What is the destination of the yogis who meditate on the Paramatma?

From Divyangi Lalita M

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
they chant at the time of death. What is the goal of the Yogis who meditate on Paramatma? The Jnanis want to merge in Brahman, what exactly the Yogis aspire for? Answer, Patanjali in his Yoga Sutra does not explicitly talk about what Ishwara refers to he does talk about Ishwara Panidhan in terms of surrender to the Ishwara as one of the elements within the Ashtang Yoga system it is a part of the Yamniyama structure that one has to surrender to the Ishwara but who exactly the Ishwara is he doesn’t refer to directly and that’s because the Patanjali Yoga Sutras are actually quite condensed and he’s focusing more on the practice of Yoga and he is speaking to an audience where the conception of Ishwara is already understood so it isn’t just like Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita does not prove the existence of God because he’s speaking a culture where the existence of God is understood so similarly it is going to the conception of Ishwara over there so because Patanjali mentions Ishwara but does not go into description of Ishwara the people who follow Patanjali have come up with different interpretations now there are strong indications based on the verses of the Patanjali Yoga Sutra itself that the Yoga Sutras are personalist that actually as I said Ishwara Panidhan itself refers to the idea that one has to surrender to the Ishwara but some yogis consider that this is just a transitional stage and ultimately one has to go one has to go beyond so the Patanjali Yoga Sutra doesn’t directly talk about talk about Ishwara and it talks basically about the perfection it talks about Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodha Chitta Vritti Nirodha Chitta Vritti is the moment of consciousness Nirodha.
Nirodha means stopping and Krishna also refers to this in Yatra Uparamate Chittam Nirodham Yogasevaya in 6.20 he talked about Yatra Uparamate Chittam he stopped the movement of the Chitta of the consciousness now the word Chit C-I-T Chit is a feature of the Atma Sat Chitananda but Chitta C-I-T-T-A Chitta refers to the consciousness of soul that is rooted in matter so Uparamate Chittam or Chitta Vritti Nirodham that means the flow of consciousness in matter is stopped now once the flow of consciousness matter is stopped what happens afterwards does that consciousness remain passive does it remain completely frozen so that is something which the various those people who claim to follow or follow Patanjali they have they claim that actually that is just the pacification of consciousness itself is a perfection but there are other references which do indicate that there is also positive conception and there are many who feel that Patanjali himself was a Vaishnava although the school of thought that has come down through him and is attributed to him it has gone through various we could say iterations or various alterations and that’s why in some for example Baldev Daya Bhushan in his Vedanta Sutra commentary he takes some of the implications of yoga the the beliefs about yoga as a prevalent at his time and he refutes them and he proves that actually yoga does not be the conclusive understanding it’s Vedanta which gives the conclusion understanding so many yogis who practice yoga often have an impersonal conception that means their idea is just like we know there is negative access material things positive access spiritual things and zero is the zero is the I mean the neither material nor spiritual it’s a state of inactivity impersonality and non-emotionality no relationships so often people think that many yogis who follow they think that is the perfection so then if that is the case then then the yogis become purified of material passions and they come to the stage and if they stay in that stage then they will attain they will aim for merging in Brahman and depending on their conceptions they will succeed accordingly however it’s also possible that the yogis can by the association of devotees and get a higher devotion understanding and now we may say all the yogis personalist yogis are meditating on the Paramatma that is the ultimate goal which they’re supposed to meditate on yes they are supposed to meditate on the Paramatma definitely but some yogis think that the Paramatma is something which we have to merge into they don’t think Paramatma is the highest reality they think merging is the highest reality so that is different others who understand that Paramatma is the ultimate object of service then they surrender to him and often if they still retain the mood of passive meditation on the Lord as the yogis do dhyana so the Bhagavatam describes in one of its concluding verses is to glorifying that absolute truth who is the ultimate goal of the various transcendentalists and it is what do the yogis do with this with that absolute truth they become situated in meditation and with the eye of the mind they see they see him in the heart so now if they are fortunate enough to get the association of devotees then they become devoted to him and often this mood of passive meditation on the Lord is continued and they may attain Shantaras now Bhaktivinod Thakur in his book Jiva Dharma he quotes from he quotes on the basis of various important yoga shastra like Gheranda Samnita and others and he he talks about a yogi about a bhakta who was following yoga sadhana so he talks about Jiva Dharma is basically like a novel in which through the interaction between various characters he brings about the truths of Gaudiya Vaishnavism the conclusion of Vedic philosophy so now in this process he describes that there is a person who is a seeker and he is coming to understand the truth and there is a yogi who is practicing bhakti there are other bhaktas who are advanced bhaktas but they’re not practicing yoga and then he thinks that a yogi is greater than a bhakta but then this yogi tells him that I think that bhakta is my guru and he’s surprised he says I thought bhaktas are sentimentalists and then yogis are higher he says I said the bhaktas are not having sense control they do all sorts of uh silly things whereas all you yogis practice so much austerity so then this yogi takes him to his guru and his guru explains that and so the yogi is also bhakta that means there are three people there is a seeker there is a yogi bhakta and there is a guru bhakta who is a non-yogi that means there is a non-yogi bhakta guru who is a who is the whose disciple is a yogi bhakta a bhakta who is practicing yoga sadhana so he explains that actually yoga sadhana bhaktas can also do yoga sadhana for gaining mastery over the senses in their mind but often every process has its own associated baggage which comes with it so by the process of yoga one often tends to depend on oneself more yes by my own determination I will control my senses and that can work unfavorably for a devotee in taking shelter of Krishna eventually and that’s why I say that devotees generally do not practice yoga as a sadhana even if their goal is bhagwan sadhya is bhagwan still they do not practice sadhana of yoga because that’s not that can sometimes be unpractical to bhakti but of course it can be uncool also if one doesn’t forget the goal and one doesn’t forget to depend on the lord one doesn’t rely on their one’s own power but seeks his grace so in general that means the yogis can so depends on what the yogi’s conceptions are whether they will just aim for chitta vritti nirodha this pacific just stilling silencing of consciousness and which will result in merging in brahman or whether they will evolve to a higher understanding of by the association of devotees or they already have an higher understanding but are practicing yoga sadhana for the sake of gaining sense control so in this way their decision can either be brahman or their destination can be bhagwan in shantaras or bhagwan in a higher rasa also if they practice the if they develop the proper mood in worshiping the lord thank you what is the destination of the yogis who meditated on the