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Namah Yogic insights into human psychology

we may follow. Thus, for example, when we glimpse some reflection of the sun from afar
practise a set of aasanas or praannaayaama and even without undertaking the real journey then
meditation for health and calmness, we shall we tend to turn the Law of Truth into a set
find that. But this is only a basic preliminary of fixed, unalterable rules which all must
gain, a side-dish of yoga, a starter so to say follow. But the sun reveals itself differently
and not the main course. in different seasons, so too the law of Truth
reveals itself differently at different stages of
The real purpose of yoga is not just some life and our self-growth.
mind-body balancing or some physical vigour
and health. All these are good but yoga Realigning to Truth
knows that Truth shines far beyond the
limiting horizons of our mind. It seeks to In other words our life, as we live and experience
climb to the Home of Truth on wings of it, begins to fall out of tune with its rhythm that
fire. It can do so since according to yoga, it is meant to be. As a farmer who tills the soil
this fire of aspiration in man has the same and sows the seeds in the wrong season fails
essential quality as the sun of Truth. Here to harvest the sowings, so too our life, failing
it manifests as a seeking, there, in its to take note of this unfolding of Truth and
native home it manifests as the self-aware progressive evolution, often fails to reap the
Splendour of Light and Power. That is how divine harvest from within the soil of human
the well-known discovery of yoga has to be nature. Or to take another example, just as a
understood that boldly declares that man musical instrument or a vehicle needs to be
is essentially divine, Sohamasmi, I am That, tuned to give its best, so too our life and its
or Tattvamasi, Thou are That. instruments need to be tuned once again to
our depths and heights for a truer and fuller
This does not mean that man in his surface living. Yoga is a means to tune our life to its
nature is divine. It is in his depths that man is intended rhythm.
divine. He carries within him the seed or spark
of the divine Consciousness that is unfolding The animal is attuned to nature with the
in his life through a number of bodies and power of instincts. It knows instinctively
births. Yoga is only a conscious means of what it must do or not do to keep itself in tune
arriving at this great fundamental realisation. with the environment and material nature
The Law of Truth also can be discovered that surrounds it. Man has lost this instinctive
for each one only when he discovers this harmony. He has bargained it for something
secret fire within, the immortal soul in man else. The animal instincts in him have taken a
and the divine Will that is ingrained within backseat as the powers of thought and mind
it. Or else, it can be discovered through a began to emerge. The mind must now re-
long and arduous journey towards the sun. attune our being, first by the development of
This is the tremendous adventure of yoga discriminative intellect and next by growing
symbolised in the stories of Jatayu and towards higher and higher possibilities of the
Sampati, of Hanuman leaping towards the mind itself until it arrives at intuition.
sun in Indian mythology and of Icarus and This growth of intuition in man will be the
Daedalus in Greek mythology. But when we human equivalent of the instinct in animal.

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