ABSTRACT
We have seen that the Mīmāmsā laid all emphasis on action, the Advaita Vedānta, Buddhism and Jainism on knowledge, and the Vedānta of the other schools on devotion or love of God. These three are the main ways of life recognized by Indian thinkers. The Cārvāka or the materialistic and hedonistic way of life is not considered to be noble by the people in general. But there were other ways of life, which were regarded by some thinkers as important ways of God-realization. There were the bio-physical yoga (haṭhayoga), which consisted in certain practices for controlling the voluntary and involuntary processes of the body and also of the vital principle (prāṇa) through control of breath. The yoga as taught by Patañjali was meant for controlling all the psychological processes (pātañjalayoga) also. This yoga made use of the physical yoga also. In fact all yogas made use of the physical yoga and the yoga of Patañjali, but treated them as having only instrumental and subsidiary value. Then there was the yoga of drugs (auṣadhayoga), which taught that by taking some drugs man could obtain knowledge of the Supreme Spirit. This yoga was not considered to be a true yoga and was generally ridiculed. It was the practice of alchemy raised to the status of a spiritual way of life with a spiritual philosophy. Next, the yoga of the sacred word (mantrayoga) taught people that by continuously uttering a sacred word, one could obtain salvation. Although the main yogas do not reject it, they think that the uttering of some sacred word is only a help, but cannot directly lead to God-realization, which consists of the direct experience of the Supreme Spirit, but not in uttering its name. The Logos is the Word, but itself is not God. Then there are a few other yogas, which are not given even a secondary place; and some of them became degenerate and misleading and were even condemned.
