Published in Expressing the Divine: Language, Art and Mysticism

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The author analizes the evolution of Yoga as an ascetic discipline, since the time of the absorption of the local inhabitants by the Aryan tribes, that settled in India in protohistoric times. Austerity vows, magical practices, breath control exercises and ascetic attitudes of the locals were incorporated in Vedic metaphysics and religion, and also in preclassical Yoga. The discovery of the power of ascetic/meditational practices gave rise to a progressive distantiation of the yogis from external religious practices such as sacrifices, intended to propitiate the gods, and to a parallel advance of the view of yoga as a kind of sacrifice in itself, grounded on the association - thought as a binding or [re]union - between the Self/the living Soul (âtman; jivâtman) of man and the eternal norm (sanatana dharma), the “Lord of Creatures” (Prajâpati), the Supreme Being (Parameshtin; Brahman; Shiva of Shaivism; Vishnu of Vaishnavism), or the force or power (Shakti of Shaktism [Tantrism]) that makes life possible and maintains the cosmos. Through a review of the Purusha (Sanskrit for “person; man”, but also for “Universal man; man-god”) theme in some classical Indian literary references - encompassing the Rigveda, the Atharvaveda, many Upanishads, relevant portions of the Mahâbhârata (particularly of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, and of the Mokshadharma and other sections of the Shânti Parva), the Yoga-Sûtra of Patañjali (the founding text of classical yoga), the Bhâgavata-Purâna, the Yoga-Vâsishtha attributed to Vâlmîki, and the Kulârnava-Tantra (an essential text to tantra-yoga), among others -, an articulation that consolidates human autonomy and superior status in the universe is perceived, giving way to the idea that one can be “enlighted”, and the God-in-man status can be achieved, both through knowledge (jñâna) and through yoga - the way of enlightment associated with bodily and mental control and stability, and with the achievement of trans-rational conciousness. Purely “transcendental” meditation and concentration practices progressively [re]turn to a situation where the body is valued as a kind of “temple”, that must be appropriately constructed and cared for in order to allow and to favour the final encounter and assimilation between man and the Divine.