Ancient Yoga Texts

In this episode, special guest Måns Broo, professor of religion, Sanskrit scholar, yoga practitioner, and philosophy teacher, talks on the definitions of yoga in ancient Indian scriptures.

His main argument, and the main takeaway from this episode, is that although yoga has always been changing and adapting to new circumstances if it is to have value beyond mere entertainment, its roots need to be kept in mind. The main texts he refers to are the Vedas, the Yoga-sutras, and the Bhagavad-gita.

Transcript

What are the Vedas and what do they have to do with Yoga?

In today's episode I'm speaking with Professor and Practitioner,

Monsprouh,

About the scriptural roots of Yoga.

Hello Yogi!

Welcome to my podcast!

I'm Aiko and on this show we explore ways to put spiritual theory into sustainable practice.

So welcome Monsprouh.

I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly.

I'm very thank you,

I'm very honored to have you here.

Would you like to introduce yourself for those who don't know you?

Thank you,

Thank you very much.

I'm very happy to be here.

I'm honored that you've asked me to be here on this program.

I'm a researcher and a teacher in religious studies at a small university here in Finland of Wokrimi University.

But I'm also a yoga practitioner since about 1990.

I'm mainly doing Bhakti Yoga but I've also been doing other styles of yoga on a more or less on and off basis.

I'm very interested in yoga philosophy and I've published some translations connected with yoga philosophy,

Particularly I've translated Patanjali's Yoga Sutra both into Finnish and then into Swedish,

My mother tongue.

Yeah,

That's amazing.

Thank you.

I wanted to ask you if you can first explain briefly what the Vedas are and then elaborate on what the relationship is with modern practice of yoga.

Thank you,

That's an excellent question.

Because it's not such an easy question to answer.

People use the word Veda in very different ways.

Sometimes you hear people speaking about Vedic arts or Vedic architecture or Vedic medicine or Vedic heavy metal,

Vedic this,

Vedic that.

So sometimes the word Vedic is kind of a catch-all term that people will use for everything that is somehow connected with the ancient wisdom traditions of India.

But generally when the Indian tradition itself speaks about Vedic,

Something that is Vaidika to use the Sanskrit word,

It means something that is connected with the original four Vedas.

So there are four collections of texts and we shouldn't really call them books because originally they were not books but they were orally transmitted.

So they are texts but not writings really.

So four collections of texts and just not to make it too simple,

These four collections Rig,

Yajur,

Sama and Atharva are also subdivided into four different groups.

So we have four texts with four parts and these parts are first the hymns,

Samhita part,

Then the Brahmana part which deals especially with the Vedic rituals.

Then there's the Aranyaka books or the forest books for the Vanaprasthas or the recluses and then there are the Upanishads which are the secret teachings of the Vedas.

So these four,

The hymns,

The Brahmanas,

The Aranyakas and Upanishads,

These strictly speaking constitute the Vedas.

And then there are all kinds of texts that come after these Vedic texts that you could say are a continuation of the Vedic tradition and the development of some Vedic ideas in different directions.

And it is here in this kind of secondary literature or what in Sanskrit is called the Smriti or the remembered texts,

It is really here that we find the texts that deal with yoga.

So how do you think it's related?

Because like now in the last hundred years the yoga has been changed a lot.

It became more popular,

It became famous in Europe and the US and all over the world.

So how do you think it's important,

The Vedic scriptures,

How they are important?

Yeah,

I realize I only answered the first part of your question,

The first part of the first question,

But so thank you for pointing me in the right direction again.

No problem.

Yes,

Yoga went through a huge change in the beginning of the last century,

The 20th century.

But it's not that yoga didn't change before that.

The first mentions of yoga we find in the Vedic texts,

Strictly speaking the Vedic texts and the Upanishads.

In the Upanishads we find the first definition of yoga as the steady control of the senses,

We get that in the Karta Upanishad.

We get a six-fold practice of yoga in another text and so on.

