Raja Yoga Hints

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 3 years before Nov 23, 2016

MiBeloved 3 years ago

Meditation session this morning was productive but with super-subtle events which I cannot translate into verbal expression. When this happens, I will usually get around to speaking about it in a few weeks or months, when the subtle terrain becomes more visible.

If one suddenly comes out of a dark cave into full sunlight, one cannot see anything even though objects are about in every direction. Some advanced states of samadhi are such that one cannot make head or tail of the experience initially. Then, one does not know what really happened. One may be left with only a good feeling about it and nothing else.

Instead of saying that it is bliss, oneness, or a void, I prefer to wait and return again and again into the meditation, until clarity dawns.

One thing however which happened for sure which was a clairaudience and clairvoyance experience, was the sound of Lahiri Baba’s voice in my subtle head, where he spoke about how to translate raj yoga as those terms are used in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. I just began a translation and commentary of that book. As I translated, I felt as though he held my hand and was using it to write just as when one goes to the elementary school, and the teacher holds the hand when one was, say, about five years of age.

To teach one how to write letters, the teacher sometimes holds the hand.

According to the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the Hatha Yoga process was taught for the purpose of gaining proficiency in raja yoga. In that case what is raj yoga and what is hatha yoga?

If I should learn hatha yoga as a preliminary course in the mastery of raja yoga, then what is hatha yoga?

To write a word, one needs to have mastered writing the letters which form that word. Is that not so?

In trying to define hatha yoga in plain English, and in considerations of the meaning that was given by other writers, I began to hone in on karma yoga as it is explained in the Bhagavad Gita which is the application of yoga proficiency to cultural duties. The exemplary students of this were listed in the Bhagavad Gita with names like Manu and Ikshvaku who were kings.

Arjuna had yoga proficiency before he got to the Battlefield of Kurukshetra but he said he did not know how to apply that to duties as a prince, which in this case, was duties in violently disciplining corrupt government officials. Krishna explained the karma yoga process to Arjuna during the Gita Discourse.

I thought that maybe that was the same as raj yoga. There is also a statement made by Krishna about raja vidya in chapter 9 of the Bhagavad Gita.

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Sri Lahiri objected to that meaning. He then pointed in my mind to a memory of an experience I had recently, where while I was in naad sound, I noticed that the sensual energy was totally shut down in reference to its pursuits in this world. The energy was parked in my subtle head, like an aircraft which is parked in a hanger but which was retired for life due to total engine failure and obsolescence. Lahiri Guruji said that this state is the beginning of raja yoga. It is applied further when the student takes the pratyahar sensual energy withdrawal condition with him everywhere he goes.

Generally the aircraft is left with its engines running, just in case there is an emergency and it has to get somewhere in a hurry. But in this case the aircraft is left without even an engine attached to it. If there is an emergency the technicians will have to remount the engines and fire them up. The running-engines state is no longer the default condition of the plane.

Because the yogi’s senses are permanently shut down in reference to the material world, his mind is permanently focused into other levels of existence. That is the practice of raj yoga.

Samyama cannot happen unless one passes through the state of pratyahar sensual energy withdrawal (5th stage). If somehow the yogi can remain with the sensual energy restricted from their pursuits in the material world, then the result state of mind is a raj yoga condition.