Tenets of Yoga Philosophy
In the ancient India, philosophy has been traditionally divided
into two main groups. These groups are called as the orthodox
group and heretic group. The orthodox group believes in the
authority of Vedas in all the philosophical matters. These
orthodox systems are six in all. One of the most popular systems
of philosophy is yoga.
It shares the following common beliefs with the other orthodox
systems: * Belief in the permanent soul, which forms the basis
of life. * Soul is supposed to discard one body at the time of
death and enter a new one at the time of new birth. * A strong
belief in the karma, which states that the events happening in a
person's life are a direct results of the events in his previous
life or lives (if the person has been born many times). * A
belief that the life of an individual is primarily of misery and
sorrow. * A belief in the state of complete freedom from misery
and sorrow called mukti or moksha.
Yoga adopts the dualistic doctrine of explaining the universe of
objects and living beings. It assumes that the universe was
originally created by the uniting or samyoga of two eternal
realities called purusha and prakriti. Purusha forms the basis
of all the spiritual objects while prakriti deals with the
material objects. Prakriti and everything that comes from it has
three gunas viz.: sattva, rajo and tamas in various proportions
and combinations.
Sattvaguna deals with all that is pure and holy while rajasguna
deals with all the rich and royal qualities and tamasguna deals
with all the baser qualities like greed, lust, anger, fear etc.
The samyoga of the purusha and the prakriti is virtual. It does
not exist but only the ignorant mind thinks it is real. This is
due to the illusion called avidya and binds the purusha and
causes him to transmigrate from one body to another in the
various births. Once the avidya is dispelled completely, one can
break free from the cycle of bith and death and can achieve
moksha. This is easily achieved by following the eightfold path
given by Patanjali in his Yogasutras.