therefore with the physical practice of Asana.Sri Aurobindo
Early Cultural Writings
(1890 — 1910)
Part Six. The Chandernagore Manuscript
Rajayoga
Man fulfilling himself in the body is given Hathayoga as his means. When he rises above the body, he abandons Hathayoga as a troublesome and inferior process and rises to the Rajayoga, the discipline peculiar to the aeon in which man now evolves. The first condition of success in Rajayoga is to rise superior to the dehatmak bodh1, the state of perception in which the body is identified with the self. A time comes to the Rajayogin when his body seems not to belong to him or he to have any concern with2 it. He is not troubled by its troubles or gladdened by its pleasures3; it has them to itself4 and very soon, because he does not give his sanction to them, they fall away from it. His own troubles and pleasures are in the heart and mind5, for he is the rajasic and psychical man, not the tamasic material. It is these that he has to conquer in order that he may realise God in his heart or in his buddhi or in both. God seen in the heart, that is the quest of the Rajayogin. He may recover the perception and enjoyment of the body afterwards, but it is only to help the enjoyment of God6 as Love and God as Knowledge.
The processes of the Rajayoga are mental and emotional.
Patanjali’s science is not the pure Rajayoga; it is mixed and allows an element7 of the Hatha8 in its initial processes.
It admits the Asana, it admits the9 Pranayam.
It is true it reduces each to one of its kind, but the method of conquest is physical and therefore not Rajayogic.
It may be said that the stillness of the body is essential to concentration or to samadhi; but this is a convention of the Hathayoga.
The Rajayogin10 concedes no such importance to the body; he knows by experience that concentration can be secured in any easy and unconstrained posture which allows one to forget the body; it is often as much helped by rhythmic motion as by stillness.
Samadhi, when it comes, itself secures stillness of the body.
The pure Rajayogin dispenses therefore with the physical practice of Asana.
The real reason why Patanjali laid so much stress11 on Asana was that he thought Pranayam essential to samadhi and Asana essential to Pranayam. It is difficult, though not impossible, to do the practice of Pranayam according to Patanjali’s system without perfect bodily stillness. It can be done and has been done even while walking about, but this is not so easy or usual. Now Pranayam in its proper sense, the mastery of the vital force in oneself and Nature, is essential to every Rajayogin, but it can be brought about by much simpler methods. The only physical process12 that the Rajayogin finds helpful enough to be worth doing, is nadishuddhi [नाडीशुद्धि] or purification13 of the nerve system by regular breathing and this can be done while lying, sitting, reading, writing, walking14. This process has great virtues. It has a wonderfully15 calming effect on the whole mind and body, drives out every lurking disease in the system, awakens the yogic force accumulated in former lives and, even where no such latent force exists, removes the physical obstacles to the wakening16 of the Kundalini shakti.
But even this process is not essential. The Rajayogin knows that by tranquillising the mind he can tranquillise the body, by mastering the mind he can master both the body and the prana. This is the great secret of the Rajayoga that mind is the master of the body, creates it and conditions it, body is not the master, creator or lawgiver of the mind. It may be said that the body at least affects the mind, but this is the other discovery of the Rajayogin that the body need not in the least affect the mind unless by our consent we allow it to do so. The kumbhak or natural cessation17 of the breathing18 is essential to the deeper kinds of Samadhi, not to all; but even so he finds that by the cessation of the lawless restlessness19 of the mind, which we mistakenly call thought, we can easily, naturally and spontaneously bring about the cessation of the breathing, a calm, effortless and perfect kumbhak. He therefore dispenses with physical processes, easy or laborious, and goes straight to the root of the problem, the mind.
Rajayoga
is of three kinds, sachesta, salpachesta and nischesta, with effort, with little effort, and
without effort20.
Patanjali’s, the only systematised
kind, though21 each is quite methodical, is sachesta, involving great strain and22 effort throughout.
We may best compare the systems by taking each of Patanjali’s steps separately and seeing how the23 three kinds of Rajayogins24 will deal with them.
In the present article we shall deal with Patanjali.
The first step is the preparation of the moral nature, the discipline25 of the heart, its perfection in26 the four great qualities of love, purity, courage and calm, without which siddhi in the Rajayoga is impossible.
Patanjali prescribes the practice of the five yamas or regulating moral exercises, truth, justice and honesty, harmlessness, chastity and refusal27 of ownership, and the five niyamas or regulating moral habits, cleanliness and purity, contentment, austerity, meditation on Scripture28, worship and devotion to God.
In order to establish these habits and exercises and remove the impurities of the heart it is evident that Patanjali intends us to use the method of abhyasa or constant practice.
Anyone29 who has made the attempt will realise how difficult it is to compass all these qualities and how long and tedious a discipline is required to establish them even imperfectly.
Patanjali seeks to purify and quiet the life while the mind and heart30 are yet impure and restless, a system possible only to hermits in an asrama.
For this reason the Rajayoga has fled from the homes of men31 and taken refuge in the forest and the cavern32.
