Anand Gholap
Theosophy
|
Anand Gholap Theosophy
|
by
Theosophical
Publishing House, Adyar
Foreword
These lectures[FN#1: Delivered at
the 32nd Anniversary of the Theosophical Society held at Benares, on Dec. 27th,
28th, 29th, and 30th, 1907.] are intended to give an outline of Yoga, in order
to prepare the student to take up, for practical purposes, the Yoga sutras of Patanjali, the chief treatise on Yoga. I have on hand, with
my friend Bhagavan Das as collaborateur,
a translation of these Sutras, with Vyasa's
commentary, and a further commentary and elucidation written in the light of
Theosophy.[FN#2: These have never been finished or printed.] To prepare the
student for the mastering of that more difficult task, these lectures were
designed; hence the many references to Patanjali.
They may, however, also serve to give to the ordinary lay reader some idea of
the Science of sciences, and perhaps to allure a few towards its study.
Annie Besant
Table of Contents
Lecture I.
The Nature of Yoga 1. The Meaning of
the Universe 2. The Unfolding of Consciousness 3.
The Oneness of the Self 4. The
Quickening of the Process of Self-Unfoldment 5.
Yoga is a Science 6. Man a Duality 7. States of Mind 8.
Samadhi 9. The Literature of Yoga
10. Some Definitions 11. God Without and God Within 12. Changes of Consciousness and
Vibrations of Matter 13. Mind 14. Stages of Mind 15. Inward and
Outward-turned Consciousness 16. The Cloud
Lecture II. Schools
of Thought 1. Its Relation to Indian
Philosophies 2. Mind 3. The Mental
Body 4. Mind and Self
Lecture III. Yoga
as Science 1. Methods of Yoga 2. To the Self by the Self 3. To the Self
through the Not-Self 4. Yoga and Morality 5. Composition of States of the Mind 6. Pleasure and Pain
Lecture IV. Yoga
as Practice 1. Inhibition of States of Mind 2. Meditation with and without Seed 3. The
Use of Mantras 4. Attention 5. Obstacles to Yoga 6.
Capacities for Yoga 7. Forthgoing and Returning 8. Purification of Bodies 9. Dwellers on the
Threshold 10. Preparation for Yoga 11. The End
Lecture I
THE NATURE OF YOGA
1.
In
this first discourse we shall concern ourselves with the gaining of a general idea
of the subject of Yoga, seeking its place in nature, its own character, its
object in human evolution.
2.
The
Meaning of the Universe
3.
Let
us, first of all, ask ourselves, looking at the world around us, what it is
that the history of the world signifies. When we read history, what does the
history tell us? It seems to be a moving panorama of people and events, but it
is really only a dance of shadows; the people are shadows, not realities, the
kings and statesmen, the ministers and armies; and the events the battles and
revolutions, the rises and falls of states are the most shadowlike dance of
all. Even if the historian tries to go deeper, if he deals with economic
conditions, with social organisations, with the study
of the tendencies of the currents of thought, even then he is in the midst of
shadows, the illusory shadows cast by unseen realities. This world is full of
forms that are illusory, and the values are all wrong, the proportions are out
of focus. The things which a man of the world thinks valuable, a spiritual man
must cast aside as worthless. The diamonds of the world, with their glare and
glitter in the rays of the outside sun, are mere fragments of broken glass to
the man of knowledge. The crown of the king, the sceptre
of the emperor, the triumph of earthly power, are less than nothing to the man
who has had one glimpse of the majesty of the Self. What is, then, real? What
is truly valuable? Our answer will be very different from the answer given by
the man of the world.
4.
"The
universe exists for the sake of the Self." Not for what the outer world
can give, not for control over the objects of desire, not for the sake even of
beauty or pleasure, does the Great Architect plan and build His worlds. He has
filled them with objects, beautiful and pleasure-giving. The great arch of the
sky above, the mountains with snow-clad peaks, the valleys soft with verdure
and fragrant with blossoms, the oceans with their vast depths, their surface
now calm as a lake, now tossing in fury, they all exist, not for the objects
themselves, but for their value to the Self. Not for themselves because they
are anything in themselves but that the purpose of the Self may be served, and
His manifestations made possible.
5.
The
world, with all its beauty, its happiness and suffering, its joys and
pains" is planned with the utmost ingenuity, in order that the powers of
the Self may be shown forth in manifestation. From the fire-mist to the LOGOS,
all exist for the sake of the Self. The lowest grain of dust, the mightiest deva in his heavenly regions, the plant that grows out of
sight in the nook of a mountain, the star that shines aloft over us-all these
exist in order that the fragments of the one Self, embodied in countless forms,
may realize their own identity, and manifest the powers of the Self through the
matter that envelops them.
6.
There
is but one Self in the lowliest dust and the loftiest deva.
"Mamamsaha" My portion," a portion of
My Self," says Sri Krishna, are all these Jivatmas,
all these living spirits. For them the universe exists; for them the sun
shines, and the waves roll, and the winds blow, and the rain falls, that the
Self may know Himself as manifested in matter, as embodied in the universe.
7.
The
Unfolding of Consciousness
8.
