Arogya Ayurvedic Health - Six Blind Yogas of the Modern World

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Six Blind Yogas of the Modern World

Six Blind Yogas
of the Modern World

By Ved Kovid, Durgadas, R.A.P

(c) Ved Kovid, Durgadas. All Rights reserved.

While traditional Vedic Raja-Yoga was an Integral system and blended together various techniques and practices, such as in the Tantric tradition, today we have several varieties of Yoga that appear to exist as "separate types" of others, which creates various pitfalls within each of them and leads to an incompleteness and reduction in traditional doctrines of the greater Hindu-Yoga system.

Great scholars such as Shankaracharya (c.500BCE) were themselves great reformers that used such Integral systems of Yoga. While many argue he was simply a Jnana-Yogi, he also employed the techniques of Bhakti, Hatha and other systems and composed several hymns to the deities and other works that dealt with Tantric-Yoga or Integral-Yoga in greater detail. Even in his Advaita works, he mentioned the importance of not attempting Self-realisation unless one has first met with the preliminary aspects of Yoga first.

No Yoga system can work unless integral. Just as Shankaracharya himself is associated with Jnana-Yoga and taught several Yogas and an Integral system, so also the founders of other systems such as seers of Bhakti-Yoga did likewise. Sri Chaitanya the great devotee of Krishna from where ISKCON derives himself learnt and practiced the integral Tantric-Yogas in his youth. He was a great Yogi with many siddhis (mystical powers).

Others such as Sri Ramana Maharishi, also associated with Jnana-Yoga learnt many texts and forms and practiced deeper Bhakti and Hatha Yogas in their earlier years (which was how he was able to arrest his breaths and bring abouthis realisation in the first place). Maharishi Dayananda of the Arya Samaj also learnt Tantric and Shaivite Hatha-Yogas, while later preaching a more Bhakti-system and Arya Samaj still employs a more integral approach. Sri Ramakrishna, while a great devotee of the Goddess, also performed all aspects of integral Raja-Yoga as well as Jnana-Yoga, reaching the highest goal of Advaita and Hatha-Kundalini or deeper Tantric disciplines also.

Thus, we cannot limit our "systems" to a few techniques that are codified under modern Indian Gurus who have taken Yoga to the West and reduced these aspects into a so-called "system". This reductionism is also what makes people think the Six Systems of Hindu Philosophy (Shad Darshanas) are also separate, when in fact, all are integral aspects in the Hindu-Yoga system, complimentary not contrary.

That said, let us examine a few of the modern common Yogas and their pitfalls, due to being seen as "separate Yogas":

1. Jnana-Yoga, the Yoga of Knowledge, by which practitioners become involved in a kind of intellectual obsession, rather than employing first Bhakti-Yoga or the Yoga of devotion in their lives to transform the mind and the techniques of Hatha-Yoga to be able to transform the mind and body before attempting Atmadhyana or meditation on the Self. Going directly to Meditation without first calming the mind of any type is dangerous.

On this, Sri Shankaracharya states that only the Realised-Soul (Mahatma, great Soul or advanced Yogi) alone with a controlled mind can dispense with such things as Desha (place), Asana (posture, seated position), Yamas (restrains), objections of meditation etc. - Vivekachudamani, 523.

Shankaracharya who is most identified with this system also composed great works as Stotras or hymns to the Hindu deities, including his Bhaja-Govindam which has a highly bhakti or devotional theme and stresses the importance of bhakti or devotion.

2. Hatha-Yoga, the Forceful Yoga, which is the common system of vyayama (exercise) involving postures, breathing techniques etc., but which modern practitioners have turned into a system of bodily-obsession and has no grounding basis such as Bhakti-Yoga or devotionalism nor a true grasp of Jnana-Yoga or the Yoga of knowledge to take us beyond the body. Most teachers claim they are teaching Ashtanga-Yoga, but are actually just teaching posture mixed with some superficial "mentions" of the other limbs.

3. Bhakti-Yoga or Yoga of devotion which often turns into a blind dogmatic system of "my God" alone, devoid of practices to purify the mind-body (Hatha-Yoga techniques) or a higher goal of Self-knowledge through Jnana-Yoga. Practitioners become lost in blind fundamentalism often as a path by itself much like Christianity and Islam.

As noted, Shankaracharya also composed several famous Stotras or hymns that are chanted by Hindus to the deities to this day and form an integral part of the Bhakti-Yoga of India, which is the main system, being at the lower-level of awakening of the devotee.

