Yoga - SWAMI VIVEKANANDA - PATANJALI'S YOGA APHORISMS

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SWAMI VIVEKANANDA - PATANJALI'S YOGA APHORISMS

shabdahu

2006-05-03, 1:21 pm

http://www.amsi.ge/vivekananda.html

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

PATANJALI'S YOGA APHORISMS

INTRODUCTION (Part 1)

Before going into the Yoga Aphorisms I will try to discuss one great
question, upon which the whole theory of religion rests, for the Yogis.
It seems the consensus of opinion of the great minds of the world, and
it has been nearly demonstrated by researchers into physical nature,
that we are the outcome and manifestion of an absolute condition, back
of our present relative condition, and are going forward, to return
again to that absolute. This being granted, the question is, which is
better, the absolute or this state? There are not wanting people who
think that this manifested state is the highest state of man. Thinkers
of great calibre are of the opinion that we are manifested specimens of
undifferentiated being, and this differentiated state is higher than
the absolute. Because in the absolute there cannot be any quality they
imagine that it must be insensate, dull, and lifeless, that only this
life can be enjoyed, and therefore we must cling to it. First of all we
want to inquire into other solutions of life. There was an old solution
that man after death remained the same, that all his good sides, minus
his evil sides, remained for ever. Logically stated this means that
man's goal is the world; this world carried a stage higher, and with
elimination of its evils is the state they call heaven.

This theory, on the face of it, is absurd and puerile, because it
cannot be. There cannot be good without evil, or evil without good. To
live in a world where all is good and no evil is what Sanskrit
logicians call a "dream in the air." Another theory in modern times
has been presented by several schools, that man's destiny is to go on
always improving, always struggling towards, and never reaching, the
goal. This statement, though, apparently, very nice, is also absurd,
because there is no such thing as motion in a straight line. Every
motion is in a circle. If you could take up a stone, and project it
into space, and then live long enough, that stone would come back
exactly to your hand. A straight line, infinitely projected, must end
in a circle. Therefore, this idea that the destiny of man is
progression ever forward and forward, and never stopping, is absurd.
Although extraneous to the subject, I may remark that this idea
explains the ethical theory that you must not hate, and must love,
because, just as in the case of electricity, or any other force, the
modern theory is that the power leaves the dynamo and completes the
circle back to the dynamo. So with all forces in nature; they must come
back to the source. Therefore do not hate anybody, because that force,
that hatred, which comes out from you, must, in the long run, come back
to you.

If you love, that love will come back to you, completing the circuit.
It is as certain as can be, that every bit of hatred that goes out of
the heart of man comes back to him full force; nothing can stop it, and
every impulse of love comes back to him. On other and practical grounds
we see that the theory of eternal progression is untenable, for
destruction is the goal of everything earthly. All our struggles and
hopes and fears and joys, what will they lead to? We will all end in
death. Nothing is so certain as this. Where, then, is this motion in a
straight line? This infinite progression? It is only going out to a
distance, and again coming back to the centre from which it started.
See how, from nebul=E6, the sun, moon, and stars, are produced; then
they dissolve, and go back to nebul=E6. The same is being done
everywhere. The plant takes material from the earth, dissolves, and
gives it back. Every form in this world is taken out of corresponding
atoms and goes back to those atoms.

It cannot be that the same law acts differently in different places.
Law is uniform. Nothing is more certain than that. If this is the law
of nature, so it is with thought; it will dissolve and come back to its
origin; whether we will it or not we shall have to return to the
origin, which is called God or Absolute. We all came from God, and we
are all bound to go to God, call that God by any name you like; call
Him God, or Absolute or Nature, or by any hundred names you like, the
fact remains the same. "From whom all this universe comes out, in
whom all that is born lives, and to whom all returns." This is one
fact that is certain. Nature works on the same plan; what is being
worked out in one sphere is being worked out in millions of spheres.
What you see with the planets, the same will it be with this earth,
with men and with the stars. The huge wave is a mighty compound of
small waves, it may be of millions; the life of the whole world is a
compound of millions of little lives, and the death of the whole world
is the compound of the deaths of those millions of little beings.

