| Dr. Jai Maharaj 2006-05-10, 11:26 am |
| 4/5 'AN INTRODUCTION TO YOG' BY ANNIE BESANT
A white magician may strive for power. But when he is
striving for power, he seeks it that he may serve
humanity and become more useful to mankind, a more
effective servant in the helping of the world. But not so
the brother of the dark side. When he strives for power,
he seeks if for himself, so that he may use it against
the whole world. He may be harsh and cruel. He wants to
be isolated; and harshness and cruelty tend to isolate
him. He wants power; and holding that power for himself,
he can put himself temporarily, as it were, against the
Divine Will in evolution.
The end of the one is Nirvana, where all separation has
ceased. The end of the other is Avichi -- the uttermost
isolation -- the kaivalya of the black magician. Both are
yogis, both follow the science of yog, and each gets the
result of the law he has followed: one the kaivalya of
Nirvana, the other the kaivalya of Avichi.
Composition of States of the Mind
Let us pass now to the "states of the mind" as they are
called. The word which is used for the states of the mind
by Patanjali is Vritti. This admirably constructed
language Sanskrit gives you in that very word its own
meaning. Vrittis means the "being" of the mind; the ways
in which mind can exist; the modes of the mind; the modes
of mental existence; the ways of existing. That is the
literal meaning of this word. A subsidiary meaning is a
"turning around," a "moving in a circle". You have to
stop, in Yog, every mode of existing in which the mind
manifests itself. In order to guide you towards the power
of stopping them -- for you cannot stop them till you
understand them -- you are told that these modes of mind
are fivefold in their nature. They are pentads. The
Sootra, as usually translated, says " the Vrittis are
fivefold (panchatayyah)," but pentad is a more accurate
rendering of the word pancha-tayyah, in the original,
than fivefold. The word pentad at once recalls to you the
way in which the chemist speaks of a monad, triad,
heptad, when he deals with elements. The elements with
which the chemist is dealing are related to the unit-
element in different ways. Some elements are related to
it in one way only, and are called monads; others are
related in two ways, and are called duads, and so on.
Is this applicable to the states of mind also? Recall the
shloka of the Bhagavad-Gita in which it is said that the
Jiva goes out into the world, drawing round him the five
senses and mind as sixth. That may throw a little light
on the subject. You have five senses, the five ways of
knowing, the five jnanendriyas or organs of knowing. Only
by these five senses can you know the outer world.
Western psychology says that nothing exists in thought
that does not exist in sensation. That is not true
universally; it is not true of the abstract mind, nor
wholly of the concrete. But there is a great deal of
truth in it. Every idea is a pentad. It is made up of
five elements. Each element making up the idea comes from
one of the senses, and of these there are at present
five. Later on every idea will be a heptad, made up of
seven elements. For the present, each has five qualities,
which build up the idea. The mind unites the whole
together into a single thought, synthesises the five
sensations. If you think of an orange and analyse your
thought of an orange, you will find in it: colour, which
comes through the eye; fragrance, which comes through the
nose; taste, which comes through the tongue; roughness or
smoothness, which comes through the sense of touch; and
you would hear musical notes made by the vibrations of
the molecules, coming through the sense of hearing, were
it keener. If you had a perfect sense of hearing. you
would hear the sound of the orange also, for wherever
there is vibration there is sound. All this, synthesised
by the mind into one idea, is an orange. That is the root
reason for the "association of ideas". It is not only
that a fragrance recalls the scene and the circumstances
under which the fragrance was observed, but because every
impression is made through all the five senses and,
therefore, when one is stimulated, the others are
recalled. The mind is like a prism. If you put a prism in
the path of a ray of white light, it will break it up
into its seven constituent rays and seven colours will
appear. Put another prism in the path of these seven
rays, and as they pass through the prism, the process is
reversed and the seven become one white light. The mind
is like the second prism. It takes in the five sensations
that enter through the senses, and combines them into a
single precept. As at the present stage of evolution the
senses are five only, it unites the five sensations into
one idea. What the white ray is to the seven- coloured
light, that a thought or idea is to the fivefold
sensation. That is the meaning of the much controverted
Sootra: "Vrittayah panchatayych," "the vrittis, or modes
of the mind, are pentads." If you look at it in that way,
the later teachings will be more clearly understood.
As I have already said, that sentence, that nothing
exists in thought which is not in sensation, is not the
whole truth. Manas, the sixth sense, adds to the
sensations its own pure elemental nature. What is that
nature that you find thus added? It is the establishment
of a relation, that is really what the mind adds. All
thinking is the "establishment of relations," and the
more closely you look into that phrase, the more you will
realise how it covers all the varied processes of the
mind. The very first process of the mind is to become
aware of an outside world. However dimly at first, we
become aware of something outside ourselves -- a process
generally called perception. I use the more general term
"establishing a relation," because that runs through the
whole of the mental processes, whereas perception is only
a single thing. To use a well-known simile, when a little
baby feels a pin pricking it, it is conscious of pain,
but not at first conscious of the pin, nor yet conscious
of where exactly the pin is. It does not recognise the
part of the body in which the pin is. There is no
perception, for perception is defined as relating a
sensation to the object which causes the sensation. You
only, technically speaking, "perceive" when you make a
relation between the object and yourself. That is the
very first of these mental processes, following on the
heels of sensation. Of course, from the Eastern
standpoint, sensation is a mental function also, for the
senses are part of the cognitive faculty, but they are
unfortunately classed with feelings in Western
psychology. Now having established that relation between
yourself and objects outside, what is the next process of
the mind? Reasoning: that is, the establishing of
relations between different objects, as perception is the
establishment of your relation with a single object. When
you have perceived many objects, then you begin to reason
in order to establish relations between them. Reasoning
is the establishment of a new relation, which comes out
from the comparison of the different objects that by
perception you have established in relation with
yourself, and the result is a concept. This one phrase,
"establishment of relations," is true all round. The
whole process of thinking is the establishment of
relations, and it is natural that it should be so,
because the Supreme Thinker, by establishing a relation,
brought matter into existence. Just as He, by
establishing that primary relation between Himself and
the Not-Self, makes a universe possible, so do we reflect
His powers in ourselves, thinking by the same method,
establishing relations, and thus carrying out every
intellectual process.
Pleasure and Pain
Let us pass again from that to another statement made by
this great teacher of Yog: "Pentads are of two kinds,
painful and non-painful." Why did he not say: "painful
and pleasant"? Because he was an accurate thinker, a
logical thinker, and he uses the logical division that
includes the whole universe of discourse, A and Not-A,
painful and non-painful. There has been much controversy
among psychologists as to a third kind -- indifferent.
Some psychologists divide all feelings into three:
painful, pleasant and indifferent. Feelings cannot be
divided merely into pain and pleasure, there is a third
class, called indifference, which is neither painful nor
pleasant. Other psychologists say that indifference is
merely pain or pleasure that is not marked enough to be
called the one or the other. Now this controversy and
tangle into which psychologists have fallen might be
avoided if the primary division of feelings were a
logical division. A and Not-A -- that is the only true
and logical division. Patanjali is absolutely logical and
right. In order to avoid the quicksand into which the
modern psychologists have fallen, he divides all vrittis,
modes of mind, into painful and nonpainful.
There is, however, a psychological reason why we should
say "pleasure and pain," although it is not a logical
division. The reason why there should be that
classification is that the word pleasure and the word
pain express two fundamental states of difference, not in
the Self, but in the vehicles in which that Self dwells.
The Self, being by nature unlimited, is ever pressing, so
to say, against any boundaries which seek to limit him.
When these limitations give way a little before the
constant pressure of the Self, we feel "pleasure," and
when they resist or contract, we feel "pain". They are
not states of the Self so much as states of the vehicles,
and states of certain changes in consciousness. Pleasure
and pain belong to the Self as a whole, and not to any
aspect of the Self separately taken. When pleasure and
pain are marked off as belonging only to the desire
nature, the objection arises: "Well, but in the exercise
of the cognitive faculty there is an intense pleasure.
When you use the creative faculty of the mind you are
conscious of a profound joy in its exercise, and yet that
creative faculty can by no means be classed with desire."
The answer is: "Pleasure belongs to the Self as a whole.
Where the vehicles yield themselves to the Self, and
permit it to 'expand' as is its eternal nature, then what
is called pleasure is felt." It has been rightly said:
"Pleasure is a sense of moreness." Every time you feel
pleasure, you will find the word "moreness" covers the
case. It will cover the lowest condition of pleasure, the
pleasure of eating. You are becoming more by
appropriating to yourself a part of the Not-Self, food.
You will find it true of the highest condition of bliss,
union with the Supreme. You become more by expanding
yourself to His infinity. When you have a phrase that can
be applied to the lowest and highest with which you are
dealing, you may be fairly sure it is all-inclusive, and
that, therefore, "pleasure is moreness" is a true
statement. Similarly, pain is "lessness".
If you understand these things your philosophy of life
will become more practical, and you will be able to help
more effectively people who fall into evil ways. Take
drink. The real attraction of drinking lies in the fact
that, in the first stages of it, a more keen and vivid
life is felt. That stage is overstepped in the case of
the man who gets drunk, and then the attraction ceases.
The attraction lies in the first stages, and many people
have experienced that, who would never dream of becoming
drunk. Watch people who are taking wine and see how much
more lively and talkative they become. There lies the
attraction, the danger.
The real attraction in most coarse forms of excess is
that they give an added sense of life, and you will never
be able to redeem a man from his excess unless you know
why he does it. Understanding the attractiveness of the
first step, the increase of life, then you will be able
to put your finger on the point of temptation, and meet
that in your argument with him. So that this sort of
mental analysis is not only interesting, but practically
useful to every helper of mankind. The more you know, the
greater is your power to help.
The next question that arises is: "Why does he not divide
all feelings into pleasurable and not-pleasurable, rather
than into 'painful and not-painful'?" A Westerner will
not be at a loss to answer that: "Oh, the Hindu is
naturally so very pessimistic, that he naturally ignores
pleasure and speaks of painful and not-painful. The
universe is full of pain." But that would not be a true
answer. In the first place the Hindu is not pessimistic.
He is the most optimistic of men. He has not got one
solitary school of philosophy that does not put in its
foreground that the object of all philosophy is to put an
end to pain. But he is profoundly reasonable. He knows
that we need not go about seeking happiness. It is
already ours, for it is the essence of our own nature. Do
not the Upanishads say: "The Self is bliss"? Happiness
exists perennially within you. It is your normal state.
You have not to seek it. You will necessarily be happy if
you get rid of the obstacles called pain, which are in
the modes of mind. Happiness is not a secondary thing,
but pain is, and these painful things are obstacles to be
got rid of. When they are stopped, you must be happy.
Therefore Patanjali says: "The vrittis are painful and
non-painful." Pain is an excrescence. It is a transitory
thing. The Self, who is bliss, being the all-permeating
life of the universe, pain has no permanent place in it.
Such is the Hindu position, the most optimistic in the
world.
