Om Yoga Meditation: Why Yoga?

The following is an excerpt from the book "Om yoga: Its Theory and Practice."

Om is the Supreme Brahman. (Svetasvatara Upanishad 1:7)

He who utters Om with the intention 'I shall attain Brahman' does verily attain Brahman. (Taittiriya Upanishad 1.8.1)

The Self is of the nature of the Syllable Om. (Mandukya Upanishad 1.8.12)

Meditate on Om as the Self. (Mundaka Upanishad 2.2.3)

Liberation-Freedom

yoga is all about freedom. Only a fraction of the earth's population is formally imprisoned, but the entire human race is imprisoned in the earth itself. None are free from the inevitability of sickness, age, and death, however free of them they may be at the moment. The human condition is subject to innumerable limitations. Who really controls his life fully, attains all his goals, and knows no setbacks of any kind? No one. Om Yoga is the way to freedom from suffering and limitation. Regarding Om, the Yoga Sutras (1) simply say: "Its repetition and meditation is the way(yoga Sutras 1:28). Even a superficial perusal of the Upanishads reveals that the meditation practice known and recommended by the Vedic Rishis (2), and later Patanjali and Krishna, (3)A Divine Incarnation (avatar) born in India about three thousand years ago, Whose teachings to His disciple Arjuna on the eve of the Great India (Mahabharata) War comprise the Bhagavad Gita.) was based on Om, the sacred syllable that both symbolizes and embodies Brahman, the Absolute Reality.

It is my hope that you will test for yourself the spiritual alchemy of Om yoga that is set forth here. If your practice is exactly as outlined and of sufficient duration, your experience will be the proof of its validity and its efficacy.

"This is the bridge to immortality. May you be successful in crossing over to the farther shore of darkness." (Mundaka Upanishad 2.2.6)

Why yoga?

Since the spirit is always free, and nothing can change it-nor does it ever need any changing-the question naturally arises: "Why bother with yoga at all? If our real self is ever perfect and free, what needs to be done? What can be done?"

It is true; the spirit is ever-free, but it has forgotten that and identifies with its experience of bondage and consequently (seemingly) suffers. Our situation is like someone who is asleep and dreaming that he is being tortured and beaten. In reality he is not being touched at all; yet he is experiencing pain and fear. He need not placate, overpower, or escape his torturers. He needs no more dream activity! He needs only to wake up. yoga is the procedure of self-awakening.

In his commentary on the Yoga Sutras Shankara (The great reformer and re-establisher of Vedic Religion in India around 300 B.C.) has an "opponent" say: "How can there be a means to obtain liberation? Liberation is not a thing which can be obtained, for it is simply cessation of bondage." And Shankara replies: "You are wrong. For ignorance [bondage] to cease, something has to be done, with effort, as in the breaking of a fetter. Though liberation is not a 'thing,' inasmuch as it is cessation of ignorance in the presence of right knowledge it is figuratively spoken of as something to be obtained." And he concludes: "The purpose of yoga is the knowledge of Reality."

What is yoga?

"Yoga" is a Sanskrit word that means "to join." Yoga, then, is union and the way to union. What do we join through yoga?

First, we join our awareness to our own essential being: spirit that is consciousness. In yoga philosophy this is known as the atman or self. Next we join our finite conscious