Vedānta and Yoga
A Lesson with Dr. H. V. Nagaraj Rao
Introduction: A Plural Landscape of Indian Thought
India is home to many complex philosophical views. Some were materialists who held that life is only for enjoyment and moral restraint is irrelevant. Others were staunch theists. Some asserted that events unfold purely by chance—so that virtuous people may suffer painful deaths while debaucherous people may enjoy long, happy lives. Against this varied backdrop arise Sāṅkhya, Yoga, and Vedānta.
Sāṅkhya: Discriminative Knowledge as Liberation
Sāṅkhya is a major and highly influential system. Its saving insight is the discriminative knowledge (viveka) that distinguishes prakṛti (insentient nature and its evolutes) from puruṣa (the conscious witness). Recognizing their radical difference ends suffering.
Yoga: Praxis Arising from Sāṅkhya
Yoga arises from Sāṅkhya and prescribes a way of life by which the aspirant can realize reality as it is—prakṛti, puruṣa, and their distinction. Because its disciplines are universal (ethical restraint, concentration, meditation), Yoga is accepted across schools—apart from hedonistic schools that reject disciplined restraint.
Vedānta and the Authority of the Upaniṣads
There are four Vedas; they teach many rites. The Upaniṣads, arising from the Vedic corpus, ask the deepest question: “Who are we?” They affirm that there is ātman, the self, distinct from senses, mind (manas), and intellect (buddhi). Over a hundred Upaniṣads explore this theme.
Śaṅkara and Advaita Vedānta
Śaṅkara (8th century), whose life spanned only about 32 years, mastered the Indian systems through his teachers and articulated Vedānta as the Upaniṣads’ culminating vision. For Śaṅkara, what the Upaniṣads (śruti) declare is final—higher than logic (tarka) or introspection. He was a formidable dialectician, yet insisted logic is a servant that can be bent by the mind in any direction.
Advaita (Śaṅkara’s school) holds non-duality: ultimately there is only Brahman. The world of multiplicity is an appearance (māyā), like mistaking a rope for a snake, or like drama on a cinema screen or a dream that terrifies until one wakes. Many “suns” appear in puddles, yet there is only one sun. Ahaṃ brahmāsmi (“I am Brahman”) summarizes this realization.
Madhva and Dvaita Vedānta
Dvaita, associated with Madhva, insists on real difference: no two beings are the same; God (Īśvara) is not the same as the individual soul (jīva). The world is real (satya) in Dvaita, whereas Śaṅkara deems it an appearance. Yet both are Vedāntins; they agree on the truth of the Upaniṣads while interpreting them differently.
Yoga and Vedānta: Realism and Idealism
From Śaṅkara’s standpoint, the Yoga system is “egoistic” because it accepts the empirical individual and world as real and works within that frame. For Advaita, what appears and then disappears lacks ultimate reality. For Patañjali, however, such appearances are real in the sense that they are evolutions (pariṇāmas) of the eternal prakṛti; they function within their own order and laws.
Patañjali’s Plurality of Selves and the Bound of Liberation
Patañjali holds an infinite plurality of puruṣas. Kaivalya (aloneness/freedom) may be attained by a few, and the world continues as it is: some are liberated and teach, some are training, many are indifferent or unaware. One person’s liberation does not change the world at large. “What if everyone attains kaivalya?”—for Patañjali, this will never occur; the path is too exacting for most. For the liberated one, the world ceases to bind; for others, it remains functionally real. The puruṣa becomes kevala (free, alone), but never Īśvara; it is freedom, not deification.
Vijñānabhikṣu’s Harmonizing Vision
Vijñānabhikṣu (presented here as c. 8th century) was a great scholar of Sāṅkhya, Yoga, Vedānta, and other systems. He admired Advaita and sought a synthesis of Yoga and Vedānta, arguing that their truths are largely perspectives on a single reality. For beginners, it is necessary to affirm difference: the student is not the teacher; the jīva is not God; guidance is needed and equality is premature. When knowledge matures—at the summit of asaṃprājñāta-samādhi—Vijñānabhikṣu allows that the soul is experienced as one with the all; before that, it is rightly treated as individual. Like rivers with many names losing distinctness in the sea, the realized view need not contradict the preparatory one.
Thus he proposes: before enlightenment, Yoga’s disciplines are necessary; after enlightenment, the Advaitic insight of oneness is evident. Though some Advaita commentaries seem to reject Yoga, Vijñānabhikṣu locates common ground and a graded path. (While Patañjali does not name the Upaniṣads, he may refer to authoritative traditions as āgamas.)
Rāmānuja and Viśiṣṭādvaita
Rāmānuja (11th century) held that Śaṅkara’s ideas were misunderstood or incomplete. He emphasized bhakti—already enshrined in the Yoga-sūtra as Īśvara-praṇidhāna (mentioned four times)—and taught that the whole world is the body of God: all is Hari, Nārāyaṇa. From one standpoint, all is the same; from another, there is real difference. He affirmed three eternal principles: cit (conscious selves), acit (non-conscious matter), and Īśvara (the supreme controller).
For Śaṅkara, the separate individuality of the soul is ultimately impermanent (mithyā); for Rāmānuja, the individual soul is real and continuous across lives. He also rejected a completely nirguṇa Brahman, affirming Brahman with qualities (saguṇa).
Points of Contact and Divergence
Patañjali’s Īśvara and Śaṅkara’s Brahman can be seen as convergent in many respects (supreme, untainted, the ground of liberated knowledge), though their metaphysical frameworks differ. The Vedas yield statements like ahaṃ brahmāsmi, yet other Upaniṣadic lines affirm difference; Vedānta schools weigh these differently. Devotion (bhakti) to the Whole—trust that the divine presence pervades all and uplifts human life—becomes, for the devotee, an inner guiding light that steadies one beyond life’s ups and downs.
Conclusion: Two Pathways, One Ascent
Yoga offers universally necessary disciplines that refine perception and conduct; Vedānta interprets the ultimate meaning of what is realized. Within Vedānta, Advaita, Dvaita, and Viśiṣṭādvaita disagree about the final status of the world and the soul’s relation to Brahman, yet all honor the Upaniṣads. Sāṅkhya and Yoga provide the praxis and analytic clarity (prakṛti/puruṣa) by which bondage loosens; Vedānta strains toward the summit-vision of the One (in differing idioms). Read together—especially through Vijñānabhikṣu’s harmonizing lens—they form a graded path: difference for the beginner, disciplined realization through Yoga, and at the peak a vision in which, as the traditions variously say, freedom is attained and the truth stands self-luminous.