Let us pause for a moment to ask: "Why should there be
pain at all if the Self is bliss?" Just because the
nature of the Self is bliss. It would be impossible to
make the Self turn outward, come into manifestation, if
only streams of bliss flowed in on him. He would have
remained unconscious of the streams. To the infinity of
bliss nothing could be added. If you had a stream of
water flowing unimpeded in its course, pouring more water
into it would cause no ruffling, the stream would go on
heedless of the addition. But put an obstacle in the way,
so that the free flow is checked, and the stream will
struggle and fume against the obstacle, and make every
endeavour to sweep it away. That which is contrary to it,
that which will check its current's smooth flow, that
alone will cause effort. That is the first function of
pain. It is the only thing that can rouse the Self. It is
the only thing that can awaken his attention. When that
peaceful, happy, dreaming, inturned Self finds the surge
of pain beating against him, he awakens: "What is this,
contrary to my nature, antagonistic and repulsive, what
is this?" It arouses him to the fact of a surrounding
universe, an outer world. Hence in psychology, in yog,
always basing itself on the ultimate analysis of the fact
of nature, pain is the thing that asserts itself as the
most important factor in Self-realisation; that which is
other than the Self will best spur the Self into
activity. Therefore we find our commentator, when dealing
with pain, declares that the karmic receptacle the causal
body, that in which all the seeds of karm are gathered
Up, has for its builder all painful experiences; and
along that line of thought we come to the great
generalisation: the first function of pain in the
universe is to arouse the Self to turn himself to the
outer world, to evoke his aspect of activity.
The next function of pain is the organisation of the
vehicles. Pain makes the man exert himself, and by that
exertion the matter of his vehicles gradually becomes
organised. If you want to develop and organise your
muscles, you make efforts, you exercise them, and thus
more life flows into them and they become strong. Pain is
necessary that the Self may force his vehicles into
making efforts which develop and organise them. Thus pain
not only awakens awareness, it also organises the
vehicles.
It has a third function also. Pain purifies. We try to
get rid of that which causes us pain. It is contrary to
our nature, and we endeavour to throw it away. All that
is against the blissful nature of the Self is shaken by
pain out of the vehicles; slowly they become purified by
suffering, and in that way become ready for the handling
of the Self.
It has a fourth function. Pain teaches. All the best
lessons of life come from pain rather than from joy. When
one is becoming old, as I am and I look on the long life
behind me, a life of storm and stress, of difficulties
and efforts, I see something of the great lessons pain
can teach. Out of my life story could efface without
regret everything that it has had of joy and happiness,
but not one pain would I let go, for pain is the teacher
of wisdom.
It has a fifth function. Pain gives power. Edward
Carpenter said, in his splendid poem of "Time and Satan,"
after he had described the wrestlings and the overthrows:
'Every pain that I suffered in one body became a power
which I wielded in the next." Power is pain transmuted.
Hence the wise man, knowing these things, does not shrink
from pain; it means purification, wisdom, power.
It is true that a man may suffer so much pain that for
this incarnation he may be numbed by it, rendered wholly
or partially useless. Especially is this the case when
the pain has deluged in childhood. But even then, he
shall reap his harvest of good later. By his past, he may
have rendered present pain inevitable, but none the less
can he turn it into a golden opportunity by knowing and
utilising its functions.
You may say: "What use then of pleasure, if pain is so
splendid a thing?" From pleasure comes illumination.
Pleasure enables the Self to manifest. In pleasure all
the vehicles of the Self are made harrnonious; they all
vibrate together; the vibrations are rhythmical, not
jangled as they are in pain, and those rhythmical
vibrations permit that expansion of the Self of which I
spoke, and thus lead up to illumination, the knowledge of
the Self. And if that be true, as it is true, you will
see that pleasure plays an immense part in nature, being
of the nature of the Self, belonging to him. When it
harmonises the vehicles of the Self from outside, it
enables the Self more readily to manifest himself through
the lower selves within us. Hence happiness is a
condition of illumination. That is the explanation of the
value of the rapture of the mystic; it is an intense joy.