So there are some mentions of yoga in the Upanishads,

But the yoga of the Bhagavad Gita,

Which is then a little bit kind of forward in time from the Upanishads,

We have new ideas there coming in.

We have this broadening of what it means to do yoga with karma yoga,

Jnana yoga,

The yoga of meditation,

The yoga of bhakti,

The yoga of Arjuna's despondency and so on.

So there's a widening of what yoga actually means.

And then of course when we get further down into history,

We get to the Bhagavata Purana,

For example,

The Bhakti yoga of the Bhagavad Gita is quite different from the Bhakti yoga of the Bhagavata.

And eventually we get to the Hatha yoga tradition in the Middle Ages.

So yoga has never really been static.

I guess that's my point here.

But yoga has always been something that is changing and adapting itself to new historical and geographical and ideological contexts.

But what really happens in the beginning of the 20th century is that because of these processes of globalization,

Modernization and so on,

The changes become so much more rapid.

And this is nothing that has stopped.

The changes that happened in the beginning of the 20th century,

They were still quite slow compared to the changes that are going on today,

Where you get new yoga brands and styles literally like mushrooming up after the monsoon rain.

And things that were taken for granted in the 20th century may not be so today.

Like the 20th century yoga is really characterized,

For example,

By these big gurus,

Ayengar,

Patabhijoys,

Sivananda and so on.

Who are the big gurus today?

Today we're living in a.

.

.

I mean,

There are gurus still today,

But we don't have these kind of emphasis on these male globe-trotting gurus.

So it's not that a big change happens in the 20th century and then things stay after that,

But rather my point is these changes continue.

And this.

.

.

Sorry for being kind of long with my answer here,

But I think this is the point.

The very reason for why I think personally that it's important for modern yogis to go back sometimes and look at these ancient texts is so that we don't kind of get lost in all these changes.

Because even though change in many ways is good in the world of yoga,

Yoga needs to change to survive,

To adapt.

If we would be having a conversation here in Sanskrit,

Not that many people would be listening to us.

So yoga needs to adapt to its times and those changing circumstances.

But if we don't have anything to kind of hold on to,

We might change too much so that we end up with something that doesn't have any connection to anything kind of essential.

And that's where I think that the sacred texts really become important.

The Upanishads,

The Bhagavad Gita,

The Bhagavatam and the other yogic texts so that we don't lose our footing as it were.

Yeah,

I totally agree.

And I never thought about actually what you just say.

There was a big change like hundred years ago,

But the big change is just going on all the time.

That's very true.

And another important text in this connection is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali that you are actually lecturing on Patreon in Finnish language.

Is that correct?

Yes,

Yes.

I have a course on Patreon where I go through the Yoga Sutra,

Sutra by Sutra with short lessons.

But I'm also giving courses and workshops in other languages as well.

I will leave some link on the description for whoever is interested and is lucky to speak Finnish.

Thank you.

And could you say something about the relationship between the Vedas and the Yoga Sutras?

Well,

The Yoga Sutra is a text that is,

According to most scholars today,

Probably written around 450 AD.

So it's from a later time than the Vedas,

Even the last part of the Vedas,

The Upanishads.

But there are many Upanishadic themes that come up in the Yoga Sutras.

Even though the Yoga Sutra,

Rather than being directly based on the Upanishads,

It more comes out of a Samkhya kind of worldview,

Samkhya is another of the ancient Indian philosophies.

And the Yoga Sutra from a philosophical point of view is,

You could characterize it as a Samkhya with the Buddhist terminology.

I think it was scholar Gerald Larson,

He said it like this.

So it's Samkhya philosophy,

But upgraded by including all kinds of insights from early Mahayana Buddhist texts.

So the author of these Sutras,

Patanjali,

He was a person who clearly had studied different yoga traditions in his day.

So he knew the Bhagavad Gita,

For example,

He picked some things from there.

He knew the Upanishads,

But he had also studied Buddhist texts.

He was also aware of Jain practice,

Jainism being of course another Indian philosophy or religion.

