Yoga (was Re: [Advaita-l] Vasanas)

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Swami Hariharaananda Aranya's book is indeed very good. Regarding the
acceptability of yoga, the aacaarya himself has stated in his suutra
bhaa.sya (2.4.12)

paramatam aprati.siddham anumatam bhavati - What is not forbidden in
another philosophy becomes acceptable.

"sa.mkara actually refers to the yoga philosophy at this point as
paramatam. The main "prati.siddha" parts are whether the distinction
between ii"svara and the jiiva is ultimately true and the ultimate
reality of the world. You can also refer to BSB 2.1.3 and nearby
suutras for the refutation of yoga. But much of the yoga "saastra is
indeed acceptable and very useful.

I have posted a long time back on the list sure"svaras approval of
yoga as a preliminary discipline from the nai.skarmya siddhi.

I suggest getting "Yoga, Enlightenment and Perfection" published by
the Vidyateertha Foundation in Madras. In it, a disciple of Sri
Abhinava Vidyateertha Mahaswamigal has compiled what his master told
him regarding his spiritual practice before enlightenment. As is well
known, he was a great j~naani as well as a yogin. It has many useful
techniques on how to meditate, concentrate the mind, etc. At one place
the Swamigal says that even when he started out (before realization)
he had no problem concentrating. So he had to deliberately let his
mind wander to see how to control it :-). It has many "tips", which I
have found to be very useful. It also has a few essays on vedaanta,
which are absolutely great.

One chapter has been sort of reproduced in 

http://harsha16.topcities.com/master.htm

This site has some excellent photos. There is also a very nice picture
of dak.si.naamuurti in another of the pages.

Rama

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 18:35:48 -0500, Ravisankar S. Mayavaram
<ravi at ambaa.org> wrote:

> 3) In matters related to rebirth etc. two things comes into play according
> to yoga shAstra: a) karmaashayaa and b) vaasanaa-s. Former has the three
> fold consequence and latter allows the former to come into fruition. The
> best description of these concepts in great details can be found in the
> translation (with lots of additional notes) of Swami Hariharananda Aranya of
> Vyasa's commentary on Patanjali Yoga Sutra. It is an amazing book and it
> worth buying it. It is published by Suny Press*. 

[ ...]

> In any case, pls refer to Swami H. Aranya's book.

> can comment on how much of that presented on this subject is
> acceptable to advaita-vedAnta.