The Hare Krishna Movement

This morning my body was stiff when I woke from sleep, as I have been working rather hard lately, and I thought that I would do my morning Yoga out on the deck as the Sun was rising. Going through all the different asanas, my mind was thinking about the actual meaning of the word yoga (union with God). So after my shower I opened the Bhagavad-gita As It Is and read chapter six entitled “Sankhya-yoga”.

I guess you could say I felt some pleasure while performing my hatha-yoga asanas, as the stiffness left my body and blood circulation returned, and then from my reading I could understand that this was understandable and acceptable.

…There is an acceptance of transcendental pleasure in the Patañjali system, but the monists do not accept this transcendental pleasure out of fear of jeopardizing the theory of oneness. The duality of knowledge and knower is not accepted by the nondualist, but in this verse transcendental pleasure—realized through transcendental senses—is accepted. And this is corroborated by the Patañjali Muni, the famous exponent of the yoga system. The great sage declares in his Yoga-sūtras: puruṣārtha-śūnyānāṁ guṇānāṁ pratiprasavaḥ kaivalyaṁ svarūpa-pratiṣṭhā vā citi-śaktir iti.

This citi-śakti, or internal potency, is transcendental. Puruṣārtha means material religiosity, economic development, sense gratification and, at the end, the attempt to become one with the Supreme. This “oneness with the Supreme” is called kaivalyam by the monist. But according to Patañjali, this kaivalyam is an internal, or transcendental, potency by which the living entity becomes aware of his constitutional position. In the words of Lord Caitanya, this state of affairs is called ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam, or clearance of the impure mirror of the mind. This “clearance” is actually liberation, or bhava-mahādāvāgni-nirvāpaṇam. The theory of nirvāṇa—also preliminary—corresponds with this principle. In the Bhāgavatam this is called svarūpeṇa vyavasthitiḥ. The Bhagavad-gītā also confirms this situation in this verse. (from purport to Bg. 6.20-23)

Maybe I just use the philosophy to justify my enjoyment of yoga-asanas, or perhaps controlling the mind, body and senses, is the preliminary path leading to liberation, freedom from all miseries.

As a lamp in a windless place does not waver, so the transcendentalist, whose mind is controlled, remains always steady in his meditation on the transcendent Self. (Bg. 6.19)

The stage of perfection is called trance, or samādhi, when one’s mind is completely restrained from material mental activities by practice of yoga. This is characterized by one’s ability to see the self by the pure mind and to relish and rejoice in the self. In that joyous state, one is situated in boundless transcendental happiness and enjoys himself through transcendental senses. Established thus, one never departs from the truth, and upon gaining this he thinks there is no greater gain. Being situated in such a position, one is never shaken, even in the midst of greatest difficulty. This indeed is actual freedom from all miseries arising from material contact.
(Bg. 6.20-23)

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