One
of those pregnant and significant ideas which Theosophy scatters so lavishly
around is this Ä that the same scale is repeated over and over again, the same
succession of events in larger or smaller cycles. If you understand one cycle,
you understand the whole. The same laws by which a solar system is builded go to the building up of the system of man. The
laws by which the Self unfolds his powers in the universe, from the fire-mist
up to the LOGOS, are the same laws of consciousness which repeat themselves in
the universe of man. If you understand them in the one, you can equally
understand them in the other. Grasp them in the small, and the large is
revealed to you. Grasp them in the large, and the small becomes intelligible to
you.
9.
The
great unfolding from the stone to the God goes on through millions of years,
through aeons of time. But the long unfolding that
takes place in the universe, takes place in a shorter time-cycle within the
limit of humanity, and this in a cycle so brief that it seems as nothing beside
the longer one. Within a still briefer cycle a similar unfolding takes place in
the individual rapidly, swiftly, with all the force of its past behind it.
These forces that manifest and unveil themselves in evolution are cumulative in
their power. Embodied in the stone, in the mineral world, they grow and put out
a little more of strength, and in the mineral world
accomplish their unfolding. Then they become too strong for the mineral, and
press on into the vegetable world. There they unfold more and more of their
divinity, until they become too mighty for the vegetable, and become animal.
10.
Expanding
within and gaining experiences from the animal, they again overflow the limits
of the animal, and appear as the human. In the human being they still grow and
accumulate with ever-increasing force, and exert greater pressure against the
barrier; and then out of the human, they press into the super-human. This last
process of evolution is called "Yoga."
11.
Coming
to the individual, the man of our own globe has behind him his long evolution
in other chains than ours this same evolution through mineral to vegetable,
through vegetable to animal, through animal to man, and then from our last
dwelling-place in the lunar orb on to this terrene globe that we call the
earth. Our evolution here has all the force of the last evolution in it, and
hence, when we come to this shortest cycle of evolution which is called Yoga,
the man has behind him the whole of the forces accumulated in his human
evolution, and it is the accumulation of these forces which enables him to make
the passage so rapidly. We must connect our Yoga with the evolution of
consciousness everywhere, else we shall not understand it at all; for the laws
of evolution of consciousness in a universe are exactly the same as the laws of
Yoga, and the principles whereby consciousness unfolds itself in the great
evolution of humanity are the same principles that we take in Yoga and
deliberately apply to the more rapid unfolding of our own consciousness. So
that Yoga, when it is definitely begun, is not a new thing, as some people
imagine.
12.
The
whole evolution is one in its essence. The succession is the same, the
sequences identical. Whether you are thinking of the unfolding of consciousness
in the universe, or in the human race, or in the individual, you can study the
laws of the whole, and in Yoga you learn to apply those same laws to your own
consciousness rationally and definitely. All the laws are one, however
different in their stage of manifestation.
13.
If
you look at Yoga in this light, then this Yoga, which seemed so alien and so
far off, will begin to wear a familiar face, and come to you in a garb not
wholly strange. As you study the unfolding of consciousness, and the
corresponding evolution of form, it will not seem so strange that from man you
should pass on to superman, transcending the barrier of humanity, and finding
yourself in the region where divinity becomes more manifest.
14.
The
Oneness of the Self
15.
The
Self in you is the same as the Self Universal. Whatever powers are manifested
throughout the world, those powers exist in germ, in latency, in you. He, the
Supreme, does not evolve. In Him there are no additions or subtractions. His
portions, the Jivatmas, are as Himself, and they only
unfold their powers in matter as conditions around them draw those powers
forth. If you realize the unity of the Self amid the diversities of the
Not-Self, then Yoga will not seem an impossible thing to you.
16.
The
Quickening of the Process of Self-unfoldment
17.
Educated
and thoughtful men and women you already are; already you have climbed up that
long ladder which separates the present outer form of the Deity in you from His
form in the dust. The manifest Deity sleeps in the mineral and the stone. He
becomes more and more unfolded in vegetables and animals, and lastly in man He
has reached what appears as His culmination to ordinary men. Having done so
much, shall you not do more ? With the consciousness
so far unfolded, does it seem impossible that it should unfold in the future
into the Divine?
18.
As
you realize that the laws of the evolution of form and of the unfolding of
consciousness in the universe and man are the same, and that it is through
these laws that the yogi brings out his hidden powers, then you will understand
also that it is not necessary to go into the mountain or into the desert, to
hide yourself in a cave or a forest, in order that the union with the Self may
be obtained He who is within you and without you. Sometimes for a special
purpose seclusion may be useful. It may be well at times to retire temporarily
from the busy haunts of men. But in the universe planned by Isvara,
in order that the powers of the Self may be brought out there is your best
field for Yoga, planned with Divine wisdom and sagacity. The world is meant for
the unfolding of the Self: why should you then seek to run away from it? Look
at Shri Krishna Himself in that great Upanishad of yoga, the Bhagavad-Gita. He
spoke it out on a battle-field, and not on a mountain peak. He spoke it to a Kshattriya ready to fight, and not to a Brahmana
quietly retired from the world. The Kurukshetra of
the world is the field of Yoga. They who cannot face the world have not the
strength to face the difficulties of Yoga practice. If the outer world
out-wearies your powers, how do you expect to conquer the difficulties of the
inner life? If you cannot climb over the little troubles of the world, how can
you hope to climb over the difficulties that a yogi has to scale? Those men
blunder, who think that running away from the world is
the road to victory, and that peace can be found only in certain localities.
19.
As a
matter of fact, you have practised Yoga unconsciously
in the past, even before your self- consciousness had separated itself, was
aware of itself. Sand knew itself to be different, in temporary matter at
least, from all the others that surround it. And that is the first idea that
you should take up and hold firmly: Yoga is only a quickened process of the
ordinary unfolding of consciousness.
20.
Yoga
may then be defined as the "rational application of the laws of the
unfolding of consciousness in an individual case". That is what is meant
by the methods of Yoga. You study the laws' of the unfolding of consciousness
in the universe, you then apply them to a special case and that case is your
own. You cannot apply them to another. They must be self-applied. That is the
definite principle to grasp. So we must add one more word to our definition:
"Yoga is the rational application of the laws of the unfolding of
consciousness, self-applied in an individual case."
21.
Yoga
Is a Science
22.
Next,
Yoga is a science. That is the second thing to grasp. Yoga is a science, and
not a vague, dreamy drifting or imagining. It is an applied science, a
systematized collection of laws applied to bring about a definite end. It takes
up the laws of psychology, applicable to the unfolding of the whole
consciousness of man on every plane, in every world, and applies those
rationally in a particular case. This rational application of the laws of
unfolding consciousness acts exactly on the same principles that you see
applied around you every day in other departments of science.
23.
You
know, by looking at the world around you, how enormously the intelligence of
man, co-operating with nature, may quicken "natural" processes, and
the working of intelligence is as "natural" as anything else. We make
this distinction, and practically it is a real one, between
"rational" and "natural" growth, because human intelligence
can guide the working of natural laws; and when we come to deal with Yoga, we
are in the same department of applied science as, let us say, is the scientific
farmer or gardener, when he applies the natural laws of selection to breeding.
The farmer or gardener cannot transcend the laws of nature, nor can he work against
them. He has no other laws of nature to work with save universal laws by which
nature is evolving forms around us, and yet he does in a few years what nature
takes, perhaps, hundreds of thousands of years to do. And how? By applying
human intelligence to choose the laws that serve him and to neutralize the laws
that hinder. He brings the divine intelligence in man to utilise
the divine powers in nature that are working for general rather than for
particular ends.
24.
Take
the breeder of pigeons. Out of the blue rock pigeon he develops the pouter or
the fan-tail; he chooses out, generation after generation, the forms that show
most strongly the peculiarity that he wishes to develop. He mates such birds
together, takes every favouring circumstance into
consideration and selects again and again, and so on and on, till the
peculiarity that he wants to establish has become a well-marked feature. Remove
his controlling intelligence, leave the birds to themselves, and they revert to
the ancestral type.
25.
Or
take the case of the gardener. Out of the wild rose of the hedge has been
evolved every rose of the garden. Many-petalled roses
are but the result of the scientific culture of the five-petalled
rose of the hedgerow, the wild product of nature. A gardener who chooses the
pollen from one plant and places it on the carpers of another is simply doing
deliberately what is done every day by the bee and the fly.
But he chooses his plants, and he chooses those that have the qualities he
wants intensified, and from those again he chooses those that show the desired
qualities still more clearly, until he has produced a flower so different from
the original stock that only by tracing it back can you tell the stock whence
it sprang.
26.
So is
it in the application of the laws of psychology that we call Yoga. Systematized
knowledge of the unfolding of consciousness applied to the individualized Self, that is Yoga. As I have just said, it is by the world
that consciousness has been unfolded, and the world is admirably planned by the
LOGOS for this unfolding of consciousness; hence the would-be yogi, choosing
out his objects and applying his laws, finds in the world exactly the things he
wants to make his practice of Yoga real, a vital thing, a quickening process
for the knowledge of the Self. There are many laws. You can choose those which
you require, you can evade those you do not require, you can utilize those you
need, and thus you can bring about the result that nature, without that
application of human intelligence, cannot so swiftly effect.
27.
Take
it, then, that Yoga is within your reach, with your powers, and that even some
of the lower practices of Yoga, some of the simpler applications of the laws of
the unfolding of consciousness to yourself, will benefit you in this world as well
as in all others. For you are really merely quickening your growth, your
unfolding, taking advantage of the powers nature puts within your hands, and
deliberately eliminating the conditions which would not help you in your work,
but rather hinder your march forward. If you see it in that light, it seems to
me that Yoga will be to you a far more real, practical thing, than it is when
you merely read some fragments about it taken from Sanskrit books, and often
mistranslated into English, and you will begin to feel that to be a yogi is not
necessarily a thing for a life far off, an incarnation far removed from the
present one.
28.
Man a
Duality
29.
Some
of the terms used in Yoga are necessarily to be known. For Yoga takes man for a
special purpose and studies him for a special end and, therefore, only troubles
itself about two great facts regarding man, mind and body. First, he is a unit,
a unit of consciousness. That is a point to be definitely grasped. There is
only one of him in each set of envelopes, and sometimes the Theosophist has to
revise his ideas about man when he begins this practical line. Theosophy quite
usefully and rightly, for the understanding of the human constitution, divides
man into many parts and pieces. We talk of physical, astral, mental, etc. Or we
talk about Sthula-sarira, Sukshma-sarira,
Karana-sarira, and so on. Sometimes we divide man
into Anna-maya-kosa, Prana-maya-kosa,
Mano-maya-kosa, etc. We divide man into so many
pieces in order to study him thoroughly, that we can hardly find the man
because of the pieces. This is, so to say, for the study of human anatomy and
physiology.
