Yoga in the Brahma Purāṇa: Vyāsa's Teaching

Brahma Purāṇa Yoga, “yoga as the Brahma Purāṇa teaches it”

The Brahma Purāṇa teaches yoga in its closing chapters on moksha-dharma, where the munis ask Vyāsa, the best among the knowers of yoga, for “the medicine that removes the sorrow of saṃsāra”, so that they may fix their minds on Bhagavān Vishṇu, Purushottama, the imperishable. Vyāsa answers that yoga destroys saṃsāra: one who practises it and becomes a yogī attains moksha, which is supremely hard to attain. He teaches the preparation for yoga, the food that serves it, the times and places where it must and must not be practised, the seat and posture, prāṇāyāma, the long utterance of the praṇava and dhyāna on Purushottama in the cave of the heart. “The dissolving of the mind together with the senses,” he says, “is yoga.”

In the chapters that follow, Vyāsa teaches the five yoga-doshas (faults that obstruct yoga: kāma, krodha, lobha, bhaya and svapna) and how each is conquered, the practice by which the seeker becomes one with the akshara (the imperishable), and the great power of yoga, yoga-bala, before which even Yama and Mṛtyu cannot enter the yogī. He sets yoga beside sāṅkhya: the two are joined inseparably, both give moksha, and the followers of both seek sāyujya (union) with Nārāyaṇa. Then, in the itihāsa of Vasishṭha Maharshi and King Karāla Janaka, Vasishṭha teaches the yoga way of seeing the tattva, and ends with the teaching handed down in the sampradāya: “Sāṅkhya itself is Yoga; Yoga itself is Sāṅkhya.” The phala is given in Vyāsa’s own words: whoever follows this path, however low the birth, woman or man, attains mukti and sees Vāsudeva.

How the teaching is given

The whole teaching is given as questions from the munis and answers by Vyāsa. The munis say that however much they drink the nectar of his words, which rose from the ocean of milk that is his mouth, they are not satisfied, and they ask by what means a seeker who has studied the Veda of his own śākhā, performed yajñas, kept to truth and dharma, done tapas and brahmacarya and given up the fruit of all karma, may attain mukti. Vyāsa teaches yoga first, then sāṅkhya and yoga together, the highest dharma and the means to moksha, the excellence of yoga over sāṅkhya, and the way of sāṅkhya taught by Kapila. Asked further, he tells the itihāsa of Vasishṭha‘s teaching to Janaka.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapters 235–236, 239–241

Preparation before practice

Vyāsa gives the preparation in this order:

First hear the yoga śāstras.
Serve the guru with bhakti.
Learn the matters of yoga.
Know what the itihāsa, the purāṇa and the Vedas say.
Know the good and bad qualities of food.
Know the good and bad qualities of place, time and condition.
Then, having gone beyond the pairs of opposites such as pleasure and pain, and having given up any wish to receive anything from anyone (pratigraha), practise yoga.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 235

Food, times and places

Food suited to yoga. Flour of parched grain, gruel, buttermilk, tubers, roots, fruits, rice cooked from broken grain or semolina, and food made from barley flour.

When yoga must not be practised. When the mind is agitated or disturbed; when one is tired or hungry; when cold, heat or wind is troubling one; and while sounds can be heard.

Places where yoga must never be practised. Near water; in a ruined cow-shed; where four roads meet; where snakes move about; in a śmaśāna (cremation ground); at the edges of rivers; near fire; at caityas; in villages; near trees planted for people to gather and for pūjā as devatās; near ant-hills; in places where there is cause for fear; near wells; and near heaps of dry leaves. One who out of folly practises yoga in such places suffers deafness, dullness of mind, loss of memory, dumbness, blindness and fever, and ajñāna (ignorance) arises. The body alone is the means for all four purushārthas, Vyāsa says; so, keeping these rules and protecting the body, one should practise yoga.

