Historically India has always been the spiritual dynamo of the planet. More men and women are known to have entered the natural enlightened state in this land than in all the rest of the world. The Indian philosophic approach to the Ultimate, Transcendental Reaiity is not just an intellectual exercise as it has become in the West. It is a prismatic array of practical devices to experience directly what is being described. Here we find an evolutionary science of the spirit where each level of our higher functions has been lovingly charted and dissected, as clinically precise as in any Western experimental laboratory of material science. But in India the focus has not been on the objective world but the subject or the witness of that world. Experiments are carried out upon oneself, upon the subtle inner world of consciousness, which is claimed as the true revolutionary environment of man and the species.

There are five major disciplines in India to activate the higher evolutionary centers. These are Yoga, Nishkana Karma (Selfless action in the service of the Divine), Jnana (Path of Wisdom), Upasana (Worship or Prayer) and Bhakti (Devotion.) These are the five practical methods which involve the whole being.

Intertwined about these disciplines are what might be termed six philosophic approaches to the Ultimate questions of Reality. The root of Indian philosophy is not materialistic or object oriented. Its motto is — "Know the self." The whole body of Indian philosophy is known as "Darshan" which roughly translated means "to see a point of view." The system has six distinctive perspectives, each viewpoint being from a different level of consciousness. The views are often contradictory because while there is a "holo-archy" in each level, there are hierarchies between levels, all with totally different views. In the search for the higher evolutionary functions of the mind-body of man we now turn to one of the methods of India. This is:

Only a fraction of the immense literature in India on Yoga has been translated for the West so it is hardly surprising that many of our ideas on the way of Yoga are fragmented and partial. Yoga is a peculiarly Indian phenomenon, a kind of systematized soaring which comes to earth in two main schools.
Raja (Sanskrit for king) Yoga is the royal path to Self-Realization while Hatha (Sanskrit for violence) is a more arduous and often dangerous method. The Hatha discipline uses extreme physical exercises, designed to trigger correspondingly extreme effects in the nervous system and the brain. Its aim is to coerce the higher functions to activate: to force the evolutionary sleeper to awaken. Raja Yoga on the other hand uses the body postures or "asanas," primarily as an aid to yogis who sit for hours in meditation and who need physical exercise to keep their bodies in shape. Many Yoga practices are extremely ascetic and some extremes of self-torture can often lead to pathological conditions. A seeker just cannot hammer down the door to higher consciousness. This does not seem to be the nature of the game although many try. Such attempts to wrest nature's secrets or rend the veil have parallels in the foundations of Western science but prove both absurd and pointless in the realm of inner space.

Yoga derives from the Sanskrit root "yuj", to yoke or to join. It implies union with the Universal, a state of Oneness with Existence. The heart of Yoga is the settling of the mind into a state of absolute stillness. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjaii were originally chanted or sung and the sounds themselves had a resonating effect upon the minds and bodies of those who listened. They are a hymn of praise with the sophistication of a science incomparable in its complexity. The classic form of Raja Yoga consists of eight interacting "limbs." These limbs grow simultaneousy as a whole organic process like an embryo, although in actuality a clear sense of hierarchy prevails. The whole quest ends in Sahaj-Samadhi, an ecstatic state having full alertness and consciousness — "ecstasy with wide open eyes."

"This Samadhi completes the transformation and fulfills the purpose of evolution. Now the process by which evolution unfolds through time is understood. This is Enlightenment." (Patanjali)'

This calm confirmation is the first recorded statement upon the nature of the evolution of the species inscribed over 25 centuries ago by Patanjali. It is a timely reminder of what we have lost in our scientific epoch.