21st century yogi's

How many yogi's here smoke pot, smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol? or any combination of those? Anyone into deeper psychedelics? Anyone into the processed drugs?

If your a sober yogi say so!

Also, how do you think any of these things affect your practice and/or worldview????

 

NAMASTE


SOBER yogi!!!!For my self going on the path that i am on and with the linage i follow there is no place for for a foggy mind.Now i am not saying that in the past this was so.We each will take are own road.And for those who do thats great for them.Along time ago i would eat a ten strip and head to the woods thinking wow this is it but then i would come down and what i felt was gone.Just a memory.When we go deep into are minds and with out any help we will go futher into are true being and for longer.If one looks at all the great yogis threw time none taught or used anything but the mind.Today if you were say going to take a class in yoga would you go to one who shines bright from inner peace or one who is drunk not on the divine but out there on some chemical.Ram Dass a very learned man once said that he found even with the use of psychedelics open the door but only gave a very small look at what there is.You can take and go one foot and think you went a mile or you can go the mile.It is up to you.As far as the uses for say some drugs i think they can play a part but a very small one.But that is only my veiw.As for there uses i think that you would need those teachers who were taght very young on those paths to get any real thing from it.Today as
in the past and in some cases more now people are trying to take a faster route to reach the goal and will find that it will cut them short.Doing anyform of Yoga or meditation takes time for many.Some fast some slow.Ether case
you will gain more when you are clear in thought mind and soul and spirit.The choice is yours.Your path is yours.It is up to you to see what road you will take.



In Love and Light

Eccofarmer

 

The entire purpose of yoga is to rise above the 5 layers (body, breath, mind, intellect, joy) and find unity with the infinite truth, the pure conciousness which works through all this.

Drugs work only on a physical and mental (maybe at most intellectual) level, these are levels to be transcended, not to cling to. So in fact, the use of drugs is quite contrary to the purpose of yoga.

If your practise is to get a good high or an artificially induced feeling of joy then I wish you luck, but kindly dont glorify this indulgence as being yoga.

Truth, joy, peace is within us. It is not outside, not in possessions, not in food, not in relationships and not in psychedelics. All things external (this includes even thoughts and perceptions) are only a disturbance, a distraction, taking our attention away from that Highest State of being.

 

My way or the highway...

The importance of finding what works for you!

There are the yogis that say, stay away from those drugs, or sex, and this and that, be a good little yogi and eat your green beans.

I respect that, but that is not everyone's path. What is important is the heart, the common goal of union with god, loving all beings, cultivating that peace, and respecting diversity.

GOD isn't uptight, that's why she manifested in so many different forms to appeal to different cultures and peoples all over the world, and even subcultures and subsubcultures within those mixed, well you get the point.

Anyway, Gandhi said that his life was his message. So I will let my yogic life be my message, take it as you will.

Here is my sadhana, so you can see that I am not a "sober yogi"



I do one hour daily raja yoga techniques of meditation, also known as kriya yoga taught by yogananda's line of gurus, prem rawat's knowledge techniques, and it has other names, but basically the techniques orginate from the yoga sutras. Raja yoga means royal yoga.

I also smoke the sacred ganja in praise of Shiva, chanting the mantra; OM SHIVA SHANKARA HARE HARE GANGA, a mantra for smoking dope as approved in blessing by Neem Karoli Baba, most likely aimed at westerners. I often listen to krishna das's album, in which is included a beautiful chant that shiva lovers do while smoking hash in thier chillums do on the banks of the river ganges until the early morning light (These bhaktis often face ridicule of temple yogis who consider their path more pure, this ridicule helps them deepen thier practice), I feel very connected to the same spirit, even though I do not follow thier rules, such a celibacy and what not.

I have a altar where I meditate, to which I practice bhakti yoga to the universal guru and/or god, i have various pictures of realized beings, gods teachers and plants to represent this guru... in no particular order after all they are all one; Amma, Ananda Mayee Ma, Neem Karoli Baba, Ganja, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Shiva, Mushroom, Durga, LSA, LSD, Divine Mother, Kali, Babaji, Yogananda, Ramakrishna, and many more. There i say prayers, usually do my meditation, do pranams, chants, toke one for shiva, just chat with god about my issues, and I have various holy books; Remember; Be Here Now, Autobiography of a Yogi, Miracle of love, and others... which i page through for wisdom and study. I even made love in front of my alter once with this beautiful girl, we began the slow dance of sex and had a great experience.

I occassionaly use psychedelics which is like medicine for my practice. I usually go out in nature (I tend to see this as sort of a native american kind of ritual, connection with nature, like the peyote cults of certain tribes) or sit by my altar... listen to music, and stare at neem karoli baba, he keeps my trip going really really great! I consider psychedelics as my teachers, (Ram Dass continued to use psychedelics in moderation for many years after he met Baba, up until his recent stroke actually). It's like one would go visit a teacher, get satsang, or whatever... psychedelics are like that, they help me in my practice... my last trip on mescaline last week, I was out in the woods, laying around with a shiva blanket blessed by the hugging saint amma, and I was feeling lonely, I called out to mother earth... she sent many sparrows which surrounded me and sung me into a sweet comfort, I felt so loved. (I have had many of these type experiences over the years. The wild animals, the forms of the mother earth, can dance with you if you open your mind, talk to you, you talk to them and open your heart... they listen to your energy! Love them and play with them.)

Note: Psychedelics are not for everyone, they did introduce me to the spiritual path, transforming me several years ago from athiest to spiritual seeker... For many people they can open one up, and become a catalyst for a wide variety of mystical experiences... Neem Karoli Baba called it yogi medicine.

I have gotten into singing to god, kirtan, which falls under Bhakti Yoga, in which I sing, various songs, from rock n roll, to hindu mantras like Krishna Das's stuff! Krishna Das's stuff is the more formal, but I love rock, and love to sing it, the beatle's wrote love songs to god, didn't ya know?

Probably the most misunderstood and controversial of what i do, i practice tantra, with myself, worshipping beautiful porn stars as forms of the divine mother and other beings... Currently I also have a friend, a beautiful form of the divine mother, her earthly name is Aimiee, we like to play and merge and have a great time with our tantric practice... our practice has provided healing in both our lives, even though it isn't always earth shattering and cosmic, most of the time it is though. It helps me move the sexual energy into higher chakras, and tranform it in order to come closer to god... Once eating out her sacred yoni, while she bathed me in the enegy of her orgasms, I had a visions of Ananda Mayee Ma, she smiled at me, as a tumbled into this void of light. Sex to me, is an expression of my love for the divine mother, and a way to heal myself.


Karma Yoga, when I go out into the world, I do what I do, work, school, relationships, chores, and so on, but my acts are dedicated to krishna, to god, to christ and so on! As krishna said, do what you do but dedicate it to me!

"when you know how to listen, everyone is the guru" - Baba Ram Dass


Here is how i view sadhana, which is what yoga falls under, from a page in Remember Be Here Now...

"Sadhana is a full time thing that you do because there is nothing else to do. You do it whether you're teaching, or sitting in a monastery, whether you're lying in bed, going to the toilet, making love, eating, EVERYTHING is a part of waking up!" - Baba Ram Dass

Remember it's light, it is playful, it's a cosmic joke. embrace the paradox as you would your mother's open arms!

Yes god is playful and hilarious!

 

ganja prince,

If your way works for you then that is fine. However, no true spiritual master has ever reccomended or even tolerated use of external methods of changing your conciousness. Such things lead to only an increase in vasanas, a dependance on the external world, the biggest obstacle to your spiritual growth.

The way I see it all you do is smoke weed, have sex and glorify it as sadhana by chanting a mantra someone told you. In other words rather than practising the withdrawal and detachment from sense pleasures, vairagya, that every single hindu text and teacher insists upon as beingthe single most important quality to progress spiritually, you spend your time on indulging in exactly those pleasures.

I am not uptight and I dont say dont smoke weed or fuck. But dont fool yourself into thinking that it is going to bring you any nearer to reaching realisation of the Self. No experience that comes as a result of external objects can ever be true, it is merely maya, an illusion. It is fine to revel in this, the majority of the world does. But dont kid yourself into thinking it is sadhana to do so.

I never said my way is the only way. Indeed there is no way I claim my own. However I do believe implicity what is written in the shastras and I do believe what the great teachers over the ages have said. And every sacred text and every great Guru has stressed above all that vairagya is the very first necessary quality for a spiritual aspirant.

Also in hamsa geeta there is clearly listed the various kinds of inputs we recieve, company, food, water, air, initiation, meditation etc and subclassifies them as satvic rajasic or tamasic. Sattvic being pure and indrawn and subtle, rajasic being passionate and extrovert, though noble and tamasic as being ignorant, violent, deluded, lazy, etc.

Alcohol, drugs, non vegetarian food etc are very clearly listed as being tamasic. In other words, not only will they get you nowhere, they will be your biggest impediment in spiritual growth.

 

Oh and it is light, yes. It is joy, bliss unbounded, yes. It is NOT a paradox. Every step of the way the logic of the working of the world is perfect. There is no anomaly. After all, you think of God as a perfect being. If the world he created was imperfect, with paradoxes and errors, then he would not be perfect.

 

Oh come off of the self-rightousness speech, drugs and sex hurt you, eat your green beans and be a good little yogi, stay away from that yoni, yes...

It's not having or not having sex, it is your attachment to sex. You can have a stronger attachment to sex and be a celibate, ram dass calls it a horny celibate. And then there can be a tantric master, like Rinpoche, making sweet love to consort after consort, and be free from it. He was probably drunk on saki too... hehehehe

It isn't rational, all written from stone, it says this and do not deviate, read the scriptures... god man, thats sounds like fundementalism, fundementalist yoga. Ha, that's all we need man, that is all we need. Follow your heart, I follow mine, it is a path of the heart!


Tantra whether drugs or sex or whatever yogic taboo can sometimes with the right people MOVE THEM faster and further along thier path even if it's not respected. This crusifixtion, this putting down of the shamanistic, shiva loving, beautiful way, is not productive. Sure its just a sacrament. It is inside, always! Yet external is part of the internal, everything external is part of you, part of your energy, the inner light within me, moves me along this path, pulls my strings the way it is. Spiritual elitism is not the answer, love is!

And let me tell you right now, that the path of the great Yoganda for instance is the same path as the bum on the street begging for change, that man is CHRIST, that cup is his cross, bow to his feet.

Here is an incredible teacher, that learned from a great spiritual master Neem Karoli Baba, his guru.

"Smoley: Where do psychedelics fit in with meditation? Should you stop doing one when you start the other?

Ram Dass: I do a lot of meditation; for many years now, twenty years now, I've done various forms of meditation, most recently Dzogchen,* but prior to that Theravadin vipassana and Zen. Every two years or so, I've taken a psychedelic to ascertain what it still has to teach me. Because there are ways in which you can con most methods. It's the same thing as what I said about socializing them. You can do them so that they don't do you. So not only do I do psychedelics, but I'll shift methods at times in order to learn the same thing. I might get really clear in my meditative practice and then go into a devotional practice and notice that my heart is really constricted, which I was never noticing in meditative practice, because the teacher's heart was constricted.

