Eight
Lectures On Yoga - Index
Eight
Lectures On Yoga Pt 1
Eight
Lectures On Yoga Pt 2
Eight
Lectures On Yoga Pt 3
Eight
Lectures On Yoga Pt 4
Eight
Lectures On Yoga Pt 5
Eight
Lectures On Yoga Pt 6
Eight
Lectures On Yoga Pt 7
Eight
Lectures On Yoga Pt 8
Dear Children,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the
Law.
1. You will remember that last week our study of Yoga had
led us to the Fathers of the Church. We saw that their philosophy
and science, in following an independent route, had brought
us to the famous exclamation of Tertullian: 'certum est quia
ineptum!' How right the Church has been to deny the authority
of Reason!
2. We are almost tempted to enquire for a moment what the
Church means by 'faith.' St. Paul tells us that faith is
'the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things
unseen.' I do not think, then, that we are to imagine this
word faith to mean what that lecherous gross-bellied boor,
Martin Luther, maintained. The faith of which he speaks is
anything but a substance, and as for evidence, it is nothing
but the power, as the schoolboy said, of believing that which
we know to be untrue. To have any sensible meaning at all,
faith must mean experience, and that view is in exact accord
with the conclusion to which we were led in my last lecture.
Nothing is any use to us unless it be a certainty unshakeable
by criticism of any kind, and there is only one thing in
the universe which complies with these conditions: the direct
experience of spiritual truth. Here, and here only, do we
find a position in which the great religious minds of all
times and all climes coincide. It is necessarily above dogma,
because dogma consists of a collection of intellectual statements,
each of which, and also its contradictory, can easily be
disputed and overthrown.
3. You are probably aware that in the Society of Jesus the
postulants are trained to debate on all these highly controversial
subjects. They put up a young man to prove any startling
blasphemy that happens to occur to them. And the more shocked
the young man is, the better the training for his mind, and
the better service will he give to the Society in the end;
but only if his mind has been completely disabused of its
confidence in its own rightness, or even in the possibility
of being right.
4. The rationalist, in his shallow fashion, always contends
that this training is the abnegation of mental freedom. On
the contrary, it is the only way to obtain that freedom.
In the same Society the training in obedience is based on
a similar principle. The priest has to do what his Superior
orders him-'perinde ac cadaver.' Protestants always represent
that this is the most outrageous and indefensible tyranny.
'The poor devil,' they say, 'is bludgeoned into having no
will of his own.' That is pure nonsense. By abnegating his
will through the practice of holy obedience his will has
become enormously strong, so strong that none of his natural
instincts, desires, or habits can intrude. He has freed his
will of all these inhibitions. He is a perfect function of
the machinery of the Order. In the General of the Society
is concentrated the power of all those separate wills, just
as in the human body every cell should be completely devoted
in its particular quality to the concentrated will of the
organism.
5. In other words, the Society of Jesus has created a perfect
imitation of the skeleton of the original creation, living
man. It has complied with the divinely instituted order of
things, and that is why we see that the body, which was never
numerically important, has yet been one of the greatest influences
in the development of Europe. It has not always worked perfectly,
but that has not been the fault of the system; and, even
as it is, its record has been extraordinary. And one of the
most remarkable things about it is that its greatest and
most important achievements have been in the domain of science
and philosophy. It has done nothing in religion; or, rather,
where it has meddled with religion it has only done harm.
What a mistake! And why? For the simple reason that it was
in a position to take no notice of religion; all these matters
were decided for it by the Pope, or by the Councils of the
Church, and the Society was therefore able to free itself
from the perplexities of religion, in exactly the same way
as the novice obtains complete freedom from his moral responsibilities
by sinking his personal phantasies in the will of the Superior.
6. I should like to mention here that the Spiritual Exercises
of St. Ignatius are in their essence really admirable Yoga
practices. They have, it is true, a tinge of magical technique,
and they have been devised to serve a dogmatic end. That
was, however, necessary, and it was good magic too, at that,
because the original will of the Founder was to produce a
war engine as a counterblast to the Reformation. He was very
wise to devise a plan, irrespective of its abstract merits
as philosophy, which would most efficiently serve that single
purpose. The only trouble has been that this purpose was
not sufficiently cosmic in scope to resist internal forces.
Having attained the higher planes by practice of these exercises,
they found that the original purpose of the Society was not
really adequate to their powers; they were, so to speak,
over-engined. They stupidly invaded the spiritual sphere
of the other authorities whom they were founded to support,
and thus we see them actually quarrelling with the Pope,
while failing signally to obtain possession of the Papacy.
Being thus thwarted in their endeavours, and confused in
their purpose, they redoubled the ardour of their exercises;
and it is one of the characteristics of all spiritual exercises,
if honestly and efficiently performed, that they constantly
lead you on to higher planes, where all dogmatic considerations,
all intellectual concepts, are invalid. Hence, we found that
it is not altogether surprising that the General of the Order
and his immediate circle have been supposed to be atheists.
