Yoga redux
Down memory lane
Having recently cross-posted a large part of Chandan Priyadarshi’s brilliant piece on Patanjali’s definition of Yoga, it might be a good idea to remind readers of (or direct them to) my older related posts. There is this piece from 2021 (how time passes!) on the Gita’s definition of Yoga:
Yoga is skill in works
The Bhagavad Gita is an episode of the Mahabharata. Composed sometime between the third century BC and the third century CE, it consists of a dialogue between Arjuna, a prince, and Sri Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu.
Then there is this piece from 2022 on Sri Aurobindo’s definition of yoga:
Yoga actually
In a letter to a disciple Sri Aurobindo wrote: "Let me tell you in confidence that I never, never, never was a philosopher — although I have written philosophy which is another story altogether.... I was a poet and a politician, not a philosopher! How I managed to do it? First, because Richard proposed to me to cooperate in a philosophical review — and as my theory was that a Yogi ought to be able to turn his hand to anything, I could not very well refuse: and then he had to go to the War and left me in the lurch with 64 pages a month of philosophy all to write by my lonely self. Secondly, I had only to write down in the terms of the intellect all that I had observed and come to know in practising Yoga daily and the philosophy was there, automatically."
Finally there is this post on Sri Aurobindo’s own introduction to Yoga:
Beyond Nirvana
My first post after starting this substack was a sketch of the life of Sri Aurobindo up to the day he arrived in the French enclave of Pondicherry. That sketch contains a brief account of Sri Aurobindo’s realization of January 1908. This post offers passages from letters describing this realization and its immediate aftermath, plus pertinent passages from "The Life Divine" and "The Synthesis of Yoga".