Below is an excerpt from 2001 published The Art and Science of Raja Yoga by Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters） with small edit for the purpose of clarity to audience.
Yoga is quite possibly the most ancient science known to man. Seals depicting human figures in various yoga postures have been unearthed in the Indus Valley, where the findings date back more than 5000 years. A tendency in our age is for people to esteem a thing in proportion to its newness. Unless a proposition can be represented as a “new scientific break-through,” it is unlikely to be considered worthy of adult attention. Thus it is that while ancient traditions are sometimes viewed with a certain condescending amazement, no effort is spared to “update” them. What point is served by looking back to the origins of this science in what was, we have been told, the merest dawn of civilization? Until the student understand this point, he may feel tempered to “adjust” the yoga teachings at every turn to suit his own fancy.
Yoga is a firm tradition, expounded in many ancient documents, and defended in all seriousness right to the present day by every one of India’s great teachers, that high civilizations have existed at various times in the past, and that mankind has repeatedly attained, and fallen from, far greater heights of knowledge than we have reached so far in our civilization. The science of yoga is believed to have been handed down from such a high age. Fascinating evidence keeps appearing in support of the hypothesis that man has possessed advanced knowledge in times past. Stonehenge in England, huge, round boulders arranged in geometrical patterns that can be discerned only from high-flying airplanes on the west coast of north and South America; evidence of expert planning, including a sophisticated sewage system and radiant heating in the homes, in cities in the Punjab that abandoned 5000 years ago; huge steps, apparently carved by man into solid rock, and leading down to great depths in the Atlantic ocean off the norther coast of puerto Rico; domesticated grains, developed in ancient times, evidence of an agricultural skill quite possibly more advanced than our own; there are ancient , supposedly mythological accounts of flying vehicles, even of interplanetary travel.
It is only the more perceptive people even in our sophisticated age who recognize that all things, no matter how diverse, reflect an underlying unity. A loaf of bread is not essentially different from a stone, both being manifestations of energy. it is this thought that forms the very basis of yoga, the actual meaning of which is “union.” It is the stated aim of this science to take the practitioner (or yogi) to an awareness, not only of the underlying unity of all things, but also of his own essential identity with this deeper reality. …. Unlike the usual primitive observance of totems and taboos – unlike even the devotion to unproved, if beautiful, abstractions on the part of Western philosophers – yoga has always insisted on positive proof of its premises. Like modern science, its approach has always been pragmatic, even if in its pragmatism it has penetrated to regions far subtler than any yet contemplated by the physical sciences.
Yoga specifically emphasize on energy (prana) as the fundamental reality of physical matter. Simple person might, conceivably, imagine a sort of poetic kinship between himself and the rocks and trees. But that all the forms of nature are merely energy in different illusory manifestations would be, for hims, unthinkable. Science itself has only recently attained this understanding. The ancient traditions of yoga are every bit as specific. It would be well for the beginning yoga student to bear these facts in mind, not to venture out to do any “update” based on his unperfected understanding of yoga tradition.
There is an ancient manuscript in india that has survived to this day, in which the lives of many thousand, perhaps millions, of people were recorded in detail – a fact that assumes astounding proportions when one learns that most of these people had not yet been born. Many of them, in fact, would live on earth only after thousands of years. I (Swami Kriyananda) found my own life accurately described – even to my correct name and birthplace – in this work, including predictions of future events that have since come to pass…… I (Kriyananda) have described this discovery in a booklet of mine, India’s Ancient Book of Prophecy, which includes a detailed discussion of further points that I (Kriyananda) have only touched on here. What knowledge did those ancient possess that made possible such amazing prophecies?
The great yogis of India long ago claimed that human enlightenment depends only partly on the mechanical make-up of the brain and the quality of information that is introduced into it. Most important, they said, is the energy itself flowing through the complex circuit of cerebral nerves. if this energy-flow is weak, no amount of crammed information can result in great and original ideas. this energy-flow can be strengthened by self-effort in two ways: blockages in the nevers can be eliminated, and the flow of energy itself can be increased. Both of these ends may be accomplished by the diligent practice of yoga. …the strength of this energy-flow depends also on certain external factors. Our environment, the company we keep – these aids will be readily recognizable; it is for these reasons that great saints have always stressed the importance of satsanga (good company) and of living in spiritual environments.
Swami Sri Yukteswar, my (Kriyananda) own guru’s guru, and a profound astrologer as well as one of the great masters of yoga of modern India, explained that our sun completes one complete revolution around its dual every 24000 years. He said we reached the farthest point from our galactic center in the year 499 A.D. We are now once again on an upward cycle, and have entered the second of four ages – Dwapara Yuga, the age of anomic discovery, lasting a total of 2400 years – which he said began in 1699 A.D. (Astrologically speaking, then, 2000 ought to be called the year 300, Dwapara).
