Raja-Yoga

by Swami Vivekananda

Overview

Swami Vivekananda wrote a book called Raja Yoga about how he rewrote Patanjali's Yoga Sutras for a Western audience. The book is called Raja Yoga. Raja Yoga was an instant hit and had a big impact on how people in the West thought about yoga. De Michelis says that Raja Yoga is the beginning of modern yoga, even though yoga has changed a lot since then. Raja Yoga has transcripts of Vivekananda's talks on "Raja Yoga" and his interpretation of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. It also has a "rather free translation" of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras with Vivekananda's commentaries, which was also a set of talks. It gives strange teachings to a group of cultists who were looking for "ideologically familiar forms of practical spirituality."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789359393506
Publisher:	Double 9 Books
Publication date:	07/01/2023
Pages:	60
Sales rank:	644,189
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.14(d)

About the Author

Swami Vivekananda was born Narendranath Datta in India on January 12, 1863. He died on July 4, 1902, and was the most important student of the Indian saint Ramakrishna. He was an important part of bringing Vedanta and Yoga to the West. He is also charged with making people more aware of other religions and making Hinduism a major world religion. Vivekananda had a lot of success at the Parliament. In the years that followed, he gave hundreds of lectures across the United States, England, and Europe to spread the main ideas of Hinduism. He also started the Vedanta Society of New York and the Vedanta Society of San Francisco, which is now the Vedanta Society of Northern California. Both of these groups became the basis for Vedanta Societies in the West. Vivekananda was one of the most important philosophers and social reformers in India at the time. He was also one of the most successful and powerful Vedanta missionaries in the West.People now think of him as one of the most important people in modern India and Hinduism. Mahatma Gandhi said that after reading Vivekananda's works, he loved his country a thousand times more.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction to Raja-Yoga by Swami Vivekananda. All our knowledge is based upon experience. What we call inferential knowledge, in which we go from the particular to the general or from the general to the particular, has experience as its basis. In what are called the exact sciences people easily find the truth, because it appeals to the specific experiences of every human being. The scientist does not ask you to believe in anything blindly; but he has got certain results, which have come from his own experiences, and when, reasoning on them, he wants us to believe in his conclusions, he appeals to some universal experience of humanity. In every exact science there is a basis which is common to all humanity, so that we can at once see the truth or the fallacy of the conclusions drawn therefrom. Now, the question is: Has religion any such basis or not? I shall have to answer the question both in the affirmative and in the negative.

Religion, as it is generally taught all over the world, is found to be based upon faith and belief, and in most cases consists only of different sets of theories; and that is why we find religions quarrelling with one another. These theories, again, are based upon belief. One man says there is a great Being sitting above the clouds and governing the whole universe, and he asks me to believe that solely on the authority of his assertion. In the same way I may have my own ideas, which I am asking others to believe; and if they ask for a reason, I cannot give them any. This is why religion and religious philosophy have a bad name nowadays. Every educated man seems to say: "Oh, these religions are only bundles of theories without any standard to judge them by, each man preaching his own pet ideas." Nevertheless there is a basis of universal belief in religion, governing all the different theories and all the varying ideas of different sects in different countries. Going to this basis, we find that they too are based upon universal experiences.

In the first place, if you analyze the various religions of the world, you will find that they are divided into two classes: those with a book and those without a book. Those with a book are stronger and have a larger number of followers. Those without books have mostly died out, and the few new ones have very small followings. Yet in all of them we find one consensus of opinion: that the truths they teach are the results of the experiences of particular persons. The Christian asks you to believe in his religion, to believe in Christ and to believe in him as the Incarnation of God, to believe in a God, in a soul, and in a better state of that soul. If I ask him for the reason, he says that he believes in them. But if you go to the fountainhead of Christianity, you will find that it is based upon experience. Christ said that he saw God, the disciples said that they felt God, and so forth. Similarly, in Buddhism, it is Buddha's experience. He experienced certain truths, saw them, came in contact with them, and preached them to the world. So with the Hindus in their books the writers, who are called rishis, or sages, declare that they have experienced certain truths, and these they preach.

