Raja Yoga is an individual practice in self-awareness and self-control; specifically, it’s about lovingly and patiently conquering your body/mind to experience your consciousness.
Yogis believe that only two things exist: consciousness and energetic matter. The former never changes – it’s eternal. Everything else, including our unique and miraculous bodies and minds are constantly changing due to their fundamental, energetic nature.
Consciousness is the aspect of each of us that’s unaffected by physical or mental distress – it’s just the awareness thereof. Consciousness is not dissimilar to the notion of a soul or spirit, but awareness is an aspect of yourself that you can readily verify: the aspect without which you wouldn’t know that you’re reading this!
Consciousness doesn’t exist in the same way that our bodies and minds do. It doesn’t do anything; it doesn’t function in a material sense; it can’t change or be changed – it’s simply the awareness OF something; thus, its not subject to the laws of material physics like the perpetual cycle of cause and effect (karma). We don’t experience consciousness in the same way that we feel our arms and legs or hear our thoughts, but the ultimate goal of Raja Yoga is to achieve a state of such deep meditation – of utter physical and mental stillness – that you actually experience your consciousness (in yoga-speak, you become enlightened).
Until that happens, we can only verify the existence of consciousness by imagining what life might be like without it: our arms, legs, brain, other organs and systems would still function, but without awareness or consciousness, we wouldn’t know what we were doing!
While enlightenment eludes most, thankfully, the practical and therapeutic benefits of practicing Raja Yoga are immediate and cumulative.
