Introduction to Tantra Sastra - Aghori

YOGA
THIS word, derived from the root Yuj (“to join”), is in
grammer samdhi, in logic avayavaśakti, or the power of
the parts taken together and in its most widely known
and present sense the union of the jīva or embodied
spirit, with the Paramātmā, or Supreme Spirit, 1 and the
practices by which this union may be attained. There is
a natural yoga, in which all beings are, for it is only by
virtue of this identity in fact that they exist. This
position is common ground, though in practice too
frequently overlooked. “Primus modus unionis est, quo
Deus, ratione suæ immensitatis est in omnibus rebus
per essentiam, præsentiam, et potentiam; per essentiam
ut dans omnibus esse; per prmentiam ut omnia prospiciens:
per potentiam ut de omnibus disponens.” 2 The
mystical theologician cited, however proceeds to say:
“sed hæc unio animæ cum Deo est generalis, communis
omnibus et ordinis naturalis . . . . . . illa namque de qua
loquimur est ordinis supernaturalis actualis et fructiva.”
It is of this special yoga, though not in reality more
“supernatural” than the first, that we here deal. Yoga
in its technical sense is the realization of this identity,
which exists, though it is not known, by the destruction
of the false appearance of separation. “There is no bond
equal in strength to māyā, and no force greater to
destroy that bond than yoga. There is no better friend
than knowledge (jñāna,) nor worse enemy than egoism
1 As the Śāradā-tilaka (chap. xxv) says Aikyam-jivāt manorāhuryogaṃ
yogaviśārahāh.
2 Summa Theologiæ Mysticæ, tom. iii., p. 8.