Ashtanga Yoga - Goal
Yoga
meditation is the most effective way of meditation. The primary
purpose of meditation is self-realisation and insight. Meditation is the stepping stone to enlightenment. The goal
of meditation is to build extraordinary awareness, crystal clear awareness.
It is just the purity of thought and intensity that determine the result. The ultimate aim
of meditation is to relax the agitation of consciousness into pure consciousness.
Yoga
meditation calms the mind which is going in many directions. Sage Patanjali in
Chapter 1st verse 2nd is “Yoga Chitta Vritti nirodhah'' which means "cessation
of the modification of the mind". Modifications of the mind are thoughts,
ideas, emotions, desires, memories, intentions, judgement etc. Yoga practice
makes it focus on the mind because it is very tricky and restless. We cannot
stop it straight away and it needs a lot of effort and practice. If we sit for
meditation the mind is quivering and jumping like a monkey from branch to
branch in a tree. A solution to this is to fix the focus on one place. Here
what is done is to fix the mind repeatedly on one point. What it is doing is
the mind thinks up many things and is made to think of one thing. Again it is
made to think of one thing and it is repeated again and again. The mind works
from link to link and one thought to another. What meditation does is give one
anchor to the mind which is wandering all the time.
One
of the easiest ways of fixing the mind is respiration. The breathing is
continuously there, always available to us all the time and it is rhythmic.
Think about the breath and notice the breath and pay attention to the
breath. Further, you notice the sensation associated with the breath and
movements of the belly. As you inhale the belly expands outwards and when you
exhale the belly collapses inwards. Just notice the movements of the belly
along with your breath. That anchors it further and gives you something physical to
notice. The mind tends to wander here and there, to
avoid this and to keep the mind anchored further a count is set up for
refinement. Start the counting for inhalation as 1 and exhalation as 2. Even
so, we are doing this because the mind wanders. If you continue counting on
many occasions you may forget it because the mind wanders. Here we have to be
very careful and conscious and try to bring it back to counting our breath.
We
can also employ alternative procedures of the mind focus by chanting verses
(mantra), by a sound like ‘Ohm’, and maybe on the forms of deities of Krishna,
Ram, Buddha and even Jesus Christ. By concentrating the mind on one thing,
again and again, the mind will become calm and you get control over your
attention and then eventually at one point, the modification ceases altogether.
Then it becomes concentrated and the mind thinks things will stop. But the mind
is still awake.
Ashtanga
yoga proposed by Sage Patanjali is the most effective and efficient way of yoga
practice. In a single sentence, Sage Patanjali in Chapter 1 verse 2 is “Yoga
Chitta Vritti Nirodhah”. It can be defined as the “cleansing of the impurities
of the mind” or otherwise can say that the stilling of the fluctuations of the
mind”.
Sage Patanjali’s Ashtanga yoga is based on the
philosophy of Samkhya and established on a dualistic principle. Sage Patanjali put a framework of dualistic principles and
developed the whole methodology. They are constituted by two principles of "Puruá¹£ha"(Pure Consciousness) and Praká¹›ithi (matter). Here Purusha is the
primordial consciousness and Prakriti is the Primordial matter principle. It is the
“Purusha'' that keeps us alive and brings awareness to human beings. If we take out the element Purusha away, then we are left with an
inert body that does not have any consciousness.
The main goal is Kaivalya, the discernment of Purusha (consciousness),
separating it from Prakrithi (matter), and disentanglement of Purusha from its
original form. Both are recognized as two principles in the philosophy of
Samkhya.
It is considered a compilation and codification
of yoga practices by Sage Patanjali into a systematic framework. We can see that the human bond is three-dimensional. First is the
binding of body and mind, then mind and consciousness binding and another is
individual consciousness with the ultimate consciousness. Yoga metaphysics is based on the dualist principle of Purusha and
Prakriti. We can put the practices together to ensure that
what has now come together as Purusha (Primordial consciousness principle) and
Prakriti (Primordial matter principle) in the individual human being is then gets separated through yoga and achieve a state of
Kaivalya, which is called the liberated state of pure consciousness. So when
the modification of mind ceases, then the Yoga sutras explain in the 1st
chapter verse 2nd is “thatha drushtuh swarupe avasthanam”. The “Seer"
(Witness consciousness or Drushtuh) abides in its own nature.
The
“Seer” in the Purusha principle brings consciousness to the inert Prakrithi
principle and develops in matters such as body and mind. The two principles of
Purusha and Prakrithi come together in conjunction, and that conjunction
develops into the individual personality or individual person. What yoga does
is to separate those two things out so that “Seer” (Dhrushtu) is by itself no
longer entangled with Prakrithi to give this false identity to the individual
person. At this "Samyoga '' which means a conjunction of the Purusha and
Prakriti arises the consciousness. We, individual people, mistake (her/him)
“Self” as this limited identity. If we take out Purusha from this Prakrithi
then we are left with inertness and there is no consciousness. The aim of yoga
is to get that unique identity. Yoga is a
systematic practice that pursues the re-formation of the right individuality of
the “seer” who has become entrapped with a matter principle ("Prakriti"). "Chitha vrithi nirodha'' can establish the state of
Kaivalya, which means the pure state of consciousness and realisation of ''Self
``.