Places and times fit for yoga. In an āśrama; where there are no people; in a secret place; where no sound is heard; in a place free of fear; on a hill; in an empty house; in a clean, beautiful and solitary place; in a temple. The times are the first and the last yāma (watch) of the night, and in the day, dawn and midday.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 235

The seat, the posture and the practice

Eating suitable food in moderation, having conquered the senses, at ease and unmoving, the yogī sits on a pleasing seat that is not too high, facing east. He is truthful in speech, clean, with enough sleep; he has conquered anger, wishes the good of all beings, bears the pairs such as cold and heat, and is firm of mind, keeping body, feet and head in line. Then the practice goes step by step:

Placing the hands upon the navel, calm, he sits in padmāsana.
Keeping silence, with the gaze on the tip of the nose, he practises prāṇāyāma.
He withdraws the five jñānendriyas (organs of knowledge), together with the mind, into the heart.
As a muni, very still, he utters the praṇava (Oṃ) long and with effort.
He covers the working of tamo-guṇa by rajo-guṇa, and rajo-guṇa by sattva-guṇa; closing his eyes, he rests in a pure, calm state.
So he fixes in his citta Purushottama, hidden in the cave of the heart, all-pervading and stainless.
First the jñānendriyas, the karmendriyas and the bhūtas are merged into the kshetrajña, the conscious jīva; then the kshetrajña is merged into the tattva of Paramātmā.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 235

The marks of success

To one whose mind, restless by nature, leaves outer sense pleasures and reaches Paramātmā, yoga-siddhi comes for certain. When the citta does not go out to sense objects and is dissolved in Brahman, the fruit of yoga-samādhi is gained and the practitioner reaches the paramapada, the supreme state. When his citta is attached to no karma and attains ānanda, he attains moksha-siddhi. There is no moksha unless one knows that all except the Para-tattva is impermanent; so the practitioner lives with vairāgya (dispassion) and does not serve sense pleasures.

Vyāsa adds a warning: sitting in padmāsana and fixing the gaze on the tip of the nose alone do not give yoga-siddhi. “The dissolving of the mind together with the senses is yoga.” He closes: “O best of munis, I have told you the way of yoga, the means of release from saṃsāra.”

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 235

The five yoga-doshas

After teaching sāṅkhya, the discrimination of tattva, Vyāsa turns to the way of yoga. The highest knowledge is that which makes buddhi, mind and senses one and knows the all-pervading ātmā. Controlling the mind and the outer senses and practising the knowledge of adhyātma, the seeker gives up the five yoga-doshas:

kāma, desire;
krodha, anger;
lobha, greed;
bhaya, fear;
svapna, sleep and dreaming.

Krodha is conquered by control of the mind, kāma by giving up saṅkalpas (the mind’s resolves and imaginings), sleep by increasing sattva-guṇa, the craving for food and for sexual pleasure by firmness of mind, fear by vigilance, and deceitfulness by serving the discerning. “Thus these yoga-doshas can be conquered with effort.” The seeker always bows to the sacred fires, to brāhmaṇas and to the devatās, and never speaks arrogant words that hurt others.

Tejas and the means to it. Paramātmā, the self of all beings moving and unmoving, is self-luminous, of the form of tejas (radiance). The means for this tejas to grow in a person and for pāpa to be destroyed are dhyāna, study, dāna, satya, modesty, straightness of nature, kshamā (forbearance), śauca (purity), purity of mind and control of the senses.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 236

The practice of the akshara

With equal regard for all beings, living on what comes without effort, giving up pāpas, increasing tejas, eating light food, conquering the senses and kāma and krodha, the seeker makes senses and mind one-pointed and fixes the mind on the Para-tattva in the first and last yāmas of the night.

