The Moui

Vol. II APRIL 1965 No. 2

SRI RAMANASRAMAM, TIRUVANNAMALAI " Kinder far art Thou than one's own mother. Is this then Thy all kindness, Oh Aruna- (A QUARTERLY) chala ? " —The Marital of " Arunachala! Thou dost root out the ego of those Letters, verse 6. who meditate on Thee in the heart, Oh Arunachala!" —The Marital Garland of Letters, Verse 1.

Publisher : Vol. II APRIL 1965 No. 2

T. N. Venkataraman,

Sri Ramanasramam, CONTENTS

Tiruvannamalai. Page EDITORIAL : Self-Building .. 71 The Dance—Arthur Osborne . . 74 Tantric —Dr. I. K. Taimni . . 75 A Chakra at Sri Ramanasramam — Bhikshu . . 77 Editor : Kavyakanta Ganapathi Muni—Visvanathan . . 81 Loved Arunachala—Tr. ' Sein' . . 84 Arthur Osborne, Arunachala as Mandala Sri Ramanasramam, —Madguni Shambhu Bhat . . 85 Tiruvannamalai. Siva-—T. K. S. 87 Bindu in Saivagama—Dr. Anima Sen Gupta 88

ASPECTS OF ISLAM — VI : The Sufi Science of Lataif —Abdullah Qutbuddin . . 90 An Experience of Kundalini—Unnamulai . . 91 Taoist Alchemy—Lu K'uan Yu (Charles Luk) 92 Managing Editor : Principles of Buddhist Tantrism V. Ganesan, —Lama Anagarika Govinda .. 95 Sri Ramanasramam, The Practice of Shee Ney (Concentration)

Tiruvannamalai. —H. H. The Dalai Lama . . 100 Arunachala Ramana—G. L. N. . . 102

ARROWS FROM A CHRISTIAN BOW — VI I Hermetic Symbolism—Sagittarius . . 103 The Sleeping Beauty—A. Rao . . 107 Nityananda, Siddha and Avadhuta Annual Subscription —Pratibha Trivedi 108 Rs. 5, A Yantra for Scorpion Stings—Ethel Merston 111 FORfelGN . . 10 sh. $ 1.50 How I came to the Maharshi—VI : —Firoza Taleyarkhan . . 113 Life Subscription : "This" —And All That—Wei Wu Wei .. 115 The —Tr. Prof. G. V. Kulkarni Rs. 100 ; £ 10; $ 30. & Arthur Osborne .. 117 Single Copy : The Sage of Arunachala—Swami ... 122 Book Reviews .. 123 Rs. 1.50; 3sh.;~ $0.45. Bulletin . . 133 Introducing ...... 137 Letters to the Editor .. 139 THE MOUNTAIN PATH (A QUARTERLY)

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71

(A QUARTERLY)

Editor: ARTHUR OSBORNE

VOL. II APRIL, 1965 No. 2

SELF-BUILDING

[EDITORIAL]

The human mind turned downwards takes conflicting passions and subject to the cognizance of the world reported to it by tyranny of events. the senses ; turned upwards it receives intuitional knowledge and directions from The resultant state is best summed up in pure intelligence, which is its source and the Buddhist Four Noble Truths. There is essence. The light it; receives from above suffering — not in the sense that life is all guides it in its behaviour towards the world pain and no pleasure but that a man is spread out below. vulnerable to events and will eventually be vanquished by them in the form of sickness, That is how it should be, but in fact a old age and death. There is a cause for supposititious self ties a,' knot at the level of suffering — the rise of this supposititious mind, choking off the flow of light from self. There is a cure for suffering — the above and claiming direction of the reveal• demolition of this self. ed or manifested world below. The result is that a man resembles an old-fashioned And, the fourth truth — there are a num• egg-timer with the waist choked : that is an ber of ways to this cure. On the whole; they upper and a lower cylinder with the passage fall into three categories. The first is between the two constricted and almost through knowledge, by discovering that this blocked. pseudo-self really is pseudo and has no Therefore the mind finds itself not merely real being ; but real integral discovery, not cognizing and arranging the world reported merely theoretical acquiescence. The second by the senses but striving to rule it and in is through devotion or submission : pro• fact ruled by it. This is the cruel paradox, visional acceptance of the pseudo-self as an for by desiring one thing and fearing entity but insistence on its complete sub• another the pseudo-self or ego subordinates mission to the true Self above it and un• itself to the senses and* the world they complaining acceptance of the sense- report. Thus it comes to be torn between revealed world outside it, 72 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

The third is a technique of re-establishing under an expert and give him implicit contact between the upper (inverted) and obedience. Indeed, it is probable that most lower (upright) cones, thereby restoring magic and occultism has its origin in the man's true nature and rectifying his stunt• misuse of powers by those who have pro• ed perceptions and faculties, while leaving ceeded far enough along this type of path to a later stage the final demolition of the to acquire them but then shrunk back from pseudo-self that warped or stunted them by immolation of the ego. It is the most tech• cutting them off from their source. This is nical type of path and requires skill in the underlying principle of Tantrism. It means wedded to inflexible integrity of brings about the wedding of the mind with purpose. the Spirit. Tantrism is an integral part of . It is held by its followers to be co-eval with Who is it that; aspires ? Pure being can't \ the . Its extant written texts are of Nor can that true function of the mind — a later date but that is nothing to go by To accept, cognize, respond. Between since a religious tradition is normally; hand• them — what? ed down by oral transmission before being However well disguised, the evil ghost. put in writing, and this is naturally much Yet effort must be made. But without more so in the case of a secret tradition like desire. Tantrism confined to initiates. Till there shall come the union of the two — Some scholars claim to have found the Pure Being and intelligence of mind — origins of Tantrism in the non-Aryan Indus- Through elimination of what stands Valley civilization or among the Mongol between. peoples north of India, but really the ques• Methods are many ; this alone the task. tion is not very important. It is not to be supposed that these peoples were without It is seldom that any path falls exclusive• any technique of spiritual training, and ly into any one of the three categories out• whether this had more affinity with , lined above ; however one or another of Tantrism or Shamanism can have only an them will predominate. academic interest. Certain it is that Tan• What has always proved fascinating in trism is an intrinsic form of Hinduism and paths of the tantric, as of the yogic, variety has been so from remote antiquity. is that they develop higher powers and per• In one sense Tantrism might be held to ceptions in the aspirant during the course be more of a popular. religion than that of of his quest instead of leaving them to flow the Vedas, being open to persons of all through spontaneously on its completion. castes and both sexes, whereas Vedic ritual They carry on the tasks of demolition and was to be performed only by those of the building simultaneously. Every path com• upper castes and most of it only by men. In bines the two processes of contraction and another sense, however, it was and is more expansion — squeezing the ego until it is restricted, not being a religion for a whole small enough to pass through the eye of a eommunitybut (like Yoga in India and Sha• needle and expanding the mind to infinite manism among other peoples) a path of pure intelligence. But on an Advaitic path spiritual development available only to there is very little expansion until the con• those who are initiated into it. It can best traction is completed. be described as a science of spiritual deve• Herein lies the attraction of a tantric path, lopment having both its theory and practice, but also the danger ; for the ego will like any other science, and verifiable by the attempt to clutch at the new or expanded results of its practice. powers and use them in its own right. To Its scriptures, therefore, the Agamas or guard against this it is essential to work as they are called, are on the whole 1965 SELF-BUILDING 73 less concerned with theoretical exposition true alchemy wTould reveal themselves only than the and more with practi• to the pure in heart. This, like everything cal directions for sadhana. For this reason else in the divine science, is quite logical and they are apt to be cryptic and abstruse so as practical, since a man whose desires are to guard their secrets from unauthorised turned downwards or outwards to worldly students. However one cannot generalise things cannot at the same time be aspiring about this : for instance two Agamas which upwards, or at any rate not with sufficient express pure Advaitic doctrine were trans• force and persistence to achieve anything. lated from into Tamil by Bhagavan Even a physical machine will not generate and are contained in English among his enough power to accomplish its work if the ' Collected Works'.1 steam leaks out through unauthorised aper• tures. Neither spasmodic effort nor a gene• One might say that Tantrism is pre• ral vague desire for achievement can so eminently a polytheistic form of Hinduism, vivify the technique of sadhana as to make consisting largely of the invocation and it effective. A steadily burning upward worship of various gods and goddesses ; and turned flame of rightly guided aspiration' is yet, paradoxical as it may appear, it is at necessary for that. In fact the more elevated the same time pre-eminently self-reliant, a man's consciousness becomes and the more being a science of development of the potent his higher potentialities are activated the tialities latent in man. What resolves the more dangerous to him is a divided state of paradox is the understanding that the same mind with desires pulling him both ways. formless Spirit which manifests as the uni• verse with all its forms and powers mani• Basic to Tantrism is the worship of Siva fests simultaneously as and in the indivi• and , God and Goddess. Siva is God dual. Therefore the same forces which as pure Being and Consciousness, that is to appear to manifest outwardly as gods and say viewed statically ; the Shakti or Mother goddesses are to be developed as latent is the Divine Energy. This is equivalent to potentialities of the sadhaka himself. the Christian conception of the Logos ; and it may be that in Mediaeval Hermitism this Those who are accustomed to think of conception was also developed into a divine religion as a combination of belief and devo• science. " In the beginning was the Word, tion may query whether technical and what and the Word was with God, and the Word seem even to be mechanical disciplines was God. The same was in the beginning really can lead man to recover his poten• with God. All things were made by him, tially divine state as is claimed in T antra and without him was not anything made and Yoga. What they forget, and what that, was made. In him was life and the life almost all Western dabblers in Yoga over• was the light of men."2 Word for word this look in practice, is that the first two steps of would apply to the Shakti. it is often Yoga are Yama and , both implying stressed that she is not only with Siva but control of character and behaviour, the is Siva, that she is with Him from the former more in a negative sense and the beginning, from all eternity, that she is the latter in a positive. Yama involves rejection Mother and Creator of all that; is. Therefore not only of egoistic and immoral actions but prayer is directed mainly to the Mother. even desires and Niyama contentment and God as the Father, as pure Being, pure aspiration. The ethical basis of Tantrism Consciousness, does not take cognizance of may not be formulated in such detail but it the individual; it is the Mother, the creative is no less obligatory. In Hermetism also, the and redemptive energy, the Logos, who nearest Western parallel to Tantrism, it was creates the seeming universe of the indivi• constantly stressed that the secrets of the dual and draws him back out of it to rea• lized Oneness with the Father.

1 Published by Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvanna- malai, and Rider & Co., London. 2 St. John, I, i_4. :., ' 74 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

There are various Tantric techniques but The awakening of Kundalini and her central to them is Kundalini marga. Kunda- direction to one after another of the stages lini could best be described as the spiritual of ascent is achieved by a sadhana which vitality of a man or as his shakti. In ordi• employs breath-control, incantation and nary man she is a serpent sleeping coiled up concentration on the centre to be activated (kundali) at the base of his spine. She has and its symbolism. It is, needless to say, to be awakened and directed up the a highly technical path. sushumna, the central column along the spine. Along this there are seven chakras This is the barest and briefest description or wheels which she has to pierce on her of the path of Kundalini, omitting all the route. Each of them has its colour, form, subtelties and technicalities. What has to be symbolism, and opens the way to a new stressed is that, on the one hand, the mode of consciousness with its attendant sushumna and chakras are not physical powers. Highest of them is the sahasrara or organs nor Kundalini a physical force thousand-petalled lotus in the crown of the (although its rising" has powerful physical head. This is the seat of Siva, and its acti• repercussions) ; nor, on the other hand, are vation (which may, also come spontaneously they imaginary or metaphorical. They are to aspirants who do not follow the path of very real and potent : not a part of the Kundalini) is the union of Siva and Shakti. purely physical state of man (if there is It is like the blazing of a thousand suns with such a thing) but a means by which to indescribable lightness and bliss. transcend it.

THE DANCE

By ARTHUR OSBORNE

Away, away ! Into the sky I dance ! Bending, swaying lightfoot leaping, Tireless staying, rhythm keeping, Up in the air ! The rhythm and sway Now here, now there ! Swift and smooth as a maiden's glance, I sway and I glide And nimbly . I ride, With never a care, As inly I throb to the cosmic tide : No outer step, no body stride.

Thus the rhythm keeps its track In a stiff old body with arthritic back. TANTRIG SADHANA

By DR. I. I 1. TAIMNI

A study of the tantric methods of attaining with the physical body so as to put them in higher states of consciousness may give the conscious touch with the subtle planes. impression that the process of acquiring Knowledge of the structure and way of Self-Realization is to a large extent mecha• manipulating a machine is absolutely neces• nical, using this word in its widest sense. sary if it is to be worked properly and safe• This seems to be anomalous in view of the ly ; and the human machine consisting of fact that the Reality which is the object of the physical and subtle vehicles is far more realization is the essence of consciousness complex and difficult to operate than any and it is hard to see how this can be merely physical machine can be. Hence the brought about by the manipulation of forces need for a competent who knows it working through established centres within thoroughly and can manipulate it expertly. the physical or super-physical bodies. The A sadhaka rash enough to dabble in practi• anomaly is, however, resolved if we remem• cal occultism without the necessary know- ber that although the realization of our how or under the guidance of an incompe• spiritual nature in varying degrees is not a tent guru is inviting disaster. So long as he mechanical process, the establishment of confines himself to doing and the connections or communications between the simpler forms of pranayama (breath control) different vehicles of consciousness is —* there is no danger, but as soon as^ he begins almost as much so, in fact, as the connect• to practise more technical pranayama ing up of electric circuits. If, therefore, a involving kumbhaka with the object of soul which has already evolved spiritually arousing the kundalini without the neces• and attained higher states of consciousness sary moral preparation and the guidance of incarnates in a new body, the mechanical a competent guru he is on dangerous ground. connection of the centres in the new physi• One reason why a competent guru who cal body with those in the subtler bodies can guide the aspirants on this path is not floods the lower physical consciousness with easily found is, of course, that the aspirant the higher knowledge or consciousness and often lacks the necessary qualifications. For, makes it appear as if this realization had as pointed out above, only mature and been brought about by purely mechanical highly evolved souls can tread the Mountain means. As a matter of fact, spiritual un- Path and take this short cut to Self-realiza• foldment follows its normal course in the tion. Less evolved souls have first to learn long life of the soul but in its* advanced the elementary lessons by easier and safer stages it may appear to be accomplished methods. When they are ready for the very rapidly and sometimes through the methods of rapid deyelopment the needed mere manipulation of different kinds of guru will appear. For it is a law of spiritual subtle forces, because when a soul incarnates life that when the disciple is ready the guru in a new physical body it recapitulates very appears. rapidly the progress it has already made' in What has been said above also shows the previous lives. futility of making a detailed study of the literature dealing with tantric practices. Tantric sadhana is really meant for such Since such literature deals with the hidden highly evolved souls as are mature and side of man's constitution and generally uses come into this world to continue intensively, symbolical language, it can be understood or to complete, their inner unfoldment. They only by those who possess the keys to the have already attained a high degree of moral hidden mysteries or who are in conscious and spiritual development and all that is touch with the realities of the subtler planes. necessary is to connect their subtle vehicles Those who try to acquire extensive and 76 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April detailed theoretical knowledge without having x polation of a considerable amount of spuri• any practical contact with the inner planes ous matter. It is natural that a system of are like a student trying to master some self-culture which provides easy methods of branch of physical science without ever developing higher states of consciousness entering a laboratory or coming into prac• and powers of various kinds should attract the tical touch with the facts the science deals attention of people who aim at exploiting the with. His knowledge may be encyclopaedic unwary and ambitious. This has led to but it will be unrealistic and his mind is the gradual production of considerable likely to be confused with undigested ideas spurious literature which has diluted and and purely theoretical details. In the; study debased the corpus of true knowledge origi• of any practical science it is necessary for at nally provided by competent teachers. The least a part of the knowledge to be based on spurious literature is of two kinds. One part direct contact with the facts the - science consists of scraps of theoretical knowledge deals with. Without this it is impossible to filched from various sources, compiled and make proper use of the theoretical know• presented - in an attractive manner. Many ledge we may have amassed. If this is true are inclined to believe anything even of facts that can be observed through written in Sanskrit and regard it with the sense organs and comprehended by the reverence, even though they have not the concrete mind it is easy to see how much slightest idea what it means. This blind faith more it applies to facts of the superphysical is exploited by unscrupulous writers to foist bodies with which deals. And yet spurious occult literature on the credulous there are people who spend their lives as genuinely spiritual. The other type of amassing extensive and detailed: information spurious occult literature is of a still more about these things without any relation to dangerous kind. It embodies genuine know• the facts of actual experience. ledge concerning the manipulation of forces There are two other complicating factors connected with the lowest levels of man's in the study of tantric literature dealing with nature. This, in its crudest form, is used as practical problems of^ self-culture. One is a means of gratifying the baser human ten• that blinds have been put up at every step dencies and animal propensities, and in its to prevent people foolish enough, to dabble higher but more dangerous forms it may be m these things without proper guidance and veiled and camouflaged black magic. It is know-how frdm injuring themselves and the admixture of true practical tantric others. This explains why a person may fol• literature with this kind of counterfeit which low the instructions laid down in a book for has given it a bad name and which makes attaining a certain end in exact detail with• the average man suspicious of it and of everything connected with it. Since it is not out getting any result. He simply does not always easy to distinguish between the possess the key to unlock the secret that is true and the counterfeit tantric litera• hidden behind the deceptive formula. Des• ture, it is perhaps well, human nature being pite this safeguard, however, it is not safe what it is, that this prejudice does exist and to practise these things on the basis of pure• keeps people away from dangerous fields of ly theoretical knowledge, for even though exploration. one will not obtain the desired result there is no certainty that one will not obtain Nevertheless there can be no doubt that undesirable results of the most serious tantric literature does contain not only some nature by unknowingly arousing forces and of the highest concepts of religion and philo• powers about which one knows nothing and sophy but also techniques of practical spiri• which one cannot control. tual training which, in the hands of those The other complicating factor in the prac• who possess the necessary keys and know• tical application of directions and instruc• ledge can open up the inner realms of the tions given in tantric literature is the inter• mind in a very effective manner. A CHAKRA AT SRI RAMANASRAMAM

