Yoga as philosophy and religion · 15 of 17

Book II — Chapter XIV: God in Yoga

After describing the nature of karmayoga, and the way in which it leads to jñānayoga, we must now describe the third and easiest means of attaining salvation, the bhaktiyoga and the position of Īśvara in the Yoga system, with reference to a person who seeks deliverance from the bonds and shackles of avidyā.

Īśvara in the Yoga system is that purusha who is distinguished from all others by the fact of his being untouched by the afflictions or the fruits of karma. Other purushas are also in reality untouched by the afflictions, but they, seemingly at least, have to undergo the afflictions and consequently birth and rebirth, etc., until they are again finally released; but Īśvara, though he is a purusha, yet does not suffer in any way any sort of bondage. He is always free and ever the Lord. He never had nor will have any relation to these bonds. He is also the teacher of the ancient teachers beyond the range of conditioning time.

This nature of Īśvara has been affirmed in the scriptures and is therefore taken as true on their authority. The authority of the scriptures is again acknowledged only because they have proceeded from God or Īśvara. The objection that this is an argument in a circle has no place here, since the connection of the scriptures with Īśvara is beginningless.

There is no other divinity equal to Īśvara, because in the case of such equality there might be opposition between rival 160 Īśvaras, which might result in the lowering in degree of any of them. He is omniscient in the highest degree, for in him is the furthest limit of omniscience, beyond which there is nothing.

This Īśvara is all-merciful, and though he has no desires to satisfy, yet for the sake of his devotees he dictates the Vedas at each evolution of the world after dissolution. But he does not release all persons, because he helps only so far as each deserves; he does not nullify the law of karma, just as a king, though quite free to act in any way he likes, punishes or rewards people as they deserve.

At the end of each kalpa, he adopts pure body from his sattva, which is devoid of any karmāśaya, and thus communicates through it to all his devotees and dictates the Vedas. Again at the time of dissolution this body of pure sattva becomes submerged in prakṛti; and at the time of its submersion, Īśvara wishes that it might come forth again at the beginning of the new creation; thus for ever at each new creation the pure sattva body springs forth and is submerged again into prakṛti at the time of the dissolution of the universe.

In accepting this body he has no personal desires to satisfy, as we have said before. He adopts it only for the purpose of saving mankind by instructing them as to knowledge and piety, which is not possible without a pure sattvamaya body; so he adopts it, but is not affected in any way by it. One who is under the control of nescience cannot distinguish his real nature from nescience, and thus is always led by it, but such is not the case with Īśvara, for he is not in any way under its control, but only adopts it as a means of communicating knowledge to mankind.

A Yogin also who has attained absolute independence may similarly accept one or more pure sattvamaya nirmāṇa cittas from asmitāmātra and may produce one citta as the superintendent of all these. Such a citta adopted by a true Yogin by the force of his meditation is not under the control of the vehicles of action as is the case with the other four kinds of citta from birth, oshadhi, mantra and tapas.

The praṇava or oṃkāra is his name; though at the time of dissolution, the word of praṇava together with its denotative power becomes submerged in the prakṛti, to reappear with the new creation, just as roots shoot forth from the ground in the rainy season. This praṇava is also called svādhyāya. By concentration of this svādhyāya or praṇava, the mind becomes one-pointed and fit for Yoga.

Now one of the means of attaining Yoga is Īśvarapraṇidhāna, or worship of God. This word, according to the commentators, is used in two senses in the first and the second books of the Pātañjala Yoga aphorisms. In the first book it means love or devotion to God as the one centre of meditation, in the second it is used to mean the abnegation of all desires of the fruits of action to Īśvara, and thus Īśvarapraṇidhāna in this sense is included under kriyāyoga. This dedication of all fruits of action to Īśvara, purifies the mind and makes it fit for Yoga and is distinguished from the Īśvarapraṇidhāna of the first book as the bhāvanā of praṇava and Īśvara in this that it is connected with actions and the abnegation of their fruits, whereas the latter consists only in keeping the mind in a worshipful state towards Īśvara and his word or name praṇava.

By devotion (bhakti) Īśvara is drawn towards the devotee through his nirmāṇa citta of pure sattva and by his grace he removes all obstructions of illness, etc., described in I. 30, 31, and at once prepares his mind for the highest realisation of his own absolute independence. So for a person who can love and adore Īśvara, this is the easiest course of attaining samādhi. We can make our minds pure most easily by abandoning all our actions to Īśvara and attaining salvation by firm and steady devotion to Him. This is the sphere of bhaktiyoga by which the tedious complexity of the Yoga process may be avoided and salvation speedily acquired by the supreme grace of Īśvara.

This means is not, however, distinct from the general means of Yoga, viz. abhyāsa and vairāgya, which applies to all stages. For here also abhyāsa applies to the devotion of Īśvara as one supreme truth and vairāgya is necessarily associated with all true devotion and adoration of Īśvara.

