Karma Yoga

As we have repeated more than once, Hatha Yoga is but a preparation and is often practised without any admixture of religious or even only philosophical considerations. The exercises which we have described have as their purpose the conscious control of physical and mental activities which ordinarily are not subject to such control. The goal is to teach us to perceive directly what is going on within us, in our inner physical and mental world and to direct these activities in a conscious and voluntary manner.

But this is yet only preparation. All Yoga is intensification of consciousness and of an evolution, of which Hatha Yoga is only the preparatory stage. There are several paths or methods by which the goal may be reached. One of these is Karma Yoga. It is, in reality, more a collection of ethical and moral precepts for those who live "in the world", than a system. This is so because, according to Indian thought, no one has the right to devote himself exclusively to the development of his inner self until he has paid his tribute to life. The Hindu knows four distinct periods of life: To his eighteenth year, man should be a student; to his fortieth year he is a griheshu or householder; after that he is allowed to abandon "life in the world" and to consecrate himself entirely to mental and spiritual development. If, in the course of this period, he feels himself called to the highest development, he may become a Sanyasin, leaving all earthly cares behind him, taking to the road, clad in the orange coloured gown of the beggar-monk, living on alms.

The much criticized Indian caste system divides men roughly into those who follow a spiritual life from the start (Brahman), warriors (Kshatriya), and the doers, the followers of practical life, merchants and peasants (Vaishias). It is a division of society similar to that in clergy, nobility and bourgeoisie of the middle ages in Europe.

Karma means action and Karma Yoga takes action as the way to salvation. The ideal here is the active life as praised by the Bhagavad Gita, the most beautiful and deepest of Indian holy books.

"Action alone concerns you, never its fruit,
Stability in success or failure, this balance is called Yoga."

The two priviliged castes, Brahman and Kshatriya are highly esteemed in India because they are (or should be) ready to pay for their privileges with special sacrifices. If the warrior must be ready to give up his life at any time, the Brahman is bound by any number of rules and precepts, apt to develop a purely spiritual type of man. The Hindus knew early, to what extent a certain diet will influence mental attitude. Even the attitude, while eating, is prescribed. For the Brahman, the taking of food is a holy rite. Only "innocent" food is permitted.

Karma Yoga praises action (Karman), without attachment to the fruit of action. The following legend shows how this is to be understood.

A king came to a Yogi living in solitude to learn about Karma Yoga. They sat together under a tree and the Yogi began to recite the verses of the holy scriptures. High up in the tree two birds had built their nest. As darkness began to fall and the two men had not finished their talk, the male bird said to his female companion: "We have guests and I must see to it that they are made comfortable. As it is getting cold I shall gather some wood and start a fire." Thus speaking it flew off and gathered some dry twigs. Soon a bright fire flared up and king and Yogi gratefully warmed their hands on it. The two birds were glad to see their host's content, but after a little while the male bird said to his wife: "The men must be hungry. Let's see if we can't get them something to eat." "Alas, we have nothing fit for them to eat," said the female, "but we cannot let them go hungry." The male said: "It is our duty as hosts to feed them. If there really isn't anything else, then I shall sacrifice myself." Thus saying, the bird threw himself into the fire. The female, however, said to herself: "How can two big men possibly eat their fill on such a little bird? I shall follow my husband's example and sacrifice myself also." And she too threw herself into the flames.

The two men below understood too late what the birds were trying to do and cooed not save them. The Yogi rose and said to the king: "Now I do not have to tell you anything further regarding Karma Yoga, O king. An example is worth more than all the words in all the books. Whosoever does his duty in such a way that he is willing to give up even his own life to it, he is a true Karma Yogi."

Karma Yoga glorifies action and for this reason, is very close to the occidental mind. A Karma Yogi is not required to believe anything or in any kind of dogma. He follows no other idea than to work for work's sake. In this respect, the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita closely resembles that of Buddha who was adverse to any kind of metaphysical speculation, repeating over and over: "Be good and do good."

The principal rules of Karma Yoga are contained in the two ordinances of Yama and Niyama. Yama is concerned with conduct towards other, not killing, not stealing, truthfulness, disinteredness, these are its prescriptions. "Six enemies in us we must fight," it says, "greed, anger, non-discrimination, lust, pride and jealousy." These are the passions which incite us to the above named sins of killing, stealing, lying etc. They are all equally reprehensible, whether they are done, caused or merely tolerated. Since they are deeply rooted in human nature, they are hard to overcome. Good will alone is not sufficient. An act of the will, in regard to our mental world, usually gives rise to a thought the exact opposite to the one desired. Repression through an act of the will, of the thought of lust, for example, stimulates lust. It is not possible to overcome the enemy in this manner. If, however, we concentrate on the idea of purity and sacrifice, the new idea will usually prevail. The right procedure, therefore, is to replace a wrong thought such as anger, jealousy, lust etc. by a new and contrary idea and to hold on to it until the first impulse has been overcome.

It is also possible to philosophies about one's faults and to analyze their sources. One can ask, for instance, "Why should I not steal? It would be very nice if I had that piece of bread. I am hungry and the other fellow surely does not need it as much as I do." Why not? A Christian will say: Because it is a sin. The Hindu says: Because it is an error, born of ignorance. You think you are doing yourself a favor; in reality, you only hurt yourself. The stolen food will poison you.

