Edgar Cayce and the Yoga Sutras. Istvan Fazekas
Yoga are these:
• Yamas: five moral practices, restraints, which make you a beneficial and productive member of society, and which refine the ego.
• Niyamas: five behavioral practices, adherences, that start you on the road (and keep you prospering on the road) to transforming your consciousness and merging into the Higher Self.
• Asana: physical postures designed to tune up the endocrine, nervous, and musculoskeletal systems. The essential purpose of asana is to allow the aspirant to sit for extended periods in meditation and not get distracted by an uncomfortable body; greater strength and physical longevity are added benefits.
• Pranayama: harnessing vital energy through breathing exercises and awareness, primarily to magnetize the spinal column and increase the vitality reserve for more profound states of consciousness.
• Pratyahara: withdrawal or introspection of consciousness—prompting the aspirant to turn inward to uncover the ever-abiding holiness within.
• Samyama—the collective actions of dharana, dhyana, and samadhi: the last stages of attuning to God consciousness; the deeper, more advanced practice of turning inward, uniting mind with Spirit; the key components of the systematic progression toward enlightenment.
It is through these eight stages, each building on the practice of the one preceding it, that Patañjali and the readings’ source delineate a course, a time-tested prescription, for transforming ego consciousness into Christ Consciousness and maximizing the valuable opportunity of an incarnation. This system brings you into an awareness of God where no fabricated dogma, institutional chastening, or metaphysical threats are involved or needed. This is an interesting coincidence of the readings and the yogic masters’ teachings (one of numerous)—heaven and hell are what you make them to be—they are states of consciousness.
Not all people, by any means, [who profess a belief in God, actually] believe in God. They simply talk. The worldly-minded people have heard something from someone that God exists and that everything happens by His will; but it is not their inner belief. Do you know what a worldly man’s idea of God is like? It is like the children swearing by God when they quarrel. They have heard the word while listening to their elderly aunts quarrel.
Ramakrishna
Transforming consciousness is the central focus in mysticism, the “inner” or “hidden” religious teachings found throughout every tradition. In spiritual yoga, even such ideas as past-life knowledge and telekinesis, although entertaining, are to be subservient to moral actions and daily, ever-deepening attunements to the Source.
Both the great teachers of Asian traditions, the lot of whom I will group together for the sake of efficiency as “sages” or “masters,” and the Cayce readings’ source have no patience for those of us who seek shortcuts. The readings’ source states unambiguously that “there are no [short cuts] in Christianity” and “no short cuts to knowledge, to wisdom, to understanding,” or to “spirituality.” Everyone must pay the required price by working through the ego’s foibles and rebellion—thought by thought, action by action. Fortunately, there is a well-traveled path in the yoga of the Christ. All we have to do is to commit to live it and work diligently for more inner Light.
Enlightenment is the natural result of taming the ever-sly ego and willfully surrendering to Spirit. It is not an easy task. Many of the skeptics, those who either completely discount all spiritual efforts as futile or those who think yoga is a threat to their belief system, are condemning the water as unpalatable before it reaches their own taste buds. They are misled by either fear or ignorance, both of which are perpetual roadblocks to spiritual awakening. But it is a choice, and everyone’s reality is shaped by his or her choices.
Ultimately, spiritual yoga is a roadmap that charts the course for new choices, more expansive thoughts, and beneficial actions. It is a means to transform the seemingly intractable ways of the ego. The sages understood the ego’s workings and knew that with knowledge comes responsibility. True knowledge, that which everyone seeks on the deepest level, is God knowledge—that which pulls the ego out of its narrow and troublesome confines, that which makes decisions not on sociopolitical or financial presumptions but on intuitive wisdom, that which is willing to sacrifice for the good of the whole.
The twenty-first century is ushering in a greater dialogue between spiritual knowledge and scientific curiosity. The experiences and wisdom of the ancient sages is interlocking with and helping to birth new discoveries in cellular biology, quantum physics, neuroplasticity, and mind-over-body protocols.
It is here, at this juncture, where spiritual yoga becomes a vital medicine. It is only by experiencing deeper states of consciousness that religion starts to make sense and has authentic meaning. It is only by delving into the nature of the mind, participating in the process of awakening, that scientists can know metaphysical reality as a fact of their own being. Then they can understand that there are certain things that can be measured and quantified . . . and other things, sacred things, which cannot.
This is how spiritual yoga can generate world peace—providing an opportunity for each individual to experience the sacred foundation upon which our very existence rests. Upon this understanding there can be no quarreling, no textual debate, and no sociopolitical factionalism. To put it in the vein of the sages: Once the inner light dawns, all the external darkness of argument and fear evaporates. This is but one of the priceless gifts of spiritual yoga for humanity.
1
The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali
There is virtually nothing historically reliable to help us know Patañjali. Patañjali may have been an individual spiritual adept or merely identified by a collection of writings, perhaps developed over centuries, attributed to one teacher. Regardless of this enigma, the Yoga Sutras reflect the culmination of a philosophical climax. These sutras weave together different philosophical elements and yet remain as a distinct composition able to defend itself against rival beliefs of the time, circa 200 C.E. One scholar believes them to be the fusion of two methodologies, kriya yoga and ashtangha yoga.1
The following is a reinterpretation of Patañjali’s Yoga Sutras for the modern Western reader, especially in the light of the Edgar Cayce readings. It is not meant to be a direct translation as much as a revitalized spiritual rendition faithful to the ethos and wisdom of the sutras.
These sutras should not be read in a hasty manner. They were originally meant to be discussion and instruction points between teacher and student. Keeping this in mind, each line and paragraph is a meditation in and of itself. Patañjali condensed profound mystical philosophies into small spaces. In reading these sutras, one should travel slowly and continually ask oneself, How does this apply to me? These words are not so much expositional as they are symbolic, meant to impel you to dive within the depths of your mind and heart.
Book I: On Concentration
This is the explanation of spiritual yoga:
Yoga is the prevention of the mind’s constant agitation. In doing so, the seer eventually abides in the Self—the internal, boundless effulgence. When the mind is agitated, the seer erroneously identifies with mental agitations.
The mental agitations fall into five types, some of which are more problematic than others: ripe knowledge, unripe knowledge, the illusions of the intellect and imagination, dreams, and memory.
Ripe knowledge has three aspects: direct perception, sensible reasoning, and testimony from reliable sources.
Unripe knowledge is the development of an illusion based on misperception or misinformation. The illusion is mistaken for truth.
The illusion of the intellect is the assumption that scientific laws, theories, and postulations truly explain