Page 438 - Complete Works of Dr. KCV Volume 1

central purpose, like that of our own books of worship is to teach salvation. But its practical directions are imbedded in more or less fanciful psychology and unnecessary metaphysics." says Leuba who devotes an entire chapter to the consideration of the Yoga system and its relation to Religious Mysticism. But he fails to observe that some of the tenets of the yoga have as hoary an association with its past, as the later Christian mystics have their own, however, flexible metaphysical theories on which was based their own experiences.
We have the admission of Patanjali even at the very start of his Sutras, that his Yoga sutras are a restatement (anusasana) of the Yoga of the ancients, of the Upanishads and the Vedas. Anusasana is what he speaks of as the attitude of his book. That there is an endeavour on his part to treat the Isvara as merely a governor and the Ideal of world life to whom all things are subordinate because he is free from their influences, may be a theory that is not justifiable from the vedantic or Upanishadic point of view; with this phase of his thought there follows the acceptance of the absolute caintany (mere consciousness or Intelligence) as the real nature of individual Purusha. Consciousness which cannot be annihilated is shrouded by Prakriti and release from the shroud of Prakritic forces is what makes the individual come into his own effulgent consciousness. He will never again be implicated in the shroud of Prakriti and will be free even as the Isvara, resting in his own consciousness. This is the Kevalatva proposed by Patanjali. But in the sense of Vedanta and in a meaningful sense, it means not only the release from the bondage of objects and objective leanings, it also means the utilizing of nature and her forces in a manner which will lead to Jivanmukti or Isvara type: not the Jivanmukti of mere getting rid of bondage or the attitude of bondage and acting like a man who has renounced life, and its normal activities. In life the attitude of freedom actually realized in him dominates dynamically every incident and every phase of evolutionary ascent and governs them with the inner light which is the light of all. This is 'lordship over the Prakriti and its movements' in the light of the Isvara who is the antaryamin of all beings dwelling in the heart caves of all beings. This is the synthetic acceptance of Yoga which is the poise supreme, the real samanvaya of the external as well as the internal in the Supreme, the Brahman; this is the highest aim of Yoga.