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

the heart of the thinking in-given: for three years was, in turn, sdnscrito our teacher, our
teacher and our guru. / What all three rest in peace in their faith!
We started the preparation of this new issue for some time, but we had not been carried
out without the help of happy circumstances.
By agreeing on a research fellowship for the Bollingen Foundation, New York, allowed
us to dedicate ourselves for several years to this book: that the directors of the foundation
receives mds here my sincere gratitude. Thanks to our dear friends, Dr. Rene Laforgue
Laforgue and Delia, we could, since 1951, work-jar in unexpected conditions, have
secured our deep gratitude mds. Finally, we feel particularly obliged to our great friend,
Dr. Jean Gouillard who, this time also, wanted to read and correct the French manuscript
of this work, it's a real pleasure for us to express our recognition.
Mircea Eliade
Paris, 15 September 1954.
DOCTRINES CHAPTER ONE YOGA
STARTING POINT
Four key concepts and supportive, four "key ideas", we immediately introduced in the
heart of Indian spirituality: karma, maya, nirvana, and yoga. You can write a coherent
his-tory of Indian thought on the basis of any of these fundamental concepts or "powerful
ideas" inevitably forced oars sees us talking about the other three. In terms of Western
philosophy, we will say that since the post-Vedic era, India has been covered mainly
include: 1) the law of universal causation, the man who sympathizes with the cosmos and
condemns him to transmigrate indefinitely; is the law of karma, 2) to the mysterious
process that creates and sustains the Cosmos, and to keep it, makes pos-sible "eternal
return" of stocks: the Maya, the illusion cos-mica supported (most severe even: valued)
while this man blinded by nescience (avidya), 3 °) the absolute reality "placed" in some
hand beyond the cosmic illusion woven by Maya, and also outside the limits of human
experience conditioned by karman: pure Being, the Absolute, with whatever name it may
be known: the Self (atman), Brahman, the unconditioned, the transcendent, immortal,
indestructible, Nirvana, etc.., 4 °) finally, the means to reach the Being, the proper
techniques to acquire the liberation (moksha, mukti): all these me-dia or techniques is in
fact Yoga.
It is then understood to be raised, for the Indian think-ing the fundamental problem of all
philosophy: the search for truth. For India, the truth is not essential by itself, is
becomes essential because of its soteriological function, poique knowledge of the truth
helps to free man ai. The pose-sion of truth is not the supreme goal for the Indian sage:
what is the release, the conquest of absolute freedom. The sacrifices we are willing to
support the European philosopher to achieve see-ing in itself and for itself-sacrifice of the
religious faith of worldly ambi-tion, wealth, personal freedom and even life - such
sacrifices are not accepted by the Hindu sage if not with a view to the release. Free
equivalent to forcing another plane of existence, to appropriate another way of being
above the human condition. For India, not only the metaphysical knowledge results in
terms of rupture and death (the "break" the human condition, one died for all human), but