हठयोग प्रदीपिका (योगी स्वात्माराम - ज्योत्स्ना टीका सहित सटीक)

4 HAṬHAYOGAPRADĪPIKĀ 3. To those who wander in the darkness of conflicting doctrines, being ignorant of Rāja-yoga, the most compassionate Svātmārāma Yogin offers the light of Haṭha-vidyā. Here the author says that it is impossible to obtain Rāja- vidyā by any other means than the Haṭha-vidyā, that is through Mantra-yoga, Laya-yoga, contemplation on the images of the various deities, etc. The name of the author, Svātmārāma Yogin, is very suggestive. It means one who delights in communion with his higher Self. This represents the last of the seven stages of knowledge (jñāna): ‘The Brahmavariṣṭha is one who sports and delights in his higher Self.’ The seven stages are thus des- cribed in the Yoga-vāsiṣṭha, one of the most authoritative works on Yoga: One who has rightly distinguished between the per- manent and the impermanent; who has cultivated a feeling of dislike towards worldly pleasures; who, having acquired full mastery over his organs, physical and mental, feels a deep yearning to free himself from this cycle of existence, has attained the first stage: śubhecchā, or a longing for the Truth. He who has pondered over what he has read and heard and has realized it in his life has attained the second stage: vicāraṇā or Right Inquiry. When the mind, having abandoned the many, remains steadily fixed on the One, he has attained the third stage: tanumānasā or the attenuation of mental activities. Till now he is a sādhaka or practitioner. Having reduced his mind by the three previous stages to a state of pure sattva, when he cognizes directly in himself the truth, ‘I am Brahman’, he is on the fourth stage: sattvāpatti or attainment of the state of sattva. Here the Yogin is called knower of Brahman (brahmavid). Till now he was practising Samprajñāta Samādhi, or contemplation in which consciousness of duality still lingers. The three remaining stages form the Asamprajñāta Samādhi, i.e. having no consciousness of the triad: knower, knowledge and the known. When the Yogin is unaffected by the siddhi-s that manifest themselves at this stage, he attains the stage called asaṁsakti (being unaffected by anything). The