Yoga lecture 1
Table of Contents For lecture 1
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 1
THE NATURE OF YOGA
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.
The Meaning of the Universe
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.
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
furythey 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.
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.
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.
The Unfolding of Consciousness
One of those pregnant and significant ideas which Theosophy
scatters so lavishly around is thisthat 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.
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.
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.
Coming to the individual, the man of our own globe has behind him
his long evolution in other chains than oursthis 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.
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.
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
The Oneness of the Self
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
The Quickening of the Process of Self-unfoldment
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?
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 obtainedHe 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 outthere 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.
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.
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 caseand 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.
Yoga Is a Science
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Man a Duality
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.
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 dualitymind 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.
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.
In order that this may come out clearly, two terms are used in
Yoga as constituting manPrana 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.
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.
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.
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.
States of Mind
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<span title=”[footnote #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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
In this way, you can make states of mind intelligible and real,
instead of mere words.
Samadhi
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.
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.
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.[footnote #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.
The Literature of Yoga
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.
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 India. A good many of the American " occult " books now
sold are scraps of the Tantras which have been translated. One
difficulty is that these Tantric works often use the name of a
bodily organ to represent an astral or mental centre. There is
some reason in that because all the centres are connected with
each other from body to body; but no reliable teacher would set
his pupil to work on the bodily organs until he had some control
over the higher centres, and had carefully purified the physical
body. Knowing the one helps you to know the other, and the
teacher who has been through it all can place his pupil on the
right path; but it you take up these words, which are all
physical, and do not know to what the physical word is applied,
then you will only become very confused, and may injure yourself.
For instance, in one of the Sutras it is said that if you
meditate on a certain part of the tongue you will obtain astral
sight. That means that if you meditate on the pituitary body,
just over this part of the tongue, astral sight will be opened.
The particular word used to refer to a centre has a
correspondence in the physical body, and the word is often
applied to the physical organs when the other is meant. This is
what is called a " blind," and it is intended to keep the people
away from dangerous practices in the books that are published;
people may meditate on that part of their tongues all their lives
without anything coming of it; but if they think upon the
corresponding centre in the body, a good dealmuch harmmay come
of it. " Meditate on the navel," it is also said. This means the
solar plexus, for there is a close connection between the two.
But to meditate on that is to incur the danger of a serious
nervous disorder, almost impossible to cure. All who know how
many people in India suffer through these practices,
ill-understood, recognize that it is not wise to plunge into them
without some one to tell you what they mean, and what may be
safely practiced and what not. The other part of the Yoga
literature is a small book called the sutras of Patanjali. That
is available, but I am afraid that few are able to make much of
it by themselves. In the first place, to elucidate the Sutras,
which are simply headings, there is a great deal of commentary in
Sanskrit, only partially translated. And even the commentaries
have this peculiarity, that all the most difficult words are
merely repeated, not explained, so that the student is not much
enlightened.
Some Definitions
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.
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.
Spirituality is the realisation of the One. "Psychism" is the
manifestation of intelligence through any material vehicle.<span title=”[footnote #5:
See London Lectures of 1907, "Spirituality and Psychism".
Yoga" is the seeking of union by the intellect, a science;
"Mysticism" is the seeking of the same union by emotion.<span title=”[footnote #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.
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.
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 endthe 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.
God Without and God Within
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.
Changes of Consciousness and Vibrations of Matter
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.
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.
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-
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
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.
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.
Mind 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.
Mind & lt
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Inward and Outward-Turned Consciousness
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. Darwin was in this stage when he
glimpsed the truth of evolution. That is the outward-turned
Samadhi of the physical body.;
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.
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.
The Cloud
This term–in full, Dharma-megha, cloud of righteousness, or of
religion–is one which is very scantily explained by the
commentators. In fact, the only explanation they give is that all
the man’s past karma of good gathers over him, and pours down
upon him a rain of blessing. Let us see if we cannot find
something more than this meagre interpretation.
The term "cloud" is very often used in mystic literature of the
West; the "Cloud on the Mount,
Cloud on the Sanctuary,
the Cloud on the Mercy-Seat," are expressions familiar to the
student. And the experience which they indicate is familiar to
all mystics in its lower phases, and to some in its fullness. In
its lower phases, it is the experience just noted, where the
withdrawal of the consciousness into a sheath not yet recognised
as a sheath is followed by the beginning of the functioning of
that sheath, the first indication of which is the dim sensing of
an outer. You feel as though surrounded by a dense mist,
conscious that you are not alone but unable to see. Be still; be
patient; wait. Let your consciousness be in the attitude of
suspense. Presently the cloud will thin, and first in glimpses,
then in its full beauty, the vision of a higher plane will dawn
on your entranced sight. This entrance into a higher plane will
repeat itself again and again, until your consciousness, centred
on the buddhic plane and its splendouis having disappeared as
your consciousness withdraws even from that exquisite sheath, you
find yourself in the true cloud, the cloud on the sanctuary, the
cloud that veils the Holiest, that hides the vision of the Self.
Then comes what seems to be the draining away of the very life,
the letting go of the last hold on the tangible, the hanging in a
void, the horror of great darkness, loneliness unspeakable.
Endure, endure. Everything must go. "Nothing out of the Eternal
can help you." God only shines out in the stillness; as says the
Hebrew: "Be still, and know that I am God." In that silence a
Voice shall be heard, the voice of the Self, In that stillness a
Life shall be felt, the life of the Self. In that void a Fullness
shall be revealed, the fullness of the Self. In that darkness a
Light shall be seen, the glory of the Self. The cloud shall
vanish, and the shining of the Self shall be made manifest. That
which was a glimpse of a far-off majesty shall become a perpetual
realisation and, knowing the Self and your unity with it, you
shall enter into the Peace that belongs to the Self alone