What type of yoga is best for rising to spirituality?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, what type of yoga is the best for rising to clarity? In different situations, there are different yogas which may be more effective for different people. One of the aspects of the yoga tradition is inclusivity. That it recognizes that different people are at different levels of consciousness and accordingly, there are different methods which may stimulate them towards higher awareness.
So, broadly speaking, we could say that we as living beings, we have hands, we have head and we have heart. So, there are aspects of yoga which focus on the physical aspect. So, that is what is generally known as yoga.
It is called as ashtang yoga, where we do different yogic postures. And as we advance, it goes inwards towards meditation, dhyana. So, for people who are more physically oriented, the physical yoga may be more easy for them.
They can connect with it easily. Then there are some people who live more in the head. They are more intellectual.
They are more analytical. So, for them, there is what is called as dhyana yoga. The yoga of intellection or intellectual analysis.
And then there is the heart. Now, the heart is one part of us and there is a yoga which is connected with the heart. That is called as bhakti yoga.
So, it connects the human heart with the divine heart. And then it gives us access to divine power by which we can rise upwards. So, in a sense, these three are different parts.
Say, the hands, the head and the heart are three distinct faculties in the human being. At the same time, they are not three entirely separate. It’s one living being.
And the heart, where the heart is, that’s where the head eventually goes and that’s where the hands also go. So, we follow the process of bhakti yoga because it includes all other aspects. The hands and the head are also included.
The heart doesn’t exist alone. I gave the earlier example of rising from one level to higher level. So, the other processes, the processes of physical yoga or intellectual yoga, they focus on our effort to rise up.
The central force for moving up is our effort. So, they are often compared to like a staircase. On the staircase, it is our energy which takes us up.
Whereas, bhakti yoga which connects us with the divine, which linked to the power of devotion, it connects the human heart to the divine heart, that gives us access to divine power. And by that, that power helps us to rise up. That’s why bhakti yoga is often compared to an elevator.
So, in the elevator also, we have to make effort. We have to find out where is the elevator. We have to go inside the elevator.
But, we don’t have to exert that much. The elevator takes us up. So, similarly, in bhakti yoga, we have to chant the mantras and we have to try to focus on chanting the mantra.
So, trying to focus on chanting the mantra is like entering the elevator. But once we focus, we find that we rise up much higher.