30.
But
Yoga is practical and psychological. I am not complaining of the various
sub-divisions of other systems. They are necessary for the purpose of those
systems. But Yoga, for its practical purposes, considers man simply as a dualityÄmind and body, a unit of consciousness in a set of
envelopes. This is not the duality of the Self and the Not-Self. For in Yoga,
"Self" includes consciousness plus such matter as it cannot
distinguish from itself, and Not-Self is only the matter it can put aside.
31.
Man
is not pure Self, pure consciousness, Samvid. That is
an abstraction. In the concrete universe there are always the Self and His
sheaths, however tenuous the latter may be, so that a unit of consciousness is
inseparable from matter, and a Jivatma, or Monad, is
invariably consciousness plus matter.
32.
In
order that this may come out clearly, two terms are used in Yoga as
constituting manÄPrana and Pradhana,
life-breath and matter. Prana is not only the
life-breath of the body, but the totality of the life forces of the universe
or, in other words, the life-side of the universe.
33.
"I
am Prana," says Indra.
Prana here means the totality of the life-forces.
They are taken as consciousness, mind. Pradhana is
the term used for matter. Body, or the opposite of
mind, means for the yogi in practice so much of the appropriated matter of the
outer world as he is able to put away from himself, to distinguish from his own
consciousness.
34.
This
division is very significant and useful, if you can catch clearly hold of the
root idea. Of course, looking at the thing from beginning to end, you will see Prana, the great Life, the great Self, always present in
all, and you will see the envelopes, the bodies, the sheaths, present at the
different stages, taking different forms; but from the standpoint of yogic
practice, that is called Prana, or Self, with which
the man identifies himself for the time, including every sheath of matter from
which the man is unable to separate himself in consciousness. That unit, to the
yogi, is the Self, so that it is a changing quantity. As he drops off one
sheath after another and says: " That is not
myself," he is coming nearer and nearer to his highest point, to
consciousness in a single film, in a single atom of matter, a Monad. For all
practical purposes of Yoga, the man, the working, conscious man, is so much of
him as he cannot separate from the matter enclosing him, or with which he is
connected. Only that is body which the man is able to put aside and say:
"This is not I, but mine." We find we have a whole series of terms in
Yoga which may be repeated over and over again. All the states of mind exist on
every plane, says Vyasa, and this way of dealing with
man enables the same significant words, as we shall see in a moment, to be used
over and over again, with an ever subtler connotation; they all become
relative, and are equally true at each stage of evolution.
35.
Now
it is quite clear that, so far as many of us are concerned, the physical body
is the only thing of which we can say: " It is not myself "; so that,
in the practice of Yoga at first, for you, all the words that would be used in
it to describe the states of consciousness, the states of mind, would deal with
the waking consciousness in the body as the lowest state, and, rising up from
that, all the words would be relative terms, implying a distinct and recognisable state of the mind in relation to that which is
the lowest. In order to know how you shall begin to apply to yourselves the
various terms used to describe the states of mind, you must carefully analyse your own consciousness, and find out how much of it
is really consciousness, and how much is matter so closely appropriated that
you cannot separate it from yourself.
36.
States
of Mind
37.
Let
us take it in detail. Four states of consciousness are spoken of amongst us.
"Waking" consciousness or Jagrat; the
"dream" consciousness, or Svapna; the
"deep sleep" consciousness, or Sushupti;
and the state beyond that, called Turiya[FN#3: It is impossible to avoid the use of these technical
terms, even in an introduction to Yoga. There are no exact English equivalents,
and they are no more troublesome to learn than any other technical
psychological terms.] How are those related to the body?
38.
Jagrat is
the ordinary waking consciousness, that you and I are
using at the present time. If our consciousness works in the subtle, or astral,
body, and is able to impress its experiences upon the brain, it is called Svapna, or in English, dream consciousness; it is more
vivid and real than the Jagrat state. When working in
the subtler form--the mental body--it is not able to impress its experiences on
the brain, it is called Sushupti or deep sleep
consciousness; then the mind is working on its own
contents, not on outer objects. But if it has so far separated itself from
connection with the brain, that it cannot be readily recalled by outer means, then it is, called Turiya, a lofty
state of trance. These four states, when correlated to the four planes,
represent a much unfolded consciousness. Jagrat is
related to the physical; Svapna to the astral; Sushupti to the mental; and Turiya
to the buddhic. When passing from one world to
another, we should use these words to designate the consciousness working under
the conditions of each world. But the same words are repeated in the books of
Yoga with a different context. There the difficulty occurs, if we have not
learned their relative nature. Svapna is not the same
for all, nor is Sushupti the same for everyone.
39.
Above
all, the word samadhi, to be explained in a moment,
is used in different ways and in different senses. How then are we to find our
way in this apparent tangle? By knowing the state which is the starting-point,
and then the sequence will always be the same. All of you are familiar with the
waking consciousness in the physical body. You can find four states even in
that, if you analyse it, and a similar sequence of
the states of the mind is found on every plane.
40.
