Figure 12
We have encountered this bandha twice before: first in the purification process of shatkarma. There it preceded the churning of the intestines (Part Two, 33/34). Then we met it in the next chapter when we had to raise the abdominal apana (Part Two, 45). In both cases the practice was mainly mechanical. Here, in the third case, it says: "because through this practice prana flows through the sushumna . . ." We now know considerably more than we did at the previous levels of training. There are more things happening internally, so that uddiyana bandha has indeed acquired a decisive meaning.
The inner process of this practice is as follows: In the two nadis) prana and apana have been united into one continuous flow, and neither a separation of the two nor a reversal of the current can occur after this point. From the nostrils to the muladhara chakra a current-bearing path now extends, or rather two paths, which unite at the lower end of the sushumna. From there the path again goes upward to the "moon." The flow of nectar is diverted by the upcurled tongue, so that the "sun" can now unfold its full fiery power.
There still remains one important question: to what end should the "sun" yield its strongest fire?
We know that the sun sits in the area of the fire chakra (manipura) below the heart chakra (anahata), within which dwells jivan, the germ of life. This jivan resembles the filament in the radio tube that sends out electrons as soon as it is warmed up. The "cathode rays" that the jivan sends out when heated by the sun are concentrated vital energy, and the-practicing yogi needs a great deal of this for his kundalini. In order to bring this about the fire has to be led closer to the jivan, i.e. to the anahata chakra, and uddiyana bandha accomplishes just this. But fire cannot kindle without air, so the flame has a second task: to attract the prana-apana current by drawing it up through the sushumna.
(61-64) Press the scrotum with the heel, contract the anus, and force apana upward. This is mula bandha. Through contraction of the muladhara the normally downward flowing current of apana is guided upward. This is why the yogis call it mula [root] bandha. --Press the anus with the heel and press apana forcefully until it flows upward. Through mula bandha, prana and apana as well as nada and bindu unite to give perfection to the yogi. There is no doubt about this.
Through the pressure of the heel and the taut anus muscle the upward tendency is furthered and the current kept flowing. Here again, a practice that had little meaning for the beginner has taken on a decisive character. We will get acquainted with nada and bindu at level IV.
(65) Through the union of prana and apana, secretions are considerably reduced. Through mula bandha a yogi, though old, becomes young.
Indeed, for the fire that tempers the life germ is fanned into new vigor by this practice.
(66-69) When apana rises upward and reaches the fire orbit, the flame becomes large and bright, fanned by apana. When apana and the fire join with prana which by its nature is hot, then the fire of the body becomes especially bright and powerful. The kundalini feels the great heat thereby and awakens from its sleep like a snake that is hit by a stick, hisses and raises itself. Then it enters the opening [of sushumna]. Therefore the yogi should always practice mula bandha.
Should any nectar now flow into the fire, all efforts would have been in vain, for the organism would at once revert to "normal." Therefore we have to take precautionary measures which will support the work of the tongue, so that it only needs to intercept, but need not conduct.
(70-73) Contract the throat and press the chin against the breast. This is jalandhara bandha and destroys old age and death. It is called jalandhara bandha because it makes the nadis taut and stops the downward flow of the nectar which issues from the throat. When jalandhara bandha is accomplished and the throat contracted, not a single drop of nectar can fall into the fire of life and the breath does not take a wrong path. When the throat is firmly contracted, the two nadis are dead. Here in the throat sits the middle chakra, vishuddha. Here the 16 life centers are firmly bound.
We have also encountered before, this jalandhara bandha at a time when it did not have much significance; we are meeting it now for the fourth time. It will help if we follow the evolutionary stages in connection with this bandha through all four phases. In the first place it helped us to learn kumbhaka in pranayama (Part Two, 45). There it had only a supporting role. In the second case it suddenly had a strange result (Part Two, 68): it caused a state of mental absence. Though this was only to give the student the experience of such a state it nevertheless
proved the overwhelming power of this bandha. Then it appeared in Part Three (10-14), where the first practical experiments were made with kundalini and the knowledge acquired thus far. The fire merely glowed and no harm could come of it, for the powerful key, khechari mudra, was missing. But now the fire flares up, and it has been brought closer to the life germ. Now all the supplementary practices, formerly so negligible, have a thousandfold greater effect.The nadis have died off, so it says. Indeed, the prana-apana current now flows through the sushumna. The body appears to be dead, while deep inside an infinitely intense life is burning, more intense than any of the many known vital manifestations of life. If one touches the crown of the yogi's head in this state one can feel a little of it. While the body is ice-cold the center of his head burns as though in a raging fever.