This is a typical Indian idea and it is based on the Hindu philosophy of food. In terms of occidental medical science, the idea would appear in this way: A thief has a bad conscience. We know that fear causes certain changes in metabolism. We also know that the symptoms of such emotions are brought about with the collaboration of certain hormonal substances which, in the long run, can adversely affect the organism. This is the material side of the question. and the spiritual side? A theft, for instance, is always an intrusion of egotism into a foreign sphere of the will. Our attachment to material things is a result of egotistical activity. A man who wishes to tread the path of spiritual evolution will not take on new fetters ... In this way, all "enemies" and all "sins" are analyzed in meditation and overcome.

The rules of Niyama, on the other hand, are concerned with our conduct in regard to ourselves. They are outer and inner cleanliness, contentment, chastity, study and devotion. A first sign that we have achiveved a certain degree of inner cleanliness is contentment. It is a purely Christian superstition that a religious person should have something of the mien and bearing of an undertaker. Quite the contrary is true. A really pious person is always joyous and content. The rule of chastity is not a rule of asceticism; it is merely significant of moeration. This is, incidentally, the fundamental note of Yoga: Harmony, Moderation.

Hindu literature, and especially the Gita, is full of references to the active life, without attachment to the fruits of action. There is, for instance, the story of Narada, the holy man who passed his days in praising God in prayer. Vishnu was very pleased with his zeal, but at the same time he wanted to pont out to him the weaker side of his conduct and so he said to him: "Go to the first house of the next village. There you will find a man even more pious than you." Narada immediately set out to find so holy a man. But what he found was only a peasant who told him that he called upon the name of God once in the morning before going to work and once in the evening before going to bed. Narada returned to Vishnu and reproachfully remarked: "I cannot see much piousness in that man. Twice a day he calls upon Thy exalted name and apart from that attends to his wordly affairs." Thereupon Vishnu bade him take a pail of water and carry it through the village without spilling a drop. Narada did as he was told and on his return proudly exhibited the full pail from which not a drop had been spilled. Vishnu, however, asked him: "And how many times in carrying the pail did you call upon my name?" "Not once," Narada had to admit, "I was too busy watching the pail." And so Vishnu said to him: "During your small task you have not given me a single thought. How much more pious is the peasant who, with his hard day-long work finds time to call upon me twice."

Men work for the most varied reasons. But we should learn how to work without any special motive and without regard for the fruits of work. One works for glory, another for money, yet another for power. Many hope that their actions will find their reward in heaven. But who works selflessly? Perhaps an artist who works for his art, whether recognized or not, or a scientist who only lives in and for his research, sometimes at the risk of his life. Such men are the real "elite" of humanity.

The Hindu ideal is not an ascetic idea. In opposition to Christianity, Hindu thought is of the opinion that wealth is not necessarily a curse. What matters is whether the rich man is at every moment ready to abandon his riches, if necessary, the point being that no man should attach himself to his earthly possessions, which is the secret of real liberty. A beggar possessing only a few rags can be more attached than a wealthy prince like Buddha, who from one day to the next abandoned kingdom, wealth and family as soon as he recognized that this was necessary for his inner liberty. "He who acts in dedicating all his actions to the Eternal One, abandoning all attachment, is not troubled by sin, the same as a lotus leaf is not touched by the water." Thus the Karma Yogi can go through life and enjoy life; he can enjoy it, but shall not attach himself to it. Nothing is really yours except your good works. He who learns to abandon his egotistical desires develops immense power. To deny oneself is often a more heroic deed than a victory on the battlefield of war or of sport.

On the other hand, the Hindu despises him who makes duty a mania. Many of us are only slaves of duty where we have no time to eat in peace, no time to enjoy nature, no time to take stock of ourselves, no time to live. We are foolish to let duty rob us of our inner freedom. The mechanism of the world is a dangerous machine; once we are in its clutches we are in danger of being crushed by it.

Indian thought refers here, as always, to the law of Sattwa, the law of the pendulum which is everywhere characteristic of life. Inspiration is followed by expiration, work by play, and extraversion by introversion. Every faithful Hindu begins and closes his day with meditation; what he has expended in the extravert activity of the day he takes back again in the introversion of meditation. To be stable, a tower, a skyscraper needs a deep foundation. Our generation is superficial and always in danger of losing its balance. Modern psychiatry knows this and in the analytical technique leads the mentally ill back into the past. Former generations, grounded in faith and mystical introversion had no need of this aid. A man who combines the two poles in himself through religion or Yoga remains tranquilly serene in the midst of the turbulence of modern life as though he lived in solitude.

With our work we help only ourselves. It is a gathering of experiences. Those who believe that we work in order to help improve the world, to "make the world a better place to live in" etc., are in error. The world cannot be helped. The same needs and cares it had a thousand years ago it has today and will still have a thousand years from now. All we do, in this respect, is to move the problems from one plane to another, that is all. When the waves rise in one place, they fall in another. And as with waves, so with fortune and misfortune, divided in the world, but their sum is always in balance.

"What do you want to do with the world?
It is made.
The Lord of Creation has thought of everything."