How
to distinguish them, then ? Let us take the waking
consciousness, and try to see the four states in that. Suppose I take up a book
and read it. I read the words; my eyes arc related to the outer physical
consciousness. That is the Jagrat state. I go behind
the words to the meaning of the words. I have passed from the waking state of
the physical plane into the Svapna state of waking consciousness, that sees through the outer form, seeking the
inner life. I pass from this to the mind of the writer; here the mind touches
the mind; it is the waking consciousness in its Sushupti
state. If I pass from this contact and enter the very mind of the writer, and
live in that man's mind, then I have reached the Turiya
state of the waking consciousness.
41.
Take
another illustration. I look at any watch; I am in Jagrat.
I close my eyes and make an image of the watch; I am in Svapna.
I call together many ideas of many watches, and reach the ideal watch; I am in Sushupti. I pass to the ideal of time in the abstract; I am
in Turiya. But all these are stages in the physical
plane consciousness; I have not left the body.
42.
In
this way, you can make states of mind intelligible and real, instead of mere
words.
43.
Samadhi
44.
Some
other important words, which recur from time to time in the Yoga-sutras, need
to be understood, though there are no exact English equivalents. As they must
be used to avoid clumsy circumlocutions, it is necessary to explain them. It is
said: "Yoga is Samadhi." Samadhi is a state in which the
consciousness is so dissociated from the body that the latter remains
insensible. It is a state of trance in which the mind is fully self-conscious,
though the body is insensitive, and from which the mind returns to the body
with the experiences it has had in the superphysical
state, remembering them when again immersed in the physical brain. Samadhi for
any one person is relative to his waking consciousness, but implies
insensitiveness of the body. If an ordinary person throws himself into trance
and is active on the astral plane, his Samadhi is on the astral. If his
consciousness is functioning in the mental plane, Samadhi is there. The man who can so withdraw from the body as to leave it
insensitive, while his mind is fully self-conscious, can practice Samadhi.
45.
The
phrase "Yoga is Samadhi" covers facts of the highest significance and
greatest instruction. Suppose you are only able to reach the astral world when
you are asleep, your consciousness there is, as we have seen, in the Svapna state. But as you slowly unfold your powers, the
astral forms begin to intrude upon your waking physical consciousness until
they appear as distinctly as do physical forms, and thus become objects of your
waking consciousness. The astral world then, for you, no longer belongs to the Svapna consciousness, but to the Jagrat;
you have taken two worlds within the scope of your Jagrat
consciousness--the physical and the astral worlds--and the mental world is in
your Svapna consciousness. "Your body" is
then the physical and the astral bodies taken together. As you go on, the
mental plane begins similarly to intrude itself, and
the physical, astral and mental all come within your waking consciousness; all
these are, then, your Jagrat world. These three
worlds form but one world to you; their three corresponding bodies but one
body, that perceives and acts. The three bodies of the ordinary man have become
one body for the yogi. If under these conditions you want to see only one world
at a time, you must fix your attention on it, and thus focus it. You can, in
that state of enlarged waking, concentrate your attention on the physical and
see it; then the astral and mental will appear hazy. So you can focus your
attention on the astral and see it; then the physical and the mental, being out
of focus, will appear dim. You will easily understand this if you remember
that, in this hall, I may focus my sight in the middle of the hall, when the
pillars on both sides will appear indistinctly. Or I may concentrate my
attention on a pillar and see it distinctly, but I then see you only vaguely at
the same time. It is a change of focus, not a change of body. Remember that all
which you can put aside as not yourself is the body of the yogi, and hence, as
you go higher, the lower bodies form but a single body and the consciousness in
that sheath of matter which it still cannot throw away, that becomes the man.
46.
"Yoga
is Samadhi." It is the power to withdraw from all that
you know as body, and to concentrate yourself within. That is Samadhi.
No ordinary means will then call you back to the world that you have
left.[FN#4: An Indian yogi in Samadhi, discovered in a forest by some ignorant
and brutal Englishmen, was so violently ill used that he returned to his
tortured body, only to leave it again at once by death.] This will also explain
to you the phrase in The Secret Doctrine that the Adept "
begins his Samadhi on the atmic plane "
When a Jivan-mukta enters into Samadhi, he begins it
on the atmic plane. All planes below the atmic are one plane for him. He begins his Samadhi on a
plane to which the mere man cannot rise. He begins it on the atmic plane, and thence rises stage by stage to the higher
cosmic planes. The same word, samadhi, is used to
describe the states of the consciousness, whether it rises above the physical
into the astral, as in self-induced trance of an ordinary man, or as in the
case of a Jivan-mukta when, the consciousness being
already centred in the fifth, or atmic
plane, it rises to the higher planes of a larger world.
47.
The
Literature of Yoga
48.
Unfortunately
for non-Sanskrit-knowing people, the literature of Yoga is not largely
available in English. The general teachings of Yoga are to be found in the
Upanishads, and the Bhagavad-Gita; those, in many translations, are within your
reach, but they are general, not special; they give you the main principles,
but do not tell you about the methods in any detailed way. Even in the
Bhagavad-Gita, while you are told to make sacrifices, to become indifferent,
and so on, it is all of the nature of moral precept, absolutely necessary
indeed, but still not telling you how to reach the conditions put before you.
The special literature of Yoga is, first of all, many of the minor Upanishads,
"the hundred-and-eight" as they are called. Then comes
the enormous mass of literature called the Tantras.
