| Dr. Jai Maharaj 2006-05-10, 11:26 am |
| 2/5 'AN INTRODUCTION TO YOG' BY ANNIE BESANT
Some Definitions
There are a few words, constantly recurring, which need
brief definitions, in order to avoid confusion; they are:
Unfolding, Evolution, Spirituality, Psychism, Yog 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 Yog.
"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".]
"Yog" is the seeking of union by the intellect, a
science; "Mysticism" is the seeking of the same union by
emotion.[FN#6: The word yog 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 Yog. The yogi may use devotion as a means.
This comes out very plainly in Patanjali. He has given
many means whereby Yog 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 endJhe 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 Yog 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 Yog 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 Yog 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-Self.
These correspondences are utilised in Raja Yog and Hatha
Yog, the Kingly Yog and the Yog of Resolve. The Raja Yog
seeks to control the changes in consciousness, and by
this control to rule the material vehicles. The Hatha Yog
seeks to control the vibrations of matter, and by this
control to evoke the desired
changes in consciousness. The weak point in Hatha Yog 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 Yog 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 Yog 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.
Stages of Mind
The mind has five stages, Patanjali tells us, and Vyaasa
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 Yog,
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 Yog; 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 Yog, 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 Yog. 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 Yog. 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 Yog. 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 Yog; 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, Dharm-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 karm 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," the "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.
Lecture II
SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT
In studying psychology anyone who is acquainted with the
Sanskrit tongue must know how valuable that language is
for precise and scientific dealing with the subject. The
Sanskrit, or the well-made, the constructed, the built-
together, tongue, is one that lends itself better than
any other to the elucidation of psychological
difficulties. Over and over again, by the mere form of a
word, a hint is given, an explanation or relation is
suggested. The language is constructed in a fashion which
enables a large number of meanings to be connoted by a
single word, so that you may trace all allied ideas, ,or
truths, or facts, by this verbal connection, when you are
speaking or using Sanskrit. It has a limited number of
important roots, and then an immense number of words
constructed on those roots.
Now the root of the word yog is a word that means " to
join," yuj, and that root appears in many languages, such
as the English -- of course, through the Latin, wherein
you get jugare, jungere, "to join" -- and out of that a
number of English words are derived and will at once
suggest themselves to you: junction, conjunction,
disjunction, and so on. The English word "yoke" again, is
derived from this same Sanskrit root so that all through
the various words, or thoughts, or facts connected with
this one root, you are able to gather the meaning of the
word yog and to see how much that word covers in the
ordinary processes of the mind and how suggestive many of
the words connected with it are, acting, so to speak, as
sign-posts to direct you along the road to the meaning.
In other tongues, as in French, we have a word like
rapport, used constantly in English; " being en rapport,"
a French expression, but so Anglicized that it is
continually heard amongst ourselves. And that term, in
some ways, is the closest to the meaning of the Sanskrit
word yog; "to be in relation to"; "to be connected with";
"to enter into"; "to merge in"; and so on: all these
ideas are classified together under the one head of
"Yog". When you find Shri Krishna saying that "Yog is
equilibrium," in the Sanskrit He is saying a perfectly
obvious thing, because Yog implies balance, yoking and
the Sanskrit of equilibrium is "samvata -- togetherness";
so that it is a perfectly simple, straightforward
statement, not connoting anything very deep, but merely
expressing one of the fundamental meanings of the word He
is using. And so with another word, a word used in the
commentary on the Sootra I quoted before, which conveys
to the Hindu a perfectly straightforward meaning: "Yog is
Samadhi." To an only English-knowing person that does not
convey any very definite idea; each word needs
explanation. To a Sanskrit-knowing man the two words are
obviously related to one another. For the word yog, we
have seen, means "yoked together," and Samadhi derived
from the root dha, "to place," with the prepositions sam
and a, meaning "completely together". Samadhi, therefore,
literally means " fully placing together," and its
etymological equivalent in English would be " to compose
" (com=sam; posita= place). Samadhi therefore means
"composing the mind," collecting it together, checking
all distractions. Thus by philological, as well as by
practical, investigation the two words yog and samadhi
are inseparably linked together. And when Vyaasa, the
commentator, says: "Yog is the composed mind," he is
conveying a clear and significant idea as to what is
implied in Yog. Although Samadhi has come to mean, by a
natural sequence of ideas, the trance-state which results
from perfect composure, its original meaning should not
be lost sight of.
