Yoga
All life is yoga. - Sri Aurobindo
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. —Out of My Later Years (1950), Einstein
Yoga is a goal, the union with Brahman. Sadhana leads to the goal which is Yoga. In the Sadhana I perform I combine:
- Vedanta (Religion) as the theophilosophy framework for understanding Brahman.
- Yoga (Spirituality) using Patanjali's Eight Limbs of Yoga as the framework for practice.
- Vijñāna (Science) incorporating the understanding of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Mathematics
There is a need for a synthesis of Yoga, Vedanta and Vijñāna. It is not enough to just practice spirituality, or to just have a philosophy, or to just have science. Without the synthesis of the three, we are left blind to the combined power of the material and the spritual.
I take Sri Ramakrishna's version of Vedanta as the core philosophy and practice Yoga according to Swami Sivananda school. I find the yoga teachings of the Sivandanda lineage to be easier to put into practice. The Ramakrishna lineage is is Vedantic and doesn't seem to expound upon the Yogic teachings. The two sides do not contradict each other and can be used to create a complete system of practice.
Lastly, I incorporate the scientific method and the scientific understanding of the world into the practice of Yoga and Vedanta. This is the Vijñāna aspect of the practice. This includes using data, trying to understanding the Vedanta through the lens of science and conversely using the Vedantic teachings to understand the science.
But this is my personal synthesis of the three. I do not claim that this is correct or valid for anyone else. I am not a teacher, I am just a practitioner and as I learn I will update this document to reflect my understanding.
Yoga Sadhana
The four paths of Yoga, as I understand it, build on the other. The traditional systems seem to have no real ordering. Any path can be taken as standalone while combining with the other yogas. As is described the yogas sadhanas are each rivers that flow to the same ocean. However, I find that the Four Yogas are easier to conceptualize as a path from worldly to pure consciousness.
Each path yogic path we attempt to grow to be more sattvic.
- Karma: Selfless Work
- Bhakti: Devotion
- Japa: Mantra
- Raja: Meditation
- Hatha: Health
- Kundalini: Energy
- Jnana: Self-Knowledge
Each of these yogas are built on the gunas. The gunas are: sattva, rajas, and tamas. We all start at a Selfish Karma Yoga state of being. Even starting Yoga is a selfish act. This is a tamasic state of being. As we progress we try to move towards a sattvic state of being. This means following the tenants of each yoga and correcting our actions.
Synthesis into Raja Yoga
I find that the Four Yogas can be synthesized into the Eight Limbs of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Karma, Bhakti and Jnana Yoga can be incorporated into the Niyama limb. While I did mention the structure of the Four Yogas earlier as how to conceptualize going from tamasic selfishness to sattvic pure consciousness the difficulty lies in that each system has its own practices (sadhana).
Having each yoga as a separate path that is followed is like jumping around from one practice to another without any real structure and depth. It is for this reason that I find the Eight Limbs of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras to be a framework from which to practice the Four Yogas together.
- yama. Moral Restraints
- ahimsa. Nonviolence
- satya. Truthfulness
- asteya. Refrain from Stealing
- bramacharya. Celibacy
- aparigraha. Refraining from Coveting
- niyama. Observances
- saucha. Cleanliness
- santosha. Contentment
- tapas (Karma Yoga). Austerity
- svadhyaya (Jnana Yoga). Study of the Sacred Texts and Mantras
- sravana Hearing
- manana Reflection
- nididhyasana Meditation and Contemplation
- ishvarapranidhana (Bhakti Yoga). Surrendering the fruits of all action to the Divine
- śravaṇa: Hearing. Stories, scriptures, and teachings.
- kīrtana: Chanting/singing. Japa, mantras, prayers
- smaraṇa: Remembering. Meditation
- pāda-sevana: Serving the Feet. Serving the community.
- archana: Worship. Worship at home or in the temple. Making the home itself a temple.
