By
SRI SWAMI CHIDANANDA
A DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY PUBLICATION
Third Edition: 1991
(5,000 copies)
World Wide Web (WWW) Edition : 1999
Website: http://www.divinelifesociety.org/
This WWW reprint is for free distribution
© The Divine Life Trust Society
ISBN 81-7052-078-9
Published By
THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY
P.O. Shivanandanagar—249 192
Distt. Tehri-Garhwal, Uttaranchal,
Himalayas, India.
CONTENTS
We have great pleasure in releasing this beautiful volume of sixteen
lectures by Sri Swami Chidanandaji Maharaj, our revered President, on
the eve of his 75th Birthday, which fails on the 24th September, 1991.
In a way, these lectures are the outcome of the holy Satsankalpa of
His Holiness Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, who deputed his foremost
disciple Swami Chidananda to the West, to convey personally his message
of Divine Life to aspiring seekers.
Thirty years have passed since these talks were delivered; but their
meaning and relevance are as valid today as they were at the time they
were delivered. Also, the teachings and guidance contained in these
lectures are universal in scope and intensely practical in their approach.
It is our earnest hope that this small volume will help in its own way
to further the right understanding of the timeless message of spiritual
life.
—THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY
Beloved Immortal Self! Rays of the Eternal Light Divine! It gives me
great happiness to write this little preface to the series of lectures
included in this volume. All these lectures, with the exception of the
talk “Worship of God as Mother Divine”, were delivered by
me in the year 1960 in Canada where I went as a personal representative
of my holy Master Sri Swami Sivananda to carry India’s message
of Yoga and Vedanta to the West.
Gurudev Swami Sivananda was revered all over India as one of its foremost
spiritual leaders and was known in most of the world as a spiritual
awakener par excellence and a friend of all mankind who tirelessly
broadcast for more than thirty years the universal truth of ethical
and spiritual idealism.
In the West, there are many misconceptions about Yoga. They know not
what is real Yoga. Most of them think that assuming certain physical
postures is Yoga. Though there are many books on Yoga, yet there is
a great urge in the West to know more about the inner aspect of Yoga.
In these talks, I have made an attempt to put before the spiritual seekers
(especially those in the West) the truth about Yoga as understood by
me in the light of my holy Master’s teachings and in the light
of my own experience. I do hope that this small attempt on my part will
help to dispel many popular misconceptions about Yoga and put the whole
subject in the proper perspective.
Yoga is an exact science. If you define Yoga in the simplest term,
it is the steady movement of the individual soul towards the Supreme
Soul. Yoga is a steady ascent to the Divine. Yoga transforms one’s
lower nature into the Divine Nature. The practice of Yoga confers upon
one radiant health, happiness, peace and tranquillity of mind.
Humanity is one great family. The different races and nations have
all made valid contributions to the progress of humanity. Success achieved
in different countries in various fields ultimately serve the progress
of all mankind.
The glory of India is its Yoga and Vedanta. India’s contribution
to the world is its spiritual idealism. Yoga and Vedanta are universal
in their scope. They are the property of all mankind. All humanity,
now and in the years to come, may usefully draw inspiration from the
wisdom of the ancient seers.
It is by bringing about a greater exchange of ideas between nations
that we shall be able to reach a deeper understanding of the overall
problem of human suffering and misery. Under harmonious conditions,
the state of man will be characterised by peace and brotherhood rather
than by hatred and bloodshed. Unity of God-head in all creation is the
fact of life. It is my earnest hope that this book entitled The Path
Beyond Sorrow will show the seekers the spiritual path and take
them beyond sorrow and bestow upon them true peace and happiness in
life.
In closing, I wish to record my deep appreciation and thanks for the
loving services rendered by my good friends, Bill Eilers, Carol Sheldan,
Rosalind Dibblee and many others who organised my lectures at the beautiful
Coronation Hall at the Y.M.C.A., Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
The talk on “Worship of God as Mother Divine” was delivered
by me at the special request of many friends in Durban who were deeply
horrified at the prevalent custom of animal sacrifices in their community.
The Vancouver talks were tape-recorded by Carol Sheldan who also transcribed
them. My thanks to her for this labour of love. Also, my grateful thanks
to Swami Vimalananda and Sri N. Ananthanarayanan who gave their invaluable
time to go through the entire manuscript and bring it to this final
shape.
May the blessings of Satgurudev Swami Sivananda be on each and every
one of those who contributed in one way or the other to the publication
of this volume.
—Swami Chidananda
Sivananda Ashram
September 24th, 1975
Beloved Immortal Atman! I deem it a great pleasure and blessedness
that God has given me this unique opportunity of being of some service
to you, seeking and aspiring souls upon this earth-plane, and for this
privilege I thank Him who is the Indweller of you all, the Source of
our very existence, the all-pervading Presence enveloping this very
universe, who is amongst us invisibly even at this moment and who blesses
us.
The Path Beyond Sorrow is the title that suggested itself to
me by chance, when I saw a little booklet of quotations from various
sources—little sayings from different scriptures about the problem
of the human being. Actually, it could very well have been worded The
Path to God, for it does not require to be told that the ultimate
cause of all sorrow is that we have forgotten our eternal link with
the perennial source of infinite joy, of never-ending happiness. Cutting
ourselves from one who is the granter of supreme bliss, who is more
than all the happiness of the entire universe, we naturally feel that
separation. We feel deprived of that experience which He is. Bliss is
in the Eternal Reality, that great Truth which alone is changeless,
timeless, is for ever and real. Deprived of our living contact with
that Bliss, separation is experienced as sorrow. That only source of
true happiness being cut out of our life in a living way, we quest after
happiness.
It is a paradoxical situation—happiness being sought in all directions
except in that one where it is to be found definitely and unfailingly.
Pleasure Is Not Happiness
When we observe life on the human plane, what do we see? Everyone is
in constant quest of true happiness. Happiness is the quest of smiles;
we have concealed sighs and sorrows, much grief and disappointment.
Why? Why is this phenomenon observed everywhere in the world? This question
has been pondered over, has been investigated. And we have been answered.
With the dawn of discrimination, we come to realise that we have done
something very foolish, because we have missed the path which leads
to happiness and strayed off into the by-paths of pleasures. Happiness
is one thing; mere pleasure is another. Missing the path to happiness
and wandering off into the by-paths of pleasures, we are, as it were,
lost beings wandering in a jungle where we do not know the correct direction
to take, the correct path to pursue, to reach the destination.
Why did we miss our way? Why this wandering in search of true happiness
on the part of all people and their seeming inability to find that after
which they quest? It is because the great majority of them never make
the right start. Before starting on the search for happiness, one never
gets clear as to what is the nature of this happiness one is after and
wherein does it lie. Without knowing the destination, without knowing
exactly what we wish to obtain, we have started this seeking just because
that has been the pattern into which we are born. We are born into a
world where all beings everywhere around us are going after something,
behaving in a certain way, and we think, “I am born among people
living like this and I also have to live like this”; and so that
pattern has become an automatic pattern with everyone. We are born into
a way of life. We have entered into a current which leads us just where
it has been leading the people here from time immemorial—into a
whirlpool of disappointments, tears, disillusionments, pains and sufferings
which are inevitable in this embodied state upon this earth-plane. Pleasures
can never bring true happiness, because the very nature of pleasure
is that it is an experience derived from contacts with sense-objects;
and quite naturally, it partakes of the imperfections that are inherent
in the sense-objects.
All Objects are conditioned in space and time. They are neither permanent
nor perfect. They are full of defects, they change, they pass away,
and they give experiences which are mixed, which are not unalloyed.
All pleasures are imperfect, because they spring out of objects which
are themselves imperfect. These sense experiences are of very doubtful
value and they are mixed with various side-effects. Every contact-born
sense experience inevitably has bound up with it a reaction. If you
are eating something very tasty beyond your limits, even as you are
tasting it, there is a fear that perhaps tomorrow you will have to take
a pill or a dose. Every sense experience has a reaction which brings
in anxiety and lack of peace of mind. In the ultimate analysis, these
sense experiences turn out to be purely negative experiences; they do
not deserve the name of pleasure or happiness at all. They are not positive
experiences at all.
Man’s Triune Nature
Man is a being partaking of a triune nature. As an intelligent human
being you have, at the same time, a part which is very base in its expression
and full of gross propensities—desire, passion, sensuality, greed,
anger, blindness. This is more or less on the level of the brute existence,
though it is an inevitable part of the human being—a gross, sensual,
animalistic nature. Man is a thinking animal, and it is said that he
is essentially an animal having the same urges, the same sensual drives
as the sub-human species, but endowed with the superior faculty of rationality—thought—intelligent
thought, selective and discriminative thought. That is what makes you
a human being, but the physical part of you is animal. Then you have
within yourself your true, essential being which is totally forgotten,
totally neglected, never heeded, crowded into a corner and entirely
overcome by the rational human aspects and the base, gross, animalistic
aspects of your being. This three-fold nature goes to make up what you
yourself know as “I”.