A tremendous wave of bliss, born of love triumphant,
sweeps over the whole of his being, and when that great
wave of bliss sweeps over him, it harmonises the whole of
his vehicles, subtle and gross alike, and the glory of
the Self is made manifest and he sees the face of his
God. Then comes the wonderful illumination, which for the
time makes him unconscious of all the lower worlds. It is
because for a moment the Self is realising himself as
divine, that it is possible for him to see that divinity
which is cognate to himself. So you should not fear joy
any more than you fear pain, as some unwise people do,
dwarfed by a mistaken religionism. That foolish thought
which you often find in an ignorant religion, that
pleasure is rather to be dreaded, as though God grudged
joy to His children, is one of the nightmares born of
ignorance and terror. The Father of life is bliss. He who
is joy cannot grudge Himself to His children, and every
reflection of joy in the world is a reflection of the
Divine Life, and a manifestation of the Self in the midst
of matter. Hence pleasure has its function as well as
pain and that also is welcome to the wise, for he
understands and utilises it. You can easily see how along
this line pleasure and pain become equally welcome.
Identified with neither, the wise man takes either as it
comes, knowing its purpose. When we understand the places
of joy and of pain, then both lose their power to bind or
to upset us. If pain comes, we take it and utilise it. If
joy comes, we take it and utilise it. So we may pass
through life, welcoming both pleasure and pain, content
whichever may come to us, and not wishing for that which
is for the moment absent. We use both as means to a
desired end; and thus we may rise to a higher
indifference than that of the stoic, to the true
vairagya; both pleasure and pain are transcended, and the
Self remains, who is bliss.
LECTURE IV
YOG AS PRACTICE
In dealing with the third section of the subject, I drew
your attention to the states of mind, and pointed out to
you that, according to the Samskrit word vritti, those
states of mind should be regarded as ways m which the
mind exists, or, to use the philosophical phrase of the
West, they are modes of mind, modes of mental existence.
These are the states which are to be inhibited, put an
end to, abolished, reduced into absolute quiescence. The
reason for this inhibition is the production of a state
which allows the higher mind to pour itself into the
lower. To put it in another way: the lower mind,
unruffled, waveless, reflects the higher, as a waveless
lake reflects the stars. You will remember the phrase
used in the Upanishad, which puts it less technically and
scientifically, but more beautifully, and declares that
in the quietude of the mind and the tranquility of the
senses, a man may behold the majesty of the Self. The
method of producing this quietude is what we have now to
consider.
Inhibition of States of Mind
Two ways, and two ways only, there are of inhibiting
these modes, these ways of existence, of the mind. They
were given by Shri Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita, when
Arjun complained that the mind was impetuous, strong,
difficult to bend, hard to curb as the wind. His answer
was definite: " Without doubt, O mighty-armed, the mind
is hard to curb and restless; but it may be curbed by
constant practice (abhyasa) and by dispassion (vai-
ragya)."[FN#9: loc. cit., VI. 35, 35]
These are the two methods, the only two methods, by which
this restless, storm-tossed mind can be reduced to peace
and quietude. Vai-ragya and abhyasa, they are the only
two methods, but when steadily practiced they inevitably
bring about the result.
Let us consider what these two familiar words imply. Vai-
ragya, or dispassion, has as its main idea the clearing
away of all passion for, attraction to, the objects of
the senses, the bonds which are made by desire between
man and the objects around him. Raga is "passion,
addiction," that which binds a man to things. The prefix
"vi" -- changing to "vai" by a grammatical rule -- means
"without," or "in opposition to". Hence vai-ragya is
"non-passion, absence of passion," not bound, tied or
related to any of these outside objects. Remembering that
thinking is the establishing of relations, we see that
the getting rid of relations will impose on the mind the
stillness that is Yog. All raga must be entirely put
aside. We must separate ourselves from it. We must
acquire the opposite condition, where every passion is
stilled, where no attraction for the objects of desire
remains, where all the bonds that unite the man to
surrounding objects are broken. "When the bonds of the
heart are broken, then the man becomes immortal."
How shall this dispassion be brought about? There is only
one right way of doing it. By slowly and gradually
drawing ourselves away from outer objects through the
more potent attraction of the Self. The Self is ever
attracted to the Self. That attraction alone can turn
these vehicles away from the alluring and repulsive
objects that surround them; free from all raga, no more
establishing relations with objects, the separated Self
finds himself liberated and free, and union with the one
Self becomes the sole object of desire. But not
instantly, by one supreme effort, by one endeavour, can
this great quality of dispassion become the
characteristic of the man bent on Yog. He must practice
dispassion constantly and steadfastly. That is implied in
the word joined with dispassion, abhyasa or practice. The
practice must be constant, continual and unbroken.