The science of yoga was born in an age when mankind as a whole was more enlightened, and could easily grasp truth for which our most advanced thinkers are still only groping. (Kriyananda refer here to ordinary, worldly, men, whose sole means of achieving understanding are the clumsy tools of logic, and not to those great saints and yogis who in any age are fully enlightened from within.) The perception of truth is not something to be built up from generation to generation, like money in a bank. it is not dependent on an acquisition of ourward knowledge. Truth is eternal. man can perceive it; he can not create it. Once his perception is keen enough to behold Absolute Truth, he will partake of a reality that all share who attain the same vision.
The great religions have come to man from those regions. The greatest spiritual teachers in all times have spoken from that vision. it is worldly people who, because they see the world through a filter of their own ideas and emotions, distort everything, including religion, with their personal prejudices. The endeavor of great teachers always is to bring man back to central, eternal realities. If man strays too far south, they tell him to go north. of then he makes a dogma of moving northward, straying too far in that direction, they tell him he must go south. Those who were told to go south will quarrel with the others who were told to go north, but only because both groups are blind to the fact that all their teachers wanted them to do was find the spiritual “equator”, the center of their own being. It is this teaching which constitutes the true tradition for religions; it is for this reason alone that great teachers uphold the old traditions. …. Perfected yogis have shown a deeper concern than anyone else to preserve yoga’s central traditions.
The history of yoga, then must begin with its origins in the vision of great masters in ancient times. later masters of this science are important to us now, not for what they did to improve on the ancient teachings, but for what they did to preserve them. As divine truths, the teachings of every true master are eternal, and as worthy to be considered scripture as the writings of the most ancient sage. As history, however, their special interest lies in how they clarified what now have become archaic distortions of tradition, or in how they emphasized aspects of tradition which the people of their times were prepared to understand.
The most important thing for man to remember is that he must receive enlightenment; he can not manufacture it…… the purpose of yoga, is to open the windows of the mind, and to awaken every cell of the body and brain to reflect and magnify the energy that comes to it from the surrounding universe. ( a comparison might be drawn to modern transistor radios which, because of their efficiency, can pick up programs where, a few years ago, nothing, so small would have been able to get a sound.)
As you pursue your yoga practices, remember that your aim must be to become spiritually completely open, to receive. Never hurry. Never strain. Feel that what you do is, in a sense, being done through your body, by your willing cooperation with divine forces. The practice of each individual must be directed, not toward outward appearances and display, but inward to the center of his own being. Every posture must be an affirmation of, and must be followed by a return to, the divine Self within.
….The main purpose of yoga postures, …… is to prepare the body and mind for meditation. In the truest possible sense, meditation is yoga’ laboratory and the primary means by which we test the truth of its teachings. The book Art and Science of Raja Yoga, gives us direct access to the inner world of Spirit…. To prepare for the practice of meditation, the course offers numerous preliminary exercises that help us make the transition from the outer world of activity to the inner world of stillness. We learn how to let go of worries, physical and mental tension, and to focus the mind – skills that are helpful not only for meditation but equally in our daily lives.
Meditation requires also what Kriyananda calls a “complete revolution” in “what are commonly looked upon as normal human attitudes.” That is, “The competitive drive, for instance, implies an assumption that success must always be exclusive, even to the extent of being determined by other people’s failure …. Such an attitude will thwart the most earnest of efforts to progress in meditation, for it will pit one against the universe instead of harmonizing him with it. Right attitude is essential to right meditation. The “right attitudes” referred to by Kriyananda are the universal moral principles of yoga, the yamas (the don’ts) and niyamas (the do’s). “The first step in the development of right attitude is to learn to see others not as rivals, but as friends … the goals of yoga is to realize the oneness of all life. If I am willing to hurt the life in me as it is expressed in another human being, then I am affirming an error that is diametrically opposed to the realization I am seeking to attain. It is necessary if I would truly realize the oneness of all things, for me to live also in a way as constantly to affirm this oneness – by my kindness toward all beings, by compassion, by universal love.”
……..
If you are interested to learn more about my research work in Yoga, meditation, Chinese Alternative medicine theory, spiritual practices, deep psychology, astrology, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, metaphysics and philosophy, welcome to join my study/practice group. A sale is going on now! Membership for beginning group start at $7.99/monthly, My paypal account is @PolarisYogaStudio.