The Mental Ferment
That particular element in you which makes you human is the mind. It
is a doubtful bestowal by God upon individual soul. It is not a too
happy thing to have, for, rationality and intelligence, though no doubt
good, are for the most part never utilized, never properly exercised
as they ought to be. In most people, intelligence is not exercised at
all. And in those people who do exercise it, it is usually the co-operative
partner to sensual man for devising ways and means of satisfying the
senses, of feeding all the cravings of the senses. The human mind, the
intellectual operation of which is a part of its function, is characterized
by never-ending desires. The mind is never still, even for a single
moment, except for the short time when you sink into the deep-sleep
state. Except for this period, the mind is constantly active and in
a state of ferment. You are not aware of this ferment, because you are
constantly kept active through it. Most of it is concerned with the
immediate fulfilment of desires and, therefore, you are not aware of
it. If you try to check the outgoing activities of your mind for a time
and try to watch your mind, then the terrible nature of its constant
activity—constant irritation and restlessness due to desire—becomes
apparent and you know what a thing you have in the mind. This desire-filled
and ever fluctuating mind is the root cause for going outward in search
of impermanent sense pleasures.
The Mechanics of Sense Satisfaction
What happens is this. There arises a desire, a craving is created,
and then you are urged to go after some sense-object in order to satisfy
the craving and you feel that it has been enjoyable. You tell yourself:
“I have felt pleasure. I have enjoyed the sense-object”. Actually,
this so-called experience which you have undergone is not a positive
experience of enjoyment at all. It is just an illusion. The actual experience,
in fact, if you examine it, is this—the experience you get at the
end of an activity to obtain a sense-object is but the momentary quiescence
that ensues in the mind as a result of the corresponding desire-urge
having subsided for the time being. When desire arose and craving filled
the mind, the mind was thrown into a violent state of restlessness;
it lost its peace, its serenity and calmness. As long as the craving
was there, the mind was restless, was agitated, and when that object
was obtained, the sense took it in. It may have been the sense of taste
or the sense of sight or hearing or touch or smell—the sense took
it in. And the craving having been satisfied, the agitation or restlessness
in the mind, which this craving originally caused, subsided for the
time being. And you think, when you vicariously superimpose this fine
feeling (this momentary restfulness due to the subsiding of the sense-craving)
upon your sense-contact with the object, that you have derived this
fine feeling from the object. The fact is that this experience of sense-satisfaction
has not been derived from the object. The experience you have derived
is the negative phenomenon of having got rid of an agitation in the
mind. So, when you get rid of an agitation in the mind, you think you
have enjoyed a positive experience, but it is just the negative experience
of getting rid of a certain fire within, namely, the agitation of a
craving.
Actually, it is a peaceful mind, an unagitated mind, that is the condition
of true happiness. And an unagitated mind is never in one’s possession,
unless one realizes that all experiences born out of the contact of
objects outside of ourselves are negative, having no positive value.
The reflected experience they give to the mind is only a cessation of
the mental craving and agitation for the time being; and because there
is a close tie-in, a coincidence, between the sense contacting the sense-object
and the immediate sense of satisfaction, we think that these two have
a connection. Actually, it is because the mind has now once again obtained
its calmness that you are immediately put into a state of satisfaction.
Supposing you have been exposed on an ice-cold winter’s day, immediately,
you come into a room and warm yourself before a fire, take a warm drink,
cover yourself with a hot blanket, and say, “Oh, such wonderful
pleasure now!” Actually, what has happened is that the discomfort,
the painful experience of cold, has been removed by these three things—warming
yourself, covering yourself, and taking a cup of something hot—and
you think this is a pleasure. But for someone who is already in the
room and has not had the negative experience of the cold, these things
would not hold the special value which they held for you, because in
your case the cessation of pain was taken to be pleasure. If you use
your intellect and analyse all the contact-born experiences a human
being goes through, you will find that they are all just the removal
of some painful experience or other, though man deludes himself into
thinking that they are of a positive nature. When you feel very hot,
to take a plunge seems a refreshing experience; or to go to a soda fountain
and take a cold milk-shake or Coca Cola seems wonderful. It is because
you have come out of a very hot place where you have been uncomfortable
and perhaps perspiring. When you take the cold drink, it seems wonderful;
but what has actually happened is that for the time being you have removed
the painful experience of heat and perspiration. Every experience obtained
from contact with objects outside of ourselves partakes of this nature
and, together with the momentary removal of the painful experience immediately
preceding it, it also contains within itself the power to give you certain
positive reactions. You may sit down to a fine dinner and enjoy it.
What has actually happened is: it was preceded by the painful experience
of hunger, and by eating the dinner, you have satisfied your hunger
and you think that your sense of fulfilment has actually come from the
food which you have eaten at the table. While the dinner appealed to
you because you were hungry, to another person who was not hungry and
felt no desire for food, it would not have given pleasure. He would
have turned away from it saying, “No, thank you. I don’t want
anything”. For him there is no pleasure, as he has not come with
that painful experience called ‘hunger’ with which you drew
near to the table. If that painful experience had been in him also,
he would have enjoyed the dinner equally. So, the so-called pleasurable
experiences of this world are nothing but the removal of painful experiences
immediately preceding them.
This is the very nature of contact-born pleasure. Lord Krishna, who
is one of the Great Messengers and who graced this earth, says in His
universal gospel, the Gita, “All pleasures, O man, contact-born,
are the source of pain”. And, what are our pleasures if not contact-born?
Contact of the tongue with a tasty dish, contact of the hand with some
object pleasant to touch, contact of our eyes with something beautiful
to look at, contact of our ears with sweet, melodious and endearing
things to hear, contact of our nose with nice and fragrant things—these
are our pleasurable experiences. If unpleasant things are given to us,
we are immediately thrown into a state of sorrow. With pleasant objects
contacted by the senses, once we become attached to them, the removal
or separation of those objects (which have become dear to us due to
our becoming attached to them) brings misery, pain. Also, sometimes,
the very object which attracted us in one state, when it changes its
condition, becomes an object of pain. Thus, to be brought into contact
with things which are not pleasing—that is sorrow; to be separated
from things which are pleasant and pleasing—that is sorrow. And,
if a thing which was pleasant changes its nature, that also becomes
sorrow. So, all contacts with outside objects have within themselves
the seeds of sorrow. They are the potent source of latent sorrow, and
also, they have a beginning and an end. Therefore, the man of wisdom
is never happy with them. He does not take pleasure in these outside
things, because he has analysed and known the nature of these things;
and he says, “No, all contact-born experiences are negative. They
are not positive experiences at all. Also, they are accompanied by reaction.
They have a beginning and an end”. Objects themselves are imperfect;
therefore, the experience gained from these objects is also imperfect,
because you cannot have a perfect experience from a thing which is not
perfect. Therefore, a wise one does not take delight in these things.
Instances of Irrational Rationality
How many are wise? How many use the intellect rationally? We have to
analyse the objects of this universe. We have to see them, not as they
appear to be, but as they truly are and analyse the experiences from
the objects as they really are and not as we perceive them in a state
of non-discrimination. We have to enquire. This intelligence which God
has given us we must use; and use rationally, not with bias.
If you use this intellect with bias, since it is already in league
with the senses, is already a slave to the sensual urges, it will give
you wrong conclusions only. It cannot give you the right conclusions.
Your rationality may be real and correct, but at the same time, it can
be a very ‘irrational rationality’—a sort of pseudo-rationality.
It seems paradoxical, but there are very funny stories told in the ancient
Indian Puranas to bring out how a person can use his intelligence, yet
use it foolishly. They give the example of a very typical being—a
young man—who had this type of intellect. He went to cut wood and
climbed a tree and went out on a large branch and started cutting the
branch. He observed it and said, “The branch is thickest where
it is nearest to the main trunk of the tree; and it tapers off toward
the end and that part is thinner than the part on which I am sitting.
So, I shall get more wood if I cut it off nearest to the trunk of the
tree”. He turned around to sit on the thinner portion in order
to get more wood by cutting more closely to the trunk of the tree. Someone
came by and called to the man, saying, “What are you doing? It
is foolish the way you are cutting that branch”. But the man replied,
“It is no business of yours. I know what I am doing. I have given
it careful thought and calculation. I don’t want to be fooled by
this tree. I want to take as much wood as possible”. So he hacked
on and on until the branch came down and he with it. He was a person
who did use his intelligence. He figured it out and he thought that
he would get more wood this way and he was quite correct, but there
seems to have been something that was not at all rational. This characterises
a great many types of intelligence.
