification and concentrate it upon that single purpose. This is nothing else but a temporary suspension of other alien activities, a little unconscious move towards Yoga.
But as centuries passed, the word underwent many changes, and different commentators gave their own views as to the meaning of the word 'Yoga'. The following verse from Yogavāśistha may be read with interest, to show such slight difference. "Yoga is thus a controlling of the out-going energy and directing it to Him". Here the question is of energy and its control. Hence it is rather physical than spiritual. This requires the development of the Will. The determined object is Him, which turns it more or less into a religious sentiment. The word "directing" signifies the idea of one-pointedness that brings about the union of the subject and the object.
In one place atleast the Bhagavad Gitä, speaks in the same strain. Thus it says, "That in which the mind finds rest, quieted by the practices of Yoga; that in which he seeing the Self by the Self in the self is satisfied; that in which he findeth the supreme delight beyond the senses wherein established he moveth not from Reality; which having obtained, he thinketh there is no greater gain be-yond, it that should be known by the name of yoga and wherein being settled he cannot be moved even by the greatest sorrow"4
The Yoga as a system of practice is not limited to any particular school of Indian philosophy but is universal in its aspect and is the property of anyone who follows it. There were persons who knew nothing of Yoga and were still great Yogis in other countries such as Ruysbroeck in Germany, (fourteenth century), Thoreau in America (eighteenth century), and St. Francis of Assisi in Italy (thirteenth century).
4. Bhagvad Gita, vi, 20-23
Vijnanabhikshu quotes the above passage in his Yoga Varttika I. to support the ‘ananda’, stage of Patanjali’s Yoga;
Whatever act of body, mind or will that tends towards the controlling of other senses excepting one that is intended for the purpose of concentration, is nothing but an unconscious move towards the attainment of Yoga. Shankaracharya, the well known Advaita5 philosopher of India, defined Yoga in his Sri Vivekacūdāmaņi as follows: "To bring the external and internal senses into centre is the Yogi's aim". So the practice which teaches us to control "the external and internal senses" is known as the Yoga-practice. It may be either natural or it may come as the result of a definite system of training. The recent instance of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was a case of natural Yoga tendency, while the case of Sadhu Haridas in 1835 was a result of a systematic training of Hatha-yoga.