Sunday, 5 March 2023

The Discipline of Yoga.

अथ योगानुशासनम्।।१।।

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Language : A help or a barrier? 

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Learning about physical sciences through translation is never a problem, because the essence could be conveyed in any language what-so-ever provided that both languages have a rich vocabulary. More easily, if the two languages share this vocabulary to some extent, maybe because have the same source or origin.

Thus I find European languages (They call it : Indo-European!) are very helpful not only in learning the physical sciences, but also the "Spiritual".

Without classifying this "Spiritual" further into a Science, Art, Philosophy or Thought, if we try to learn a language just as we learnt the mother-tongue, without "studying" the same, we may perhaps understand how we can easily imbibe the essence / core-sense of the subject-matter of Yoga. 

Summarily, we should never translate any of the "Spiritual" text into any other language, but need to learn the same into the original language of the text.

For this reason, there could be the "learning" of religions as such, but not a "comparative study", because Religion is faith, belief and / or an attempt to follow or enquire into their essentials. But without understanding the core, the essentials, when we try to translate, we can't expect to do justice to their true and real spirit.

That is how a language could be either a help or a barrier in learning the"Spiritual" Truth or The Reality.

I always see how learning Sanskrit in this way helps greatly in understanding, learning the essence of the Sanskrit "Spiritual" Texts, and no attempt of "translating" them could be of much help than this. And even more, there is also a risk that we do altogether and entirely miss the spirit / the essence.

The कर्म-योग / क्रिया-योग / Kriya-yoga, is सूत्रीकृत / formulated in this योग-सूत्र -१ / Aphorism 1 of the समाधिपाद / Samadhipad,

This should be treated with a reference to the योग-सूत्र Yoga-Sutra 1 / Aphorism 1, of the first Chapter viz. समाधिपाद / Samadhipad :

अथ योगानुशासनम्।।१।।

The word - -अथ implies : So now, let us go through what is the अनुशासनम् - the discipline of The Yoga.

The word Discipline / disciple could be traced to have resemblance with the word दिश् / अनुदिश् meaning to show the direction. The word शास्  conveys the sense of teaching as well as the governance.

In order to learn something, one needs to go to the teacher or a Master. The Teacher can teach a worldly skill and educate but that is not our purpose when we are trying to find out the "Spiritual". There we need to go to a स्वामी / Swami / Master. The Sanskrit word "स्वामी" has various meanings according to the intent (निष्ठा / nishthA) and the purpose.

Trust is a must there.

This trust is a deep understanding that we need to learn and so we have approach to a स्वामी / Swami / Master. 

If we lack this initial trust we shouldn't have approached him in the first place. It is like when a patient visits to a doctor. The patient need to have some initial trust in the doctor. 

This is the very reason there are so many a fake स्वामी / Swami, so-called self-appointed religious and spiritual teachers, as are there the fake doctors or physicians. There is the law that could help us in avoiding any such a fake doctor, but as regards the "Spiritual", we are often helpless, in the dark.

This indicates we need to have the urge that would somehow guide us onto our authentic and very own "Spiritual" Discipline.

This urge is the निष्ठा / nishthA.

The same could be about the कर्म / Action or the ज्ञान / jnAna. The only real trust or the निष्ठा / nishthA worth the name is the आत्म-निष्ठा / the trust in oneself. The ज्ञान-निष्ठा and कर्म-निष्ठा are secondary.

This is the meaning of :

अनुशासनम् / discipline / discipline.

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