Buddhi Yoga / The Need For It
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Jul 18, 2016
MiBeloved 3 years ago
The first yoga to be discussed and taught in the Bhagavad Gita is buddhi yoga. This is not the main yoga of the Gita. There the main yoga is what Krishna termed as mat karma, his way of action, which was karma yoga. Bhagavad Gita was intended to give the course of karma yoga, which Krishna considered to be lost to the people of the time.
In the Gita Krishna claimed that he originally taught this karma yoga to a set of legendary kings, one of which was Manu. Karma yoga, Krishna said, was his personal yoga.
Before one begins to research what karma yoga is one should bear in mind, and keep this handy, that according to Krishna it was something which was taught to ancient kings, who in turn taught it to their sons. This was a yoga process which was applied to politicians and politicians only. Arjuna was a warrior prince, a politician.
Now the amazing thing is that even though karma yoga is the main thrust of the Gita, still Krishna begins the discourse in chapter two by explaining buddhi yoga.
Does this mean that buddhi yoga is just another name for karma yoga?
The answer is that buddhi yoga is not karma yoga but the mastership of buddhi yoga is required for expertise in karma. Recently I found that karma yoga has come to mean much besides what it is described as in the Bhagavad Gita where it was taught to a warrior prince for application of yoga to military confrontation.
How many of those who say they are karma yogis, have mastered buddhi yoga?
For that matter how many even know that buddhi yoga is taught in chapter 2 of Bhagavad Gita. How many of them even care about that?
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Buddhi yoga is the application of yoga insight into fully controlling and curing the buddhi, which is the psychic intellect organ in the subtle body. If this organ is not curbed then yoga cannot even begin according to Patanjali. In his second sutra he declared:
Yogah cittavritti nirodhah, which I translated as
The skill of yoga is demonstrated by the conscious non-operation of the vibrational modes of the mento-emotional energy.
Thus according to Patanjali a demonstration of yoga begins with the cessation of the vibration modes which occurs in the mind space. To do this one has to quell the buddhi and the kundalini.
The five vrittis or vibration operations are listed by Patanjali as
Correct perception
Incorrect perception
Imagination
Memory
Sleep
The first three are the direct activities of the buddhi intellect orb.
The fourth which is memory is subtle chamber of energy which may be called the subconscious as that term is used in modern psychology.
This memory cannot create an influence except by linking its energy into the buddhi intellect orb. This means that it cannot operate without the buddhi orb’s support for illustrating its impressions.
The fifth vritti which is sleep is the facet of the kundalini life force psychic survival mechanism. This sleep is outside of the range of the intellect. Therefore the yogi has to deal with the kundalini sleeping needs separately.
In a sense buddhi yoga includes kundalini yoga, because if kundalini is not mastered, the self cannot master the buddhi because those two adjuncts when unified are a formidable power which can upset the ruling profile of the spiritual self.
Everything we do in the material world which involves mastering this environment is a demonstration of an operation of the buddhi intellect orb. However the problem is that such use of the orb is mostly against our spiritual interest. It further postpones self-realization.
What we call history is really buddhi lila, or intellectual planning and the resulting manifestation of such plans. The more we use the buddhi intellect, the more the spiritual self gets less and less control over the buddhi. It is dominated instead by that intellect organ.
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The life of Alexander the Great, especially the part of his life after he conquered the Persian Empire and moved on to conquer rulers in the East, is a classic example of this buddhi lila. At the end of his life after dominance of such a vast territory, Alexander was still not satisfied.
He had with the help of the intellect outmaneuvered and outwitted every ruler in those areas and still he was not satisfied. But everything he achieved is in the range of unrestricted intellect usage without control of the very same intellect.
Patanjali was against the use of this analytical organ. As a blueprint is the basis for an architectural wonder, so the buddhi intellect organ was the underbelly of Alexander’s conquest. For yoga one should stop putting up wonderful buildings and turn inwards to deal with the craftsman which is the buddhi intellect orb. Patanjali goes so far as to suggest that the craftsman should be permanently dismissed, thus making no more blueprints.
Alfredo 3 years ago
It seems that Descartes got it all wrong when he pronounced: "I think, therefore I am".
