All India Radio Talk at Hyderabad on
30-7-1967.
The way of union with the Divine Reality is
called Yoga. Raja yoga utilises divine thought
of the super-finest kind to bring about this
union. Since thought is verily the sovereign
fact about reality this method is called Raja
yoga.
Patanjali's Yoga implies this, but does not
lay it out in clearest terms as it was intended
to be imparted by the teacher or instructor. It
also emphasizes only the suppression and control
and the final eradication of human thought and
its modifications. The most disturbing feature
of the latter is its persistent disturbing
nature. It has become the root cause and effect
of tensions, emotional, intellectual and
physical. Man has been trying several recipes
for getting rid of his stream of thoughts, which
disturb his peace, and Raja yoga became one of
them. Its main help was negative. But even this
became difficult, for, the human mind refuses to
be suppressed and repressed. It is this that
made for the positive approach of securing
Divine thought to effect it.
The ancient yogis of the bye-gone past had
known that this Divine thought could be sought
and brought down by appropriate means - through
surrender to the supreme God who is the Guru of
all mankind. No human effort of any kind could
bring about this union or bring down the Divine
thought. God himself, or one who has already
secured his connection or link or yoga with Him
alone, could do this.
Human methods of approach have been in the
main negative. They have firstly been wrong in
the aspirations for a happy earthly and economic
life. They have moved to the opposite extreme of
denying all earthly and social life.
Renunciation or escape from life was counselled
as the condition for securing the divinest
thought. Mere knowledge as a quality of thought
was also held to be sufficient. But the ancient
discovery that it was the breath or life-force,
the prana or pranasya prana was not followed up.
Therefore it does not feature prominently in the
later yogic systems, which consider prana or
breath to be a variant of the air (vayu) rather
than the source and fountain of all life. God is
Existence, Divine Consciousness and Bliss.
The method of securing and introducing it
into the seeker after peace, relaxation, freedom
from tensions, self-realization, and liberation,
was lost mainly because it was thought that the
individual must evolve before this force could
be introduced into his heart. Individual fitness
alone determined the initiation or introduction
of divine thought, and for securing this
fitness, adhikara, it was emphasized that
several practices should be followed. While it
was essential and obligatory to do them, it
nevertheless became almost impossible except for
a select few, to attain such fitness or adhikara
or arhata. In this manner the original method of
introducing divine life-breath that makes
possible spiritual evolution and emancipation,
got lost. And this also put Raja Yoga beyond the
reach of the common man, and made it also appear
to be a difficult self-torturing process.
In order to restore this supreme divine
thought which is also the divine life-force to
its pristine position, some thinkers envisaged
the necessity to make a direct attempt to gain
it through prayer and meditation on the
traditional forms and patterns of religious
worship. But it also fell into gross
complexities. Purest surrender to God alone as
the Ultimate Guru became clearly the only
alternative.
Such a prayer of mankind brings down the
Godhead himself. The Raja yoga, which secures
the Divine Descent into the seeker's heart, is
natural, and is without the efforts of the human
individual. It is the most beneficent, provided
the aspiration is kept alive by constant
remembrance of God. But all this was mostly
theoretical, or speculative and imaginary.
During this century a remarkable personality
tried to secure this divine possibility and
experiment on its potentialities. He showed that
practically every human being can be made fit
for the higher approaches by means of the Divine
thought itself without introducing complexities
and knots. Not only peace from mental confusion
and riot of thoughts could be secured, but also
even the divinisation of man's nature could take
place, once this force is introduced into the
seeker. The practical operation of this divine
thought in man was simple, uncomplicated by
rituals and learning, and even bereft of all
that pass for devotional methods. The Guru who
has secured this capacity to introduce divine
thought-life-force into the heart of the seeker
merely introduces this force, and the individual
soul, awakened superconsciously to its destiny
and union with the Ultimate, begins to move
upward and Godward.
All the several methods become natural rather
than artificial. This method of meditation or
dhyana which is essential to all yogas is
divinely operated, and the individual feels the
transmission of divine life-energy flowing into
one's entire nature, physical, vital and mental,
and harmony results as a consequence. The
receptivity for this divine experience begins to
grow more and more, and one experiences cosmic
consciousness as well as divine consciousness.
But this yoga does not base itself on any human
need, nor does it trade in miracles. Natural
divine condition or sahaja samadhi results in
all activities, and one is, in the language of
the Gita, established in the Divine - a
sthitaprajna - living and moving and having his
being in the Divine Godhead or the Ultimate
Absolute.
Most yogins cannot reach this condition in
this worldly life. But in the real Raja yoga,
renunciation is transformed into non-attachment
and divinised. Family life and social
obligations take on a divine harmonious nature
and peace is secured everywhere. Moderation
becomes the vital principle in divine living.
The ancient ideal of an ideal yogi as grhastha
gets realised in the simplest possible way.
This is the discovery of the modern yogi Sri
Ram Chandraji of Shahjahanpur living today, and
he has also perfected the method of initiation
through divine thought, which takes over the
entire spiritual voyage of the individual. But
constant watch over the individual being
necessary, one is naturally made to feel the
living presence of God and be associated within
throughout. Raja yoga, in this sense, is called
Natural and divine as contrasted with that which
is in vogue. This is the cardinal principle of
Sri Ramchandra's Raja Yoga.
Though modern man swears by human reason and
by human values, and tries to sublimate his
instincts and break his tensions by faultless
etiquette and good manners, we know how thin is
the distinction between the modern civilized man
and the savage barbarian. Culture or humanism
demands the divine touch and life-breath to
change it into divine culture. But without
securing God's grace and descent as the breath
of our breath and life of our life, one can only
be guided by ignorance and misery and anguish.
All this leads to the inevitable necessity of
securing God-thought and God-life-breath through
those who are in full possession of that force.
This is the most important role of the spiritual
Guru in Yoga.
Our salvation depends on adopting Raja yoga
of this divine kind. Then alone can the
statement that all life is yoga that makes for
well-being, get verified, and made the most
significant method for higher evolution of man
into divine nature.
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