An Introduction to the Philosophy of Yoga

by Swami Krishnananda

The object of meditation is the degree of reality aligned to our state of being. This is a sentence which may appear like an aphorism. We have to meditate only on that which is the exact counterpart of our present level of knowledge and comprehension. There should not be any mistake in the choice of the object. If the object is properly chosen, the mind will spontaneously come under control. The restlessness and the resentment of the mind is due to a wrong choice that is made in the beginning. Often we are too enthusiastic and try to go above our own heads. The mind is not prepared to accept such a sudden revolution which is beyond not only its comprehension but also its present needs or necessities.

There may be many good things in the world, but they may not all be necessary for us. It should not mean that merely because something is grand and great, it should be the proper thing for us all. A thing may be, on the other hand, small and insignificant, but it may be just the thing that we need, and we should not be under the impression that it is a small, petty thing. Often we are happy over petty things, and they cease to be petty when they become our needs, and then they assume an importance. There should be an exercise of proper discrimination; the true rationality of ours has to take possession of us and free us from unnecessary emotions and sentimental exuberances of any kind.

Spiritual seekers are certainly after God. This is very well known. But we must know who is our God. God is the fulfilling counterpart of the present state of our evolution. Anything that is capable of making us complete is our God. Anything that allows us to remain partial is not going to satisfy us. That which completes our personality in any manner, in any degree of its expression, is to be considered as our necessity, and teachers like Patanjali, who were great psychologists, have taken note of this important suggestion to be imparted to students.

We are not asked to jump at once to the great theological doctrines of the creator of the cosmos. That would go above our minds. The teachings remain merely as theories and gospels in books. We have internal necessities of a peculiar nature. We have psychological hungers and thirsts which project themselves from our feelings, apart from the hunger and thirst of the physiological system. The mind, too, hungers and thirsts. Emotions also hunger and thirst. Sentiments hunger and thirst, and whatever we are made of has its own hunger and thirst. We cannot regard these as devils that have to be exorcised and thrown out. Such a mistake is not to be committed in the scientific approach called yoga meditation. The more are we cautious, the greater is the chance of our success. The more are we emotional and miss the point, the greater is the chance of reversion and retrogression and a feeling of failure.

Our problems are our desires, and they have to be tackled in a very careful way. Some of them may have to be fulfilled immediately. One may be having a very strong urge from within to have a cup of tea, for instance, and then one should not be stupid enough to say "I am a spiritual seeker, I am not going to take this cup of tea", even when the impulse is annoying. So is the case with medicines, when one is ill. Some of the desires are simple, harmless, physiological and have to be fulfilled in a systematic manner - not with the intention of indulging in them but with the higher purpose of subduing them. Sublimation of desires is to be distinguished from a suppression or repression of them, because the latter is harmful to one's wholesome growth.

There are other desires which are either meaningless or impossible of attainment, and they have to be sublimated with the strength of understanding. They have no sense, practically, and are just crotchets of the head of a person. But these are more difficult things to understand than the ordinary, simple desires. These idiosyncrasies, as we may call them, are harder things to tackle because they are more internal than these external appearances of the normal desires. They are part of our sentiments, emotions, or ego and here we require an expert guidance from a master, a teacher, who has to act not only as a physician but as a psychotherapist in the above circumstances.

The more internal we go, the greater is the need we will feel for guidance outwardly. One may look all right and not feel the need for any kind of assistance from others. But the internal forces are more difficult to subdue and handle. They are impetuous, uncontrollable. The desires which are of this character have to be sublimated with a great analytical understanding by the study of scriptures, resort to holy company, isolation and self-investigation, and methods of this nature. Thus, and in these similar ways, we have to check up the strings which connect us with the world. They cannot be snapped suddenly; they can only be thinned out so that they break later on due to the feebleness of these threads.