It has been said that the world resembles a spiral which we continually seek to straighten out. But as soon as we let go at un end, the spiral forms again. An Indian legend tells of a man who was tired of his daily work. He called upon a magician and asked him for a jinn, a demon, who could do his work for him. The magician warned him that a jinn was a powerful spirit who needs work all the time. "If you cannot keep him busy at all times he will devour you." The man laughed and said: "Please do not worry about that; I have plenty of work for the strongest jinn!" And so the magician gave him a Mantra, an incantation which would get him a jinn. The man did as he was told and behold, a towering powerful spirit stood before him and asked in a resounding voice: "What do you want from me?" At first the man was a little scared, but took heart and ordered: "Build me a palace at once!" - "Here it is." - "Cut down yon forest!" - "It is done." - "Bring me gold!" - "Here it is." - "Build me a city!" - "There it stands." Every wish was fulfilled almost before the man had time to express it. In despair, he ran to the magician and begged him on his knees to help him once more. "I do not know what to order anymore and the jinn threaten to devour me." The magician smiled and said: "In truth you scarcely deserve a better fate, but nevertheless I shall help you once more. See the dog over there, the one with the curly tail? Go cut it off and tell the jinn to straighten it out. He will be busy with the job as long as the world lasts." The man did as he was told and the Jinn is still busy with his task. Every time he lets go, the tail curls again. Every generation tries to change and reform the world, but it remains as inadequate as ever.

When once we have recognized that our actions serve only the gathering of experiences and thus our own salvation, we realize how important it is consciously to live every day of our life. To live consciously is to live in the present. Many people in their thoughts are constantly a day, a week, a year ahead. Do they really know if they will still be alive next year? In our dreaming about the future we are apt to miss the experiences which the present offers us for our edification. Let the day take care of the day.

Living consciously, learning from life, we come close to the metaphysical interpretation of our actions, characteristic of Indian thought, close to the idea of Karma, of the consequences of our actions, not only of the actions of our present life, but also of former lives.

Western thought says: "By their fruits shall you know them." Eastern wisdom replies: "All created beings are owners of their works, heirs of their works, children and slaves of their works." Karma, Law of Consequence. To escape Karma is possible only if we change what we are to what we would be. Everything that happened to us today is conditioned by previous actions and desires. Unconditioned, however, is our inner attitude towards our self-made destiny, whether we say yes or no to it, whether we learn from it or deny it. Unconditioned also is the determination to new aspiration, to new endeavor which will lead us further on the path of liberation

Bhakti Yoga - The Yoga of Love

There are two possibilities in us to comprehend the world, the possibility of feeling and the possibility of reasoning. The way to a comprehension of the world through feeling is Bhakti Yoga, while the way through conscious reasoning is Jnana Yoga. One addresses itself to the emotions and the subconscious forces, the other to reason, using consciousness as a means to salvation. The pair of opposites can be compared with the contrast existing between mysticism and scholasticism which characterizes the early development of Christianity. Bhakti Yoga would correspond to mysticism, Jnana Yoga to scholasticism. Such differentiations, of course, have always something artificial about them, because at a certain degree of development, the two opposites, reason and feeling blend together in something more perfect. Then the heart thinks, the brain feels, there is inspiration and intuition.

It is said that the way of feeling, Bhakti Yoga is easier, love demanding no effort. All is possible to love. A mother, in daily life perhaps afraid of a mouse, will snatch her baby from the clutches of a tiger to save the life of her child. Love is the great ennobling impulse of our life. All Christians know St Paul's hymn to love: "... love suffers long, and is kind; love envies not; love vaunts not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own ..." Love is the force which cements the universe.

Hindus have a number of names for the many shadings of love. But when the great Yogi Vivekananda sings his himn to love he uses only one name: God. In the source of love, all its various forms and manifestations have their origin, even animal love, even the forces of attraction within matter. To Vivekananda, even the passionate desire that may lead to crime is a manifestation of love, "Whichever it may be - divine, angelic, rational, animal or instinctive," says Saint Hierotheus, "through love we hear and understand the force which establishes and maintains harmony between beings." In following the different rivers back to their source, we recognize that there is an original source which creates unity and harmony between all things, from the highest to the lowest creature. In the same spirit Jesus (St Luke 7-47) declares: "Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her: "Thy sins are forgiven."

Love is the lever used by God to lift us out of our egotism. In love every sacrifice seems easy, even that of our own egotistical desires. For this reason Bhakti Yoga does not teach: "Resign thyself", but simply: "Love!" Love with all your heart and resignation will follow by itself. But all that we may love on earth: beauty, virtue, happiness, is only a pale reflection of the glory of God. Thus, love of Him should be far more ardent than the love of earthly things.

There is in the Vedas a verse which means: "The husband loves not his wife, but only the Atman (God) in her." He believes to love the wife; but soon he sees that it was only his ideal which he projected on her and loved in her. Our final ideal is God. Why therefore love the second-rate? The more we love Him, the better we will understand Him.

It is difficult, however, to love an abstract notion. Bhakti Yoga says: "There are two forces in you which can carry you up to God: Feeling and Reason, representation and idea. But the representation will prove more powerful than the mere idea."

As we have seen in Hatha Yoga, it is possible to influence bodily functions through the imagination. When we lift our arm, for instance, we do not do so on the strength of a conscious, logical process of thinking, consciously sending the impulse of the will from the brain to the nerves and from there to the muscles. No, it is done in a flash by means of our imagination. This power of the imagination affecting our subconscious mind is used by Bhakti Yoga. The discriminative factor of reason is largely eliminated in favor of imagination and love.

The Occident has made its no doubt phenomenal conquest of the realm of matter under the sign of reason, although the imagination has played its part in the formulation of the most revolutionary ideas such as relativity etc. There are many signs which portend a change of attitude and the reign of pure materialism is surely at an end. All artistic creation is a child of phantasy, of "temporary insanity". In the last analysis, all is imagination, idea, mind. As C.G. Jung says: "It is a matter of indifference what the world thinks of religious experience; he who possess it has a treasure, the source of life, intelligence and beauty, lending the world and humanity a new sense."