By KRISHNi ± BHIKSHU

In the sanctum sanctorum of the Matru- everything, visible and invisible, is a mani• bhuteswara Temple at Sri Ramanasramam, festation of the Supreme . This is established by Bhagavan Sri Ramana technically termed -atma-aikya~ Maharshi, in a small niche in the western siddhi : realization that the Brahman or wall, stands an object of worship two feet Supreme Self is the same as the atma or square and proportionately high, cut out of individual self. a single piece of granite and resting on a The Supreme Being is called the Brah- base of gold plate on which is etched a rrmnda or 'egg of Brahma' and the com• particular symbolical geometric figure, This posite personality of the individual, the object has been worshipped ever since its pindanda or ' egg of flesh'. The embryonic installation by Sri Bhagavan in 1949, the form of the individual self or the basic form year before he laid down the body. In tech• out of which it is evolved is called the nical terminology it is a Sri Chakra Meru andanda or ' egg of life '. From the pinddnda standing on a Sri Chakra Bhu-prasthara^ the successful sadhaka rises to the Brah- yantra. mdnda or limitless Beyond. Successful It may seem incongruous to some that sadhana results in a blissful (ananda) Bhagavan who all his life taught the philo• conscious (chinmaya) existence (sat). In sophy and path of Advaita or Identity should that state there are neither ' I' nor 'others at the same time inaugurate this other mode neither self nor phenomena, but only the all- of worship or sadhana which is to all embracing Satchitananda, Being-Conscious• appearance far removed from it. But since ness-Bliss. However, even this, the texts he did so it behoves us to try to understand say, is only the mode of Brahman called why, and ior that we must investigate the ..Saguna or 'Conditioned'. Beyond it is Nir- significance of the Sri Chakra Meru and Sri guna Brahman or ' Conditionless Brahman' Chakra yantra and of the sadhana based on to which no words or attributes can reach. them. While doing so it is well to remember The Sri Chakra Meru type of sadhaha that they are a symbolism and a sadhana instituted by Bhagavan at his Ashram aims that go right back to Vedic times and are at this same ultimate objective through con• said to have been originally instituted by the centration on a symbol called the Meru. The Lord Himself. method is known as tantra or tantrism, being The object of all sadhana taught and prac• based on the ancient tantric texts. These are tised at Sri Ramanasramam is only to realize coeval with the Vedas. The sadhana based the ever-existing identity between the wor• on them is worship of the power aspect of shipper or individual self and the Worship• Brahman which is called Tripurasundari, the ped or Supreme Self. Advaita itself is based same as the Saguna Brahman we referred to on the Vedic text : Sarvam khaluidavfi above. Of course, it must not be supposed Brahma, " All this is Brahman". To realize that Saguna Brahman is anything different this is , the purpose of any type of Advai- from the ultimate Nirguna Brahman ; it is tic upasana or teaching. The teaching is only another aspect of it. succinctly set forth in another verse : Isd- Tantric sadhana proceeds by worship of a vasyam sarvam, yatkincha jagatydm form, or perhaps concentration on a form jagat, " Whatever lives and moves in this might be a more apt description. This is phenomenal worloVis to be clad in the lumi• usually a geometrical figure called a yantra nosity of the Lord." To put it more simply, although, as will be explained later, it may we have to realize as a result of sadhana also be an icon. The sadhana involves the (and not merely know theoretically) that utterance of and the use of the 78 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April requisite or supports at the right Out of the bindhu or causal state of the moment and in the right manner. It can only individual, which is the causal body or be validly performed by one who has been karana sarira of the cosmos, are manifested initiated into it by a guru. The tantras kala and ndda, light and * sound, which declare that the devata or god worshipped, appear on a formal plane as form and name. the yantra or symbol used, the or That is on the level of formal manifestation, words uttered and the mantri or worshipper but prior to that, on the causal plane, first are all one and the same ; and therefore the arise desire and action, ichcha and kriya, purpose of this worship is to rise from the These are the first two expressions of the state of creature to the state of Creator. Prime Power or Shakti. Thus the whole Probing into the meaning of this mode of process of manifestation is dependent on and sadhana, we find that it is a method of con• governed by the Shakti who is (1) Chit or cretising concepts in a material form and, by Consciousness, (2) Ichcha, wish or desire, working through the material form, rising (3) Kriya or action. Kriya is the conibined above it to the level of concept and then result of the first two and is represented as above even that to the finer and more subtle the apex of the triangle of which they form level of its Source. The material form through the base. Although one says i base' and which one works may be ' apex' the triangle is a prathika or icon or a actually inverted, with its prathima or geometrical apex pointing downwards, symbol. This last is known since it represents the. des• as a yantra. Tantrikas use cent of the Divine into the both types. Both are des- J manifested world. The1 sa- cribed in detail in the aga- dhaka is represented by mas or tantric texts ; and another triangle with its it is important that they apex pointing upwards. The should be exactly as laid two triangles interpenetrate down, because there is no and in the heart of them is fancy or imagination in the the bindhu. The ichcha of prescription but precise the individual leads him to symbolism. The object of action and from the two of this article is not to describe this symbolism them combined arises consciousness, aspiring at length but to explain the basic concept upwards. The descent of the Divine and "the underlying tantric worship. ascent of the aspirant are thus interlocked, and this is the simplest form of the yantra How do we represent the entire cosmos or symbol. Between the bindhu and the with its phenomenal manifestations in a Beyond the power of the Maha Tripura- geometrical figure ? Its causal or embryonic sundari or Supreme Shakti has now built for state, the andanda referred to above, is herself a pindanda represented by the six- represented by a minute circle called the pointed star, and out of this emerge the bindlnu, round which the yantra is built. microcosm or individual and the macrocosm This point or minute circle represents the or cosmos. This is also called the first pura, unevolved essence or germ of being, the vir• body or abode, in which the Mulashakti or tual Satchitananda known in the individual Original Shakti abides. as the antarydmi. To counterbalance it the fully evolved and perfected manifestation or All the geometrical figures used in the actualised perfection is represented by an chakra are variants of circles and triangles. infinitely large .circle. This is the Brah- A bindhu surrounded by a triangle in a cir• manda, and since it has no limitation the cle can represent the entire creation ; but limits of manifestation are represented by all the manifestations of pbwer have to figure squares within it. in the completed yantra. 1965 A CHAKRA AT SRI RAMANASRAMAM 79

According to tantric teaching the Mula- deities at each point of the diagram one shakti or Original Shakti manifests as three acquires their Grace and develops the power different at each node of the triangle. they represent. Thus, what begins as the These are Sri Maha , Sri Maha mere worship of an outer form becomes a Shakti and Sri Maha , the three pri• samskdra on the mental plane, and these mary forms of the Mother. They are the first samskdras can actualise powers in the indi• deities to be worshipped by every mani• vidual which were hitherto merely virtual festation of form and name in the universe. or potential. Finally they lead the individual Each of them has various aspects which are back to the amplitude of power, conscious• manifested in the larger triangles. The ness and bliss which is the essential nature powers of the Shakti are legion. Cosmically, of the Divine Mother. each.larger triangle represents a wider and Tantriks believe in the manifestation of grosser manifestation. The tantric texts give the Mother in form and name, which means the names of the presiding deities at each of that for them creation is a fact and not just the nodes of each of these triangles. This an illusion, as it is for the pure Advaitin. diagram of manifestation is surrounded by The Advaitin works for the elimination of two concentric circles, of which the inner ignorance or illusion, whereas the tantrik represents the centrifugal forces and the works for the development of cosmic power outer the centripetal. The various types of and consciousness. The ultimate goal of both force are represented by the petals of a is the same, that is identity with Saguna lotus. Outside the circles there is still Brahma and further eventual transition into grosser manifestation represented by squares the Nirguna beyond.1 which surround the pura or abode of the Tantrism teaches that there are a number . Every type of matter, metal, tree and of worlds on different planes, controlled by living creature, is given a place in these different powers of the Divine Mother. ramparts. The deities which preside over The ultimate result of sadhana is identifica• each rampart are mentioned and have to be tion with the formless and nameless Power worshipped by the aspirant. It is said that above them all that is Maha Tripurasundari, the Sri Puri or place in which the Mother the Supreme Shakti. manifests herself is surrounded by twenty- five ramparts' of different materials and that Now to return to the specific case of Sri beyond these is the unmanifest power of the Ramanasramam. The yantra called Sri Chakra Shakti. Bhuprastara is etched on a gold plate and forms the base of the Meru worshipped For the individual the order is reversed. there. To the normal Sri Chakra form thus What is in seed form in the first upright tri• etched Bfragavan added some hija akshards angle has to be expanded by sadhana into of the mantra of Kumara or Subramanya. the larger triangles which represent wider powers latent in him. Ultimately he has to The Meru prasthara is the Srix Chakra in overleap the ramparts and merge in the all- conical form, its apex representing the high• pervading Unmanifest. I have purposely est point of realization attainable to the not given the details of the chakras men• aspirant as a result of his sadhana. The mind tioned in the texts, since Tantrism is a becomes one-pointed and merges into the secret tradition not to be revealed in its indescribable Beyond that is the Mother. operative details except to those who are Through this chakra the deities or devus are initiated into it. It is enough to say that each 1 It is to be noted that these two viewpoints figure represents some tattwa in the cosmic are not mere theories, after the style of Western creation which is the second pura or abode philosophy, of which one must be false, if the other is true. Rather each is the theoretical basis of the Mother. And the Beyond, i.e. the for a practical discipline or sadhana. They are Brahmanda of the cosmos, is the third pura. in ultimate agreement not on the theoretical plane but because the based on them Je.a4 Tantrism teaches that in worshipping th§ ultimately to the same goal.—(EDITOR) 80 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April to be worshipped. It is taught that the uni• practised Self-enquiry. He was present at verse is in three stages, the causal, subtle the installation and took a great interest in and gross. For the Tantrik all this has to be the pratishtapana, personally adding some symbolised, whereas for the Advaitin it is details to the forms of the Chakra and not necessary. The ultimate result aimed at supervising the entire construction, of the is the same for both. temple. He inspected every stone of the tem• That is why Sri Bhagavan, who prescribed ple carefully during its construction and told Self-enquiry for those who could follow it, the workmen to eliminate every defect, and also instituted this type of temple worship at every stage he was the final authority for those who are helped by it. Thus the both on form and on the ritual to be adopted beneficent power which he brought on earth and the deities to be worshipped. It is is induced into the Sri Chakra sanctified by through his Grace that the Matrubhuteswara his touch. Some of his devotees believe that Temple is now -pratishtdpita, radiating when he felt that the time was approaching his Light, which is the Light of the Mother, for him to give up the body he instituted Its very name signifies that it is Ishwara this as a means of canalising and continuing (God) who has become the Mother, pointing the Grace he had brought to them. He to the identity between Ishwara and Mother inducted his Divine Power into the Sri or between Siva and Shakti. Thus the advai- Chakra and Meru Chakra so that those tic doctrine of identity is not negated by this drawn to the more elaborate path might con• act of Bhagavan's but on the contrary rein• tinue to receive his Grace even after the dis• forced so as to be available for those who appearance of his body as well as those who require a more ritualistic path.

As a fitting conclusion to this article we add a note on the installation of the Sri Chakra left by Alan Chadwick (for whom see the e Ashram Bulletin' of our issue of January 1964) .(Editor) Bhagavan took a personal interest in the ever something made me stay by him and cutting of the Sri Chakra Meru of granite on account of that I am able to testify to his which was installed in the temple and is deep interest in the temple and especially in regularly worshipped. At the time of the the Sri Chakra. It was because of this Kumbdbishekam or consecration, on the knowledge that I was instrumental after penultimate night before the holy water was Bhagavan's passing in persuading the poured over the images, he personally Ashram authorities to start the Sri Chakra supervised the installation in the inner Pujas six times a month. The explanation shrine. It was an extremely hot night, with of this unusual show of interest by Bhagavan the charcoal retorts melting the cement is probably to be found in the necessity for inside to further add to the heat and it must the Shakti always to accompany Siva. It is have been intolerable inside but he sat there not enough to have Siva alone. On the only for about an hour and a half telling them occasion when such a was performed what to do. in Bhagavan's life-time he refused to go to his evening meal at the usual time but On the last night before the final day he insisted on staying to watch it to the very Went in procession, opening the doors of the end. When some one2 remarked how magni• new hall and temple, and passed through ficent it had been and what a good thing it into the inner shrine where he stood for would be if such pujas could be performed some five or ten minutes with both hands regularly, Bhagavan replied : " Yes, but who placed on the Sri Chakra in . I hap• will see to this?" As I have already said, pened that night to be at his side the whole it is now being done and undoubtedly has time. This was unusual as I usually avoided the of Bhagavan. taking a prominent part in such things but 2 Actually it was Alan Chadwick himself who liked to watch them from a distance. How- said this and who undertook to see to it.— (EDITOR) KAVYAKANTA GANAPATHI MUNI

A Tantric Devotee of Bhagavan

By VISVANATHAN

I had my first darshan of Bhagavan Sri Ram ana in January 1921 at Skandashram, his cave-ashram on the eastern slope of Arunchala, before the present Ashram was built. He was then forty-one and I seven• teen. Apart from five or six inmates of the Ashram, including Bhagavan's mother and younger brother1, there were Sivaprakasam Pillar2 and a few other earnest devotees who had come for a short stay. The moment I set eyes on Bhagavan I immediately, through his Grace, sensed his freedom from the apparent individuality. Overwhelmed by his subtle Grace, I stayed on in that rare atmosphere of purity and peace for five or six days. As instructed by him,- I made a copy of Sri Ramana Gita3 from an Ashram note-book. This was significant, as it was by a deep study of this little book in his immediate presence that I, two years later, grasped the essence of his teaching and method. I felt the tenderness of a mother in him. As I took leave of him he gave me that look of Grace that bound me to his feet for ever.

