Sambodhi

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 39

Haribhadra's Synthesis of Yoga
Vịttisaksaya and Samprajñāta Haribhadra has taken care to state the main yoga-concepts given by Patañjali and expressed in such a style that they can be appreciated by even an initiate in the field of Yoga. Sometimes Haribhadra is cursory in the treatment of such higher conepts of yoga while Patañjali is thorough althroughout. Haribhadra has no doubt mentioned the last three stages of yoga i. e. Dhāraṇā, Dhyana and Samādhi but Patañjalı does not rest content with mere descriptions of these stages. He goes deeper into the last processes and says that these when combined into one is called Samyama. Such Samyama can be used both ways i. e. in the external objects as well as on the self. If utilized inside it can lead to Mok sa and when applied to external objects it would lead to the complete knowledge of that external object from such Samyama various objects and psychic powers can be gained. He even enumerates the ways of the utilization of Samyama on various important objects and the process thereof and the Siddhis and psychic powers gained therefrom. But he wards at the same time that such powers are obstacles to Samprajñāta state of being or to the complete Self-stabilization and Mokşa.
Though the utilization of Samyama for objective and psychic knowledge is not debarred but the use of Siddhis is prohibited. It must be utilized for the knowledge of the self or for the higest consciousness. Haribhadra has given a cursory treatment to the process of reaching the Samparajñāta stage. He tries to allude to this process in the concept of Vrttisankşaya. It is in short the elimination of the soul's capacity to get connected with Karma. It is by the study of the scriptures, inference and Dhāraņā alone that the Sadhaka can get rid of such capacity of the soul. Haribhadra tries to explain this process of Vșttisamkşaya in the Kārikās 405 to 417 of Yogabinda; he gives the appropriate simile of the frog-bits and the frog-ashes in comparison to Samprajñāta and Asamprajñāta Samādbis respectively. In this way Haribhadra has not at all left out any important yoga-topics in these two books. They are fully and scientifically treated as by Patanjali. Let us now see how Patañjali has given the treatment to these last stages of Yoga.
Patañjali defines Samprajñāta in the Sūtra 17 of the first Pāda thus : "Samprjñāta Samādhi or the concentration called the right knowledge is that which is followed by reasoning, discrimination, bliss and qualified egoisın.” This is the free translation given by Swami Vivekananda. Samprajñāta is the concentration by transformation and sublimation of the modifications of the mind, in successive stages of Vitarka, Vicāra, Ananda and Asmitā and then to Svarūpa. This needs some preliminary explanation