This conception of Īśvara differs from the conception of Īśvara in the Rāmānuja system in this that there prakṛti and purusha, acit and cit, form the body of Īśvara, whereas here Īśvara is considered as being only a special purusha with the aforesaid powers.

In this system Īśvara is not the superintendent of prakṛti in the sense of the latter’s remaining in him in an undifferentiated way, but is regarded as the superintendent of dharma and adharma, and his agency is active only in the removal of obstacles, thereby helping the evolutionary process of prakṛti.

Thus Īśvara is distinguished from the Īśvara of Saṅkara Vedānta in this that there true existence is ascribed only to Īśvara, whereas all other forms and modes of Being are only regarded as illusory.

From what we have seen above it is clear that the main stress of the Yoga philosophy is on the method of samādhi. The knowledge that can be acquired by it differs from all other kinds of knowledge, ordinary perception, inference, etc., in this that it alone can bring objects before our mental eye with the clearest and most unerring light of comprehensibility in which the true nature of the thing is at once observed. Inferences and the words of scriptures are based on concepts or general notions of things. For the teaching of the Vedas is manifested in words; and words are but names, terms or concepts formed by noting the general similarities of certain things and binding them down by a symbol. All deductive inferences are also based upon major propositions arrived at by inductive generalisations; so it is easy to see that all knowledge that can be acquired by them is only generalised conceptions. Their process only represents the method by which the mind can pass from one generalised conception to another; so the mind can in no way attain the knowledge of real things, absolute species, which are not the genus of any other thing; so inference and scripture can only communicate to us the nature of the agreement or similarity of things and not the real things as they are. Ordinary perception also is not of much avail here, since it cannot bring within its scope subtle and fine things and things that are obstructed from the view of the senses. But samādhi has no such limitations and the knowledge that can be attained by it is absolutely unobstructed, true and real in the strictest sense of the terms.

Of all the points of difference between Yoga and Sāṃkhya the admission of Īśvara by the former and the emphasis given by it to the Yoga practice are the most important in distinguishing it from the latter. It seems probable that Īśvara was traditionally believed in the Yoga school to be a protector of the Yogins proceeding in their arduous course of complete self-control and absorptive concentration. The chances of a person adopting the course of Yoga practice for the attainment of success in this field does not depend only on the exertions of the Yogin, but upon the concurrence of many convenient circumstances such as physical fitness, freedom from illnesses and other obstacles. Faith in the patronage of God in favour of honest workers and believers served to pacify their minds and fill them with the cheerful hope and confidence which were so necessary for the success of Yoga practice. The metaphysical functions which are ascribed to Īśvara seem to be later additions for the sake of rendering his position more in harmony with the system. Mere faith in Īśvara for the practical benefit of the Yogins is thus interpreted by a reference to his superintendence of the development of cosmic evolution. Sāṃkhya relied largely on philosophical thinking leading to proper discrimination as to the difference between prakrti and purusha which is the stage immediately antecedent to emancipation. There being thus no practical need for the admission of Īśvara, the theoretical need was also ignored and it was held that the inherent teleological purpose ( purushārthatā ) of prakṛti was sufficient to explain all the stages of cosmic evolution as well as its final separation from the purushas.

We have just seen that Sāṃkhya does not admit the existence of God, and considers that salvation can be obtained only by a steady perseverance in philosophical thinking, and does not put emphasis on the practical exercises which are regarded as essential by the Yoga. One other point of difference ought to be noted with regard to the conception of avidyā. According to Yoga, avidyā, as we have already explained it, means positive untrue beliefs such as believing the impure, uneternal, sorrow, and non-self to be the pure eternal, pleasure and the self respectively. With Sāṃkhya, however, avidyā is only the non-distinction of the difference between prakṛti and purusha. Both Sāṃkhya and Yoga admit that our bondage to prakṛti is due to an illusion or ignorance (avidyā), but Sāṃkhya holds the akhyāti theory which regards non-distinction of the difference as the cause of illusion whereas the Yoga holds the anyathākhyāti theory which regards positive misapprehension of the one as the other to be the cause of illusion. We have already referred to the difference in the course of the evolution of the categories as held by Sāṃkhya and Yoga. This also accounts for the difference between the technical terms of prakṛti, vikṛti and prakṛti-vikṛti of Sāṃkhya and the viśesha and aviśesha of the Yoga. The doctrine of dharma, lakshaṇa and avasthāpariṇāma, though not in any way antagonistic to Sāṃkhya, is not so definitely described as in the Yoga. Some scholars think that Sāṃkhya did not believe in atoms as Yoga did. But though the word paramāṇu has not been mentioned in the Kārikā, it does not seem that Sāṃkhya did not believe in atoms; and we have already noticed that Bhikshu considers the word sūkshma in Kārikā 39 as referring to the atoms. There are also slight differences with regard to the process involved in perception and this has been dealt with in my Yoga philosophy in relation to other Indian systems of thought . [43] On almost all other fundamental points Sāṃkhya and Yoga are in complete agreement.