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Yoga as Unitive Discipline
From the broadest possible perspective, all the various yogic approaches—and there are many—have the same overall purpose. That purpose is to help the spiritual practitioner transcend the ego-personality, or “lower” self, so that he or she may realize the “higher” Reality, whether it is conceived as the transcendental Self or as the Divine (God or Goddess). This spiritual realization is not necessarily understood in the same way by the various branches of Yoga. However, even though the schools of Yoga may differ in their preferred method and also in their interpretation of the nature of ultimate spiritual realization, all these differences can be regarded as creative variations on the same fundamental theme: They all are designed to lift the individual out of his or her ordinary perception of, and relationship to, the world.
How we perceive things determines how we relate to them, and, in turn, how we relate to things feeds back into our perception of them. In other words, there is a close relationship between our thoughts and actions, or our attitudes and behavior. Thus, if we perceive a situation to be threatening, we are apt to fight or take flight. The Sanskrit texts employ the classic example of a person running away from a snake when in reality it is only a rope. On the other hand, if a child thinks of a stranger as kind or well-meaning, he or she is likely to respond to the stranger with a trust that may prove misplaced or even fatal. Similarly, if we look upon the world as a vale of tears, as did the Romantics, we are apt to behave in ways quite different from staunch philosophers of social progress and utopian optimism.
Finally, if we truly understand that our material life is inherently limited and that the pleasures we can derive from our body and mind are likewise limited, merely temporary, and certainly not ultimately fulfilling, then we can open ourselves to the possibility of a new perception: that happiness is independent of our nervous system and the stimuli that can excite it. This is indeed the great message of all forms of Yoga: Happiness is our essential nature, and our perpetual quest for happiness is fulfilled only when we realize who we truly are. This realization is an awakening to our Selfhood, which transcends the body-mind, the ego-personality, and the horizon of the world reflected in our ordinary experience. All this, and more, is captured in the word yoga.
The term yoga is a common word in the Sanskrit language—the language in which most of the Yoga scriptures are written. It also happens to be one of the most versatile Sanskrit terms, having a whole range of meanings that extend from simple “union” to “team,” “constellation,” and “conjunction.” It is derived from the verbal root yuj, meaning “to harness, yoke, prepare, equip, fasten.”
The male practitioner of Yoga is known as a yogin (or yogi in the nominative case) and the female practitioner as a yogini. Frequent synonyms are yoga-vid ("knower of Yoga") and yukta ("yoked one"). Sometimes the word yoga-yuj ("one who is yoked in Yoga") is used. A master of Yoga may be referred to as a yoga-raj ("king of Yoga") or yogendra (from yoga and indra, meaning "lord").
In addition to yoga and yukta, the verbal root yuj also yields the old Sanskrit word yuga, denoting "yoke," which is the literal yoke placed upon an ox and the yoke or burden of the years. It is probably in the latter, metaphoric sense that yuga is applied to the four great world cycles, which according to Hinduism, continuously revolve, thus creating history. At present we are thought to be in the final world age, the kali-yuga, in which spirituality and morality are at their lowest ebb. The kali-yuga is the Dark Age, which is destined to terminate in a convulsive cataclysm, accompanied by a major purging of humanity. Thereafter a new Golden Age will begin, starting the four-phase cycle all over again.
The term yoga is closely related to a number of words in various Indo-European languages, including the English yoke, the German Joch, and the Latin iugum, which all have the same meaning. In a spiritual context, the word yoga can have two principal meanings. It can stand for either "union" or "discipline." In most instances, both connotations are present when the term yoga is used. Thus dhyana-yoga is the unitive discipline of meditation; samnyasa-yoga is the unitive discipline of renunciation; karma-yoga is the unitive discipline of self-transcending action; kriya-yoga is the unitive discipline of ritual; bhakti-yoga is the unitive discipline of love and devotion to the Divine, and so on.
What does unitive mean here? It describes Yoga’s disciplined approach to simplifying one's consciousness and energy to the point where we no longer experience any inner conflict and are able to live in harmony with the world. More specifically, unitive refers to the goal of many branches and schools of Yoga, which is to realize our essential nature, the Self (atman, purusha), by consciously uniting with it. This understanding of Yoga is characteristic of those teachings that subscribe to a nondualist metaphysics according to which the Self is the ultimate singular Reality underlying all phenomena.
A different understanding prevails in the dualist schools, notably Patanjali's yoga-darshana (“vision/system of Yoga”), which is also known as Raja-Yoga or Classical Yoga. For Patanjali, the yogic process is not so much one of union with an ultimate Reality as disunion (viyoga), or disconnection, from the ego-personality. But the final outcome is the same, for when the spiritual practitioner has succeeded in transcending the ego, he or she simultaneously realizes the Self, or Spirit.
Is Yoga then a form of religion or mysticism? It is not possible to give a simple answer to this question, because the Yoga tradition is vast and complex and includes many approaches, some of which even contradict each other when viewed from an outward perspective. Thus it comprises schools that espouse total renunciation (samnyasa) and those that insist on the proper performance of one's obligatory works (karman) in the world; schools that regard dispassionate wisdom (jnana) as the only means to spiritual freedom and Self-realization and those that place love and devotion (bhakti) above all other methods; and schools that favor a complicated ritualism and those that preach the path of methodless spontaneity (sahaja).
Some branches and schools of Yoga are more religious, entailing elaborate ceremonies, temple worship, and sect membership; others are more mystical, focusing on individual renunciation and meditation. Perhaps the most appropriate label for all of them is spirituality: Yoga is India’s particular brand of spirituality, and its constituent branches and schools share a common origin and a broad history that covers the remarkable span of five thousand years.
Just as the branches of a tree are attached to a single stem, the diverse strands within Yoga are all connected to a basic stock of ideas and practices. In fact, there is considerable theoretical and practical overlap between schools, and in many cases only a slight shift of emphasis demarcates one school from another. Also, even within one school a variety of opinions may be present, as teachers develop their own explanations on the basis of their scriptural interpretations and personal experiences. What unites these schools and branches of Yoga is their overarching goal, which is Self-realization.
The teachers of Yoga speak of this Self-realization as liberation (moksha, mukti, apavarga, kaivalya), awakening (bodha, bodhana, bodhi, jagrat), wisdom (jnana, vidya, prajna), independence/freedom (svatantrya), perfection (siddhi), or extinction (nirvana). And they provide many names for the ultimate Reality that is realized by the adept, including Supreme (para), Supreme Self (parama-atman), Supreme Object (parama-artha), Absolute (brahman), Being (sat), Nonbeing (Asat), Awareness/Consciousness (cit, citi, cetana, samvid), Bliss (ananda), God (deva), Goddess (devi), Lord (ish, isha, ishvara), Infinity (ananta), Full/Fullness (purna, purnata), Void/ Voidness (shunya, shunyata), Light (jyotis, prakasha), Immortality (amritatva, amarata), and Unborn (aja).
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