Return to the Source

Yoga Means Union

Many Western people practicing yoga today do not realize that con­tortionist postures and strange methods of breathing are just preliminaries to the true spiritual yoga, which is an attunement of every aspect of one's nature - physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

The word itself gives us a clue to what yoga is really about. Like the English word 'yoke', yoga comes from a Sanscrit root-word meaning 'union'. It is union of body and mind with the Spiritual Self and finally the ultimate union of the individual Spiritual Self with the One Supreme Self. The end of the evolutionary journey is a return to the Source.

Many Paths to the One

The ancient Eastern science of yoga teaches that there are many paths on this journey but each has the same goal - union with the One.

Hatha Yoga emphasizes the training of the physical body.

Mantra Yoga uses the power of sound by chanting sacred phrases or words.

Jnana Yoga emphasizes knowledge of the laws of the Universe.

Bhakti Yoga is the way of devotion used by the Christian Mystics.

Karma Yoga is the way of balanced or karma-less action.

Raja Yoga - the kingly science - embodies disciplines and practices to bring the world of one's being under the control of will.

By the practice of yoga, identification with the personality is reduced and there is a growing realization of oneself as always One with the Divine Life of the Universe.

Some Have Experienced Unity

Punjabi Indian Gopi Krishna, describes his experience in his book Kundalini and the Canadian Dr R.H. Bucke, in Cosmic Consciousness, describes how, driving home from a poetry reading evening in London, he had an expansion of Consciousness:

"All at once I found myself wrapped in a flame-coloured cloud.
For an instant I thought of an immense conflagration in that great city.
The next I knew the fire was within myself.
There came upon me a sense of exultation followed by an intellectual
illumination impossible to describe.
I saw the universe as a living presence. I became conscious in myself
of eternal life."

But the best description is given by a Zen Buddhist quoted in the Spectrum of Consciousness by Ken Wilber:

"I was intensely aware of my body yet I felt suspended bodiless in a
new height. Everything within me seemed to vibrate gently in golden
light. There was utter stillness. I did not feel the self fuse with the
absolute. I felt the whole universe - everything that is - was in me,
was me, for a fleeting forever."