Abandon Hope (February 2023, Part 1)

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Buddhism and Yoga

A traveling Vedanta monk once said to me, “Do good, be good — that is the essence of all religion.”

This, of course, is an oversimplification. Morality is a very necessary preliminary to true religion, but it has been likened to the steps leading to a bridge. While the steps are essential, it is the bridge that carries one
across.

In the West we have come to look on religious thinking as a call to higher morality: be “good” and your reward
will be heaven, be “bad” and you will go to hell. The
preacher, in their Sunday sermon, is against sin, though sin
is often a matter of geography. Suffice it to say, we should
obey the commandments or the precepts. That is about all they
can expect from us. If we are devout, we may follow
certain established rituals, which will certainly impress our subconscious. If not, we can rest secure in anticipation of a
future life not too unpleasant, as we feel we have been pretty
good in our present life.

There are two three-step religions that want adherents to
go far beyond this simple formula and have as their aim the actual manifestation of divinity in the form of enlightenment or true realization. They are Yoga and
Buddhism.

Of course, Yoga (true Yoga, not what has generally been sold
in the West) is a science. Certain causes will produce certain effects. But it is also a religion if we define religion as concern with ultimates though not
theistically inclined.

The great Patanjali is generally thought of as the father
of Yoga, though he was not its founder. Yoga precedes written or remembered history. His Yoga Sutras
are the Bible of Yoga, and in them he has organized this practice, belief, or religion (take your pick) into three parts that make up the Kingly Yoga called Raja. These three parts are divided into eight steps, which cover about all the known practices of Indian Yoga. The three parts are:

1) The preliminary — moral: the two prerequisites for successful Yogic practice are yama and niyama, which have to do with conduct, attitude, and inquiry.

2) The outer — physical disciplines, which are three: asana (posture, sometimes thought of as exercise in the West), pranayama (the science of prana, all energy and often associated with the breath), and pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from their fields of action, a transmutation of psychic energy).

3) The superconscious state: concentration, meditation (dhyana), and samadhi.

One practicing Yoga, with ultimate union as their goal — the true purpose of Yoga, from which we get “yoke,” meaning to bind together — must certainly start with the idea of non-injury (physical, psychological, and any other kind) to all beings. This implies truthfulness and other standards of conduct, not so much for purely moral reasons as for the effect such actions have on the mental processes. Habit energies formed by negative actions lead us more deeply into the realms of illusion, which is bondage. And this is what we are struggling against. From darkness into light is our aim. Purification of the nervous system is a must. Harmful actions, mental or physical, which leave their stain on the mind and psyche must be dispensed with for our own good.

There is no promise of a lasting heaven in Yoga. We expect to come back to this suffering life again and again until some wisdom dawns and we begin to follow the way that will grant us release. The way to this release involves a retracing of steps we have taken. The great sage, Ramana Maharshi, advised: “Go back the way you came.” When causes are annulled, the effects will drop away.

We are literally the habit energies and tendencies (vasanas and samskaras in Sanskrit) that we have built up through many lives, says Yoga. By dimming and erasing these, we nullify the effects that inevitably flow from them. If we want to remake the world, we remake ourselves. Yoga leads to vairagya, which is detachment and dispassion. Relative desirelessness is a necessary end, because desire sets in motion the chain of circumstances leading to mental habit patterns, vasanas. Patanjali defines Yoga as “the restriction of mental modifications,” and this must be understood as not-making new habit patterns, the all-powerful vasanas.

Cont. on page 12-13