Two years later, on the evening of Janu• was to become Sri Ramanasramam. It so hap• ary 2nd., I returned to Bhagavan, this time pened that I arrived on the eve of his birth• with the intention of staying with him for day, which then used to be celebrated on a good. I did not need to say so ; he gave me small scale. He accepted my surrender and an indication that he knew it. Since my gave me some directions to follow. first visit his mother had attained Maha- Next morning there was a gathering of , and in December 1922, about a devotees in his presence, one of whom fortnight before my second visit, Bhagavan attracted me and held my attention like a had come to stay beside her shrine at what magnet. On enquiry I found that he was

1 The future Sarvadhikari, for whom see our Kavyakanta Ganapathi Sastri, known to Ashram Bulletin of January 1964. many as ' Ganapathi Muni', that is ' Gana• 2 For whom see and the Path pathi the Sage \ the famous Sanskrit poet and of Self-Knowledge by Arthur Osborne, pp. 85-90, Rider & Co., London. scholar-disciple of Bhagavan. It was a thrill• 3 A redaction in Sanskrit verse by Ganapathi ing experience, as he impressed me as Muni of questions put by himself and other a man of dynamic energy, with the air of a devotees and of Bhagavan's answers. It consists Rishi and at the same time great gentleness. of 300 verses arranged in 18 chapters. An English translation also is available from the Ashram. His broad forehead, acquiline nose, shining 82 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April eyes, melodious voice and gently rippling University of Navadwipa in Bengal in laughter spoke of a spontaneously bene• appreciation of his talent for poetical volent, powerful and highly intelligent per• extemporisation. sonality. The audience listened with rapt In 1907 he heard of the youthful Sage on attention as he read out a Sanskrit poem he Arunachala, known then as ' had composed in praise of Bhagavan and Swami \ " In the heat of the afternoon sun explained its import. The poem praised he climbed the hill to Virupaksha Cave. The Bhagavan as the embodiment of the Mother Swami was sitting alone on the veranda of of the Universe, the of Brahman, the cave. Sastri fell on his face before him manifesting Herself as the three Shaktis, and clasped his feet with outstretched hands. Uma, and Sarasvati. Ganapathi In a voice quivering with emotion, he said : Muni returned that; afternoon to his abode All that has to be read I have read ; even in the Mango-tree Cave on Arunachala, half• Sastra I have fully understood ; I way down from Skandashram. have performed (invocation) to my A few days later I expressed to Bhagavan heart's content ; yet have I not up to this my wish to go through the main Upanishads, time understood what tapas is. Therefore I a study of which I had begun even before have sought refuge at your feet. Pray going to him. He directed me to Nay ana4, enlighten me as to the nature of tapas." saying that I could find no better teacher to " The Swami turned his silent gaze on him help me. Next day I went to Nayana's cave for some fifteen minutes and- then replied : on the hill in the afternoon. He came out to 1 If one watches whence the notion * I' arises greet me. There was a spiritual atmosphere the mind is absorbed into That ; that is about him and his abode. He welcomed me tapas. When a mantra is repeated, if one with a cordial smile. As he sat down I had watches the Source from which the mantra the impression of inner poise. After some sound is produced the mind is absorbed in preliminary talk I asked him to explain a That ; that is tapas.' passage in the about the experience of the Sage Trisanku. He gave " It was not so much the words spoken me such a lucid interpretation of the text that filled him with joy as the Grace radiat• that I began to revere him as a sage and ing from the Swami. With the exuberant resolved just to-sit at his feet in future and vitality that he put into everything, he wrote listen to whatever he himself chose to say. to friends of the upadesa he had received and began composing praises of the Swami This great poet, who reminded me of an in Sanskrit verse. He learned from Palani- ancient Rishi, was born in 1878 in a village swami6 that the Swami's name had been of Andhra, in thd Vizagapatnam district and Venkataramana and declared that hence• commanded the respect of elders even from forth he must be known as Bhagavan Sri his boyhood. He was a remarkablet and ver• Ramana and as the Maharshi."7 satile genius who devoted his whole life to tapas with the object of awakening India .He continued his sadhana under Bhaga• from her long slumber so that she might re• van's guidance, composing the while hymns capture her inherent glory. Though mar• to the Divine Mother, whom he now saw ried early, he wandered all over India, manifest in his Guru. His Kundalini was engaging in austerities in various sacred awakened and he had a remarkable experi• places. In his twenty-second year the title ence which helped him in his effort to attain ' Kavyakanta '5 was bestowed on him by an inherence in the Self. He was convinced that assembly of veteran scholars of the Sanskrit even for fulfilment of his original aim of national regeneration inherence in the Self 4 A Telugu word meaning literally ' Father', Ganapathi Muni's followers addressed him so and 6 Bhagavan's attendant. Bhagavan also did. 7 Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-

5 Meaning 1 whose speech is poetry '. Knowledge, p. 97. Rider & Co., London. 1965 RECIPE FOR TRANQUILLITY 83

was necessary, in order to be able to func• the eradication of the ego, as may be seen tion as an instrument of the Divine, uncon- from his prayer to the Mother : " May the taminated by the ego: omnipotent Mother hovering over this Having been with Bhagavan and Nayana insignificant mortal, annihilate my base for many years, I can testify to the great ego, and shine forth, pervading and regard and affection shown by Bhagavan for transcending my whole being." Apart from this esteemed disciple. It was at his request three magnificent poems in praise of the that Bhagavan wrote his wonderful Sanskrit Mother, comprising two thousand brilliant hymn of ' Five Verses to Arunachala', eluci• verses, he composed many other Sanskrit dating the significance of Arunachala and the works clarifying all the phases of traditional paths of , , yoga and jnana.8 teaching from the Rig-Veda downwards. Nayana wrote a brief Sanskrit commentary Ganapathi Muni passed away at Karagh- on Bhagavan's Upadesa Sara (' Essence of pur in July 1936, at the age of fifty-eight. Instruction ') and rendered his ' Forty Verses Bhagavan held the telegram bringing' the sad on Reality' into Sanskrit verse. Whenever news in his hand until the evening chanting any one asked Bhagavan about mantra and of the Vedas was finished. Only then did he upasana he would send them to Nayana, and say with evident emotion : " This is a Nayana used to direct those interested in shock : Nayana has passed away ! " After a Self-enquiry and Vedanta to Bhagavan. short pause he added : " Has he ? " indicat• The . significance of Nayana's place in the ing that he had not. With tears in his eyes scheme of Bhagavan will be clear if we he exclaimed :« " Where can we find the like understand that the ancient tradition of of him ? " India recognized as valid the Tantric path Bhagavan kept with him in the meditation of the awakening of Kundalini, culminating hall the Sanskrit letters written to him by in true experience of the Self. Sri - Nayana. Soon afterwards he arranged the krishna and many others reached the goal by occasional stray verses to the Master com• this path. Sri Shankara, the supreme posed by Nayana, giving them the title Advaitin, dealt with it in his Tantric works. ' Forty Verses in Praise of Ramana' ; and The emphasis of Nayana as well as Bhaga• they were regularly chanted in his presence van was on direct experience of Reality. He together with the Vedas every morning. used to say that one should catch fire and Many of the devotees of Bhagavan remem• blaze and that to do so was real spirituality. ber with love and reverence this outstanding This is just what Bhagavan says at the end disciple who was a rare poet, who spent his of his Upadesa Sara: " The spontaneous whole life in tapas and who gladly helped effulgence of the Self, devoid of the ego, is all who approached him, radiating joy and the greatest tapas." Nayana also insisted on cheerfulness and uplifting all who came in contact with him. May we emulate his self- 8 See The Collected Works of Ramanc^ Maharshi, surrender and devotion, praised by Bhaga• published by Rider & Co., London and Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai. van himself on several 'occasions.

RECIPE FOR TRANQUILLITY

By L. P. YANDELL

Once one is able to leave oneself out of consideration there results in one's life a kind of glad willingness to do what needs doing and to help where help is needed and a cheerful enduring- ness and patience which are of themselves a great reward. For with oneself no longer considered central it's remarkable how little there is left to fret about. LOVED ARUNACHALA

Translated by ' SEIN' from the Tamil of *

Loved Arunachala, serene You stand ! Unmoved as You, grant me to merge in You. Majestic Hill, You draw me close and bid Stand with stilled mind, as without thought You stand.

Yearning, my gaze is fixed on You alone, As magnet-like You draw the heart of me, You who enthrall, who give Your vassals peace, Rousing desire to be without desire.

As the moth circles the flame, Persistent to its doom, Let me go round, go round Arunachala, Till Your Grace my mind consume.

Let me be a prey to You, Arunachala ! So shall my griefs dissolve with my desires : Arunachala, the final Home of all, Enslaved by You, what more remains to seek ?

Loved Arunachala, serene You stand ! Unmoved as You, grant me to merge in You.

*For a note on whom see our 'Ashram Bulletin' of July, 1964, p. 189. £5

ARUNAGHALA AS MANDALA

By MADGUNI SHAMBHU BHAT

" Go round the mountain ; that is what the time to time. He left, after directing me to Maharshi used to recommend," said an take the branch of the road that curved Ashram friend to whom I mentioned my round the hill, not the broader bus road that intention of climbing to the summit. I felt ran straight on. When I returned to my a thrill as he said it and immediately knew chanting the mantra had changed. It now that he was right. The whole day I had a ran : feeling of a presence watching over me. I kept falling into prayer, and whenever I I bow down to that Queen of the universe, closed my eyes in meditation I beheld the the Spouse of Lord Siva and Empress of face and gracious eyes of Maharshi Ramana. the Red Mountain. I was overjoyed at having come to Sri I was elated and my effort to return to the Ramanasramam again, even though I had original mantra was unsuccessful. I felt my• waited so long. It was 28 May, 1964, and my self borne along like a wave on the ocean. initial visit had taken place sixteen years I reached the village of Adiannamalai1. I earlier, almost to the day, on 31 May, 1948. had known nothing about; the large temple I had been blessed by the Sage in a dream that stands there with its back to the road. at Dhari in Saurashtra, Gujerat, in 1943, and I felt drawn to it and had darshan all by my• that had determined me to come. How can I self of Lord Annamalai2 and His Spouse describe my feelings when I at last met him Ambika.3 As I was leaving the priest in face to face ? I stepped back with a gasp of charge invited me back in and I stayed wonder and respect and then prostrated while he made puja. before him. I was only able to stay at the After resuming my pradakshina I became Ashram for a day, but the potent spiritual aware with a shock of surprise that the impulse I received from him continued to mantra had again changed, and this time grow in me and still does. from the feminine to the masculine. It now So on the morning of 29 May, 1964, I set ran : out on pradakshina, walking barefoot round the hill. It was a pleasant morning witrTa I bow down to that Lord of the universe, cool wind and cloudy sky. 'The road was in who liberates from re-birth and as the Lord a good state, part of the way tarred, but of the Red Mountain. with a sandy strip to walk on at the side, Enfolded in bliss, I continued to chant this part of the way metalled. As I set out from new version the whole of the rest of the the Ashram I started chanting a Sanskrit way until I arrived at the great temple of mantra which had been revealed to me the Tiruvannamalai, where I prostrated before night before, running : the Lord and His Spouse. Puja was just I constantly bow down to that Queen of the being performed when I arrived. I took prasddam and walked back the remaining Red Mountain who always bestows happi• mile or so wrapped in devotion, arriving ness. I was walking alone, enjoying the loneli• 1 Meaning ' ancient Annamalai'. ness of the prospect, when a villager over• 2 Another name for ' Arunachala' and therefore for 1 Siva \ took me and accompanied me for about a 3 The spouse of Siva, known also as Uma, Par- mile, talking about personal matters from vati, Unnamulai and . 86 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April back at 11 o'clock to the kindly hospitality I found at the temple, and it was a real of the Ashram. revelation to me to find that the two tem• After resting and taking lunch I began to ples of Tiruvannamalai and Adiannamalai reflect on my pradakshina. I had heard that lie at either end of an axis running through Arunachala is the Ardhanareshwara Lin- the peak of the hill on which the beacon is gam itself. Was that why I had been un• lit every year at Kartikai, as the accom• wittingly led to chant the feminine form of panying sketch will show. To the east of the the mantra on the western side of the hill line joining them the hill is Siva and to the and the masculine form on the eastern side, west Ambika. I cannot express the love and that is from Adiannamalai back to Tiru- blessings with which they both embraced me vannamalai ? In order to check on this I during my pradakshina. I bow down to them sought for a ground map of the hill, which again and again.

(1) I constantly bow down to that (3) I bow down to that Lord of the Queen of the Red Mountain who universe, who liberates from re• always bestows happiness. birth and as the Lord of the Red Mountain.

(2) I bow down to that Queen of the . Arunachala Hill. universe, the Spouse of Lord Siva and Empress of the Red Mountain. Giripradakshina Road. *7

SIVA-LINGAM

By T. K. S.1

Siva-Lingam must not be taken to mean wara, abiding in all bodily vehicles, is wit• Siva's lingam, for Siva is Himself the nessing or recollecting Himself. Lingam. Lingam means ' indicatoras Some say that dlaya, the substratum and smoke is an indicator of fire. By Siva every• support of all, is the indicator, but Siva thing is brought to consciousness and thus Himself is the support of all. He alone is indicated, but nothing can indicate Siva. By Truth or Reality. He is Sat-Chit-Ananda, His Self-revealing Consciousness He ani• Being-Consciousness-Bliss. Consciousness is mates all manifestation. Matter needs to be Being ; unconsciousness can never be animated by Spirit, but Spirit only by Itself. Being. For Him who is the support of all If Siva were not pure Consciousness how there can be no support. He is unsupported could He be Siva ? And if He were non• like the ether (dkdsha). existent the whole universe which manifests For beings in samsdra (which is the same Him would be non-existent. There would be as ajwfina, ignorance) a support is provided mere nescience. commensurate with the ripeness of their The existence of nescience cannot be intellect, for worship of the Unsupported established by nescience. It is Siva, as pure Supreme. Consciousness and Witness of manifestation Sume knowers of the Vedas say that every• who reminds us of manifestation ; but the thing is absorbed in the Lingam (from ligi, Siva who reminds us is not Himself 1 to be absorbed'), but even so Maheswara* reminded. the Almighty, is that Self-evident Lingam This Maheswara2 is Pure Light. So declare and is not absorbed. This whole universe, the scriptures. Through His Light the uni• whose nature it is to be absorbed, is absorb• verse is perceived. Therefore Siva is Him• ed in Brahman, but Brahman is never self the Lingam, the indicator. For enlighten• absorbed. ed souls this Siva-Lingam is indeed worthy Just as the illusion of silver in mother- of worship.- of-pearl loses its apparant reality through It is He who gives life and light to all, knowledge (that it is not silver), so through though, when seen as Arunachala Hill He knowledge all that appears to be extraneous appears to be dull and inert through the to the Supreme Lord Siva, who is Brahman, power of His . The undiscriminating do is absorbed in Him. not perceive the Light of Siva in Siva- Those who practise kundalini-yoga find Lingam. the in the nddis or yogic centres in Some say that the Mahdvdkya (the the body and make these the seats for the supreme scriptural texts such as ' That thou worship of Siva. art') are the lingam or indicator of Siva ; The submergence of the thought-current others that Maya, the property of Siva, is ; in the unruffled calm of Paramatma is said others again that intellect or ego-sense is ; to be the essential worship. Mere worship others say the life-force or sound or exist• through mantras is not enough to destroy ence. But the great sages declare with abso• once and for all the tree of samsara, whose lute knowledge that since Siva is Self-efful• root is nescience. Knowledge (Jnana) alone gent there is nothing to indicate Him. is the true invocation of Siva. Formal puja Knowledge alone is the indicator. Mahes- (worship) is of the gross state ; the Vedas are the means to Realization ; but Jnana is 1 The author unfortunately died shortly after the Supreme State. It is inner worship and writing this article. See the obituary published in this issue.— (Editor) must be carried on unremittingly to termi* 2 Maha-, the Almighty, a name of $iva. nate the cycle of births and deaths, BINDU IN SAIVAGAMA A Philosophical Concept

