In this chapter we look at the three basic forms of yoga — Jnana, Bhakti, and Karma — exploring how they differ and what they share in common. Essentially, Jnana Yoga is the yoga of knowledge; Bhakti Yoga is the yoga of devotion; and Karma Yoga is the yoga of action. All modes or expressions of yoga can be classified under these three disciplines. The yogi needs to understand that they are complementary. They suit different temperaments; some people may practice one form for a period of their lives and then switch to another. The subject of this book, Ashtanga Yoga, falls under the umbrella of Karma Yoga, but it incorporates certain aspects of the other two forms.

We also look at the different modes of Karma Yoga, the form of yoga most widely known and practiced in the West. This includes a more detailed look at the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga. This knowledge will enable you to sift through all the diverse information you hear about yoga and put it into the context of your own practice.

Yoga in its various forms crystallized out of the Vedas, the oldest scriptures known to humankind. The Vedas are considered to be of divine origin. They contain eternal knowledge (the term Veda comes from the root vid, “to know”), which is revealed anew during each world age to those who are open to hearing it. Those who receive this knowledge and record it are called Vedic seers, or rishis.¹

Because the Vedas are voluminous, they are divided into categories to make them more accessible. Well known are the four main Vedic texts, the Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda, and Atharvaveda; each of these categories represents a set of family lines (gotra) that was entrusted to preserve that particular set of scriptures. The Vedas are also commonly divided according to the subjects the passages deal with. These divisions are called kandas (portions). The three kandas are the Karma kanda, which pertains to performing actions; the Upasana kanda, which concerns itself with worship of the divine; and the Jnana kanda, the portion pertaining to self-knowledge. As you may have guessed, the Karma kanda became the basis for Karma Yoga, the Upasana kanda led to Bhakti Yoga, and the Jnana kanda laid the foundation for Jnana Yoga.

Jnana Yoga

The term Jnana comes from the verb root jna, to know. In fact, both the Greek word gnosis and the English word know have their origin in the Sanskrit jna. Jnana Yoga is the most direct path to recognizing yourself as a manifestation of divine consciousness, but it is considered to be the most difficult. In the days of the Bhagavad Gita, Jnana Yoga was called Buddhi Yoga (the yoga of intellect) or the yoga of inaction, because one practices it through contemplation alone. This form of yoga is the one predominantly taught in the ancient Upanishads, the mystical and philosophical section of the Vedas. In the Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad this yoga is described as consisting of three steps: shravana (listening), manana (contemplating), and nidhidhyasana (being established).² The practitioner first listened to a teacher who had attained the illustrious self-knowledge that all is in fact nothing but Brahman (consciousness). He then let go of all his desires, such as wealth, success, pleasure, fame, and family; retired to a quiet place; and contemplated the words of the teacher. After due consideration, he recognized the eternal truth of the teaching and was then permanently established in that truth.

From this short description, you may understand why this path is considered short and direct but also very difficult. It is short because there are very few steps involved. After finding a teacher, there is really only one step: the contemplation, in a solitary place, of your unity with the Supreme Self. It is a difficult path for many reasons. It requires that a self-realized teacher accept you as a student. Such teachers were considered hard to find even in the ancient days, and they are much rarer today. It then requires that you completely let go of all attachments to wealth, success, pleasure, fame, family, and so on. Modern Western teachers who prefer to communicate to their students that they can “have it all” do not drive this point home enough. Traditionally this highest path was taught only to renunciates and ascetics, those who had taken a vow to forsake all the worldly attachments mentioned. The reasoning was that one had to let go of all external attachments if one was to surrender all one’s inner attachments in the process of merging with the Supreme Self.

Also, the path of Jnana Yoga requires an intellect so pure, powerful, and intense that from the mere instruction of a self-realized teacher it can understand and accept the truth and become permanently established in it, free of duality. Such intellects are exceedingly rare. Understanding is easy, but what about remaining grounded in the truth even in moments of doubt, when one faces one’s inner demons?

For this reason the path of Jnana Yoga is considered fit for only a select few. As the ancient Vedic text the Samkhya Karika puts it, only those whose intellects are entirely free of erroneous cognition can attempt it.³ There are only a few Indians today who consider themselves fit for Jnana Yoga, and we may take this as a sign of the great humility and maturity of the Indian culture. On the other hand, many modern Western practitioners believe they deserve everything, including spiritual liberation, immediately and without having to give up anything. Thus they tend to view as a nuisance the preparations and qualifications that are asked of traditional Indian students.

Jnana Yoga was popularized mainly by the great Shankara, who lived some two thousand years ago.⁴ Shankara is considered a jagat guru (world teacher), a name given to rare teachers of high stature who appear every few centuries or once in a millennium to reinterpret the scriptures and restore their original meaning. This had become necessary in Shankara’s time; even though Jnana Yoga had been taught long before Shankara by rishis (seers) such as Vasishta, Yajnavalkya, and Vyasa, it was no longer understood properly because of changes in society and conventional language. Shankara wrote many great treatises and commentaries to present the ancient teachings again in their proper form. From today’s perspective, Shankara’s achievements look so gargantuan that many view him as a semi-divine or divine manifestation; in fact, he is often seen as a manifestation of the Lord Shiva himself.

