The Complete Yoga Community

SWAMIS
Every swami belongs to the ancient monastic order. By vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the spiritual teacher, many Catholic Christian monastic orders resemble the Order of Swamis. The title “swami” represents the attainment of supreme bliss through some divine quality or state – love, wisdom, devotion, service, yoga – and through harmony with nature. The ideal of selfless service to all mankind, and of renunciation of personal ties and ambitions, leads the majority of swamis to engage actively in humanitarian and educational work. Ignoring all prejudices of caste, creed, class, color, sex, or race, a swami follows the precepts of human brotherhood. His goal is absolute unity with Spirit. The swami roams contentedly in the world but not of it. Thus only may he justify his title of swami – one who seeks to achieve union with the Swa or Self.

But, a swami, formally a monk by virtue of his connection with the ancient order, is not always a yogi.

YOGIS
Anyone who practices a scientific technique of God-contact is a yogi; he may be either married or unmarried, either a worldly man or one of formal religious ties. A yogi engages himself in a definite, step-by-step procedure by which the body and mind are disciplined, and the soul liberated. Taking nothing for granted on emotional grounds, or by faith, a yogi practices a thoroughly tested series of exercise which were first mapped out by the early rishis, seers or sages. Yoga has produced men who became truly free.

YOGA
Like any other science, yoga is applicable to people of every clime and time. Yoga is a method for restraining the natural turbulence of thoughts, which otherwise impartially prevent all men, of all lands, from glimpsing their true nature of Spirit. Yoga cannot know the barrier of East and West any more than does the healing and equitable light of the sun. The ancient rishi Patanjali defines “yoga” as “control of the fluctuations of the mind-stuff”.  His very short and masterly expositions, the Yoga Sutras, form one of the six systems… the six systems formulate six definite disciplines aimed at the permanent removal of suffering and the attainment of timeless bliss.The common thread linking all six systems is the declaration that no true freedom for man is possible without the knowledge of the ultimate reality. Yoga Sutras contain the most efficacious methods for achieving direct perception of truth. Through the practical techniques of yoga , man leaves behind forever the barren realms of speculation and cognizes in experience the veritable essence.

The Yoga system as outlined by Patanjali is known as the Eightfold Path:

(1)   Yama – avoidance of injury to others, of untruthfulness, of stealing, of incontinence, of gift-receiving (which brings obligations)

(2)   Niyama – purity of body and mind, contentment, self-discipline, study and devotion to God

(3)   Asana (right posture) – the spinal column must be held straight, and the body firm in a comfortable position for meditation

(4)   Pranayama (control of prana [energy], subtle life currents) – [through breath]

(5)   Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from external objects)

(6)   Dharana (concentration) – holding the mind to one thought

(7)   Dhyana (meditation), and

(8)   Samadhi (superconscious perception)

This is the Eightfold Path of Yoga which leads one to the final goal of Kaivalya (Absoluteness), a term which might be more comprehensibly put as “realisation of the Truth beyond an intellectual apprehension.”

“Which is greater,” one may ask, “a swami or a yogi?” If and when final oneness with God is achieved, the distinctions of the various paths disappear.  The methods of yoga are all-embracing. Its teachings are not meant only for certain types and temperaments, such as those few who incline toward the monastic life; yoga requires no formal allegiance. Because the yogic science satisfies a universal need, it has a natural universal applicability.

A true yogi may remain dutifully in the world. To fulfil one’s earthly responsibilities is indeed the higher path, provided the yogi, maintaining a mental uninvolvement with egotistical desires, plays his part as a willing instrument of God.

Text Extracted from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananada