He has explicitly dec1ared that Yoga is the means of attaining unity with Brahman, the highest Truth, and added--echoing the sentiments of the Lord in the Bhagavadgīta---that even if one strays away from Yoga he will not come to harm, but will live in bliss for long in the celestial worlds.
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परमार्थमार्गसाधनमारभ्याप्राप्य योगमपि नाम । |
With this verse from the pen of Patañjali himself, no one need doubt even for a moment, that vedāntic thinkers have twisted Yoga to their own ends, and imported vedāntic beliefs into Yoga, and made Yoga secondary to Vedānta-darśana. The very sponsor and earliest extant writer on Yoga, is a valiant votary and bold believer in the harmony of Yoga and Vedānta and the verse cited above is the unimpeachable evidence of his unstinted faith in such a harmony.
A Unique Yoga!
It is evident from the foregoing pages that all these great, illustrious and divine thinkers, Patañjali, Vedavyāsa and Śaṅkarabhagavatpāda are all settled in the conviction of the Unity of the Soul, the advaita of the Upaniṣads. And it sends a thrill through the hearts of all to think, that these great personalities have a rare alliance, a unique Yoga, as the authors of the Sūtra, the Bhāṣya, and the Bhāṣyavivaraṇa in the Yogadarśana. While pondering over this sacred constellation of eminent seers, one is inclined to think, that great is the privilege of the Yogaśāstra, to have had such an unprecedented union of master-minds as its unsurpassed interpreters!
Origin oi the Yogaśāstra.
Though the Yogasūtra of Patañjali is the earliest extant work in Yoga, he is still not the originator of the science and it is Hiraṇyagarbha who is acclaimed as the first founder of the science. A reference in the Yājñavalkyasmṛti refers to Hiraṇyagarbha as the propounder of Yoga and categorically denies the existence of any predecessor in the field.(हिरण्यगर्भो योगस्य वक्ता नान्यः पुरातनः). When with the efflux of time, the treatise of Hiraṇyagarbha dwindled into obscurity, it was Patañjali who formulated a systematic doctrine following the footsteps of his predecessors and re-established it on a firm footing. This is believed to be the real implication of Patañjali
