Introduction to Jainism

SR No.: 006919
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Rudi Jansma, Sneh Rani Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy
Publication Year: 2006
Total Pages: 256
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 5 MB

Page 147

YOGA AND MEDITATION
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control that under all circumstances equanimity is maintained. Kāma, passion, is the forbidden snake which can endanger any yogi. Yoga means a united focus on mental, spiritual, and verbal attentiveness. This can serve good as well as evil purposes. Āchārya Kumundendu mentions in his Jñānārnava that people often practice yoga out of desire to acquire special powers for making worldly gains and sometimes to subject demons of a lower kind to one's will by means of mantras. Sometimes yoga is used for sorcery, hypnosis, revenge, or to kill someone by means of mantra, to gain control over water or fire, to poison a person, to practice witchcraft, to perform magical attacks and to control certain goddesses so that they perform particular tasks according to the yogi's wishes. Yoga is also used to be able to stay under water, or to enter an underworld, to gain control over death, to move through the air or to walk on water etc. Yoga may be performed to get visions about where a treasure is hidden, to make oneself invisible and to obtain many other powers. Such types of yoga are a danger for the soul (and this means much), are based on wrong belief and are therefore regarded as durdhyāna - evil meditation. Jainism only supports yoga which has the betterment of the soul as its aim by means of right insight, right knowledge, and right behavior, so that the inflowing karmas are either of the good type, or, best of all, no more karmas are attracted and attached to the soul. The latter is called samayik, in which the mind, speech and action are quieted, and is called trigupti when silenced for a desired duration.
To be able to perform Jain yoga it is compulsory to first abandon all personal hopes and desires because these poison all that one may gain and may drive the senses to insanity - with all its inherent misery. A yogi must observe celibacy to be able to use his energy fully for the purpose of concentration alone. At any time one should be alert to how one walks (not stepping on living creatures etc.) cares for others, speaks, eats, picks up and puts down objects and so on. One who aspires to make spiritual progress should live