Part I: Chapter III / III

Laya Yoga

This is the yoga of absorption or mergence. Laya literally means to lose oneself in some overpowering idea or a ruling passion. By a deep and continued absorption through concentration, one is gradually led to a state of forgetfulness of everything else, including the bodily self, and to having only one thought uppermost in one’s mind, which is the objective before him for realization. This obsession may be for anything, worldly gain, power and pelf, name and fame; even for acquiring riddhis and siddhis or supernatural powers or, above all, for attaining the Ultimate Reality we call God. Thus there are various forms and stages of Laya Yoga, the highest of course being absorption in the contemplation of God – the conception of the yogins in this behalf being the astral light and the means thereto lying through the practice of mudras or locked postures, many of which have already beeen described in the foregoing chapter; for Laya Yoga corresponds closely to Patanjali’s views on dhyan. The highest type of contemplation in Laya Yoga takes one above body-consciousness, leading to the Divine Ground of the human soul – Sahasrar or the headquarters of the subtle regions, with a thousand-petaled lotus full of lights in a pyramidical formation. Forgetfulness of everything but the subject of continued meditation is the key to success in this form of Yoga. It is the natural result of pratyahara and dharna leading to dhyan, which combined together constitute the foundation of Laya Yoga.

The yogins believe in the twin principles of Purush and Prakriti, the positive male and the negative female principles, both in Man and in Nature.

In Man this Nature-energy lies coiled up at the basal root-center in the body, and the process consists in awakening it into activity by the performance of asanas and the practice of yogic breathing, and in carrying it up through the central nadi – sukhman – until it reaches and merges in the highest centre – the Purush in Sahasrar – and hence the term yoga of mergence.

For success in Laya Yoga, one has to rely on the lights of the various elements that predominate at the chakras, or centres, in the pind or physical body. As this journey of mergence of the mind into chid-akash is not free from risks, it is necessary to work it out under the strict guidance of an adept in the line.

Laya Yoga differs vitally from other forms of yoga, which in the main have positive approach by concentration or contemplation on some fixed object. In Laya Yoga, the approach is of a negative type. Instead of controlling the mind as yoga systems generally do, it concentrates on controlling the Kundalini, the vital energy, which lies hidden and latent, and it is perhaps, because it deals with a latency that it is termed as Laya Yoga.