By: Harold Sequeira
yogaschoolonline@gmail.com
PHILSOPHIC FERMENT
AT THE TIME OF PATANJALI
Even before we delve deep into what Patanjali has to say about Yoga philosophy we have to pause a while and see what was the background that produced this sublime and saving philosophy? In India the great Vedic age capped by Upanishads, which became as if a "footnotes to the Vedas" [1] had made vast and profound enquires in the nature of the Soul, the mind, matter and so forth. Samkhya had finalized its prolonged analysis of matter and had produced a masterpiece of metaphysics. What was needed was a validating experience for these metaphysical enquires. Language, the handmaiden of philosophy was burnished bright and honed to an unusual degree of depth and precision by the great Panini, the father of Classic Sanskrit grammar and linguistics. Its terse verses were decoded and explained by the great Yogi Patanjali in his Mahabhasya, the great commentary on the 4000 odd verses of Paninini's, ashtadhayi. Ayurveda, the healing branch of Atharva-Veda had made its own enquires of body-mind health grafting a chapter from Samkhya metaphysics and according to Dr. Surendranath Dasgupta, the eminent author of the History of Indian of Philosophy [2] in all likelihood it was Patanjali who "wrote about Ayurveda to give us good health, about grammar so that we could speak clearly and his work on Yoga so that we could think clearly". So we take Patanjali as the pivot around which Yoga philosophy moves. And come to appreciate his sense and philosophic sagacity.
Professor Zimmer, the eminent German philosopher, who did extensive and important work on Indian philosophy, calls Patanjali's philosophy as in the Yoga Sutra, protean, an endearing term with him. Water has a protean quality as it takes the shape of the vessel in which it is poured. Thus Patanjali's philosophy also transforms into psychology, ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics and emotions, mental science, spiritual science, cosmology, and so forth, which are the generally accepted divisions and demarcations which modern philosophy has accepted. Thus in the very beginning it should be made clear to the erstwhile student of philosophy, with a western philosophic orientation, that the Yoga philosophy with its protean qualities becomes as amenable to him, albeit theoretically at first, until he gains a firsthand and direct experience.
Patanjali was a practical and pragmatic soul, and he wanted the future students of yoga and or philosophy to gain experiential knowledge of the principles and concepts that were being presented in his philosophy. This is a vital and prominent distinction between western/modern philosophy which has entered the arid realms of words and concepts without treading the philosophical ground experientially. "No gain without pain" the adage goes, and the direct philosophic experience needs an infrastructure, a method and methodology, practices, guidance and so forth [3]. To this we shall come later in this presentation.
It does not stop at experiences, in the usual sense of the word, but it also needs awareness, a quality which Patanjali says, is the very nature of the Soul. So the student of yogic philosophy is enjoined, that in his soul searching, subtler and subtler awareness of the human personality is needed, penetrating the gross to the subtlest sheath. The methodology of Yoga provides this stage-wise and step wise awareness, and finally in a beatific experience of Samadhi encounter the witnessing soul itself [4]
In the second part we shall present the processes of the stage-wise and step wise processes, under the heading of Ashtanga Yoga.
Bibliography:
Yoga Philosophy Ð Sw. H. Aranya
Yoga as philosophy and Religion Ð S. Dasgupta
Indian Philosophy Ð S. Radakrishnan
Better Living through Yoga Ð The Yoga Institute
Yoga/phil/1-06
[1] See S. Radakrishnan, Upanishads, introduction
[2] See History of Indian Philosophy, Vol É. /pagesÉ.
[3] See Ashtanga Yoga Ð y/s Sutra II.29 Ð III.3
[4] See Yoga Sutra I.3, the encounter with the soul
H. Sequeira
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Bio-note: H. Sequeira, born in 1937, in Mangalore India, studied at various universities in India (arts, commerce, law etc) and yoga training (The Yoga Institute) and set up Yoga Centers in Canada, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Spain. He teaches classic Yoga of Patanjali as well as many other traditions of Yoga. He has written many books including Patanjali Yoga Sutra (English and Spanish). He now lives in Bombay but travels extensively conducting yoga workshops.
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