Ascended masters and yoga

Spirituality
#1

Before I became interested in yoga, a friend of mine had introduced me to the Summit Lighthouse and their esoteric teachings. I was particularly intrigued by their notion of an artificial self that is constantly reinforced by society, and how we need to rediscover our true self. The first time I read the Yoga Sutras I recognized that same teaching is at the core of yoga philosophy and that the Summit Lighthouse teachings were probably derived from it.

I’m interested to know if others have any exposure to this and how does it relate to yoga practice.

#2

New-age Theosophical stuff. It is all derived primarily from Indian stuff. I don’t give it that much credence, because the teachings are basically the same teachings found in the Indian tradition, except watered down, exaggerated and embellished. So I just go directly to the original sources.

They don’t really help when it comes to Yoga, on the contrary they tend to confuse and complicate things.

#3

I’d like to add here that, in general, most of yoga is pretty watered down.

#4

Yoga in its oldest and most purest form, is Raja-Yoga: Mind control. This is a very difficult type of Yoga, and few people have the time, energy and commitment and the intellectual/abstract temper to do this kind of Yoga. This is why later in medivial times Tantra emerged, from which what we call modern Yoga - Hatha Yoga developed. In the Tantra the basic philosophy is to use ritualistic means in order to reach the goal of Yoga. In Tanta this often means magik, mantras, yantras, puja, but also asanas, mudras, pranayamas, dharanas. Hatha Yoga is basically a more diluted version of Tantra, with much less emphasis on magik rituals.

#5

Watered down or simply changed to reflect contemporary times? Often, people are turned off by spirituality because they can’t relate to the language and the themes used in spiritual texts. I agree that what happens more often than it should is that the messages are taken out of context, ripped of their rich and complex historical nature, and turned into a 10-step self-help book. However, we ought to applaud the efforts of those who try and use the texts and apply them to modern times. Unfortunately, there are very few people who do this.

#6

Yep, changed with the times as well. The most recent type of Yoga is scientific Yoga using technology to reach the goals of Yoga(like different states of conscousness) Using some physical means or a prop is the sign of the times of this Kaliyuga. It is no longer possible for the human to practice such a difficult type of Yoga like Raja-Yoga, because they no longer have the faculties that ancient humans once had(a very common capacity was having brilliant memory/photographic memory) The ancient human was comfortable with the abstract, but not so the modern human.

Patanjali’s Yogasutras reads very much like a standard manuel for raja yogis, and yet how he casually describes the attainments of various samadhis and siddhis makes it look like it was so easy in those times for humans to achieve them. In the current times it is definitely not so easy, and this is why there are very few with these attainments. So I believe there has been a massive degredation in the capacities of modern humans.

We should, however, take heed of our current limitations and practice a type of Yoga which is best suited to us. To that end the new emerging scientific Yoga using technology and modern science is our best bet.

#7

It is interesting that you mention memory capacity. It has been something I have studied in university. It is actually a very simple concept–with certain technological advancements, some of our human faculties begin to degrade. Memorization is a perfect example. Things like GPS, texting, the ability to store away massive amounts of information, have made it so that we do not have memorize as much as we used too, or as much as we needed to.

#8

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;68675]Yoga in its oldest and most purest form, is Raja-Yoga: Mind control.[/QUOTE]

I’d like to add an expanded understanding of this …

Raja-Yoga is FAR more than mind control. It’s not control at all, really; it’s conscious direction (there’s a big difference which I won’t get into here).

It’s the conscious direction of the cosmic forces that flow through an individual focal point that we call the soul.

It transcends mind, body, and spirit and expands into the Universal Allness of Creation.

There’s a lot more to be said about this but I’ll leave it there for now.

I just wanted to chime in with a wee expansion … :stuck_out_tongue: