Mantra Yoga

Introduction

If we are to discuss the origin of the word yoga, we should retrace the distant past of the Indian mindset and its ideas regarding the conception the world and the human being. Thus we arrive at the socio-religious conception, which has survived from the distant past to the present day uninterruptedly, in the consciousness of the majority of the Asian population, which our Western culture calls Hinduism.

Sanátana Dharma (the eternal law) -  Hinduism, on which is based even yoga, expressed in the first instance the belief that everything having its existence is subjected to the universal order of unceasing formation, evolution and extinction in the eternal cycle, to which rule all living creatures and non-living nature are subject, including all creatures like animals, humans while encompassing also gods, demigods and demons. 

The duration of the most substantial component of every mortal creature (a sort of soul, i.e. jívátman) is not limited to the narrow boundaries of its birth and death, this inborn nature of the living creature – of man - passes from one life to another, as long as one does not merit its return whence it came. While the nature of this condition (Nirvána’s mahásamádhi, etc.) may be a matter of discussion within different schools of thought and orientation, the essence of all beings is virtually identical.

According to the teachings of yoga, there is no eternal damnation or eternal bliss. This does not mean that a person could not find shelter among the higher beings, or sink into the depths or residence of lower beings. It can end up in any state for a certain period of time – a shorter or longer period of time, depending on the quality of their deeds and behavior in their previous births (and lives). 

The acts and proceedings of the individual are in yoga the only criteria that determine his fate in coming births, since the spiritual component of a human, which is subject to rebirth, carries a summary accumulation of his conduct, good and evil, simply karman (meaning his deed). 

As soon as this karmic good prevails over evil and the higher merits over the sins of a man, he starts approaching, more and more his long-desired last earthly existence, in which he can achieve by withdrawal (escape) from the cycle of rebirth.

But what is good and what is bad? Which actions provide a man with merit and which burden him with sins? And how can he achieve the perfection that is the goal of yoga? These questions get a wide variety of answers by yoga, as were created by millennial tradition.

And just in this multiplicity and diversity of responses expressed in the form of a variety of lessons, commands, prohibitions, and instructions, is the core of the above said richness of the different paths of yoga, which is so well reflected in old Scriptures..........