In his strongly Jnana-Yogic and Advaitic work, Vivekachudamani (31), he actually states:

"Among those things conducive to moksha (liberation), Bhakti (devotion) holds the Supreme place."

4. Mantra-Yoga or the Yoga of mantras and chanting. This forms an integral part of Bhakti-Yoga,but through the modern Kirtan movement, has become almost a Yoga on its own and practitioners seek to defend it. Mostly such practitioners like to sing and dance and mispronounce mantras, with which they are often unable to espouse the deeper aspects and limbs that fall under the science of this Yoga itself.

5. Kundalini-Yoga. This Yoga system is associated with awakening the Kundalini or serpent-force in the base of the spine as the Shakti or Goddess. Yet most practitioners seem blissfully unaware that this was never a separate Yoga within the Hindu traditions, but always formed part of it, as an aspect of the greater Hatha-Yoga of Shaivite and Shakta Yogas, which were the most integral. Most modern practitioners of this Yoga also fail to understand the Goddess and her deeper place at a deeper level also.

Before the awakening of Kundalini however, which leads to Jnana, Bhakti-Yoga has to be developed first through Shiva and the Goddess as also the Guru and the body purified through intense tapas or austerities and regimes such as the Hatha-Yoga regimes provide for transforming and purifying the body of impurities (physically and mentally).

6. Ayurvedic Yoga. This is basically a name for the western Hatha-Yoga exercise system turned into a superficial "Ayurvedic" model based on the three doshas, but does not consider their deeper aspects and applications. Basically, so-called Ayurvedic-Yoga today is a guise for "Chiropractic Yoga", to make it sound better and employs the same allopathic approach as Chiropractic ones, ignoring the deeper considerations of Ayurveda itself.

There are many things to consider in Hindu medical Yoga and strictly speaking, unless one is well-founded in the deeper Tantric systems, is a well-trained Ayurvedic Practitioner with much study in the field of Ayurvedic Yoga, the classics and also Astrology, one should not be attempting to recreate a separate system here, as several factors need to be considered for individuals on the Yogic level, not simply reduced to the level of the three doshas alone!

Today, "Ayurvedic Yoga" has come to define any sort of medical Yoga system and reduce a few poses and breathing techniques down for many, or various (generic) diseases without knowing their variations and adaptations. Many teachers have also used simple "dosha forms" for students etc. which are also an incomplete and superficial level of assessment and do not seek to address the deeper concerns as original Ayurvedic Yoga does.

A Synthesis Approach:

There are hence many modern inventions or Yogas. Those such as Kriya-Yoga and others are among them and are simply simplified systems derived from aspects of the older more Integral Hindu-Vedic Yoga systems. What many also call as Tantric-Yoga actually comprises of all of the above Yogas, although many try and stretch it to identify only with Kundalini / Hatha Yoga systems, of which are but mere aspects of it.

Great modern Gurus of India such as Swami Vivekananda and Swami Sivananda as also Swami Satyananda have all taught the more integral Raja-Yoga approach, which incorporates all of these so-called "Yoga systems" within themselves as a kind of Purna-Yoga or Integral system, which is also what the great Vedic scholar, Yogi and modern avatar, Sri Aurobindo also taught, as did Sri Ramana Maharishi the greatest modern Seer of India and Vedanta if one looks deeply at his teachings (in which he recognises the place of all other systems into the One). My dear teacher, Pandit Vamadeva Shastri also expands on these and continues the Integrated approach also and is one of few in the world today who does.

According Sri Ramana Maharishi's greatest student, the brilliant-minded modern Rishi and Vedic scholar, Sri Vasishtha Ganapati Muni in his work Tattvanushasanam, the various "Yogas" are merely aspects or limbs of the greater and categorised as below:

-Karmayoga: Doing good deeds without desire for rewards

-Dhyanayoga: Meditation on mantras in the mind

-Hathayoga: Control of breath (vayu) or pranayama

-Rajayoga: Controlling the virritis or waves of the mind

-Jnanayoga: Atmavichara or Self-enquiry

-Prapattiyoga (Bhakti-yoga): Offering the Self (to the Supreme)

-Amritayoga: An integral approach of the above in attempt to purify the panchakoshas (five bodily sheaths), fire of consciousness etc.

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Arogya Ayurvedic Health
72 Isleworth Road
Bishopdale
Christchurch, Canterbury 8053
New Zealand
ph: +64 3 359 6015
arogyayurved@gmail.com