The Yoga Ladder - The Ladder of Spiriual Progress

The Gita accepts all traditional forms of yoga as legitimate, asserting that they all focus on linking with the Supreme. Yet the Gita also creates a hierarchy: First come study, understanding, and meditation (dhyana-yoga). These lead to deep contempla-tion of philosophy and eventually wisdom that culminates in renunciation (sannyasa-yoga). Renunciation leads to the proper use of intelligence (buddhi-yoga), then karma-yoga,and finally bhakti-yoga.

All of this involves a complex inner development, beginning with an understanding of the temporary nature of the material world and of duality. Realizing that the world of matter will cease to exist and that birth all too quickly leads to death, the aspiring yogi begins to practice external renunciation and gradually internal renunciation, which, ultimately, comprises giving up the desire for the fruit of one's work (karma-phala-tyaga) and performing the work itself as an offering to God (bhagavad-artha-karma). This method of detached action (karma-yoga) leads to the "perfection of inaction" (naishkarmya-siddhi), or freedom from the bondage of works. One becomes free from such bondage because one learns to work as an "agent" rather than as an "enjoyer"—one learns to work for God, on His behalf. This is the essential teaching of the Gita, and in its pages Krishna takes Arjuna (and each of us) through each step of the yoga process.

The Top Rung

The Gita's entire sixth chapter is about Arjuna's rejection of conventional yoga. He describes it as impractical and "too difficult to perform," as it certainly is in our current age of distraction and degradation (known as Kali-yuga). Since the goal of yoga is to re-connect with God, bhakti-yoga rises above all the rest. According to Krishna, Arjuna is the best of yogis because he has devotion to the Supreme Lord. Krishna tells His devotee directly, "Of all yogis, he who always abides in Me with great faith, worshiping Me in transcendental loving service, is most intimately united with Me in yoga and is the highest of all."

This brings us back to the basic definition of the word yoga. The word comes from the Sanskrit root yuj, which means "to link up with, to combine." It is similar in meaning to religio, the Latin root of the word religion, which means "to bind together." Religion and yoga, therefore, have the same end in mind: combining or linking with God. This, again, is the essential purpose of the yoga process, and the end to which the Gita hopes to bring its readers.