Now the question arises, is going back to God the higher state, or is
it not? The philosophers of the Yoga school answer emphatically that it
is. They say that man's present state is a degeneration; that there
is no one religion on the face of the earth which says that man is an
improvement. The idea idea as that his beginning is perfect and pure,
that he degenerates until he cannot degenerate further, and that there
must come a time when he shoots upward again to complete the circle;
the circle must be there. However low he goes, he must ultimately take
the upward bend again, and go back to the original source, which is
God. Man comes from God in the beginning, in the middle he becomes man,
and in the end he goes back to God. This is the method of putting it in
the Dualistic form. In the Monistic form you say that man is God, and
goes back to Him again. If our present state is the higher one, then
why is there so much horror and misery, and why is there an end to it?
If this is the higher state, why does it end? That which corrupts and
degenerates cannot be the highest state. Why should it be so
diabolical, so unsatisfying? It is only excusable, inasmuch as, through
it, we are taking a higher groove; we have to pass through it in order
to become regenerate again. Put a seed into the ground and it
disintegrates, dissolves after a time, and out of that dissolution
comes the splendid tree. Every seed must degenerate to become the
stately tree. So it follows that the sooner we get out of this state we
call "man" the better for us. Is it by commtting suicide that we
get out of this state? Not at all. That will be making it all the
worse. Torturing ourselves, or condemning the world, is not the way to
get out. We have to pass through the "Slough of Despond," and the
sooner we are through the better. But it must always be remembered that
this is not the highest state.

puma

2006-05-03, 6:25 pm

"Before going into the Yoga Aphorisms I will try to discuss one great
question, upon which the whole theory of religion rests, for the Yogis.
It seems the consensus of opinion of the great minds of the world, and
it has been nearly demonstrated by researchers into physical nature,
that we are the outcome and manifestion of an absolute condition, back
of our present relative condition, and are going forward, to return
again to that absolute. This being granted, the question is, which is
better..."

What a stub idea is above. First of all all the religions differ from
each other,therefore they all are stories.. They have nothing related
to the TRUTH...Who are these GREAT minds that they are in consensus??
This is a very big bolony too...Who has demonstrated it into physical
nature? This is a very big bolony too. When claiming this sort of
stuff, you have to give us their REFERENCES. Don`t show us only some
stub`s EGGS...

There is no RELIGION THEORY at all.. Give us the REFERENCE...Who has
presented this theory into teology?..Who is the name father of this
THEORY?

All the religions are different. Lokk around and see the TRUTH.. Non of
them has the same perspective. Their only similarities, they alll think
that people are ignorant to belive waht they say...

Who has proven that we are to return again to that absolute??? GIVE US
REFERENCE.

We are always within that ABSOLUTE therefore no need to return...If one
can not realize this simple fact, then forget it!

Who is this stub that has granted this situation? GIVE US THE NAME OF
THAT PERSON and GIVE US REFERENCE in details...

There is no question at all, if you have any question of this type it
is your problem, that means you can not see when you look at.. Then to
see it, do VIPASSANA REGULARLY, Then you may easily see what you are
looking at...

Here is not a good place for this sort of BOLONIES.

Please get some other suitable places for this sort of BOLONIES...

You start with big shots as VIVEKANANDA and PATANJALI then easily
change the subject matter to ward the BOLONIES. Don`t do this . It is
not nice...

howdydave

2006-05-03, 6:25 pm

Howdy!

Just want to point out a few very basic misconceptions in
your post:

It is not a matter of "going back to" anything...
It's a matter of REDISCOVERING what is already
within us.

Not "man is God" but "SELF is God" -- big difference!

You repeatedly make statements to the effect "such and
such CAN NOT BE" but you don't justify your statements.

You are attempting to fit dualistic terminology into non-dualistic
concepts. e.g.; good/evil -- let's talk about the two
ends of a pencil instead (Vivekananda's example) you are
attempting to use the point/eraser terms. In non-dualism
you are no longer talking about a point and an eraser, but
about the single concept of "a pencil."

Dave