Images existed before abstractions. This is why images affect deeper regions of the soul than mere abstractions. Such images are not to be confused with illusions. Modern psychology recognizes the reality of the soul experience. A psychic experience is not necessarily a hallucination just because we do not share in it. To term it as such would be erroneous as when a blind man would call the perceptions of a seeing man mere illusion.

All religions are full of images and symbols. Mere study will not disclose their deep sense, we must live them. A tree is best known by its fruit, and thus living can only be an individual experience. Men differ from each other especially by the quality of their imagination. Even the notions regarding our perceptions of colour, sounds, odours differ widely from man to man. "De gustibus non est disputandum." There is no discussing of tastes. Individual notions regarding metaphysical realities are of necessity even more differentiated.

For these reasons Bhakti Yoga leaves to each of us the choice of the image of God most comfortable to his inner nature. Indian mythology is infinitely rich in such images. What is important is that the image chosen contains the magic forces apt to affect to a higher degree the emotions of the faithful. It is recommended that the God-seeker keep his image of God to himself and do not speak about it to anyone. It should be guarded like a tender plant until it has grown strong. He who has attained knowledge can then dispense with the image. Leaders of psychology today recognise that religious images can be a wall, a safeguard against irruptions of the unconscious.

The goal of Bhakti Yoga consists of an intensification of the emotional forces to such a degree that the faithful is raised step by step, until love of God has grown to perfect and constant concentration on Him, to absorption in Him. It is not sufficient to this end to go to church once a week or to think of God once or twice a day. The goal of Union with the Divine Ground can only be reached when our consciousness is constantly filled with the thought of God. "Love Him, love Him immeasurably, exhaust the sources of your emotion, then one day, you will recognize that Love, the Lover and the Loved One are One." The Bhakti who has reached the goal is not bound to church or sect. These are only ways to God, but they are not God themselves. Said Ramakrishna: "It is as with water, you can draw it in all kinds of jugs, all kinds of forms, but the water is always the same."

The perfect Bhakti is liberated from desire and egotism. In him shines the light of love. Love of God becomes love of the world and of all its creatures. The "love thy neighbour as thyself" is for him a matter of course, since in his neighbour he recognizes himself. The whole world, to him, is the expression, in infinite language, of the Infinite.

Jnana Yoga - The Yoga of Discrimination

There is yet another path to God, the path of discrimination, the path of understanding, of intellect, of reasoning. It is a path particularly familiar to the Occidental mind, being the path of natural sciences. And these natural sciences today have reached a limit beyond which our material knowledge is threatened with annihilation. Science has discovered that in the infinitely big as in the infinitely small the heretofore irrefutable law of causation, which says that every event or phenomenon results from an adequate or antecedent cause, is no longer valid. Here lies the real reason for the deep distress of our times, the reason why philosophy and the arts carry the seal of decay.

Jnana Yoga turns from the consideration of the exterior world to that of the world within us. The natural scientist would discover what moves matter; Jnana Yoga seeks the secret of what moves us, the secret of what we call the soul.

"The wise sees in himself the Atman,
Gazing inward, seeking what is eternal."

It is, in a way, the "know thyself" of the inscription at Delphi with which Jnana Yoga is concerned. But it is not, as often in Occidental philosophy, a question of knowing what we are, but rather a question of learning how to be who we are.

The Vedanta praises the human intellect as one of the greatest gifts of God. Like imagination, it is a path to Him. But with the intellect alone we are as unable to reach God as with the emotions alone. For the Hindu this is no reason to despise the intellect. To Hindu thought, a godless man is almost to be preferred to one not making use of his reasoning powers.

Where Bhakti Yoga has followed the path of affirmation, of synthesis, so Jnana Yoga follows the path of negation, of analysis. All the tools of our consciousness are examined one by one, and one by one it is recognized: I am not this, nor that. And thus, at last we arrive at the core of our being, recognizing it as the "I".

The path of discriminative understanding is much more difficult than the path of Love. It lacks the bridges of imagination. It is a rocky path along an abyss. But it is just the same closer to our Western mode of thinking than any of the other Yogas. Nevertheless it is almost as difficult to sum up the teachings of Jnana Yoga as to sum up the results of all the Western systems of philosophy.

According to Hindu philosophy, the world of our perceptions is not the same as the world of reality. In order to grasp the "real" reality we must, therefore, first examine the manner in which we arrive at our perceptions. We must examine our five senses by means of which we arrive at our perceptions. We must examine our five senses by means of which the exterior impressions are transmitted to us. For the Hindu, these senses, touch, hearing, sight, taste and smell are contrasted by five acting senses, the functions of which are breathing, evacuating, digesting etc. ... But who is the "hearer of the hearing, the seer of the seeing"? According to Eastern thought, we become conscious of the sense impressions through a centre called Cittam, what we call the intellect. This Cittam has three aspects, the ramifications of which it would be too complicated to follow here. The idea is of an instrument which receives, projects and registers at the same time. The following example will illustrate the functioning of this instrument.

