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Re: ARTICLE : Hinduism and yoga
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To: soc-religion-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Subject: Re: ARTICLE : Hinduism and yoga
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From: l23@hopi.dtcc.edu (GERALD J. LA CORTE)
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Date: 13 Aug 1996 12:12:37 GMT
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Newsgroups: soc.religion.hindu
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Organization: Delaware Technical & Community College
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References: <ghenDvCDtC.K81@netcom.com> <ghenDvr9Av.BpJ@netcom.com> <ghenDw19Eq.35J@netcom.com>
: : Yoga is the product of the brilliant minds and untiring efforts of Hindu
: : sages, including the Buddha, and over time in history, the yogic concepts
: : are inseperably ingrained into the fabric of Hindu philosophy
:
: Thank you for sharing your ideas on yoga. I however do not think that
: yoga is man-made, just like the sanAtana dharma is not. In the SBG, God
: Himself says that He is the original teacher of yoga, the first
: student is vivasvan and He has been described as 'yogeshvara'. Sage
: Patanjali did not invent the yogic methods, he simply compiled them.
As best as I know, bhakti-yoga, jnana-yoga, and karma-yoga come from the
vedas (and I may be wrong) and called vedic yoga. Pantanjali first wrote
the yoga-sutra codifying raja-yoga; not that he created raja-yoga, he was
merely the first to write it down. There's also the issue of the
avatarship of Pantanjali and, for that matter, Vyasa.
While Krishna did not himself write the Bhagvad-Gita, he certainly
dictated what was to be in it. And while Krishna is generally considered
an avatar - a human incarnation of God - was the Gita then written by God
or by man (rhetorical)?
: I think that we need to use the suffix yoga very carefully. If I may say
: so, the first paragraph you have written might be taken to mean that
: there is no difference between karma and karmayoga, GYAna and GYAnayoga,
: dhyAna and dhyAnayoga or bhakti and bhaktiyoga. There is a huge difference.
I agree that they are different. I call a religious service a bhakti
practice. While religious devoutees (bhakti-yogis) attend religious
services, the majority of the merely attend the service. A bhakti-yogi
would live their life for the church / temple / deity, an attendee
wouldn't, they would merely attend the bhakti service. The same could be
carried through all four of the yogas. There are also combinations of the
yogas. For example, in our SDR Vedanta Society (loosly associated with
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda) what the swami teaches is mostly religious
service with some study and self-denial; to myself, it sounds like
predominantly bhakti-yoga with some jnana- practices.
Bests,
Jay
