Yoga shastra Chapter 1

Significance.

      The greatest contribution of India to the world community is its gift of yoga. Today's disintegrated and  stressful living is  necessitating every individual to choose yogic way of life. In fact in yoga the body, mind and the intellect are united with the indwelling soul. This union further extends into integration of an individual with the family, family with the society, society with the nation and nation with the whole universe. Even though the need for such an integration might not be felt by an individual at every level, nevertheless every individual experiences a compelling

desire to look inward, calm and free the mind from the unending flow of

thoughts and remain 'settled' in the self at one time or the other. This

natural urge of human beings is the reason for the spread of yogafar and

wide. Of late, in many European countries and in America, it has been

made compulsory to establish yoga departments in hospitals and clinics.

     Now-a-days, the 21st of June is observed as the International Yoga Day. In

the backdrop of this growing popularity of yoga, we must try to

understand what exactly is yoga all about? Yoga is universal. Yoga is the

great legacy of ancient India, which every individual must incorporate as

his/her lifestyle. The need of the hour is to acquire exhaustive knowledge

of this great wealth called yoga.

Definition, Nature and Scope of Yoga

Nature of yoga

In this chapter, will discuss about the nature, scope, various definitions of yogaand try to understand Patanjali Yoga Darsan. we will  also  discuss about various schools of yoga and the concept of caturanga yoga in Hatha Yoga pradipika.

The word yoga is derived from the Sanskritroot 'Yuj', Yuj means to join/ unite or integrate with the 'oneness' .Yoga is the experience of that eternal happiness  which one getsafterovercoming all the duality and uniting with the absolute truth. It is an instrument that frees us from suffering, disease and mental activity. It enables us to maintain equanimity (stableness of mind) and remain peaceful and composed even while being part of worldly sufferings Yoga is an art of realizing the self and the ultimate truth. Sagepatanjalidefinedyogaas 'cittavrttinirodhah' i.e. Arresting of mental activity. References to Yoga sastra can  be can be found in the VedasandUpanishads. (Typically the Vedas consist of three parts: Samhita (Mantra) portion which is the core of the Vedas, the Brhmaña part or the procedural aspects and the Athanyakas in which Upanishadsform a part.) Though not much is written in the samhitapart of the Vedasabout yoga, a lot can, however, be found in the Upanishads.For example, the Ka hopanishaddescribes the nature of yoga and its methods of practice. A good deal of information on yogais also found spreadinother Upanishads. The Bhagavad gita, which is considered as the essence of the Vedas and the Upanishads, contains eighteen chapters and each chapter is named after yoga.It be gins with Vish dYoga (yoga of melancholia) in chapter one and concludes with Moksha Sannyas Yoga(yoga of renunciation for liberation) in the last chapter. In Gita, the 6thchapter is completely dedicated to Yoga astra andits practice. Yoga means " citta vrtti  nirodhah" i.e. arresting the fretting mind and its activities .Bhagavad Gita tells us that this control can be attained in a number of ways, through various techniques, tools and means. It describes a variety of techniques such as Dhyana Yoga , Karma Yoga " Bhakti Yoga"etc.,to attain the ultimate objective of human life - the libation of soul (Moksha). One can choose the path he/she likes. We find references to san s or specific body postures at the end of ' Narad' purana. Some treatises like 'Vishnu purana', Garud purana also make allusions to yoga.

     Indian philosophy is also known as darana sastrathat contains six vaidik  darsanas. One of them is Yogasatra. Maharshi Patanjali, who is believed to have lived around 2500 CE, successfully elevated the stature of yoga  sastra to  the level of darsana sastra by systematizing it.But yoga has been described in the Vedas, the Upanishads and thePuranaslong before sage Patanjali systematized it. This raises the question as to who was thefirst propounder of yoga. According to the

Yadnyavalkyasmruti  yoga first emanated from the teachings of Hiranayagarbha. Saga Patanjali only systematized and  documented Yoga shastra as taught by Hiranyagarbha. Therefore Patanjali gave due credit to the pioneers of  yoga shastra by beginning his treatise with the words- atha yoganu sanam   which  means here I am presenting the discipline of Yoga. With the use of "amu" in the 1st

 aporism. Sage Patanjali disowned the credit of being the first proponent of yoga.

 

To be continue....