Thus it is clear that all the religions of the world have been built upon that one universal and adamantine foundation of all our knowledge - direct experience. The teachers all saw God; they all saw their own souls, they saw their souls' future and their eternity; and what they saw they preached. Only there is this difference: By most of these religions, especially in modern times, a peculiar claim is made, namely, that these experiences are impossible at the present day; they were possible only to a few men, who were the founders of the religions that subsequently bore their names. At the present time these experiences have become obsolete, and therefore we now have to take these religions on faith.

This I entirely deny. If there has been one experience in this world in any particular branch of knowledge, it absolutely follows that that experience has been possible millions of times before and will be repeated eternally. Uniformity is the rigorous law of nature: what once happened can happen always.

The teachers of the science of Raja-Yoga, therefore, declare not only that religion is based upon the experiences of ancient times, but also that no man can be religious until he has had the same experiences himself. Raja-yoga is the science which teaches us how to get these experiences. It is not much use to talk about religion until one has felt it. Why is there so much disturbance, so much fighting and quarrelling, in the name of God? There has been more bloodshed in the name of God than for any other cause, because people never went to the fountainhead; they were content to give only a mental assent to the customs of their forefathers, and wanted others to do the same. What right has a man to say that he has a soul if he does not feel it, or that there is a God if he does not see Him? If there is a God we must see Him; if there is a soul we must perceive it; otherwise it is better not to believe. It is better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite.

Table of Contents

Preface
Note on Pronunciation
RAJA-YOGA

• Author's Preface
• Introduction
• The First Steps
• Prana
• The Psychic Prana
• The Control of the Psychic Prana
• Pratyahara and Dharana
• Dhyana and Samadhi
• Raja-Yoga in Brief
• Introduction to Patanjali's Yoga Aphorisms
• Concentration: Its Spiritual Uses
• Concentration: Its Practice
• The Powers
• Independence
• Appendix: References to Yoga

MISCELLANEOUS

The Powers of the Mind

Reincarnation

Discipleship

Glossary
Index

What People are Saying About This

Christopher Isherwood

Christopher Isherwood, author

[Vivekananda is] one of the very greatest historical figures that India has ever produced. When one sees the full range of his mind, one is astounded.

William James

William James

The man [Vivekananda] is simply a wonder for oratorical power . . . the Swami is an honor to humanity.

S Radhakrishnan

This book brings together the main teachings of Swami Vivekananda in an easily accessible and readable form. I hope that in these days of uncertainty and confusion of mind Vivekananda's teachings may prove an enlightenment to many troubled souls.
—(S. Radhakrishnan, author, philosopher, and former Vice-president of the Indian Republic)

F. S.C. Northrop

To convey Hindu meanings in English words is exceedingly difficult. The difficulty arises from the fact that the reader inevitably reads modern western, rather than ancient Hindu, meanings into the English words. The problem of any expositor or translator, therefore, is that of so wording the English translation of the Hindu doctrines that the Western philosophical or psychological meanings of the English words will not be introduced to the reader.

Romain Rolland

Romain Rolland on Swami Vivekananda (from the back cover).

His words are great music, phrases in the style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are through the pages of books at thirty years' distance, without receiving a thrill through my body, like an electric shock. And what shocks, what transports, must have been produced when in burning words they issued from the lips of the hero!

Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru

His whole life and teaching inspired my generation . . . . he brought his great spirituality to bear upon his patriotism and thus his message was not confined to India only, but was for the whole world. I pay my homage to his memory.

S. Radhakrishnan

S. Radhakrishnan, author, philosopher, and former Vice-president of the Indian Republic

This book brings together the main teachings of Swami Vivekananda in an easily accessible and readable form. I hope that in these days of uncertainty and confusion of mind Vivekananda's teachings may prove an enlightenment to many troubled souls.

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

My homage and respect to the very revered memory of Swami Vivekananda . . . after having gone through [his works], the love that I had for my country became a thousandfold.

F.S.C. S. C. Northrop

F.S.C. Northrop, Yale University

To convey Hindu meanings in English words is exceedingly difficult. The difficulty arises from the fact that the reader inevitably reads modern western, rather than ancient Hindu, meanings into the English words. The problem of any expositor or translator, therefore, is that of so wording the English translation of the Hindu doctrines that the Western philosophical or psychological meanings of the English words will not be introduced to the reader.

Chistopher Isherwood

[Vivekananda is] one of the very greatest historical figures that India has ever produced. When one sees the full range of his mind, one is astounded.