[Advaita-l] BrahmaGYAna and jIvanmukti - 6 (vAsanAkShaya and manonAsha by Yoga)

[Sundar Rajan]

Namaste,

I had wanted to reply to this message (from last month), didn't get the time and here it is :

>>
Therefore, vAsanAkShaya-manonAsha may seem like an impossibility, but
is easily effected through the Grace of the Lord obtained by the
practice of (mR^idu-)Yoga:

  Yoga-sAdhana --> Ishvara-anugraha --> mukti
>>

Sri S.Jayanarayanan had pointed out  the role of Grace for one who is practising Yoga sadhana. 
I thought of a slightly different variation to this - that the initiation into Yoga Sadhana itself
does not occur without the Grace of the Guru (or the Lord). Sankara points this out in the 
Mundaka Bhasyam on the 'Samana vrikshe' verse (3.1.2) :
"That soul, while constantly undergoing the degradation of being born amongst beasts, men and others, is,
in the course of multifarious births, perchance shown the path of Yoga, as result of his accumulation
of good deeds, by some very compassionate person;..."

Meditation is often misunderstood to be a activity that is 'driven' and under the control of the the practioner. 
True Meditation does not really occur without natural inwardness or  interiority (pratyak pravanata) and 
this inward pull is due to Grace. 

Swami Bhajananda wrote a series of articles on Concentration and Meditation and explains this beautifully:
http://www.vedanta.org/reading/monthly/articles/1999/12.Conc&Med_part1.html

"It should be understood that trying to drive the mind inward, as a shepherd drives sheep into
 the pen, is not meditation. True meditation is the result of the natural inwardness or interiority 
(pratyak pravanata) of the mind caused by an inward pull. This inward “pull” comes from one’s 
higher center of consciousness. And the higher center will exert this pull only when it is open and active. 
Then the mind comes to rest in its own source, as a bird comes to roost in its own nest. 
This resting or fixing of the mind is called dharana, without which meditation is difficult."
"
So the sequence would be:
 Purva Janma Punya -> Guru's Grace -> Yoga-sAdhana --> Ishvara-anugraha --> mukti 


regards
Sundar Rajan