"Practice" does not mean only meditation, though this is
the sense in which the word is generally used; it means
the deliberate, unbroken carrying out of dispassion in
the very midst of the objects that attract.
In order that you may acquire dispassion, you must
practice it in the everyday things of life. I have said
that many confine abhyasa to meditation. That is why so
few people attain to Yog. Another error is to wait for
some big opportunity. People prepare themselves for some
tremendous sacrifice and forget the little things of
everyday life, in which the mind is knitted to objects by
a myriad tiny threads. These things, by their pettiness,
fail to attract attention, and in waiting for the large
thing, which does not come, people lose the daily
practice of dispassion towards the little things that are
around them. By curbing desire at every moment, we become
indifferent to all the objects that surround us. Then,
when the great opportunity comes, we seize it while
scarce aware that it is upon us. Every day, all day long,
practice -- that is what is demanded from the aspirant to
Yog, for only on that line can success come; and it is
the wearisomeness of this strenuous, continued endeavour
that tires out the majority of aspirants.
I must here warn you of a danger. There is a rough-and-
ready way of quickly bringing about dispassion. Some say
to you: "Kill out all love and affection; harden your
hearts; become cold to all around you; desert your wife
and children, your father and mother, and fly to the
desert or the jungle; put a wall between youself and all
objects of desire; then dispassion will be yours." It is
true that it is comparatively easy to acquire dispassion
in that way. But by that you kill more than desire. You
put round the Self, who is love, a barrier through which
he is unable to pierce. You cramp yourself by encircling
yourself with a thick shell, and you cannot break through
it. You harden yourself where you ought to be softened;
you isolate yourself where you ought to be embracing
others; you kill love and not only desire, forgetting
that love clings to the Self and seeks the Self, while
desire clings to the sheaths of the Self, the bodies in
which the Self is clothed. Love is the desire of the
separated Self for union with all other separated Selves.
Dispassion is the non-attraction to matter -- a very
different thing. You must guard love -- for it is the
very Self of the Self. In your anxiety to acquire
dispassion do not kill out love. Love is the life in
everyone of us, separated Selves. It draws every
separated Self to the other Self. Each one of us is a
part of one mighty whole. Efface desire as regards the
vehicles that clothe the Self, but do not efface love as
regards the Self, that never-dying force which draws Self
to Self. In this great up-climbing, it is far better to
suffer from love rather than to reject it, and to harden
your hearts against all ties and claims of affection.
Suffer for love, even though the suffering be bitter.
Love, even though the love be an avenue of pain. The pain
shall pass away, but the love shall continue to grow, and
in the unity of the Self you shall finally discover that
love is the great attracting force which makes all things
one.
Many people, in trying to kill out love, only throw
themselves back, becoming less human, not superhuman; by
their mistaken attempts. It is by and through human ties
of love and sympathy that the Self unfolds. It is said of
the Masters that They love all humanity as a mother loves
her firstborn son. Their love is not love watered down to
coolness, but love for all raised to the heat of the
highest particular loves of smaller souls. Always
mistrust the teacher who tells you to kill out love, to
be indifferent to human affections. That is the way which
leads to the left-hand path.
Meditation With and Without Seed
The next step is our method of meditation. What do we
mean by meditation? Meditation cannot be the same for
every man. Though the same in principle, namely, the
steadying of the mind, the method must vary with the
temperament of the practitioner. Suppose that you are a
strong-minded and intelligent man, fond of reasoning.
