You’re sitting in a coffee shop, sipping hot Chai, reading a Yoga magazine. You’ve just finished your favorite Yoga class, and you feel really good. Great workout…And yet, deep inside, you know there must me more to Yoga than alignment, anatomy, and innumerable comments about being ‘grounded’, ‘centered’ and ‘balanced’. And you’re right. Yoga is much, much more. The postures are but one component of a complex system of spiritual psychology, a practical philosophy whose source is India’s 5000-year-old jewel of collected knowledge, the Vedas.

Widely thought to be divinely inspired, the Vedas are oral teachings, preserved for generations by flawless memorization and precise repetition. From teacher to student, father to son, the sacred sounds of Vedic chanting have been an integral part of Indian life for centuries. And the Vedas are vast. Through songs, chants, poems, myths and fables, mankind’s epic battles and inner struggles are told and retold again and again. The inclusiveness of this great work is captured by the Indian adage, “ If you lose your cow, you can find it in the Vedas.

In order to bring organization and clarity to these expansive teachings, great sages extracted, from the Vedas, six philosophies, or Darsanas. The root of ‘Darsana’ means ‘to see’, and they are six different ways of looking at life. More specifically, the Darsanas are six distinct perspectives on how to reduce human suffering. Yoga is one of these six formal philosophies. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali IS the Darsana of Yoga. Although there are other important works on Yoga, including the Bhagavad-Gita, Hatha Yoga Pradipika, and Yoga Rahasya, the complete philosophy, the Darsana of Yoga is Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. To understand Yoga, one must study its Sutras. One Clarification: There is an important distinction between the word ‘yoga’, and the Philosophy of Yoga. The word ‘yoga’ appears throughout the Vedas, and means ‘to link’, or ‘ focus the mind’. The Yoga Philosophy is a different matter. This Philosophy/Darsana is a cohesive system with a specific, technical, definition of Yoga and the actions required to achieve it. While three of the Darsanas are outside the scope of this article, exploring two others, Samkhya and Vedanta will help us understand what Yoga is…and isn’t.

VEDANTA AND NONDUALISM

Vedanta is a nondualist Darsana, and the foundation of Hinduism. Simply put, Vedanta says, ‘everything is all one thing’. Hinduism, being theistic nondualism, calls this one thing God. Despite the appearance of many gods, they are really only one God, Brahma. Many manifestations, one God. No duality…All are one. Non-theistic nondualism, Buddhism, for example, also says there is only one thing. Not God, but one thing nonetheless. Call it consciousness, wholeness, nothingness, something, but just ONE thing. Uncompromising and easily recognizable, nondualism uses concepts like ‘Maya’, and ‘illusion’ to explain that anything other than oneness is not really real. For nondualists, the root cause of human suffering is separateness. We suffer when we see ourselves as having a separate existence from the one thing, when we believe the ‘illusion’. For nondualists, suffering ends when one realizes, slowly or suddenly, with or without tools, that it’s all one. Nondualist religions and philosophies are comforting, inspiring, and quite popular worldwide. But they’re not Yoga. Yoga is not a religion; and Yoga’s dualistic philosophy is rooted in Samkhya, an entirely different Darsana. Another Clarification: There are, undoubtedly, many nondualists practicing Yoga to help deepen their experience of ‘oneness’ (you may be ‘one’ of them). But nondualism, (‘everything is oneness’) is NOT an in intrinsic part of Yoga Philosophy. Read on.

YOGA, SAMKHYA, AND DUALISM

Samkhya describes all reality as having TWO components. Purusa, or consciousness, and Prakriti, matter. Samkhya, being dualistic, states that these components are connected, but separate. In Samkhya, as in Yoga, the goal is not to dissolve all things into one whole. Instead, emphasis is placed on illuminating the individual parts, and clarifying their relationships. Relationship, as we shall see, is central to Yoga. Purusa is consciousness: unchanging, formless, and watching. Purusa sees but remains forever unchanged by what it observes. Prakriti is the manifest world. This includes all matter, nature, and the human mind. Unlike Purusa, Prakriti changes. Always. According to Samkhya, Prakriti has three distinct qualities or rates of change, called gunas. First is rajas, intense, dynamic change. In nature, fire is rajasic. Where fire exists, form changes: paper becomes ash, wood becomes ember, and cool oxygen and organic matter become hot carbon dioxide. Humans experience this guna as anxiety, agitation, nervousness, insomnia, etc. Prakriti’s second guna is tamas: slow, heavy, and resistant. In the natural world, rock is tamasic. Rock changes form, but slowly and only after much pressure is applied. Tamas is resistance to change. We experience tamas as dullness, fatigue, hesitation, lethargy, doubt and depression. But like Goldilocks’ porridge, one of the gunas, satva guna, is just right. Satva is defined as appropriate change, balanced, harmonious, clear and sustaining. According to Samkhya, the true nature of the human mind is satvic. And satva, while still Prakriti, is the closest matter gets to Purusa. In other words, the awareness and stability characteristic of Purusa is most likely to be experienced by a satvic mind. A mind that is too agitated (rajasic), or too dull (tamasic), only experiences its own movement, and cannot know the consciousness at its core. Samkhya’s conclusion: “In order to know the deepest truth, to be stable and happy, a satvic mind is required.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is, in simple terms, a guidebook for cultivating a satvic mind. The great sage compiled the sutras approximately 2300 years ago. Little more is known about this man, except that he also composed foundational works on Ayurveda and Sanskrit Grammar. The Yoga Sutras are 195 aphorisms, succinct teachings on life, suffering, and the nature of the mind. The first Psychology text, the Sutras resemble lecture notes more than completed lessons, and have many possible interpretations, depending on the student’s mindset. To fully benefit from these timeless teachings, one must study The Sutras with a qualified teacher; a teacher as familiar with each sutra as they are with each student’s needs. In general terms, however, Yoga Philosophy maintains that the human mind can be both a valuable tool and a source of suffering. In Sutra 1:2, Patanjali defines the Yoga state as having a mind that is satvic, stable, and able to focus. He chooses the phrase ‘Citta Vritti Nirodha’ to describe the mind that can experience the truth, consciousness, and joy, (Sat-chit-ananda) which is, according to Yoga, our true nature. But because the mind is Prakriti, it can also be rajasic or tamasic. Such an imbalanced mind is prone to misperception, resulting in sorrow, discomfort and disease. And this pain is real. Unlike nondualism, where separateness and sorrow are seen as illusory, Yoga sees everything as real. Suffering, sickness and sadness are true realities, which can only be replaced by other realities, preferably, comfort, wellness, and joy. The Sutras explore many aspects of living, including: relationship, lifestyle, body, breath, senses, and mind. The aim, once again, is to achieve wholeness by refining the individual parts and clarifying their relationships. Since, according to Yoga, they are all inter-connected, refinement in one area will create improvement in the others. Therefore, using slow, deep breathing to move the body into stable, comfortable postures (Asana) can help focus the mind and brighten the emotions. This brings us full circle, to just how great you feel right now with your warm Chai after your favorite Yoga class. Go ahead, have another sip. It’s good.