Mircea Eliade YOGA IMMORTALITY AND ... - Brihaspati.net

solution of the Samkhya rejects the man outside of humanity, then that solution is
feasible only through the destruction of human personality. Yoga practices proposed by
Patan-jali have the same goal.
These solutions may seem soteriological "pessimistic" Western man, for whom the
personality remains, nevertheless, as the cornerstone of all morality and all mystical. But
for India, what matters most is not so much the safety of the person-ality as the obtaining
of absolute freedom. (Later we will see that the deep significance of this freedom leaves
far behind Western formulas more exaggerated, the Indian will, in effect, lawyers lir, in a
sense, the creation, reintegrating all forms in the primary unit). From the moment that this
freedom can-not be gained in the present human condition and that personality carries the
suffering and drama, it is clear which are the human condition and the "personality"
which should be killed. This sacrifice is, moreover, largely rewarded through conquest,
made it possible, for absolute freedom.
Obviously, one could argue that the sacrifice required is ex-inafter as for its fruit may still
have some interest. The human condition, whose disappearance is required, ino is actually
and yet, the only title of nobility of man? This eventual observation of Western man,
the Samkhya and Yoga respond in advance, stating, while not over-past the level of
psycho-mental life, man alone can pre-judge "states will be transcendental price the
disap-pearance of normal consciousness, any value Taxation with respect to such "states"
is automatically invalidated by reason only that he who utters it is defined by its own
conditions, that is an entirely different from that on which it wants to try.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PSYCHIC EXPERIENCE
Yoga begins where classical Samkhya ends. Patan-jali appropriates almost entirely on the
dialectics Samkhya, but does not believe that metaphysical knowledge can, by itself, lead
man to the supreme liberation. In fact, Gnosticism does nothing but prepare the ground
for the acquisition of freedom (mukti). The release must be conquered, so to speak,
thanks to a superior control, especially by an ASCE-cal technique and a method of
contemplation that are none other than the Yoga-darsana. The purpose of Yoga, such as
the Samkhya, is its "first normal consciousness in favor of an awareness of another
capacity, able to understand thoroughly the true metaphyseal music. However, the
suppression of consciousness is, for Yoga, easy to get. Besides the gnosis, the darsana
means also "a practice" (abhyasa) asceticism (tapas), in short: a physiological techniques,
which is a subsidiary of strictly psychological technique.
Patanjali defines Yoga as well the "Suppression of the states of conscience" (Yogah
cittavrttinirodhah, Yoga-Sutra, I, 2). Yo-gui The technique assumes, therefore, the
experiential knowledge of to-dos "states" that "wave" to a normal consciousness, profane,
unlit. These states of consciousness are unlimited. But they all fall into three categories,
corresponding to three possibilities of experience, respectively: 1) errors and illusionstions
(dreams, hallucinations, misperceptions, misunderstandings, etc.). 2) to all the
normal psychological experiences (all that feels, perceives or thinks the layman, who
does not practice yoga), 3 °) parapsychological experiences triggered by the technique
yogi and accessible only to initiates.
For Patanjali, to each of these "classes" (or categories) of experiences, it is a science or
science group, according to which regulates the experience, and force a re-experience the
limits assigned when it overdoes. The theory of knowledge, for example, as well as logic,