(74-76) Practice uddiyana bandha by contracting the anus muscle; tighten the nadis ida and pingla [through jalandhara bandha] and cause the prana to flow [through the sushumna] to the upper part. in this way the breath is absorbed [it remains motionless in the sushumna] and old age, disease and death are conquered. The yogi masters these three outstanding bandhas, as practiced by the great siddhas [Matsyendra, Vashishtha, and others], and through which one acquires the siddhis described in the hatha yoga shastras.
The yogi now has the much-debated ability to put himself into a deathlike state, and to remain buried for days or weeks (to prove that he is not cheating). No one who has read the text so far will contend that this conscious death is now no longer a riddle. Even to the yogi who masters it, it is replete with mysteries. Only one thing must be remembered: all this---that seems so
strange to us--is not essential. The yogi does not practice the ancient art of yoga in order to play dead, to remain for days or weeks under ground, or to squat in the midst of five flaring fires, on nail boards, or in a block of ice. If this were so we would be fools not to find something more worthy of our interest. Something is at stake that seems much less flamboyant than these imposing tricks: the perfection, not the distortion, of man; the development, not the abuse, of inner powers. This is a fact, and those who do not recognize it cannot change it, not even those in the homeland of yoga itself. Even in India it is hard to find a master. One encounters magicians everywhere, but the true master does not exhibit himself publicly. Now there is a second method to divert the flow of the nectar.(77-79) Every particle of nectar that flows from the ambrosial "moon" is [normally] swallowed up by the "sun." Thus the body grows old. [But] there is an excellent practice whereby the sun is deceived. But this we can learn only from the guru. No theoretical study even of a million shastras can elucidate it. It is viparitakarani, whereby the attributes of the "moon" and those of the "sun" are exchanged. The "sun" in the solar plexus and the "moon" above the palate exchange places. This must be learned from the guru.
On the surface, the practice itself seems comparatively simple, as we will see. The difficulties lie once again within us. But let the text lead us a little closer to the secret.
(80-82) In him who practices daily the gastric fire increases. Therefore the yogi should always have an ample supply of food on hand. If he restricts his food intake the fire will eat his body [instead]. --On the first day he should remain [only] a little while in the headstand, with legs in the air. This is viparitakarani. Increase the practice time a little each day. After six months gray hair and wrinkles disappear. He who practices three hours a day conquers death,
Through a headstand, values arereversed. And what is so difficult about learning this?
First of all, we must know one thing: Among the asanas, the physical exercises treated in the first book, there is one that our text does not mention, although it is called the queen of asanas, and this is the headstand. This asana is called sirshasana.
As mentioned above, there is no great difficulty in this practice. And it is not the headstand that is referred to in the text as not being teachable through books or description. It is the process of deceiving the sun that can be learned from a guru only. How to exchange the position of the moon and the sun; that is what has to be learned from the guru, for this exchange is not accomplished by simply standing on our head.
But it does happen as soon as one has become accustomed to this position, as soon as the organism functions exactly as in the normal position. We know that through a radical change in consciousness organic processes can be influenced. Now we have to reach the point where consciousness does not register this inverted position as unusual. Then all the organs will adjust to it. How this is to be accomplished is the great problem discussed in this sloka. If it were a problem of meditation, it would be a comparatively simple matter for the experienced yogi. But if he does not want to fall down, he has to keep fully awake--and still convert his consciousness! This cannot be achieved through any kind of technique, but only through the suggestive influence of the guru.
This practice, by the way, is nowadays seldom encountered. Is it perhaps due to the fact that there are not any more gums who have these suggestive powers?
(83) When someone, though leading a worldly life without observing the laws of yama and niyama, practices vajroli mudra he will become a vessel for siddhi powers.
The following slokas, 84-103, describe the vajroli, sahajoli and amaroli mudras. These are practices that aim at reversing the flow of the semen virile in coito. The purpose of such practices is clear: to enjoy all the benefits of yoga without sacrificing any of the worldly pleasures.
In leaving out these passages, we merely bypass the description of a few obscure and repugnant practices that arefollowed by only those yogis who lack the will power to reach their goal otherwise. In these 20 slokas, we encounter a yoga that has nothing but its name in common with the yoga of a Patanjali or a Ramakrishna.