Afterwards Patanjali recommends the quieting of the body and the mastering33 of the Prana by Asana and Pranayam. The reason of this is clear enough. The Pranayam of the34 Hathayoga does not lead to purity, but to force and intensity; every quality that it finds potent in the system it raises to tenfold activity and power. Unless therefore the life and character be previously made35 quiet and pure, Pranayam done in one’s own strength may do immense moral36, physical and mental37 mischief. Allowing for the overcoming38 of his39 initial difficulty and for the admission of Hatha40 into Rajayoga, it must be admitted that Patanjali’s system is admirably logical and reasonable in its arrangement.
Next comes the mastery41 of the mind, that restless, self-willed and shifting force which is so difficult42 to control.
Again, as in 
his previous steps, Patanjali relies wholly on abhyasa or practice43.
He arranges concentration in four stages of development, Pratyahara or the drawing inward of the senses from their objects; Dharana, or the success in this process resulting in the fixing of the mind44 for a moment on a single thought, feeling or object, — such as a single part of the body, the tip of the nose or the centre of the brows for
preference45; Dhyana or the continuation of this state for a fixed period; Samadhi or the entire withdrawing46 into oneself for an indefinite time.
The preliminary process47 once successful, the rest follows with comparative ease, but the preliminary process is itself so48 enormously difficult that one would49 be amazed at Patanjali’s putting it first, if one did not perceive that he is relying on the rigorous and thorough mastery of each step before the next is attempted; he trusts to the Hathayogic kumbhak to bring about Pratyahara with comparative ease.
Even as it is, most Yogins prefer to take the50 Dharana or concentration on a single object first51, trusting to the practice of Dharana to bring about Pratyahara by a natural process.
This is undoubtedly the more easy and straightforward process, though Patanjali’s is the more logical and scientific, and, if mastered, may lead to greater results.
Concentration once attained, we proceed to what Patanjali evidently considers the essence of Yoga, the coercion of all vrittis or functionings of the mental and52 moral qualities so as to arrive at sanyama or turning of53 the whole passionless intelligent Will in the spirit on whatsoever the Yogin54 wishes to possess, from the realisation of God to the enjoyment of mundane objects. But how is this silencing of the vrittis to be effected? for the yamas and niyamas only establish certain good habits of life, they do not thoroughly purify mind55 and heart. We have to do it by a process of removal by replacement, always depending on abhyasa, replacing bad vrittis by good, the many good by the few better, the few better by the one56 best, until we arrive at absolute sanyama. This can be done, not easily but without57 insuperable difficulty if the power of concentration58 is thoroughly attained59 by Patanjali’s method.
Sanyama is a mighty power.
Whatever the Yogin does sanyama upon, says Patanjali, that he masters.
The knowledge of one’s past lives, of the thoughts of men, of men in this60 world and spirits in the other, the vision of the past and the future, the knowledge of all that is in the present, the mastery of Nature, the siddhis of the
Hathayogin, the realisation of God, all power, all bliss, all knowledge is in
his grasp61.
As to what he shall do with the power, Patanjali leaves the choice to the successful Yogin.
Earlier edition of this work: Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library: Set in 30 volumes.- Volume 3.- The Harmony of Virtue: Early Cultural Writings — 1890-1910.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Asram, 1972.- 489 p.
1 1972 ed.: dehātma-buddhi
2 1972 ed.: in
3 1972 ed.: pleasure
4 1972 ed.: them itself
5 1972 ed.: and the mind
6 1972 ed.: of God
7 1972 ed.: an important element
8 1972 ed.: Hathayoga
9 1972 ed.: and the
10 1972 ed.: Rajayoga
11 1972 ed.: importance
12 1972 ed.: only process
13 1972 ed.: or the purification
14 1972 ed.: writing and walking
15 1972 ed.: wonderful
16 1972 ed.: awakening
17 1972 ed.: or cessation
18 1972 ed.: the natural breathing
19 1972 ed.: lawlessness, the restlessness
20 1972 ed.: saceṣṭa, upaceṣṭa and niśceṣṭa.
21 1972 ed.: the systematised, though
22 1972 ed.: of
23 1972 ed.: how much the
24 1972 ed.: of the Rajayogins
25 1972 ed.: perfection
26 1972 ed.: in
27 1972 ed.: and the refusal
28 1972 ed.: scriptures
29 1972 ed.: Any one
30 1972 ed.: heart and mind
31 1972 ed.: man
32 1972 ed.: and cavern
33 1972 ed.: and mastering
34 1972 ed.: in
35 1972 ed.: be made
36 1972 ed.: mental
37 1972 ed.: moral
38 1972 ed.: overcome
39 1972 ed.: this
40 1972 ed.: Hathayoga
41 1972 ed.: control
42 1972 ed.: is difficult
43 1972 ed.: on practice
44 1972 ed.: of mind
45 1972 ed.: as the nāsāgra or the bhrūmadhya for preference
46 1972 ed.: the withdrawing
47 1972 ed.: exercise
48 1972 ed.: is so
49 1972 ed.: should
50 1972 ed.: take
51 1972 ed.: first (on a single object)
52 1972 ed.: or
53 1972 ed.: throwing
54 1972 ed.: he
55 1972 ed.: purify the mind
56 1972 ed.: still few
57 1972 ed.: but daily without
58 1972 ed.: concentrating
59 1972 ed.: obtained
60 1972 ed.: men in this
61 1972 ed.: all that is, is in his grasp.