You meet a tiger and you run. The two, - seeing, running, follow so rapidly one upon the other, that they seem one and we are not aware at all that the perception of the tiger is followed by the projection: "Out there is an animal" followed by the registration: "It is a tiger and a tiger is a dangerous animal" whereupon follows the decision to run. The Cittam, the intellect, has three aspects and reacts in different ways. A Hindu would but it this way: As a woman can be a wife, mother and daughter at the same time, depending upon the viewpoint, so the Cittam can be a perception, projection and registration, depending on how it reacts. Another example: We hear the ticking of a clock. The ear receives the sound waves and transmits the stimulus to the centre of perception in the brain, called Indriya by the Indians. This centre receives the stimulus and presents it to the Cittam. In the Cittam, or intellect, the perception is registered: "I hear a noise." In another part of the intellect, called Manas, this is organised in space and time: "I hear a ticking." Finally in yet another part, the Buddhi, where lies the faculty of remembering and classifying, the conclusion is drawn: "It is a clock which ticks."

Modern science is not sure as to whether an animal can remember consciously and draw conclusions. For the Indians, it possesses this faculty at least in a latent degree. The elephant is said to have it. But even then animals lack the faculty of thinking in opposites and of forming abstract notions. And in this faculty lies the fundamental difference between man and animal.

The first contrast that appears in the human mind or consciousness is that between the "I" and the "non-I". A dog, in the above example, would say: "Toto hears ticking", but not "I hear ticking." The acquisition of the I-consciousness in man is probably of comparatively recent origin. Little children do not possess it and have to learn it. Only then the originally one splits into two, into the opposites of I and not-I, in things conscious and unconscious. Here also begins the human development in the direction of the divine. Here lies the origin of the symbol of the fruits from the tree of knowledge and the exile from paradise. The I-consciousness is called Ahamkara by the Indians and it is the motor which sets in motion our conscious will. To Indian wisdom this will is threefold, in accordance with the division body, soul, spirit: Body, the will to live; Soul, the I-will, the conscious will; Spirit, the cosmic, free will.

It is our conscious will which is, in the last analysis, responsible for our destiny. One of the Upanishads (literally: secret teaching, the most mysterious part of the Vedanta) says: "Man is made entirely of desire. As is his desire, so is his will; as is his will, so is his action (Karma). And as his action, so he will fare."

It is therefore on our conscious will that we must work if we wish to change our destiny. If we give free reign to our bodily will to live, our libido, as the psychoanalyst would call it, it will aim at the satisfaction of desire. This satisfaction is achieved mostly at the expense of others. This is contrary to the cosmic will. Our actions in the direction of the satisfaction of our desires create a reaction on the part of the cosmic will in the form of a prevention of our desires. Here lies the cause of all sorrow. All sorrow is prevented wish-fulfillment. We shall suffer as long as we have not learned that our ego cannot be satisfied at the expense of other egos. The egotistic will is not free to do as it pleases. Real freedom lies beyond. When we finally grasp this fact we can pray: "thy will be done".

The road to freedom, the road to free action outside the chain of cause and effect is, paradoxically, an abstention from action, a negative will, the negation of our Ahamkara, the egotistical reaction in us. Every action which is contrary to our ego, every action of love is not bound to the chain of cause and effect and sets us free. In asceticism we find the highest expression of the negation of the egoistical will.

This "rendering conscious" of our ego-will, this mastery, this overcoming alone gives us the possibility of changing our character and thereby changing our destiny. In this change lies possibly our evolution towards a higher state in nature. The heightening of our consciousness through mental analysis is the way to liberation of Jnana Yoga.

We sometimes say in retrospect: "I did not mean to do this," and thereby condemn an action of ours performed on impulse. The force which condemns our action is our conscience. Our conscience looks upon us from a distance. It lies between existence and the real, inner self. Here man has reached the world of abstract ideas. Here is freedom. But the conscience is not yet "the seer of seeing, the hearer of hearing." Eternally unchanged and unchangeable, the Seer stands behind, or above the psychic organism, called lingam, or soul and of which the conscience is only the highest part. The Self, however, is the Seer and Hearer, the Spectator of Life. Indians call this nucleus of being the Atman, the Self. It reflects the impressions of the soul, but is not affected by them. For the self all things are one. This ultimate entity of man is not touched by opposites; these are felt only by the egotistical will, the small I. The Atman is real and eternal. And thus, according to the path of Janana, when we have finally realized who it is that hears, feels, that asks etc., then we are free from the illusion that the impressions of our senses have any reality whatsoever. According to this view, the knowledge we acquire by means of our brain is only a transitory stage, a stepping-stone to true knowledge which lies in the Atman, the "knower of knowledge". The knower is the Atman, the world of outer impressions is Maya, illusion. The Atman, the Self, the Divine Ground of Being is pure spirit and has no part of matter, or Maya.

The same conclusion has been drawn by Christian mystics and by the founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy. This shows that the great religious truths are everywhere closely related, that in all races and at all times the reality of man is the same.

And thus finally the path of Jnana Yoga arrives at the goal of Oneness. The Atman, the Self is God, the ultimate reality. He is one and undivided in every man. All creation is only a manifestation, a form of Brahman, a quality, an attribute of God, nothing else. Only as long as we believe to be of this world can the world have power over us. Once this error is recognized we are free. We have come out of freedom, are bound for a while and we return to freedom. Freedom is not a place, however, but a condition. There is no place where there could be freedom, every place being bound to space and this subject to the laws of space. And that is why Jesus Christ says: "The Kingdom is in you".