These books have an evil significance in the ordinary English ear, but not
quite rightly. The Tantras are very useful books,
very valuable and instructive; all occult science is to be found in them. But
they are divisible into three classes: those that deal with white magic, those
that deal with black magic, and those that deal with what we may call grey
magic, a mixture of the two. Now magic is the word which covers the methods of
deliberately bringing about super-normal physical states by the action of the
will.
49.
A
high tension of the nerves, brought on by anxiety or disease, leads to ordinary
hysteria, emotional and foolish. A similarly high tension, brought about by the
will, renders a man sensitive to super-physical vibrations Going
to sleep has no significance, but going into Samadhi is a priceless power. The
process is largely the same, but one is due to ordinary conditions, the other
to the action of the trained will. The Yogi is the man who has learned the
power of the will, and knows how to use it to bring about foreseen and foredetermined results. This knowledge has ever been called
magic; it is the name of the Great Science of the past, the one Science, to
which only the word " great " was given in
the past. The Tantras contain the whole of that; the
occult side of man and nature, the means whereby discoveries may be made, the
principles whereby the man may re-create himself, all these are in the Tantras. The difficulty is that without a teacher they are
very dangerous, and again and again a man trying to practice the Tantric methods without a teacher makes himself very ill.
So the Tantras have got a bad name both in the West
and here in
50.
Some
Definitions
51.
There
are a few words, constantly recurring, which need brief definitions, in order
to avoid confusion; they are: Unfolding, Evolution, Spirituality, Psychism, Yoga and Mysticism.
52.
"Unfolding"
always refers to consciousness, "evolution" to forms. Evolution is
the homogeneous becoming the heterogeneous, the simple becoming complex. But
there is no growth and no perfectioning for Spirit,
for consciousness; it is all there and always, and all that can happen to it is
to turn itself outwards instead of remaining turned inwards. The God in you
cannot evolve, but He may show forth His powers through matter that He has appropriated
for the purpose, and the matter evolves to serve Him. He Himself only manifests
what He is. And on that, many a saying of the great mystics may come to your
mind: "Become," says St. Ambrose, "what you are"--a
paradoxical phrase; but one that sums up a great truth: become in outer
manifestation that which you are in inner reality. That is the object of the
whole process of Yoga.
53.
"Spirituality"
is the realisation of the One. "Psychism" is the manifestation of intelligence through
any material vehicle.[FN#5: See London Lectures of
1907, "Spirituality and Psychism".]
54.
"Yoga"
is the seeking of union by the intellect, a science; "Mysticism" is
the seeking of the same union by emotion.[FN#6: The
word yoga may, of course, be rightly used of all union with the self, whatever
the road taken. I am using it here in the narrower sense, as peculiarly
connected with the intelligence, as a Science, herein following Patanjali.]
55.
See
the mystic. He fixes his mind on the object of devotion; he loses
self-consciousness, and passes into a rapture of love and adoration, leaving
all external ideas, wrapped in the object of his love, and a great surge of
emotion sweeps him up to God. He does not know how he has reached that lofty
state. He is conscious only of God and his love for Him. Here is the rapture of
the mystic, the triumph of the saint.
56.
The
yogi does not work like that. Step after step, he realises
what he is doing. He works by science and not by emotion, so that any who do
not care for science, finding it dull and dry, are not at present unfolding
that part of their nature which will find its best help in the practice of
Yoga. The yogi may use devotion as a means. This comes out very plainly in Patanjali. He has given many means whereby Yoga may be
followed, and curiously, "devotion to Isvara''
is one of several means. There comes out the spirit of the scientific thinker.
Devotion to Isvara is not for him an end in itself,
but means to an endÄthe concentration of the mind.
You see there at once the difference of spirit. Devotion to Isvara
is the path of the mystic. He attains communion by that. Devotion to Isvara as a means of concentrating the mind is the
scientific way in which the yogi regards devotion. No number of words would
have brought out the difference of spirit between Yoga and Mysticism as well as
this. The one looks upon devotion to Isvara as a way
of reaching the Beloved; the other looks upon it as a means of reaching
concentration. To the mystic, God, in Himself is the object of search, delight
in Him is the reason for approaching Him, union with Him in consciousness is
his goal; but to the yogi, fixing the attention on God is merely an effective
way of concentrating the mind. In the one, devotion is used to obtain an end;
in the other, God is seen as the end and is reached directly by rapture.
57.
God
Without and God Within
58.
That
leads us to the next point, the relation of God without to God within. To the
yogi, who is the very type of Hindu thought, there is no definite proof of God
save the witness of the Self within to His existence, and his idea of finding
the proof of God is that you should strip away from your consciousness all
limitations, and thus reach the stage where you have pure consciousness--save a
veil of the thin nirvanic matter. Then you know that
God is. So you read in the Upanishad: "Whose only
proof is the witness of the Self." This is very different from Western
methods of thought, which try to demonstrate God by a process of argument. The
Hindu will tell you that you cannot demonstrate God by any argument or
reasoning; He is above and beyond reasoning, and although the reason may guide
you on the way, it will not prove to demonstration that God is. The only way
you can know Him is by diving into yourself. There you will find Him, and know
that He is without as well as within you; and Yoga is a system that enables you
to get rid of everything from consciousness that is not God, save that one veil
of the nirvanic atom, and so to know that God is,
with an unshakable certainty of conviction. To the Hindu that inner conviction
is the only thing worthy to be called faith, and this gives you the reason why
faith is said to be beyond reason, and so is often confused with credulity.