Any technique that enables a yogi to sublimate his virility within his organism merits approval. Whatever he does outside his organism cannot be called yoga. For a yoga without yamas and niyamas does not exist. Even the very profound maithuna practices (i.e. ritual cohabitation) of the Shaktism cult can be acknowledged as a symbolic background of a religious ritual, but not this technique of uniting pleasure with the benefits of yoga. So let us take a detour around Orcus into the purer fields of kundalini.
CHAPTER 10
THE SHAKTI
everything so far has really been only preparation. Everything essential has been accomplished, except the most essential: the raising of kundalini. To be sure, the yogi is now capable ot going into deep meditation; he can put his body into a deathlike state; and he can fan or quench the inner fire. He has complete control over the functions of his body. All in all, he is master of hatha yoga.
But what of it? He is still only an insignificant apprentice of raja yoga. We have already seen that it is not the bodily functions and their control that count. Decisive is the degree of total perfection--physical, mental, and spiritual. Mastery of hatha yoga is only a preliminary to the mastery of raja yoga.
This final chapter of the third stage of training is concerned with the last, though the most magnificent of all physical phenomena: the guiding of the kundalini serpent through the various chakras to its highest goal, the sahasrara. Note, however, that it does not bring in the all-important phenomena that characterize absolute consciousness, the essence of raja yoga. The technical-dynamic process which is taught in the following will lead up to that goal to which Part Four is devoted.
(104) I now describe shakti calana kriya [literally: the action that loosens the inner power of nature]. Kutitangi, kundalini, bhujangi, shkti, ishvari, kundali, arundhati: all these are names for the same shakti.
Shakti is the name for all dynamic forces of nature. The release of the shakti in man corresponds in its effect directly to the release of the latent shakti in the atom. Through nuclear fission we do not call forth an external power, but simply release the power latent in the atom. In man too repose unsuspected powers that do not manifest materially blit act with equal force on the mental plane, which in turn reacts on the spiritual plane. We need such an atomic spiritual power in order to reach the goal of the yogi. With our threadbare everyday intellect we get nowhere. It leads us, if anywhere, into a hopeless blind alley.
Where else can we find the needed forces for the highest goal, if not from within our own selves? Since there is a path to liberation, there also must exist the means to pursue it to the end. And all the means that we require to reach our ultimate goal, however high it may be, lie within us. The problem is only how to release them.
(105-110) As one opens the door with a key, so the yogi should open the gate to liberation
[moksha] with the kundalini. The great goddess [kundalini] steeps, closing with her mouth the opening through which one can ascend to the brahmarandhra (crown of the head), to that place where there is neither pain nor suffering. The kundalini sleeps above the kanda [where the nadis converge]. She gives liberation to the yogi and bondage to the fool. He who knows kundalini knows yoga. --The kundalini, it is said, is coiled like a serpent. He who can induce her to move [upward] is liberated. There is no doubt about it. --Between Ganga and Yamuna sits a young widow, arousing compassion. One should despoil her, for this leads to the supreme seat of Vishnu [her spouse in sahasrara]. The sacred Ganga is ida [nodi] and Yamuna if pin gala [nodi]. Between ida and pingala sits the young widow kundalini.(111) You should awaken the sleeping serpent by grasping its tad. The shakti, when aroused, moves upward.
Once more remember the churning of the ocean of milk. The demons seized the head of the snake, the gods took hold of the tail, and thus the work was accomplished.
Here we have the same process. The physically manifested powers, prana and apana, pull on the head; that is where the current flows into the sushumna, which is closed by the head of the serpent. The spiritual forces, however, work from the tail. We will presently learn about the nature of these spiritual forces.
(112) After inhaling through the right nostril perform kum-bhaka according to the rules. Then manipulate the shakfi for an hour and a half, both at sunrise and at sunset.
But didn't we learn before that we should practice eight hours a day? And now suddenly only at dawn and dusk ! Here we have an example of bow easily the words of a secret teaching can be misleading.
