When we think of Yoga, we think of physical exercise, body stretches and the like. Rarely do we understand the true meaning of the term -What is Yoga?
The science of spirituality teaches us that Yoga is defined as the mingling of the individual soul with the Universal Soul or the Supreme Consciousness. Yoga is the tool that helps control the mind and take us to that state where we experience that we are not just a body but Soul.
Enclosed here is a powerful lecture by Swami Vivekananda, that helps us explore this concept in detail.
Swami Vivekananda lecture : The Science of Yoga
(Fragmentary notes of a lecture recorded by Ida Ansell and reprinted from Vedanta and the West, July-August 1957. Delivered at Tucker Hall, Alameda, California, on April 13, 1900)
The science of spirituality teaches us that Yoga is defined as the mingling of the individual soul with the Universal Soul or the Supreme Consciousness. Yoga is the tool that helps control the mind and take us to that state where we experience that we are not just a body but Soul.
Enclosed here is a powerful lecture by Swami Vivekananda, that helps us explore this concept in detail.
Swami Vivekananda lecture : The Science of Yoga
(Fragmentary notes of a lecture recorded by Ida Ansell and reprinted from Vedanta and the West, July-August 1957. Delivered at Tucker Hall, Alameda, California, on April 13, 1900)
The old Sanskrit word Yoga is defined as [Chittavrittinirodha]. It means that Yoga is the science that teaches us to bring the Chitta under control from the state of change. The Chitta is the stuff from which our minds are made and which is being constantly churned into waves by external and internal influences. Yoga teaches us how to control the mind so that it is not thrown out of balance into wave forms. . . .
What does this mean? To the student of religion almost ninety-nine per cent of the books and thoughts of religion are mere speculations. One man thinks religion is this and another, that. If one man is more clever than the others, he overthrows their speculations and starts a new one. Men have been studying new religious systems for the last two thousand, four thousand, years — how long exactly nobody knows. . . . When they could not reason them out, they said, "Believe!" If they were powerful, they forced their beliefs. This is going on even now.
But there are a set of people who are not entirely satisfied with this sort of thing. "Is there no way out?" they ask. You do not speculate that way in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Why cannot the science of religion be like any other science? They proposed this way: If such a thing as the soul of man really exists, if it is immortal, if God really exists as the ruler of this universe — He must be [known] here; and all that must be [realised] in [your own] consciousness.
The mind cannot be analysed by any external machine. Supposing you could look into my brain while I am thinking, you would only see certain molecules interchanged. You could not see thought, consciousness, ideas, images. You would simply see the mass of vibrations — chemical and physical changes. From this example we see that this sort of analysis would not do.
Is there any other method by which the mind can be analysed as mind? If there is, then the real science of religion is possible. The science of Raja-Yoga claims there is such a possibility. We can all attempt it and succeed to a certain degree. There is this great difficulty: In external sciences the object is [comparatively easy to observe]. The instruments of analysis are rigid; and both are external. But in the analysis of the mind the object and the instruments of analysis are the same thing. . . . The subject and the object become one. . . .