Silence the Mental Chatter
So one of the original early schools was that of what was called Raja Yoga. Raja Yoga is not different from Sat Yoga, they are the same. But Raja Yoga became called that in order to emphasize the fact that one became the Raja through this practice—Raja means king or sovereign—one became sovereign over the ego-mind. One had the power to silence the ego-mind at will and to keep it silent. So this sovereignty over the mind became emphasized as the goal of yoga, and therefore it was called Raja Yoga.
Later they would add the, let’s say, the karmic possibility that because you became sovereign as a yogi, you could if you wished to take rebirth as a Raja, as a king, or in any other form as you wished, if you were to remanifest your presence within the cosmic field. But the main point is sovereignty over the mind.
Now that sovereignty can be attained in two different ways: one is to have the knowledge of the Supreme Real, which is also called Supreme Knowledge or Gyana. So Raja Yoga also took on the name Gyana Yoga, because it was the yoga in which the knowledge that Thou Art That was passed on, but passed on not only verbally as an equation, but passed on again directly vibrationally. OK, so Gyana Yoga is not different than Raja Yoga, it’s simply expressing the same idea with a different signifier, to emphasize now the knowledge that would make you the king, or the sovereign, rather than the sovereignty itself. But no different.
And it began to be called Bhakti Yoga. Bhakti means “devotion”. Why? Because you can get to the same result through having a total devotional love for the Supreme Real. Because what is love but union? And therefore, love is one approach. It’s not—you don’t need to have an intellectual approach. And remember, the Supreme Real is beyond the intellect, beyond the human intellect. The Supreme Intelligence does not use the instruments of the human intellect, which are language, mathematics, imagery, all of those ways in which a person tries to grasp reality. The Supreme Real doesn’t need to be grasped because you are it, you’re not different from it, and so it cannot be grasped intellectually. And therefore love is a beautiful way of also realizing it. But it’s not a love of an other—God is not wholly Other, that’s why the term “God” is not always the best term to use for people because of the baggage that it has taken on in the West. However, the Absolute Real is the Self, and it is love. And so if you have love for That, that is also the love from That, and the love that is That.
And so it’s another way to reach that blessed union. But it’s only a different term, a different signifier for the same signified—at least it was originally. And then in later times when people felt more in the ignorance and separation from the Absolute, the devotion was to a god or goddess figure that was worshipped in order to receive from that other blessings and grace, rather than realizing that you are it. But that’s the original meaning and that is the meaning that remains the ultimate Truth.
So, the term evolved, and we could go on and include Kundalini Yoga, which is again the whole spectrum, those seven lights that are the one light, or the different chakras, they are all another way to reach the highest from which they all emanate. And we could go on a talk about many other versions of yoga including Hatha Yoga, which was the last to develop, when the ability to reach the Real, through simply realization that was an act of Being, and one couldn’t do it through an act of thinking, or devotion, or other form, one began to attempt to slow down the galloping ego-mind in order to reach that consciousness that underlies the mind, the Real, through processes of breathwork, and of physical postures and exercises that would bring one into a state in which the metabolism would slow down, and the breathing, and there would be a kumbhaka, or a silencing, a rest of the physical that would also bring an opening to the Real. But all were the same.
And so one of the yogas that became probably the most famous was the yoga school of Patanjali, and he wrote what were called The Yoga Sutras, and those sutras started with a very famous phrase, “Yoga is Chitta Vritti Nirodha.” That phrase—Chitta means the consciousness, the whole space of consciousness, the ether of consciousness you could say, the energy of consciousness—Joseph Campbell calls it the “mind stuff”—you can call it what you will—but it is when you take the mind stuff and all of its movements, the vrittis, these are motions of the mind stuff, waves, thought waves, and you cause the thought waves to cease—nirodha means “cessation”. So you stop all thoughts and all—even very subtle images and emotions, you bring the mind to flatline. That is the goal of yoga.
Now all of the other yogas agree with that. The only difference would be—what that goal does not mention is that when you do that, you reach the blissful super intelligent Supreme Real that was never born and never dies, OK? So just trying to silence the mind without having that context can make it a very sort of dry exercise, and much more difficult to reach the inspiration level that will make this much easier and more desirable—there would be more of a yearning, when you really understand what is to be gained from letting go of the ignorance, which is simply the misidentification of your consciousness with the body, and with the language that you learned, and that language with its very few concepts and understandings and a very simplistic context or paradigm of reality—because it becomes a belief system that is unchallenged by the ego itself—creates the barrier that doesn’t really exist, but is produced by the belief that one is indoctrinated into—as a child in this modern period in which one believes in materialism and in a random world of bodies, and does not recognize the primacy of consciousness, and the unlimited nature of consciousness when one explores the depths that lie beyond the purview of language, and of egoic emotion.
So I hope that clarifies it, that there really aren’t different yogas: every yoga has the same goal, which is the silencing of the illusory self in order the reveal the Real. And this is true whether it’s what would now be called Hindu versions of yoga, or Buddhist yogas, or Taoist yoga, and it’s the same with contemplative prayer in Christianity, or Kabbalistic prayer in Judaism, or the Sufis or any of the other approaches of different religions and spiritual groups—all have the same goal of annihilating or eliminating the unreal so that the Real is fully revealed.
The difficulty for a mind that is embedded in language, which divides everything into subject and object, is there is an assumption that the Real is something else, something I don’t know, something that is strange, foreign, and one wants instructions of how to get there, but as all the sages say, you can’t get to where you already are. What you have to do is to realize that you are not where you think you are, because you’re in a dream. You must awaken from that dream, and that dream is the paradigm that you accept unwittingly, unconsciously, that you are a bodily being in a physical world, and you don’t recognize that all that appears is within your consciousness, and that you, the Self, are outside of that world. You are not in the dream, the Dreamer does not appear within the dream, even though the dream is entirely within the Dreamer and not separate from the Dreamer because it’s an expression of the mind of the Dreamer, but those who are within the dream cannot know the dreamer until there is an awakening from the identification with the character in the dream.
So this is the process of yoga: awakening. And that awakening brings illumination and liberation, and bliss. And because the realization is that the Self is not the body, the Self, the Real, does not suffer, regardless of the condition of the body. The Real Self is not disturbed by bodily sickness, or have fear of death, or have any other fears or anxieties. And so it is that freedom from every form of suffering that comes from misidentification with the body that is the great gift of grace that comes immediately to the realized Self.
Audio File: Silence the Mental Chatter – Audio File.MP3
This Post Has 4 Comments
Henriette Groo
18 Jul 2021I would love to become a membership, but my financial possibilities are small.
I could pay 10€ a Month.
Is that acaptable?
Namaste
Henriette
Vajra Sat Yoga
26 Jul 2021Dear Henriette,
Thank you for being here with us and thank you for your interest in participating more in our online community! Please send an email to [email protected] and Purusha will respond to your request. Many Blessings! Namaste.
Carol Livezey
19 Aug 2021Thank you Shunyamurti for your understanding and teachings. I am deeply greatful.
Carol
Vajra Sat Yoga
21 Aug 2021Thank You Carol!