We have to understand that last sentence symbolically. The shakti should be manipulated for an hour and a half from two sides (head and tail), from the side of the sunrise (above) and from the side of the sunset (below). Here we must know the following: hatha yoga is comprised of )yoti (light) and mantra (sound). This passage means that the powers are awakened by means of the upper sphere of vibrations (light), which extends from the cosmic ether rays through the ultra colors to infrared, the rays of heat; and they are also awakened through the lower
sphere of vibrations, from supersonic sound down to the lowest plane of vibrations. These are the means by which the kunda-lini should be manipulated "from the tail," the means used by the gods. The attributes that Krishna holds in his four hands symbolize these potentials. The symbol of prana is with Siva.
(113) The kanda [upon which the kundatini rests with its tail] lies above the anus and extends four inches. It is described as of round shape, and as though covered by a piece of soft white cloth.
In order to awaken the kundalini, the yogi has to know the plane of light (or color) vibrations as well as the plane of sound vibrations that correspond to the mulandhara chakra, and has to project the respective light and sound symbols onto that white cloth (of the kanda). But these two symbols are just as secret as those of the other chakras, and only the initiated can know them, for they arethe keys to the most vital gate of yoga, to the spiritual atomic force that can bring blessings or destruction. Whatever has been revealed in the course of the centuries-- carelessly noted and discovered by others, betrayed by talkative students--these secret symbols have escaped that fate. And even when single elements become known, the system has remained impervious because the initiated have always carefully kept the essentials to themselves. This is due to the extremely discriminating care of the teacher in selecting his students, and also to the fact that the spiritual results of this science mature only after the long and strenuous practice of meditation. If the uninitiated, even a scientist, discovered some of these things (particularly those concerning the mantra system), he would not know what to do with them. He is therefore skeptical from the very beginning; and it is highly doubtful that a skeptic would be willing to recite mantras that seem senseless to him
for three hours daily. Even the non-skeptic seldom possesses the strength -to accomplish this from 3:00 to 6:00 a.m. Personal weakness is usually the best safeguard against the abuse of secret teachings.Three components, when united, lead to success in guiding the kundalini upward: the spiritual, mental, and physical powers, as represented in the practice of asanas, prana, and light and sound meditation. So once more body postures are included:
(114-116) Seated in the vajrasana posture [see
Figure 12
The earlier reference to light and sound actually belongs in Part Four, which is why the text referred to it only indirectly. Here in the last few slokas of Part Three, discussion is limited to the essentials of active yoga.
(117-122) When one moves the kundalini fearlessly for about an hour and a half, she is drawn upward a little through the sushumna. In this way she naturally leaves the opening of the sushumna free and is carried upward by the prana current, in this way one should daily move the kundaiini. The yogi who does this is freed from disease. The yogi who moves the shakti gains the siddhis. Why talk about it so much? With ease he conquers time. That yogi only who leads the life of a celibate [brahmachari] and observes a moderate, healthful diet will reach perfection in the proper manipulation of the kundalini, within 45 days. Once the kundalini has been set into motion he should persistently practice bhastrika kumbhaka. He who is perfect in yamas and practices thus need never fear death [through his own kundalini].
The alert reader will have noticed that in these and the previous slokas only the motion of the kundalini is mentioned, and that she "rises slightly in the sushumna"--that is, so far as she does not encounter the resistance of the next vibration level.
We also note in the last sentence that when the kundalini is put into motion we should do bhastrika kumbhaka. How is this possible when everything stops during the deathlike state, including breath? The real meaning of the sloka is this: once we have succeeded in putting kundalini into motion we should emphasize bhastrika kumbhaka during the daily hatha yoga practice, because this increases prana production. The amount of prana available often makes the difference between life and
death, for if the kundalini is led upward and (through some error in practice) the prana is prematurely exhausted, there is immediate danger of death for the yogi.(123-125) What other ways are there to prevent the pollution of the 72,000 nadis? --The sushumna is straightened through asanas, pranayama and the mudras. --He who practices this with unflagging concentration obtains siddhi powers through shambhavi and the mudras.
The first sentence could be translated into modern language as follows; above all, do not allow the nadis to become impure, because then all else is in vain. The next sentence says: keep on practicing the first and second steps, for if the sushumna reverts to its old crooked shape the path of the kundalini is impeded. And the third sentence: in any event remain tirclessly concentrated.
(126-129) Without raja yoga there is no "earth": without raja yoga no "night"; useless are all mudras without raja yoga. All pranayamas should be conducted with concentrated mind. The wise man does not permit his mind to wander during the [practice] time. Thus have the ten mudras been described by Lord Siva. One who is replete with yama [Part 1,
17] reaches siddhis through each of the mudras. --He who teaches the secret of these mudras as transmitted from guru to guru, he is the real guru and can be called Ishvara in human form.The "earth" is the activated muladhara chakra, "night" is the state in which the "light" shines bright, that light which we will presently discuss. From "earth" rises the kundalini, winding itself up on the Tree of Life to sahasrara, the crown of the head; and from her union with the highest principle originates the
fruit which she tenders to the seeker, the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Thus the yogi becomes Ishvara (God) in human form: Eritis sicut deus, scientes bonum et malum (Gen. 3.5).
Over and over again the concentrated mind is mentioned, the mind that must remain within itself. We haye learned the art of the mudra. Now let's try to track down its secret.
(130) He who carefully follows the words of the guru, and attentively practices the mudras will obtain the siddhis, as well as the art of deceiving death.
And with this let us climb to the last and highest step of yoga.
PART FOUR PASSIVE YOGA
CHAPTER II
SAMADHI
imagine that on the first morning after Easter vacation, a professor enters his classroom and announces: "Ladies and gentlemen, forget everything that you have learned so far. Everything that you have had to cram into your head so far was good and important, but it was only necessary for the lower classes. Now that you are working for your finals and are about to graduate, we will pay attention only to the essential, namely, the knowledge of ourselves."
Everyone freezes. All those years of worrying, the wakeful nights, the expensive books, the pain of memorizing--everything useless, senseless? The top student jumps up. He fights for the fruits of those painful years: his high grades which are about to be completely forgotten.
The professor smiles. "You are now going from the seminar room out into real life. There you won't be asked whether you have carefully analyzed Plato, but whether you can be a useful member of the State in the sense of the platonic polis. Hardly any of you will have occasion in his profession to work with tangents and pi's. Forget the rules and laws--but never forget that you have had the opportunity, through the laws of mathematics, to glimpse the great universal laws; and remember that these laws are valid even where we do not yet have formulas. "Forget the sentences that you had to memorize; but remember
that their meaning has now become second nature to you. It is in the forgetting of the mechanical process that the effect of real knowing is produced. Now the mind is completely free and can give full attention to its own self. If you still feel the need to have recourse to the first three stages, you are not ready for the fourth stage. You are ready only when all your spiritual efforts are devoted to this fourth stage. Once again, forget the teachings, for now you have experience. Let us begin:"(1) Veneration to Siva, the guru who is in the form of nada, bindu and kala. He who is thus devoted reache's the maya-free state.
We have to pay careful attention here, for this devotional sentence harbors some vital information: Shiva who is in the form of nada, bindu and kala.
It is not difficult to understand this, provided one is willing to study the intricate symbolism of Indian tantra. However, that is not the purpose of this book. We want to turn directly to the practical side of the problem.
Let us imagine the strange case of a man who wants to recreate the universe. First he must decide what he requires. His answer to this is "quite simply" vibrations. What kind of vibrations would our presumptuous creator need?
Let us classify. The highest range of vibration is that of cosmic rays, which we term "light" for short; the middle range is "heat," and the lowest range "sound." But man too is part of the universe, and since every part of the creation is subject to the same laws, let our "creator" limit himself for the time being to the creation of man from his arsenal of vibrations. This man is a mechanism of the most manifold forces, and tendencies that in their theoretical totality bear the name of Siva. And since the composition of the universe is not different from that of man,
and they both aresubject to the same great law, this Siva is created out of the lower range of vibrations, "sound" (nada) and the highest, "light" (kala). (We will speak about the middle range later.)
But just as the universe is not a dynamo, neither is man a machine, for he understands "sound" as a concept, as a name, and "light" as image, as form. In this too he corresponds to the cosmos, where divine forces, finer than matter, rule in profound regions. But let us remain with man.
He comprehends. In other words, he not only exists but he knows himself. Everything in him is a process sustained by a force, a process that is in fact itself this force, the force of nature. And this force of nature (prakriti or shakti) is inseparable from him, the Siva. In fact, without this force he would not exist, for their relationship is the polarity of all beings.
Thus, as stated, man comprehends himself. And what he comprehends is not only the technical process of vibrations, but also the finer aspect of bindu, the principle of intelligence. Thus Siva is not only nada (sound) and kala (light) but also bindu (sense).
The middle range of vibrations (heat) is, as we already know, the metabolism. But this "fire" is not sheerly biological; it too has its finer aspect, its bindu. In Part Three, we saw how we can influence this fire in an indirect way by inhibiting it through the "nectar."