Faith is beyond reason, because it is the testimony of the Self to himself,
that conviction of existence as Self, of which reason is only one of the outer
manifestations; and the only true faith is that inner conviction, which no
argument can either strengthen or weaken, of the innermost Self of you, that of
which alone you are entirely sure. It is the aim of Yoga to enable you to reach
that Self constantly not by a sudden glimpse of intuition, but steadily,
unshakably, and unchangeably, and when that Self is reached, then the question:
"Is there a God?" can never again come into the. human
mind.
59.
Changes
of Consciousness and Vibrations of Matter
60.
It is
necessary to understand something about that consciousness which is your Self,
and about the matter which is the envelope of consciousness, but which the Self
so often identifies with himself. The great characteristic of consciousness is
change, with a foundation of certainty that it is. The consciousness of
existence never changes, but beyond this all is change, and only by the changes
does consciousness become Self-consciousness. Consciousness is an everchanging thing, circling round one idea that never
changes--Self-existence. The consciousness itself is not changed by any change
of position or place. It only changes its states within itself.
61.
In
matter, every change of state is brought about by change of place. A change of
consciousness is a change of a state; a change of matter is a change of place.
Moreover, every change of state in consciousness is related to vibrations of
matter in its vehicle. When matter is examined, we find three fundamental
qualities--rhythm, mobility, stability--sattva,
rajas, tamas. Sattva is rhythm, vibration. It is more than; rajas, or
mobility. It is a regulated movement, a swinging from one side to the other
over a definite distance, a length of wave, a vibration.
62.
The
question is often put: "How can things in such different categories, as
matter and Spirit, affect each other? Can we bridge that great gulf which some
say can never be crossed?" Yes, the Indian has crossed it, or rather, has
shown that there is no gulf. To the Indian, matter and Spirit are not only the
two phases of the One, but, by a subtle analysis of the relation between
consciousness and matter, he sees that in every universe the LOGOS imposes upon
matter a certain definite relation of rhythms, every vibration of matter
corresponding to a change in consciousness. There is no change in
consciousness, however subtle, that has not appropriated to it a vibration in
matter; there is no vibration in matter, however swift or delicate, which has
not correlated to it a certain change in consciousness. That is the first great
work of the LOGOS, which the Hindu scriptures trace out in the building of the
atom, the Tanmatra, " the
measure of That," the measure of consciousness. He who is consciousness
imposes on his material the answer to every change in consciousness, and that
is an infinite number of vibrations. So that between the Self and his sheaths
there is this invariable relation: the change in consciousness and the
vibration of matter, and vice versa. That makes it possible for the Self to
know the Not-Self.
63.
These
correspondences are utilised in Raja Yoga and Hatha
Yoga, the Kingly Yoga and the Yoga of Resolve. The Raja Yoga seeks to control
the changes in consciousness, and by this control to rule the material
vehicles. The Hatha Yoga seeks to control the vibrations of matter, and by this
control to evoke the desired
64.
changes
in consciousness. The weak point in Hatha Yoga is that action on this line
cannot reach beyond the astral plane, and the great strain imposed on the
comparatively intractable matter of the physical plane sometimes leads to
atrophy of the very organs, the activity of which is necessary for effecting
the changes in consciousness that would be useful. The Hatha Yogi gains control
over the bodily organs with which the waking consciousness no longer concerns
itself, having relinquished them to its lower part, the " subconsciousness', This is often useful as regards the
prevention of disease, but serves no higher purpose. When he begins to work on
the brain centres connected with ordinary
consciousness, and still more when he touches those connected with the
super-consciousness, he enters a dangerous region, and is more likely to paralyse than to evolve.
65.
That
relation alone it is which makes matter cognizable; the change in the thinker
is answered by a change outside, and his answer to it and the change in it that
he makes by his. answer re-arrange again the matter of
the body which is his envelope. Hence the rhythmic changes in matter are
rightly called its cognizability. Matter may be known
by consciousness, because of this unchanging relation between the two sides of
the manifest LOGOS who is one, and the Self becomes aware of changes within
himself, and thus of those of the external words to which those changes are
related.
66.
Mind
67.
What
is mind ? From the yogic standpoint it is simply the
individualized consciousness, the whole of it, the whole of your consciousness
including your activities which the Western psychologist puts outside mind.
Only on the basis of Eastern psychology is Yoga possible. How shall we describe
this individualized consciousness? First, it is aware of things. Becoming aware
of them, it desires them. Desiring them, it tries to attain them. So we have
the three aspects of consciousness-- intelligence, desire, activity. On the
physical plane, activity predominates, although desire and thought are present.
On the astral plane, desire predominates, and thought and activity are subject
to desire. On the mental plane; intelligence is the dominant note, desire and
activity are subject to it. Go to the buddhic plane,
and cognition, as pure reason, predominates, and so on. Each quality is present
all the time, but one predominates. So with the matter that belongs to them. In
your combinations of matter you get rhythmic, active, or stable ones; and
according to the combinations of matter in your bodies will be the conditions
of the activity of the whole of these in consciousness. To practice Yoga you
must build your bodies of the rhythmic combinations, with activity and inertia
less apparent. The yogi wants to make his body match his mind.
