Collective Yoga implies that the yoga we practice is not for ourselves alone. Its goal is not individual mukti by progressively withdrawing from life and activities, or limiting ourselves to a few helpful activities such as acts of piety with an eye on ultimate freedom from the circle of rebirth. Instead its goal is first Jeevanmukti, to be inwardly free even as we engage in all the various activities of the world including battle and business, works of a physical nature as much as works of an intellectual nature, even family and national life are not to be shunned but uplifted, transmuted as far as possible. This is the first step.
Secondly, the activities themselves have to be transformed not only in their motive of Divine Service rather than service of the family and the ego, but changed in their fundamental character. It means to do things divinely, not humanly. This develops as we grow inwardly. New and conscious ways of business, of healing, of war, polity and economics have to be developed under the pressure of the New Consciousness. That is what evolution means.
Most importantly however, collective yoga means that each individual takes up the burden of many others of his psychological type. Practically it means that each difficulty conquered in us makes it easier to conquer it in others. It is like the first few cars being experimented and manufactured in a factory. But once the first samples are made, it is easier to apply it on a large scale. As we allow the Divine to work within us through the seemingly individual difficulties and as this working releases in us new higher possibilities it becomes easier, much easier for others. Thus each individual in this becomes a representative of a larger collective human evolution waiting behind the scene. This however begins much later as the individual consciousness expands into larger, wider and even cosmic dimensions.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