In the twentieth century, Jnana Yoga was again popularized through the great example of Ramana Maharshi. Because Ramana was such an exceptional individual, he, too, was seen by many Indians as a divine manifestation — this time of Lord Skanda, the second son of Lord Shiva.

The ancient teacher Shankara and the modern teacher Ramana had many things in common. Both held that true knowledge (Jnana) can be attained only through Jnana Yoga. However, both taught that those who cannot attain Jnana directly — which includes all but a few individuals — can go through a possibly lengthy preparation period and emerge ready to undertake Jnana Yoga. This preparation could consist of either of the other two paths of yoga, Bhakti Yoga or Karma Yoga.

Bhakti Yoga

Bhakti Yoga is the path of devotion that grew out of that portion of the Veda that deals with worship (Upasana kanda). It is based on the realization that most people have an emotional constitution rather than the cool, abstract, intellectual one that lends itself to Jnana Yoga. Also, it accepts the fact that it is much more difficult to realize consciousness as the impersonal absolute (called nirguna Brahman, the formlessBrahman) than to surrender to a divine form (called saguna Brahman, Brahman with form).

Bhakti Yoga’s path to freedom is reasonably direct but somewhat lengthier than that of Jnana Yoga. The term bhakti is created from the Sanskrit root bhaj, to divide. Unlike Jnana Yoga, which views the self of the individual and that of the Supreme Being as one and the same, Bhakti Yoga accepts the eternal division between the self of the devotee and the omnipotent self of the Supreme Being.

Our modern understanding of this difference in thought between these two branches of yoga originated from a teacher named Ramanuja. Many centuries after Shankara had brought about a renaissance of the ancient Vedic teaching, the essence of his teaching was again lost. Shankara had emphasized the complete identification of the individual self (atman) with the infinite consciousness (Brahman). Although this teaching is enshrined in the Upanishads, its opposite — the essential separation between atman and Brahman — is also enshrined. Some of Shankara’s followers, taking his teachings to the extreme, had started to portray them as merely an analytical, philosophical, and scholastic path that was bereft of devotion and of compassion for the toiling masses of the population. Ramanuja arose as a great new teacher who could correct this misconception and reconcile the two views. Ramanuja taught the beda-abeda doctrine, which means “identity in difference.” He agreed with Shankara that the individual self was consciousness and thus was identical with the Supreme Being. However, he added that the atman (individual self) was always limited in its power, knowledge, and capacity, whereas the Supreme Being (Brahman) was not, and in that regard atman and Brahman were different, hence the name “identity in difference.”

Since according to this view there is an eternal division between the individual self and the Supreme Being, Ramanuja held that the right way to approach the Infinite One was not through knowing but through the path of devotion called Bhakti Yoga. Taking this path, the followers of Ramanuja developed an intense love for and devotion toward the Supreme Being and its many divine manifestations.

Today, the Hare Krishna movement, as an example, claims that Bhakti Yoga is the fastest, safest, and most direct way to freedom. However, this path is not as simple as it appears at first sight. Bhakti Yoga will not lead you to freedom unless you practice it with utmost and total surrender, as teachers like Ramanuja have done. It is also not without danger. The danger consists of the fact that devotees may attach egoic notions to the form of the Supreme Being that they worship. They start to believe that their God is better or more divine, and that their devotion to this one true God makes them superior to others. They may even despise followers of other religions and view them as inferior. Sadly, this is far from what Bhakti Yoga at its outset desired to achieve.

Bhakti can work only if you can see the Lord, the Goddess, the infinite formless consciousness (Brahman) — whichever form of the Divine you worship — in every being you encounter as well as in your own heart. The Supreme Being is infinite consciousness, love, and intelligence; it is your divine core. Around this core, which is your true self, various layers such as ego, mind, and body crystallize and form the human being. Since the Supreme Being is undividable, we carry the wholeness of God in our hearts, and all of us are children of God. True Bhakti Yogis see all beings as their Lord and themselves as the servants of all beings. God is not in stone houses with stone images inside. Those houses and images may be helpful for the purpose of meditation, but true religion, true Bhakti, consists in worshiping the Divine in the hearts of all those we meet.

If you misunderstand Bhakti Yoga, you can believe that the Krishna you read about is more sacred and true than the Krishna in the heart of the being across from you. You may then conclude that this being is inferior because he or she worships the Supreme Being not in the form of Krishna but rather as Shiva, Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, or some other deity. Certain devotees of the Lord Vishnu in India, for example, profess widespread contempt for the Lord Shiva, although the scriptures teach that Vishnu and Shiva are one and the same. A truly strange world this is. In cases such as this, the interest has shifted from recognizing the Supreme Being behind its manifold forms to taking pride in oneself based on the particular form that one’s own devotion takes.