By DR. ANIMA SEN GUPTA

The Agamas are a class of scriptures: one another. Siva is inclusive of Shakti. The which are primarily sadhana-sastras, that is connection between them is inseparable. manuals of spiritual technique, and only Siva, devoid of Shakti, is as good as a non• secondarily treatises on. philosophy. These entity. sastras attach great importance to the This Siva-Shakti or Divine Power mani• Divine power or Shakti of a Saguna fests itself sometimes in the form of will, Ishwara or Personal God. Just as physical sometimes in the form of knowledge and science speaks of energy as the stuff of the sometimes in the form of action. Bindu world, in the same manner the agamas speak seems to be that aspect of Chit-Shakti in of Shakti or Divine Power as the ultimate which the Divine Power actually parti• material cause of the world, It is the object cularises (krya) and also manifests itself as of the agamic sadhana to unite the indivi• knowledge (jnana) of particular objects : dual self with the universal self by awaken• because it is from bindu that words which ing in the individual's psycho-physical are the basis of vikalpa-jnana (particula• organism the various latent forces of Divine rised knowledge) arise in a graduated Power. The Divine or Mother element order. resides in the mind-body system of the jiva or individual in the form of kundalini- In the sphere of activity there is no direct shakti (power in a sleeping or coiled state) contact between Siva and Bindu. There is an and in and through* agamic sadhana, this indirect relation between the two through kundalini power is awakened by piercing the mediation of Shakti. When Shakti the six chakras. assumes the form of the creative will, its conative aspect is roused and causes a dis• The Agamas are divided into three main turbance in Bindu which results in creation. groups: Siva has been described as vispasta chin- 1. Shakta Agama or Shakta Tantra matra (unmanifest Consciousness) because 2. Saiva Agama He never actively participates in creation. 3. Vaishnava Agama or Pancharatra. He vitalises Bindu through His Shakti, and In this article I would like to give a general so Siva remains immutable and unchanging idea about Bindu in Saiva-agama and also in nature. to show how this concept can be treated as When Shakti seeks to manifest the a philosophical concept having a close rela• aisvarya (glories) of her Lord through the tion with the path of knowledge. diversities of different worlds, she assumes There are certain fundamental categories the form of Divine Resolution and causes which are admitted in the Saiva-agama. disturbance in Bindu. Since Siva remains in These are : Siva, Shakti, Pasu, Pasa, avinabhdva (inseparable) relation with Bindu etc. Shakti, He too has been regarded as the Siva is pure Consciousness which is im• cause of disturbance in Bindu. Just as the mutable, eternal and absolute. He is the sun makes flowers bloom by means of its Highest Reality and the final goal of the rays and does not undergo any change in its jiva. He is also the sole support of Shakti nature on that account, so Siva also causes and Bindu. Siva and Shakti, being of the disturbance in Bindu through His Will alone form of Chit, (Consciousness) inhere in without performing any actual creative act. 1965 BINDU IN SAIVAGAMA

When Paramesvara (the Almighty) Him• tial and expressed power. The object of self causes disturbance in Bindu through isadhana is to develop all powers of the His samkalpa-shakti (power of will), human body and mind. The hatha aims panchatattvas (the five categories) of Siva, at making his body strong, healthy and Shakti, Sadasiva, Ishwara and Suddha- free from suffering : for this purpose he vidya come into being. Maya is not directly makes a sincere attempt xo arouse the disturbed by the Almighty. According to the kundalini in him. According to , agamic view Maya is not illusory. It is kundalini is amrtavarshini (nectar-shower• substantive in nature and is the upadana ing) and the nectar that drips from kunda• karana (material cause) of the world. Bindu lini makes the body strong as steel and im• is also known as kundalini. Kundalini mani• mortal. Here we may say that, according to fests the soul's natural power of all-embrac• this school of yoga, kundalini seems to be an ing knowledge and action. In the bound con• organ of the mind-body system. Since psy• dition when the soul remains associated with chic powers, being pure in nature, are more mala (impurity) its natural capacity of illuminating and pleasure-giving than phy• infinite knowledge and action remains in a sical powers, kundalini, which increases dormant or sleeping state. If this power can knowledge and showers blissful nectar, may be awakened in the muladhara, the lowest be a special state of antahkarana or the of the chakras and can be made to rise up psychical apparatus. It may be a state in to sahasrara or the lotus in the crown of the which sattva becomes wholly purified and head by piercing the other four chakras, and tamas become fully subdued. then the soul becomes pure and is in a posi• has stated that the lotus of the tion to enter into the highest luminous heart is the seat of the atomic soul. If this world. Yogic discipline or knowledge may be so, then the purpose of sadhana is to destroy karma and maya. Mala, which is the make the lotus bloom, as otherwise the true most powerful enveloping force, can be des• nature of the soul will not be realised. The 1 troyed only by the awakening of this power lotus of the heart is here regarded as kunda• of jnana and krya. Kundalini sadhana is, lini and thus kundalini sadhana is har• therefore, the most important sadhana for monised with the philosophical position of the tantric worshipper and, for this reason, the Ramanuja school. Hence the concept of initiation into it is absolutely necessary. kundalini is not to be found only in" the mystic religion of Tantra or esoteric doctrine It is true that the concept of kundalini is of yoga, but is also accepted hv other philo - specially associated with guhya vidya sophical systems. Dhyana Yoga in the (secret doctrines) like tantra, hatha yoga Vaishnavite system and in fete. : yet on the basis of rational considera• tantra, hatha yoga etc. are not therefore two tion, we can accord a suitable philosophical entirely different lines of sadhana, since both status to it. In fact, iagamika sadhana is combine intellective processes with the pro• intimately related with the processes of cess of rousing kundalini shakti. This is not yoga-sadhana : both believe that mind, like to deny, of course, that there are variations body, requires continuous exercise and in the interpretations of kundalini according training so as to develop all its' powers and to whether the systems concerned are advai- potencies. Man is a vast storehouse of poten• tic or dualistic.

u The world has been trying to solve its problem with, a mind that is the problem What says that ? The self-same mind !

~" WEI WU WEI Aspects of Islam—VI

THE SUFI SCIENCE OF LATAIF

By ABDULLAH QUTBUDDIN

Being the spiritual aspect of Islam, Sufism dependent on the Ruh at the right side of is the science of man's spiritual develop• the chest. It is noteworthy that the Maha• ment. Like every science, whether spiritual rshi taught the same from the Hindu con• or physical, it has a theoretical and a prac• text and that Lama Govinda also asserts it tical side, its theory being the basis for prac• from the Buddhist context in his 'Founda• tical experiment and the success of its tions of Tibetan Mysticism'. That in the experiments being the proof of its theory. crown of the head is more concerned with It offers various modes of spiritual training, ecstatic experience, but the Ruh is the pure one of which bears a striking resemblance spiritual Being on which this is based. to the Tantric path of Kundalini. This is not really surprising ; indeed it is almost inevit• The activisation of a latifa is known as able since the subtle centres that are acti• its tajalli, that is its illumination or irradia• vated by these methods are neither invent• tion. This is accomplished by a precise ed nor imagined but simply recognized, technique under the guidance of one who being realities. They are not physical organs has himself achieved it and is qualified to guide others. The method will involve con• and none of their exponents suppose that centration on the latifa to be irradiated they are ; they are centres of the subtle together with other exercises such as a potentialities latent in man but undeveloped specific type of breath-control and certain in most men. specified incantations. It is a precise science,

In Tantrism they are called 1 chakras ' or unguided or misguided experimentation in wheels. The Sufi term for them, 'lataif' which may achieve nothing or even have (singular latifa) is much harder to define. destructive results, just as in a physical Al-Latif is one of the 99 Divine Names and science.' In fact there is real danger of the bears the implication ' The Subtle ' or ' The mind being overbalanced or the character Discriminating '. It is also the Name most ruined. Not only is right guidance essential commonly invoked when praying for some• but right motives as well. If such experi• thing, which indicates that it bears the mentation is practised out of curiosity or the implication ' The Discriminating Giver'. desire for powers it may injure the practiser The lataif, therefore, might be termed 6 sub• despite sound guidance and will certainly tle centres' or centres of subtle perception or not bring him to the goal — or at any rate of discriminate fruition. not unless his motives change in the course of the quest. According to Sufi teaching there are seven lataif. One of them is in the region of the Higher powers are in fact attained, for the solar plexus. One, known as qalb or heart, activisation of each latifa brings about a is in the place of the physical heart. Oppo• certain more or less specific heightening of site it, at the right side of the chest, is the understanding and perceptions. These may one known as Ruh or Spirit. A third is include ecstatic visions and experiences, between these two. As with the chakras, telepathic powers, ability to foresee the there is one in the forehead and one (cor• future and so forth ; all these, however, are responding to the Hindu sahasrara) in the regarded by the true Sufi as by-products. crown of the head. Activisation of this last The salik or traveller who values them for may seem to be the supreme achievement, themselves is likely to get stuck in them and but there are Sufis who hold that it is really proceed no further. Many occultists or magi- 2965 AN EXPERIENCE OF KUNDALINI 91 cians, people who have supernatural powers may fail still further by falling into the grip but no real spirituality, are experimenters of dark forces and becoming black magi• who have failed in this way, clinging to the cians. The true goal to be aimed at is the partial results attained and therefore unable state of ' Perfect Man', Insanul Kamil, and to co-ordinate and transcend them. Nor is for this purity, patience and persistence are the danger to be ignored that such failures necessary as well as right guidance.

AN EXPERIENCE OF KUNDALINI

By UNNAMULAI

I was in the midst of packing to return to mal body-consciousness and the world Tiruvannamalai after spending the hottest emerged again —• but how drab ! It was like months in the hills. My children couldn't being thrust back into a cage, in spite of the stand the heat of the plains. The house after-glow of the experience. which had been found for me was right out At that time I knew nothing of Kundalini of town, facing a magnificent mountain and and I rfave never practised it. had not been inhabited for some years,, so it was barely furnished. I had had to bring On my return to Tiruvannamalai I came even kitchen utensils, so it can be imagined across Sir John Woodroffe's 'The Serpent what packing there was. It was a terrific Power' and there read about the chakras rush and with very little help. and verified my experience. I did not men• tion it to Sri Maharshi until some time later It was in the thick of this4 that it happen• when I was asked to go through Heinrich ed. A sort of lassitude came over me, but a Zimmer's German work Der Weg Zum most pleasant lassitude. From the base of fielbst in which he speaks about Kundalini my spine a tingling feeling arose as if a from a theoretical standpoint. In this con• thousand ants were climbing up. I must have nection I told Sri Maharshi that my experi• fever, I thought ; but a most delightful fever, ence was different and wrote out an account so let it be. All thought of packing or going of it. He perused this very attentively and or any urgent work just vanished. I simply did not return it to me but gave it to the rested, whether sitting or lying down I attendant to file. don't remember. The ascent continued, Some years later I heard a certain Swami stopping at various points along my spine. I tell his disciples that when Kundalini bursts particularly remember at the base of my through the sahasrara in the crown of the neck. Then it burst through the crown of my head the person is realized. I did not want head with the blaze of a million suns — the to raise this question in front of everybody, splendour of it! Ecstasy % which no words so I spoke with him privately about it later, could describe! There was nothing to be when I begged to differ. I told him about my perceived — nothing now to describe. Only experience and said that it was only spora• this unimaginable feeling of indescribably dic and not a permanent change of state. blissful well being. There was nobody else. He asked me about it in great detail and was There was nothing else. So that's it! surprised but obviously convinced because How long it lasted — a second, an eter• he said : " You are moving in Grace ; just nity — I cannot tell. Then I returned to nor• persevere." TAOIST ALCHEMY

By LU K'UAN YU (CHARLES LUK)

The Elixir of Life can be sublimated In inches below the navel, and is regarded as the human body by the Taoist method of the center of gravity in the body. There are self-purification. In my book The Secrets of three places in the body called Tan T'ien : Chinese Meditation,1 I devoted a whole the Upper Tan Tien between the eyebrows ; chapter to Taoist meditation for beginners the Middle Tan, Tien between the pit of the without mentioning the method of preparing stomach and the navel ; and the Lower Tan the Elixir of Life in order to avoid unneces• Tien in the lower abdomen. All three play sary controversy, for my aim was to present important roles in self-purification : the the Buddha- for students in the lower to energize the inner heat ; the middle West. to set in motion the process of sublimating this heat ; and the upper to transmute it Taoist meditation as described in my book into Divinity. Constant mental concentration is good for those who wish to get rid of ail• on the Lower Tan T'ien will, in time, enable ments or to enjoy good health in their old the breath to reach the lower abdomen and age, and for those who want to prolong the to energize the inner heat like blowing a fire span of life so that they have sufficient time with a pair of bellows. When the inner heat to practise the Dharma which was well-nigh becomes intense and enough has accumu• impossible when they were young and mar• lated in the center of gravity, it vibrates and ried with children to look after. For married seeks an outlet.. At this moment pulmonary and family men can devote all their time to breathing ceases and is replaced by abdomi• practising the Supreme Vehicle only after nal breathing which restores the foetal their children have grown up and become breath as described by Yin Shih Tsu in my independent. For instance, upasaka P'ang book ' The Secrets of Chinese Meditation', Vun, who was a family man, only realized p. 167. Bodhi when he was old and after he had for• saken worldly attachments by dumping all The human body, is a microcosm which his gold and silver into the Hsiang river.2 should integrate into the macrocosm for the The practice of Taoism is also not easy for realization of Tao. In lay language, the Tao it has its rules of morality and discipline, is only attained when body and mind merge and all Taoists abstain from meat, sexual with and integrate into the universe. To intercourse, killing, stealing and lying, if by achieve this it is important to sublimate* both Taoists one understands serious practisers body and mind for the purpose of obtaining of the'doctrine of the Tao, and not worldly the Elixir of Life which alone can transform men who call themselves Taoists but do not mortals into immortals and so ensure this keep its rules. integration. Their method of meditation consists in In my book on Chinese meditation, I have sitting cross-legged to regulate the body and mentioned the Microcosmic Orbit technique concentrating their minds on the spot in the used by the ancients in China, which consists lower abdomen called Lower Tan Tien or in circulating the inner heat which has been Field of Elixir which is about one and a half energized, through the main orbit which begins at the Lower Field of Elixir below the 1 The Secrets of Chinese Meditation. Rider & navel, descends to the base of the spine, then Co., London, 1964. rises along the spine to the top of the head, 2 Qf. Ch'an and Zen Teaching, first series, pp. 74-78. Rider & Co., London. and thence descends along the face, throat, 1965 TAOIST ALCHEMY 93 chest and pit of the stomach to end up where -for the purpose of energizing the inner fire it started, thus completing a full orbit. which will sublimate the generative fluid and transform it into pure breath for the In practice, when the energized heat which preparation of the Elixir of Life and attain• has accumulated in the lower abdomen seeks ment of Immortality." an outlet, the practiser should direct it gently " When the microcosmic orbiting succeeds, down to the base of the spine to pierce the it will after a hundred days of continuous coccyx which is the first of the three gates" practice, stop involuntary emission when the of the main channel, the second between the generative fluid is about to be transmuted kidneys and the third in the occiput. The into pure breath. At the same time the inner feeling of intense heat in the coccyx shows fire should be extinguished. In the course of that the latter is being pierced. However, if this transmutation, a flash of positive (yang) the heat remains there without going up the light will suddenly appear between the eye• spine, this shows that the first gate is still brows to illumine the mind. However, the obstructed. The practiser should rub with his genital organ can still be aroused by sex hands the kidneys and spine down to its appeal. After this manifestation of the posi• base to warm the spine above the coccyx in tive principle, the microcosmic orbiting order to draw the heat up. Rubbing should should be continued for three hundred always be downward, but never upward ; orbits, after which the practiser should main• this is the most important point which tain the state of mental stillness in order to beginners should keep constantly in mind. preserve the positive principle so far After the inner heat has passed through the achieved until another flash of light appears. first gate, it will easily rise through the second to reach the occiput, which is very " In this state of mental stillness, a second difficult to pierce. The practiser should flash of positive light will suddenly appear persevere and will in time be able to cir• between the eyebrows, illuminating the mind culate the inner heat through the last gate again. This shows that the inner fire is com• to complete a full orbit. pletely extinguished, coinciding ' with the end of three hundred orbitings. After this During each meditation the practiser will the genital organ cannot be aroused again. be able to circulate the inner heat in the " In this state of mental stillness, the body main channel as many times as he. likes. will no longer vibrate or move as the inner After the main channel has been cleared of fire has been extinguished. The practiser all obstructions, the inner heat will enter should maintain this stillness to preserve other psychic channels and centers^ to sweep the positive principle until a third flash of away all impurities therein in order to positive light appears between the eye• reach and purify all parts of the body brows, which shows that the breath is including the marrow, bones, flesh, skin, wholly positive and is being accumulated in nails and hair. This is purification of the the three Tan T'iens. body by means of the pre-natal foetal breath which is pure and cleanses all impurities " Now is the time to prepare the Elixir of created by the post-natal breath. Life which can be obtained in about a week. The method consists in turning back the We present below a translation of extracts organ of seeing to look into the Middle Tan from Taoist texts so that readers have an T'ien in order to dwell in this stillness by idea of how the Elixir of Life is prepared. day and night without interruption until the " The generative fluid is produced by the sovereign remedy is made. digestion of food ; if it is not purified it will "When the Elixir of Life is made, all remain in the body and arouse sexual desire sense organs vibrate ; the positive heat in which will disturb the mind. Concentration the Lower Tan T'ien is intense ; the kidneys of mind is necessary to regulate the breath are hot; the eyes emit a golden light ; the 94 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April ears (seem to be) fanned from behind ; the only the positive principle while the Spirit back of the head rattles ; and the body returns to its state of utter stillness which (seems to) rise with spasms in the nose. causes wisdom to manifest. These six signs show that the Elixir of Life " The time is now ripe to draw the Spirit has been successfully prepared. out of the body ; first return it to the body as soon as it is out of it, and then send it " Now the practiser should close his anus further and further away until it can reach by sitting on a round piece of wood of the distant places returning to its body without size and shape of a man t'ou3 and covered hindrance. Three years later, the Spirit with cotton and his nostrils with a pair of which is still and shining will be no more small wooden pincers (used by laundry men) Spirit when it sinks into the state of Wu Chi in, anticipation of the rise of a fiery pearl to or Eternity." the heart which (however) does not hold it. To find an outlet, this fiery pearl will des• This article is written at the request of cend to the genital organ which has already Mr. Arthur Osborne, the editor of The shrunk and so is blocked ; then to the coccyx Mountain Path. As a Buddhist, I would which is not open ; and then to the anus advise readers to adjust the Taoist method which is not only shut by the piece of wood of self-purification with the Buddha's but should also be contracted to bar its pas• Teaching in the Surangama Sutra4 and other sage. Since the fiery pearl is now stationary in order not to stray from the at the base of the spine, the practiser should Buddha-nature which is inherent in each of make a pointed concentration to move it and us. For Taoist Yoga only enables us to thrust it through the first gate so that it will return to the all-embracing state of Alaya rise along the spine through the second gate which still pertains to Samsara. However, (between the kidneys) and the third gate experienced Taoists have no difficulty in (in the occiput) before ascending to the top practising the Buddha-Dharma and in China of the head and thence descending to the many enlightened Buddhist masters prac• forehead where it stops in the Upper Tan tised Taoism before joining the Sangha. T'ien, the abode of the Spirit. When the latter illuminates the Middle and Lower Tan There is a non-Taoist method which con• T'iens, all the three Fields of Elixir will sists in drawing up semen to the solar mingle to expand and become a great empti• plexus to sublimate it and transform it into ness. the divine. I have tried it and found it very harmful for it contributes to the arousal of " This is the moment when the mind sexual desire which beginners are unable to enters the great emptiness wherein the posi• overcome. We should always remember that tive- fire ceases to work and is no more per• the rules of morality and discipline should ceptible. Three months later, only feeble be strictly observed in the practice of medi• vibrations -are still felt below the navel. In tation, and that in the quest of Truth, we the fourth and fifth months, all breathing should on no account allow the monkey- and the desire to eat cease completely, mind to jump about aimlessly and so destroy leaving behind only the still and radiant all our efforts to get out of Samsara. We Spirit. In the sixth and seventh months, -should never forget this sentence in the there is no desire to sleep. In the eighth and Diamond : " Subhuti, you should ninth months, all pulses in the body cease develop a mind that does not abide to beat. In the tenth month, there remains anywhere."

3 A round steamed dumpling of the size of the 4 The Surangama Sutra. Rider & Co., London, palm of the hand, 1965. PRINCIPLES OF BUDDHIST TANTRISM

By LAMA ANAG^ wRIKA GOVINDA*

The word tantra is related to the concept cannot be understood merely philologically, of weaving and its derivatives (thread, web* but only from the point of view of yogic fabric, etc.), hinting at the interwovenness experience, which cannot be learned from of things and actions, the interdependence books. Moreover, those books from which of all that exists, the continuity in the inter• information was sought, were written in a action of cause and effect as well as in peculiar idiom, a language of symbols and spiritual and traditional development, which secret conventions, which in Sanskrit was like a thread weaves its way through the called Sandhyabhasha (literally " twilight fabric of history and of individual lives. The language") because of the double meaning term tantra (Tib. rgyud), therefore, can-also which underlay its words. stand for tradition, spiritual continuity or This symbolic language was not only a succession. Those scriptures, however, which protection against intellectual curiosity and in go by the title of ' Tantra are misuse of yogic practices by the ignorant or invariably of a mystic nature and try to the uninitiated, but had its origin mainly in establish the ^ inner relationship of things : the fact that the ordinary language is not the parallelism of microcosm and macro• able to express the highest experiences of cosm, mind and universe, individuality and the mind. The indescribable, which is T universality, ritual and reality, the w orld of experienced by the sadhaka, the true matter and the world of the spirit. This is devotee, can only be hinted at by symbols, achieved through practices, in which yantra, similes and paradoxes. mantra and mudra — the parallelism of the visible, the audible and the bodily expressi• Already (2nd century. A.D.) ble feeling-content in form of gestures — made use of the paradox as an expression of unite the powers of mind (chitta), speech the inexpressible nature of ultimate reality, (vak) and body (kaya), in order to realize when he declared that " Form is emptiness, and emptiness is not different from form the final state of completeness and —> in fact, emptiness is form. •— since all enlightenment. things possess the nature of emptiness, they Thus, applying the words of Guru Gam- have neither beginning nor end, they are popa, it may be said that the Buddhist neither perfect nor imperfect (i.e., they are Tantras represent " a philosophy compre• neither self-sufficient nor yet entirely with• hensible enough to embrace the whole of out individual significance in themselves)." knowledge, a system of meditation which —(Prajnaparamita - Sutra) will produce the power of concentrating the This ultimate reality, which is both mind upon anything whatsoever, and an art ' form ' and ' no-form • and which has been of living which will enable one to utilize called sunyata, the Plenum-Void, in each activity (of body, speech and mind) Nagarjuna's . philosophy (sunyavada) is as an aid on the Path of Liberation." symbolized by the vajra, the indestructible Among all the aspects of Buddhism, its diamond-sceptre, in the language of the Tantric teachings have until now been the Buddhist Tantras, which form the third most neglected and misunderstood. The rea• " vehicle" (yana) of Buddhism: the Vajra- son for this is the fact that these scriptures yana. Each experience points beyond itself and can therefore not be confined or limited * For a note on whom see page 215 of our issue of October 1964. as something that exists in itself, but only 96 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April in relationship to other experiences ; and this century A.D., contains not only mantras and infinite relationship contains at the same dharanis, but numerous mandalas and mud- time the unifying element of a living uni• ras as well. By the end of the third century verse, because infinite relationship becomes the Buddhist Tantric System had crystal• all-relationship and therewith a metaphysi• lized into definite form, as we see from the cal magnitude, in which samsara and well-known Guhyasamaja Tantra (Tib, : are the two sides or aspects of the same dPal-gsang-hdus-pa). reality. Thus, Benoytosh Bhattacharya is fully While thus Nagarjuna created the theore• justified when he declares in his Introduc• tical or philosophical foundations of Tan- tion to Buddhist Esoterism that "it is trism, the Yogacharins provided the practi• possible to declare, without fear of contra• cal and psychological means for the realisa• diction, that the Buddhists were the first to tion of this profound conception of a spiritual introduce the Tantras into their religion, and universe. In the application of yogic prac• that the Hindus borrowed them from the tices they united the most ancient sources of Buddhists in later times, and that it is idle Indian wisdom and religious inspiration with to say that later Buddhism was an outcome the meditative experiences which had been of Shaivaism." (p. 147) developed under the Buddha's guidance and It is, therefore, thoroughly misleading to under the influence of his teachings. Thus judge Buddhist Tantric teachings and sym• the Tantras were born, and their impact bols from the standpoint of Hindu Tantras. upon the general religious life of India was The main difference is that Buddhist Tan• so overwhelming that between the 6th and trism is not . The concept of the 8th century ^Tantrism was introduced Shakti, of divine power, or the creative into the major schools of Hinduism. The female aspect of the supreme God () most important Tantras of Shaivaism origi• or his emanations, does not play any role in nated in Kashmir, which had been a strong• Buddhism ; in fact, the term Shakti never hold of Buddhism and of Buddhist Tantrism occurs in Buddhist Tantras. In the Hindu in particular. This explains the many simila• Tantras the concept of power (Shakti) rities between Shaivaite and Buddhist Tan• forms the focus of interest. The central idea tras and also the fact that Buddhists accept• of Tantric Buddhism, however, is ed Shiva in their pantheon as a Protector of (transcendental knowledge or wisdom). the Dharma.1 To the Buddhist Shakti is maya, the very Western scholars, whose first knowledge power that creates illusion, from which only of Tantrism came through Hindu literature prajna can liberate us. It is not the aim of (and that of a very late date, like the scrip• the Buddhist to acquire power or to join tures translated by Sir John Woodroffe), himself to the powers of the universe, either therefore looked upon Buddhist Tantrism as to become their instrument or to become an off-shoot of Shaivaism, which was taken their master, but on the contrary, he tries over later by more or less decadent Buddhist to free himself from those powers, which for schools. aeons kept him a prisoner of samsara. He Against this view speaks the great anti• strives to perceive those powers, which have quity and consistent development of Tantric kept him going in the rounds of birth and tendencies in Buddhism. Already the early death, in order to liberate himself from their Mahasangikas had a special collection of dominion. At the same time he does not try mantric formulas in their Dharani-Pitaka ; to negate^ them or to destroy them, but to and the Manjusri-mulakalpa, which accord• transform them in the fire of knowledge, so ing to some authorities goes back to the first that they may become forces of enlighten• ment which, instiad of creating further 1 Just as the Buddha had accepted Brahma, and Shakka, differentiation, flow in the opposite direc- 2965 PRINCIPLES OF BUDDHIST TANTRISM 97 tion : towards union,' towards wholeness, sented as Shakti, i.e., the active principle, towards completeness. and the male aspect as Siva, the state of divine consciousness or * beingi.e., the The attitude of the Hindu Tantras is quite passive principle, or ' the resting in its own different, if not contrary: " United with nature' Shakti, be full of power ", says the Kula- chudamani Tantra. " From the union of In Buddhist symbolism the Knower Siva and Shakti the world is created." The (Buddha) becomes one with his knowledge Buddhist, on the other hand, does not strive (prajna), just as man and wife become one after the creation and unfoldment of the in the embrace of love, and this becoming world, but after the realization of the " un• one is the highest indescribable happiness, created, unformed" state of sunyata\ from mahasukha (Tib. : bDe-mchog). The which all creation proceeds, or which is prior Dhyani-Buddhas (i.e., the ideal Buddhas to and beyond all creation (if one may put visualized in meditation) and the correspond• the inexpressible into huihan language). ing Dhyani-Bodhisattvas, as embodiments of the active urge of enlightenment, which' The becoming conscious of this sunyata finds its expression in upaya, the all• (Tib.: .stong-pa-nyid) is prajna (Tib.: -embracing love and , are there• shes-rab) or highest knowledge. The reali• fore represented in the embrace of their zation of this highest knowledge in life is prajna, symbolized by a female deity, the Enlightenment (bodhi ; Tib. : byang-chub), embodiment of transcendental knowledge. i.e., if prajna (or sunyata), the passive, all-embracing female principle, from which This is not the arbitrary reversal of Hindu; everything proceeds and into which every• symbology (as some scholars imagined), but thing recedes, is united with the dynamic the logical application of a principle which male principle of active universal love and is of fundamental importance for the entire compassion, which represents the means Buddhist Tantric system. (upaya ; Tib. : thabs) for the realization of By confusing Buddhist Tantrism with the prajna and sunyata, then perfect Buddha- Shaktism of the Hindu Tantras, a basic mis• hood is attained. Intellect without feeling, conception has been created, which up to the knowledge without love, and reason without present day has prevented a clear under• compassion lead to pure negation, to rigidity, standing of the Vajrayana and its symbolism to spiritual death, to mere vacuity, — while in iconography as well as in literature, espe• feeling without reason, love without know• cially that of the Siddhas. These last used a ledge (blind love), compassion without particular form of symbology, in which very understanding, lead to confusion and dis• often the highest was clothed in the form of solution. But where both are united, where the lowest, the most sacred in form of the the great synthesis of heart and head, feel• the most profane, the transcendent in the ing and intellect, highest love and deepest form of the most earthly, and deepest know• knowledge has taken place, completeness is ledge in the form of the most grotesque re-established and perfect enlightenment is paradoxes. It; was not only a language for attained. initiates, but a kind of shock-therapy, which had become necessary on account of the The process of enlightenment is therefore over-inte^lectualization of the religious and represented by the most obvious, the most philosophical life of those times. human and at the same time the most uni• versal symbol imaginable : the union of Though the polarity of male and female male and female in the ecstasy of love, in principles is recognized in the Tantras of the which the active element (upaya) is repre• Vajrayana and is an important feature of its sented as a male, the passive (prajna) as a symbolism, it is raised to a plane which is as female figure, in contrast to the Hindu Tan• far away from the sphere of mere sexuality tras, in which the female aspect is repre• as the mathematical juxtaposition of positive 98 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April land negative signs, which is as valid in the caya-siddhi"3 it is said that all women realm of irrational values as in that of should be enjoyed by the sadhaka in order rational or concrete concepts. to experience the mahamudra, it is clear that this cannot be understood in the phy• In Tibet the male and female Dhyani- sical sense, but that it can only be applied Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are regarded as to that higher form of love which is not res• little as ' sexual beings ' as in certain schools tricted to a single object and which is able of Japan ; and to the Tibetan even their to see all ' female' qualities, whether in aspect of union (yuganaddha ; Tib. : yab- ourselves or in others, as those of the Divine yum) is indissolubly associated with the Mother (prajna-paramita or transcendental highest spiritual reality in the process of wisdom). enlightenment, so that associations with the realm, of physical sexuality are completely Another passage, which by its very gro- ignored. tesqueness proves that it is meant to be a paradox, and is not to be taken literally, We must not forget that the figural repre• states that " the sadhaka who has sexual sentations of these symbols are not looked intercourse with his mother, his sister, his upon as portraying human beings, but as daughter, and his sister's daughter, will embodying the experiences and visions of easily succeed in his striving for the ulti• meditation. In such a state, however, there mate goal (-yoga)." 4 exists nothing that could any longer be call• ed ' sexual' ; there is only the super-indivi• To take expressions like ' mother ', 1 sister dual polarity of all life, which rules all men• ' daughter ' or ' sister's daughter' literally in tal and physical activities, and which is this connection is as senseless as taking lite• transcended only in the ultimate state of rally the well-known Dhammapada verse integration, in the realization of sunyata* (No. 294), which says that, after having This is the state v/hich is called mahamudra killed father and mother and two Kshattriya (Tib. : phyag-rgya-chen-po), " the Great kings, and having destroyed a kingdom with Symbol ", which has given its name to one all its inhabitants, the Brahmana remains of the most important systems of meditation free from sin. Here ' father ' and ' mother ' in Tibet. stand for ' egoism ' and • craving ' (Pali : asmimana and tanha), the ' two kings ' for In the earlier forms of Indian Buddhist the erroneous views of annihilation or eternal Tantrism, Mahamudra was represented as existence (uccheda va sassata-ditthi), the the 1 eternal female' principle, as may be seen from Advayavajra's definition : " The ' kingdom and its inhabitants' for ' the words ' great' and ' mudra ' form together twelve- spheres of consciousness ' (dvadasa- the term ' mahamudra'. She is not something yatanani) and the Brahmana for the liberat• (nihsvabhava); she is free from the veils ed monk (bhikkhu). which cover the cognizable object and so on ; To maintain that Tantric Buddhists actu• she shines forth like the serene sky at noon ally encouraged incest and licentiousness is during autumn : she is the support of all as ridiculous as accusing the Theravadins of success ; she is the identity of samsara and condoning matricide and patricide and simi• nirvana ; her body is compassion (karuna) lar heinous crimes. If we only take the trou• which is not restricted to a single object ; ble to investigate the living tradition of the she is the uniqueness of Great Bliss" (maha- Tantras in their genuine, unadulterated forms, sukhaikarupa) " 2 as they existed still in our days in thousands If in one of the most controversial pas• 3 Prajnopaya-viniscayasiddhi in " Two Vajra- sages of Anangavajra's " Prajnopaya-vinish- yana Works ", Gaikwad Oriental Series, No. XLIV, p. 22. 2 Advayavajra, " Chaturmudrap. 34, quoted 4 Anangavajra, Prajnopaya-vinishcayasiddhi V, in " Yuganaddha" by H. V. Guenther (Chowk- 25, quoted in " Yuganaddha." p. 106. A similar hamba Sanskrit Series, Banaras, 1952). statement is found in the Guhyasamaja Tantra. 2965 PRINCIPLES OF BUDDHIST TANTRISM 99 of monasteries and hermitages of Tibet, practice of the bKah-rgyud-pa School is where the ideals of sense-control and renun• based, a yoga that was practised by Mila- ciation were held in the highest esteem, then repa (Mi-la-ras-pa), the most saintly and only can we realize how ill-founded and austere of all great masters of meditation worthless are the current theories which try (whom certainly nobody could accuse of to drag the Tantras into the realm of sensua• ' sexual practices '). Though we cannot go lity. | here into the details of this yoga, a short quotation may suffice to prove our point. From the point of view of the Tibetan " The vital force of the Five Aggregates Tantric tradition, the above-mentioned pas• (skandha : Tib. : phung-po) in its real sages can only be meaningful in the context nature, pertaineth to the masculine aspect of yoga terminology. of the Buddha-principle manifesting through ' Ail women in the world ' signifies all the the left psychic nerve (ida-nadi ; Tib. : elements which make up the female prin• rkyang-ma rtsa). The vital force of the Five ciples of our psycho-physical personality Elements (dhatu ; Tib. : hbyung-ba), in its which, as the Buddha says, represents what real nature, pertaineth to the feminine is called ' the world '. To these principles aspect of the Buddha-principle manifesting correspond on the opposite side an equal through the right psychic nerve (pingala- number of male principles. Four of the nadi ; Tib. : roma-rtsa). As the vital force female principles form a special group, with these two aspects of it in union, des- representing the vital forces (prana) of the cendeth into the median nerve (sushumna- Great Elements (mahabhuta), Earth, Water, Tib. : dbu-ma rtsa) gradually there cometh Fire, Air and their corresponding psychic the realization ..." and one attains the centres (chakra) or planes of consciousness transcendental boon of the Great Symbol within the human body. In each of them the (raahamudra ; Tib. : phyag-rgya-chen-po)? union of male and female principles must the union of the male and female principles take place, before the fifth and highest stage (as upaya and prajna) in the highest state is reached. If the expressions ' mother', of Buddhahood. ' sister ', i daughter ', etc., are applied to the Thus, only if we are able to see the rela• forces of these fundamental qualities of the tionship of body and mind, of physical and mahabhutas, the meaning of the symbolism spiritual interaction in a universal perspec• becomes clear. tive, and if in this way we overcome the In other words, instead of seeking union " I " and " mine " and the whole structure with a woman outside ourselves, we have of egocentric feelings, opinions and preju• to seek it within ourselves (" in our own dices, which produce the illusion of our sepa• family") by the union of our male and rate individuality, then only can we rise into female qualities in the process of meditation. the sphere of Buddhahood. This is clearly stated in Naropa's famous Six Doctrines (Tib. : chos drug bsdus-pahi zin- 5 W. Y. Evans-Wentz and Lama Kazi Dawa- Samdup : " Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines bris), upon which the most important yoga- p. 220 ff.

