Yoga is a living philosophy, one which provides us with a responsibility to make choices to ensure we live the greatest life we have the potential to. But at the very core of Yoga lies an even more foundational philosophy called Samkhya.
To understand the path of Yoga, the Seer must first understand the dualism of Samkhya philosophy.
Samkhya philosophy provides us with the dualistic perspective that all in existence consists of two separate entities of energy - Purusha, consciousness and Prakriti, the physical nature of energy. The duality of Samkhya philosophy implies that the Seer must transcend one, Prakriti, to achieve the other, Purusha, to attain Moksha, liberation, and thus enlightenment.
Purusha is the energy or consciousness which governs life and reality. Prakriti is the matter in which energy forms physical reality (the composition of all things). Prakriti evolves in response to Purusha, and its internal elements change further, leading to the formation of the Pancha Maha Bhutas, or the Five Great Elements. The physical universe we are familiar with comprises primarily the Pancha Maha Bhutas, namely, Akasha (Ether or Space), Vayu (Air), Agni (Fire), Jala (Water) and Prithvi (Earth).
The expression of Prakriti can be witnessed through the Gunas; Rajas, Tamas and Sattva. All gunas create attachment and thus bind one’s self to the ego. “When one rises above the three gunas that originate in the body; one is freed from birth, old age, disease, and death; and attains enlightenment” (Bhagavad Gita 14.20). While the yogi’s goal is to cultivate sattva, his or her ultimate goal is to transcend their misidentification of the self with the gunas and to be unattached to both the good and the bad, the positive and negative qualities of all life.
However, through the path of Yoga, the Seer begins to understand that the duality of Purusha and Prakriti is Maya, illusion, and the attainment of enlightenment is not a journey of transcendence but rather remembrance of the divine.
Samkhya philosophy, like Yoga and Tantra, is a living philosophy, encouraging the Seer to constantly evolve. The evolutionary stages occur when we first acknowledge and identify the existence of Purusha and Prakriti in ourselves, in all living beings, then in everything. This stage is like when the Seer acknowledges the waves which roll onto the shore. Then the Seer begins to feel the duality of Purusha and Prakriti, as though the Seer is standing among the waves and can feel the waves rolling through. The Seer then transcends the Gunas in which Prakriti is expressed, and reunites with the essence of Purusha, beyond the ego in which the Seer sees the vastness of the ocean. Finally, the Seer understands that Prakriti is simply an expression, the physical manifestation of Purusha, as though the Seer understands that the wave is the ocean, the Seer is the wave, the Seer is the ocean, and the Seer is the same energy as everything that is in existence.
The illusion is that we must transcend to become infinite, to become one with the divine. The remembrance, the reclamation, is when we remember we are the divine. We are God. And the divine lives in all things. Not only in all beings, but in all things. Then we love everything. That is the path to enlightenment.
We witness and understand in modern science the unity of Purusha and Prakriti. Einstein labeled this as energy and matter. His most notable discovery was that energy doesn’t begin nor end, energy is only transformed, and matter is simply transformed energy. Prakriti is matter, the physicality of transformed energy, energy being Purusha. The science of Quantum Physics expands this further, exploring the infinite capabilities of energy and matter.
The Seer must first overcome the psychology and physiology of the Gunas. Tamas, being the first Guna presented through Prakriti, represents inertia; the darkness, delusion and ignorance, bound to the ego as ignorance and obstruction. Rajas, being the second, represents our passions, desires and attachments of the ego, through activity. Finally, the Seer cultivates Sattva, truthfulness; the spiritual essence in which we experience the attachment to joy, knowledge and wisdom.
When we associate the Gunas with the Chakras of the Kundalini Shakti, Tamas represents the Muladhara, Rajas represents the Svadisthana and Manipura, and Sattva represents the Anahata and Vishuddhi Chakras. The Ajna and Sahasrara represent the transcendence of the Gunas, the remembrance of the nonduality of Purusha and Prakriti.
The Seer must remember that the Gunas of Prakriti is what creates our humanness, and our human lives came to formation as energy transformed into such humanness. Therefore, the human experience must not be bypassed. It must be lived. It must be felt. It must be learnt from and fully immersed in. This is the cultivation of Sattva.
As the Seer lives Sattvic, the Seer then has the vision of the nonduality of existence, and the limitless potential that life has to offer. The path of Yoga teaches us this. The path of Yoga provides us with the opportunity and responsibility to transcend, then remember. This is the unity in which Yoga translates to, Yuj.
Yuj is the Sanskrit word for Yoga, with its literal translation being that of unity. In the adept stages of Yoga, we learn to unite body, mind, breath and spirit. An advanced Yogi understands that this unity of body, mind, breath and spirit internalizes and externalizes the unity of all things, of all energy, and that energy being the expansion and embodiment of the divine.
This is the proper (Sam) knowing (Khya) in which Samkhya philosophy guides us to understanding and embodying.
Comments