If that were true, it would only show that they have been
corrupted by their preoccupation with the practical politics
of the world, which it is impossible to conduct on any but
an atheistic basis; it is brainless hypocrisy to pretend
otherwise, and should be restricted to the exclusive use
of the Foreign Office.
It would, perhaps, be more sensible to suppose that the
heads of the Order have really attained the greatest heights
of spiritual knowledge and freedom, and it is quite possible
that the best term to describe their attitude would be either
Pantheistic or Gnostic.
7. These considerations should be of the greatest use to
us now that we come to discuss in more detail the results
of the Yoga practices. There is, it is true, a general similarity
between the ecstatic outbursts of the great mystics all over
the world. Comparisons have often been drawn by students
of the subject. I will only detain you with one example:
'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.' What is
this injunction? It is a generalisation of St. Augustine's
'Love, and do what thou wilt.' But in 'The Book of the Law',
lest the hearer should be deluded into a spasm of antinomianism,
there is a further explanation: 'Love is the law, love under
will.'
8. However, the point is that it is no use discussing the
results of Yoga, whether that Yoga be the type recommended
by Lao-Tze, or Patanjali, or St. Ignatius Loyola, because
for our first postulate we have: that these subjects are
incapable of discussion. To argue about them only causes
us to fall into the pit of Because, and there to perish with
the dogs of Reason. The only use, therefore, of describing
our experiences is to enable students to get some sort of
idea of the sort of thing that is going to happen to them
when they attain success in the practices of Yoga. We have
David saying in the Psalms: 'I hate thoughts, but Thy law
do I love.' We have St. Paul saying: 'The carnal mind is
enmity against God.' One might almost say that the essence
of St. Paul's Epistles is a struggle against mind: 'We war
not against flesh and blood'-you know the rest-I can't be
bothered to quote it all-Eph. vi. 12.
9. It is St. Paul, I think, who describes Satan, which is
his name for the enemy, owing to his ignorance of the history
of the world, as the Prince of the Power of the Air; that
is, of the Ruach, of the intellect; and we must never forget
that what operated the conversion of St. Paul was the Vision
on the road to Damascus. It is particularly significant that
he disappeared into the Desert of Arabia for three years
before coming forward as the Apostle to the Gentiles. St.
Paul was a learned Rabbi; he was the favourite pupil of the
best expositor of the Hebrew Law, and in the single moment
of his Vision all his arguments were shattered at a single
stroke!
10. We are not told that St. Paul said anything at the time,
but went quietly on his journey. That is the great lesson:
not to discuss the results. Those of you who possess a copy
of 'The Equinox of the Gods' may have been very much surprised
at the extraordinary injunction in the Comment: the prohibition
of all discussion of the Book. I myself did not fully understand
that injunction; I do so now.
11. Let us now deal with a few of the phenomena which occur
during the practices of Pratyahara.
Very early during my retirement in Kandy, I had been trying
to concentrate by slanting my eyes towards the tip of my
nose. This, by the way, is not a good practice; one is liable
to strain the eyes. But what happened was that I woke up
in the night; my hand touched a nose; I immediately concluded
that some one was in the room. Not at all; I only thought
so because my nose had passed away from the region of my
observation by the practice of concentrating upon it.
12. The same sort of thing occurs with adequate concentration
on any object. It is connected, curiously enough, with the
phenomena of invisibility. When your mind has gone so deeply
into itself that it is unconscious of itself and its surroundings,
one of the most ordinary results is that the body becomes
invisible to other people. I do not think that it would make
any difference for a photograph, though I have no evidence
for saying this; but it has happened to me on innumerable
occasions. It was an almost daily occurrence when I was in
Sicily.
13. A party of us used to go down to a very beautiful bay
of sand, whence jutted fantastically-shaped islets of rock;
it is rimmed by cliffs encrusted with jewels of marine life.
The way was over a bare hillside; except for a few hundred
yards of vineyard there was no cover-nay, not for a rabbit.
But it often happened that one of the party would turn to
speak to me, and fail to see me. I have often known this
to happen when I was dictating; my chair was apparently empty.
Incidentally, this faculty, which I think is exercised,
as a rule, unconsciously, may become an actual magical power.
14. It happened to me on one occasion that a very large
number of excited people were looking for me with no friendly
intentions; but I had a feeling of lightness, of ghostliness,
as if I were a shadow moving soundlessly about the street;
and in actual fact none of the people who were looking for
me gave the slightest indication that they were aware of
my presence.
There is a curious parallel to this incident in one of the
Gospels where we read that 'they picked up stones to stone
him, but he, passing through the midst of them, went his
way.'
15. There is another side to this business of Pratyahara,
one that may be described as completely contradictory against
what we have been talking about.
If you concentrate your attention upon one portion of the
body with the idea of investigating it, that is, I suppose,
allowing the mind to move within very small limits, the whole
of your consciousness becomes concentrated in that small
part. I used to practise this a good deal in my retirement
by Lake Pasquaney. I would usually take a finger or a toe,
and identify my whole consciousness with the small movements
which I allowed it to make. It would be futile to go into
much detail about this experience. I can only say that until
you acquire the power you have no idea of the sheer wonder
and delight of that endlessly quivering orgasm.