Bhakti Yoga requires not only fervor but also the self-reflectiveness of a clear intellect. Otherwise the intensity of one’s experience of the Divine can easily lead one to be less compassionate toward others. Indian folklore is full of warnings of such erroneous views. For example, the learned Narada, a full-time attendant of the Supreme Being in the form of the Lord Vishnu, was once jealous of the Lord’s love of a particular peasant. Narada asked the Lord what was so special about this peasant who was pronouncing the Lord’s name only once per day, just before he fell asleep. The Lord asked Narada to fill a cup to the brim with oil and then carry it around his throne without spilling a drop. As Narada did so, he focused completely on the task. When he had completed it, he called out proudly, “Done! And no drop wasted!” The Lord then asked him, “And how often did you think about me? That peasant has to toil all day to extract from the soil a meager life for his family. But however hard his day is, he never fails to remember me just before he falls asleep in exhaustion.” Narada realized that his devotion had caused him to be prideful, a potent danger on the Bhakti path.

One of the great advantages of Bhakti Yoga is that it generally enables one to continue with most of everyday life; it changes only one’s focus. After choosing the Bhakti path you no longer perform your daily duties striving for gain or advantage; instead, you surrender or offer all your actions, including their results, to your chosen image of the Divine.

Generally all forms of yoga contain a Bhakti component, emphasizing service to the Supreme Being. Patanjali states, “samadhi siddhi ishvara pranidhanat,” or, “The power of samadhi can be obtained by surrendering to the Supreme Being.”⁵

Karma Yoga

The term karma comes from the verb root kru, “to do,” and Karma Yoga in the original Vedic sense means simply “path of action.” The Karma Kanda of the Veda, which probably goes back more than ten thousand years, contains instructions for actions and rituals that one can perform with a particular goal in mind, such as obtaining wealth or the object of one’s passion, becoming a good person, or achieving spiritual goals.

Approximately five thousand years ago, the Lord Krishna introduced a new form of Karma Yoga to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra.⁶ He described it as surrendering the fruit of one’s actions to the Supreme Being. Note the difference between this definition of Karma Yoga and the idea of karma presented in the Karma Kanda. Krishna tells us not to be interested in the result of our actions but instead to “surrender the fruit of your action to me.” In the Vedas, on the other hand, action (karma) is always used to achieve a particular effect. Lord Krishna actually criticizes the stance of the Vedas when he says, “traigunya vishaya veda nistraygunyo bhavarjuna,” which loosely translates as “The Vedas deal with accumulation only; be you without desire for gain.”⁷ Today, following on this idea, the term Karma Yogais commonly used to refer to selfless service to others, such as going to an ashrama and chopping the veggies without pay.⁸ In this book I will use the term Karma Yoga only in its original Vedic sense and not in its more recent meaning as taught by the Lord Krishna.

An important difference between Karma Yoga and the other two forms of yoga revolves around this issue of renouncing gain. The path of Jnana Yoga is traditionally taught only to those who have renounced the desire for any form of gain or success. Similarly, Bhakti Yoga requires one to internally renounce any gain that may accidentally come one’s way and surrender it to one’s chosen divine form. Karma Yoga, in contrast, requires its followers to give up the idea of gain and success only once the state of “discriminative knowledge” or “knowledge of the difference between self and nonself” is attained. This state is reached only after approximately 95 percent of the journey has been completed.⁹ Although many of its higher techniques are difficult and demanding, in this regard Karma Yoga is a more “novice” type of yoga; it has lower entry requirements than Jnana and Bhakti Yoga and addresses those who are not yet ready to give up the pursuit of gain for themselves. (It is important here to remember that spiritual gain stands in the traditional Indian view on the same level as material gain; it is still just an attempt to get ahead.)

Seen from the lofty heights of Jnana or Bhakti Yoga, which aim at recognizing the infinite Brahman either with or without form, Karma Yoga is a modest path dealing with modest achievements in the relative world, such as acquiring a healthy body, a steady mind, and a luminous intellect — all with the goal of gradually removing the barriers to spiritual liberation. Practitioners achieve these aims by performing the eight limbs of Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga. Ashtanga Yoga, then, is the underlying structure or architecture of Karma Yoga.

Although Karma Yoga is a practical, mundane approach to realizing liberation, the concepts essential to Jnana and Bhakti Yoga lie at its core. When practicing the many elaborate techniques of Karma or Ashtanga Yoga, we need to remember that we do this only because we are in essence both infinite consciousness (the heart of Jnana Yoga) and children of God (the essence of Bhakti Yoga). These three paths are, after all, different routes to the same destination.

The Many Modes of Karma Yoga

Whereas there is only one type of Jnana Yoga and one type of Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga has differentiated into many different modes with different names, according to precisely what actions and techniques are suggested. Kriya Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Mantra Yoga, Tantra Yoga, Laya Yoga, Dhyana Yoga, Samadhi Yoga, and Raja Yoga are all different modes of Karma Yoga. In all these modes of yoga, the practitioner performs certain yogic actions intending to derive a direct benefit, such as a stronger, healthier body, a longer life, a smooth flow of prana (and eventually its arrest in the central energy channel), a powerful intellect that can concentrate at will, a penetrating insight that can be directed at objects normally hidden, the ability to know whatever one wishes — and the list goes on.