- vandana: Prostration/Offering Obeisance. Prayers
- dāsya: Servitude. Selfless work
- sākhyatva: Friendship. Prayer in the form of conversation
- ātma-nivedana: Self-surrender
- asana (Hatha Yoga). Posture
- pranayama (Kundalini). Breath Control
- pratyahara (Japa Yoga). Withdrawal of the Senses
- dharana. Concentration
- dhyana. Meditation
- samadhi. Absorption
Bibliography:
- Swami Sivananda's 20 Important Spiritual Instructions
yama
What have I done, O Lord, that Thou shouldst bestow any heavenly comfort upon me? I remember not that I have done any good, but have been ever prone to sin and slow to amendment.
-Imitation of Christ, Book III, Chapter LIX
The yamas are the moral restraints that need to be followed as a foundation for the practice of yoga.
satya
Truthfulness comes in two parts:
- With others.
- With yourself.
While not lying to others is staightforward, being truthful with yourself is hard. We tend to lie to ourselves. Thankfully, with the wonderful invention of spreadsheets we can track our actions and see if we are being truthful. As a way to keep myself honest I do the following:
- Routine based on 30 minute chunks. From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep I have a routine that is based on 30 minute chunks. Each chunk has a specific task associated with a specific limb / yoga.
- Spreadsheet tracking my daily reviews of my progress. Each of the things then has a Deming Control Chart that I track to see how I am doing. The nature of the Patanjali's Limbs is that there are external and internal practices. In business these can be regarded as input and output metrics. The things you can control for are the input metrics and this is what I track.
niyama
saucha
Cleanliness of the mind involves:
- Cleanliness of the Body
- Cleanliness of the Home
- Cleanliness of the Garden. I added this one as the changing of the seasons and the growth and decay of plants is a way to reflect the changing of the mind.
tapas (Karma Yoga)
यत्करोषि यदश्नासि यज्जुहोषि ददासि यत्
यत्तपस्यसि कौन्तेय तत्कुरुष्व मदर्पणम्Whatever you do,
whatever you eat,
whatever you offer in sacrifice,
whatever you give away,
and whatever austerity you perform,
do that as an offering to Me. -Bhagavad Gita 9.27
Karma Yoga is selfless action. The Bhagavad Gita being a treatise primary on Warrior Yoga emphasises that Bhakti-Karma be performed as a means of dharma. While I am not a warrior and neither are most people, the idea of Karma Yoga is to perform action without attachment, ego or to the fruits of the action.
The basis of any task then is the question: Is what I am doing selfish?
This question is pretty significant as most everything we do is selfish. Even those things we don’t want to do are selfish: I have a task I like and a task I don’t like. I like to code, I don’t like to clean the toilet. The way forward is to just have a routine and do the task whether you like it or not.
So, Karma Yoga is a form of meditation. You continuously bring the mind back to the task at hand.
However, I think the cheat code that Krishna gave in the Gita is to do your dharma. While we don't have prescribed dharma like Arjuna, we do have a path that we may eventually follow. This path is the dharma that we should be doing, even the boring parts.
Notes:
- Aspire for Sattvic ideal.
- Live simply and give as much as possible.
- Name and fame are poison. Do not aspire for those just make selfless service the default.
- Thoughts are actions. An impure thought is an impure action.
- No half assing. Put your entire energy into the task at hand. If you are doing two things say like gardening and listening to scripture you are not doing either well. Make time individually for both. Put your whole heart and mind to the task at hand.