16. If I remember rightly, this practice and its result
were one of the principal factors which enabled me afterwards
to attain what is called the Trance of Wonder, which pertains
to the Grade of a Master of the Temple, and is a sort of
complete understanding of the organism of the universe, and
an ecstatic adoration of its marvel.
This Trance is very much higher than the Beatific Vision,
for always in the latter it is the heart-the Phren-which
is involved; in the former it is the Nous, the divine intelligence
of man, whereas the heart is only the centre of the intellectual
and moral faculties.
17. But, so long as you are occupying yourself with the
physical, your results will only be on that plane; and the
principal effect of these concentrations on small parts of
the body is the understanding, or rather the appreciation,
of sensuous pleasure. This, however, is infinitely refined,
exquisitely intense. It is often possible to acquire a technique
by which the skilled artist can produce this pleasure in
another person. Map out, say, three square inches of skin
anywhere, and it is possible by extreme gentle touches to
excite in the patient all the possible sensations of pleasure
of which that person is capable. I know that this is a very
extraordinary claim, but it is a very easy one to substantiate.
The only thing I am afraid of is that experts may be carried
away by the rewards, instead of getting the real value of
the lesson, which is that the gross pleasures of the senses
are absolutely worthless.
This practice, so far as it is useful to all, should be
regarded as the first step towards emancipation from the
thrall of the bodily desires, of the sensations self-destructive,
of the thirst for pleasure.
18. I think this is a good opportunity to make a little
digression in favour of Mahasatipatthana. This practice was
recommended by the Buddha in very special terms, and it is
the only one of which he speaks so highly. He told his disciples
that if they only stuck to it, sooner or later they would
reach full attainment. The practice consists of an analysis
of the universe in terms of consciousness. You begin by taking
some very simple and regular bodily exercise, such as the
movement of the body in walking, or the movements of the
lungs in breathing. You keep on noting what happens: 'I am
breathing out; I am breathing in; I am holding my breath,'
as the case may be. Quite without warning, one is appalled
by the shock of the discovery that what you have been thinking
is not true. You have no right to say: 'I am breathing in.'
All that you really know is that there is a breathing in.
19. You therefore change your note, and you say: 'There
is a breathing in; there is a breathing out,' and so on.
And very soon, if you practise assiduously, you get another
shock. You have no right to say that there is a breathing.
All you know is that there is a sensation of that kind. Again
you change your conception of your observation, and one day
make the discovery that the sensation has disappeared. All
you know is that there is perception of a sensation of breathing
in or breathing out. Continue, and that is once more discovered
to be an illusion. What you find is that there is a tendency
to perceive a sensation of the natural phenomena.
20. The former stages are easy to assimilate intellectually;
one assents to them immediately that one discovers them,
but with regard to the 'tendency,' this is not the case,
at least it was not so for my own part. It took me a long
while before I understood what was meant by 'tendency.' To
help you to realise this I should like to find a good illustration.
For instance, a clock does nothing at all but offer indications
of the time. It is so constructed that this is all we can
know about it. We can argue about whether the time is correct,
and that means nothing at all, unless, for example, we know
whether the clock is controlled electrically from an astronomical
station where the astronomer happens to be sane, and in what
part of the world the clock is, and so on.
21. I remember once when I was in Teng-Yueh, just inside
the Chinese frontier in Yunnan. The hour of noon was always
telegraphed to the Consulate from Pekin. This was a splendid
idea, because electricity is practically instantaneous. The
unfortunate thing was, if it was unfortunate, which
I doubt, that the messages had to be relayed at a place called
Yung Chang. The operators there had the good sense to smoke
opium most of the time, so occasionally a batch of telegrams
would arrive, a dozen or so in a bunch, stating that it was
noon at Pekin on various dates! So all the gross phenomena,
all these sensations and perceptions, are illusion. All that
one could really say was that there was a tendency on the
part of some lunatic in Pekin to tell the people at Teng-Yueh
what o'clock it was.
22. But even this Fourth Skandha is not final. With practice,
it also appears as an illusion, and one remains with nothing
but the bare consciousness of the existence of such a tendency.
I cannot tell you very much about this, because I have not
worked it out very thoroughly myself, but I very much doubt
whether 'consciousness' has any meaning at all, as a translation
of the word Vinnanam. I think that a better translation would
be 'experience,' used in the sense in which we have been
using it hitherto, as the direct reality behind and beyond
all remark.
23. I hope you will appreciate how difficult it is to give
a reasoned description, however tentative, of these phenomena,
still less to classify them properly. They have a curious
trick of running one into the other. This, I believe, is
one of the reasons why it has been impossible to find any
really satisfactory literature about Yoga at all. The more
advanced one's progress, the less one knows, and the more
one understands. The effect is simply additional evidence
of what I have been saying all this time: that it is very
little use discussing things; what is needed is continuous
devotion to the practice.
Love is the law, love under will.
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