Modern Science vis-à-vis Vihangam Yoga

Modern Science vis-à-vis Vihangam Yoga

Modern Science believes in objects perceived by sense organs with or without the help of various gadgets. Human sense organs are bound by severe limitations. The eyes and ears can see and hear only within a limited spectrum. We do know that an eagle's eye or a dog's ears can see or hear beyond human capabilities. This holds good for other sense organs like those of smell, taste or touch. With the help instruments, which are being invented from time to time, man has been able to extend his perception beyond natural human mind and intellect have also made deductions from certain phenomena occurring in the world. This has led to formulation of many hypotheses from time to time. These hypotheses have been changing since the dawn of civilization and will keep on changing till man is able to realize the truth. The modem scientists have observed that the universe is continuously expanding and this expansion is thought to be due to the process of creation of the universe. The scientists say that the universe will ultimately cease to expand and then the gravitational force will play its role to reduce it again to a cosmic egg. Interestingly, the scientists have put forward the theory of oscillating universe, which states that the cycles of creation and, dissolution will continue endlessly, a well-known Indian concept. What they call 'Cosmic egg' has been termed by the ancient Indian seers as Mool Prakriti, which is said to be composed of three basic substances, viz Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas. These three substances combine in different proportions during creation giving rise to a variety of physical objects. This is analogous to the scientific knowledge that the atoms, which the physical objects are composed of, consist of three fundamental particles known as electrons, protons and neutrons and atoms of one object differ from those of the other only in the number and combination of these fundamental particles.
According to modem science the basic forces are three, viz. gravitational, electromagnetic and nuclear, which cause motion in particles and bodies and determine the inter relation among them. What is the origin of these forces? What is that which causes explosion in the cosmic egg? Is there a ruling power, which regulates the movement of stars and the galaxies in this universe whose vastness could be imagined by the fact that light, traveling at the speed of three hundred thousand kilometers per second, has not yet reached our earth, from many of the stars? The scientists have no answer to these questions.
Our sages of vote have discovered answers to these queries. The technique they employed was basically different from that used by the scientists. Unlike the scientists, they neither attempted to develop equipments to bring the universe within the perceiving powers of their sense organs, nor did they invent super computers powerful enough to aid their mental faculties. On the contrary, the ancient spiritualists mastered a technique of withdrawing the flow of consciousness from the senses, mind, and intellect and thus realised the pure conscious form of their real selves. The pure conscious form of an individual is called Atma or the Self, and the state in which it that the Atma is realized is called Samadhi. They discovered that Atma when freed from the bondage of body and mind has great potential power much beyond the concept of modem science. The knowledge gained after dissociating the conscious self from the phenomenal world in the state of Samadhi was verified over and over again for a long span of time by a number of great seers, called Rishis. They handed down their observations to their followers, generation after generation. These observations are codified in the four Vedas and they have not been improved upon or falsified by modem scientists. In fact, the more the science progresses, the more does it come nearer to the recordings in the Vedas. The Vedic Rishis experienced during their Samadhi, a primordial Being, supremely conscious and superbly blissful. It is called Parama Akshara, Parama Brahma or Paramatma. When the Atma unites itself with the Paramatma, it is able to imbibe the qualities of Paramatma. An iron ball put in the fire of a furnace becomes a glowing red mass of fire itself. Similarly, when the finitely conscious Atma merges with the infinitely conscious Paramatma, it becomes an all-knowing entity and thus acquires the complete knowledge of the entire existence. The technique of achieving the union of Atma and Paramatma is called Yoga in the Vedic sense of the term (yoga literally means union). To distinguish it from various prevalent physical, mental and spiritual practices, which also go by the name of Yoga, the Vedic yoga is called Vihangam Yoga or Sahaja Yoga. It was this yoga that Lord Krishna taught to Arjuna In the celebrated work Bhagwad Gita during the Mahabharata period, some five thousand years ago. This has called Brahma Vidya in the Gita and the Upanishads. The divine knowledge of Vihangam Yoga disappeared gradually after the Mahabharata period. The real mystic saint, Kabir, revived it more than five hundred years ago. In recent times the great Swami Sadafal Deoji Maharaj of village Pakari of Ballia District of U.P rediscovered it. The entire knowledge that he gained in the state, of Samadhi of Vihangam Yoga has been described fully and systematically by him in his unique spiritual work SWARVEDA, a book of poems describing all aspects of spiritual practice in simple language. A detailed commentary has been written by his successor and son, Acharya Dharam Chandra Deoji Maharaj, and had been published from Adhyatmic Yantralaya, Garhwar; District Ballia, U.P. The Vihangam yogis of today are verifying the experiences described therein just in the same way as was done during the Vedic period.