Western students are often confused by this apparent multiplicity of yogic teachings, which is replicated in the multiplicity of India’s many divine forms and images. We may understand this fact by likening yoga to medicine — as, for example, the Rishi Vyasa did in his commentary on the Yoga Sutra. In medicine we have many different remedies addressing the various ailments that patients can develop. In a similar way, the many different forms of Karma Yoga have developed to address different problems.

Although all people are essentially the same at their divine cores, they vary greatly in their outer layers: the body, mind, ego, and intellect. Because people have very different bodies and minds, different approaches have been developed to remove the different obstacles located therein. Karma Yoga has developed its many modes because it targets these variable aspects of human individuals. Jnana and Bhakti Yoga, in contrast, have not had to differentiate because they address the divine consciousness or true self, which does not vary among individuals.

Ashtanga Yoga: The Architecture of Karma Yoga

The universally accepted form and structure that Karma Yoga takes is the eight-limbed yoga of Patanjali called Ashtanga Yoga. All of the eight limbs are in one form or another represented in all modes of Karma Yoga. The reason for using eight sequential steps may be understood through the following metaphor: Let’s assume for a moment that the goal of yoga, called liberation, is located on the moon and its opposite, the state called bhoga (bondage) is here on Earth. Jnana and Bhakti Yoga hold out the possibility — not a realistic one for most people — of reaching your goal with one giant step. Eight-limbed Karma Yoga, on the other hand, provides you with a spacecraft that you can use to reach your destination, a spacecraft similar to the Saturn V rocket that powered the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. TheSaturn V had several stages. The first stage lifted the spacecraft to a certain height, and once its fuel had been exhausted the next stage was fired up. With the final stage the spacecraft had reached a distance far enough from the Earth that it could now “fall” toward the moon, attracted by the moon’s gravitational field. In a similar way, Karma Yoga offers eight successive stages, each one carrying you successively higher toward the natural state of yoga (freedom) and away from the gravitation of bhoga (bondage).

Karma/Ashtanga Yoga gives you the opportunity to take small steps first. When you have done those steps successfully, you feel ready to take the slightly bigger steps that come next. Each step slightly modifies your body, mind, ego, and intellect, preparing them for the next, bigger step. Once you have taken the prescribed eight steps, you are then ready to take the plunge. That plunge is the same one the Bhaktas and Jnanis take, but the Ashtanga approach helps you prepare, organically and holistically, for it.

Let’s take a closer look at the various steps or limbs of Karma/Ashtanga Yoga, focusing mainly on the higher limbs, as they are usually neglected in descriptions. For this purpose we return to the Russian-doll metaphor introduced in the Introduction.

YAMA — RESTRAINT

Yama comprises five restraints. Along with the second limb, niyama (observance), those restraints form the base of Karma Yoga. The five restraints are as follows:

1. Do not harm.

2. Be truthful.

3. Do not steal.

4. Have intercourse only with your lawful partner.

5. Do not give in to greed.

If your resolve to stick to these restraints is not firm, you may abuse the very great powers you gain through yoga. These are not just empty words. A significant number of practitioners in the long history of yoga have gone down that path.

NIYAMA — OBSERVANCE

Once you have made the transforming commitment to adhere to the yama, you adopt the following five niyamas (observances):

1. Inner and outer cleanliness

2. Contentment

3. Simplicity

4. Study of sacred texts

5. Surrender to the Supreme Being¹⁰

Of course, niyama will bring you progress only if it is adhered to within the context of the first limb, yama.

PADMASANA: SEAT OF POWER

It is no coincidence that rishis, yogis, deities, and siddhas are usually depicted in Padmasana. You won’t see paintings or carvings of them sitting in chairs. Why? Because Padmasana is the seat of power. Padmasana is named for the padma, or lotus flower, a symbol of divinity in Indian folklore. Indian scriptures commonly refer to the chakras — subtle centers of divine power in the body — as lotuses. Images of deities or sages sitting on lotuses or sitting in Padmasana suggest that the subjects are spiritually empowered. Padmasana is the ideal yoga posture to sit in while doingpranayama (breath retention and extension).

Modern meditation teachers hasten to point out that you don’t need to sit in lotus posture to meditate. That is true; you don’t have to. However, Padmasana seriously empowers all forms of meditation and pranayama. When sitting in Padmasana, the spine effortlessly assumes its natural double-S curve, which is necessary for the ascent of prana (divine energy), sometimes calledkundalini. Padmasana also creates a solid tripod for the torso, which prevents the yogi from falling over during surges of prana. In Padmasana, the hands and feet are turned away from the Earth and up toward the sky, which makes them receptive to divine energy rather than conducting energy down into the receptive Earth.