Raja Yoga - The Royal Path

Ramakrishna, one of the great modern sages of India (1833-86) sums up Raja Yoga as follows: "Raja Yoga leads to the realization of the Absolute through concentration and meditation. It has eight steps. The first is Yama, which consists of non-injuring, truthfulness, non-covetousness, chastity, and the non-receiving of gifts. The second is Niyama which includes austerities, forbearance, contentment, faith in the Supreme Being, charity, study and self-surrender to the supreme will. The practice of various physical postures is comprised in Asana, the third step, while Pranayama, the art of breathing, constitutes the fourth. The fifth is Pratyahara and consists of making the mind introspective and one-pointed. Concentration or Dharana is the next. Dhyana or meditation is the seventh, and Samadhi, or the state of super-consciousness the eighth." This is a bare outline, of course.

Raja Yoga is the Royal Path, the path of realization, for which all other Yogas were only a preparation. In a way, it combines the practice of all others.

In Hatha Yoga we have endeavored to eliminate the obstacles which our body could put in the way to realization; in Karma Yoga we have purified our actions; in Bhakti Yoga we have intensified our emotions and the power of love as levers to attain super-consciousness; in Jnana Yoga we have analyzed our mental mechanism and have arrived at the conclusion that none of the instruments of our mind is, in itself, a sure support for real knowledge.

As can be seen in a consideration of the eight steps of Raja Yoga, it is a discipline of the mind through self-analysis and self-control. Above all, as shown in Jnana Yoga, it is the conscious will which must be disciplined. Our thinking and feeling must be strictly controlled. We must begin to learn that the essential things do not happen outside of us, but inside, in the world of our representations. This is, of course, no easy task for a brain used to register impressions coming from the outside world. The brain must now learn that our outer perceptions are only shadows. Paul Brunton reports how an Indian Yogi, questioned by him compared our thinking to an ox-cart in a dark passage under a mountain. Turn the cart around and it will take you back into the light. In a way, it is this turning round of our way of thinking which is Raja Yoga.

In order to accomplish this feat we must first learn to concentrate our thought. The importance of concentration is self-evident even to our Occidental way of thinking. None of the wonders of our technical civilization could have been achieved without the most intensive concentration of mind on the part of some scientist or other. Is it unreasonable to believe that the self-same power of concentration could penetrate also the serets of the world within us?

In Indian philosophy, man is sometimes likened to a king who looks out upon the world from his carriage. The body is the carriage, the senses are the horses, the intellect is represented by the reins, reason by the coachman. The king who takes in the passing scene, passively, only seeing, percieving, he is the Atman, our higher Self.

In Hatha Yoga we have learned how to bring the unconscious activities of our body under the control of the conscious mind. We now must learn to govern our senses. The senses convey to us, in an uninterrupted chain, the impressions of the outside world, keeping our brain busy in absorbing and digesting these sense-impressions. Only in deep sleep does it rest.

But it happens that the senses remain insensible to outside impressions even during the waking state. When we are completely absorbed by an interesting book, for example, we hear and see nothing of what occurs around us. Or perhaps we see and hear, but do not react. It is therefore a question of attention whether we react or not. It should, therefore, be possible to withdraw our attention consciously, voluntarily from certain sense-impressions, or to concentrate attention on one of them to the exclusion of all others. This is the first of Raja Yoga, called Pratyahara.

This is most speedily accomplished in exerting one of the senses to the utmost. We become all ear, for instance. We listen with all our might to our heartbeat. After some practice we shall be able to control our sense of hearing to such an extent that we can withdraw it at will and work tranquilly in the midst of bedlam. Newspapermen who work in the noisy city-room of a big newspaper practise Pratyahara without knowing it! In the same manner, we can educate the nose not to smell, the eyes not to see, yes, even to the extent of commanding the nerve-ends not to transmit a sensation such as pleasure or pain.

Once we have achieved such control we can go a step further and try to control not only the senses, but also our intellect, the Cittam, the thinking process. We generally assume that we do the thinking, while, as a matter of fact, something thinks in us. We do not know how the thoughts come to us. To stop the film which unrolls itself inside us is mightily difficult. This is why Indians compare the intellect to a monkey, always in senseless agitation. This agitation is the welling-up in our consciousness of memories and impressions that have been buried in the great storehouse of the unconscious mind. This is due to the fact that most of the time we live in a completely unconscious manner.

All we think, all we do leaves a trace, not unlike an odour which clings to our being and the sum total of which constitutes our character. What we are, what we would like to be is the consequence of the impressions on which we have dwelled in the past. To the Indian, it is clear that we ourselves have built our character in the course of many previous incarnations, and that it is in our power to remodel it in cultivating henceforth constructive thoughts and habits. But how can we master the unconscious sense-impressions, which in the long run can constitute our character? The answer is that in order to deal with them, we must first learn to recognize them.

For the Indian, the Cittam, the intellect is a vibratory state; it vibrates in accordance with wave-length and frequency of the object it perceives. In a similar way, he also explains the association of ideas. A certain object, let us say a red flower excites a certain vibration; other perceptions arise in the memory, perceptions which once excited the same vibration in the intellect. Thus arises a chain of associations. The idea of Raja Yoga now is to increase the vibratory capacity of the intellect in order to overcome its innate laziness.

We have said that it is the accumulation of unconscious memories and preconceived opinions which constitute our character. We can only change it by changing our thinking habits. We must swim against the stream and that is hard. All we have lived, all we have experienced we must experience once more in reverse; we must make it conscious in order to overcome it. The reader will be struck with the similarity of this method to the methods of psychoanalysis. It goes to show that Hindu wisdom knew about psychology and the unconscious mind thousands of years ago. There is an important difference, however. The psychoanalyst unravels the past experiences of his patient and, having led him through the maze of the accumulated and repressed memories, some of which may have caused mental havoc, lets it go at that and many a time a cure is effected, because the unconscious has been made conscious, the patient has understood what caused the disturbance and may not make the same mistakes again. Raja Yoga follows the same method, but when it has unraveled the past, when it has made conscious what was unconscious, it bids us to return to the centre from which we have started; it bids us to return to God.