Now when the yogi wishes to produce his highest and lowest vibration fields to give new character to his personality (which consists of these two ranges of vibration), he would founder hopelessly if he addressed himself directly to his whole personality with all its fields of vibrations.
Instead, he has to learn to work on the "centers" of energy, the chakras. And his whole education is pointed in this direction. What part do these chakras play on the different levels of
vibration? Let's analyze a word--something that has had a magical character from time immemorial--and let's try, with this word as an example, to clarify the inner processes.Take your own name and pronounce it slowly, clearly, and audibly. A multiple reaction takes place:
1. The pronounced word evoked by the throat chakra rings out, But if you have carefully registered this sound with the physical car, you have heard the sound and nothing more.
2. Now pay attention not to the sound, but to the sense. Not the succession of letters but the name is our chief interest. This involves the heart chakra. The word evokes a feeling, because this time you did not listen as attentively, but became more deeply involved internally.
3. Now don't pay attention atall; try to occupy your mind elsewhere, and let yourself be spoken to by your own name. Expect nothing, just be addressed unconsciously by your name. Again something else happens: you are startled. It is as though someone suddenly, unexpectedly, called you by name: something like an inaudible signal results every time. And this third plane of vibrations, the source of your personality, lies in the root chakra, the muladhara chakra, at the lowest end of the spinal column, seat of the kundalini. With this example we have presented the three levels on which vibrations, both light and sound, can manifest: coarse, fine, and abstract; or: perceptible through the senses, perceptible through feeling, and perceptible through intuition.
The corresponding manifestations of these three levels of reception are also threefold: physical perception through concentration (dharana), mental perception through meditation (dhyana), and spiritual perception in complete absorption (samadhi).
Before discussing these three methods of perception extensively in their relation to raja yoga, let us compare them with the above example of the name.
1. Noting with the senses (tone with ears or image with eyes).
2. Reception through feeling (What is the meaning of this or that symbol?)
3. Nothing; the reception "speaks for itself" because everything conceptual is eliminated.
Nothing much can be said about No. 1. It means perception and nothing more, in the way an animal perceives: pure sensory perception. This is the area of mechanical learning.
Processes on the second plane are considered more complicated, for here we have to presume an immanent spiritual primordial entity, which resembles a tuning fork in that when approached by a similar frequency of sound (or image) it will vibrate with it. Here the "meaning" penetrates the shell of appearances and hits the hidden opposite pole of consciousness, with which it condenses into a dynamic mental process. The fact that "meaning" here does not necessarily indicate the "logical meaning of the word" is intellectually difficult to grasp.
Before the student begins his meditation on the symbols suggested by his guru he has to root them and their inner meaning within himself, for it is not enough to adopt an apparently meaningless pattern of sound or form [mantra and yantra] and give them an arbitrary sense. He has to absorb the symbols so that they can freely unfold their natural forces to mobilize the archetypal spiritual powers, for such is their purpose. They must become as meaningful as one's proper name or one's own mirror image.
Before beginning to work with these symbols meditatively he must take his main (rosary) and pronounce every syllable of
the given sound symbol (mantra) 100,000 times (japa) while viewing the corresponding form symbol (yantra). Once this is done--and he starts practice early [see Part One, chapter 17]-- he has reached the beginning of his powers. By then the mantra has become name: the name of the deity that dwells within him. It is the name of Siva (or one of his powers), for every yogi knows "Sivoham," I am Siva.Mantra becomes the key word, yantra the guidepost to the inner worlds whose source he must find. These inner spheres are fundamentally, primordially a dark, inextricable, labyrinth and even he who knows the ultimate goal needs a guide in order not to go hopelessly astray, for the intellect, like an unclean garment, is discarded at the entrance to this mysterious world. It would be of absolutely no help anyway. The symbol alone is Ariadne's thread, the magnet that pulls the seeker toward the other pole that is part of himself. In the light of everyday reason the symbol seems strange and incomprehensible, but in the depth of the unconscious it reaches a clarity that thought has never experienced. All this, of course, is valid only for one who has learned to delve below the surface of consciousness into the subconscious, for him who has mastered the art of meditation, the art of samadhi.
