[Advaita-l] Adi Shankaracharya had rejected Yoga.

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Sat, 4 Mar 2006, Krunal Makwana wrote:

> please can you cite the above statements within brahmasUtras. As i would 
> like to read upon this.
>

This is brahmasutra 2.1.3.  In the previous two sutras the Samkhya theory 
that an independent Prakriti (or Pradhana) is the cause of the world is 
refuted.  The Yoga darshana differs from Sankhya in only minor ways.  (Yoga 
for instance accepts the concept of Ishvara while Sankhya does not.)  So 
the refutation of samkhya applies mutatis mutandis to Yoga.

As I have said before, Yoga the darshana is not the same as Yoga the 
concept.  As an analogy, a democrat is a person who who believes in 
democracy.  A Democrat is also a member of a particular political party in 
the democracy called USA.  Just as the second type of democrat is only a 
subset of the first type, Yoga the darshana is only a subset of yoga the 
concept.

While Shankaracharya is a critic of the darshan, I believe Vidyashankar 
has collected several examples from prasthana trayi were he speaks 
favorably of yogic practices.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>