Guidelines for Preparing the Personal Yoga Cocktail

In Yoga philosophy, there are four major paths available for spiritual progress: Karma, Bhakti, Jnana and Kriya. Bhakti Yoga proceeds through control and channelization of emotions. Karma Yoga proceeds through unselfish service of society. Jnana Yoga proceeds through intellectual discrimination between real and unreal, usually accompanied with a deep study of the scriptures. And Kriya Yoga proceeds through refinement of the gross and subtle energies. Each of these four paths is said to be capable of taking the spiritual aspirant to the highest state of enlightenment. However, it is not possible for a human being to follow only one of these four and exclude all others. Human existence is a mixture of all these aspects and thus, a good combination of these paths is required, somewhat like a cocktail. The primary difficulty here is that there is no simple formula available, which can help us in deciding which combination to follow. Pursuing the path of Yoga is a bit like consuming alcohol. It tastes bitter in the beginning, but then slowly one starts appreciating its deep flavours. And mindless over-consumption of both results in severe problems! But just to avoid misconceptions, please note that consumption of alcohol is generally not conducive for progress in Yoga.

While preparing the personal cocktail, there are two important points that need to be kept in mind. Firstly, each individual needs to find his/her own recipe. Yoga is a very subjective pursuit and any kind of generalisation does not work in this domain. So, neither should one try to copy another person’s recipe nor try to impose his/her recipe on others. However, mutual discussion to learn from each other’s experience is certainly welcome and very useful. Secondly, one should not look down upon any of these four paths. It is natural for different people to have differential preference for these paths. But one should realise that each path has its own advantages and can be very helpful if used judiciously. In order to succeed in any pursuit, there are three essential ingredients: a clear idea about our strengths and weaknesses, a clear sense of direction, and an understanding of the likely challenges along this chosen direction. The same holds for Yoga too!

The first step in preparing the Yoga cocktail is to carefully analyze our strengths and weaknesses with respect to the four paths. How good is our control over our emotions? How good is our intellectual ability to understand a wide variety of concepts? How good are we at serving others without expecting any return? How good are we at following a strict regime? Here, it is again important to note that not being good at one of these abilities is not necessarily a hindrance to our progress. In the realm of Prakriti, no one is perfect, not even an Avatar. It is just that a good awareness of our strengths and weaknesses will help in preparing the right personal cocktail. Bhishma Pitamah was predominantly a Karma Yogi, Swami Vivekananda was predominantly a Jnani, Meera Bai was predominantly a Bhakta and Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is predominantly a Kriya Yogi. Each of these four and other enlightened beings have their own strengths and weaknesses (at least as long they remain in the realm of Prakriti).

The second step is to carefully choose the kind of experiences we are interested in having during the spiritual process. Though these four paths are said to lead to the same final goal, the experience we will have on the path is likely to be quite varied. For example, a Jnani will develop a better intellectual understanding of the world around, a Bhakta will develop a deep emotional bond with his/her chosen form of God, a Karma Yogi will develop a healthy relationship with the society, and a Kriya Yogi will experience fantastic mental states. Though all these experiences may allure an aspirant, it is important to note that the same person cannot have all these various experiences with the same intensity. One has to choose.

The third important step is to understand the challenges faced while pursuing each of these paths, and which ones are more aligned with our core strengths. All spiritual aspirants face a certain kind of dryness at times on their path, but the nature of dryness considerably varies depending on the particular path. A Jnani may go through long periods of intellectual stagnation, and a Bhakta may go through emotional frustration as a result of unfulfilled longing. A Jnani may not be able to handle emotional frustration as much as a Bhakta, and vice-versa. A Kriya Yogi may have to go through traumatic occult experiences, which others may not be able to handle. And a Karma Yogi may have to face insult even from people whom s/he serves, which might be a nerve wrecking experience. There are many other challenges that one has to face on each path, and an appreciation for these with respect for one’s strengths and weaknesses is very helpful.

We might think that the easiest way to figure out the appropriate path for us would be to find an enlightened being and surrender ourselves at their feet. But this option is quite problematic for various reasons. Firstly, there is no objective way of knowing that a particular person is enlightened. Even Vivekananda took many years to convince himself that Ramakrishna had truly experienced Samadhi. Secondly, even if our chosen Guru is enlightened, s/he may not be the right guide for us. Enlightenment beings come in as many flavors as aspirants. Hanuman was a devotee of Rama and Arjuna of Krishna. It is hard to imagine them exchanging their positions, even though we may consider Rama and Krishna to be Avatar of the same Vishnu. Thirdly, in today’s world, most spiritual Gurus run professional organizations with huge mass following and may not have the time to design the path for individuals. There is nothing wrong in learning a few tricks from them, but giving up our personal judgment for their commandments is not very helpful. Their main purpose is to create a mass movement, and not necessarily to lead individuals to final emancipation.

As mentioned earlier, there is no simple formula or recipe available which can help us in finding the path most favourable to us. Also, even if we find a recipe at a certain time, it is unlikely to last for a very long time. This is because we go through several transformations as we make spiritual progress, which changes our strengths, weaknesses and overall perceptions. This requires a re-evaluation of the path we have chosen at regular intervals. This is also one of the main reasons why people who seem to be making good progress at one point of time suddenly start lagging behind. They simply fail to recognise that things have changed and their cocktail also needs to be changed accordingly. This is an important lesson for all of us. The more aware we are of the above points, the better our progress is likely to be.

In today’s scenario, one of the best places to learn Karma, Bhakti and Jnana Yoga is Sri Ramakrishna Mission. Isha Foundation is one of the best for learning Kriya and Bhakti Yoga. Baba Ramdev also has some very nice online lessons on Kriya Yoga. There are also several other organisations like the Gita Press and Bihar School of Yoga, whose books contain a huge wealth of information.  It is very helpful to be associated with several good organisations and learn from their experience. As the popular Rig Vedic verse says, “Let noble thoughts come to me from all directions”.