At another time, a man was asked to look after his very old and senile
grandmother. India, like all tropics, is a land of mosquitoes and flies,
and the man was diligently fanning his grandmother. But many flies persisted
in sitting upon her, even though the man fanned vigorously. He finally
said, “Look here, do not bother my grandmother,” and continued
fanning her vigorously. Eventually he became extremely annoyed with
the persistence of the flies and said, “Look here, if you are not
going to obey me, I am going to teach you a lesson”; and after
a few more moments of vigorous fanning and the equally vigorous persistence
of the flies, he looked over and saw a wooden club and he picked up
this club and said, “Do you flies think you are more intelligent
than I?” So saying, and carefully aiming the club at one fly, he
smacked the fly and brained his old grandmother in the process! Most
of us are clever, very clever, but we start with fundamental errors.
The man should have known whether the life of his grandmother was more
important or the killing of the fly. But he did not, and we laugh at
him. At the same time, we make the same error of judgement.
The Tumult of the Senses Vs. The Music Of the Soul
It is peace of mind which is the condition prerequisite for the experience
of true happiness. Is that not more important than the removal of a
little restlessness and craving, a little agitation caused by desire?
Which is the more important? You may say: “If desires come, we
have to satisfy them. That is the way to remove them and that is the
way to get pleasures”. So saying, you remove the ‘fly’
of desire rather than protect the ‘grandmother’ of true peace
of mind by which alone you can find happiness. Real happiness comes
out of peace. When the mind is tranquil and serene, peace, bliss wells
up from within you. You do not have to manufacture happiness, for it
does not lie outside of you. Happiness is not in changeful, perishable
objects which are merely material. True happiness is right here where
you are sitting. You are yourself happiness. Happiness is your essential
nature. That aspect of your being which completely transcends your sense
nature and your mental desire-nature—that third aspect of your
true being, your real nature, is, in one word, bliss—pure bliss.
If you want me to define what you are, I say you are pure, unalloyed,
absolute bliss. That is the stuff of the soul. The soul is bliss; it
is ecstasy, peerless joy. Even as this table is made of wood, even as
your very clothes are made of wool or cotton, even as the very stuff
of candy is sugar—the very stuff and fabric of your true nature,
the true “I” deep within you, in the very centre of your consciousness,
that is bliss. You are your Self, the Atma. You are Spirit, a never-ending,
perennial fountain of spontaneous, self-existent joy and happiness.
You are not this body and mind and intellect.
The East views the individual being in a totally different light from
the West. The West says, “Man is an animal endowed with a superior
faculty called intelligence”. The East says, “Man is a glorious,
ever-perfect spiritual entity, full of light, full of bliss, and possessing
an inferior faculty called intelligence or mind which is his servant,
which is his instrument”. Mind is but the medium that God has given
you so that the joy, the beauty and perfection of your Self may be expressed,
unfolded, made manifest upon this earth-plane, but you have made a travesty
of your life. The normal human being lives a life of prostitution, by
which I mean, he totally forgets and neglects his glorious spiritual
nature and prostitutes all his energies in satisfying the animal within
him. The pattern of his whole life is just a constant effort to satisfy
the sensual urges of the animal within him. Nice things to collect,
nice things to wear, nice things to see, nice things to enjoy—pleasure,
pleasure, pleasure—and happiness is destroyed, as it were, in a
constant round of pleasures. There is so much noise through the tumult
of the senses that the music of the soul, though it is always there,
just gets killed completely.
The great joy of my message to you is: nothing can destroy this happiness,
because it is imperishable. In your true nature you are indestructible,
you are imperishable. So, the joy that you are is also imperishable,
indestructible; nothing can touch it. No sorrow can penetrate that exalted
realm where you dwell as pure bliss, right within the very centre of
your being, the innermost core of your consciousness where dwells the
true “I”.
Bliss Is Thy Nature: Bliss Is Thy Heritage
This name and form, this Mr. So-and-So, this Mrs. So-and-So, this is
not the true ‘you’. It is just a personality superimposed
upon your true being by your parents. They gave you a name. They called
you ‘this’ and they called you ‘that’, but this
name-form personality is not the true you. Changeless from childhood,
into youth, into adulthood, into middle age, into old age is that “I”
which is within you. It was within you when you were an infant; it was
within you when you were a child running here and there; it was within
you when you began to grow. It was within you when you were an adult
and lost your peace of mind by going after pleasurable objects; it was
within you when you became weighed down with the responsibility of a
householder’s life; and it will be within you when you come to
experience old age. This unchanging “I” within—try to
find out what it is. Give yourself a chance of turning within, a chance
of stilling the mind and not allowing it to go externally towards objects.
And then look within and try to find in silence, in a little peace,
the “I”, and you will find that the real “I” within
is peace, bliss, all-light, all-fullness. There, there is no need, no
want. You do not feel any lack of sufficiency there. It is all-full
and no desire permeates that sacred realm, for it is an experience of
all-fullness. Every one of you can possess this supreme experience of
all-fullness, all-joy and peace right now, right here; it does not have
to be manufactured. You do not have to go out of yourself somewhere
in order to reach that blessed state. It is your birthright. It is your
privilege and prerogative to claim. Stop being a slave to the senses
and stop this ceaseless running outside towards petty and imperfect
objects and be silent with your Self and know that you are bliss, know
that you are fullness. Rise above desire and be aware of your true nature
which is incomparable bliss, which is indescribable happiness.
This incomparable bliss is within the reach of every single human being,
from the very fact of your being a human being. It is your claim. It
is your heritage from your Divine origin. You are all from that perennial
source of Infinite Bliss which people call “God”, which people
call “The Supreme”, “The Reality”, “The Truth”,
“The Spirit”. Call It what you may; approach It however you
will; worship It in whatever way you want to—it does not matter.
But, know that It is right here within you: that perennial and changeless
source of ineffable and indescribable bliss and joy. It requires nothing
to attain, only willingness on your part to give away that which is
petty, that which is paltry, and to aspire for and seek that which is
incomparable, which is peerless—the “I” within you which
is your true essential nature.
The first condition is to make use of your intelligence and try not
to be deluded by the attractive objects of the senses. They will lead
you on a merry-go-round, a wild goose chase which never ends, for pleasures,
you see, can never be subdued by satisfaction. The enjoyment of sense
pleasures tends only to accentuate the desire for them. Enjoyment intensifies
craving. You cannot put an end to desires that way. You can put an end
to them only by awakening to a higher sense of discrimination and knowing
the sense-objects for what they are worth, saying, “I, who have
been made in the spiritual image of my Divine Parent, will disdain to
go after these paltry things which are like bones thrown before a dog.
I am the son of the Emperor of emperors and I shall claim my priceless
heritage and not go after paltry things”. And, if you do that,
if you discriminate and reject that which is paltry, you become heir
to that which is of supreme splendour.
Inner renunciation implies discrimination between what is really happiness
and what is merely an appearance, and rejection of that which is not
of the essential nature of happiness and turning away from it mentally.
Mental renunciation born of discrimination—that is the secret of
this spiritual quest. That is the starting point of the path beyond
sorrow. In one of the greatest Upanishads, the teaching comes
to us: “O man, before each human being there always present themselves
two paths—one which is merely attractive and seemingly pleasant
and the other which leads towards the good, towards your true welfare”.
The unthinking one easily succumbs to the route of that which is pleasant
and seemingly attractive; and thus he misses his own welfare, his own
good. Whereas, the one who is wise, with discrimination awakened within
him, examines the two paths and finds out the true nature of the apparently
attractive and pleasant and rejects it and always takes the other path
which takes him towards the good and there he finds his welfare. There
he finds true happiness. This choice of paths presents itself to everyone
of you, every day, always, all through your life, from the very beginning.
And upon you alone will depend what path you take—whether you are
lured away by that which is pleasant and apparently attractive or whether
you have within you the light of discrimination which irresistibly takes
you towards that which is good, which leads towards your welfare.
Your Unhappiness Is Your Own Creation
This unhappiness is your own creation. It is self-created. It is due
to non-discrimination and due to your having become the slave of your
own senses. And therefore, what you have yourself caused, you have it
within your own power to cast aside. So, even as your sorrow has been
self-caused, your happiness too can be self obtained through your own
efforts. It does not have to be self-created, because it is there already.
It has only to be grasped and this is in your own hands. You are the
one who has to move towards that which is awaiting you to experience
it.
Develop Virtue: You Develop Happiness
How can you set about doing it? The basic thing is that happiness springs
out of a life of virtue. That is what the great science of Yoga tells
you. There cannot be happiness without virtue. Here I wish to make it
quite plain that I am not sermonizing. Someone told me, “In the
West, people do not like sermonizing. Don’t sermonize”. Well,
I cannot completely fulfil that wish, for to some extent, this humble
servant who stands before you and speaks to you at this moment does
sermonize, but then, this sermonizing is of a different variety. He
does not sermonize from a pedestal, but rather as someone humbler than
yourself, but who has been given a message to convey and, as your servant,
he presents it to you. Also, if I do sermonize, it is not that I say,
“Oh, you are all sinners. You have all gone to a degenerate state”.
Rather I say, “Look at the glory that is already in your possession.
Why don’t you claim it?” I am telling you what a wonderful
thing you are missing. Do not miss it! Now is the time! This unique
opportunity of a human birth has been given to you to obtain something
which is grand and which is glorious. Delay not! Why should you prolong
your bondage because of desires? Why not assert your essential master-nature
and claim that glory which is already there? This I would not call sermonizing.
And when I say that virtue is the essential condition for obtaining
this happiness, I just acquaint you with a great law. It is not merely
a psychological law, but also a spiritual law, for virtue refines your
nature. Your nature always manifests itself, expresses itself, upon
a threefold plane—the plane of body, an interior plane about which
you do not know (there is a plane of psychic energy within, which makes
this body active, dynamic, and function), and the third plane of your
mind where thoughts, ideas and desires constantly keep operating. And
virtue is that factor, that force in your life, which refines your entire
being on all the three planes. It refines the physical, it refines the
psychic within, and it refines your mind; and it is only in a mind thus
refined and made pure that steadiness, balance and absence of desire
become possible.
You may try your hardest, but from a mind that is not pure, you cannot
drive out desires, because mental impurity and desire are synonymous
terms. Passion and impurity tend to put your entire being into a state
of agitation on the three levels upon which I have commented. It is
the nature of passion to agitate. Likewise, it is the very nature of
purity to steady, to sustain, to strengthen and to make inward.
Therefore, it is a deep psycho-spiritual truth that the practice of
virtues like purity, simplicity, truth, compassion, selflessness, humility,
removal of greed, and removal of envy and jealousy and prejudice brings
about a slow transformation in all your nature and makes it refined,
subtle and pure; and with the advent of purity, the condition of the
mind undergoes a change. That mind which was restlessly plunging outward
towards objects of the senses, begins to go inward, begins to develop
calmness. I do not want to use the term “introverted”; actually
the mind becomes inward, it is no longer filled with the tendency to
become externalized. With the mind thus collected within through purity,
you slowly begin to have little glimpses of the true happiness that
springs from your own inner Self.
These are old-fashioned recipes; but they are the only effective recipes.
One cannot be impure and hope to have happiness. One cannot cling to
objects in blind delusion and attachment and yet hope to have happiness.
You cannot, out of your selfishness and hardness, cause pain and sorrow
to others and at the same time hope to have happiness for yourself.
The more you give happiness to others, the more you get happiness. This
is the law. The refinement of one’s nature, the culture and purity
of one’s whole personality—that is the indispensable prerequisite
for the dawn of happiness in one’s life.
Thus happiness is the product of selflessness, the product of negating
the constant pull of the senses, the product of virtue actively practised
in your everyday life. This law has always been there and it will continue
to operate in human nature as long as humanity exists, and this is the
only effective recipe. If you are pure, all the unhappiness that comes
out of the guilt of impure living is gone. If you are simple, all the
complications and frustrations arising out of a desire-ridden personality
are gone. A simple life immediately relieves you from the strain of
constant desires. If you are truthful, you can yourself know that the
whole world of constant fear and anxiety which follows untruth is immediately
gone. One untruth, and to protect it you have to repeat a dozen untruths,
and then your mind is in a constant state of fear and anxiety: “If
found out, what will be the result?” By sticking to truth, you
totally eliminate all the fear and anxiety and unhappiness which untruth
or falsehood puts you into.
Then, contentment. When you are contented, you are the richest person
in the whole world. You do not have any jealousy. When you are fully
contented with what you have, you do not envy others who have more than
what you have. Rather, you rejoice in the good fortune of others.
The Higher Happiness of Your True Being
Thus, developing virtues is the direct way to experience happiness
on the lower psychological level. But on a higher level, this is not
enough. You should not be satisfied with the happiness that you get
on the mental level, though even that experience you will find most
exhilarating. That itself is a great gain, but still greater is the
happiness that you should aim at. That greater happiness is the happiness
of your true being, of your real nature, of the Spirit within, and that
comes by constantly being above body, above senses, above mind and intellect.
Beyond all these is the eternal, changeless, silent Witness (Consciousness)
of all the changeful modes of these lower aspects of your being.
You are not the mind; the mind is your instrument. You are not the
body and the senses; the body and the senses are but your external apparel.
They are just your covering, your material sheath. More glorious than
all, supremely transcending all, You are there within as an untouched
spiritual personality which is Divinity Itself. Infinite Bliss is Its
very nature. No sorrow, no fear, no desire, can ever touch It. Therefore,
try to go into a little calm, silent, inward meditation every day. Feel
yourself as you really are. Once you get even a moment of that experience,
once you get even a little glimpse of that experience, you will never
give up meditation. You may give up your eating and drinking, but you
will not lose this opportunity of being silent, going inward and knowing
yourself as you really are.
Inward, within yourself, lies the Path Beyond Sorrow, the path to perennial
joy, the path to the real happiness in the truest sense of the term.
It is an unalloyed experience of joy totally devoid of any painful reaction,
of any imperfection, of even the least vestige of any material earthly
blemish. It is a perfect condition of joy, full of peace, full of ineffable
light and satisfaction within. And it is within the power of every one
of you to tread this Path Beyond Sorrow. It does not require special
qualifications. You do not have to be an aristocrat. You do not have
to be a man with a fat bank balance. You do not have to have an M.A.
or a doctorate degree. God, as He has made you a human being, has given
you all the faculties necessary for this inward practice, for this wonderful
gain of true happiness. The only condition is that the paltry has to
be rejected and the glorious has to be accepted as your ideal, as the
object of your quest in life, as the central seeking. Make that your
goal. Make the realization of the Truth within, the God within you,
your True Nature, the central goal of your life. Let all other things
be secondary to it; let this quest be the main thing. You will begin
to experience it, begin to get a glimpse of that joy right from the
first day you start this inward quest through discrimination, through
inquiry into the real nature of things, through mental renunciation
of that which is paltry, and through deep faith in yourself, in your
own powers to ascend unto this experience, and deep devotion to this
quest, to this ideal, and daily effort through calm contemplation and
meditation. This is the supreme panacea. This is the destroyer of all
sorrow, all pain. This will give you the great experience here and now,
not in some other state after you have passed the barrier of death.
This experience has to be right here and now, in this life, so that
you go out of this life gloriously, triumphantly, as a Master, laughing
with joy. That should be your destiny. That should be the great purpose
of your life. No fear of death. No fear of anything at all, for you
are deathless by your very nature.
We have to reject only those which destroy our happiness, and when
we reject these little sense pleasures and objects, we are not rejecting
anything at all. On the contrary, we are doing the wisest thing, for
we know them to be those factors that rob us of our happiness and, therefore,
we reject them. We do not reject things of worth, but we reject only
those factors that are the real enemies of true happiness, factors that
stand in the way of our getting the Supreme Experience, factors that
destroy the real happiness by a spurious substitute in the nature of
some sense experience which is not at all genuine and which is not a
positive experience at all. Establish your life, therefore, upon intelligence,
common sense, true discrimination. Use intelligence in a true and rational
way and know that objects do not give the Supreme Experience. So, build
your life upon discrimination, constantly inquiring into what is real,
what is unreal, what is perishable, what is imperishable, what is paltry
and changeful and evanescent and what is true, everlasting and changeless.
Thus discriminating, always move towards that which is eternal, that
which is perfect, that which is enduring and real, and reject all that
is of a contrary nature. That is the heroic life.
God bless you. May the Eternal Indweller shower upon you His divine
grace and may all the great saints and sages of East and West, bygone
as well as present, shower their blessings upon you and give you inspiration,
the strength to tread this path that leads to the Supreme Blessedness,
Supreme Joy, and put you in possession of this great joy right here
and now in this very life. That is the sincerest wish and heart’s
prayer of this most humble servant of yours, a brother-seeker on the
path that leads beyond sorrow to the supreme Atmic experience, to the
Truth experience, to the realization of the Bliss within. May God bless
you all.
The term “Yoga”, unfortunately, has been connected with notions
of strange and extraordinary experiences, mysterious occurrences and
mystical powers. The term “Yogi” is popularly understood to
mean not an adept in Yoga, but one capable of doing certain things which
ordinary people are not able to do. In a way this is true, as a Yogi
is capable of doing certain things which are not possible for
many persons, but a Yogi should not be conceived of merely as
one who is capable of flying through the air, going without food for
months and being buried alive underground for several weeks, or of such
other feats as are considered spectacular, extraordinary and unbelievable
unless seen.
These notions have arisen more due to distance than anything else,
for anything that is far away often seems mysterious. Also they are
perhaps due to the ridiculous stories that have been spread about such
feats.
The popular conception of a Yogi, though very wrong and very mistaken,
is not totally without basis, but that basis has been exaggerated, exploited,
magnified, taken out of its context, and given a twist which makes it
appear completely different from what it is.
There is an element of phenomena in Yoga, and undeniably, there are
elements of mystical experiences too; but these are not what they have
been built up to be. What are the bases and what are the explanations
of these phenomena? What is the attitude of Masters towards these phenomena?
These are points which are not only interesting to consider; these are
also important for you, since you are all seekers, and at least one
aspect of it all is something very personal to you.