One cannot cut off a strong bond, just as one cannot sever a limb of one's body, or peel one's own skin. The desires are so much part of oneself that they can only be compared to the limbs of one's body and to remove them at one stroke with violence would be something unimaginable. Desires which are forcefully cast out like devils can work havoc afterwards, because they are actually driven down to the unconscious. They are not cast outside in space, as one imagines. They are pushed inside, which is still worse. Unfulfilled desires are not going to keep quiet and live in the space outside. They go inside and remain in a seed form and may manifest themselves when there is suitable rainfall, and then they sprout and germinate into living creepers once again; and even after years and years, nay, even after births, they can demand satisfaction.

Desires are like creditors, who cannot simply be shunted off with a 'no'. They are to be paid their dues, either by an actual disbursement of their parts, or by a reconciliation with them in some intelligent manner. The object of meditation is not necessarily the highest God of the universe, at once, in the beginning itself, though we may call our object of meditation as our God, for the time being. This concept of the degrees of reality or the necessity to consider the object of meditation as a deity in itself under every degree of manifestation has led to the notion of the many gods of religion. Often we say that some religions are polytheistic since so many gods are there. There are, in fact, not many gods. They are only the necessary acceptances on the part of the individual of degrees in the concept of reality. They are not many gods, but the many stages of acceptance. It does not, however, mean that the one God has many degrees. There are no partitions in the existence of the Absolute. But there appear to be partitions distinguishable one from the other in the degrees of concept because of the distinguishing layers existing in our own psychic personality. The degrees are in us and not in the reality.

There are not, actually, degrees of reality, as it is sometimes thought. There are degrees in the consciousness of reality, degrees of the perception of reality, degrees of our capacity to understand the nature of reality. So, the gods come into existence and our God can be anything that attracts us as an absolutely essential item under the conditions in which we are placed. When one is seriously ill, a particular medicine may be required, though that medicine has nothing to do with one's spiritual life, apparently. But it is not true. Anything that sustains one and enables one to live a wholesome life is God revealed in one degree.

One cannot say easily what is spiritual and what is unspiritual, if one only goes deep into things. All is a question of understanding the relevance that a particular thing has with our mind, our consciousness, our being as a whole. In the Sutras connected with the subject, Patanjali gives suggestions for varying types of concentration on the requirements of the seeker under different conditions.

When one is in these stages of the choice of the object of meditation, one requires guidance from someone who is competent, who has trodden the path, who knows the pitfalls, who has seen the difficulties and known the remedies for the problems. The seeker is treading an unknown path, a path whose future is completely out of sight; he cannot know what is ahead of him, and therefore, the need for guidance and timely instruction and assistance of a personal nature, from a Guru.

A Guru is not a professor or a schoolmaster. He is intimately related to the disciple's very existence. People have many Gurus these days, but that is not what we mean by a real Guru. One who has spiritually taken charge of the soul of the disciple is the Guru, and not merely one who gives an intellectual instruction and goes away. Tradition considers the relation between the Guru and the disciple to be a perpetual one until the salvation of the soul is reached. The Guru helps, not merely in this life, but even in the future life, because the relationship is not social. It is not even merely psychological; it is spiritual.

The choice of the object of meditation, to come to the point again, is an important aspect of the very beginning of spiritual life. This choice is the initiation that the disciple receives from the teacher. What is called initiation in the mysteries of the practice of yoga is nothing but the initiation of one's spiritual being into the technique of tuning oneself to that particular deity, the form of God, or the object which is going to be one's target at the present moment. This is a secret by itself and the teacher will teach it to the disciple. The object of meditation should satisfy the student; that is why it is called 'ishta devata' (loved deity). The 'ishta' is that which is desirable, beautiful, attractive, required, that which attracts one's love and one's whole being. One pours one's self into it. One likes it so much that one cannot like anything else as much as that. 'Ishta' is the beloved. 'Devata' is deity. It is a deity because it is one's God. It is that thing which one really requires, so that without it one cannot exist.