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Namah Yogic insights into human psychology

preserved, its various experiences widely Each had and still has its faithful followers
documented in detail, but also transmitted who fight vociferously to convert the ‘others’
down the generations through a unique aggressively to their own doctrines. Each
system of guru-disciple tradition. Thereby it claims to know and therefore the right to
accumulated a rich material, a large body of preach and teach.
literature which can be taken as an empirical
evidence of its discoveries. Yoga starts with much more sobering premises
of which the first is that Reality is Infinite
The guru-disciple tradition handed over and it is impossible for the limited human
the key to rightly understand and practise consciousness bound by finite experiences
what was contained in the yogic literature. to ‘know’ IT in totality. Therefore it accepts
It was found by our early forefathers that varieties of approaches to THAT and leaves
the practice of yoga can be very daunting; each one free to discover and follow his or her
besides its own dangers it can open doors own unique approach towards THAT. The
to a host of psychological forces and a range one thing essential is to discover the Ultimate
of occult phenomenon which an uninitiated Reality or Truth or whatever else by whatever
person cannot really handle. Hence arose means possible. The means themselves have
the need of secrecy, while in other scenarios a limited usefulness. They are useful until
this seeking and its attendant findings were we have found the object of our seeking.
not thus transmitted. The first revelation was They may still remain useful as signposts and
considered to be the final one thereby drying guiding lamps on the way to those who may
up the evolutionary stream of human quest follow later. However what is important is
or turning it into a petrified formal religion not the means but the process, not the tools
whose deeper sense was lost in an elaborate and the methods but the seeking. The seeking
system of rituals and symbols. What was comes first and then the process follows.
originally a kind of yoga turned thereby into Tools and methods are mere convenient
a narrow, rigid dogma. devices. They are useful only to the extent
that they can nurture our seeking and help
Quite naturally humanity in its effort to us go through the process. But devoid of a
break free from this fixity of thought had to seeking they are mere encumbrances, like the
pass through a phase of a purifying atheism, formula of relativity for a child studying in
though sometimes, in its overzealous attitude Kindergarten. He understands e and m and c
it went overboard and turned atheism itself and 2 but has no clue as to what the formula
into a yet another religion whose priest was the actually means! Therefore if we wish to truly
scientist sitting in the university temples, the take help from yoga to better and help our
rituals and sacred books were the ‘rigorous’ human state then we need to understand
scientific methods and analysis the only tool its principles along with the practice. It is
through which we can understand the human not enough to merely learn some techniques
formula. As in the case of exclusive religions, and methods, useful as they are in whatever
there began to appear various schools of limited ways, but to learn it as any other
psychological thought, each claiming its own science and art, first the principles and then
superiority, if not exclusivity, over others. the practice.

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