ASANA — POSTURE

Once the practitioner has integrated yama and niyama into her life, she can begin the practice of asana (posture). There are hundreds of yoga postures; practicing them makes the body strong and supple, prepares it for the ascent of prana, and restores the natural balance of the body’s three constitution types, or doshas: vata, pitta, and kapha.¹¹ It thereby removes the various obstacles listed by Patanjali, such as sickness and rigidity.¹² Asana coupled with pranayama removes even more obstacles, such as doubt, negligence, laziness, and sense indulgence. Most important, though, asana serves as the bedrock of meditation proper: performing the postures prepares the body for extensive sitting in the main yogic meditation postures, which are Padmasana (lotus posture), Siddhasana, Swastikasana, and Virasana (note that the names of these postures differ slightly among the different schools of asana). Padmasana is by far the most important of these postures — see the sidebar above titled “Padmasana: Seat of Power.”

PRANAYAMA — BREATH CONTROL AND EXTENSION

Once the yogi is proficient in asana, breath extension can occur within the context of posture. In other words, the two are not separate practices; we assume asana to practice pranayama. The very significant effects of pranayama can be classed into three main groups:

1. Prana, which previously was scattered, is concentrated.

2. Pranic flow between the lunar and solar parts of the nadi system is harmonized.

3. Prana is arrested in the central channel of the nadi system, which leads to reabsorption of the mind into the heart.

PRATYAHARA — INTERNAL FOCUS

Pratyahara consists of a catalog of techniques used to focus the mind inward, thus forming the essential prerequisite for the arising of the higher limbs. It is ideally practiced in Padmasana or a similar potentasana and within the state of kumbhaka (breath retention). During kumbhaka we focus initially on locations within the gross body, which constitutes stage 1. Stage 2 is reached when we visualize the chakras of the subtle body and the mind is made to rest on them. This process is strongly intensified if it occurs within the framework of asana and pranayama. During this time of practice, the senses are prevented from “logging on” to their usual objects of desire, thus establishing inward focus.

The practice of pratyahara is based on the following concept: When the senses come into contact with objects in the external world (object being defined as anything that can be experienced by means of the senses), the objects arouse in the beholder reactions such as desire or repulsion, which all tend to ripple the surface of the lake of the mind. Some objects when presented to the mind will even bring about a downright storm. Once this has happened, it is difficult or impossible to use the mind as a tool for meditation. In pratyahara, you avoid the disturbances of the external world by settling the mind on something that is not in the outer world; you withdraw your senses into yourself “like a turtle withdraws its limbs.”¹³

There are several categories of suitable pratyahara objects, which are principally categorized according to subtlety. The practitioner starts with gross objects, those that are perceptible to the senses. Typically these are the so-called drishtis (focal points), such as the tip of the nose, the eyebrow center, the big toes, the tip of the tongue, the nostrils, the highest point of the palate, the navel, the ankle, or other body parts; and of course the bandhas, principally the Mula Bandha (pelvic lock).

Once the yogi’s focus is established on the gross level, subtle objects are chosen. The typical subtle objects used for pratyahara are the chakras. One starts by clearly visualizing the muladhara chakra; once attention is established there, one goes on to svadhishthana chakra, and so on. At this early point, you visualize only the following dimensions of the chakra: number of petals, color, and position (in case of theMuladhara, that would be four petals, dark red color, and a location near the tailbone). You have established proficiency in pratyahara when your focus during kumbhaka can be kept on the chakras, one after the other, without the senses grasping external objects.

DHARANA — CONCENTRATION

The ancient texts describe more than one hundred forms or techniques of dharana. They generally agree on the following point, however: dharana is practiced once proficiency in asana, pranayama, andpratyahara is gained and not before. Yogis achieve dharana once they can use willpower to focus on the chosen object. But because this concentration is powered by a willful effort, it may be frequently interrupted, much as an Internet connection is sometimes interrupted when you are using an old-fashioned dial-up connection.

Practically, dharana is done in the following way: You assume Padmasana, Siddhasana, Swastikasana, or Virasana and commence pranayama until breath retention (kumbhaka) is reached. Once inkumbhaka, you rest the mind on your chosen location, beginning with the base chakra (muladhara). Rather than just visualizing the chakra in its location close to the coccyx (tailbone) and stopping there, you concentrate now on a particular aspect of that chakra. The first aspect would be the solidity of the earth element (prithvi). You then go on to the Sanskrit letters that are associated with the four petals of this chakra — that is, va, sa, sha (retroflex), and sha (palatal). The next aspect may be the root syllable (bija akshara) of the base chakra, lang. After that you may concentrate on the subtle essence or quantum (tanmatra) of the chakra, which in the case of the base chakra is smell (gandha). At this point you may conclude concentration on the base chakra and go on to the water chakra (svadhishthana). It is not specified how many breath retentions one has to spend on each aspect of the chakra.

DHYANA — MEDITATION

Dhyana, or meditation, can flourish only once concentration is mastered. Whereas concentration relies on willpower, meditation occurs effortlessly. The difference between the two is like the difference between a dial-up Internet connection and a high-speed broadband connection. In meditation, there is a continuous flow of awareness from the meditator toward the chosen meditation object and a constant stream of information or data from the object to the meditator — very much like what occurs on an Internet connection with fast upload and download speeds.