If even one sense is wet with desire, the jīva’s wisdom slips down from the Para-tattva like water running off a ridge beside a mountain. So, as a fisherman draws in his hook, the seeker restrains with the mind the senses of hearing, sight, taste and smell, holds them in the mind, stills the saṅkalpas within the mind and holds it in the heart, and then holds it on the ātma-tattva. Then the tattva of Paramātmā shines like fire without smoke, like the sun with no covering of cloud, like lightning in the sky. It is itself in itself; all is in it, and it pervades all. Only brāhmaṇas and mahātmās who are firm, of great discernment, and who wish the good of all beings can see it.

Sitting in solitude at a fixed time, doing only pure karmas, the one who practises becomes one with the akshara-tattva. Not thinking of praise or abuse, of a bow or its absence; not rejoicing at gain nor grieving at loss; with equal sight in all things, moving among all beings like the wind: if one practises so without a break for not less than six months, the experience of śabda-brahman comes. Seeing the sorrows people suffer from thinking “this is a clod of earth, this is gold, this is great, this is not”, one gives up that sense of difference; and one must never, from ajñāna, give up this abhyāsa-yoga, the yoga of steady practice.

Phala. “However low the birth, whether woman or man, they attain mukti. Wise ones who follow this path see Vāsudeva, who is Aja, the unborn, Purāṇa, the ancient, Sanātana, the eternal, and beyond the senses, and become one with that Brahma-tattva.”

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 236

What is conquered by what

Asked for the means to moksha, Vyāsa says that for people like the munis discerning knowledge is the right means, and that the dharma that brings moksha is one only, as the road to the eastern ocean does not lead to the western. Then he gives the list of what is to be conquered “as the root of yoga practice”, in this order:

krodha by kshamā;
desires by giving up saṅkalpas;
sleep by increase of sattva;
fear by watchfulness;
wanting, hatred and the drive of kāma by firmness of mind;
dullness of buddhi, and nothing coming to the mind, by practising jñāna and viveka (discernment);
troubles of body and mind by wholesome, easily digested, measured food;
greed and delusion by contentment;
sense enjoyments by knowledge of tattva;
adharma by compassion;
the binding of the karmas of dharma, such as yajña and dāna, by not seeking their fruit;
love for the things of the visible world by the thought that they are impermanent;
hunger by yoga;
laziness by constant effort;
doubts by certainty;
babbling by silence;
fear by courage.

Holding speech and mind by buddhi, and buddhi by the eye of jñāna, the seeker gains the peace of the ātmā. Giving up the five yoga-doshas, practising yoga, and having dhyāna, study, dāna, satya, modesty, straight conduct, kshamā, śauca, purity of conduct and mastery of the senses, his tejas grows, his pāpa is destroyed, his saṅkalpas are fulfilled, vijñāna unfolds, and in the end he enters the abode of Brahman. Freedom from delusion and attachment, giving up kāma and krodha, neither dejection nor arrogance, firmness and fearlessness: this is the clear, stainless and pure path of moksha, and control of mind, speech and body is the rule never to be broken.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 238

Yoga and sāṅkhya

The munis ask what special excellence the Yoga darśana has over the Sāṅkhya darśana. Vyāsa answers that the Sāṅkhyas and the Yogīs each support their own side with the best arguments and praise it. The learned who hold to yoga say that in the sāṅkhya tradition Īśvara is not accepted, and ask how those who do not accept Īśvara can attain moksha; so they praise the Yoga darśana. The sāṅkhya siddhānta is that one who knows all the courses of this world and the faults in them, and is free of attachment to the objects of the senses, surely gains mukti after giving up the body.

The difference is in the means of knowing: those devoted to the Yoga darśana take pratyaksha (direct perception) and tattva-sākshātkāra (direct realisation of the truth) as their pramāṇa, while the Sāṅkhyas decide by the authority of the śāstra. “These two have an inseparable connection. Both are accepted by the śishṭas, the good. If practised according to the śāstra, both darśanas give moksha.” Śauca, compassion for all beings and the keeping of vratas are the same in both; their siddhāntas differ.