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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
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The difficulties of the Vaiseshika school are also to be found in the Yoga philosophy. According to some writers the word Yoga is derived from a root which means to join. This is certainly the sense in which the mind, speech and body are regarded as the three yogas (channels) of asrava in Jainism.
Mr. Ram Prasad, M. A., the learned translator of the Yoga Sutras in the Sacred Books of the Hindus series, takes it to mean." to go to trance, to meditate." According to Max Müller, the word more probably signifies harnessing oneself for some work, to prepare oneself for hard work, for restraining the activities or distractions of our thoughts. There is no question of joining oneself to any one else, not even to an Ishvara or Lord, for the idea of absorption in the supreme godhead forms no part of yoga. "Patanjali, like Kapila, rests satisfied with the isolation of the soul, and does not pry into the how and where the soul abides after separation" (Rajendra Lal Mitra quoted in the Six Systems of Hindu Philosophy, p. 310).
Certainly, there can be no absorption of one individual into another. The soul is an individual and will continue to exist as an individual. The idea of Ishvara in Patanjali's mind is not that of a maker or creator or ruler of worlds, but simply that of a Pure Spirit that is not afflicted by karmas, ignorance or pain, and whose perfection in respect of omniscience is full and unexcelled by any one else. He is not the giver of moksha or joy or anything else,
but only an
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