(2-7) I now will speak of samadhi, which conquers death and which leads to bliss and union with Brahman. --Raja yoga, samadhi, unmani, manomani, immortality, dissolution, empti-ness-but-not-emptiness, the highest state, passivity of the intellect, non-dualism, beginninglessness, purity, liberation in this lifetime, the primordial state, and turiya (the Fourth State), all these are synonyms. --Just as a grain of salt dissolves in water and becomes one with it, so also in samadhi there occurs the union of mind with atman. Mind dissolves in breath and breath subsides. Both become one in samadhi. This state of equilibrium results
from the union of the jivatman and the paramatman. When mind thus is calm we are in samadhi.
The last two slokas contain three pairs of juxtaposed terms: mind and atman; mind and prana (breath); jivatman and paramatman. To understand the meaning of samadhi, we must understand the significance of these paired terms.
Mind and atman: "A.
thought [mind] has just come to me [atman]," says the student. "To whom?" asks the guru. "To whom came what, and where did it come from ? Are these three separate things: you, your mind, and the thought process?"Mind and breath'. "Here is a process," the student thinks during pranayama, "and I am detached, watching the process." This reflection is the contrary of samadhi, the unification. Just as the theatergoer does not think: "Here I am and there is the play," but identifies with the play, forgets himself, forgets the process, is absorbed in the play, in the immediacy of a deep experience. As soon as he becomes aware of himself and knows he is here and the theater there, it is the intellect at work that destroys his involvement and with this he loses the essential, the spiritual experience.
Jivatman and paramatman: Jivatman is the individual self, paramatman the absolute, the divine Self. The universe consists of energy and matter, nothing more. This energy is always one and the same, regardless of how it manifests itself to our senses: as electricity, the motion of the air, the density of matter, or the beating of the heart. It is the energy that is inherent in prayer and the energy that answers prayer. The measure and the mass of this energy seems diverse only because of the various kinds of matter through which it manifests. Energy-in-itself is param-atman, "the energy which creates the personality of the living self." If I now succeed in experiencing the inner meaning, the interrelationship of this threefold juxtaposition (sheer intellectual reflection is of little use), then samadhi (the esstablishtnent of oneness) is realized. The real One is then recognized.
(8-9) He who recognizes the true meaning of raja yoga can by the grace of the guru achieve realization, liberation, inner steadfastness and the siddhis. Without the grace of the guru and without indifference to worldly things recognition of Truth, [attainment of] samadhi, is impossible.
The "grace of the guru" is his readiness to hand the student the key to success: the yantras, the mantras, and their application.
More important at this stage is the "indifference to worldly things." The professional theater critic is not supposed to be detached from the world, he must keep his intellect alert. Only when he no longer succeeds in this and is carried away by the action does he recognize and admit that what has happened to him is that which from time immemorial has been most important to man. There was a real experience; the soul was touched; worldly matters suddenly lost their attraction. What is really gripping is always the spiritual experience and never the intellectual, and the more neutral we become toward worldly (intellectual) things, the more open we become to real experience. The less critically we watch the magician's fingers, the more startling are his tricks. The critic may know more, but he experiences less.
Yet it would be an error to understand this uncritical attitude as blind acceptance of every deception. The critical intellect can absorb only the unessential part of a so-called truth, while real Truth reveals itself on a higher level, in the realm of the soul. Civilized man differs from primitive man in that, among other things, he separates and objectifies with critical intellect.
But with this he immediately closes the door to a real understanding of spiritual principles or religion.
Lack of thought is not advocated as a principle; the capacity to break the fetters of the intellect at the crucial moment is what really counts. Similarly, the ideal is not the blind fury of the raging elements, but the art to release those forces and then control them.
(10) When the kundalini has been raised through the practice of osanas, kumbhakas and mudras, then emptiness
[sunya] absorbs prana.Emptiness (from any discriminating intellect) and the process of the prana current become one; thus all inner forces areconcentrated on the one process, the rising of the kundalini.
(11) The yogi who has raised the kundalini and has freed himself from all clinging karma will reach samadhi naturally.
(12) When prana flows through the sushumna and the mind is dissolved in emptiness
[sunya] then the perfect yogi destroys all karma.Thus Samadhi is the karma-free state. One could also say: the state of consciousness established in oneness neutralizes the effects of fate.
Indian religion assumes that the fate of man is the natural result of his deeds. "As you think and act, so you create your fate," is the saying. The less we control our thoughts, the more haphazard will be the course of our life. This is not a question of good and evil, but simpl