The Power Behind The Mind

I

CONSCIOUS LIVING

YOGA is not a religion, nor a system of philosophy, but it is the method by which the goal of a religion or a philosophy may be realised and the spiritual purpose of man may be achieved. That purpose is direct cognition of his true nature, which is divine. Yoga is, of necessity, practical, for it is not an end in itself, but the means to an end, and when that end has been reached, then the task of Yoga has been fulfilled and it can be laid aside, as all training and discipline is laid aside once a learner has become an adept.

There are many authentic, that is, traditional Yogas. Adhyatma Yoga is based on the Advaita or non-dual system of thought, which postulates an all-pervading, unbroken Consciousness—the reality and ground of all phenomena, which, according to the Advaita, consist of name and appearance only. This reality, existence, bliss—all vague, abstract words striving to express the inexpressible—is the supreme spirit and it is established in the centre of man’s being. His sole spiritual vocation is to discover it and to know his identity with it.

The great philosopher, Shri Shankara, is the supreme exponent of this school of thought, and in his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, which is the principal scripture of India, he defines the word Adhyatma as that which first shows itself as the ego—the innermost self in the body—but which turns out to be identical with the supreme reality—God.

Adhyatma Yoga is based on a three-pronged foundation—if this does not sound too uneasy a position to be maintained. First, it relies on logical and subtly conceived philosophical argument; secondly, on a process of training by which the sleeping capacity in man to know his true nature—to know reality—is awakened; and thirdly—and very important this—on the testimony and instruction which has been left by a great concourse of seers and sages, both male and female, stretching from the earliest times down to the present day, all of whom have reached this peak of existence.

The deep subtlety and logic which clothe the philosophical approach to this Yoga have very seldom been appreciated or acknowledged in the West. Investigators have followed the argument up to a certain point, but after that they relapse into accusations of pantheism, fatalism, escapism and, very often, atheism. But the Teachers of this Yoga have never avoided criticism. In fact they have always held that individual experiment and experience are essential for real understanding, and that unprejudiced investigation should be carried out from the very first. They have left many invaluable works to guide the pupil in his researches. After all, if the contentions of the Advaita are true, they will eventually find confirmation in other fields, in the scientific and psychological fields for instance, and this has already begun to take place.

But the philosophical aspect of this Yoga is only one of its riches. Its second asset is the training it guards and offers to those who are ready for it. Control and equanimity of the mind is the principal technique taught by this discipline, for this is the necessary condition preceding the awakening of the higher intuition which can recognise the Truth instantaneously and directly. Intuition has a very bad name in this part of the world today. Hitler is supposed to have used it and so too have many other now discredited people. But in fact all they developed was a subtle method of getting their own way, based on reasoning and their acquisitive faculties. The power of intuition and inspiration, on the other hand, acts instantaneously and inevitably and from its own centre, and it manifests unchanged by preferences and prejudices of the mind. In fact, it only awakens and operates after the mind has ceased to act as a guiding, influencing force.

Words such as these are notions that need a good deal of explanation, but the subject here is confined to the preliminary training, the preparation for Yoga, so I must put myself in the place of an enquirer and speak for him. What is the first thing such a one would want to know? He will surely ask why there is any necessity for training at all, or for restriction—for the word ‘control’ hints at it—if divinity and omniscience are the birthright of man, his natural state.

The answer to this is that, not only are we living most unnatural lives, but only a fraction of our powers are brought into play in the process. Those powers which are in evidence and are the property of the mind, such as the power of perception, reasoning, memory and so on, are usually in a state of instability and continuous activity. It is stated again and again in the Yoga classics and in the traditional instructions passed from Guru to pupil, that the universal and inexhaustible Power lies dormant behind this busy state of the mind and, when called forth, it can destroy fear and make a man a god and completely satisfied. But this Power will not be brought into operation until a sustained atmosphere of quiet and security and also a state of complete harmlessness have been established in the mind; then alone will this imperishable Truth reveal itself.

It is surely worth undergoing the discipline if only to test the truth of such a claim. But most people have already passed through some kind of training in their lives and do not enter another too easily. They know that it will demand patience, courage and enthusiasm, and also impose temporary restrictions upon them. During training every reaction seems to be out of proportion. Even conscious living, which simply means living with a sense of direction, does not appear to be a stable thing at all. It becomes self-conscious living, and the mind which you are trying to bring into focus perhaps for the first time, reveals itself as a whirlpool of instincts and resistances. But this is only natural, for when you decide to become the master of anything—to control it—you must be willing to experience its strengths and weaknesses, vicariously so to say, while you are bringing it into focus, and you will receive many surprises in the process.