We can master the sense-impressions, our memories, conscious and unconscious in two ways. The first method is to make these memories conscious again. This is the method of psychoanalysis, as we have seen. We know how dangerous the unconscious memories can become; they are roots of neuroses and psychoses.

A lovely Indian fable tells of a king to whom his subjects daily brought presents. These were carried to his treasure house. Among the people who thus offered their gifs there was a Yogi who every day presented the king with a beautiful fruit. The king did not estimate this offering any too highly, but accepted it nevertheless and with the other presents accumulated the fruit in his treasury. Now it happened that one day a child was with the king when the Yogi arrived to make his offering, a beautiful apple. The king, smilingly, gave the apple to the child, a little girl, who immediately began to eat it. All of a sudden she gave a cry of surprise: her teeth had struck on something hard. Carefully she took a few more bites and, lo and behold, she uncovered a glittering jewel, a wonderful sapphire. The king was struck with wonder and commanded his treasurer to see what had become of all the other fruit. It had all rotted away. Where it had been stored, there rose a glittering heap of precious jewels. The treasury is our unconscious mind.

But, alas, not all the impressions and memories that lie in that storehouse are jewels, although many of the impressions slumbering there are recognized at their real value only after we have made them conscious again. Into this storehouse we must, above all, bring some order, and then we must see that we do not, in the future, store in it anything without having first carefully examined it. We must learn to live attentively, consciously.

The film of which we have spoken before, the uninterrupted projection of the sense-impressions which constitutes our thinking process, obscures the pure vision of reality. If we were able to stop the ever running film-band for only a very little while, we would see all things in clear outline. We would learn again to think intuitively; we would learn again to think not with the brain, but with the pineal gland, by the ancients called the "eye of God". Here is how Webster defines the pineal gland: "Pineal gland or body; a small organ about the size of a pea, situated in the brain of vertebrates above the third ventricle. It is supposed to be a rudimentary organ of sense, presumably of sight and, as such, to be a vestige of a dorsal median eye found in some fossils and present, in an imperfect form, known as the pineal eye, in some existing animals." A rudimentary organ of sense. ... Descartes, the french philosopher, as recently as the seventeenth century throught it an "organ of the soul", while our so-called "modern" science sees in it merely a hormonal control organ. It is, nevertheless, probable that the phenomena of clairvoyance and telepathy, among others, are a function of this gland.

In Indian tradition, the pineal gland is a most important organ. The highest states of consciousness depend on it - intuition, beatitude and Godlikeness. All of the Yoga exercises, in the last analysis, have the purpose of eliminating the predominance of the brain and of self-consciousness and of attaining the cosmic consciousness through a reactivation of the pineal gland.

But what are the practical steps which lead to such control? In order to control, to dominate the unrolling of the film of consciousness the first step is to become aware of the fact of the "unrolling". We can only control what has become conscious. As a first aid to this process of making conscious the thinking and feeling of our organism, the Yoga student learns to re-examine and re-evaluate the events of the day, every night before going to sleep. He begins with the very last impression and unrolls one after the other back to the beginning. Thus: "I have extinguished the light ... before that I went to bed ... before that I cleaned my teeth ... before that I undressed ... before that I wound my watch ..." and so through the events of the day. This is not as easy as it sounds. It is more than probable that you will go to sleep long before you have come to the end of your examination, but at least part of the "Samskara", the sense-impressions, have been made conscious and will not come to disturb your sleep in anxiety dreams.

This exercise has been likened to the practice of scales by a pianist. We thereby learn to dominate the impressions, instead of being dominated by them. We begin to be master in our own house. During this exercise we remember at will, and only through memory, through our past do we know who and what we are. He who remembers, knows himself through his former ations, judges himself in these actions and, looking back, realizes why certain things had to happen to him and not to another, what he could learn thereby, what new possibilities open up before him. Memory is multiplication of the one who remembers; he owns not only the present, but also the past; he has mastered a part of time.

It is thought that if we can extend our memory over the day, the week, the month, the year, and the years back to our childhood to the thresholdd of birth, we can step across the threshold to remember the events of our former lives. Our human reason may not be able to comprehend this, but who could doubt that a personality of the spiritual purity of a Buddha did not lie when he affirmed that in this way he had become conscious of four of his former incarnations?

One thing is certain: In trying to recall to memory the events of a single day in all its detail, we realize what tremendous power of concentration would be needed in order to recall the events of a whole life, not to speak of former lives. But to seize clearly and sharply in consciousness only the events of the previous day will immeasurably refine and sharpen our powers of memory and consciousness. We gradually learn to understand the causalities, the why of the events in our life. We begin to realize that we are the makers of our destiny.

Meditation on the events of the past day also helps to awaken our unconscious memory and offers an answer to questions which we have been asking ourselves, to problems which have been torturing us; it is a sort of self-analysis.