Let’s assume that you have sufficiently practiced concentration and are therefore ready to embark on the exciting practice of meditation proper. I use the word exciting because once you have properly concentrated and thus “seen” the underlying truth of the various aspects of the chakra (that is, form, location, Sanskrit letters, root syllables, color, gross element, mandala, subtle essence), you can put them all together. At this depth of concentration, effort suddenly falls away and you get a direct line to the underlying reality of the chakra.

The fascinating opening that happens when you get to this stage is that you can “download” or “log on” to the deva, or divine form, that resides in or presides over each respective chakra (Lord Brahma for the muladhara chakra, for example).¹⁴ The view of the divine form instills you with confidence in your progress and devotion. The deva is a manifestation of its mantra, the root syllable. In fact, the chakra, the associated element, and the presiding divine form are all manifested by the mantra, which in itself was a part of the creation of the universe by means of sound or vibration.

In dhyana, due to the permanent “logging on” to the object of contemplation, you no longer switch your attention from one aspect of the chakra to another (location to color to number of petals to root syllable to gross element, and so on); instead, you become able to see them all together as an interconnected, reciprocal whole. For the base chakra, for example, the divine form (Lord Brahma) is understood as a psychological representation of the root mantra, and the root mantra as an acoustic representation of the Lord Brahma; at the same time, the Earth element is seen as a material representation of the Lord Brahma and the Lord Brahma as a divine or celestial representation of the Earth element; in addition, the sense of smell appears as a subtle representation of the Earth element, and the Earth element as the subtle equivalent of the sense of smell. The Earth element is also represented in the yantra (geometrical representation of the sacred) of the Muladhara, which is a square, and in the number of petals, which is four. All of these represent themselves in the microcosm of the human being on a subtle level as the muladhara chakra. This underlying reality at the foundation of dhyana needs to be deeply contemplated or spontaneously understood, whichever suits your temperament.

Unlike with asana and pranayama, it is difficult for an outside observer (that is, a teacher) to ascertain whether pratyahara, dharana, or dhyana have been attained. It is possible to quantify asana andpranayama — you can say that you practiced for two and a half hours and during that time you held eighty postures and forty breath retentions — but the practice of the inner limbs is not so easily measured.

SAMADHI — ECSTASY

Placing the innermost nesting doll of samadhi within the context and framework of the previous seven limbs is important; in Patanjali’s view it is with samadhi that yoga becomes really interesting. Patanjali devoted the overwhelming majority of his sutras to this final limb. Samadhi denotes a deep state of meditation or the culmination thereof. Its pronounced fruit is the revelation of deep reality as such. For this reason a good translation for samadhi is “ecstasy” rather than the more puritan “bliss” or the bland “absorption.” But the term ecstasy has its limitations also. It is derived from the Greek word ekstasis, meaning to stand beside oneself or be beside oneself (with joy). In samadhi, however, one does not stand beside oneself but rather deeply within oneself.¹⁵

The ecstasy of samadhi does not happen all at once. In samadhi we work through many substages, first using easy gross objects in meditation and later complex subtle objects. And once samadhi is mastered, we are met with a paradox. The final fruit of samadhi, liberation, is bestowed through complete surrender and divine grace and cannot be acquired by means of effort and willpower.

HOW INTENSE IS THE ECSTASY OF SAMADHI?

The great Rishi Yajnavalkya, the most prominent of the rishis (seers) of the Upanishads, explained the intensity of the ecstasy of samadhi thus:

Imagine the highest joy a human being is capable of experiencing through the combined attainment of wealth, power, and sexual pleasure. Multiplying this ecstasy by the factor of one hundred, we arrive at the ecstasy that can be experienced by those of our ancestors who have attained a heavenly existence. Multiplying their ecstasy by one hundred, we arrive at the level of ecstasy of the divine nature spirits known as gandharvas. Multiplying their ecstatic state again by one hundred, we arrive, according to Yajnavalkya, at the maximum ecstasy experienced by one who has attained a state of divinity by virtuous action (karmadevah). One hundred times greater than this state of ecstasy is that of one who has attained divinity by birth or knowledge. Again one hundred times greater than that ecstasy is the state of one who has studied the scriptures and is free from desires. One hundred times greater than that, however, is the ecstasy of one who has realized the state of consciousness identified by Patanjali as “seedless samadhi.”

This highest level of ecstasy is the result of multiplying by one hundred six times, which means that — according to Yajnavalkya, who, historically speaking, was one of the greatest authorities on the matter — samadhi confers one trillion times the ecstasy that an ideal human life could possibly provide. Indian texts sometimes exaggerate the states that they describe, a tendency called stuti(praise, advertising, glorification). However, Yajnavalkya doesn’t appear to share this tendency, and judging from the recorded dialogues and texts he left behind, there is no doubt that he knew and researched each of the ecstatic states mentioned.

Samadhi is the limb through which the mind and subconscious are deconditioned — and this is a process that takes time. The conditioning (vasana) that we undergo during our lives creates fears, desires, expectations, prejudices, and so on, and these prevent us from seeing reality as such because they are superimposed on what we see. Once all this dross of the ages is removed, for the first time one can see the world and the self as they really are.

