It means that the practice of yoga implies an understanding of the psychological forces that ordinarily move us, such as the dualitues of love, attachment, desires, hate, anger, fear, wrath, greed and the whole lot. It also implies the ability to consciously substitute through steady application of will and faith the negative emotions by positive ones, turning outward going discursive thought centered around the little ego and its pleasures and pains, hurts and demands into an inward looking reflective thought turned towards the Divine to know His Will. It means to awaken within oneself the aspiration for God and surrender to Him, to grow in faith and sincerity of seeking rather than let doubts and anxieties take hold of us. It means learning to be calm under all circumstances, practicing equanimity in the face of success and failure, purifying oneself of all I-ness and My-ness, quietening the restless mind and vital and turning them into instruments for the Divine Work. Of course it needs time and patience and a steady application of the methods and processes appropriate to each path.
Morality, on the other hand is simply a set of mental rules that mankind has evolved to tame the animal in us. It has its place in the evolution of the animal man into a proper human. Yoga on the other hand is the evolution of the rational thinking man into a spiritual or even a divine humanity. It requires much more wideness and plasticity of thought since the Truth of the Spirit is infinite and unfolds Itself in different ways and along different lines through a many-layered spectrum of Nature. Morality turns Truth into fixed and rigid, narrow dogma that must be followed in the same way by one and all, the child and grown up, the learned and the stupid as a standard formula. In trying to standardise life it loses its vastness, diversity and the delight of existence.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