That's one way of using psychedelics, as a kind of check-back. And I have a dual motive, because I also feel I'm a lineageholder in psychedeliaand I have to check back because I realize that set is such an important component of the psychedelic experience. As I keep working on myself over the years, my set, where I'm starting from, the launching pad, is different than it was a few years ago. I found that if I kept taking LSD every month, I'd plateau, I'd get the same experience over and over again, and I'd get bored with it all. But if I wait a few years, I'm in a different place and the experience has something new to tell me. The amount that's new it's telling me now is pretty minuscule; I think if I never took a strong psychedelic again, it would be OK. I will still do it, all things being equal, but I don't feel like I'm learning something that new anymore.

Now the other way of using psychedelics is like using marijuana to meditate. My feeling is that it is counterproductive in quieting the mind, because the fascination with phenomena gets so great that it gets a little hard to go into the deeper places of meditation, where I think the real payoff is. Now if you're doing devotional meditative practice, like visualizations, then marijuana and hashish can be very useful, and that's used by millions of sadhus [virtuous ones] in India and Afghanistan, Sufis and so on, to facilitate devotional practices. I think if you're doing dhyana meditation, though, I don't think it's indicated.

Kinney: When you say "devotional practices," you mean something that's emotion based?

Ram Dass: Emotion-based. It starts out in a very dualistic way with the lover and the beloved. It's like foreplay. Then it builds up and up until you get to the moment where you merge with the beloved, Most bhaktis don't want to do that; they just want to stay at that edge, at just the preorgasmic moment, and keeping that ecstasy, or that almost ecstasy, all the time.

Kinney: Why do most traditional spiritual teachers, and that includes the Buddhists, put down psychedelics and counsel against using drugs at all?

Ram Dass: I asked Neem Karoli Baba, "Should I ever take this stuff again?" And he said, "If you're in a quiet place, and you're alone, and you're feeling much peace, and your mind is turned towards God, it could be useful." That was it. And that's an interesting set of criteria. And he's my spiritual guide, so that seems OK for me.

What I've experienced is that many teachers are basically afraid of it. There's a kind of party line that's passed on, but I notice in certain lineages, like the Kagyu or Nyingma lineages in Tibetan Buddhism, with people like TrungpaRinpoche, there's nothing about it being bad to take psychedelics. But when you get to some of the deeper practices in any tradition, then it gets so subtle and so sensitive that you can just weaken it all by diffusing it with too many games. I think there is a time when you go into one practice deeply, when that's got to be your practice. When I go to Burma and I sit in vipassana, I don't take pictures of my guru and do devotional stuff; I put all of that away and do the thing fully. And I think that's more the level they're talking about. If you're going to do our method, do our method. Because it worked for me and my teachers, and it'll work for you if you don't screw around. I think that's more in the spirit in which they're saying that.

Kinney: You mentioned that when you were first on the lecture circuit, you found audiences of people aged 15-25 all dressed in white. It's my perception that many people that are still interested in these areas are the same people 25 years later.

Ram Dass: Although I'll tell you what I see now: I never get invited to colleges, but I get invited to high schools. And just in the same way that the Grateful Dead came back, and they're getting bigger audiences than they ever got in the ' 70s, I feel that there are these pendulum swings in the culture, and that the '80s and their preoccupation with individualism got to such an extreme that it reawakened people toward compassion or unity or understanding. That sensitized them to the '60s, which in the '70s and '80s had been considered a failing of the society.

I'm generalizing from very little data, but I keep seeing from newspaper articles that acid use is up in high schools, and I think, "Aha! What do you know?" Not cocaine, and not heroin, but acid. Alcohol's up alsounfortunately; it's not a very good psychedelic. The '80s were a period when the reaction of the society was so violent to what happened. Because the anti-Vietnam movement, for example, brought into question the basic structure of the system, and it scared people enough, as they're being scared now, that we went way over into fundamentalism and ultranationalism and the Reagan-Bush era. And the question is if you come back, but with all this new instability, whether it'll push it back out there, or whether it'll be addressed differently. I'm saying to people in effect, "Let's use the consciousness we've developed to respond to these conditions in a nonfundamentalist way, in a more spacious way."

