III. The Yoga of English Writers.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
The yoga considered merely as a mode or system of meditation is variously described by European authors, as we shall see below.
Monier Williams says “According to Patanjali—the founder of the system, the word yoga is interpreted to mean the act of “fixing or concentration of the mind in abstract meditation”. Its aim is to teach the means by which the human soul may attain complete union with the Supreme Soul, and of effecting the complete fusion of the individual with the universal spirit even in the body”, Indian Wisdom p. 102.
Weber speaking of the yoga of the Atharvan Upanishads says; “It is the absorption in átman, the stages of this absorption and the external means of attaining it.” Again says he; “The yoga in the sense of union with the Supreme Being, is absorption therein by means of meditation. It occurs first in the latter Upanishads, especially the tenth book of the Taittiríya and the Katha Upanishads, where the very doctrine is itself enunciated”, Hist. Ind Lit p. 153-171.
Müllins in his prize essay on Vedanta says, the Sankhya yoga is the union of the body and mind, p. 183. In its Vedantic view, it is the joining of the individual with the Supreme Spirit by holy communion of the one with the other through intermediate grades, whereby the limited soul may be led to approach its unlimited fountain and lose itself in the same.