RAJA YOGA
Excerpts from writings by Paramahansa Yogananda
Eight Steps in Raja Yoga (Ashtanga Yoga)
Raja Yoga, the royal way of God-union, is the science of actual realization of the kingdom of God that lies within oneself. Through practice of the sacred yoga techniques of interiorization received during initiation from a true guru, one can find that kingdom by awakening the astral and causal centers of life force and consciousness in the spine and brain that are the gateways into the heavenly regions of transcendent consciousness. One who achieves such awakening knows the omnipresent God in His Infinite Nature, and in the purity of one's soul, and even in the delusive cloaks of changeable material forms and forces.
Patanjali, India's foremost ancient exponent of Raja Yoga, outlined eight steps to be followed for ascension into the kingdom of God within.
1. Yama
- moral conduct: abstaining from injury to others, falsehood, stealing, incontinence, and covetousness.
2. Niyama
- purity of body and mind, contentment in all circumstances, self-study (contemplation), and devotion to God.
These first two steps yield self-control and mental calmness.
3. Asana
- disciplining the body so that it can assume and maintain the correct posture for meditation without fatigue or physical and mental restlessness. More...
4. Pranayama
- techniques of life-force control that calm the heart and breath and remove sensory distractions from the mind.
5. Pratyahara
- the power of complete mental interiorization and stillness resulting from withdrawal of the mind from the senses.
6. Dharana
- the power to use the interiorized mind to become one-pointed concentrated upon God in one of His aspects through which He reveals Himself to the inward perception of the devotee.
7. Dhyana
- meditation deepened by the intensity of concentration (dharana) that gives the conception of the vastness of God, His attributes as manifested in His endless expansion of Cosmic Consciousness.
8. Samadhi, union with God
- the full realization of the soul's oneness with Spirit. [ More... ]
All devotees may find the door to the kingdom of God by concentrating on the spiritual eye, the Christ Consciousness center at the point between the eyebrows. Long and deep meditation as taught by a true guru enables one gradually to convert the consciousness of the material body into that of the astral body, and with the awakened faculties of astral perception to intuit deeper and deeper states of consciousness until one reaches oneness with the Source of consciousness. Entering the door of the spiritual eye, one leaves behind all attachments to matter and the physical body and gains access into the interior infinitudes of God's kingdom.
The tissues of the physical body are made up of cells; the tissue of the astral body is composed of lifetrons-intelligent units of light or life energy. When man is in a state of body attachment, characterized by tension or contraction of life energy into atomic components, the lifetrons of the astral body become compacted, circumscribed by identification with the physical form. By metaphysical relaxation, the lifetronic structure begins to expand - the grip of the flesh on one's identity loosens. By deeper and deeper meditation, the energy frame of the astral self expands beyond the boundaries of the physical body. The lifetronic body, being of a sphere of existence unconfounded by the delusional stricture of the three-dimensional physical world, has the potential to become one with the Cosmic Energy pervading the whole universe. God as Holy Ghost, Holy Vibration, is the Light of Cosmic Energy; man, made in the image of God, is composed of that light. We are that Light compacted; and we are that Light of our Universal Self.
As a first step toward entering the kingdom of God, the devotee should sit still in the correct meditation posture, with erect spine, and tense and relax the body - for by relaxation the consciousness is released from the muscles. The yogi begins with proper deep breathing, inhaling and tensing the whole body, exhaling and relaxing, several times. With each exhalation all muscular tension and motion should be cast away, until a state of bodily stillness is attained. Then, by concentration techniques, restless motion is removed from the mind. In perfect stillness of body and mind, the yogi enjoys the ineffable peace of the presence of the soul. In the body, life is templed; in the mind, light is templed; in the soul, peace is templed. The deeper one goes into the soul the more that peace is felt; that is superconsciousness. When by deeper meditation the devotee expands that awareness of peace and feels his consciousness spreading with it over the universe, that all beings and all creation are swallowed up in that peace, then he is entering into Cosmic Consciousness. He feels that peace everywhere - in the flowers, in every human being, in the atmosphere. He beholds the earth and all worlds floating like bubbles in that ocean of peace.
The inner peace first experienced by the devotee in meditation is his own soul; the vaster peace he feels by going deeper is God. The devotee who experiences unity with everything has established God in the temple of his infinite inner perception. (The Second Coming of Chirst by Paramahansa Yogananda, p.1182)
The Yoga Paths
He who with devotion absorbs himself in Me, with his soul immersed in Me, him I regard, among all classes of yogis, as the most equilibrated.
—The Bhagavad Gita VI:47
Various methods and bypaths are termed yoga: Karma Yoga (the path of good actions); Jnana Yoga (the path of discrimination); Bhakti Yoga (the path of prayer and devotion); Mantra Yoga (the path of God-union by chanting and incantations of seed sounds); Laya Yoga (the path that teaches how to dissolve the ego in the Infinite); and Hatha Yoga (the path of bodily discipline). Raja Yoga, specifically Kriya Yoga, is the quintessence of all yoga paths, the path especially favoured by royal sages and great yogis in ancient India.
Here the Lord is emphasizing that the raja yogi or Kriya Yogi who with devotion withdraws his life force and mind from the body, and who unites his ego with his soul and his soul with the ever blessed Spirit, and who can maintain constant ecstasy with the Infinite equally during action and during meditation, is the highest of all yogis. Such great devotees do not remain "locked up" always in ecstasy, refusing to take part the drama of life created by the Lord; they perform their duties and their God-reminding actions with blissful consciousness, under divine direction. Being supremely united to God, such a yogi maintains the poise or equilibrium of yoga (divine union) equally in ecstatic meditation and in dutiful activity. (God Talks With Arjuna by Paramahansa Yogananda, p. 659)
Raja Yoga
Raja Yoga, the royal way of God-union, is the science of actual realization of the kingdom of God that lies within oneself. Through practice of the sacred yoga techniques of interiorization received during initiation from a true guru, one can find that kingdom by awakening the astral and causal centers of life force and consciousness in the spine and brain that are the gateways into the heavenly regions of transcendent consciousness. One who achieves such awakening knows the omnipresent God in His Infinite Nature, and in the purity of one's soul, and even in the delusive cloaks of changeable material forms and forces.
The true state of meditation is oneness
of the meditator
with the object of meditation,
God.