And he makes his own kind of synthesis of all these sources.

And I think he does a great job.

This text is really an amazing text,

Both in the ways in which it plums the depths of our human existence and our human mind,

But also in the ways that he creates a very kind of practical and workable way of kind of living this philosophy in our everyday life.

So I think the Yoga Sutras is very interesting and even though it's kind of a mix of philosophy is kind of original and a little bit quirky,

Then you could say Patanjali nevertheless makes sure to position himself within the,

In a broader sense,

Vedic world,

Even though he borrows many things from the Buddhists,

Particularly language,

But also some practices,

He nevertheless takes a distance from the Buddhist idea of the self being just illusory.

So for Patanjali there is actually an enduring non-changing self that he usually calls the observer or the seer,

The drashta.

So the same idea that we'll find in the Upanishads,

The Atman or the enduring self,

Potentially subscribes to a similar idea.

And this of course is what from a philosophical standpoint really distinguishes what we today call the Hindu traditions from the Buddhist traditions,

That in Buddhism there's an idea that,

There's the idea that there's nothing enduring in this world,

There's no kind of eternal self,

But Patanjali finds it important to kind of retain this idea of the eternal unchanging self.

So in that sense we could say that he's Vedic,

If we use the word Vedic in this broad sense.

So what's actually the teaching from both scriptures that we can actually bring onto the mat and outside the mat?

Like what's the core?

Like if you could synthesize this teaching behind?

Well I don't know if I can do that,

But I can at least I can point out a couple of things.

One thing that I really like with Patanjali is how he really from the very get-go of the book emphasizes how yoga is something that we engage in all the time.

The first sutra in Patanjali's text is Athayoganushasanam and now the study of yoga.

The sutra style is a very concise exact way of writing,

You leave out any extra words,

All adjectives,

Throw them away,

Most verbs away,

So you just end up with this very kind of chiseled exact concise text.

So now the study of yoga and you can speak about every single word here,

What's the meaning of Atha,

Why he's using the word Anushasana,

What's the meaning of the prefix Anu and so on and they all have some importance,

They're all chosen with a careful deliberation in the background.

But when we get to the next sutra,

The second sutra where he defines yoga,

He says that yoga is,

He defines yoga as Chitavrttiriruddha or the cessation or stopping or destroying of the functions or movements of the mind.

So yoga is for Patanjali how you're doing yoga,

If you're standing on your head or if you're controlling your breath or if you're serving or whatever you're doing,

That's not the main thing.

The main thing for Patanjali is what you're trying to do,

You're trying to calm the movements of the mind and fix them on one point or then still them all together.

There's two different types of yoga or Samadhi in the yoga sutra,

There's plenty of types but two main types.

One Patanjali calls Sambhrajnata Samadhi or you could maybe call focused Samadhi and the other one is Asambhrajnata or non-focused.

Asambhrajnata means that there's some thinking or some consciousness,

Mental activity that is focused on one point,

Totally focused on that point,

So much so that you're not even aware of a difference between you and what you're focusing on.

So a complete absorption into that object that could be the syllable Om or your voice or whatever and then the other one where the mind is completely stilled and why do we try to attain that through yoga?

What's the point of it all?

Patanjali answers that in the next sutra.

Adrasthu Svarupi Vastana,

Then the seer abides in its own cell.

This sounds very critical but seer of course refers to the self,

The experiencer and in our normal day-to-day awareness,

What Anjali will say in the following sutras,

We're identifying with all these things going through our minds.

We're thinking that we're being interviewed,

We are talking,

We're a man,

We're a woman,

We're Finnish,

We are nervous,

We are self-confident,

Whatever we're identifying with right now.

But all of these things are true from Patanjali's perspective,

From his kind of philosophical basic understanding,

He's a realist.

All of these things that we are identifying with right now,

They are on one level,

At one level they are true but they are temporary.

I said that I teach religious studies,

I might get fired or laid off.

