Yoga
El vocablo sánscrito yoga significa «unión divina» o la unión entre tú y Dios. El buscador oriental de la unión con el Yo Superior realiza muchas prácticas que le resultan extrañas al mundo occidental. Algunas de ellas exigen severas disciplinas; de hecho, los occidentales podrían considerarlas austeras.
El vocablo yoga tiene la misma raíz que el inglés yoke[1]. Por tanto, yoga puede entenderse como un método de unión espiritual. Jesús dijo: «Llevad mi yugo sobre vosotros, y aprended de mí… porque mi yugo es fácil, y ligera mi carga»[2]. Puede que, en realidad, quisiera decir: «Llevad mi yoga». Porque Jesús tenía un yoga. Jesús practicaba una disciplina específica que había aprendido en sus viajes a Oriente.
The principle types of yoga
Para comprender totalmente el yoga supremo debemos conocer las varias formas de yoga tal como las han practicado a lo largo de los siglos los devotos de la Madre Divina.
Existen cuatro yogas principales:
- jnana yoga, el sendero de unión con Dios mediante el conocimiento
- bhakti yoga, el sendero de amor y devoción
- karma yoga, el sendero del trabajo abnegado
- raja yoga, el sendero de concentración y meditación
Estos cuatro yogas se pueden colocar en los cuatro cuadrantes del Reloj Cósmico: jnana yoga en el cuadrante mental, bhakti yoga en el emocional, karma yoga en el físico y raja yoga en el etérico. Los cuatro yogas exigen una moralidad fundamental de honradez, continencia, higiene e inocuidad hacia la vida.
Según qué personas se adecuarán más a uno u otro de los cuatro yogas, pero ello no quiere decir que deban practicar solo uno de ellos. De hecho, el hinduismo nos anima a que probemos los cuatro yogas como senderos alternativos hacia Dios. Estos no se excluyen mutuamente porque nadie es únicamente reflexivo, emocional, activo o experimental. Cada ocasión requiere una respuesta diferente.
El yoga supremo: el agni yoga
► Artículo principal: Agni yoga
El yoga supremo es el agni yoga. Este es el yoga de fuego, fuego sagrado. Está más allá de los cuatro tipos de yoga que se corresponden con los cuatro cuerpos inferiores, porque conduce a la ascensión. Este yoga ha sido enseñado por todos los Mensajeros de la Gran Hermandad Blanca. Incluso los profetas de Israel practicaban el yoga de fuego.
Hatha yoga
► Main article: Hatha yoga
What many in the West think of as yoga is hatha yoga, which is a system of physical practices that allows the control of breath and bodily functions. This form of yoga is only one of many yogas taught in the East.
When practiced as an end in itself, hatha yoga can actually be a distraction from the path of God-realization, or union with God. But the ascended master Chananda, chief of the Indian Council, recommends hatha yoga as
... an appropriate sequence of the exercise of the physical body for the interaction with the spiritual bodies and the chakras....
It is not a physical exercise for the exercise of the physical body. It is divine movement for the release of light that is even locked in your physical cells and atoms, in your very physical heart. Releasing that light transmutes toxins, fatigue and opposition to your victory. And therefore, not endless hours but a period of meditation and concentration combined with these yoga postures daily will reap much good. It will give you a surcease from the stress of bearing the burden of world karma and the burden of that certain type of chaotic energy which is uniquely Western in its vibration, emanating from the mass consciousness of uncontrolled feeling bodies and the wanton and reckless misuse of the mental body.
This path is something that you can take up and yet not be deterred from your regular activity of service. We desire to see one-pointedness and discipline rise from the base of the physical pyramid and ascend to the crown. Many of you have pursued the discipline from spiritual levels, drawing forth the light of the mighty I AM Presence down into the heart and into the lower vehicles. And this is as it should be, as the path of the Father is the descending light and the path of the Mother is the ascending light. Thus, we build from that foundation.[3]
Mantra yoga
► Main article: Spoken Word
Mantra yoga (like hatha yoga) is an adjunct to the principal forms of yoga. A mantra is a brief prayer that is given over and over again to develop the momentum of a particular virtue within the soul. The word mantra is taken from the Sanskrit, meaning “sacred counsel” or “formula.”
The repetition of the names of God—and of sacred mantras containing the names of God—is used by Hindus and Buddhists throughout India as a means of reunion with God. For the name of God is God, because the name is a chalice, a formula that carries his vibration. So God and his name are one. He gives you his name, you recite the name, then he gives you all of himself.
Today in the West, many people have a difficult time meditating because their minds are so yin. They eat too much sugar and drink too many liquids like coffee and soft drinks, most of which have caffeine in them. These yin foods—and especially alcohol and recreational drugs—make it difficult to concentrate.
To compensate for this weakness, we give mantras during our meditation. The mantras help us focus on words and on word pictures and visualizations. As we meditate and give these mantras, we are becoming one with the object of our concentration. The mantra keeps the mind in line. This was the grand solution of Saint Germain for all of his disciples in the West.
The practice of yoga
Those in the East who practice yoga may develop special powers called siddhis. These include many of the miraculous feats we have heard of in the West: knowledge of the past and future, knowledge of past lives, great strength, walking on water, flying, bilocation, mastery of the elements, the ability to surround oneself with a blaze of light, and the ability to choose the time of one’s death. Some of these seemingly miraculous abilities were demonstrated by Jesus and by some modern Christian saints such as Padre Pio.
But the siddhis are not the goal. In fact, it is the supreme test of the yogi to give them up. Patanjali in his classic Yoga Sutras (written in the second century B.C.) refers to these supernatural powers as “obstacles to samadhi.... By giving up even these powers, the seed of evil is destroyed and liberation follows.”[4] Jesus demonstrated this when he successfully passed the three tests of Satan in the wilderness.[5]
You can be a yogi whether or not you practice any kind of physical yoga. You are a yogi when you take upon yourself the yoke of Jesus Christ, which is light and which is easy. You are a yogi under the ascended masters, you are a yogi as you perfect the science of the spoken Word.
See also
Sources
Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Masters and the Spiritual Path, chapter 1, “The Highest Yoga.”