There is a group growing old with me that is a little disillusioned because when they first took psychedelics they all felt that the whole world was going to change. There was a complete nalvete and an idealism in us that was not borne out. We thought that all the social institutions would just collapse before love. But I find the '90s exciting, in the same way the '60s were exciting, in their instability; I find that a very creative moment in a society. It feels like things can happen again. There's an opening, there's a window of opportunity. That's why I work with dying people so much, because in a moment of dying there's an opening, there's a window of opportunity for incredible spiritual awakening. And it may be in a moment when the society is dying that there is a window of opportunity. I'm playing with that edge by listening and tuning to it."

Chew on that my brother. Much love to you... Our disagreements and argument is a divine dance, let us laugh and smile as we go back and forth... hehehehehehehe

Praise be Shiva, Praise be Soma!

 

The way I see it there is great danger in seeking to combine sex with yoga. It isn't at all a question of morality in the ordinary sense, but of the very attatchment you speak of. I doubt very much that anyone who had not undergone many years of rigorous training could develop the detatchment which would be necessary to successfully pursue this path.
There is a great danger of self delusion also. The ego, rather than being overcome, simply becomes inflated.
Sex is alright - it can be offered to the Divine, but this is not to say that it is realistically a path to Realization. On the contrary, it is more likely to prove a distraction, and if you think it is yoga, an illusion.

 

Beloved Ganjaprince,

I am not being self righteous. I am just trying tomake a point. If you claim to follow a certain religion or a certain practise, say yoga and hinduism, then it must be wholehearted, accepting all the teachings, not just the ones that suit you. For every single teacher you quote that says that sex and drugs can be used for a spiritual aspirant, I will show you some hundreds who will tell you avoid such things at all costs as they are your worst enemy. Why do monks live in monasteries, shunning all worldly pursuits...Because such attractions distract one form the spiritual quest.

If you claim that you are not attached to sex, then Ill accept that. I have nothing to gain or lose either way. However for the rest of us who ahve not achieved the same heights of detachment, to indulge in such things merely creates a greater desire for it and desire is the banana skin on the door step to realisation.

Also I accept the vedas verbatim. It is not that I dont question, but that I have questioned enough and been satisfied enough number of times to have a firm belief in what they say. The truth of all that I have read is backed up by my own experiences. It isnt fundamentalism at all, but if you make a claim to following hinduism then you should follow the teachings of the hindu texts, otherwise youre not really following the religion. In that sense a large number of hindus arent hindus really.

Your path is yours to decide. The trouble is on your particular path it is so very easy to just make spirituality an excuse for debauchery.

 

Thing is, if you had reached that level of detachment, why would you want to be bothered with it anyway?
Not all is gold that glitters. It is quite possible for the lower nature to imitate and ape the true Divine. Where passion and sensual enjoyment are concerned, it is very easy to be led astray.

 

Just as you take the vedas verbatism, many christians, islamic people take their scriptures to be the word of god and nothing else. This taking things to fundementals, word by word, the scriptures say it so let it be done, has caused much destruction, far from understanding dharma or christ's love, or seeing allah is every passing face... It has caused violence, hatred, prejudice, bloatedness spiritual eltism and other such things.

Buddha called it skillful means, telling people what they need to hear depending on the culture they are in and what not, different teaching depending on what each being needs.

We must find a common heart, Yoga is not ONLY FOR PEOPLE THAT FOLLOW EVERY LINE OF THE VEDAS, SUTRAS, HOLY BOOKS, AND NEVER DEVIATE, SO THEY CAN PUT A GOOD LABEL ON AND BE PROUD AND SAY I AM THIS, I EAT MY GREEN BEANS, PASS THE MOKSHA. (Not that you are doing this, I admire you. )

Taking the words so seriously, so verbatim, so by the line, is not where it's at! It is in the heart of hearts, it is in the wisdom beyond words, way beyond the rational mind that can remember lines from this or that sutra.

