Here are the explainations about the origins of the path and its original-yoga. I know that what is described here is prone to doubts and controversies but I give you our history, as regards believing it or not it is up to you. The references given are true.
Summary:
The name of “path of Freedom” was given recently to the path to distinguish it from others practices whose name it may bear but that it cannot claim nor to bear because of the major differences that there are between its original-yoga and these concerned practices : Raja-yoga, Veda, yoga.
The name of “path of Freedom” was given recently to the path to distinguish it from others practices whose name it may bear but that it cannot claim nor to bear because of the major differences that there are between its original-yoga and these concerned practices : Raja-yoga, Veda, yoga.
We could have named it “the
path of yoga” but as there exists many yoga, and as the majority of
the Westerners believe that yoga is the hatha-yoga, with its
postures, we didn’t. It should be noted that the word yoga meant
during a very a long time freedom, release before meaning union,
unit. At the time of Patanjali the word yoga had this meaning of
freedom. It is the reason of the name.
We could also have named it
“Knowledge” but as a famous guru of the 70-80 years already gave
this name to his teaching, we didn’t. Why Knowledge? Because
of the Shruti, or “revealed-Knowledge” which is the mystic of the
original-yoga as the first Sâmkhya school. But this not-learned
Knowledge existed before Kapila.
The path often changed the
name, according to the time and the language of those who followed
it. This spiritual path exists since more than 8000 years and would
have its source on the banks of the Indus within the Harappean
Civilisation.
Here are some informations regarding the path (of Freedom) and its origins. The name “the path of Freedom” is unknown to a lot of people and it is not surprising: it was given recently to a path existing since a very long time and which is the origin of many known spiritual ways.
The path is so
different from the spiritualities
of which it is
tho origin, such as they are currently practised,
than the early
Christians, who named themselves as
'' educated in
the path of the Lord ''
were from the
orthodoxe Russians,
so different
the Meditation of the Buddha
is than the
practices of the Tibetan Buddhism.
This name of the path of
Freedom was given to it to differentiate it from all these practices
which are prevailed of its heritage but do not have anything commun
with it. This name exists, in India, even if it is little known. It
indicates the path of the middle, but it is not the path of the
middle of which it is question in the Buddhism of today.
It could have been named simply: the middle path or Madhyama-màrga (name which it had at one time). In India it would be the Raja-yoga, but the practices of this yoga do not have anything any more to do with those of the origins, as taught by Krishna until the time of Patanjali.
Yogascittavrttinirodhah:“freedom is the indifference to the activities of the mind”.
The
version of the path:
Origins of the path
We
affirm that the path has its origins in the Indus Valley Civilisation
gone back to five thousand to one thousand and nine hundred years
before J.C. The first books of the Vedas seem to be inspired by the
teaching resulting from this civilisation brutally disappeared
because of a climatic and/or tectonic catastrophe and with the
migration, which followed, of its population towards the East, in
North India then to the Ganges basin.
Some
allot the merit of the Vedic writings to the Aryans from Central
Asia. Others doubt that these Aryans invaded the Indian sub-continent
abruptly, by imposing their culture and their language, the Sanskrit,
preferring the version of an interpenetration of the various present
cultures, in this place and at that time. This process proceeded on
several hundred years.
Thus
the Harappeans and the Aryans would have met
on
a long period of time and assembled in new people.
The
spiritual culture of the harappeanns
would
have very strongly influenced the Vedas.
From
this cultural interpenetration
would
have been born the vedism from the beginnings.
Echoes
of this path
It
should be noticed also that certain teachings of Zarathoustra
[Zoroastre], in the former Iran (Persia), had common points with
those delivered by the spirituality by the Indus Valley Civilisation
to whom, for us, the path is the heir. The origin of the vedism,
would be the same one and the relationship between this origin and
spirituality of the Indus Valley Civilisation are obvious with the
reading of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ.