- “The old Samskaras of vanity, cunningness, crookedness, arrogance, petty-mindedness, fighting nature, pride, self-esteem or thinking too much of one’s self, speaking ill of others, belittling others, may be still lurking in your mind.” -Karma Yoga, Sivananda
- “Those who engage themselves frequently in hot debates, vain discussions, wrangling, lingual warfare and intellectual gymnastics cause serious damage to the astral body.” -Karma Yoga, Sivananda
- “An aspirant should follow the instructions of his Guru and the teachings of the scriptures to the very letter. No leniency should be allowed to the mind. There can be no half measures in the spiritual path. You cannot say: “I will see to them later on. I can devote more time when I retire. I have followed the instructions as far as possible or more or less.” This ‘more or less’ and ‘as far as possible’ business is disastrous to an aspirant. There is neither ‘exception to the general rule’ nor ‘allowing margin’ nor any ‘discount’ in the practice of spiritual instructions. Exact, implicit, strict obedience to the instructions is expected of you.” -Karma Yoga, Sivananda
- “Even slight annoyance and irritability affects the mind and the astral body. Aspirants should not allow these evil Vrittis to manifest in the mind-lake.” -Karma Yoga, Sivananda
- “Worry, depression, unholy thoughts, anger and hatred produce a kind of crust or dark layer on the surface of the mind or astral body. This crust or rust or dirt prevents the beneficial influences to get entry inside and allows the evil force or lower influences to operate. Worry does great harm to the astral body and the mind. Energy is wasted by the worry-habit. Nothing is gained by worrying. It causes inflammation of the astral body and drains the vitality of man. It should be eradicated by vigilant introspection and by keeping the mind fully occupied.” -Karma Yoga, Sivananda
- “Be ever ready to serve. Serve with pure love, kindness and courtesy. Never grumble or murmur during service. Never show a wry or gloomy face when you serve. The man whom you serve will refuse to accept such service. You will lose an opportunity. Watch for opportunities to serve. Never miss a single chance. Create opportunities. Create field for good service. Create work. Live a life of utter devotion to service. Fill your heart with fervour and enthusiasm for service. Live only to be a blessing to others. If you want to achieve this you will have to refine your mind.” -Karma Yoga, Sivananda
- “You must not do any work perfunctorily or in a careless, half-hearted manner, without taking any interest. You cannot evolve if you take this attitude of mind. The whole heart, mind, intellect and soul must be in the work. Then only can you call it Yoga or Isvararpana.” -Karma Yoga, Sivananda
- “Do not do anything in a surry scurry, in haste or flurry. Do every bit of work with a cool, unruffled mind. Be perfectly accurate in doing any kind of work. Collect all your scattered thoughts and apply your full mind to the work on hand. Many spoil their work by doing it in haste without reflection or consideration.” -Karma Yoga, Sivananda
- "A student of Karma Yoga should have an elementary knowledge of Raja Yoga, psychology, Ayurveda, physiology, family medicine, hygiene, Sankhya and Vedanta.", -Karma Yoga, Sivananda
svadhyaya (Jnana Yoga)
देहबुद्ध्या तु दासोऽस्मि जीवबुद्ध्या त्वदंशकः। आत्मबुद्ध्या त्वमेवाहमिति मे निश्चिता मतिः॥
“Lord, while I identify myself with my body, I am Your servant.
When I consider myself as Jiva, I am a part of You.
But when I look upon myself as the Atma, I am You.”
The Advaita Vedanta path of Jnana Yoga is quite extreme in that it requires the negation of everything that is not the Self, including family and attachments. But I do think that the threefold practice is useful for basically any subject:
- sravana, Hearing
- manana, Reflection
- nididhyasana, Meditation and Contemplation
I divide my study into four things:
- Each of the four yogas has immense literature all with the same goal of understanding the Self. Using the literature to dive deep is a way of apply Jnana to the other paths.
- Study of Vedanta and the Prasthanatrayi of Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads and Brahma Sutra and do it with a comparioson of the different schools of Vedanta. While Advaita seems to have a monopoly on the Enligtenment oriented West audience, there are many other schools of Vedanta all with their own ideas of the Self.
- Sanskrit and the study of the language is a way to understand the literature.
- Science, Philiosophy, Psychology need to be studied to perform the original goal of Advaita which is to negate the unreal from the real.
sravana
I like to memorize slokas (verses) from the Sanskrit texts. This requires a practice of learning the Sanskrit and then memorizing the verses. Memorization is an important piece of the process of learning as while it is a difficult at times, it is a way to internalize the teachings. There is no way to do this quickly, but it is a way to dive deep into the texts.
manana
How to Learn a Subject
Based on this knowledge when you want to learn something and learn it deep you should do the following:
- Pick the subject
- Get a cursory understanding of the subject
- Books
- Podcasts
- YouTube
- Message Famous People and Talk to Them
- Pick the next layers. Ask a series of questions that you want to answer from the previous layer. This could be the 2-4 topics that interest you about that subject but mostly I’d say use Pareto’s Principle and pick the 20% that will give 80% of the benefit right away.
