Darshan with Swami Krishnananda – 1997

by Swami Krishnananda

51. Yoga and Religions

(Darshan given on September 21, 1997)

A visitor: My question, Swamiji: Yoga started in Hinduism, and now, in India, how is it going with the other religions? Hinduism and other religions, how is it going? What is the relation with other religions?

Swamiji: Yes, it has got an impact on other religions also. Every religion has its impact, but different religions understand it in different ways. Yoga is not a religion. Religious people will understand it in a religious manner only. It is a system of discipline of human personality. A human being does not belong to any religion because even if no religion exists, a human being will exist. So we should assess the human individual in an impersonal manner with no association with any culture, religion, or any kind of background. But it is a very difficult thing to dissociate oneself from one's cultural background, language, community feeling, etc., without which the fruits of yoga will not be fully realised.

A student of yoga does not belong to any country. A student of yoga belongs to the whole universe. Otherwise, if there is a background of limitation of human personality in terms of language, religion and any kind of anthropological restrictions, it will act as an impediment in the practice of yoga. Yoga is concerned with the whole world, and the world does not consist of merely human beings. So, truly speaking, yoga is not just a human exercise. It is something more than human. It is a science of establishment of one's relationship with the world as a whole. It is ultimately an art of attunement with the world. Since the world is not just human in behaviour, the idea of limitations to human consciousness should be overcome, and we must expand our feeling of a larger unity with the world, which is impersonal in its nature.

Human beings are friends of some human beings and enemies of some other human beings, but the world is not a friend of anybody nor is it an enemy of anybody. So here is a difficulty in understanding the meaning of yoga. This difficulty should be appreciated seriously if one is honest in pursuing it to its in-depth implications. If these serious, rather super-individual and super-normal implications of yoga are not appreciated, yoga will end in just physical exercise and breathing. It will lead to nothing afterwards.

Visitor: If yoga is not merely exercise, if it is being one with the Universal Being, I think here in the Ashram it is not only exercise, and with this philosophy they are doing sadhana?

Swamiji: Correct. You have understood.

Another visitor: As far as I know, pranayama is connected with the body and the mind. Would you please explain to me in detail how it is connected with the mind and body.

Swamiji: The prana cannot move unless the mind moves. The mind is like the sun, and the prana is like the rays of the sun, so unless the mind is controlled, the mere practice of pranayama will not benefit you. An example is like a clock. Inside there is a mechanism, and outside there are pointers. These pointers are the prana, and the mechanism is the mind. People try to control the mind by control of prana. It is something like this. If you touch with your finger the pointer of the clock, the mechanism stops working. In the same way, so long as the breath is held, the mind will not work. The moment you lift your hand from the needle of the clock, it will start working once again, so by merely pressing the pointer, you have not controlled the mechanism. But if instead of pressing your finger on the pointer you press the cogwheels inside, in the centre, then the pointers will stop automatically. That is the connection between the two.

Another visitor: When we are doing meditation all together – some people are all together – at that time the condition of the mind and the body is similar with all the people? The meditational experiences, whatever experiences we get during meditation, whatever we feel, is it similar for all the people meditating together?

Swamiji: No, it is not similar. It will become similar only in the last stage. During the earlier stages of practice, everyone's experience will differ from everyone else's. When people go to the capital of India, Delhi, after reaching Delhi they will see the same thing, have the same experience, but on the way they can reach Delhi from twenty directions. On the way they will see different things, though in the end they will see the same thing. So in the final stage they will have the same experience, but in the beginning stages each will differ.