The path of yoga leads towards the soul. This has been the message of the yogis since time immemorial. As B.K.S. Iyengar wrote:

“Yoga practice [guides] the mind towards its source, which is the core of being — atman (the soul), or purusha (Self).”[1]

The quest for the soul, however, begins with external awareness. What we perceive through our senses must be coordinated with our organs of action — our arms and legs, etc. The goal of yogic discipline is to make our actions so pure that the illumination of the soul is no longer clouded by our imperfections. To reach that level of purity, wrote Patanjali, the compiler of the ca. 200 B.C.E. Yoga Sutras, we must tame chitta, the individuated consciousness.[2]

 

Redirecting Manas Inward

Chitta has three interactive functions: manas, ahamkara, and buddhi. Manas (mind) serves a dual role.[3] If it succumbs to its inherent bias to be drawn externally, it leads us to bhoga (temporal experience). However, if manas focuses on the internal purification of ahamkara (ego), it redirects us towards the liberation of yoga.[4] Therefore, our first job is to use manas to wean the senses from external stimuli:

“When the senses involute [turn inward], the mind makes a U-turn towards consciousness and Self.”[5]

 

Awakening Buddhi

Buddhi is more subtle than manas. Buddhi is the faculty of individuated intelligence that facilitates our inborn striving for perfection:

“[Buddhi] becomes discernible only through its inherent quality, intelligence, which is closer to consciousness than to the mind/thought process….

“The quality of intelligence is inherent but dormant, so our first step must be to awaken it. The practice of asana brings intelligence to the surface of the cellular body through stretching and to the physiological body by maintaining the pose. Once awakened, intelligence can reveal its dynamic aspect, its ability to discriminate.”[6]

When manas moves inward towards buddhi, the sensual pleasures of bhoga lose their appeal, and manas can then experience non-duality.

 

Spread of Chitta & Atman in Asana

When the mind turns inward, it fosters the even spread of the three substances of manas, ahamkara, and buddhi throughout the body.[7] Then

“When mind, intelligence, and self stretch… the length and width of the entire body in asana…, the atman diffuses and spreads evenly all over the body, like water finding its level when spilled on the floor;.[8]

This inward turn of mind, in an ostensibly physical practice of asana, retraces the steps of our evolution. It reveals how the grosser aspects of our being — the limbs, organs, senses, mind, and ego — have evolved from the buddhi. And buddhi, itself, acts on behalf of the atman, soul.[9]

The zenith of asana practice ultimately resolves the conflict of duality in order to live in oneness.[10] Then the yogi can feel the presence of atman throughout the body.[11]

 

Body — the Gross Form of the Mind…

In the West, we tend to perceive the body and mind as distinctly separate, but yogis hold a different point of view. Observed Guruji Iyengar,

“The body is the gross form of the mind. Similarly, the mind is the gross form of consciousness, and consciousness is the gross form of the Self.”[12]

If they are separate, challenged Iyengar,

“Where [does] the body end and the mind begin, and where [does] the mind end and the Self [soul] begin?”[13]

Yogic involution reveals these more subtle states of the mind,[14] and helps integrate body, organs, senses, manas, buddhi, and chitta with the soul.[15]

 

From Stress Relief to Spiritual Practice

Beginners often take up the practice of yoga for “stress relief” and other health concerns. Along with improved health and well-being, they often experience a peace of mind that significantly differs from the effects of “recreational” exercise; this taste of freedom spurs them on to learn more. B.K.S. Iyengar put it succinctly:

“When there is tranquillity of body and mind, the spiritual experience in yoga commences. No doubt, one may say reading holy books is spiritual practice. But what I teach is spiritual practice in action. I use the body to discipline the mind and to reach the soul.”[16]

In order to reduce suffering, yogis purify chitta to such a degree that it becomes translucent so that the light of the soul may shine through it. As B.K.S. Iyengar wrote:

“When you do the asana correctly … the Self [soul] is doing the asana, not the body or brain…. When the rivers of the mind and the body get submerged in the sea of the core [soul]… the spiritual discipline commences.” [17]

Until that time the cloud of spiritual ignorance obscures the light of the soul, and the ahamkara, ego, mistakes itself to be the soul, which results in endless pain and suffering.

 

Spiritual Practice vs. Religious Ritual

Although Yoga is one of the six independent schools of thought embraced by Hinduism, it is devoid of the ritual and godhead associated with Hindu temple worship. In the U.S. we often define this lack of ritual and godhead as spirituality; it is the essence of religious life without its theological basis. But, in the U.S., it is difficult to categorize a spiritual practice that is not aligned with any specific religion.

