The Canon / Pillars / Yoga & Tantra
Pillars · 1894
The Holy Science (Kaivalya Darsanam)
Yogic & TantricThe Holy Science is a concise treatise arguing the essential unity of Hindu scripture and the Christian gospel, and the lawful structure of spiritual evolution. Its central claim is that consciousness is fundamental and that the realizations of yoga and the truths of scripture describe one ordered reality.
The book argues through compact aphorism and commentary, setting out the stages of the soul's progress and the author's influential Yuga theory, which holds on astronomical grounds that humanity has entered an ascending age of energy. It thus weds cyclical Indian cosmology to a scientific frame.
Written by the guru of Paramahansa Yogananda, the work stands within the Kriya Yoga lineage and models the conviction that empirical reasoning and yogic realization are compatible. Its energy-and-age vocabulary later fed New Age and manifestation thought.
In its words
The highest aim of religion is Atmajnanam, Self-knowledge. But to attain this, knowledge of the external world is necessary.
So long, however, as man identifies himself with his material body and fails to find repose in his true Self, he feels his wants according as his heart's desires remain unsatisfied.
Ignorance, Avidya, is misconception, or is the erroneous conception of the existence of that which does not exist.
Emancipation (Kaivalya) is obtained when one realizes the oneness of his Self with the Universal Self, the Supreme Reality.
In this state man comprehends his Self as a fragment of the Universal Holy Spirit, and, abandoning the vain idea of his separate existence, unifies himself with the Eternal Spirit; that is, becomes one and the same with God the Father.
When this love becomes developed in man it makes him able to understand the real position of his own Self as well as of others surrounding him.
The heart's natural love is the principal requisite to attain a holy life.
In It (Parambrahma) is the origin of all knowledge and love, the root of all power and joy.
Those who remove our troubles, dispel our doubts, and bestow peace are true teachers.
Lineage
The author
Sri Yukteswar GiriKriya Yoga and the unity of science and scripture
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