In the title of today’s lecture, the subject is not just “Occult
Phenomena”, but “Occult Phenomena in Yoga”. An occult
phenomenon, we are told, is anything that is hidden, not easy to observe,
something secret or mystic. And today we are concerned with a reference
to these phenomena as occurring in Yoga, to teachers and seekers on
the path of Yoga, during the practice of Yoga. Therefore, we shall try
to consider this subject of occult phenomena as related to the yogic
way of life.
Yoga Is Conscious Hastening of the Process of Evolution
First of all, it is necessary for us to have a clear conception of
what the Yogic way of life is. The destiny of the human being is evolution
and we are all progressing towards ultimate perfection, since we are
all meant to realize once again our innate divinity. However, the normal
course of human evolution is very, very slow—perhaps spread over
countless years and requiring many lives, taking only a few progressive
steps in each life. In this process of taking a few forward steps in
each body, one undergoes untold suffering, untold sorrow, so much of
pain, so much of misery due to the bondage of the body and the interplay
of currents of like and dislike, of attachment and repulsion; one undergoes
all the different experiences which this physical frame has to go through—growth,
change, decay and death. To be brought into contact with anything that
is unpleasant is sorrow; to be removed from the contact of anything
that is pleasant is sorrow; to be deprived of that which we want is
sorrow; not to get what we desire is sorrow; and to get that which we
do not desire is sorrow; and ultimately, to part from all, that is sorrow.
The great ones pondered over this life with its bondages and imperfections,
its restlessness and peacelessness, its pain, suffering and sorrow.
They ruminated over the various miseries characterising this earth-life
and said, “No! We should not thus drag on through this earth-plane,
life after life! There must be some method by which we can complete
our great destined journey more quickly and find ourselves in that ultimate
state of supreme blessedness and perfection”.
The technique evolved to rapidly go through this process of achieving
fulfilment and perfection is named “Yoga”. The Yogic way of
life is one that implies a great intensification of the process of evolution,
since the Yogi does not want a slow, dragging process. In India, the
achieving of “at-one-ment” with that wonderful Perfection
(Divinity) is known as “Yoga”. This then implies that if you
take to this life of Yoga, you are trying to do within the short span
of a given incarnation, a given embodiment, what perhaps would have
taken you a thousand years or two thousand years, spread over several
successive incarnations, to achieve. Therefore, Yoga means an intensification
of evolution within a single life-span, or perhaps even within just
a few years of a single life-span. If you look at the Yogic way of life
from this angle then you will begin to understand many things which
may be puzzling to you.
If a Botanist were to evolve some method in his floral laboratory whereby
he could sow a seed of some fruit, have the tree growing in three months
and yielding fruit in six months, it would be considered that he had
accomplished a miraculous and extraordinary thing. He would doubtless
become a man of the day with the whole world agog at such an accomplishment,
with publications full of articles on his research and pictures of the
product, and the radio and the TV carrying the story of his miracle,
of what formerly took a much longer time having been accomplished, through
intensification, in a relatively short period.
Yoga is intensification. During this intensified effort to pack into
a short span all the experiences that the evolving individual would
otherwise have had to go through over a much longer period of time,
very unusual appearances, unusual phenomena, are frequently brought
about. To one who does not realize what is taking place within the consciousness
of the concerned individual, these things appear as extraordinary, but
one who understands knows exactly why they have come about.
It is not in the lives of all seekers or all practitioners of Yoga
that one comes across these phenomena, but only in the lives of those
who go all out for Yoga with every cell and nerve fibre, with all their
heart, mind and might, with an all-soul dedication to the life of Yoga.
Changes Upon Five Levels of the Yogi’s Being
During the process of this evolution, this unfoldment, various transformations
arise in the individual upon five different levels of his being. On
the physical level, various changes and experiences are seen. Upon the
psycho-mental level (the mind and the Prana), certain changes take place,
certain abilities come in the natural course, and certain phenomena
are witnessed, subjectively by some, and objectively by others. Thirdly,
certain phenomena occur at the level of the astral plane which is even
more interior than the psycho-mental level. Fourth, you have your spiritual
level, and with spiritual unfoldment, you begin to experience many inner
experiences. Here it is more subjective, and it is the seeker who is
aware of what is going on, and not other people who are not able to
know, for it is a still finer realm, still deeper, in the depths of
his being. The fifth is the highest level of super-Consciousness. It
is universal consciousness—God Consciousness—and upon this
level, the phenomena that are witnessed are the true miracles as we
know them. Christ operated upon this level and whatever was witnessed
in His life was the manifestation of the glory and the power of this
supreme level of cosmic consciousness, of Divine Consciousness. He performed
the miracles not as an individual, but as a Divine Being.
So, upon all five levels of the Yogi’s being, occult phenomena
are witnessed. When the practice of Yoga is started in earnest, even
the physical processes like the Yogic postures and breathing exercises,
or a little concentrated attention on the breath in Pranayama, may bring
various mystical experiences.
If one honestly tries to practise the Yogasanas (Yogic postures) and
keeps on with this practice until one acquires what is known as Asanajaya
or “Victory over posture”, extraordinary sensations may be
experienced from time to time. You may feel that you weigh a ton, that
you are pressing into the earth and the earth itself is being depressed
with your weight, that you are so heavy that nothing can move you from
that place. At times you may feel the very opposite of this and feel
feather-light (absolutely weightless) and you may not even be aware
that you are sitting. Both of these experiences come when one attains
Asanajaya, but they are subjective experiences. At other times, when
sitting in one of the meditative poses, one may get ‘jerks’;
and it is not uncommon, when one of these poses is held for quite some
time, for the aspirant to find himself seated several feet away from
where he was at first seated. This is not actual levitation, there is
no injury to the aspirant, nor is the aspirant aware of the movement.
This is something that anyone who has been doing Asanas for a long time
may experience in the course of a year or two. This is why many Masters
ask aspirants not to sit in any high place, on boulders, etc. Rather,
the aspirants are asked to sit in a room with something covering the
floor.
How does this come about? In Hatha Yoga, much insistence has been placed
upon purification. Yoga means “the ascending into purity”.
When this purification process is at work, there come about changes
in the body cells, and also changes in the psychic energy through the
various inner currents or channels (“Nadis” as they are called).
When this happens, a new nerve current, which hitherto has been inactive,
is set into motion by the prevalence of an excess of Sattva in the body,
and the body reacts, and sometimes these ‘jerks’ are experienced.
Some Psychic Powers
On the psycho-mental level it is the very common experience of those
who have done a little sincere seeking (whether they have known it by
the name of “Yoga” or just been seeking and practising certain
physical exercises) to find that they have developed certain abilities.
The most common of these abilities or inner occult experiences is thought-reading.
You may be talking to someone, and before the other person speaks, you
know what that person will say. You may pick up a telephone and say
something and it happens to be exactly what the person at the other
end is thinking; and when talking, you anticipate the other person’s
conversation. You may begin to repeat what is in that person’s
mind. It is telepathy, but it is spontaneous rather than developed telepathy.
Even when you are exercising it, you are not aware of so doing. This
spontaneous telepathy just happens and it is the first and the most
common of occult phenomena and is on the mental level.
The second is clairvoyance, which is also common. Many people are able
to see things that are far away. In clairaudience, you may suddenly
be put into a state where you are able to hear someone who is talking
two hundred miles away.
The three occult phenomena of telepathy, clairvoyance and clairaudience
are all upon the lowest level. When one’s Prana becomes refined
and one’s mind becomes purified, these phenomena come naturally
and often one is not aware of them, and some, even though aware of them,
do not know they are extraordinary and take these powers for granted.
When a thing grows very slowly and gradually in a person, that person
is not conscious that it is unusual and thus takes it for granted. These
three powers are the primary powers in Yoga—the primary occult
phenomena in the path of Yoga—and they come much more rapidly in
Yoga than in other methods.
Personal magnetism comes when your evolution goes still further and
when, from the psycho-mental level, a little unfoldment of the astral
level also is started; and the development of other powers begins. One
may lay hands upon someone who is ill and the person becomes well. One
may enter a room wherein is a person in a terrible mood, and the person
gets rid of that mood. The seeker may encounter someone who is violently
angry with him, about to give him abuse, and upon nearing the seeker,
that person is unable to say a word and just walks away. These things
that begin to develop in one—the power of healing and the power
of instantly subduing a person—are on the astral level. They are
powers which are not exactly on the spiritual level and they begin to
develop even when you are progressing very little.