Meditation is the gateway to Knowledge. Though the servant were to serve God for a thousand years and then another thousand but were ignorant of the practice of meditation, all his service would but increase his distance from- God. •—AL MUHASIBI. THE PRACTICE OF SHEE NEY (Concentration)

By HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA

In the article that he contributed to our issue of April 1964, His Holiness spoke of Buddhism as followed by people in general. Only in the last paragraph did he indicate that a more potent (but also more dangerous) path is available for those who aspire. In the present article he gives some idea of the perseverence and technical know-how that is necessary in order to follow such a path — enough at any rate* to show that it cannot be followed from books but requires direct personal guidance.

Essentially SHEE NEY (Concentration) means fixing the stilled mind, the mind while experiencing a state of euphoria on any chosen object. If the concentration is on the Buddhist Refuges it is Buddhist concentra• tion. If it is on Bodichitta, it becomes Maha- yanic Buddhist concentration.

When one fully acquires the power of con• centration, one not only achieves physical and mental happiness but also acquires supernatural perception and can perform miracles and other wonderful feats. The main purpose is through SHEE NEY to attain the trancendental meditation, (Lhak- thong) which realises Sunyata and cuts off samsara at its very root. Almost all the knowledge of Tri-Yana (the three doctrinal expositions made by Buddha) can thus be understood. Therefore this concentration has many advantages. The preliminary require• ments for it are as follows :

1. Sound disturbs concentration. So the place to practise concentration should be secluded, solitary and climatically congenial. come) has taught that one must get free from the five defects by putting into practice 2. The practiser should be a person with the eight kinds of contemplation. The five few needs and easily contented. He should defects to be given up are : have severed himself from worldly affairs and should abstain from immoral action or (a) An indolent attitude towards concen• speech. tration. 3. He should be well versed in instruc• (b) Forgetfulness of the object of concen• tions on concentration. He should be fully tration. aware of the ill-effects of desire and the (c) Interference such as the mind ephemeral nature of the phenomenal world. becoming too sluggish or over active. To accomplish this type of concentration, (d) Failure in adopting counter measures Maitreya Buddha (the one who is yet to against such interference. 2965 THE PRACTICE OF SHEE KEY 101

(e) Adoption of counter measures after 9. Owing to constant practice one can now the disappearance of the interference. concentrate without much effort and con• templation comes more or less automatically. The eight attitudes of mind that are adopted to avoid these five defects are : The above nine stages of concentration can be accomplished by means of six forces 1. Faith in the virtues of concentration. as follows : 2. Earnest desire to attain it. 3. Perseverence in following it happily. (1) The force of hearing can accomplish 4. Ecstatic happiness of mind and body. stage one ; 5. Remembering to give absolute concen• (2) The force of reflection can accomplish tration to the object of concentration. stage two ; 6. Though the mind is fully concentrating (3) The force of memory can accomplish on a particular object a part of it must also stages three and four ; be watchful of any inclination to distraction. (4) The force of wisdom can accomplish 7. When danger of distraction is perceived stages five and six ; immediate mental preparation must be made (5) The force of energy can accomplish ta counteract it ; and stages seven and eight ; and 8. If and when counter-measures have been taken and their purpose achieved, the (6) The force of complete acquaintance thought of such action must then be relaxed. can accomplish stage nine.

The implementation of these 8 forms of The first and second stages of concentra• thought is indispensable. tion require the most strenuous absorption of There are nine rules or stages of con• the mind. In the next five stages (3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) one has attained a certain amount of centration. These are : practice and concentration is possible with 1. Complete absorption of the mind in the some breaks from time to time. In the eighth one object of concentration. stage the mind can now concentrate fully as 2. Constant endeavour to prolong the con• may be required. In the ninth or last stage centration. one is able to practise perfect concentration 3. Perceiving immediately when one's without having to make any effort. mind is diverted from the object of concen• tration and redirecting it to its proper place. When one has understood the purpose, the order of stages in concentration and the dis• 4. Gradually conceiving certain details of tinction between each stage and implement• the object of concentration. ed them, it will not be difficult to acquire 5. Conceiving the attainment of concen• profound meditation. This is a general type tration one should strengthen one's efforts. of concentration, but when one applies con• 6. At this stage one's feeling of aversion centration to one's own mind it has other to concentration is dispelled and one is in a purposes. better position to concentrate without much disturbance. To concentrate on mind one must first be able to identify what is mind. Mind is not 7. To be immediately aware of and dispel visible, it has no shape, colour or size, and even the slightest distracting thought while yet it can provide thought and imagination in concentration. and identify anything that can be felt or is 8. Having reached the stage when one is visible. Once you are able to recognise the capable of dispelling any distraction one- mind you can take it as the object of must now endeavour to prolong the period concentration and proceed with the same of concentration to the furthest ; and process of abandoning the five defects and 102 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

implementing the eight forms of thought in possible without effort: or distraction and the nine stages of concentration by means can be prolonged at will, thus achieving of the six forces. mental and physical happiness. After attain• ing effective mental and physical happiness, What we have said above is a very brief if further absolute concentration is applied extract of the instruction given by Maitreya then profound meditation has been achieved. Buddha and Ayasanga on meditation. This achievement is classified as the pre• As mentioned above, if concentration is paratory stage of the bodily meditation performed in accordance with the nine which is one of the three forms of medita• stages then at the ninth stage it becomes tion.

ARUNACHALA RAMANA

By G.L.N.

To think of Arunachala is Salvation ! Let our mind be ever absorbed in the thought o Arunachala.

Sri Arunachala and Sage Ramana were both aspects of the One. They were mani• festations and visible symbols of Trans• cendental Reality the realisation of which liberates man from the thraldom of Maya. The Holy Hill was the Mula Vigraha and Bhagavan Ramana was the Utsava Murthi. Ramana Maharshi dramatised and vivified the Eternal Truth for which the Sacred Arunachala stands. It was necessary in order to re-enthrone in the hearts of people an abiding faith in the glory of Arunachala. The sacredness of Arunachala is not a myth, but very real — this was emphasized by Calm, self-absorbed, silent, blissful and Bhagavan Ramana by his own example, and serene, Sage Ramana conveyed the very by precept. same message ; only that message was illu• minated by his own illustrious life. It The lofty peak that was reached by peo• became a living message and therefore more ple through the several paths leading to it ; convincing to the modern mind. the pinnacle of Light that shone gloriously and invitingly above, far above, the din and The pinnacle of glory and Self-illumina• bustle, the noise and turmoil, the misery and tion that Bhagavan Ramana reached every suffering, of worldly life ; the Holy Hill on one can reach, if only one is prepared to which dwelt , Bhaktas, Jnanis, aspi• ascend the hill of Sadhana. People should rants pursuing the , various paths to the have faith in the Scriptures, in the words of Supreme Godhead — represents the Abso• a Siddha-. and in themselves. They lute Brahman, the Goal of all, the Trans• should ceaselessly strive to attain the Eter• cendental Reality that beckons you to merge nal. That is the Message of Arunachala and yourself in its limitless bliss. Ramana. ARROWS FROM A CHRISTIAN BOW —VI.

HERMETIC SYMBOLISM

By SAGITTARIUS

With due apologies, our editor is too much tion of it. So it was wrapped up in symbols of a theoretician.1 In India Tantrism may in works whose sheer literary excellence still be a living path that people can follow ; carried it through the ages until the time but in the West Hermetism, its Western should come when men were again inte• equivalent, is not. Therefore its study can rested to seek and to recover records of past have no more than an academic interest. It search. That time has now come. Granted is certainly not one of the " paths available that the masses, both of the ignorant and to seekers in the conditions of our modern the learned, are more unenlightened spiri• world" which The Mountain Path, by its tually than ever before, nevertheless a new own announcement, professes to clarify. impetus is driving small groups and isolated rebels to reject modern ignorance and seek Once a tradition dies it cannot be revivi• the perennial philosophy that has been lost. fied. Understanding its symbolism does not enable one to follow it as a path. For that Moreover Hermetism is by its very nature there would have to be an unbroken trans• symbolical and' lends itself to symbolical mission of its technique through a chain of treatment. With its roots in alchemy, astro• , and this is just what is lacking ; in logy and masonry, it is or was an intricate fact that is why it died. Alchemy as a spiri• science for the rectification and harmonisa- tual science has long ceased to exist. Masonry tion of the experimenter, leading stage by is no longer an operative technique of build• stage through the lesser mysteries to the ing cathedrals and characters simultaneously. greater. It is interesting to note that, like Some few astrologers delve into the symbo• Tantrism in India, it was not a science for lism of their science but the skill has long the recluse or the celibate but-was open to vanished that could use it as a technique of the laity, just as Tantrism was to non-Brah• the quest. This is a time when more simple mins. and direct techniques are needed. Therefore Another Christian development with a they are available ; because Divine Provi• basic resemblance to Tantrism was the cult dence always makes available what is of the Madonna, the ' Mother of God'. needed. Closely allied to this was the troubadour's Having said this, it may; be interesting adoration of his .lady who, according to the (though no more than interesting) to see rules of the art, was supposed to be humanly how Hermetic symbolism was used in for• inaccessible to him. In fact the wife of mer times. There are a number of great some person of higher rank was often cast Renaissance writers — Cervantes, Shakes• for the part. However that does not concern peare and Rabelais among them — whose us here. ! work contains symbolism of the Quest; in , The masonry may have used much the one or another of its many forms. Malory's same symbolism that Free Masonry does Morte d'1 Arthur is a veritable treasure-house to-day, but it was also an operative science of symbolism. It was natural that writers by which the building of the highly symbo• who had a precious lore which they knew lical Gothic cathedrals was at the same time to be vanishing should wish to leave a record a technique of training for the builder. Not of it ; and just because it was vanishing few only the general form but all the propor• people would care to read a direct exposi- tions were rigidly determined by the laws J Rebuke merited.—EDITOR. of symbolism, 104 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

Spiritual alchemy was a science by which said on the whole that they reject the idea the baser elements in oneself were trans• of sin and teach their victims not to feel muted into pure gold. This was no poetic guilt for wrong things done but to explain fancy. Nor was it mere theory or philoso• them away, while there are some who, in phical speculation. It normally did involve certain cases, advise the exorcising of harm• actual experimentation with physical subs• ful impulses by indulging them. In contrast tances but, strange though that may appear, to this, Hermetism insisted on purity and these symbolised microcosmic and macro- dedication before even beginning the Great cosmic forces and aimed at developing the Work. It had to be undertaken in a spirit stunted faculties and rectifying the warped of reverence and devotion. Sol far was it impulses of the experimenter and conversion from being motivated by greed for gold that of his lower tendencies into higher. It was the experimenter was. pledged to desireless- only the bogus alchemist and the quack who ness and poverty. He was warned that with• was impelled by greed of gain and whose out perfect purity his experiments) could not object really was to make gold and grow succeed. This attitude was not merely an rich quick. From this point of view, what Unthinking echo of a pious age but was comes nearest to alchemy in modern times rigorously scientific. It is egoism that warps is psycho-analysis ; but alchemy was more a man's impulses and stunts his faculties, complete and more scientific. giving rise to anger, fear and desire and destroying his peace of mind. A valid train• The; central and most important difference ing will, therefore, insist on the abandon• is that the aspirant was guided towards ment of all conscious. egoism while hunting higher states of spiritual equilibrium and for the hidden roots of unconscious egoism. even realization by guides who had them• It is only when these are torn out that sere• selves attained these states, whereas psycho• nity and equilibrium will be attained. Any analysis knows nothing of any such attain• course of treatment which connives at ego• ment and has no guides to it. A psycholo• ism can at best change the nature of the gist may disbelieve in religion, like Freud, disequilibrium but cannot cure it. or believe in it, like Jung, but this is not a question of belief but of knowledge and The love and purity that were demanded attainment. The state of 1 individuation' to were not mere emotionalism, such as one which Jung's treatment is supposed to lead finds too often in a modern religious revival, is merely the state of the ordinary mundane but were combined with knowledge, without man bounded by sense experience and which no solid achievement is likely to be rational understanding, who may (or may made. Together with the symbolism of not) be competent to begin the course of alchemy, that of astrology also was used. training for higher development which was The use of astrology for prediction was a the sole purpose of Hermetism. At least one practical adaptation analogous to physical modern psychologist, Dr. Hans Jacobs, has experimentation in alchemy. It might be been percipient enough to see that Hindu very effective when properly handled, sadhana (and one could say the same of nevertheless the element of self-seeking in Western Hermetism) begins where Western it brought it into contempt and was ulti• psycho-therapy ends.2 mately largely responsible for the condem• nation of astrology as a whole. Its higher A second important difference, resulting and purer use was as a Hermetic technique from the first, is that Hermetism insisted on for the training of aspirants. Lest this seem moral purity. It is difficult to generalise a vague statement, a brief outline follows of about modern psychologists, since they are some of its main features. divided into so many schools, but it can be From the aspirant's horoscope were seen 2 See Western Psycho-Therapy find Hindu Sadhana, Allen and Unwill, the various harmonising or conflicting quaji-^ 1965 HERMETIC SYMBOLISM 105 ties in him, indicating what particular course the intermediary, the messenger of the gods, his training should take. Jacob Boehme, the the hermaphrodite, neither malei nor female, great mystic philosopher of the Renaissance neither aggressive nor receptive, whose, period who left an explicit record of the function is to inform and understand, even vanishing science, declares quaintly that if to manipulate, the planetary forces. His a certain planet becomes too obstreperous it nature too is indicated by his position in the should be whipped and stood in a corner. horoscope : it may show, for instance, the In other words, if the tendency symbolised sympathetic understanding of water, the by a planet dominates too much, distorting intellectual understanding of air, the pas• the equilibrium of one's nature and finding sionate, ardent understanding of fire, or the expression in inadmissable ways, it must be sober, practical understanding of earth. disciplined and held in check. Insofar as he is the manipulator he may be regarded as the most important planet in the The symbolism was both real and intri• horoscope, and yet he too can be dangerous cate. The sun in a person's horoscope is his and require discipline. Being a ruler of1 dual deepest and most genuine nature (how he signs, he can be undecided ; being neither reveals himself in moments of sudden crisis male nor female, he can be sterile ; govern• or bare sincerity) and may be quite different ing air and earth, he can lack the sympathy from the impression he makes on others and of water and the ardour of fire. If not watch• on himself in day-to-day living. The moon, ed he can degenerate into the dry scholar on the other hand, is his emotional, tempera• or timid critic, afraid to act. mental nature. So, for instance, one who has the sun in Aries and the moon in Taurus will Next come Mars and Venus, male and be easy-going, conservative, restful, in his female, aggression and conciliation, the only daily life but when necessary will show a real opposites in the horoscope (for although capability for enterprise and initiative which Jupiter and Saturn are in some ways oppo• will surprise those who think they know him. site, as will be shown below, it must be On the other hand, one who has the sun in remembered that zodiacally they are not, Taurus and the moon in Aries will be lively, Jupiter being opposite to Mercury, while alert and original in manner and speech, but Saturn is to the sun and moon). But the one will gradually come to see that his opposition can be harmonized into a wed• initiative is in defence of security and esta• ding ; and it is significant that in Graeco- blished order, not in defiance of them. Latin mythology they are indeed husband Furthermore, the sun and moon may be in and wife.3 An element of aggression, asser• harmonious or inharmonious relationship tion, enterprise, is necessary in every one with one another ; the solar nature may who takes the path ; without it he would reinforce the lunar or clash with it. The never venture and therefore never attain. Hermetist whose training was based on a But an element of harmony and conciliation study of his horoscope would be taught to is also necessary or he would rush headlong make his solar nature dominate over his to ruin. A study of the horoscope will show lunar when there was need for a decision. of what nature each of these is and in what If the two clashed he would have to temper relation they stand to each other as well as one with the other, see which impulses to the other planetary forces, indicating how stemmed from one and which from the other they need to be developed, co-related, disci• and decide which were appropriate in the plined which needs to be strengthened and given circumstances. which toned down, and in what direction to watch out for dangers. We say that ' he' must undertake this adjustment, but who is this 1 he ' ? Obvious• ly the mind ; and the mind is Mercury, that 3 1 am speaking here only of the symbolical basis of Western Hermetism. In is Hermes, the presiding spirit of Hermetism, Venus is male. 106 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