My name is Måns now but I might get bored of this really Swedish difficult name and change my name to Malcolm or maybe I get bored of being this grumpy old man and instead I become a lovely lady and I change my name to Mary or whatever.

All of these things that I identify with right now,

They are temporary but beyond all of that,

Behind all of that,

There is a real self that is waiting to be kind of uncovered and this uncovering it doesn't happen through what I'm doing or what I'm thinking but it happens in the opposite way,

By clearing away all of that,

Stopping thinking,

Stopping doing and letting it kind of come out.

But doing that,

As Patanjali will describe in the rest of the book then,

How you kind of get to this stage of yoga where the self has a chance to come out,

That's not so easy and that takes also some doing.

So there's a kind of a paradox here between yoga as being a state where the mind is completely still but in order to still the mind you also need to do some things.

So yoga is both a goal and a process or a part.

So my point in maybe being a little bit verbose here has been to kind of show you that according to Patanjali,

Yoga is not so much about having a yoga mat or being able to do amazing postures or something like that.

All of that can be good and great but he's actually speaking about something larger,

Something that pertains to all of the things that we're doing throughout our days.

So we can eat in a yogic way,

We can sleep in a yogic way,

We can spend time with our loved ones in a yogic way,

We can do all of the things that we're doing right now but we can kind of change the way we're doing it.

My own teacher,

Swami Bhaktiviranta Tripurari,

He likes to say that yoga is about changing your conception of the world rather than so much changing what you're doing.

So you need to kind of and this is it sounds like a big thing and it is a huge thing changing the whole way you see the world.

From inside.

Yes from inside.

It's not something that somebody can force on you like,

I go now you need to do like this,

You have to think like this.

It can be good to be pushed sometimes and get encouragement but really we are the ones that need to do these things.

Yeah that's very beautiful and I think it's also very difficult but you know we have to hear this.

It's so important like you said at the beginning to see where's the root of yoga.

It's okay the change is fine but don't forget where it started.

Yeah I like to think of yoga as a map like the map in a mall.

My daughter she is 12 and she likes this one store I'm sure you have it over there where you're staying also Tiger of Copenhagen.

You know that store?

No actually no.

Okay anyway but it's one of these it's a big chain where you get all these like small plastic things really cheaply like for one euro you can get something.

Yeah and they have them everywhere it's a Danish company and if we would go to a new mall that we haven't been to before that would be fun for her and she would like to go to different places maybe H&M,

Zara,

Places like that but she would also like to go to Tiger.

So then we would have to check the map of the mall and we'd look and aha 318 that's Tiger,

So then we'd have to check on the on the map where's 318 probably third floor and how okay it's there it's to the right of the of the escalator but there's one more thing we need to know to find our way to Tiger.

Where are you?

Exactly where are you and yoga philosophy Patanjali and all these other amazing texts about yoga they can teach us both of these things.

Where do you want to go what's your Tiger and where are you right now and sometimes the latter thing can feel kind of even discouraging like whoa I'm supposed to be completely free from lust,

Anger,

Greed and I'm this totally lusty and angry and greedy person how can I engage in this but when you look back at your path sometime afterwards you can see maybe some small progress has actually happened yes definitely all these vices may be in me still but maybe I've actually taken a couple of stages in the right direction and if I if I find that I've taken some steps but I seem to have been taking them in the wrong direction I've just become more self-preoccupied and more ignorant then maybe I'm not doing things in the right way.

Yeah that was very beautiful Seyyed thank you very much and I definitely want to hear more from you so hopefully we can do this again in the future.

Thank you thank you very much Aiko this was a great pleasure for me thank you for having me and I hope that we can we can meet soon again and hopefully in real life as well.

Yeah that would be great thank you.

Thank you.

I hope this episode fulfilled its purpose of inspiring you if you like it feel free to share it give a review or a rating subscribe and if you have any questions please get in touch at aikoyoga reiki.

Com namaste

Reviews

A great overview of ancient Indian spiritual texts.

What a wonderful, informative interview on the Ancient texts, thank you!