The Camaldolese Institute
for East-West Dialogue

HEART YOGA: A Comparaison of Two Texts

Pratyabhijna-hridayam (Kashmir, eleventh century) and
Kaivalya-darsanam (West Bengal, nineteenth century)

by Thomas Matus, OSB Cam

 These two texts, distant from one another in time and space, exemplify in their underlying similarities the continuity of Yogic teachings in Hinduism. The author of the Pratyabhijna-hridayam was Rajanaka Kshemaraja, disciple of the great Kashmiri-Shaiva master Abhinavagupta, a contemporary of Saint Romuald. The Kaivalya-darsanam was written (in English!) by Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, a monastic disciple of the great lay Yogi, Lahiri Mahashaya of Benares. In common the two texts have their literary genre a commentary on a series of Sanskrit sutras or aphorisms and their conception of Yoga as a way of the heart and to the heart, in view of the recognition of God in ourselves. An external link between the texts is offered by the editors and translators of the earlier text, who like the nineteenth-century Bengali sage were intent on discovering a scientific understanding of religion.

Patanjali and his earliest commentators are agreed that Yoga is not to be identified with the techniques. It is not a cold, scientific procedure performed by a detached observer. It requires a devotional attitude that, when present, contains within itself the essence and perfection of Yoga as a whole. The renewal of Hindu thought and practice in the nineteenth century reaffirmed this understanding of Yoga. One contribution to this renewal was represented by the line of gurus to whom Paramahansa Yogananda paid homage in his Autobiography of a Yogi, particularly Swami Sri Yukteswar of Serampore. The latter’s essay, Kaivalya-darsanam (the short book is structured as a commentary on 84 Sanskrit sutras, from an unidentified source; one may suppose that he himself composed them), proposes to mediate between the traditional language of Yoga mysticism and the language of the Bible, which the author cites from the familiar King James Version in English. The essay of Yogananda’s guru is an excellent example of how a modern Hindu might approach both interreligious dialogue and the teaching of Yoga to a modern, Western audience.

 The experience of Yogis in general, from ancient times, has always included the moment of renunciation, not only of that which impedes the recognition of non-separation from God, but even of the effort and practice of Yoga itself. This is the moment of what, in terms of theology, might be called grace. Kshemaraja alludes to this moment, citing a text of the Kashmiri tradition: When, O [Divine] Mother, men renounce completely all the activities of manas [the mind] and thus their dependence [on outward means] ends in flames, because they devote themselves to the activity of the organ of those that are saved [i.e. the heart] they experience, through your power, that highest state which flows with the nectar of never-weakening, imperishable happiness. In other words, when the Yogi abandons all outward practice except that of abiding in the heart, God then manifests as Mother, the giver of ever-new joy. Another quotation, this time from the great Vijnanabhairava Tantra, expresses the same thought: He who has his eyes fixed closely on the [space] of the heart, penetrates into the center of the lotus cup, and excludes all else from consciousness, will, O Beautiful One, partake of supreme joy.

 For both authors, salvation is a realization, a prise de conscience of the true nature of one’s own existence and that of all other beings as existing in God. The condition of bodily existence is neither illusory nor evil; hence it is possible to achieve salvation while remaining in the common human condition, the state called jivanmukti, liberation while living.