As long as we have not learned to make conscious all of our sense impressions, or consciously to direct them, they will constantly reappear on the surface of the mind, like bubbles on a swamp, at the very moment we seek to quiet our intellect in meditation. We, therefore, must find yet another method to subjugate them. Buddha, whose teachings are a sort of combination Karma Yoga, Raja Yoga, recommends that we discipline the chaotic flux of impressions, that we categorically reject all undesirable ones the second they present themselves at the door of consciousness. This is not to be confused with repression. Repression is only a partly conscious act; we repress an idea through cowardice, through conventionality etc. ... When we consciously reject an idea, in the sense of Buddha's recommendation, we do so by a conscious moral decision. To "reject" is to be understood as to "replace". We replace the undesirable idea by a desirable one. The higher idea has a higher frequency, higher vibrations; in cultivating the higher idea, we gain power over the lower one. Buddha puts it in these words: "The same, O monks, as a mason with a fine wedge drives out, pushes out, beats out a bigger wedge, so a monk when he seizes upon an idea in connection with which base and unworthy considerations obtrude themselves, images of lust, of hate, of illusion, he shall replace them by other, worthy images." The student thus constantly keeps his unconscious mind under control and lifts the sense-impressions into the light of consciousness. This extension of the consciousness is the first phase of Raja Yoga.

"With a clear conscience let us arm ourselves, clearly conscious in coming and going, clearly conscious in mounting and descending, clearly conscious in eating and in drinking, in chewing and in tasting, clearly conscious in eliminating, clearly conscious in standing and in walking, in sleeping and in waking, in speaking and in keeping silent, thus, O my monks, you should practise well."

The practice of visual representations of a high nature creates a favourable vibrations, favourable states of consciousness. The same is true, according to Indian tradition, of the repetition of certain sentences and words. The Indian believes that in thse words and phrases lies the experience of many thousands of years, of innumerable former incarnations of millions of men, creating again and again the atmosphere and the vibrations which they had when first used. It is not absolutely necessary to understand the meaning of the word or phrase; its sound alone will create the favourable frequency of vibration. The best known of these sacred syllables is OM, or AUM, the meditation on which is said to lead to salvation. Its perfection is due to the fact that it comprises all the consonants and vowels, all other words from alpha to omega. The sounding of the final M is considered the most important. In the same way the Yogi meditates on the phrase: "Om mani padme hum", ("O jewel in the lotus blossom") as a Christian would meditate on the phrase: "God is love." or "the peace that passes all understanding". The sounding of the phrase is accompanied by meditation on its meaning. Since this murmur meditation may easily lead to a sort of trance which has nothing in common with real liberation, it must be used with great care and discretion. The Yoga aphorisms of Patanjali recommended in its stead a systematic practice of concentration, then of meditation, finally leading to a contemplation. In this way, consciousness is not lulled to sleep.

Thus after we have learned to discipline our senses, we have learned to control the sequence of our representations, trying to analyse our unconscious mind, rendering it conscious as far as possible.

After this stage, we have consciously created a representation and held it in our mind, excluding all other representations. This is what is called concentration.

When we now endeavour to state everything we know about the object held in our mind, when we oblige our thinking to turn around this object and to look at it from all sides, and when finally we go with our mind to the very centre of this object (med-itari, going to the middle), we call it meditation.

But still we are here and the object is there. Our mind is still in movement and says: "Here am I and what is there is not I." Should we succeed in extending our I to the object, ie. not only to represent and comprehend the object, but also to feel it, then we get into contemplation. Then I and the object have become one.

And finally, should we succeed in overcoming our ego, in dropping the object with which we have become one, in dropping, therefore, ourselves, then we have freed ourselves of the world of representation and are in the Absolute. This is not hypnosis, since we are doing it in full consciousness. This condition is known as Samadhi. Concentration, Meditation, Contemplation, Samadhi, - this, in brief, is the path of Raja Yoga.

In trying this mental exercise, it is advantageous to select an object which attracts us, which has our fullest sympathy, something beautiful, for instance. It is evident that if our emotions help us in concentrating on the chosen object, that concentration will be made much easier and much deeper. Indians choose with predelicition the flower of the lotus. Apart from being beautiful, the lotus flower also has symbolic significance for an Indian, which makes it all the more attractive to him. A Western student might choose the rose instead.

There is no doubt that consciously or unconsciously all the great creative artists have used concentration and meditation in the elaboration of their works. Without it, artistic and creative activity, in general, is unthinkable. As to contemplation, St John of the Cross describes it as follows: "The soul is steeped in deep forgetfulness; it knows not where it was or what it has done and it seems to it that no time at all has passed. And so it is really in this forgetfulness many hours may go by; when the soul awakens, it seems that only a minute has passed."

With our intellect alone we are only able to grasp the world, to understand the world in a one-sided sort of way. In conscious contemplation the fullness of life and the wisdom of the ages are near; in it we transcend the limits of our appearance. When we have reached this condition which we might call the intuitive state, for moments first, then for longer and longer periods and finally at will, then we have reached the sources of being. And at this stage, the effort is made by us is helped by a force, an attraction from within, grace. "Knock and it shall be opened."

Development from then on is rapid, since the notion of time does not exist any more. In contemplation, the body is fully relaxed, every muscle, even the face, and the contemplative smiles the smile we see on the faces of the departed, the really living, released from the tensions of their egotistical self. In this state prayers are heard and answered. It is also the state in which we can most efficiently make suggestions for our welfare. Now we feel what we think and think what we feel. In contemplation, the consciousness of the body wanes, the consciousness of the Self grows and gathers itself in a centre.

From contemplation to Samadhi, ecstasy, is only a small step. When even questions cease, when soul and body are fully relaxed, the last stage is reached. Here God knocks at our door. The state of blessedness cannot be described with words.