Zarathoustra
was a Persian, but the Persia of his time largely overflowed the
current Iran to include Afghanistan and part of the Central Asia, as
well as the basin of the two large rivers of septentrional India,
Indus and Gange.
The
spirituality strongly existed in the Harappean Civilisation
and
looked like, according to some iconographic representations
found
in the excavations of the city Mohenjo-Daro,
the
yoga to see the postures drawn on potteries
and
looking a lot like the lotus posture.
However
at that time Patanjali did not exist yet,
it
is lacking some three or four thousend years.
End of the Indus Valley Civilisation
The supposed date of the end of this civilisation matches exactly with the beginnings of the Vedas (around 1700 years before our era) and of the original hindouist religion, which was very different to what it became later. The Vedas and the Hinduism are directly issued (although very deformed) from the spirituality of the Indus Valley Civilisation as, concomitantly, the Jaïn religion, independent of the Hinduism in spite of their common origin. It should be known that the harappean people saw his spiritual culture mixed with that of the people met during his exodus.
The Sanskrit language
[language
of the people which lived North India at that time]
allowed
to write the teaching of the Indus Valley Civilisation,
which was transmitted hitherto only in an oral way.
The
Vedic texts speak about the Harappean origin of their teaching.
The
Indus river is perhaps the Sarasvatî river - described by the Vedas
- unless it disappeared because of a brutal catastrophe, like a mega
earthquake, which would have diverted its course. Recent satellite
photos, of South-west India show the traces of a disappeared river
basin which could be that of the Vedic river Sarasvatî. On the banks
of this river a world lived which would have been perfect,
spiritually, near to the Utopia, always according to the Vedas.
Influences
The Zoroastrian spirituality has the same origin, via the
Mazda religion and the Manicheism of Mani. Platon was inspired by
them. It should be noticed that the Jaïn religion draws upon its
origin in the pre-jainism [the Jaïn tradition] which originated from
the banks of the Indus and the Indus Valley Civilisation.
The
Buddhism draws upon its origins in the Jaïn tradition and sri
Gautama was one of Gosala’s pupils, as the reformer of the Jaïnism
Mahavira at the same time. Samaññaphala Sutta of the Buddhist Pàli
Canon mentions Gosala.
It
seems that the spirituality of the Indus banks
had
a major influence on the spiritual evolution
of
the human thought from about 8000 to 9000 years.
The
world was then centered on the Middle East,
the
Iran which went to the edges of the Gange.
This
evolution lasted until the beginnings of the Christianism.
The
exchanges of this time
The
intellectuals, spiritual and commercial exchanges, were intense by
the caravans going, on the Silk Road, to the current Lebanon, then
towards the former Greece and from Greece towards Rome and all
Europe.
This
time and this area of the world were the seat of the greatest
upheavals of the human conscience since its creation. That
continued with the invention of the Judaism, of the writing and
Christianism is the direct heir of the Judaism. The name given at
that time by the specialists is: Upper Neolithic age.
The
origins of the path thus go back at least to the Upper Neolithic age.
The names changed, the Masters followed one another and their
teaching received, unceasingly, new contributions. The religions are
the heirs of these contributions. This message could not be simpler
and to complicate it, by dogmas and old names does not add anything
to it, quite the contrary. The path changed the name with each time
different languages spoke about it.
The
Taoism, the Sikhism, the Radhasoami, the Sant-Mat, the Buddhism, the
Vedism, the mystic of the Christ and others still, as the Manicheism
are related with the path, even if they do not know it.
''One
and His creation are only one
The perfect path is the way of the Kingdom''
The perfect path is the way of the Kingdom''
[Bhaktimàrga 1-1-47]
1/Yoga
meant freedom, release for a long time, before meaning unit, union.
At the time where Patanjali (undoubtedly more a “brand” that the
name of a person) wrote the yogasûtra, the word yoga had this
meaning this is why the translation of this word, in the treaty of yoga (version of yogasûtra by the path) was Freedom.