Yoga is Love

[aum418]

Raja yoga is the flame of concentration.
Bhakti yoga is the ocean of all-embracingness.
Jnana yoga is the dagger of discrimination.
Karma yoga is the spinning disk of detached action.

All these various methods of yoga,
are various means of "love under will."

* * *

Raja Yoga
1) Purpose: To unite the subject and object through concentration.
2) Illusions conquered: Subject and object of awareness/consciousness are distinct/separate.
3) Motto: "Hold! Hold! Bear up in thy rapture; fall not in swoon of the excellent kisses! Harder! Hold up thyself! Lift thine head! breathe not so deep -- die!"-Liber AL II:67-68; one-pointedness

"The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge." -Meister Eckhart


Bhakti Yoga
1) Purpose: To refer all ideas/objects to one idea/object.
2) Illusions conquered: The many is separate from the one.
3) Motto: "Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt." -Liber AL I:22

"All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. / Love is therefore the only law of life. / He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. / Therefore love for love's sake, / because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live." -Swami Vivekananda


Jnana Yoga
1) Purpose: To discriminate (viveka) between the "Real" (eternal, infinite, ineffable i.e. Brahman) from the "Unreal" (temporal, finite, describable, i.e. the rest of the universe)
2) Illusions conquered: The self is separate from the eternal substance (Brahman).
3) Motto: "I am alone: there is no God where I am." -Liber AL II:23

"To be full of things is to be empty of God. To be empty of things is to be full of God." -Meister Eckhart


Karma Yoga
1) Purpose: Adherence to one's proper Motion (Will, "duty" or dharma).
2) Illusions conquered: Attachment to one's fruits of one's labor, the results of one's work.
3) Motto: "So with thy all; thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that, and no other shall say nay. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect." -Liber AL I:42-44

"You have control over doing your respective duty only, but no control or claim over the results. The fruits of work should not be your motive, and you should never be inactive. / Do your duty to the best of your ability, O Arjuna, with your mind attached to the Lord, abandoning worry and selfish attachment to the results, and remaining calm in both success and failure. The selfless service is a yogic practice that brings peace and equanimity of mind. / Work done with selfish motives is inferior by far to the selfless service. Therefore be a selfless worker, O Arjuna. Those who work only to enjoy the fruits of their labor are verily unhappy, because one has no control over the results. / A Karma-yogi or the selfless person becomes free from both vice and virtue in this life itself. Therefore, strive for selfless service. Working to the best of one’s abilities without becoming selfishly attached to the fruits of work is called Karma-yoga or Seva." -Bhagavad Gita II:47-50

65 & 210,
111-418

[Bentinho Massaro]

Beautiful post. Thanks for the brief explanation on the differences between these yoga approaches.