68.
Stages
of Mind
69.
The
mind has five stages, Patanjali tells us, and Vyasa comments that "these stages of mind are on every
plane". The first stage is the stage in which the mind is flung about, the
Kshipta stage; it is the butterfly mind, the early
stage of humanity, or, in man, the mind of the child, darting constantly from
one object to another. It corresponds to activity on the physical plane. The
next is the confused stage, Mudha, equivalent to the
stage of the youth, swayed by emotions, bewildered by them; he begins to feel
he is ignorant--a state beyond the fickleness of the child--a characteristic
state, corresponding to activity in the astral world. Then comes the state of
preoccupation, or infatuation, Vikshipta, the state
of the man possessed by an idea--love, ambition, or what not. He is no longer a
confused youth, but a man with a clear aim, and an idea possesses him. It may
be either the fixed idea of the madman, or the fixed
idea which makes the hero or the saint; but in any case he is possessed by the
idea. The quality of the idea, its truth or falsehood, makes the difference
between the maniac and the martyr.
70.
Maniac
or martyr, he is under the spell of a fixed idea. No reasoning avails against
it. If he has assured himself that he is made of glass, no amount of argument
will convince him to the contrary. He will always regard himself as being as brittle
as glass. That is a fixed idea which is false. But there is a fixed idea which
makes the hero and the martyr. For some great truth dearer than life is
everything thrown aside. He is possessed by it,
dominated by it, and he goes to death gladly for it. That state is said to be
approaching Yoga, for such a man is becoming concentrated, even if only
possessed by one idea. This stage corresponds to activity on the lower mental
plane. Where the man possesses the idea, instead of being possessed by it, that
one-pointed state of the mind, called Ekagrata in
Sanskrit, is the fourth stage. He is a mature man, ready for the true life.
When the man has gone through life dominated by one idea, then he is
approaching Yoga; he is getting rid of the grip of the world, and is beyond its
allurements. But when he possesses that which before possessed him, then he has
become fit for Yoga, and begins the training which makes his progress rapid.
This stage corresponds to activity on the higher mental plane.
71.
Out
of this fourth stage or Ekagrata, arises the fifth
stage, Niruddha or Self-controlled. When the man not
only possesses one idea but, rising above all ideas, chooses as he wills, takes or does not take according to the illumined
Will, then he is Self-controlled and can effectively practice Yoga. This stage
corresponds to activity on the buddhic plane.
72.
In
the third stage, Vikshipta, where he is possessed by
the idea, he is learning Viveka or discrimination
between the outer and the inner, the real and the unreal. When he has learned
the lesson of Viveka, then he advances a stage
forward; and in Ekagrata he chooses one idea, the
inner life; and as he fixes his mind on that idea he learns Vairagya
or dispassion. He rises above the desire to possess objects of enjoyment, belonging
either to this or any other world. Then he advances towards the fifth stage--
Self-controlled. In order to reach that he must practice the six endowments,
the Shatsamapatti. These six endowments have to do
with the Will-aspect of consciousness as the other two, Viveka
and Vairagya, have to do with the cognition and
activity aspects of it.
73.
By a
study of your own mind, you can find out how far you are ready to begin the
definite practice of Yoga. Examine your mind in order to recognize these stages
in yourself. If you are in either of the two early stages, you are not ready
for Yoga. The child and the youth are not ready to become yogis, nor is the
preoccupied man. But if you find yourself possessed by a single thought, you
are nearly ready for Yoga; it leads to the next stage of one-pointedness, where you can choose your idea, and cling to
it of your own will. Short is the step from that to the complete control, which
can inhibit all motions of the mind. Having reached that stage, it is
comparatively easy to pass into Samadhi.
74.
Inward
and Outward-Turned Consciousness
75.
Samadhi
is of two kinds: one turned outward, one turned inward. The outward-turned
consciousness is always first. You are in the stage of Samadhi belonging to the
outward-turned waking consciousness, when you can pass beyond the objects to
the principles which those objects manifest, when through the form you catch a
glimpse of the life.
76.
This
is technically the Samprajnata Samadhi, the
"Samadhi with consciousness," but to be better regarded, I think, as
with consciousness outward-turned, i.e. conscious of objects. When the object
disappears, that is, when consciousness draws itself away from the sheath by
which those objects are seen, then comes the Asamprajnata
Samadhi; called the "Samadhi without consciousness". I prefer to call
it the inward-turned consciousness, as it is by turning away from the outer
that this stage is reached.
77.
These
two stages of Samadhi follow each other on every plane; the intense
concentration on objects in the first stage, and the piercing thereby through
the outer form to the underlying principle, are followed by the turning away of
the consciousness from the sheath which has served its purpose, and its
withdrawal into itself, i.e., into a sheath not yet recognised
as a sheath. It is then for a while conscious only of itself and not of the
outer world. Then comes the "cloud," the dawning sense again of an
outer, a dim sensing of "something" other than itself; that again is
followed by the functioning of the nigher sheath and
the Recognition of the objects of the next higher plane, corresponding to that
sheath. Hence the complete cycle is: Samprajnata
Samadhi, Asamprajnata Samadhi, Megha
(cloud), and then the Samprajnata Samadhi of the next
plane, and so on.
78. &nbs