Indians, however, do not feel the same compelling need to distinguish between spirituality and religion because there is no clear distinction between spiritual and secular life in India. As a result, Americans often describe India as spiritual because of this difference. It is important to note that Yoga has been “adopted and valorized by all” the non-yogic schools of Indian thought, including Buddhism, wrote the twentieth century scholar Mircea Eliade.[18]

Patanjali’s Yoga converts external ritual into an internal practice. For example:

The ancient Vedic agni fire ceremony became internalized in the form of early morning pranayama practice. When ghee is fed to the fire, the flame shoots up, symbolizing a blessing from Agni, the god of fire.[19]

What does the yogi offer in pranayama? The yogi sacrifices his breath during exhalation:

“Exhalation is the highest form of surrendering to the Lord.”[20]

He also merges his chitta, individuated consciousness, into the mahat, universal consciousness during exhalation. Chitta then becomes

“quiet, passive, and pensive…. The mind which plays multiple roles in thought and action (II.48) is transformed to become a single, universal, cosmic mind.”[21]

Guruji Iyengar’s citation of Patanjali Yoga Sutra II.48 refers to “immunity to the pairs of opposites,” the non-dual state attained with the perfection of asana. Then there is no differentiation between body, mind and soul.

In Vedanta the fire ceremony symbolizes burning the impulses and desires that bind the soul.[22] Similarly, B.K.S. Iyengar described the same effect on the spiritual heart, the seat of the soul, in pranayama:

“By inspiration we receive our life from God. Retention is the sweet savoring of the Lord in the depths of the heart. When the breath is gently exhaled toward the heart, the heart is purified from desires and emotions that disturb it.”[23]

This scorching fire also represents Patanjali’s kriya yoga, — tapas, svadhyaya, and Ishvara pranidhana (austerity, Self-study, devotion to God) — which burns the root causes, the “seeds” of suffering by turning inward to differentiate the chitta from the soul.[24]

Yoga practice has coexisted for millennia alongside the world’s great religions as a practical path to enlightenment. Patanjali’s yoga includes ethical precepts, codes of behavior, posture, energy control, and meditation, that lead to an understanding of the structure of consciousness, why we exist, and the ultimate purpose of life.

Portions of this article were previously published in Spirit Seeker: January, 2010, in response to the State of Missouri’s imposition of sales tax on yoga class fees in 2009.

 

Bibliography

Texts

B.K.S. Iyengar, Core of the Yoga Sutras: the Definitive Guide to the Philosophy of Yoga, London: HarperThorsons, 2012.

B.K.S. Iyengar, Iyengar, His Life and Work, Porthill, ID: Timeless Books, 1987.

B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life, Emmaus: Rodale Press, 2005.

B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1993.

B.K.S. Iyengar, Sparks of Divinity: The Teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar from 1959 to 1975, Berkeley: Rodmell Press, [rev.] 2012.

B.K.S. Iyengar, Yaugika Manas: Know and Realize the Yogic Mind, Mumbai: Yog, 2010.

Swami Hariharananda Aranya, Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali, SUNY Press, 1983.

Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969.

A. Parthasarathy, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Vol. 1, 1994.

 

Author Transcriptions of B.K.S. Iyengar Addresses and Interviews

B.K.S. Iyengar, Prana & Prajna in the Yogic Path — Bhakti, Karma, Jnana, & Dhyana Margas: 2013 Guru Purnima Address — 22 July 2013. Accessed 1-12-16. https://yogastlouis.us/prana-prajna-in-the–yogic-path.

B.K.S. Iyengar & H.H. The Dalai Lama, Paths To Happiness, New Delhi: NDTV, 2011. Lecture Demo 11-20-10. <http://youtu.be/AOvDbJV-_60> Accessed 1-15-13.

Rajiv Mehrotra, In Conversation with B.K.S. Iyengar, rec. 2011? Publ. December 7, 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkGPxrcHsOs> Accessed 2-1-15.

 

Yoga St. Louis Blog Posts

For further information, see the following posts:

Bruce M. Roger, Samkhya Cosmogeny in Asana <https://yogastlouis.us/samkhya-cosmogeny-in-asana/>

Bruce M. Roger, What is Alignment? Transcending Duality Through Asana <https://yogastlouis.us/what-is-alignment-transcending-duality-throug/>

 

Footnotes

[1]       B.K.S. Iyengar, Yaugika Manas: Know and Realize the Yogic Mind, Mumbai: Yog, 2010. P. 106

Note that atman and purusha are used here as synonymous terms.