Pure Occultism Which Is Not Yoga
Here I have to tell you a fact of which you had better take serious
note. The first three powers upon the mental level, the psycho-mental
level, and the astral level—all these powers one can have by sheer
effort. If the necessary effort, with determination, is made, one can
develop them. In Yoga they come through purification, and in the second
case, which I have just mentioned, they come through will-power, practice
and unceasing efforts. Telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, etc.,
are found to be actively present in certain hypnotists, practitioners
of mesmerism, etc., and in some people whose lives are in no way ethical,
who are not seekers and who are in no way the followers of the principles
of Yoga, which principles are purity, self-control, devotion to God,
faith, etc. Certain persons possessing powers such as hypnotism and
mesmerism are plain and pure occultists who have made occultism their
main vocation. The powers they have developed in this way do not indicate
the evolution of their nature or any progress upon the spiritual line;
for, if the powers are not acquired through an aspiration to realise
the Truth based upon a deep and abiding faith in God as the only Reality,
and as the goal and destination in life, then it is not Yoga.
Everyone of us has contact with the Cosmic Mind, for we all belong
to the Cosmic Mind. Our consciousness is a part of the Cosmic Consciousness
and our mind is a part of the Cosmic Mind, but the link is not there.
It is broken. Why? Because we are bound up with our own ego-personality.
But when we try to rise above it, the channel which connects us with
the Cosmic Mind and which connects our consciousness with the Cosmic
Consciousness becomes clearer and we are able to feel our oneness. When
this happens, knowledge hidden from ordinary minds comes into our possession—knowledge
of distant events and objects and, sometimes, even the knowledge of
the future. This is due to expansion of consciousness when a certain
level of development is reached and the spiritual being within is activated
and the spiritual nature is awakened.
This whole projected universe has come out of the subtle elements which
were the first evolutes from God. The subtle elements are Fire, Earth,
Air, Water and Ether—Ether being the most subtle. These subtle
elements should not be mistaken for the gross elements—fire, earth,
air, water and ether as we know them—for they are the most subtle
principles or the basic supra-physical primal stuff out of which the
gross elements have evolved. It is not this earthly fire or earthly
air or earthly water or earthly ether of which I speak, but the subtlest
essence out of which these grosser manifestations have developed to
make up the visible universe. The source of these gross and material
elements is invisible, purely subtle, cosmic. During the course of the
practice of Raja Yoga, when the Yogi reaches the stage where he is able
to concentrate, meditate, and go into trance meditation all at once
upon one or more of these subtle elements, then he gains mastery over
these elements. He is able to travel in space at lightning speed. He
is able to withstand fire or water, because he has complete mastery
over these elements at their very source. This is the extraordinary
phenomenon that explains the immutability of certain Yogis. Even when
passing through fire and water, they seem to come through unscathed,
and this is on account of the Samyama which they did upon these elements.
Playing With Kundalini Is Playing With Fire
When your spiritual practice takes the form of Kundalini Yoga and you
begin the inner occult process of Hatha Yoga, then, with the rise of
the power of the Kundalini from the lower mystical centres (Chakras)
into the higher mystical centres, which are in the occult body of each
being, there arise various extraordinary powers and experiences. Why?
There are mystical spheres in the inner realm of the universe and each
Chakra governs certain mystical spheres and all the phenomena of those
spheres become the experience of the seeker when he ascends upon this
path of Kundalini Yoga and operates upon that particular Chakra. Kundalini
Yoga is something which I always condemn. In this Twentieth Century,
to the vast majority of modern persons, Kundalini Yoga is unsuited.
And unless one has the extraordinary good fortune of coming across a
perfect Guru who has achieved his Illumination through Kundalini Yoga,
I would not advise one to go near this science at all. When people question
me about these inner centres, I invariably tell them, “It does
not hurt you not to know”. Some knowledge is better left to itself
and it is better not to know. Kundalini Yoga is a violent method, a
forceful method, a method to try to force into awakening certain dormant
powers. Yoga is a method of intensified evolution; and Kundalini Yoga
is a still greater intensification of this method, and therefore, it
is dangerous. It is playing with fire.
In all paths of Yoga—whether in the Yoga of pure love for God
(through prayer, through faith, through worship, through the Divine
Name, devotion and surrender) or in the Yoga of the intellect (the philosophical
Yoga of rationality, of hearing and reflecting over the words of the
Guru and deep meditation upon the great Truth) or in Raja Yoga (the
Eight-fold Ascent of a virtuous life, daily religious observances, steadiness
of pose, control of breath, withdrawal of mind, concentration, meditation
and superconsciousness) or in the Yoga of cosmic service (serving all
with absolute humility, egolessness and total self-surrender unto the
Divine Power, considering yourself as an instrument of God; selflessly
serving God in and through man in this universe and worshipfully dedicating
all your service at the feet of God)—the awakening of Kundalini
and its ascent from Chakra to Chakra takes place spontaneously, until
Kundalini reaches the highest occult centre. In the Jnani, in the Raja
Yogi, in the Bhakta and in the Karma Yogi, in all of them, this activation
and awakening of the Kundalini power and its gradual ascent from the
lowest centre to the highest centre takes place within the hidden occult
personality of the seeker; so it is something which comes about as a
matter of course. But, if you deliberately try to bring this about by
specific forceful techniques, there is always—and I say always—the
danger of arousing powers when your personality is not pure enough to
assimilate and absorb them, is not ready to withstand them. Whereas
in the other paths of Yoga, as you progress, you bring about a total
change and perfection in all your personality, in this forceful Kundalini
Yoga, what happens many times is one goes all out for the technique
and neglects the prime preliminaries, neglects the essential preparations,
and then, before the seeker is ready, these powers unfold. Kundalini
Yoga is an exact science, and its techniques are unfailing if properly
followed. Thus the seeker finds himself in a position with an excess
of power and not able to manage it, not able even to bear it and then
all Yogic life comes to an end for him.
It is in Kundalini Yoga that extraordinary powers, occult phenomena
and all these occult experiences manifest most intensely, because it
is the scientific technique of awakening the greatest power that is
within you. In the other paths, through purity, the dormant powers in
the various spiritual centres of your being manifest...right up to the
end when through Cosmic Consciousness, you are endowed with all the
divine powers, and then there is nothing which you cannot do! Through
perfection, when you get to the end of Yoga, you are endowed with the
eight major Siddhis such as “Anima” (i.e., the ability to
reduce yourself to microscopic proportions), “Mahima” (the
ability to expand to gigantic proportions), “Laghima” (i.e.,
weightlessness), “Garima” (i.e., extraordinary increase in
weight), etc. For instance, Laghima. If one who has gained this Siddhi
is taken to the top of the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building
and dropped, he would not fall, but would just float to the ground like
a wisp of feather-down. These powers have been demonstrated by Yogis
under observation. I have heard that excessive heaviness was demonstrated
by a Yogic Master in the West during the early years of his stay in
the United States in order to make the people understand that he was
not just ‘talking through his hat’, and that the subject of
his talk was something which was based upon experience and upon fact.
In public lectures, he sometimes used to demonstrate (as a token) the
truth about Yogic power. He would, for instance, sit there and call
upon anyone from the audience to try to lift him and there were instances
when not one, but several together, tried unsuccessfully to lift him.
Once a police constable, a very big and powerful man, tried to shake
this young Yogi, who was not very big at that time, and the constable
could not even budge him, not even by a hair’s breadth, and this
was demonstrated before an audience of five to six hundred people in
the city of New York. These phenomena are all a part of the Yogic ascent.
Persons Blessed with Mystic Powers
There is a totally different type of mystic phenomena and powers that
come through the Grace of God and a person who has not practised any
of the Yogic techniques may just obtain all of these powers spontaneously.
This happens only when God wants to make use of a person for some Divine
purpose and He has found a person who, through absolute life-long moral
perfection, is found fit as a perfect channel, as an instrument which
is fit and worthy. In such cases, the person is always characterized
by an extraordinary humility and self-effacement and he never makes
use of these powers of his own volition. The “I” (ego) always
stands aside and this person is just used as a willing and egoless instrument.
Such an individual is always absolutely desireless and does not go after
anything which this world has to offer, but lives a life of the utmost
simplicity, almost of poverty. Utmost humility and desirelessness become
the chief characteristics of such a person. Such individuals are very
rare, but I mention it just to let you know that such cases are not
impossible. Such cases have been witnessed in India as well as outside
of India, the powers coming spontaneously and being due to the fitness
of the person and through Divine Grace.
Occult Powers and the Spiritual Seeker
What is the place of these various inner powers in Yoga? What are their
uses and abuses? What is the attitude of the true seeker to these powers?
What are the attitudes of Masters towards these powers? What is the
place of these powers and the various experiences in the life of the
Yogi?
In the first place, one of the most important things you have to know
about them is that they are by-products. They are not the quest of the
Yogi. They are not the thing for which the seeker has taken to the path.
For him, they are just something to pass by on the way. Just as, when
you are on a journey to the city, you arrive at and pass, for instance,
the Eldorado Motel, and Simpsons-Sears, and then a bridge—all of
which have to be passed by since none of them is your destination,
the destination for which you started. You may ask, “Why do these
things come?” Well, because you are progressing, because you are
moving onward, you must pass by these things that are on the way—by
the side of the highway—and they are a sure sign that you are
progressing, that you are moving along.
