Veda and Vedanta are two terms that occur frequently in yoga circles and in environments influenced by Hinduism and Indian culture in general. But what is Vedanta?

And why should it be interesting for those who practice yoga? We go back for a moment to the most ancient origins of yoga and quickly and broadly retrace its evolution to understand the importance of Vedanta.

The origins of yoga and Vedanta

Yoga has ancestral origins that are lost in the mists of time, linked to ancient shamanic cults and psychophysical practices related to the development of a subtle energy that in the millennia have been hidden in occult practices and in the purest tantra.

It was an archaic age, in which no real philosophy had yet developed and the yogic and spiritual language was strongly symbolic .

Intuition, rather than thought, was the dominant tool of the human psyche and all Vedic mythology revolved around the symbolism of the rebirth of the Sun as a metaphor for inner and universal dynamics .

Mystical poetry was the main instrument of this process and yoga did not yet have philosophical connotations. But with the changing of times, thought began to develop more and more, replacing mystical intuition, and philosophy began to take the place of inspired mantras .

This led to the creation of the Upanishads, texts of philosophical speculation based on the Vedas, of which they represent the final appendix. Not for nothing literally Vedanta means "end of the Vedas".

It is precisely with Vedanta and with the development of thought that yogis began to integrate meditative exercises with the energetic practices of psychophysical yoga.

They noted that by reflecting and meditating on the Vedic and Vedantic verses, they could go beyond the opposites, beyond paradoxes, and flow into the mind in the spirit where everything is one outside of time and space . Thanks to this period, yoga and meditation have become inseparable terms.

Vedanta, tantra and modern yoga

The Vedanta is therefore a metaphysical philosophy applied to the spiritual intuitions of yoga, it is considered one of the six orthodox Hindu schools, together with Nyaya or school of logic, Vaishesika or atomist school, Samkhya or analytical school, Yoga or transformative psychology and Mimansha or school of exegesis Vedic.

Thanks to Vedanta therefore, all the truths decanted in general lines and in poetic terms in the Vedas, take on a clear mental form, and each of them is brought to the maximum logical and philosophical extremes.

In addition to the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutra are considered part of the Vedantic school . It must be said that in his philosophical impetus the Vedantic movement was completely detached from the psychophysical and occult part of yoga, which came together in Tantra.

If in fact Tantra considers matter as a secret casket of the dormant divinity, Vedanta projects itself on the opposite pole, on the totally detached inner witness consciousness, affirming that nature is a mass of automatisms and that only the realization of the pure Self can lead to the experience of the Divine .

These two movements, which were one in the obscurity of the Vedic verses, were divided irreconcilably, creating two vigorous schools with many spiritual fruits .

Even today the majority of practiced yogas belong to the Vedantic school and include exercises such as meditation, concentration and contemplation, as well as knowledge of post-scholar yogic texts in which to look for a truth based on the cult of knowledge of the Self.