And finally the mighty couple of Jupiter a sickly, romantic love for a beauty he has and Saturn. The entire quest is a two-fold never seen. This represents the man who process of expansion and contraction, symbo• pines nostalgically for the ideal state of a lised by these two planets, expanding a lost childhood or imagined perfection. No man's faculties while at the same time crush• such state can be recaptured. A person who ing him to the.point of ' self-naughting', as retains the mind of a child when he grows the mediaeval mystics put it. Christ said that up, thereby avoiding the 1 fall' into adult a man must be poor enough to pass through sophistication, becomes a monstrosity. What the eye of a needle. He also said that when was lovable in the child becomes offensive a man attains the kingdom of heaven all in one who should have outgrown it. The else shall be added to him. This represents virtual or ideal perfection of childhood two successive stages : first contraction of cannot be recovered ; it must be actualised the ego to nothingness, then infinite expan• as the virtual perfection of the Earthly Para• sion. But in actual practice the two stages dise is to be actualised in the realized per• are seldom clearly divided. The adding and fection of the Heavenly Jerusalem. This, to subtraction or expansion and squeezing go bring in another item of Mediaeval symbo• on side by side, and that is the trouble. An lism, was the ' squaring of the circle \ The iaspirant may go through alternate phases of circle represents the virtual perfection where expansion, when grace floods his heart and no point strays further from the centre than the quest is a lilt of joy, and contraction any other. But a man isi dragged out on one when he seems to have lost everything he side by desire and pushed in on another by had gained on the path and to be squeezed fear until all symmetry of form is lost. Then, to the bones, when all is dryness and he is when he takes up the Great Work, he sets tempted to despond and can do nothing but himself not to recover the lost circle, which grit his teeth and hold on with grim persever• would be impossible, but to hammer the ance. In this sense, Jupiter is the benefic form foursquare. and Saturn the malefic ; but there is also another sense in which Jupiter represents a Attainment of actualised perfection is grave danger to the aspirant from which brought about by the ' Hermetic marriage \ only the stern discipline of Saturn can save that is by the interposition of Mercury (Her-* him. That is when the process of expansion mes in Greek, whence the name ' Herme- takes -the form of new powers and percep• tism') between sun and moon. Mercury is tions on the subtle plane which may seduce the Messenger of the gods. He is equated him from his path, as Circe did the com• with intellectual intuition and therefore more panions of Odysseus. Like Circe, they may or less equivalent to the Hindu ' buddhi also turn their victims into swine. A true The ancient Greeks symbolised him also by guru will encourage no such things. Let them the phallus, another instrument of union. come after the kingdom of heaven has been It was a saying of the alchemists that Mer• attained, as Christ said. The Maharshi said cury is the true Christ, the Mediator that even when powers come unsought they between God and man. He is represented in should not be accepted. They are like a rope mythology as hermaphrodite, as having both to tether a horse. x sexes or none. Astrologically he is the ruler of Virgo, the virgin sign, and Gemini, the This outline may serve to show how vital heavenly twins. And this brings us back to and at the same time how intricate the sym• 1 Twelfth Nightwhere Mercury appears as bolism was. However a concrete example the twin sister and brother, Viola and Sebas• carries more weight than generalisations, so tian, who intervene between sun and moon, let us trace Shakespeare's use of astrological Duke <^nd Olivia. symbolism in ' Twelfth Night'.

The Duke and Olivia are the sun and Olivia, the ' moon', the human nature or moon. The Duke is lovesick for Olivia, but temperament according to astrology, is the 2965 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY 107 person needing treatment. Her household the twins, Viola and Sebastian, Mercury in a (horoscope) is in a terrible state of disarray. human sense, as an ingredient in Olivia's Sir Toby Belch is the very picture of a household or horoscope is the Fool : clever, degenerate Jupiter — his expansiveness pert and flippant. degenerated into gluttony, his magnanimity With brilliant wit and technique the twins into boastfulness, his grandeur into riotous- are introduced into this menage and restore ness. He is in conjunction with Mars, Sir order in it by accomplishing the 'Hermetic Andrew Aguecheek^ in Taurus (as he him• Marriage', the male twin wedding Olivia self says). Taurus, it will be remembered, and the female the Duke, while the dis• is the ' detriment' of Mars, where he is apt ordered ' planets' are disciplined and to be quarrelsome but cowardly, which ist brought to order. Here is evidence enough just what Sir Andrew was. Malvolio, a that, humanist as he was, Shakespeare was hypocritical Puritan, scheming and coldly more also. He had knowledge of the hidden ambitious, is just as much a caricature of Hermetic science which, even in his day, was Saturn as Sir Toby is of Jupiter or Sir being forgotten and abandoned. To some Andrew of Mars in detriment. Olivia's pert, extent it is still possible to study it but not pretty, flirtatious maid is Venus. Although to relive it. To think otherwise would only Mercury as a Divine Agent is represented as be fooling oneself. And others.

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

By A. RAO

A pretty children's tale is found Where many fell along the way Of how a lady slept spell-bound To visions, learning, pride, display, Through time's long night, till for her sake To harlots claiming to, be her A daring rescuer should break Whose waking wakes her rescuer, Through many perils and with a kiss Or taverns where the weaklings rest, Wake her to endless bliss. Called but not chosen for the quest.

In each man's heart she sleeps, her dower The lost domain of man's true power. Blest now the land ! The same she is Humbled the tyrant mind ! As that coiled serpent of the East Freedom erect to stand Who, when released, For all mankind ! Strikes up from stage to higher stage Till,, breaking through the mental cage, Blaze the white-shining ecstasies. Now, ever after — Joy, serene laughter ! First the wise man gave the knight Fallen the prison wall The sword of concentration, bright, Rooftree and rafter ! Invulnerable ; for defence A cloak, invisible to sense, Never to be built again Of pure detachment. Yet alone Life's house of pam, The hero fought and won Never hereafter ! SWAMI NITYANANDA, SIDDHA AND AVADHUTA

By PRATIBHA TRIVEDI

Swami Nityananda of Ganeshpuri, who died as recently as August 1961, was one of the great spiritual masters of our times. He was a Siddha, that is a man of powers, of whom many miracles are recorded, an Avadhuta or wandering solitary one outside the regular paths and schools. What sort of path or sadhana he followed in his early life and whether he had a guru or not is not known.

He became famous as the Lord of Ganesh• puri, a township that sprang up around him outside Bombay. Its very existence was a wonder. It was a desolate jungle spot in which a sadhu wearing only a loincloth and with no possessions took up his abode some twenty years back. Feeling the power and grace that emanated from him, devotees flocked around and built houses there so as to be near to him. Donations poured in and although he kept; and wanted nothing for himself, his advice was practical in worldly as well as in spiritual matters and a com• plete township grew up around him with electricity and water supply, hotels, shops, schools, dispensary, rest-houses for , etc. As his fame spread ever wider such crowds thronged there that queues had to be formed to have darshan of him.

His own life remained as simple and bare of possessions as ever. He sat; on a stone platform covered with an old blanket, clad only in a loincloth, accessible to all who came, until towards the end the crowds grew too large and had to be regulated. He wanted nothing, valued nothing. He would often say,

" All is dust". #And yet he was supremely compassionate, moved by the slightest suffering. Thousands came to him for help all manner of human pre-occupations ; all and protection. Some of them were spiritual he received with like compassion and all aspirants seeking his Grace ; others sought alike knew him as Baba or Father. But; even his blessings for worldly success — business while giving advice on worldly matters he or profession, employment, health, family^, never abandoned the standpoint of the One 1965 SWAMI NITYANANDA 109

Self, bidding the recipients of his Grace see nous and Self-existent state of Satchida- all in the One and the One in all. nanda, Being-Consciousness-Bliss, beyond the duality of good or bad, high or low, It was about half a century back that he beyond even the apparent duality of know• first became known as a wandering Swami. ledge or ignorance, liberation or bondage. Before going to Ganeshpuri he stayed for And yet, although all passed as a two- some years in the district of Mangalore, dimensional shadow before his eyes, he did where he was known for his healing powers in fact see and hear and distinguish and and the wide profusion of miracles he per• could approve or disapprove of what people formed. At this time he had an ashram at did on the plane of good and evil on which Kanhangad which is now known as Sri they were content to abide and bestow on Nityananda Ashram. About four miles away them what were benefits on the level of from it there is a deep cave in a wild part values to which they clung. of the forest in the hills where he perform• ed tapas, and this is known as Guruban. He did not teach in words. He had little use for books or theory. " Books are for During this period of his life Swami those who are not secure in knowledge. Ramdas has recounted the following meet• Stable, eternal and indivisible is Know• ing with him. " Swami Nityanand, a great ledge," he said. yogi, was residing in Hosdrug. He made several improvements in the old, neglected He did not teach dependence on any Hosdrug fort. He was attracting people power outside oneself. " By one's own from all parts of the South. Kanara District thoughts one can be bad ; by one's own and even from far off places. His darshan thoughts one can be good also. God does was rightly considered by devotees to be of neither good nor harm to any one." immense spiritual benefit. Ramdas had -the He did not give initiation as usually opportunity of meeting him once when he understood and gave no mantra to repeat, was dwelling in the Panch-Pandava caves. laid down no technique of spiritual practice. He had no cloth on his body except a kau- The power of his presence was enough. His pin.1 He was dark in complexion, but pos• proximity would itself calm and purify the sessed a tall, fully-developed, well-propor• mind. One sat before him and doubts and tioned body. One of his characteristic fea• anxieties were smoothed away ; questions tures was that his face was always suffused that had worried one did not seem worth with most bewitching smiles. As he was asking. Parched souls felt coolness near him seen always sunk in divine bliss his devo• and those in distress found peace. tees gave him the name Nityanand, mean• He did not instruct his< devotees openly in ing ' everlasting bliss '. One. day, towards words but sometimes threw out hints obli• the end of the second year of the ashram,2 quely in a way that only the person for one of the ashramites, Krishnappa, brought whom they were intended would under• him to us. We gave him due honour and stand. Indeed, this was perhaps necessary made him drink the cool water of a tender since he never gave a private interview to . He did not speak a word. After anyone but had to be approached and ques• remaining with us for about ten minutes he tioned openly in the presence of others. But went away."3 his real teaching did not depend on verbal Similarly when at Ganeshpuri, he was answers at all ; it was an eloquent silent established permanently in the Self-lumi- influence on the heart of the seeker.

1 loincloth. Nevertheless, he did in fact guide seekers 2 This means of Anandashram, the ashram of on the path. He was not merely a lamp to — EDITOR give light to others but to kfhdle their lamps 31 In the Vision of God' by Swami Ramdas, also. He was a Siddha-Yogi, a man of p. 450 of the 1962 edition. Published by Bhayan'S'

Book University, Chaupatty? pornbay-7, grange powers, If he looked inactive It was 110 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April as a top does when spinning at high speed, versal love. Seeing God in all beings with• seeming the more stationary the faster it out the least idea of duality is bhakti." rotates. Under the silent radiation of his " Turn inwards. Without meditation the power the dormant spirit of the aspirant who mind cannot be steadied." approached him in true sincerity awakened "When the ego is completely destroyed and came to life. This silent transmission of the worfd is seen as a reflection."' Divine Power from Master to disciple is " Detach yourself from the world if you known as Shaktipata, about which the would realize your true Self." Vayavya writes : " When by the mere sight, touch or word of a Guru " Liberation means seeing the One in all divine consciousness is immediately opened and all in the One." in a person it is known as Shambhavi " Hate and anger are signs of ignorance." diksha." When asked by a disciple he would " If you have a pure heart and true urging recommend some type of sadhana according God is hot far away."4 to the needs of the particular person who In greatness and glory he can be com• asked. In general'he stressed the importance pared with ,5 and indeed, of meditation and devotion to the Guru. there is a certain similarity between them, However, his silent spiritual influence was since he also taught -his disciples to seek the most potent factor. Sometimes also he through complete devotion and surrender to canalised the flow of power by the laying on the Guru. The greater the devotion and of hands. The effect of this could be tremen• more wholehearted the surrender the more dous. It often resulted in awakening the powerful flow of Shaktipata does it evoke dormant Kundalini in the disciple. and the greater therefore is the disciple's There are many still living who had the progress. He was like Sai Baba also in giving good fortune of being blessed by his touch no formal initiation and no mantra. And or presence and experienced the power and both; alike discouraged theorising and exces• skill of his guidance. He was a dynamo of sive reading. Neither of them wrote any• energy and a power-house of shakti. He was thing. a Satguru who took full responsibility for Although this great Master passed away the guidance of his disciples. in 1961, the atmosphere of Ganeshpuri is Although he taught mainly by silence, still charged with his Presence. He is buried very little in words, the following pregnant there and his shrine has become a centre of sayings of his may well be pondered : pilgrimage for thousands. They feel the force of Shaktipata and are silently " There is no contentment without purifi• strengthened and guided on the path as they cation of mind and no Liberation without were in his lifetime. purification of consciousness by which one merges into Atman like a piece of ice placed 4 From a collection of sayings noted down by a in water." lady disciple and published in under the title ' Chidakashgita' translated into English " One must live in the world like a boat by M. P. under the title 'Voice of the Self \ on the sea -— on it but separate! from it." 5 For whom see an article in our issue of July " It is not bhakti to give a man some 1964. See also 'The Incredible Sai Baba' by Arthur Osborne, published by Orient Longmans,. money or a meal in charity. Bhakti is uni• Calcutta, and Rider & Co., London.

