Chapter 71THE EIGHT LIMBS OR STAGES OF YOGAYogāṅgānuṣṭhānāt aśuddhikṣaye jñānadīpṭiḥ āviveka-khyāteḥ (II.28): The practice of the
various stages or limbs of yoga leads to the purification of the self and to the
revelation of knowledge up to the attainment of perfection. These limbs of yoga, or
the stages, are really stages of purification and enlargement of the dimension of
personality—an enhancement of one’s comprehension of the extent of one’s being.
This calls for a preparation which is uncanny in every way. It needs no mention that
unprepared minds cannot take to yoga because the resort to this practice is not
merely an activity that is undertaken, but a rebirth that one takes into a new type of
thought and feeling, so that all preconceptions may have to be set aside when this
new system of thinking is to be introduced. Everything that we regard ordinarily as
the meaning of life ceases to be a meaning here. There is a new type of meaning
which will come to the surface of one’s mind when one properly prepares oneself for
this practice.
These preparations are not really intellectual, academic or even scientific in the
common parlance. It is a readjustment of oneself to a new order of reality—a task
which is difficult to undertake without guidance from a competent teacher. This is,
right from the beginning to the end, a process of living and not merely gathering
information or understanding in any type of extrinsic manner. It is, through and
through, a process of living and being, and not merely an understanding of things
externally. There is nothing in yoga if it is not lived. Therefore, it is quite different
from study in the sense of a vocational pursuit or the idea of education that we have
in our minds, because our studies in the world are generally not connected with life.
They are certain auxiliaries to life, whereas here we are not going to enter into any
auxiliary, but go right to the heart of life itself.
Hence, the preparations called for are all-round. It is not merely one type of
preparation that is required. It is moral, it is physical, it is intellectual, it is social, and
it is spiritual. All things at once are focused into a single point of the student’s
preparation for yoga; and when this purification process begins, there is a
spontaneous purification of personality. All dross in the form of rajas and tamas—
the tendencies of the mind towards enjoyment of things rather than wisdom in
regard to things—ceases, and there is a revelation, jnanadipti. It has to be reiterated
that this jnanadipti, or illumination, is not merely a vacant light that flashes itself
forth on certain objects; it is an enlightenment of oneself—a knowledge of Truth and
an insight into Reality. Therefore, it is difficult to understand with any stretch of
imagination what sort of knowledge it is.
Because of our inability to comprehend the nature of this knowledge, we still have
doubts. Even till the end, this doubt persists as to the relationship of oneself with
God, world and society, and there are even doubts concerning the nature of one’s
status after liberation, and so on, which are the remnants of the doubts concerning
the relationship of oneself with other things. The doubts arise on account of a
bifurcation of knowledge from its object, inasmuch as we are born into this doubt,
into this world of this distinction that is persistently made between knowing and
being. But, every step in yoga is a step towards the unification of knowledge and