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

you get the "meditation yogi," the dyana. Patanjali defines well the latter: "A unified
current of thought" (YS, III, 2) and Vyasa add to this definition the following gloss:
"Continuum of good faith attempts mental (pratyayasyaikatanata) to assimilate the object
of meditation, book ! of any other effort to assimilate other objects
(pratyayantarenaparamrsto). Vijnana Bhiksu (Yogasora-Samgraha, p. 45) explains this
process as follows: when, at the point where he has practiced Dharana, the spirit gets to
keep some time to himself, in the shape of the object of meditation, without any
interruption caused by the intrusion of another function, then you come to dhyana.
Bhiksu gives as an example the contemplation of another god Vishnu or one believes
lodged in the lotus of the heart .
It is superfluous to point out that this "meditation" yogi differs entirely from secular
meditation. First, the table of the normal psychomental experience, no continuum of mind
can acquire the density and purity which allow us to achieve the yogic procedures.
Second, secular meditation stops either in the outer shape of the objects on which you
meditate, and in value, while dhyana can "penetrate" to objects, "assimilate" its roots.
Behold, by way of example, the medi-tation yogi regarding the "fire", as is taught today
(meditation begins with concentration, Dharana, al-gunas on hot coals that are ahead of
Yogi), not regret that so-yogi reveals the phenomena of combustion and its deeper
meaning, but also allows you to: 1) identify the process physicochemical which operates
on the embers, the combustion process that takes place inside the human body 2) to
identify the solar fire with fire, and so on., 3) to unify the content of all these fires, in
order to obtain a vision of existence considered "fire", 4 °) to enter the interior of the
cosmic process, and to the astral level (the sun) and to the physiological level (human
body) as to the infinitesimal level (the particle of fire), 5 °) to reduce all these levels to a
pattern common to all, ie the prakrti considered "fire", 6 °) "dominate" the fire inside,
thanks to pranayama, upon cessation of respiration (respiration = fire of life), 7 °) finally,
extend, through a new "penis "treachery", the "domain", which is grilled in front of him
this time (because if the combustion process is identical across the entire universe,
everything "domain" part of this process leads to their in-fallibly "domain" total), and so
on.
In giving this description, close approximation of some of the exercises relating to the
"meditation with regard to fire, we had no pretensions to prize open the mechanism of
dhyana, we have been content to bring up some samples. Its more specific exercises,
moreover-and this should not surprise us-are indescribable. What is difficult to explain is
the act of "penetration" in the "Substance of Fire": we must not conceive of this act or as
a variety of poetic imagination or intuition of Bergson type. What clearly distinguishes
these two irrational impulses to "meditation" yogi, is its consistency, the state of clarity
that accompanies it and that leaves no advise it. Indeed, the "mental continuum" not ever
escape the control of the yo-gui. In no time this continuum is enriched laterally, through
uncontrolled associations, analogies, symbols, etc.. In no time, meditation is no longer an
instrument of penetration into the essence of things, ie finalme8nte, an instrument of
knowledge, "assimilation" of what real.8
THE ROLE OF Isvara
Unlike Samkhya, Yoga affirms the existence of a God, Isvara. This God, Let us
understand well, is not creative (for the Cosmos, life and man, as we have been "created"