If we call meditation (dhyana) a broadband connection to our meditation object, we need to call samadhi the ability to download a holographic image of our meditation object in real time.¹⁶ In other words, the moment the samadhic mind (that is, the mind in samadhi) fixes itself to an object, the mind is capable of reproducing an identical representation of the object. Being able to exactly duplicate objects in the mind means for the first time ever it is possible to see the world as it really is and not just some pale, dusty, warped, and twisted replica of what one believes or estimates it could be. This is effectively the most complete revolution that can possibly happen to a human mind. It means that the content of the mind has become identical with reality. In other words, what is in the mind is now as real as reality outside, effectively eliminating the distinction between inside and outside.

Once the mind has achieved this quality of stainlessness it becomes capable of creating reality. This is due to the fact that at this level of concentration what is in the mind becomes so real that it will manifest as reality. This explains the various powers of the yogis, siddhas, and rishis that Patanjali describes in the third chapter of the Yoga Sutra.

The yogi, however, applies this newfound power not to hocus-pocus but to the raising of kundalini, which produces divine revelation. It is here that ethics become fundamental. If you are not firmly grounded in the first and second limbs, you may at this point fall for the dark side. It is for this reason that yoga insists on Ishvara pranidhana, a personal devoted relationship to one of the aspects or manifestations of the Supreme Being, whichever one it may be. This close intimate devotion is what will save you when the dark night of your soul arises or when the Prince of Darkness appears on your doorstep to tempt you. Devotion to the Supreme Being will keep you firmly focused on developing the highest within yourself.

When the day arrives and you may look directly into the blinding light of infinite consciousness, you need to be prepared. It is not easy to get a direct view of the supreme self. When Arjuna received the celestial eye that allowed him to behold the Supreme Being in the form of the Lord Krishna, his hair stood on end, his breath became rapid, his heart almost burst — and he could not hold the gaze.¹⁷ If you have duly practiced the eight limbs of yoga and the various types of samadhi, the final samadhi will show you what Arjuna saw on that fateful day five thousand years ago on the eve of the battle of Kurukshetra. But here comes the problem: like Arjuna on that day, you will be mightily challenged not to close your eyes before that divine glory and look in the opposite direction. This, in fact, is what we are doing every moment of our lives to sustain our own individual, insignificant, and isolated existences. We are expelling the Supreme Being from our hearts in order to stay in control because to keep looking could mean the end of our personalities as we know them. Yogic training, however, will enable you to keep your inner eyes wide open when the day arrives for you to be shown the intense light of infinite consciousness.

It is possible to have a glimpse of this light in the form of a spontaneous temporary mystical experience and come out the other end unchanged. If you have not read the ancient texts or prepared yourself in ways that allow you to put the experience in context, you can come out of such a mystical experience even more confused than before, wanting to repeat the experience by pursuing sex, power, wealth, and so on. This is one of the dangers of pursuing the “instant enlightenment” path. As long as the mind is not purified of its innate tendency to jump from thought to thought like a monkey from branch to branch, you likely will leave the mystical experience, dropping out of it to follow the next whim of the mind.

Because the mind tends to attach itself to the next object that arises, it cannot without training stay focused on the subject, consciousness. The mind will go after tangible or experiential objects (wealth, power, sex, fame, and so forth), because the subject, although the giver of infinite ecstasy, is intangible. This means that the untrained mind will abandon the mystical experience, even though this is the opposite of what must happen. You need to stay in this state with your eyes wide open, your hair standing on end, and your brain on fire for at least several hours. Some texts hint at a minimum of three hours. Buddha sustained his mystical experience for a whole night; it was more than a decade before Ramana Maharshi could speak and act conventionally after his experience.

Understanding Samadhi through Indian Spirituality

The eternal state of infinite consciousness and deepest level of reality is called Brahman. The Brahman has two poles, Shiva and Shakti. Shiva, which we may call the male pole, is pure consciousness. Shiva stays forever uninvolved, witnessing the world from Mount Meru (Kailasha), not unlike a distant father who watches with bewilderment his wife running a household consisting of six kids, two cats, and a dog. Mount Meru is represented in the microcosm of the individual as the crown chakra. On an individual level, Shiva represents consciousness, which looks down from the crown chakra (the Mount Meru of the individual), witnessing and being aware of thought and action. We cannot reduce Lord Shiva to this metaphorical meaning, however. He is all that we can imagine him to be, all that we cannot imagine, and both together; he is also none of these and all of what is beyond.

Lord Shiva’s consort, the goddess Shakti, has a different temperament. She creates, sustains, and reabsorbs the entire creation through her various movements. The movement of creation is her descent from consciousness into matter, a movement that is called evolution. She descends from consciousness (her union with Shiva) into intelligence (buddhi), which is represented in the body as the ajna chakra (third eye). From there she descends into the space/ether element, which is located in the throat chakra (vishuddha). From here she crystallizes through air, fire, water, and earth, which manifest in the microcosm of the individual as the heart (anahata), navel (manipuraka), lower abdomen (svadhishthana), and base (muladhara) chakras, respectively.

