The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [17]
Bhakti Yoga leads to unity by loving God.
Karma Yoga leads to unity through selfless action.
Gyana Yoga leads to unity through knowledge.
Raj Yoga leads to unity through meditation and renunciation.
Literally translated, the fourth path, Raj Yoga, means “the royal way to union.” What makes it royal is a belief that meditation transcends the other three paths. But the fourth path is also inclusive: By following it you are actually following all four at once. Your meditations go directly to the essence of your being. That essence is what love of God, selfless action, and knowledge are trying to reach.
It’s not necessary to think of the four paths as being Eastern. These Yogas were the original seeds, the means that brought unity within reach. Everyone has feelings, so everyone can be on the path of feeling. The same is true for thinking, acting, and being. So the vision of Yoga is simply that unity is possible for anyone, starting from wherever you happen to be. Indeed, unity is secretly present in every moment of daily life. Nothing can happen to me that is outside the one reality; nothing is wasted or random in the cosmic design.
Let’s look at how each path is actually lived:
Feeling points the way whenever you experience and express love. On this path your personal emotions expand to become all-encompassing. Love of self and family merges into love of humanity. In its highest expression, your love is so powerful that it calls upon God to show himself (or herself) to you. The yearning heart finds ultimate peace by uniting with the heart of creation.
Thinking points the way whenever your mind stops being restless and speculative. On this path, you silence your internal dialogue in order to find clarity and stillness. It takes clarity for your mind to see that it doesn’t have to be so driven. Thinking can turn into knowing, which is to say wisdom. With greater clarity your intellect looks into any problem and sees the solution. As your knowingness expands, personal questions fade. What your mind really wants to know is the mystery of existence. Questions knock on the door of eternity, at which point only the Creator can answer them for you. The fulfillment of this path comes when your mind merges with the mind of God.
Action points the way whenever you surrender. On this path your ego’s control over action is loosened. Your actions stop being motivated by selfish wants and wishes. At the beginning, it is inescapable that you will be acting for yourself because, even if you try to be completely selfless, you will be earning personal satisfaction. In time, however, action detaches from the ego. Doing becomes motivated by a force outside yourself. This universal force is called Dharma in Sanskrit. The path of action is summed up in a phrase: Karma gives way to Dharma. In other words, personal attachment to your own actions is turned into nonattachment through performing God’s actions. This path reaches its fulfillment when your surrender is so complete that God runs everything you do.
Being points the way whenever you cultivate a self beyond ego. At the outset the sense of “I” is attached to fragments of your real identity. “I” is an accumulation of everything that has happened to you since you were born. This shallow identity gets exposed as an illusion, a mask that hides a much greater “I” existing in everyone. Your real identity is a sense of existence pure and simple, which we’ll call “I am.” All creatures share the same “I am,” and fulfillment occurs when your being embraces so much that God is also included in your sense of being alive. Unity is a state in which nothing is left out of “I am.”
Yoga is seen in the West as a renunciant’s path, a way of life that demands giving up family and possessions. Wandering yogis with their begging bowls, of the kind that used to be seen in every village in India, symbolize