What isn Yoga?
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 6 years before Feb 13, 2017
kreepamaya1951 6 years ago
What is the actual purpose of yoga practice? Who is the creator of yoga?
Where does Mother Durga, Lord Shiva and Lord Ganesh the elephant head god come into play in conjunction with the theory and practice of yoga.
Is yoga a primordial reality, or at onetime it was non-existent but later came into manifestation?
By the way, the question is: What is actual , and not What isn
MiBeloved 6 years ago
kreepamaya1951 query: What is the actual purpose of yoga practice?
MiBeloved's Response:
This is not a good question because it presumes that there is just one purpose given for yoga and there is only one definition for yoga. This is not true. There are several definitions.
From the ancient texts however there is a consensus that we can go to Patañjali for a definition and we can use the Bhagavad Gita.
Patañjali gives a definition which has a total of three major parts and the aim in the final part is the reunification of the core self with its purified highly energized psychic perception.
In the first part, Patañjali suggests there be no mental modifications for prolonged periods in meditation. That brings about a distinction between the core-self and its perception equipments. When this distinction is gained, the core self is then instructed to remain separate from the equipments, and this separation or segregation is called kaivalyam.
The objective of yoga for Patañjali is kaivalyam, either as core-self being separated from the impure perception equipments or as the core-self being unified with the purified perception equipments
Krishna on the other hand lists the purpose of yoga as being atma-vishuddha or the purification of the core self and its psychology.
This amounts to the same thing as Patañjali, except that Patañjali gave a more detailed breakdown.
=====================================
kreepamaya1951 query: Who is the creator of yoga?
MiBeloved's Response:
Traditionally in India, Lord Shiva is said to be the founder of yoga. His wife Durga is said to be his first student. It is said that the Siddha Matsyendranāth learned yoga from Lord Shiva only because Devi (Durga) was being instructed in it by Shiva and Matsyendranāth who was using a fish body, listened as Shiva was discussing it with Devi by a lake.
However Krishna is also said to be the founder of yoga, as in several incarnation has instructed others. Krishna also claimed to be the founder of the karma yoga process which was used by Arjuna after Arjuna heard the Bhagavad Gita.
=====================================
kreepamaya1951 query:
Where does Mother Durga, Lord Shiva and Lord Ganesh the elephant head god come into play in conjunction with the theory and practice of yoga.
MiBeloved's Response:
Ganesh Deva is usually not affiliated with yoga but his brother Karttikeya who is also known as Skanda or Kumara, is considered to be the maximum celibate yogi.
Mother Durga is also known as Devi, Umaa and Parvati. She is the first student in the successions which comes from Lord Shiva. But Lord Shiva has also taught numerous other mahāyogins.
The evidence of the mastership of yoga by Devi is given in the story when she wanted to have Shiva as a husband. She performed severe austerities such that her mother and aunts used to cry about it day and night without end. Umaa really means “Do not do it! Do not do it! Stop this!”
So her mother used to say that (Umaa! Umaa!) about the austerities and so Devi became known as Umaa.
Because she was successful in sense control, Shiva agreed to be her spouse.
In yet another incidence, once when Shiva was with Devi, Shiva used to say irritating things and then once he said something like this, “What is the matter with your complexion? You used to be golden colored and now you look blackish.”
Hearing this and taking it to be an insult, Devi left their residence and went into the mountains to perform austerities. She was determined not to assume any complexion which Shiva would ever criticize. As a result she shed off Kali (pronunciation Kaa-lee), the black parallel manifestation of her personality. Then she returned to Lord Shiva and had the golden complexion forever.
This is an interesting story in the light of the idea now of physicists that in another parallel universe what is happening here is contrary there and that if Kennedy was shot in this universe he was not killed in some other. So in one dimension, Devi has a golden complexion which Shiva prefers and in yet another, Devi has a blacking complexion and resents Shiva because it is not what he prefers.
In terms of the practice of yoga Shiva is considered to be the ultimate practitioner. In fact there is a story in the Puranas which goes like this:
When the supernatural people were first descended to this planet, they wanted to cause the manifestation of the ordinary human beings. Shiva was the leader of the supernatural people and every one of them looked to him for a signal to begin experimenting with producing human species.
Shiva told them to wait since he said he had to do some yoga austerities first. They agreed. Shiva entered a cave in Himalayas and Devi was with him even though she did not do any of the austerities. Shiva sat in lotus posture and entered samãdhi and remained in it for thousands of years.
The supernatural people came again and again to the cave to inquire if Shiva had resumed external consciousness but Devi repeatedly told them that his body was still alive but he was in samãdhi. Eventually the supernatural people got disgusted because thousands of years went by and still Shiva did not awake to direct them in how to produce human bodies.
They decided to begin the human creation which they did. After some years, Shiva finally came out of the samãdhi and he realized then and there that the creation of human was going full swing. He then broke off his genitals and threw it away. He said, “I have no need for this. The purpose for this was already fulfilled.”
=====================================
kreepamaya1951 query:
Is yoga a primordial reality, or at onetime it was nonexistent but later came into manifestation?
MiBeloved's Response:
This question is not clear.
Forget yoga, every other skill is eternally present in its potential form always. The manifestation of it in a person’s life varies from time to time from place to place. Yoga or anything else which we may develop, discover or be inspired to perform or instructed to perform is ever present.
Patañjali however has stated that there is a Supreme Person who taught yoga to the ancient mahāyogins but Patañjali did not give the name of that Deity. So Patañjali is of the opinion that yoga is known to the Godhead and that it is an ever-present information and skill.
neil 6 years ago
Kreepamaya1951, here are my answers to your questions:
1) In its original sense, the purpose of yoga is to reach samadhi - the ability to communicate with your True Self.
2) The creator of yoga is thought to be Maharishi Patanjali. No one really knows if Patanjali was one person or a number of people.
3) Durga, Shiva and Ganesha as well as Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kali and Hanuman are mythological Hindu deities. Their importance in yoga is to remind us of who we truly are. Each deity has a special meaning and a unique story for doing that. For example, Ganesh has many symbols on him and around him. He has one hand in the abhaya pose of protection and refuge and the second hand is holding a modaka which represents the sweetness of the realized inner self. The noose is a reminder that worldly attachments and desires are a noose. The goal is to prod man to the path of righteousness and truth. The pot belly of Ganesh signifies the bounty of nature. The mouse at the foot of Ganesh represents the mind which runs here and there and is hard to confine. The elephant head symbolizes auspiciousness, strength and intellectual prowess. The elephant is the largest and strongest of the forest yet he is gentle and loyal to his keeper and is greatly swayed if love and kindness are extended to him. He is a symbol of love and forgiveness. The large ears can sift the bad from the good. They can hear everything but retain only that which is good. The trunk symbolizes viveka (discrimination) - a very important characteristic for spiritual progress. The trunk of an elephant can push down large trees, carry huge logs and do other heavy tasks but can also pick of blades of grass and even paint pictures. The broken tusk represents the sacrifice he made to the sage Vyasa who wrote the Mahabharata. Ganesh broke the tip of his trunk off so that Vyasa could use it to write the epic poem.
4) Yoga is a very ancient practice. It probably originated over 5,000 years ago in Egypt. Many of the symbols, deities, practices have been discovered in the form of Egyptian writings and paintings dating back to well over 5,000 years. They could be as old as 35,000 years. It could be that the practice of yoga traveled down into India where it grew into the many different practices of yoga that we have today.