- Learn each layer by books, media, papers, etc. but have specific deadlines for each since knowledge builds on existing knowledge it may be readily forgotten if the existing knowledge isn’t reaccessed.
- Break each thing into individual chunks. If you are learning a new movement example for Krav Maga move to individual pieces: the feet, hips, hands, the movement of the hips, the movement of the legs, where you are on the floor and where you should be. I learn systems for how they fit together.
- Note the Following:
- Fears (i.e Like the Fear of Formulas)
- Need to do this because certain aspect of learning is expanding your comfort level and to do that you need to understand that you may get overwhelmed and have to note the fear of the unknown so that you can work through it.
- Mental Models of Similar / Adjacent Subjects
- Practice with b in mind.
- Apply the new knowledge immediately to a small project. Make it immediately usable and test this with your own hypothesis.
- This helps you solidify your understanding
- Take what you learned and what you applied and systematize it. Since you applied the learning you have made it your own and that much more influential to yourself.
- Write it down as a checklist
- Create programs that execute what you learn
- Goto 3 – Remember what layer you are in when reading or learning something. If you read a book similar to what someone has already written then you are not going to learn anything.– Most business books all have similar topics and cover an aspect but think layers. Example of how something could be broken down:
ishvarapranidhana (Bhakti Yoga)
It is funny as someone who was raised in the West, I have always thought of Bhakti with a negative association. Advaita appeals to my Western, Englightenment-infused philosophical bent. But likely due to my childhood samskaras I orient towards Bhakti in a more natural way.
The nine forms of devotion (Navadha Bhakti) are and the practices associated with them:
- śravaṇa: Hearing
- Stories, scriptures, and teachings.
- kīrtana: Chanting/singing
- Japa, mantras, prayers
- smaraṇa: Remembering
- Meditation
- pāda-sevana: Serving the Feet
- Serving the community.
- archana: Worship
- Worship at home or in the temple.
- Making the home itself a temple.
- vandana: Prostration/Offering Obeisance
- Prayers
- dāsya: Servitude
- Selfless work
- sākhyatva: Friendship
- Prayer in the form of conversation
- ātma-nivedana: Self-surrender
What is interesting in the context of Bhakti is that I also find the Desert Fathers of Christianity and the Sufis of Islam to be very similar in their approach to devotion and there is much to learn from them.
asana (Hatha Yoga)
Asana is such a small part of the Yoga Sutras but it is such a big part of the Western conception of Yoga. However, Asana just means seat. If Yoga is the stilling of the mind, then Asanas that let you sit for a long time in meditation are important. Being able to sit comfortably includes:
- Exercise. Being energized and healthy.
- Diet. Having the food you eat not affect your energy during meditation. Being
gassy also doesn't help.
- I am currently not a vegetarian. But I am starting to realize there is a reason that meat eating becomes a larger part of a diet of a a growing economy. Meat eating itself is a form of greed. A way of saying that the animal’s life is not as high as your own. As I grow older I am starting to see the value of a vegetarian diet and starting to cut down on meat.
Vedanta Sadhana
Vedanta as taught by Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda is the theophilosophical system that I follow. I didn't grow up following this tradition and is one that I discovered in college. But it is the one that appeals to the Western mindset that I grew up with in the United States. The reason for this seems to be that Vivekananda and Aurobindo were Western educated and focused onmaking Vedanta accessible to the Western mind.
Furthermore, since Vedanta is a theophilosophical system, with the goal being Sat-Chit-Ananda, it can incorporate the Bhakti and cultural traditions that I grew up with allowing me to incorporate the Puranic teachings which constitute such a large part of cultural Hinduism.