Most of those born before World War II have at some time or other miserably gyrated round a room in the arms of a dancing mistress while she counted: ‘One, two, three—reverse’. At that time dancing meant to us great misery, embarrassment and ceaseless vigilance and counting. But later it became for some at any rate a living and creative art, an interpretation of musical themes. Dancing is a specialised art practised by few only, but every man who is born into the world comes into it with latent powers awaiting development. Moreover, unless they are awakened and brought into focus, he will die half a man, ignorant of the greatness which lies within him and yet subconsciously aware of some deficiency of experience which was his right. We shall never know whether the claims made by those who would teach us about our inner nature are based on fact or fiction unless we patiently investigate, enquire and risk the hardships of a training.

Let us suppose that the investigator says: ‘Granted that this supramental power does exist, how am I to know that it exists in me in anything but a rudimentary form? In other words, how am I to know that it exists universally, as is claimed, and not in isolated beings only?’ The answer to this is that it may be inferred from the testimony of those who have already awakened this power in themselves. They affirm that in this state they become directly aware of the interpenetration by Consciousness, not of their own being alone, but of the whole phenomenal field also, just as the ether is interpenetrated by solar rays. And furthermore, no matter how high and into what abstract regions their awareness rises, they feel centred, that is, at home, and in their natural state. Like Peter and John, who were present at the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus, they feel instinctively: ‘It is good for us to be here.’

Only personal experiment and experience can establish the truth of such a statement, for the means through which this knowledge is achieved is extremely personal. It is attained through the practice of meditation and contemplation.

Meditation and contemplation! Now at last the investigator thinks he is on firm ground, for he feels that at least he knows his capacities in this direction and he is convinced that meditation will always remain a closed book to him. He assures you that he could never keep his mind on a meditation for two minutes; he is quite sure of that. And yet this very man is capable of sitting with unseeing eyes in a bus, meditating in his mind on the rearrangement of his house and furniture so that the new television set may be adequately housed. This meditation may go on for ten minutes or longer, during which time he is utterly oblivious to sights, sounds and physical contacts. What is this but meditation? It may not be a very high meditation on an abstract theme, but it is sustained. Why, the man is a born meditator!

A woman will tell you that she can’t visualise anything, that she must have it before her eyes before she can call it to mind. ‘When I was a child I couldn’t visualise the map of England, I could never put in the capes and bays on the east coast. I know I could never practise contemplation.’ Yet she can go into a brown study and sketch in her mind the features of someone she loves, and do it with joy and accuracy, or she can equally easily scratch in the defects of one she does not love, in pitiless detail. She is surely a contemplative in the making, though still unaware of her powers.

There must be something which is lacking or is very weak in spiritual meditations, which is alive and strong in the self-imposed meditations of these two people. There must be something which makes the one a theoretical exercise and the other almost a hidden vice. What is this mysterious quality? It is identification. Identification is the root from which spring devotion, worship and love.

My Teacher, Dr Shastri, used to say that love and worship must be learnt and practised like any other art, and that this was a vital part of the spiritual training. It is true that the mind is secretly selective and retentive, but it is also true that it can be coloured by images imposed upon it. Therefore the pupil is taught to train his mind consciously by placing before it those concepts which will expand and make it lighter. This is one of the laws behind the repetition of the mantram or of the seed word such as OM. Descriptions of the lives of the great saints or of an Incarnation of God, or even a conception of an abstract truth, if dwelt upon in mental relaxation, can arouse the imagination and awaken this sense of identification, and then the quality of life will be changed for ever.

Once in ancient times, a certain king of Delhi, King Jalaluddin, caught a parrot. It was a sweet speaking parrot but it had only one theme: the beauty and perfections of its mistress, the Rajput princess, Princess Padmini. It had strayed away from her palace in the great Fort of Chitor and had lost its way, never to find it again. Day after day the king listened half consciously to this paeon of praise from the parrot, until slowly his imagination was fired and he became obsessed with the desire to possess her. He raised an army and marched against the great Fort of Chitor, the stronghold of the Rajputs, and demanded that they should hand over the princess to him. But these warriors refused to surrender her, for they were a high souled people and they knew that this life has no value whatsoever if it cannot protect truth and virtue. So the siege began, and in one day alone the Rajputs lost twenty thousand warriors, and four young princes were anointed kings one after another on the battlements, only to lose their lives in the fighting. At last a breach was made in the great walls and King Jalaluddin rode into the Fort at the head of the forces. He found that all the defenders had perished, and the women, with the Princess Padmini at their head, had joined them and jumped into the flames.

The whole situation sprang from the transformation of the heart of a great king as a result of listening to the reiterated laments of a parrot. The seeker after liberation also hears the description of spiritual beauty uttered again and again by the Teachers. He reads their inspired words. And if he listens and reads with open eyes and ears, without defences or prejudices, the desire for the hidden treasure can awaken in his heart. This is why the Teachers recommend shravana and manana, listening and reflecting, as the first steps to be taken