Thus, in explaining Yog, one is often at a loss for the
English equivalent of the manifold meanings of the
Sanskrit tongue, and I earnestly advise those of you who
can do so, at least to acquaint yourselves sufficiently
with this admirable language, to make the literature of
Yog more intelligible to you than it can be to a person
who is completely ignorant of Sanskrit.
Its Relation to Indian Philosophies
Let me ask you to think for a while on the place of Yog
in its relation to two of the great Hindu schools of
philosophical thought, for neither the Westerner nor the
non-Sanskrit-knowing Indian can ever really understand
the translations of the chief Indian books, now current
here and in the West, and the force of all the allusions
they make, unless they acquaint themselves in some degree
with the outlines of these great schools of philosophy,
they being the very foundation on which these books are
built up. Take the Bhagavad-Gita. Probably there are many
who know that book fairly well, who use it as the book to
help in the spiritual life, who are not familiar with
most of its precepts. But you must always be more or less
in a fog in reading it, unless you realise the fact that
it is founded on a particular Indian philosophy and that
the meaning of nearly all the technical words in it is
practically limited by their meaning in philosophy known
as the Sankhya. There are certain phrases belonging
rather to the Vedanta, but the great majority are
Sankhyan, and it is taken for granted that the people
reading or using the book are familiar with the outline
of the Sankhyan philosophy. I do not want to take you
into details, but I must give you the leading ideas of
the philosophy. For if you grasp these, you will not only
read your Bhagavad-Gita with much more intelligence than
before, but you will be able to use it practically for
yogic purposes in a way that, without this knowledge, is
almost impossible.
Alike in the Bhagavad-Gita and in the Yog-sootras of
Patanjali the terms are Sankhyan, and historically Yog is
based on the Sankhya, so far as its philosophy is
concerned. Sankhya does not concern itself with, the
existence of Deity, but only with the becoming of a
universe, the order of evolution. Hence it is often
called Nir-isvara Sankhya, the Sankhya without God. But
so closely is it bound up with the Yog system, that the
latter is called Sesvara Sankhya, with God. For its
understanding, therefore, I must outline part of the
Sankhya philosophy, that part which deals with the
relation of Spirit and matter; note the difference from
this of the Vedantic conception of Self and Not-Self, and
then find the reconciliation in the Theosophic statement
of the facts in nature. The directions which fall from
the lips of the Lord of Yog in the Gita may sometimes
seem to you opposed to each other and contradictory,
because they sometimes are phrased in the Sankhyan and
sometimes in the Vedantic terms, starting from different
standpoints, one looking at the world from the standpoint
of matter, the other from the standpoint of Spirit. If
you are a student of Theosophy, then the knowledge of the
facts will enable you to translate the different phrases.
That reconciliation and understanding of these apparently
contradictory phrases is the object to which I would ask
your attention now.
The Sankhyan School starts with the statement that the
universe consists of two factors, the first pair of
opposites, Spirit and Matter, or more accurately Spirits
and Matter. The Spirit is called Purusha -- the Man; and
each Spirit is an individual. Purusha is a unit, a unit
of consciousness; they are all of the same nature, but
distinct everlastingly the one from the other. Of these
units there are many; countless Purushas are to be found
in the world of men. But while they are countless in
number they are identical in nature, they are
homogeneous. Every Purusha has three characteristics, and
these three are alike in all. One characteristic is
awareness; it will become cognition. The second of the
characteristics is life or prana; it will become
activity. The third characteristic is immutability, the
essence of eternity; it will become will. Eternity is
not, as some mistakenly think, everlasting time.
Everlasting time has nothing to do with eternity. Time
and eternity are two altogether different things.
Eternity is changeless, immutable, simultaneous. No
succession in time, albeit everlasting -- if such could
be -- could give eternity. The fact that Purusha has this
attribute of immutability tells us that He is eternal;
for changelessness is a mark of the eternal.
Such are the three attributes of Purusha, according to
the Sankhya. Though these are not the same in
nomenclature as the Vedantic Sat, Chit, Ananda, yet they
are practically identical. Awareness or cognition is
Chit; life or force is Sat; and immutability, the essence
of eternity, is Ananda.
Over against these Purushas, homogeneous units, countless
in number, stands Prakriti, Matter, the second in the
Sankhyan duality. Prakriti is one; Purushas are many.
Prakriti is a continuum; Purushas are discontinuous,
being innumerable, homogeneous units. Continuity is the
mark of Prakriti. Pause for a moment on the name
Prakriti. Let us investigate its root meaning. The name
indicates its essence. Pra means "forth," and kri is the
root "make". Prakriti thus means "forth-making ". Matter
is that which enables the essence of Being to become.
