Spiritual Message for the Day – The Fourfold Path by Sri Swami Chidananda
Baba Times Digest© | 15 January 2015 16.54 EST | New York Edition
Divine Life Society Publication: Lectures on Raja Yoga by Sri Swami Chidananda
Om! Om! Om!
The process of turning away from the finite, from the imperfect, the temporary, the passing and entering into a conscious connection with the Eternal, with the Divine, sums up the process of Yoga. How this can be done? Is there only one way or are there many ways? The answer to this is both. There is only one way, and there are many ways. And why this dual answer? There is only one way in the sense that all Yoga is movement towards the Divine, movement towards the Infinite, movement of the personal towards the Impersonal, of the individual towards the Universal, movement of man towards God. So, there is only one Yoga. But then, this movement can be accomplished through several levels of the human personality. This Godward movement, movement towards the Divine may be initiated and carried out through one of other, or, one or more of the powers, of the capacities, of the faculties that you possess. And depending upon which one of the faculty you make use of as a medium for bringing about Godward movement, movement towards the Reality, depending upon that faculty Yoga assumes a particular pattern and derives a particular name.
If you do this movement through philosophical speculation, you make use of your intellect and your power of reasoning as the medium of attaining the knowledge and experience of that Reality by diverting your consciousness as expressed through intelligence. Then you are a philosopher and the Yoga becomes what is known as Jnana Yoga, Jnana Yoga of the Vedanta Philosophy. And, instead of the intellect, if you make use of your feeling, your love potential, your ability to love, to exercise affection, devotion, sentimental and emotional aspect—this potential as your medium, then it becomes what is known as the Yoga of devotion or the path of love or Bhakti Yoga. And if you make use of the power of your thought, power of the mind, will to urge your entire inner being to resolutely move towards God or the Universal Consciousness, determined that you will not allow your mind to be divested or distracted in any way, then you become a Raja Yogin or the mystic who treads the path of contemplation, concentration and meditation. But in all these methods, though they make use of one or the other faculties that you are endowed with, they seek to work out the self-same process, the one identical movement. Therefore, Yoga is one in spite of being different according to the medium of your movement.
Why this movement? The single reason that God did not create man from the assembly line. God did not create him as a stereo-type. There are diverse temperaments. There is diverse nature, and also, some time diverse inclinations. One is inclined towards a particular path; even one’s nature has a balance of all these three ingredients in equal proportion, mind and will, intellect and rationality, devotion and love. Yet, by one’s inclination one may have a tendency towards one particular path. To suit all temperaments, all capacities and different tastes, diverse forms of a single, identical approach have been evolved in the ancient land of Yoga, without doing violence or altering the central fact of the spiritual essence, meeting needs arriving out of the diversity of human nature and taste. And among various paths, three main paths are just now mentioned. Approach through the intellect and rationality is Jnana Yoga, approach through devotion and love is Bhakti Yoga, and approach through mind and will is Raja Yoga.
In India, these different paths are based upon certain original source scriptures, certain definite authority, scriptures that were brought into being by those who had experienced the Reality. They were people who had not only experienced the Reality, but had become established in that Reality Consciousness permanently. So, they were adepts, they were perfect beings, the Masters of Wisdom. And they have left for the benefit of posterity, their Wisdom and hints about the methods in brief aphorisms. They are just hints and pointers. These aphoristic teachings have a certain logical unity. So, they formed one successive logical field of utterances making up one whole system. Therefore, they are called Sutras. Sutra is a thread that tied together, linked together. So they are not haphazard. These great Sutras are the Brahma Sutras, the most authoritative of all sources of aphorisms for the Vedantin or Jnana Yogin, the one who follows the path of knowledge; and the Bhakti Sutras of two great sages, Narada and Sandilya, the basic authority source for the expounding of the path of devotional philosophy.
Excerpts from: The Four-fold Path - Lectures on Raja Yoga by Sri Swami Chidananda
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