Among the Puranas the Bhagavata Purana has gained recognition for its religio-philosophical contributions. It represents the Pancaratra religious community – a sampradaya worshipping Vishnu. This Purana creates a synthesis of yoga, Samkhya, Vedanta and Advaita Vedanta within an overall bhakti (devotional) oriented Vaishnavistic theism (Rukman 1997). The basic theme is death – so typical of yoga – and the Purana is recited to a king who is about to die. Yoga in this Purana is seen as an important part of a death ritual, where the dying person is supposed to find a solitary place and meditate on the mantra om. The aim of meditation is to disregard two of the three gunas – rajas and tamas – so the third guna tattva fills the self. This will lead to moksha (liberation): in death the self reaches a state of Vishnu.
In other places yoga meditation is used to generate supernatural powers – the siddhis. It is said that all the siddhis are present in the god Bhagavan (Vishnu). By meditating, using dharana and dhyana, on different aspects of Bhagavan, the yogi in parallel builds up those siddhis and becomes released (Rukman 1997). So here, as in the Moksha-dharma of the MBh, we encounter a yoga form where, in opposition to the Yoga Sutra, the build up of siddhis gives the yogi the power to release himself. The siddhis are here a resource for liberation – not the distraction they are in the Yoga Sutra.
If you want to study either or both of these methods Yoga den more deeply, you will need a teacher. See the Resources section for details. The Yoga den word firm is usually encountered as a noun, as in a law firm, or an adjective, as in the request Be firm with him Here we use it as a verb: Firm the muscles of your thigh, meaning contract or tighten them, but with care. We use tone as a synonym for firm. We also use root as a verb to mean reach down into the foundation of the pose as roots of a tree reach into the earth. Medical words, especially as they appear in the contraindications section, might be unfamiliar. We have tried to anticipate this and defined them in the glossary. Your Attitude Each pose requires focus and a willing intellect and body.