Suppose that connected links of thought and argument have
been to you the only exorcise of the mind. Utilise that
past training. Do not imagine that you can make your mind
still by a single effort. Follow a logical chain of
reasoning, step by step, link after link; do not allow
the mind to swerve a hair's breadth from it. Do not allow
the mind to go aside to other lines of thought. Keep it
rigidly along a single line, and steadiness will
gradually result. Then, when you have worked up to your
highest point of reasoning and reached the last link of
your chain of argument, and your mind will carry you no
further, and beyond that you can see nothing, then stop.
At that highest point of thinking, cling desperately to
the last link of the chain, and there keep the mind
poised, in steadiness and strenuous quiet, waiting for
what may come. After a while, you will be able to
maintain this attitude for a considerable time.
For one in whom imagination is stronger than the
reasoning faculty, the method by devotion, rather than by
reasoning, is the method. Let him call imagination to his
help. He should picture some scene, in which the object
of his devotion forms the central figure, building it up,
bit by bit, as a painter paints a picture, putting in it
gradually all the elements of the scene He must work at
it as a painter works on his canvas, line by line, his
brush the brush of imagination. At first the work will be
very slow, but the picture soon begins to present itself
at call. Over and over he should picture the scene,
dwelling less and less on the surrounding objects and
more and more on the central figure which is the object
of his heart's devotion. The drawing of the mind to a
point, in this way, brings it under control and steadies
it, and thus gradually, by this use of the imagination.
he brings the mind under command. The object of devotion
will be according to the man's religion. Suppose -- as is
the case with many of you -- that his object of devotion
is Shri Krishna; picture Him in any scene of His earthly
life, as in the battle of Kurukshetra. Imagine the armies
arrayed for battle on both sides; imagine Arjun on the
floor of the chariot, despondent, despairing; then come
to Shri Krishna, the Charioteer, the Friend and Teacher.
Then, fixing your mind on the central figure, let your
heart go out to Him with onepointed devotion. Resting on
Him, poise yourself in silence and, as before, wait for
what may come.
This is what is called "meditation with seed". The
central figure, or the last link in reasoning, that is
"the seed". You have gradually made the vagrant mind
steady by this process of slow and gradual curbing, and
at last you are fixed on the central thought, or the
central figure, and there you are poised. Now let even
that go. Drop the central thought, the idea, the seed of
meditation. Let everything go. But keep the mind in the
position gained, the highest point reached, vigorous and
alert. This is meditation without a seed. Remain poised,
and wait in the silence and the void. You are in the
"cloud," before described, and pass through the condition
before sketched. Suddenly there will be a change, a
change unmistakable, stupendous, incredible. In that
silence, as said, a Voice shall be heard. In that void, a
Form shall reveal itself. In that empty sky, a Sun shall
rise, and in the light of that Sun you shall realise your
own identity with it, and know that that which is empty
to the eye of sense is full to the eye of Spirit, that
that which is silence to the ear of sense is full of
music to the ear of Spirit.
Along such lines you can learn to bring into control your
mind, to discipline your vagrant thought, and thus to
reach illumination. One word of warning. You cannot do
this, while you are trying meditation with a seed. until
you are able to cling to your seed definitely for a
considerable time, and maintain throughout an alert
attention. It is the emptiness of alert expectation. not
the emptiness of impending sleep. If your mind be not in
that condition, its mere emptiness is dangerous. It leads
to mediumship, to possession, to obsession. You can
wisely aim at emptiness, only when you have so
disciplined the mind that it can hold for a considerable
time to a single point and remain alert when that point
is dropped.
The question is sometimes asked: "Suppose that I do this
and succeed in becoming unconscious of the body; suppose
that I do rise into a higher region; is it quite sure
that I shall come back again to the body? Having left the
body, shall I be certain to return?" The idea of non-
return makes a man nervous. Even if he says that matter
is nothing and Spirit is everything, he yet does not like
to lose touch with his body and, losing that touch, by
sheer fear, he drops back to the earth after having taken
so much trouble to leave it. You should, however, have no
such fear. That which will draw you back again is the
trace of your past, which remains under all these
conditions.
