To understand what this austerity that Buddha took up in his early life really means, we must look at the ancient Hindu practice of yoga, which grows from this conception of diverse paths converging on a common goal -- actualizing the human potential for strength, wisdom, and joy. And perhaps this will better inform the practice and understanding of yoga that many have taken up in our time.
The word yoga comes from the same root as the English word yoke, connoting integration or union with one’s divine creative power. The purpose of yoga is to actualize the ultimate human potential, to “direct personal experience of ‘the Beyond within.’ Its method is willed introversion, its intent, to drive the psychic energy of the self to its deepest part, “the infinite ocean of life’s creative power,” (p.26) and ultimately to become “in full what one always was at heart.”(p.27)
Of all the religions, Hinduism tends to stand alone is recognizing “different spiritual personality types,” Smith says, each of which more naturally prefers one of the “multiple paths to God, each calling for its distinctive mode of approach.” But “Hinduism is exceptional in the attention it has given the matter; it identifies the principle types and delineates the programs that are suited to each.” [1] Not that anyone will follow only one path, but in keeping with our card playing metaphor, just as “all hands of cards include all four suits….one normally leads with one’s strongest suit.”(p.26)
And “the spiritual trails that Hindus have blazed toward this goal are four.”(p.26) They are jnana yoga (emphasizing knowledge, reflection, the shortest and steepest path), bhakti yoga (emphasizing emotion, love), karma yoga (emphasizing work, energy), and raja yoga (emphasizing self-experimentation). These “Different starting points here really refers to different types of people.”(Smith, 26) Still, “No individual is solely reflective, emotional, active or experimental, and different life situations call for different resources to be brought into play. Most people will find that they make better time on one road than the others, so will keep close to it: but Hinduism encourages people to test all four and combine them in the ways they find most productive.”(p.38)
However, in keeping with the founding principle of karma, the ancients understood that there are “moral preliminaries common to all four yogas, for unless one’s personal life is in reasonable order and one’s relationships harmonious, there can be no hope of deeper self-knowledge; the surface waters will be too choppy.”(p.34)
“The first step of every yoga, therefore, involves the dismantling of bad habits and the acquisition of good ones.”(p.26) For “to discern the self’s deep-lying divinity, the scum on its surface must be removed. Selfishness muddies the water, ill-will skews objectivity.”(p.26) But as the Taoists will say, “Muddy water let stand will clear.”(Tao Te Ching)
“From the very beginning of Chinese culture, ancient sages emphasized keeping still. Keeping still is not keeping merely the body still but the mind and spirit as well… Sitting in stillness…is a self-disciplinary training. While doing this, one is able to control the mind and the breath, to be introspective about one’s shortcomings and to cultivate inner strength and virtue… Keeping still is meant to prepare one’s mind and spirit to progress when the time comes.”(I Ching, pp.412-413)
“To the mind that is still, the whole world surrenders.”(Smith, p.131) And it is this ultimate concentration that is the goal of all paths. And meditation is often used to turn this from a chance occurrence to a controlled skill.(Smith, 37) For “When all the senses are stilled, when the mind is at rest, when the intellect wavers not – that, say the wise, is the highest state.”(Katha Upanishad, Smith, 38)
Gautama mastered each of these four paths, and like the yogis he followed, practice self-denial to an extreme state for six years. But eventually Gautama grew weak, and came to see the wisdom of what he would call ‘The Middle Way’ between the extremes of self-sacrifice and indulgence.
[1] (Smith, .26)
The word yoga comes from the same root as the English word yoke, connoting integration or union with one’s divine creative power. The purpose of yoga is to actualize the ultimate human potential, to “direct personal experience of ‘the Beyond within.’ Its method is willed introversion, its intent, to drive the psychic energy of the self to its deepest part, “the infinite ocean of life’s creative power,” (p.26) and ultimately to become “in full what one always was at heart.”(p.27)
Of all the religions, Hinduism tends to stand alone is recognizing “different spiritual personality types,” Smith says, each of which more naturally prefers one of the “multiple paths to God, each calling for its distinctive mode of approach.” But “Hinduism is exceptional in the attention it has given the matter; it identifies the principle types and delineates the programs that are suited to each.” [1] Not that anyone will follow only one path, but in keeping with our card playing metaphor, just as “all hands of cards include all four suits….one normally leads with one’s strongest suit.”(p.26)
And “the spiritual trails that Hindus have blazed toward this goal are four.”(p.26) They are jnana yoga (emphasizing knowledge, reflection, the shortest and steepest path), bhakti yoga (emphasizing emotion, love), karma yoga (emphasizing work, energy), and raja yoga (emphasizing self-experimentation). These “Different starting points here really refers to different types of people.”(Smith, 26) Still, “No individual is solely reflective, emotional, active or experimental, and different life situations call for different resources to be brought into play. Most people will find that they make better time on one road than the others, so will keep close to it: but Hinduism encourages people to test all four and combine them in the ways they find most productive.”(p.38)
However, in keeping with the founding principle of karma, the ancients understood that there are “moral preliminaries common to all four yogas, for unless one’s personal life is in reasonable order and one’s relationships harmonious, there can be no hope of deeper self-knowledge; the surface waters will be too choppy.”(p.34)
“The first step of every yoga, therefore, involves the dismantling of bad habits and the acquisition of good ones.”(p.26) For “to discern the self’s deep-lying divinity, the scum on its surface must be removed. Selfishness muddies the water, ill-will skews objectivity.”(p.26) But as the Taoists will say, “Muddy water let stand will clear.”(Tao Te Ching)
“From the very beginning of Chinese culture, ancient sages emphasized keeping still. Keeping still is not keeping merely the body still but the mind and spirit as well… Sitting in stillness…is a self-disciplinary training. While doing this, one is able to control the mind and the breath, to be introspective about one’s shortcomings and to cultivate inner strength and virtue… Keeping still is meant to prepare one’s mind and spirit to progress when the time comes.”(I Ching, pp.412-413)
“To the mind that is still, the whole world surrenders.”(Smith, p.131) And it is this ultimate concentration that is the goal of all paths. And meditation is often used to turn this from a chance occurrence to a controlled skill.(Smith, 37) For “When all the senses are stilled, when the mind is at rest, when the intellect wavers not – that, say the wise, is the highest state.”(Katha Upanishad, Smith, 38)
Gautama mastered each of these four paths, and like the yogis he followed, practice self-denial to an extreme state for six years. But eventually Gautama grew weak, and came to see the wisdom of what he would call ‘The Middle Way’ between the extremes of self-sacrifice and indulgence.
[1] (Smith, .26)