That which is Being -- is-tence, becomes ex-is-tence --
outbeing, by Matter, and to describe Matter as "forth-
making" is to give its essence in a single word. Only by
Prakriti can Spirit, or Purusha, "forth-make" or
"manifest" himself. Without the presence of Prakriti,
Purusha is helpless, a mere abstraction. Only by the
presence of, and in Prakriti, can Purusha make manifest
his powers. Prakriti has also three characteristics, the
well-known gunas -- attributes or qualities. These are
rhythm, mobility and inertia. Rhythm enables awareness to
become cognition. Mobility enables life to become
activity. Inertia enables immutability to become will.
Now the conception as to the relation of Spirit to Matter
is a very peculiar one, and confused ideas about it give
rise to many misconceptions. If you grasp it, the
Bhagavad-Gita becomes illuminated, and all the phrases
about action and actor, and the mistake of saying "I
act," become easy to understand, as implying technical
Sankhyan ideas.
The three qualities of Prakriti, when Prakriti is thought
of as away from Purusha, are in equilibrium, motionless,
poised the one against the other, counter-balancing and
neutralizing each other, so that Matter is called jada,
unconscious, "dead". But in the presence of Purusha all
is changed. When Purusha is in propinquity to Matter,
then there is a change in Matter -- not outside, but in
it.
Purusha acts on Prakriti by propinquity, says Vyaasa. It
comes near Prakriti, and Prakriti begins to live. The
"coming near" is a figure of speech, an adaptation to our
ideas of time and space, for we cannot posit "nearness"
of that which is timeless and spaceless -- Spirit. By the
word propinquity is indicated an influence exerted by
Purusha on Prakriti, and this, where material objects are
concerned, would be brought about by their propinquity.
If a magnet be brought near to a piece of soft iron or an
electrified body be brought near to a neutral one,
certain changes are wrought in the soft iron or in the
neutral body by that bringing near. The propinquity of
the magnet makes the soft iron a magnet; the qualities of
the magnet are produced in it, it manifests poles, it
attracts steel, it attracts or repels the end of an
electric needle. In the presence of a postively
electrified body the electricity in a neutral body is re-
arranged, and the positive retreats while the negative
gathers near the electrified body. An internal change has
occurred in both cases from the propinquity of another
object. So with Purusha and Prakriti. Purusha does
nothing, but from Purusha there comes out an influence,
as in the case of the magnetic influence. The three
gunas, under this influence of Purusha, undergo a
marvellous change. I do not know what words to use, in
order not to make a mistake in putting it. You cannot say
that Prakriti absorbs the influence. You can hardly say
that it reflects the Purusha. But the presence of Purusha
brings about certain internal changes, causes a
difference in the equilibrium of the three gunas in
Prakriti. The three gunas were in a state of equilibrium.
No guna was manifest. One guna was balanced against
another. What happens when Purusha influences Prakriti?
The quality of awareness in Purusha is taken up by, or
reflected in, the guna called Sattva --rhythm, and it
becomes cognition in Prakriti. The quality that we call
life in Purusha is taken up by, or reflected, in the guna
called Rajas -- mobility, and it becomes force, energy,
activity, in Prakriti. The quality that we call
immutability in Purusha is taken up by, or reflected, in
the guna called Tamas -- inertia, and shows itself out as
will or desire in Prakriti. So that, in that balanced
equilibrium of Prakriti, a change has taken place by the
mere propinquity of, or presence of, the Purusha. The
Purusha has lost nothing, but at the same time a change
has taken place in matter. Cognition has appeared in it.
Activity, force, has appeared in it. Will or desire has
appeared in it. With this change in Prakriti another
change occurs. The three attributes of Purusha cannot be
separated from each other, nor can the three attributes
of Prakriti be separated each from each. Hence rhythm,
while appropriating awareness, is under the influence of
the whole three-in-one Purusha and cannot but also take
up subordinately life and immutability as activity and
will. And so with mobility and inertia. In combinations
one quality or another may predominate, and we may have
combinations which show preponderantly awareness-rhythm,
or life- mobility, or immutability-inertia. The
combinations in which awareness-rhythm or cognition
predominates become "mind in nature," the subject or
subjective half of nature. Combinations in which either
of the other two predominates become the object or
objective half of nature, the " force and matter " of the
western scientist.[FN#7: A friend notes that the first is
the Suddha Sattva of the Ramanuja School, and the second
and third the Prakriti, or spirit-matter, in the lower
sense of the same.]