There is the reason that the great yogis, realized beings, gurus and what not, always laugh and giggle and joke around...

BECAUSE spiritual ISN'T A SERIOUS THING!

Yoga is just a word, God is just a word, Love is just a word, symbols and communication.

The truth, those deeper meanings can not be contained or explained in words, so what exactly am I doing? Because that doesn't mean words can't be useful, you just have to look between the words!

The real communication between you and me is done on a much different plane then the intellectual, it is done in the energy I put into writing this post, the energy of my heart, when the mind is quiet and still, you can read this energy, you can feel it, on a deeper level, this is the guru as is all things.

"When you know how to listen, the guru is everyone." - Ram Dass

It is playful, it is loving, it is beautiful.

the cosmic joke, brothers and sisters!

 

It would be very hard in the case of the actual four Vedas to take them 'verbatim' or literally. But I expect its not the Vedas you mean but other Vedic literature.

The problem hinges on how we define 'yoga' To most people it would mean a definite set of practices aimed at Divine union or realization culminating in Liberation from conditioned being, and that these practices are part of the ancient culture of India. It is not a matter of fumdamentalism - without the tradition, and much of that is encapsulated in Shastra, would be no yoga.
If by yoga you just mean getting high, then this is not yoga.

You go on to say 'spiritual isn't a serious thing'. Wake up. This has all the hallmarks of a ststement made by one in a daydream. Was it fun for Jesus getting crucified? Will it be fun when the ignorant and asuric forces that dominate this world cause yet further mass destructions, wars, extinctions of spieces ect?

Spiritual does mean serious.But not in the sense of miserable. It also means blissful, eternal consciousness and knowledge. If you have difficulty reconciling these concepts perhaps its not the spiritual you're looking at.

It is right to say that different people require different methods of yoga. This is a basic yoga teaching. But it doesn't mean one can simply do as one likes, otherwise you end up just indulging the ego, the very thing that has to be overcome. All methods of yoga call for discipline and restraint.

Please understand, I am not trying to put you down personally - but I can't agree with you on these points.

Jai Ma.

 

Bright Blessings ~*

Oh Joy and Bliss. Shanti Namaste. Hari Aum Tat Sat.
A quark swimming in the ongoing debate between Vedic and Dravidian currents so... Peace and Love to you All.

"Awake, Arise and Realize the Self" Kriya Babaji

"The Name of Sin is Restriction" A. Crowley

What is not the One? Is Maya seperate from Source?

Recommended Reading "The Alchemy of Love & Sex" by Lee L.
"Jewel in the Lotus" by Sunyata Saraswati
"The Voice of Babaji" found via www.babaji.ca
and oh course All of Yoganandas version of the Gita

Don't lose sight of "I am that" and practice equality.

 

It is not the following of scriptures that causes fundamentalism and violence etc. It is when the aforementioned scriptures are not understood correctly. Be it the vedas, the bible or the quran, every religious text is a perfect guide to godhead, but unfortunately both from foolishness and in some cases from greed and lust for power the meanings of these words have been taken in the wrong light, twisted and mangled, giving rise to the problems you speak of.

 

I am not knocking discipline, I love discipline... but discipline doesn't have to be serious, eat your lima beans, it is play! It is an expression of love.

Words words, just words... Be it!

Beyond the rational mind, is a playful dance that is not serious, seriousness is for the scholars looking to define everything and put it all in nice neat boxes. this is that, that is this, the cow eats the pig, the dog flies into the tangerine sky, and that is the laughing singing shiva dharma!


God is laughing and beyond laughter, let tears of joy and bliss fall down on your face, let ecstasy burn through you like a firework as you see your laughter explode from deep inside a place inside your heart of hearts, a laugh that is endless and has both expression and no expression and play with life, play with death, be good, give away all your love!