When she dissolves and reabsorbs creation, Shakti is called Kundalini, and her ascent is called involution. The yogi lets Kundalini rise to the crown chakra, where the original unity of Shiva and Shakti is experienced, yielding the ecstatic state of samadhi.

When the goddess descends she leaves a particular trail, along which we can follow her back home. She does this by using the essence (tanmatra) of the previous chakra to create the next lower one. By taking this essence and reabsorbing it into the higher one, we lift Shakti up from chakra to chakra. This process is referred to in the scriptures as bhuta shuddhi (elemental purification). It can be performed in two ways, either in meditation or in samadhi. The meditative bhuta shuddhi is a typical daily ritual performed even nowadays by many devotional Indians. If it is performed in samadhi by a mind that has become able to create reality, the purification of the elements results in an involution back up through the chakras that leads to divine revelation in the sahasrara (crown chakra) — the realization of pure consciousness. When this state is finally made firm through repeated application, it is then called kaivalya, or liberation. It is so called because it frees us from the bondage of conditioned existence, allowing us to abide in the limitless ecstasy of infinite consciousness.

Only then, when all eight limbs are mastered in simultaneous application, are they finally discarded, and all exertion abandoned. As mentioned earlier, Patanjali calls this process paravairagya — complete letting go. We also find this process enshrined in the Bhagavad Gita, where Lord Krishna states that by knowing the Supreme Brahman all one’s duties are discharged.¹⁸ Once the divine view is had, there is no more plan or structure. From here, life is infinite freedom and unlimited spontaneity.

Until that point, however, effort and willpower are the means by which you progress. This means keeping one’s ethical precepts (yama and niyama) in place, assuming Padmasana or similar suitable postures (asanas) in the technically correct fashion, entering kumbhaka (pranayama), drawing one’s senses inward (pratyahara), concentrating on one’s meditation object (dharana), receiving a permanent stream of information from it (dhyana), and finally establishing an authentic duplication of that object in one’s mind (called objective or cognitive samadhi). In this traditional way yogis have practiced for thousands of years. Only today do people believe that one can discard or shortcut any lengthy preparation.

1 The term rishi is inextricably linked to Veda. You won’t find a Buddhist rishi or a Tantric rishi.

2 The Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad is the oldest, largest, and most important of the Upanishads. The genealogy of teachers listed in this Upanishad spans approximately 2,500 years.

3 Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna, stanza 64. The Karika is today considered the most important text of Samkhya, as all of the older texts are lost. Samkhya is the most ancient Indian philosophy, one of the six orthodox systems of Vedic thought (darshanas).

4 Western scholars date him from 788 to 820, but this view is increasingly criticized. Indian tradition holds that he lived well before that date. His birth name was Adi Shankara. In India he is known as Shankaracharya (the teacher Shankara). In the colophon of his texts he often called himself Shankara Bhagavatpada, after his teacher Govinda Bhagavatpada.

5 Yoga Sutra I.23.

6 Bhagavad Gita III.3 ff.

7 Bhagavad Gita II.45. The Vedas’ chief concern is here said to be the accumulation of material or spiritual merit. The Lord, however, wants Arjuna to abide in Brahman, beyond loss or gain.

8 The Cambridge scholar Elizabeth De Michelis’s excellent study The History of Modern Yoga reveals how and through whom many of our modern ideas of yoga were introduced from Western and Christian sources.

9 Discriminative knowledge (viveka khyateh) is the result of the last and highest cognitive (objective) samadhi. Cognitive samadhi is, however, superseded by the still higher super-cognitive (objectless) samadhi.

10 For a detailed description of each of these observances, please see Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and Philosophy, pp. 216–17.

11 For a description of the doshas, see David Frawley’s Ayurvedic Healing: A Comprehensive Guide (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992), p. 3.

12 Yoga Sutra I.30.

13 Bhagavad Gita II.58.

14 The term deva (divine form) unfortunately has been translated as “god.” The devas are not gods, and India is not polytheistic. The superficial so-called polytheism of Hinduism is only a veiling of the deeper monotheism to which all the authoritative texts subscribe. The divine forms or celestials, which we see when success in meditation arises, are nothing but manifestations of aspects of the one Supreme Being. There may be a multiplicity of divine forms for the purpose of meditation, but there is only one Brahman, as the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutra teach in manifold passages.

15 To correct this problem, Mircea Eliade has suggested using the term enstasy, meaning “standing within,” but this term still has not been widely accepted. See Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 77.

16 Object here does not mean “thing.” A meditation object is any object suitable for meditation. Suitable here means an object that neither excites nor dulls the mind but rather stimulates its wisdom and intelligence; such an object is sattvic (sacred). The scriptures list many sattvicobjects; they include the Om symbol or sound, a lotus, the moon, a star, a chakra, the sound or light in the heart, a tanmatra (subtle essence), the instruments of cognition such as mind, ego, intellect, and the various manifestations of the Supreme Being. Excluded, by definition, is the consciousness itself, which is the subject and therefore can never be an object.

17 Bhagavad Gita XI.8.

18 Bhagavad Gita XV.19–20.