Secondly, they serve as encouragement. After all, a human being likes
to know whether he is accomplishing something or whether all his efforts
are just turning futile—whether they are proper and right or misdirected
and useless.
These powers come as temptations to test your moral worth and they
are the greatest barrier to Self-knowledge. These powers gain entry
into you so subtly, so insidiously, that unless you are extraordinarily
introspective, extraordinarily watchful and extremely careful, even
without your knowledge you may succumb to them and become vain. Then
one begins to have a superior type of pride which is much worse than
any gross pride, such as pride of position, pride of wealth, of youth,
prestige and power; it is the pride of being high and above the rest
of mankind.
“All the rest of mankind does not possess that which I have. I
possess something which no one else has,”—this type of subtle
vanity and egoism is the greatest obstacle. It is the greatest danger
to the seeker, for it goes to nourish the ego which is his deadliest
enemy. It is this “I” which has to die in order to get God,
and anything which fattens this “I” is the very antithesis
of God. You may conclude that the Devil or Satan enters you and gives
you these powers, that Satan takes possession of you when you get these
powers. To use a spiritual metaphor, the throne which you have prepared
for God is then occupied by Satan. So these powers divert you from God,
taking you away from the straight path and inflating your false ego.
The seeker has to be very careful that he does not encourage these
powers at all, that he does not have any thoughts about them, and that
he brushes them aside.
What is the attitude of Masters to these powers? All Yogic Masters—The
greatest Master, my Master, Swami Sivananda, one of the greatest saints
that India has produced in recent times, and Sri Ramakrishna, the great
Master of Sri Swami Vivekananda who came and gave Yoga and Vedanta to
the West in 1893, and many other saints—have been absolutely at
one in their opinion regarding this matter. “Right from the beginning
of the spiritual path,” they say, “beware of psychic powers.
Beware of occult powers.” If you get caught in their fascination,
you are lost. Your spiritual life is destroyed and all of your Yoga
will simply go away. And once you lose Yoga, it becomes very, very difficult
to regain it. It is almost impossible to regain it. Once you fall from
Yoga, then you have indeed to work very hard to regain the lost status.
The Masters are very strong in their terms of condemnation. They say,
“Shun occult powers as you shun poison”, and they are indeed
poison to spiritual unfoldment. Kick them aside.
Sri Ramakrishna had this actual experience: he said that once these
powers were brought to him in a basket. This was an inner mystical experience
in which he was offered them, in which he was pressed to take them.
At first glance they appeared as truths and he was about to look at
them, when suddenly the whole thing became real to him, and in this
reality he found them to be occult powers, mystic powers, lordship of
the whole earth, and he immediately spat upon them. Spitting is the
worst form of insult in India and he spat upon them and began to shout,
“Take them away! Take them away at once!” People who were
near came running and asked, “What is it? What has happened?”
and then he kept quiet and controlled himself. Later on he told his
disciples that the power of the whole universe was offered to him and
for a moment or a split second, the mind almost looked at it, “but
my Mother came to my rescue and I was able to shove it aside completely”.
So, the teaching of the Masters, from the very beginning, is: “If
you want God, shun ruthlessly all powers, all occult phenomena, as poison”.
Do not be fascinated by occult phenomena and do not be diverted by them.
Or, before you know it, you will be caught in their coils. If you want
God, do not want anything else but God, for if you have God, you have
everything. Take it from me: if you have God, you have everything. There
is nothing in this universe that you lack, and all things but God will
appear to you like ashes, as they are not essentially anything.
If you want God, you go on to the greatest, the highest, the sweetest
and the ultimate. Do not have the least desire for anything else, and
if these occult powers come in the way, then just ignore them. One should
not be diverted, for the Yogic ascent is something which has to be done
with your whole being, with your entire personality. The whole heart,
mind and personality has to go into it one hundred per cent and any
distraction in which you become lost causes your whole progress to be
delayed.
Now I come to the last portion: what are the uses and abuses of occult
phenomena? Its abuses have been made very clear. To use them, to get
caught in them—this in itself is an abuse, because they are not
meant to be used at all. A great danger is that what has been built
up as moral structure, as humility, as goodness, as truth, as kindness,
as love, as mercy, may be directly affected by these powers if one does
not become absolutely based in moral perfection, and does not surrender
totally to the Lord and look to Him for guidance at every step, and
does not sustain the spiritual life with constant prayer and constant
recollection of Him. If one is still weak and in the making and these
powers come, they corrupt the mind and one may begin to make use of
them for obtaining those very things which had been renounced at the
start of the spiritual life. One may become a slave to money, to sensual
indulgence, to passion and to all that is base and animalistic in the
human being if these powers are used. It is said that a person may remain
virtuous in the absence of temptation, but when temptation comes, then
virtue flies. So, in the beginning, one has to be very careful, for
these occult phenomena have the power to corrupt.
Uses of Occult Phenomena
To seekers, to aspirants, to those who want God and are trying to make
use of their life to attain God, there is no question of the uses of
these powers, for the true seeker just ignores them, and for him they
have no content or value, but are things which he passes by on the way.
However, if I may speak of these powers independently of the seeker,
then there are uses to which these powers can be put, in a limited way.
Supposing a person is not in any way a seeker of God, and especially
if these powers are in the nature of healing, or magnetism or of prophetic
vision (where one is able to know of certain things before they happen,
due to clairaudience or clairvoyance), then use may be made of them,
but it has been observed that in such situations when these powers are
made use of, after some time, they leave the individual.
Magnetism is something by which one heals and cures people, and prophetic
vision is something which can be made use of to help people. Supposing
one has come to know something about some person, some danger that is
in the offing, then that person may be warned of such danger and thus
helped. In these entirely limited ways, the person, who is not a true
seeker in the real sense of the term, may use these occult powers selflessly—unselfishly—out
of compassion, out of love, out of a desire to help others. Some persons
have a sense of mission: “I have come here. God wants me to do
such and such a thing. This has to be done by me”. And if one endowed
with this sense of a mission is also endowed with useful occult powers,
it means that the powers have been given to him for a purpose, and so,
such powers may be used for the purpose given, but such a person will
not attain God. For that, one has to work.
And then, there is a use for these occult powers on a very superior
level. These powers have their place in Masters who have the special
task of guiding spiritual seekers and bringing people to God—bringing
people to the path. Sometimes the Masters make use of these powers to
induce faith in a seeker who is ready for the path, but whom a lack
of faith is holding back. And sometimes Masters help even common people.
They help them overcome the suffering of Karma. They cannot help them
to overcome Karma, but they help them to overcome the sufferings of
Karma by these powers. Upon a very high level, sometimes, these powers
are used by Masters on a large scale, to help not just one individual,
but a whole area with many people. There have been cases where Masters
have used these powers to help areas stricken with famine, drought,
etc., but we are not directly concerned with these, for such Masters
are on a level by themselves. They know what is to be, and in the fulfilment
of the Divine Will, they make use of these powers.
Avoid All Occult Phenomena
On the lower level, these occult powers can become the greatest of
corrupters, the greatest of obstacles for all true seekers. Ultimately,
seekers have to realise God and once one has realised through his own
discrimination that everything except God is just transitory, evanescent,
just a shadow-play, a momentary thing with which one has no lasting
connection, once one knows this, then everything except He, from the
little speck of dust to the highest power, all occult phenomena, mystical
experiences, become devoid of substance. They all partake of the same
nature of this passing, transitory, evanescent world. They are not real.
They are not true and they have no ultimate value, no inherent worth.
Therefore, do not run after shadows; hold on only to the substance.
Do not go after the chaff; go only after the grain that nourishes and
gives life. Do not be diverted from the path of truth by all that belongs
to the realm of untruth. See only the real and do not be deluded by
the unreal. All of these things except God—the highest, the greatest,
the innermost centre of your being—are in the realm of unreality.
Therefore, the only thing the true aspirant should do is to completely
become blind to all these phenomena and think only of the Lord. Live
only for the Lord. Love only God. And seek and be questing with absolute
one-pointedness and whole-heartedness for the Great Reality—God
and God alone. That is the message of the Masters—to avoid all
powers.
Seek God alone and never allow yourself to be diverted even one whit
towards anything other than God.
May the grace of the Divine illumine your intellect. May the love of
the Divine fill your heart. May the blessings of all great Masters ever
keep the light of discrimination and true awareness in your heart. May
the Masters guide you on the path. May they give you the true understanding.
May they give you the inner spiritual strength to resist all temptations
and to overcome the lure of all occult powers, petty powers, that seek
to divert you from the path. May they inspire you, strengthen you and
lead you on to the goal of supreme blessedness and crown your life with
the highest attainment of divine realisation, infinite bliss, eternal
wisdom and light and the immeasurable divine peace that passeth all
understanding. God bless you.
Glorious Immortal Atman! Blessed Children of Light and Immortality!