Yes it is all beautiful, yes it is all funny, yes there is no fear, no death, no suffering and there is plenty to go around. Yes there is form and formless, yes there is God and she wants to play.

RAM RAM RAM RAM RAM RAM


"If you don't have a sense of humor, it's just not funny." - Wavy Gravy

"I spent all last winter and the year before at the temple just making love to mahara-ji in every way being opened wider and was just so awed by the pure love of a being that there was no place for in my paranoia. yet everywhere i turned there it was and no place for it because i only say the man in the flesh probably eight times its amazing and all but two times for not more than half an hour and most of that was superfluous. i needed to see him in the flesh only because my faith was not pure enough what awes me is the people who have been sharing this journey with me these past few years who have because of their purity made direct contact with the guru in themselves through the purity of their love.


HE WAS RIGHT HERE

Laughing

and

being

here

all

the time." From Be Here Now By Baba Ram Dass

RAM RAM RAM RAM RAM RAM RAM RAM


Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, spinning!

Read miracle of Love, and tell me that Neem Karoli Baba, a realized being, is a serious person.

Jesus said be like the little children, I thought I caught a smile when he was up there on the cross. Yup, I did.

 

There is joy in a worldly sense, joy of the heart, mind, body, and that is good, but limiting and ultimatley balanced with pain.However, it is very easy to mistake this for the true Divine Ananda. This is something that exists beyond the plane of relativities of pleasure and pain. It is beyond my power to express this, as it sounds like a contradiction...the true bliss is above pain and pleasure -


Words are limited but useful tools. It is a question of not identifying too closely with any set of rigid mental formulations...but to denigrate the intellect is just as big a mistake, and can lead to a kind of sub or pre-rational idiocy. We can only really get a clue as to the rightness or otherwise of our mental knowledge in the light of a higher level of experience - an experience of the truth directly. But being possesed of a mind, man will always sek to formulate this experience. Some sets of ideas will obviously come closer than others. What I am saying is that the Vedic literature is a very high formulation of eternal truth. Not the thing itself, but a symbolic representation.We can accept it or not - to say it is not useful though seems a bit strange if its yoga you are into.

 

Thanks bill, you seem to articulate so well the things i want to say but somehow fail to express.

 

What I am into,



has no name

 

I know you are into something Prince! give it a name or not. I don't doubt your sincerity.
Many paths refuse to define the absolute in any way - Brahman is 'neti neti' not this, not that - not anything of which the mind can conceive. Nonetheless, most do have some philosophy 'around' the notion that there is 'something', if you see what I mean. In the case of yoga philosophy in its varied branches, the philosophy is there as a basis for action, in the sense of action aimed at the goal of yoga, mukti, or liberation, or realization -

John C. Lily said 'in the province of mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true'. So in the beginning, when there is no knowledge, jnana, there must be Faith, shraddha, and faith in the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and other Vedic literature is part of this in yoga. Some belief must be there that some attainment is possible, or one will never make the effort required. More than belief, but a faith and an aspiration and a humble attitude of mind.
Its not like the Catholic Church with its dogma; they are saying 'this is the truth, accept it.' Yogic literature is prescriptive, it is saying 'do this and this and you will attain this result - you will see the truth for yourself.' And, as Jesus said, the truth shall make you free'.

 

Who is to say? Is there really one way?

Enlightement can be found in anything around
A blade of grass on the ground
A pile of horse shit
A grandmasters mortal hit
It can be found in lovers embrace
On a baby's face
In smokey breath of weed
A child making his first jewelry bead
In a sacred Peyote brew
Or box of prepackaged stew

It cannot be found when we say "no way" to some, and perhaps perceive them dumb???? For there really is no right way, and wrong way. Because our point of view is just a perception and deception when we try to measure spiritual dimension. Not to mention with or own. It is like trying to describe heaven through a static phone.