When a yogi finds the yoga is inadequate and useless to realize the 'Self' he must drop yoga and take up the path of Gnana.
When yoga is finished, then he begins the inquiry into ultimate truth, and in due course, this inquiry produces the realization of the universal Spirit as the result.
Why is the word Yoga used in so many different senses in the Gita? Because there are grades and the highest demands concentrated brains, not sitting mindless and imagining you are seeing God.
In Gita Chap.IV where Lord Krishna says: ~ “This yoga has been lost for ages" the word yoga refers to Gnana yoga, not other yogas: the force of the word this is to point this out.
Lord Krishna describes some of the other yogas but devotes this chapter separately to Gnana Yoga. So, one sees even in those ancient days people did not care for Advaita; they wanted religion; hence Gnana got lost. That is why Krishna calls it "the supreme secret." Krishna points out that the yoga must-see "Brahman in action."
Gita Chap.IV: ~ “He who achieves perfection in Yoga finds the Self in time." This means that after his yoga is finished, he begins the inquiry into ultimate truth, and in due course, this inquiry produces the realization of the universal spirit as the result.
Understanding what is God in truth is not so easy. Religious people can only imagine God based on their inherited blind faith or beliefs.
That is why Lord Krishna Says Ch ~V: ~ “Those who know the Self is in truth.". The last two words (tattvataha) are usually ignored by pundits, but they make all the difference between the ordinary concept of God and the truth about God.
Lord Krishna himself says that he can do nothing to make a man intelligent straight away. The adepts give Prasad, blessing, initiations, mantrams, etc. only to confer temporary peace of mind, to help one to get rid of worries, but not to confer Gnana. The capacity to receive it must first be inborn in man by evolutionary degree.
Manduka Upanishad:~ Yoga is in the sphere of duality and is unnecessary to one who knows non-duality
Sage Sankara pointed out yoga could in no way bring about wisdom, much less Moksha.
Avadhuta Gita: ~“The Atman cannot be purified through the practice of the six limbs of the yoga, or through the annihilation of the mind, or through the instruction of Knower of Brahman. The Atman is the Reality Itself and It is Purity Itself."
Whatever idea of God one familiar with through upbringing or teaching, that he will see in his visions i.e. imagination.
Mystics who promise a Garden of Eden, a joyous outlook on life, do not see that this must be duality, an object which is seen and must inevitably vanish. How long can it last? A Gnani regards Self-awareness as higher because it is apart from joy or sorrow, ecstasy or pain, and because it belongs to the Atman, the innermost self, and is, therefore, unbroken, permanent.
In the dream, one knows that the dream figures are also the mind, not different from it; similarly, when he knows that everything is Brahman, there is no need for the yogic control of the mind.
Manduka Upanishads:~ Control presupposes second, a duality. Hence, yoga is in the sphere of duality and is unnecessary to one who knows non-duality. (P.153 ).
Upanishad says ~ Atman the Self is known by Reason alone, by the sharpened and purified intellect. Yet still, people worship Yoga and mysticism as the sole means of attaining Atman.
If one feels ecstatic or exalted peace in the presence of Yogi’s or God-men or Guru is not wisdom. People with disturbed and troubled or unhappy find tranquillity in Ashrams or in the presence of gurus or yogis, because there are uneasy disturbances of the mind, probably over their practical life within the practical world.
This is because they do not know what truth is, and they mistake this physicalized peace as Atamic peace. Non-dualistic peace is the nature of the Soul, the Self.
Remember:~
Practicing yogic Samadhi up to the limit and extent of getting a strong and concentrative mind, and to be able to think of particular subjects, is good; beyond that, if they begin to weaken their mind and accept what they imagine as real, they begin to get hallucinated.
Yogi’s limit the mind to the physical entity, thus they fail to realize the non-dualistic or Advaitic truth. They stick up to their accepted truth and they remain stagnant with their belief.
The individual experience is merely an illusion. Thus without first examining them and inquiring into them thoroughly is to delude oneself. The three states common to all; therefore, one must begin his inquiry analysis and reasoning on the true base. It is only after it has inquired into the nature of the three states that he should inquire into who is the knower/witness. If, however, one inquiry into the knower before the analysis of the three states, then it is mere mysticism. What are these three states? Must precede what is this ‘I’? : ~
Santthosh Kumaar
