Is Yoga a Science?
People who have studied Patanjali's system of yoga, and there are thousands and more, consider yoga to be a science of the Inner world as opposed to the Outer world. Patanjali is the greatest scientist of the Inner in the same way Einstein is considered to be the scientist of the Outer. Westerners or westernized Indians will have a problem with it. The scope of science is the Outer, the objective world. The focus of the Inner world is consciousness, awareness, our subjectivity. Yoga teaches us methods and techniques to control our body, emotions and mind to reach the highest level of consciousness -- whatever name you choose to call it. Patanjali's yoga is not based on belief. He has systemically classified the various stages in the practice of yoga. He points the way: if you do this, that will happen. If it is not happening, why don't you do a re-think? He does not ask anyone to believe in him. Yoga is not something you can learn from a book only: self-realization is not an intellectual argument or point of view. The approach of the West to Truth, starting with the Greeks and to this day, is through the mind or intellectual inquiry. The East, and Yoga in particular, teaches us to control the monkey which is our mind. It is one example of this approach to Ultimate Truth and is also the most important difference between East and West. There are, of course, several other techniques which follow the Eastern tradition or approach, meaning, you cannot arrive at Ultimate Truth through the mind. Zen, with its roots in Indian Buddhism with Bodhidharma being the first Zen master, claims yoga is too long a process. It is also complicated as is the case with psychoanalysis in the modern context; it is ambitious and reaches deep into the dark world of our titanic-like minds and is not satisfied only with the visible tip of the iceberg. Unlike yoga, Zen says it is much easier to drop the mind altogether!
