Spiritual Message for the Day – The Purpose of Yoga by Sri Swami Chidananda

Baba Times Digest© | 13 January 2015 15.45 EST | New York Edition

The Purpose of Yoga

Divine Life Society Publication: Lectures on Raja Yoga  by Sri Swami Chidananda

Om! Om! Om!

The purpose of Yoga is to try to restore to man his pristine state of perfect bliss; and this it does by liberating the human individual from his involvement in body, senses and mind. This involvement itself is the prime cause for keeping him away from itself, is the greatest obstacle to his attainment of that experience which the Yoga science says lies right here, present at this moment. To become liberated from the bondage of pain, thus bringing to an end the union of man’s nature with pain, is Yoga. How is this cessation of pain brought about by uniting the consciousness with that which is of the nature of Bliss? And that factor which is of the nature of pure bliss is called the Self; is called Brahman; is called God; is called Allah; is called Isvara, the Thing-In-Itself, Ahuramazda. It is the Deity. It is the Universal Soul, the Cosmic Reality, the Eternal Divine Principle which is the Alpha and Omega of all beings, which is the origin and fulfilment of this and all that exist. To bring into a state of oneness with it, relate yourself to it and achieve a perfection of relationship with it, is Yoga. And to achieve this end, you will have to carefully withdraw your involvement in the passing, the finite, the limited, the non-eternal. This is a condition, is a prerequisite. Yoga teaches both—how to sever your connection to the non-eternal and how to enter into that connection to the eternal, the all-perfect, the infinite. Yoga teaches that both these aspects are two in one, that is, uniting yourself with the Divine and thus attaining the Bliss which you seek in vain in finite, earthly objects. That is Yoga. That is the purpose of Yoga. The process of Yoga is the turning away from that which is characterised by sorrow, by pain and which is perishable, destructible in its nature.

Excerpts from: The Purpose of Yoga - Lectures on Raja Yoga  by Sri Swami Chidananda

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