Yoga - la separation qu’apporte l’union

On parle beaucoup du yoga et les définitions à ce sujet sont nombreuses.

Je partage avec vous une de ces définitions. Le texte, en anglais, a été écrit par Swami Satyananda Saraswati et il me parle particulièrement au cœur. Bonne lecture. 🙏 

“Most people know that the word yoga means union, but in the Yoga Sutras Patanjali refers to yoga as a process of separation. How can this contradiction be explained? It can be explained in terms of Samkhya philosophy, which is the basis of the Yoga Sutras.

Samkhya divides existence and individual being into two aspects: purusha (consciousness) and prakriti (nature, energy, manifested being). Existence and the individual being arise when purusha and prakriti come together. The purusha implies the drashta (seer) and prakriti implies the drishya (seen). The purusha means subjective being and prakriti means objective, external existence.

The process and practices of yoga are concerned with viyoga, separating the purusha from prakriti, the seer from the seen; that is, separating awareness from identification with the body-mind vehicle. This separation and difference between awareness and the mind-body can only be understood by personal experience. No amount of reading or talking will convince one of the truth and reality of this difference - only personal, overwhelming, staggering experience. This personal experience will transform one’s life; it will provide a platform on which to reassess and understand one’s life and being. One will see a new dimension, never before suspected, in one’s own being. The process of yoga is designed to bring viyoga, separation between the seer and the seen; this leads to yoga, union, as the culmination. First of all the purusha and prakriti have to be separated and then, when this is achieved, they are seen to be the same thing. Thus viyoga (the practice of yoga) leads to yoga at a higher level.”