Franklin Merrell-Wolff continues this series by suggesting a correlation between the five koshas and the five yogas of Hindu religious philosophy; namely, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga, jñāna yoga, and the yoga of the Great Renunciation. He begins by examining the principles of karma yoga; namely, renouncing the fruits of one’s actions, maintaining an equal attitude with respect to success and failure, and, ultimately, renouncing even the actions themselves. He asserts that karma yoga affords an excellent opportunity for gaining the power of concentration and the development of will power. Wolff next considers bhakti yoga and the vital sheath that correlates with it. He points out that the qualities most strongly associated with bhakti yoga are devotion, self-giving, surrender, and sacrifice, all of which involve the surrender of determination by the personal ego and the complete acceptance of the governance of the divinity. He goes on to discuss the office and attitude of the guru and concludes by differentiating between the dualism in the bhakti yoga orientation of one’s relatedness to the Divine and the non-dualistic orientation in jñāna yoga to seek one’s ultimate identity with the Divine.
Recording Location
Lone Pine, Calif.
Recording Date
11 October 1976
Recording Information
Transcript
Recording Duration
55 min
Sort Order
245.00