We have thus nature divided into two, the subject and the
object. We have now in nature everything that is wanted
for the manifestation of activity, for the production of
forms and for the expression of consciousness. We have
mind, and we have force and matter. Purusha has nothing
more to do, for he has infused all powers into Prakriti
and sits apart, contemplating their interplay, himself
remaining unchanged. The drama of existence is played out
within Matter, and all that Spirit does is to look at it.
Purusha is the spectator before whom the drama is played.
He is not the actor, but only a spectator. The actor is
the subjective part of nature, the mind, which is the
reflection of awareness in rhythmic matter. That with
which it works -- objective nature, is the reflection of
the other qualities of Purusha -- life and immutability -
- in the gunas, Rajas and Tamas. Thus we have in nature
everything that is wanted for the production of the
universe. The Putusha only looks on when the drama is
played before him. He is spectator, not actor. This is
the predominant note of the Bhagavad-Gita. Nature does
everything. The gunas bring about the universe. The man
who says: "I act," is mistaken and confused; the gunas
act, not he. He is only the spectator and looks on. Most
of the Gita teaching is built upon this conception of the
Sankhya, and unless that is clear in our minds we can
never discriminate the meaning under the phrases of a
particular philosophy.
Let us now turn to the Vedantic idea. According to the
Vedantic view the Self is one, omnipresent, all-
permeating, the one reality. Nothing exists except the
Self -- that is the starting-point in Vedanta. All
permeating, all-controlling, all-inspiring, the Self is
everywhere present. As the ether permeates all matter, so
does the One Self permeate, restrain, support, vivify
all. It is written in the Gita that as the air goes
everywhere, so is the Self everywhere in the infinite
diversity of objects. As we try to follow the outline of
Vedantic thought, as we try to grasp this idea of the one
universal Self, who is existence, consciousness, bliss,
Sat-Chit-Ananda, we find that we are carried into a
loftier region of philosophy than that occupied by the
Sankhya. The Self is One. The Self is everywhere
conscious, the Self is everywhere existent, the Self is
everywhere blissful. There is no division between these
qualities of the Self. Everywhere, all-embracing, these
qualities are found at every point, in every place. There
is no spot on which you can put your finger and say "The
Self is not here." Where the Self is -- and He is
everywhere -- there is existence, there is consciousness,
and there is bliss. The Self, being consciousness,
imagines limitation, division. From that imagination of
limitation arises form, diversity, manyness. From that
thought of the Self, from that thought of limitation, all
diversity of the many is born. Matter is the limitation
imposed upon the Self by His own will to limit Himself.
"Eko'ham, bahu syam," "I am one; I will to he many"; "let
me be many," is the thought of the One; and in that
thought, the manifold universe comes into existence. In
that limitation, Self-created, He exists, He is
conscious, He is happy. In Him arises the thought that He
is Self-existence, and behold! all existence becomes
possible. Because in Him is the will to manifest, all
manifestation at once comes into existence. Because in
Him is all bliss, therefore is the law of life the
seeking for happiness, the essential characteristic of
every sentient creature. The universe appears by the
Self-limitation in thought of the Self. The moment the
Self ceases to think it, the universe is not, it vanishes
as a dream. That is the fundamental idea of the Vedanta.
Then it accepts the spirits of the Sankhya -- the
Purushas; but it says that these spirits are only
reflections of the one Self, emanated by the activity of
the Self and that they all reproduce Him in miniature,
with the limitations which the universal Self has imposed
upon them, which are apparently portions of the universe,
but are really identical with Him. It is the play of the
Supreme Self that makes the limitations, and thus
reproduces within limitations the qualities of the Self;
the consciousness of the Self, of the Supreme Self;
becomes, in the particularised Self, cognition, the power
to know; and the existence of the Self becomes activity,
the power to manifest; and the bliss of the Self becomes
will, the deepest part of all, the longing for happiness,
for bliss; the resolve to obtain it is what we call will.
And so in the limited, the power to know, and the power
to act, and the power to will, these are the reflections
in the particular Self of the essential qualities of the
universal Self. Otherwise put: that which was universal
awareness becomes now cognition in the separated Self;
that which in the universal Self was awareness of itself
becomes in the limited Self awareness of others; the
awareness of the whole becomes the cognition of the
individual. So with the existence of the Self: the Self-
existence of the universal Self becomes, in the limited
Self, activity, preservation of existence. So does the
bliss of the universal Self, in the limited expression of
the individual Self, become the will that seeks for
happiness, the Self-determination of the Self, the
seeking for Self-realisation, that deepest essence of
human life.
Continued in Part 3
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