Beloved Seekers on the Pathway to the Divine! How privileged we are
to be able to gather here in this holy morning hour to bathe ourselves
in the glorious stream of meditation and the Divine Name! Such an hour
is a gift from God. It is a bestowal of love from One who is ever eternal,
from One who is our source, One in whom we eternally abide, and in whom
we are all one. Such a gift should be accepted with love, received reverentially,
and with devotion utilised by us all. Indeed, the token of our true
recognition of God’s continuous compassion and grace upon us would
be to ever try to make ourselves worthy of such marks of His grace and
to that extent we would be drawing nearer and nearer to Him. We should
ourselves live our lives in such a way that, seeing one of us, He, the
indweller (who knows our true aspirations, our innermost desires) would
tell Himself: “Here is a child that has wearied of the toys of
this mortal earth-plane, that has wearied of the worthless, passing
and perishable objects, that has wearied of the appearance, the names
and forms, of this great game of Mine, this drama of life, and now wishes
to turn to Me and, therefore, I should not tarry”. Thus recognising,
He brings into the life of one who is truly in need of Him, who truly
desires Him and Him alone, who is earnest in his quest, all that is
needed for his spiritual unfoldment and the attainment of the highest.
The yearning, the strong aspiration, therefore, is our part. That is
the step the finite takes, and that being sincere and earnest, the fulfilment
of it becomes His task. Thus it is that the great Master Jesus said,
“Ask and it shall be given”. The asking of it is the task
of each individual soul and the giving of it is verily the Father’s
task through wise love. And, as sure as the glorious dawn and the radiant
sun do follow the darkness of the night, so sure and certain is the
fulfilment of the true aspiration of the sincere soul in earnest quest
of the Supreme. Such occasions as this—of prayer, of worshipfulness,
of meditation—are not only proofs of the tangible presence of Grace
in our life, but from our part is proof of our sincere desire for Him.
Every time we turn away from earthly pursuits, every time we set aside
mere things of this world and collect ourselves in the stillness of
our inner being, and sit to worship Him and a call goes out to the Infinite,
“Here I am. I need You. Be Thou gracious. Reveal Thyself unto me.
I turn away from the passing and seek the Eternal”, it becomes
as it were, a true token of the sincerity and earnestness of the soul,
of the innermost being’s sincere desire.
The Nature of Meditation and Its Place in Yoga
Meditation, therefore, is the exercise of the deepest part of your
being. It is, in truth, the highest and the noblest exercise of the
supreme prerogative, the supreme blessedness of human birth. There is
no exercise loftier than worship upon this earth-plane. Let us be thankful,
therefore, for this beautiful morning, for this solemn hour and for
the privilege of sitting at the altar of the Divine Presence, entering
into the silence and bathing ourselves in the glorious radiance of His
presence. Let us be thankful for this privilege of trying to purify
ourselves of all that is earthly within us, trying to fill ourselves
with the Divine. Such acts of meditation form but a variation of the
process which our entire life is meant to be. Our life is meant to be
a constant opening of ourselves unto the Divine—a process of stilling
our nature, a constant process of turning away from the perception of
the non-self, a continuous process of rejecting the call of the non-eternal
upon our being and a resolute, a persistent, and an insistent opening
of ourselves to the Atman, to the Imperishable, to the Eternal. Our
entire life is meant to be an attempt to turn away from the unreal and
move towards the real, an attempt to reject the pull of darkness and
seek light and light alone, a resolute rising up from this plane of
mortality to the recognition of the immortal nature of the Self within.
And meditation is the same process intensified in a systematic and deliberate
way, canalised at a specific time. Meditation is intensified living
in the Spirit, and our entire life (and its movements) is a diffused
flow of the spirit of meditation, of the spirit of our spiritual quest.
These two processes, therefore, should have no specific break or barrier
separating them. Meditation should supply the dynamism for our living.
Meditation should be the re-charging of our life battery in an intense
manner. Meditation should be the spiritualising force for all our life—for
all our thoughts, feelings, ideas, sentiments and aspirations—for
all our dealings with the world. Our perception of the whole world and
of all life should be a movement fully bearing out the inner spirit
of meditation. These two, viz., life and meditation, are contiguous
and continuous processes. They are not two processes with a clear-cut
separating barrier.
Meditation is not some isolated act that you do in life and which has
no bearing on life, which is entirely of a different nature altogether,
and something which goes against the normal current of your life. Yet,
it may be going in a direction opposite to the normal current of your
lower self, of the desire nature of the mind, of the object-ward movement
of the senses. Such outward movements are the inherent tendencies of
the mind and meditation may go in opposition to these, but these outward
movements do not constitute your Self; the senses do not constitute
your Self; the mind and the desire nature do not constitute your Self.
Your true being is as a river rushing towards the ocean. Thus, in that
being, there should be no separation between your meditation and your
living. If this point is not borne in mind, you will find that between
meditation and the rest of your day-to-day life there is a sharp divergence,
and meditation becomes, as it were, a tug-of-war with the impulses generated
by your day-to-day life. It becomes a hard process—one part of
the mind contradicting the other, opposed to the other, with much waste
of essential energy. There is much conflict within, in the self of the
being. The harmony, the peace and the joy with which meditation can
flood your being and fill your countenance, that is lacking in your
expression; even though you meditate, there is not the calmness in the
eye. But where this inner secret has been recognised and life and meditation
go hand-in-hand, are fully in sympathy and rhythm, one finds that in
such a meditator the calmness of meditation flows through his life;
the peace of meditation shines through his eyes; the joy of meditation
pulsates and radiates through his entire being. Such, indeed, is the
place of meditation in your life. Such, indeed, is the role of meditation
in the day-to-day living of your entire being.
How to Start the Current of Meditation—The
Technique
We being embodied beings and our mind being what it is, our everyday
life does have a certain impact upon our soul consciousness, the innermost
awareness, and the senses again and again cloud the radiance of the
inner consciousness. Therefore, when you sit for meditation, instead
of starting the process immediately, you should allow a certain time
for the movement or the momentum of the external life to calm down.
Give a little time. Let the thoughts subside, and then, after the mind
has ceased its whirl of objectification, and is settling down, then
gently lift it up out of the self-awareness, out of the consciousness
of its union with its immediate surroundings and with the body. And
to that end, the chanting of the Divine Name, of Divine Mantras, produce
wonderful spiritual vibrations, divine in their potency, which help
to lift the mind up into a state of subtle awareness of the Divine.
In the state of calmness and upliftment generated by the quietness in
the withdrawal of the mind, the Divine Name evokes your concept of the
Supreme, your idea of the Great Reality. The whole body, the entire
mind and the senses quieten; and the mind is elevated. It is ready to
contemplate upon the higher ideas. Gently, the clinging of the mind
to lower ideas gets loosened. You should, therefore, prepare your mind
for meditation by filling it with Divine Bhav—a feeling or attitude
of spiritual affection—spiritual Bhav. It is somewhat like this:
after having travelled through a vast area of mountains and valleys
and jungles and variegated scenery, you suddenly come to the ocean-shore
and all these multifarious names and forms and ever-changing objects
cease and you see just a vast expanse. Your gaze is absolutely undisturbed
by any object. You gaze only upon vastness, only upon stillness. From
the many, you arrive at the vision of the One.
These processes of stilling the mind, of withdrawing yourself, of calming
yourself, of lifting up your consciousness through Mantras, through
chants, brings you to a state where the mind is rid of all multifarious
objects and is just centred on the God within—on Brahman or the
Atman or the Reality, the one Absolute Truth, the Supreme Being, the
Changeless Infinite. And even as from the far horizon of the eastern
ocean the orb of the sun rises up into that indescribable vastness,
your concept of that Being rises in the vastness of the ocean of Pure
Being. It may be in the nature of a sound, a Divine Personality, a formless
concept, a special idea or a set of ideas you have of the Divine. And,
as though the ocean itself has turned into a wave, no different from
itself, not separate from it, being the same, and yet appearing for
the time being as a wave pattern, you invoke upon this ocean of Pure
Being, gently, the appearance of your particular concept of God in the
form of your idea or set of ideas and then slowly, gently, flow forth
to that idea, that set of ideas or that personality. Let your entire
being melt and flow in a continuous stream of love and adoration, reverence,
worshipfulness, prayerfulness and faith until your entire being just
seems to be a continuous stream of such divine sentiments calmly flowing
towards your concept of God.
This pattern should be kept up—a continuous and unbroken flow
of loving God-thought. This is the very essence of meditation. It is
a state of mind when the entire mind is filled with God and God alone,
nothing else besides God. It is very necessary to recognize the process
of meditation as such, for there are various wrong conceptions, wrong
ideas about meditation, one of them being that it is an attempt to make
the mind empty. When this concept is presented to me, I always remember
the good old saying that an empty mind is the devil’s workshop.
Anything can come into the mind when it is empty. It is a very difficult
concept to break away from the minds of people, because it contains
a grain of truth. If there is a complete falsehood, you can contradict
it, but if there is a part that has a grain of truth, it becomes very
difficult to contradict. Uttering a half-truth is more dangerous than
a hundred percent falsehood. So, to thes