[2]       PYS I.2 Yoga is the cessation of the movements of chitta, consciousness.

[3]       B.K.S. Iyengar, Core of the Yoga Sutras: the Definitive Guide to the Philosophy of Yoga, London: HarperThorsons, 2012. P. 153

[4]       drawn externally… redirects us towards the liberation of yoga: PYS II.18 Nature, the gunas, and the elements, the mind, senses of perception, and organs of action, exist eternally to serve the Seer, for bhoga (enjoyment) or apavarga (emancipation).

internal purification of ahamkara: When asana becomes distorted by “somatic (bodily) pride… the expression of physical ego,” the body becomes weak, the mind unstable. This afflicts us when bending the knee improperly in Parsvakonasana — by leading with the eyes and head instead of the spiritual heart, the seat of the soul. B.K.S. Iyengar, Core of the Yoga Sutras: the Definitive Guide to the Philosophy of Yoga, London: HarperThorsons, 2012. P. 148

[5]       B.K.S. Iyengar, Yaugika Manas: Know and Realize the Yogic Mind, Mumbai: Yog, 2010. P. 51

B.K.S. Iyengar, Core of the Yoga Sutras: the Definitive Guide to the Philosophy of Yoga, London: HarperThorsons, 2012. P. 107, 167

[6]       B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1993. P. 53-54

[7]       B.K.S. Iyengar, Prana & Prajna in the Yogic Path: 2013 Guru Purnima Address, RIMYI, Pune 22 July 2013. +18:30-21:50 Author transcription.

[8]       B.K.S. Iyengar, Yaugika Manas: Know and Realize the Yogic Mind, Mumbai: Yog, 2010. P. 49-50

[9]       B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1993. P. 10

[10]     PYS II.48 None of the pairs of opposites exist as body, mind and soul are one. Then the perfection of asana puts an end to dualities and the differentiation between body, mind and soul.

[11]     B.K.S. Iyengar, Yaugika Manas: Know and Realize the Yogic Mind, Mumbai: Yog, 2010. P. 50

[12]     B.K.S. Iyengar, Yaugika Manas: Know and Realize the Yogic Mind, Mumbai: Yog, 2010. P. 52

[13]     B.K.S. Iyengar, Iyengar, His Life and Work, Timeless Books, Porthill, Idaho, 1987. P. 491

[14]     B.K.S. Iyengar, Yaugika Manas: Know and Realize the Yogic Mind, Mumbai: Yog, 2010. P. 52

[15]     B.K.S. Iyengar, Yaugika Manas: Know and Realize the Yogic Mind, Mumbai: Yog, 2010. P. 49

[16]     B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life, Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2005. p. 62

[17]     B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life, Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2005. p. 62

[18]     Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969 (2nd ed.). P. 359 – 361. Valorize means to validate with a place of honor or distinction.

[19]     Vedic agni fire ceremony became internalized in the form of early morning pranayama practice:

Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969 (2nd ed.). P. 112

[20]     B.K.S. Iyengar, Sparks of Divinity: The Teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar from 1959 to 1975, Berkeley: Rodmell Press, [rev.] 2012. P. ..rsity Press, 1969 (2nd edition119

[21]     B.K.S. Iyengar, Core of the Yoga Sutras: the Definitive Guide to the Philosophy of Yoga, London: HarperThorsons, 2012. P. 59

[22]     Bhagavad Gita III.9 – 11 A. Parthasarathy, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Vol. 1, 1994. P. 169 – 174

[23]     B.K.S. Iyengar, Sparks of Divinity: The Teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar from 1959 to 1975, Berkeley: Rodmell Press, [rev.] 2012. P. ..rsity Press, 1969 (2nd edition104, 119

Swami Hariharananda Aranya describes it as nirodha, cessation, at the end of exhalation.

[24]     Rajiv Mehrotra, In Conversation with B.K.S. Iyengar, rec. 2011? Publ. December 7, 2014. +16:00

PYS II.2 states that kriya yoga reduces the kleshas. Vyasa then elaborated with his “parched seed” analogy: The subtle kleshas are those that have been minimized by the fire of discriminative knowledge — which roasts the seeds of the kleshas (causes of suffering), rendering them incapable of sprouting (VB II.2 & II.10).