DEVELOPMENT OF YOGA

During the early 20th century, the archeological survey of India excavated the ancient ruins of the Indus Valley. Here they found a coin that depicted a picture of a man sitting erect in a cross-legged lotus position, surrounded by wild animals. Apart from the organized religious or spiritual beliefs, the civilization of the Indus Valley certainly knew the important of psychic practices. The picture goes a long way to provide the evidence about the existence of psycho-spiritual practices. This coin belongs to an era 6000 years before Christ.

The earliest known spiritual practices were largely about the mysterious forces of nature. As human understanding about nature developed, spiritual practices were formulated in order to further the enhancement of human interaction with the cosmos. Everything from religion to science began to revolve more and more around the central idea of human identity vis-à-vis the cosmos. In the Indian subcontinent there gradually developed six schools of spirituality. They are Nyaya, Mimamsa, Vaishesika, Sankhya, Vedanta and Yoga. Historically, Yoga is the latest and the youngest spiritual philosophy of all. The philosophy and the practices of Yoga are essentially the finer developments of its older counterparts. Subjects like Vedanta and Tantra have heavily contributed to the growth of the absolute science of Yoga.

The understanding of spiritual practices prior to Buddha was largely Tantric and Vedantic in nature. A deep study of early Buddhism reveals the Vedantic practices. But not until the 3rd century BC did the subjects reveal their true substance, which is explainable in terms of modern physics. Science is the name of an unquenchable thirst for the understanding of the unknown. It provides us with the tools to distinguish truth from beliefs.

During the 3rd century BC, Maharsi Patanjali, for the first time, codified the structure of spiritual practices. This great work of Patanjali is known as the Yoga Sutras. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is the absolute authority of spiritual yoga practice. It not only describes the sequence of practice, but also provides the exact and definite equations of spirituality and indicates the correct results and indications of a successful practice.

Since Patanjali, hundreds of great yogis have successfully practised and proved the accuracy of the Yoga Sutras. Yogis like Matsyendranath, Gorakhnath, etc, have immortalized the scientific practices of each and every aspect of yoga. Followers of these masters have been practising yoga for thousands of years. In the process they have propagated their unique knowledge and understanding to thousands of generations of yogis. Scriptures like the Siddhasiddhanta Paddhati and Hatha Yoga Pradipika provide the list of yogis who originally mastered the science of yoga. Even today the science of yoga is practised in its purist form by yogis belonging to the lineages of these masters.

The lineage of the great yogi Matsyendranath exists even today. It is found in ten unique suborders called the Dasanami Nagas. Seven of these sects are naked sadhus who carry a sword or a trident as a symbol of protection. The other three sects are the practitioners. One of the practising sects of the great lineage is called Saraswati. Yogi Manmoyanand belongs to this lineage.