The question is of the same kind as: "Why should a state
of Pralaya ever come to an end, and a new state of
Manvantara begin?" And the answer is the same from the
Hindu psychological standpoint; because, although you
have dropped the very seed of thought, you cannot destroy
the traces which that thought has left, and that trace is
a germ, and it tends to draw again to itself matter, that
it may express itself once more. This trace is what is
called the privation of matter -- samskara. Far as you
may soar beyond the concrete mind, that trace, left in
the thinking principle, of what you have thought and have
known, that remains and will inevitably draw you back.
You cannot escape your past and, until your life-period
is over, that samskara will bring you back. It is this
also which, at the close of the heavenly life, brings a
man back to rebirth. It is the expression of the law of
rhythm. In Light on the Path, that wonderful occult
treatise, this state is spoken of and the disciple is
pictured as in the silence. The writer goes on to say:
"Out of the silence that is peace a resonant voice shall
arise. And this voice will say: 'It is not well; thou
hast reaped, now thou must sow.' And knowing this voice
to be the silence itself, thou wilt obey."
What is the meaning of that phrase: "Thou hast reaped,
now thou must sow?" It refers to the great law of rhythm
which rules even the Logoi, the Ishvaras -- the law of
the Mighty Breath, the out-breathing and the in-
breathing, which compels every fragment which is
separated for a time. A Logos may leave His universe, and
it may drop away when He turns His gaze inward, for it
was He who gave reality to it.
He may plunge into the infinite depths of being, but even
then there is the samskara of the past universe, the
shadowy latent memory, the germ of maya from which He
cannot escape. To escape from it would be to cease to be
Ishvara, and to become Brahma Nirguna. There is no
Ishvara without maya, there is no maya without Ishvara.
Even in pralaya, a time comes when the rest is over and
the inner life again demands manifestation; then the
outward turning begins and a new universe comes forth.
Such is the law of rest and activity: activity followed
by rest; rest followed again by the desire for activity;
and so the ceaseless wheel of the universe, as well as of
human lives, goes on. For in the eternal, both rest and
activity are ever present, and in that which we call
Time, they follow each other, although in eternity they
be simultaneous and ever-existing.
The Use of Mantras
Let us see how far we can help ourselves in this
difficult work. I will draw your attention to one fact
which is of enormous help to the beginner.
Your vehicles are ever restless. Every vibration in the
vehicle produces a corresponding change in consciousness.
Is there any way to check these vibrations, to steady the
vehicle, so that consciousness may be still? One method
is the repeating of a mantra. A mantra is a mechanical
way of checking vibration. Instead of using the powers of
the will and of imagination, you save these for other
purposes, and use the mechanical resource of a mantra. A
mantra is a definite succession of sounds. Those sounds,
repeated rhythmically over and over again in succession,
synchronise the vibrations of the vehicles into unity
with themselves. Hence a mantra cannot be translated;
translation alters the sounds. Not only in Hinduism, but
in Buddhism, in Roman Catholicism, in Islam, and among
the Parsis, mantras are found, and they are never
translated, for when you have changed the succession and
order of the sounds, the mantra ceases to be a mantra. If
you translate the words, you may have a very beautiful
prayer, but not a mantra. Your translation may be
beautiful inspired poetry, but it is not a living mantra.
It will no longer harmonise the vibrations of the
surrounding sheaths, and thus enable the consciousness to
become still. The poetry, the inspired prayer, these are
mentally translatable. But a mantra is unique and
untranslatable. Poetry is a great thing: it is often an
inspirer of the soul, it gives gratification to the ear,
and it may be sublime and beautiful, but it is not a
mantra.
Attention
Let us consider concentration. You ask a man if he can
concentrate. He at once says: "Oh! it is very difficult.
I have often tried and failed." But put the same question
in a different way, and ask him: "Can you pay attention
to a thing?" He will at once say: "Yes, I can do that."
Continued in Part 5
Jai Maharaj
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