Both at birth and death one is free. Maya comes in only in between. — SWAMI NITYANANDA A YANTRA FOR SCORPION STINGS

Bv ETHEL MERSTON

To my dispensary in the U.P. would come spot nearer to the sting, the poison having scorpion stung patients in agony, but no retracted. Draw the yantra again towards medicine was efficacious in stopping the the point he mentions. Then again ask and pain under hours. Left to itself it can con• again draw, and so on until the poison has tinue for 24 hours or more. retracted to the stung place. There one may have to do the yantra several times The English engineer who was then around the spot, always with^ AD pointed building the Dufferin Bridge over-road, while visiting me one day was telling me Q-> STING stories of his career and, amongst them how, at a tiny local station on the line, the station- master, an Indian, had taught him a yantra for scorpion stings so prevalent amongst the Coolies working on the lines, who are often ^EXTREME stung when they disturb scorpions while POINT OF PAIN raising old sleepers. The yantra, which my D friend had used for years, rarely failed to relieve the pain at once. It was just what I needed and I begged him to teach me the drawing and its use. He did so and it has never failed to cure a patient within! two or three minutes of application. Only in one case, where the patient had been stung some "tI twenty hours before coming to the dispensary \ and the poison had travelled right up the arm and down the back did the cure take gome 15 minutes perhaps. The procedure is as follows : A First, where possible, tourniquet the stung limb well above the extreme point of the pain. TOURNIQUET inwards to the sting, before the pain goes Next, take a pen (but not a gold-nibbed entirely. If no very long time has elapsed fountain pen) and on the skin of the patient, between the sting and the time the patient between the tourniquet and the extreme has treatment, two or three drawings usual• point of pain, draw the yantra in ink in one1 ly suffice on the limb and perhaps three or continuous movement, running A to B to C four at the sting before the pain vanishes to A to D to C completely. In the case of the poor man who had delayed so long before coming and who The line A D should, as it were, shoot at the point of pain and should be rather longer could not be tourniqueted, he had yantras than AB or CA. about every two inches up his back and down his arm to the sting in his hand ; he Having drawn the yantra, ask the patient was covered in pen and ink drawings before where the pain is now. He will point to a I had done with him! 112 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

Now, readers may ask, " How does this could be allergic to and retreat before a yantra work ? " I don't know, no one has constituent of the nib or ink, but then, of ever been able to explain it to me. Has it course, any squiggle would work as well as to do with the metal in the nib or chemical the yantra, which it does not. in the ink to which the poison is allergic and before which it retreats ? Is it iron in the I myself was once stung by a scorpion- I nib and the combination of it and the ink ? had picked up from my pillow thinking it Thinking it might be this, I tried one day to be a dead leaf, and though I could draw with a rusty nail and ink, and it worked just the yantra only very shakily with my left as well — this is useful to know in a village hand, it worked immediately, the pain left where the stung patients -are likely to be entirely and there were no after effects, not illiterate and have no pen or ink, or a city even soreness from the sting. where steel nibs are obsolete.

I should much like some chemist to tell The yantra is indeed a useful remedy in me what there is in scorpion poison that this scorpion-infested land.

DARSHAN

By DR. K. B. PISPATI

A sannyasin of about 30 or 35 came into the hall one day when I was there. He was an M.A. of Bombay University who had retired to a solitary place to lead a life of tapas. While sitting in his cave one day he saw a number of concentric cir• cles ; then there was a loud noise and a vision of Bhagavan Ramana who advised him to go to his Ashram and see him. He prostrated and then sat down and asked a few questions about yoga.

When we went out I spoke with him and asked him why he had taken sannyas. He said he was not interested in the life of the world but only in yoga. He said that he often had visions of Bhagavan and saw him as clearly as to-day. He said that the purpose of his visit to the Ashram was attained, and soon after he left. HOW I CAME TO THE MAHARSHI

VI

By FIROZA TALEYARKHAN

Many people ask me why I am living here in Tiruvannamalai, so I would like to write about my experiences and how my Lord Ramana brought me here and kept me here. I have been very fortunate from childhood up in coming in contact with high souls and saints, amongst 'them the renowned woman saint Babajan whose life was a mystery, no one knowing where she came from or how old she was. It happened one day that I took her for a drive in Poona when we were there and as we passed the Fort she point• ed to it and said, " King Shivaji and I used to play here." I was stunned because that would make her several centuries old. She was a great saint. Thousands of people benefited from her blessings. Poor people became rich and others became sadhus or saints. Even now prayers made at her shrine are answered. She showered her Grace on me and played a great part in my life, but here I have no space to write about all that. and I had wonderful experiences ; still my Then there was Harilal Baba who stood heart was aching to meet some one who in the Ganges at Benares looking at the sun could really show me God. One day oi from sunrise to sunset. He, never stirred Grace I met some one who told me about even when there were storms and floods and Ramana Maharshi. I had never heard of the water passed over him. He became blind him before. The moment I opened the book from staring at the sun, but his inner light about him I was struck by the beauty of his was powerful. I had the wonderful experi-* face. I immediately wrote to Ramanashram ence of his Grace and blessings. but did not receive an encouraging reply, so I dropped the idea of going there. I became attached to dear Gandhiji and Ba, his wonderful wife, who was a little Swami Yogendra and I planned to open an saint. Gandhiji invited me to stay with ashram for ladies together called ' The Home him. I could have chosen that; kind of life. of Devotion'. (The Swami now has an His love and kindness were overwhelming. Ashram at Khar.) We started trying to But I felt that politics were not my line ; 1 organize it but then I thought that before was in search of something real which I did embarking on our new venture I would go not know. to Tiruvannamalai to ask the Maharshi for I was in Budh Gay a* for ten years making his blessings. I stayed there for four days sadhana. Of course, there was great benefit and showed him the prospectus of our 114 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April scheme and asked for his blessings on it. I they were left, and even more so; that of left thinking that I had them, as it was not Bhagavan should belong to us and be kept his way to say definitely ' yes ' or ' no' when as a place of pilgrimage. I ran straight people told him their schemes. But to my away to the office of the Sarvadhikari, great surprise we shortly received a refusal Niranjanananda Swami2 and asked him about from the government to rent us the land and it. He said that there was a school in the buildings on Kadevly Hill which they had house. I asked him to write that very promised us. You can imagine my dis• evening and say that I wanted to buy it. Now appointment. I realy lost my temper with it is Ashram property and regular' puja is Sri Bhagavan. I was wondering why they performed there. called him ' Bhagavan ', for what sort of blessings were these ? It was only much After this the Sarvadhikari asked me to later that I understood that I had had his go to Madras and see the Minister Sri Grace all along. I went back to Tiruvanna- Bhaktavatsalam about the possibility of malai longing to say : " How can I believe getting railway connection to Tiruchuzi, in you after what has happened to my Bhagavan's birthplace. I went but was cherished scheme ? " Meanwhile a lady shocked when I heard how much it would came to the Ashram and told Bhagavan that cost. I decided to leave it to Bhagavan and she was working hard to collect money to thought no more about it, but imagine my help people in distress and asked him whe• joy some years later when Sri Bhaktavat• ther that was not a good thing to do. Bhaga• salam became C^ief Minister of Madras and van took a book and showed her a passage the line was actually constructed. Tiruchuzi to read. As I was sitting beside her I could has now become a much more important read it too and it made me smile. Bhagavan town. Bhagavan's Grace is sufficient to looked at me and said : " It's for you too." accomplish anything, big or small, if one's entire life and soul are laid at his feet. He It said : " A frail woman who has the has brought about many seemingly impossi• peace of God can do more to help a country ble things for me. or mankind than all the intellectuals put together." 1 also had the grace of Bhagavan when That very moment something within me Mr. Tarapore, a Parsi friend, took up my plan told me that he was right. He knew that) I for renovating the Patala Linga, an under• was not yet ripe for the responsible work of ground cavern where Bhagavan had sat per• helping others. I needed to cure myself before forming austerities as a youth when he first trying to cure others. For the first time I got came to Tiruvannamalai. He did this iup and prostrated before him and from that beautifully at his own expense and Sri moment my life, mind and heart changed Rajagopalachari, the then Governor-General of India, came over to perform the opening and I felt his unbounded Grace flowing over ceremony. This also has now become a place me. I will tell one or two things that hap• of pilgrimage. pened later.

I was sitting on the Hill talking to' Visva- Before I close I must mention also the nathan, an old devotee1 one afternoon and loving devotion of the Sarvadhikari and the asked him what had happened to the house strong faith and selfless service with which where Bhagavan was born. He said that he he worked. It is due to him that we have >had no idea. I was shocked to hear this and jthese whole magnificent Ashram buildings told him that in Western countries the birth• where formerly was nothing but bare places of great men were preserved just as ground.

i Author of the article on Sri Ganapathi Muni, 2 For an account of whom see our ' Ashram in this issue.— (EDITOR) Bulletin ' of Jan. 1964 — (EDITOR) " THIS "—AND ALL THAT

By WEI WU WEI

In dualistic language " I " just stands for that produces the notion of bondage. Identi• the Latin " ego " which is a concept with• fication with a phenomenal object results in out any factual existence, i.e. a complex the suppositional concept of an autonomous which must be resolved because its psycho• entity, and that concept is taken to be a fac• logical presence constitutes bondage. But, tual " self", whereas nothing of the kind used as a metaphysical term, it implies This- exists, has ever existed, or ever could exist which-we-are as opposed to That-which- as a thing-in-itself, or as other than a con• we-think-we-are but are not. cept in what is called " mind ".

That, which is sensorially perceptible is But identification with a phenomenal demonstrably only an image in mind and, as object as such is not ipso facto bondage, for such, can have no nature of its own. But the such phenomenon has no " ens " and need sentience of every sentient being must have not have any — as may be observed in the a centre via which its functioning is direct• case of a disidentified Sage who appears to ed, this " centre" of each sentient object live as any other man " lives ", at any rate being as purely phenomenal as the sentient to a casual observer. appearance. Such centre is devoid of voli• tion, as of autonomy of any kind ; it is) not, It is only the superimposition of the ela• therefore, an " ego", and it cannot think borated concept of an autonomous self that self-consciously as " I ". is responsible for the notions of " karma" Identification of This-which-we-are with and " bondage ", which are the effects of an each phenomenal object, in the process of apparent " volition ". objectifying this ' functional" centre, trans• lates it as an individual " ego-self ", and so II produces a suppositional " entity ". Let us develop this understanding in A phenomenon is a manifestation, and greater detail. Noumenality has no need to therefore an aspect, of noumenon. Sponta• identify itself with phenomenality, any more neous phenomenal action is noumenal, and than an egg need be identified with an egg, so-living is noumenal living. Such, then, is nor need This-which-we-are identify itself non-identified living. It is identification with with That-which-we-are, since their differ• a spurious (imagined) autonomous entity entiation is one of objective appreciation that is supposed to be born, to surfer, and to only. But an identification of noumenality, die, that incurs the process of Causality call• not with phenomenality but with discrimi• ed karma, and causes the notion of being in nated, or separated phenomena, entails the bondage to arise. Splitting into subject and object of pheno• Phenomena as such, having no entity to menality and the attribution of subjectivity be bound, cannot be bound, but neither have to what is purely objective. That pseudo- they an entity to be free. Always it is the subjectivity is attributed to the " func• " entity " that is spurious, the phenomenon tional " centre of each separate phenome• being what its name states — and appear• nal object, and this produces the idea of an ance in mind, neither bound nor free. autonomous individual with an ego-self.

The apparent problem, therefore, only Otherwise expressed, phenomenality being concerns identification : it is identification integral in noumenality, it must be the dis- 116 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

crimination of phenomenality into separate object. That is to say, it functions sub•

phenomena possessed of both subjective and jectively and f objectively in split-mind, objective character that produces identificar- accompanied by " space " and " time ", as tion. Such identification, then, is the attribu• " mechanically " as the ticking of a clock. tion of subjective function to the objectivi- isation of a phenomenal or " functional" Absolute-noumenality, manifesting via centre in each such phenomenon, thereby every sentient being, recognises no entity in creating an individual with a suppositious the phenomenal cosmos, has no need of such, ego-self. In short, the functional focal point nor any function that such could fulfil. The of a phenomenal objectivisation has been ^existence of an autonomous, volitional endowed with a suppositious personal sub• 'entity would be incompatible with the func^ jectivity whereas its only subjectivity is its tioning of prajnd, and the notion of such noumenality. This suppositional subjectivity seems to be an aberration for which there is then objectified as an entity possessing is no place. An entity, therefore, is " a full autonomy. dream, an illusion, a bubble and a shadow ", as the Buddha said in the Diamond Sutra, Identification of This-which-we-are with a breeze of phantasy that troubles the calm separate phenomenal objects which, without waters of mind without any possibility of such identification, are simply our pheno• effecting anything whatever of a factual menality as such, involves the objectivisa• character in the dream of phenomenal living. tion of each. In this process the " func• tional " centre comes to be seen as the cen• NOTE : Yes, yes, quite so. What the Buddha tre of a suppositional individual with an so lucidly and I so obscurely have ego-self, developing thereby a supposed just been describing is — as you entity where there is merely phenomenality suspect — that which you think functioning impersonally as subject and that you are.

TOGETHER AND APART

Translated by PROF. K. SWAMINATHAN from the Tamil of Muruganar*

Both male and female, far yet near, Mountain-huge and atom-small Pure Spirit He, whose sidelong glance Has made me see The Truth invisible And hear The dancing music of His feet. For He has caught within His heart And carries in His cosmic dance This midget. What extravagance Of grace, to hold me in this bliss, Both mine and His, Together and apart!

For an introduction to whom see our issue of October, 1964. The Bhagavad Gita

Translated by PROF. G. V. KULKARNI and ARTHUR OSBORNE

INTRODUCTION an indication of the meaning. In India a number of more literal translations have The Vedic Hymns, the Upanishads and the been made, but these are mostly in ungainly Bhagavad Gita are regarded as the Prasthd- English, and even so the rendering is seldom natrayi or ' threefold scriptures' of Hindu• precise and adequate. It is hoped in this ism. Of these the Gita is the most widely translation, which is to be serialised in The read and loved and has been most often Mountain Path, to combine fidelity with translated. There is, however, to our know• good English, but the first emphasis will ledge, no very satisfactory rendering of it be on fidelity, since no one is authorised to in English. To translate poetry is always a tamper with scripture. formidable task, and when the poetry is also The Gita is an episode in one of India's scripture it becomes far more so, since every two great epic poems, the . word has significance and should be ade• This is a vast work, many times longer than quately rendered. There are a number of the Homeric poems. It contains a wealth of ! literary ' translations, from Edwin Arnold mythology and much religious and ethical downwards, but all of them blur the teaching but is mainly centred around the clear lines of doctrine and give too vague quarrel between the Pandavas and Kauravas 118 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April culminating in the Battle of Kurukshetra.1 his heart failed him. He did not desire vic• Briefly the story is this. tory or dominion, he declared, if won by King Pandu had five sons who were such slaughter. "Better for me were the accordingly known as the Plandavas. After isons of Dhritarashtra, weapon in hand, to his death his brother Dhritarashtra became slay me unarmed and unresisting." king and brought up Pandu's five together Krishna, however, will have none of this with his own hundred sons. He was blind non-violence. He explains to Arjuna that it and weak and could not restrain his sons, is his duty as a , a member of the especially the eldest of whom, Duryodana, warrior caste, to destroy evil and uphold was violent and treacherous. They plotted righteousness. In this dramatic setting deve• against the Pandavas, tricked them out of lops a complete exposition of the meaning their heritage and drove them into exile. The and purpose of life and the paths men can final result of this was the great Battle of tread to its fulfilment. Kurukshetra in which most of the Aryan kings were aligned with one side or the other The story is supposed to be told to Dhrita• and the flower of Indian chivalry was des• rashtra by Sanjaya who witnessed and over• troyed. heard it all.

This human cycle or manvantara is said CHAPTER ONE to be divided into four ages or yugas of progressively diminishing excellence, equi• In this first chapter the stage is set. The two valent to the ancient Western conception of opposing armies are reviewed and then the des• pondency of Arjuna is described. the four ages of gold, silver, copper and iron. The Battle of Kurukshetra is held by some Why was the battlefield chosen as the stage for to mark the transition from the third age to Arjuna's instruction? The choice has tremendous the fourth, the kali-yuga or ' dark age ' in literary effect, but the explanation goes deeper than that. It shows vividly that the inner war• which we now live. fare is to be waged on the battlefield of life, notf Krishna, the Avatar or Divine Incarnation, through withdrawal from life. Krishna might have was living at this time as Prince of Mathura. instructed Arjuna in a cave far from distractions, Both sides sought his alliance. He was bound but no: instead is chosen a setting where the by affection to the Pandavas and recognized teaching is immediately to be put into effect by combining the most strenuous outer activity with their noble qualities, but he felt some obli• the right attitude of mind. gation to the Kauravas also. Therefore, when both sides came to claim his alliance, he said 1 that one could have his army while he him• self would go with the other, but unarmed. Said Dhritarashtra : " When Pandu's sons The Kauravas chose his army, while Arjuna, met mine for battle on the Field of Dharma, the most famous of the Pandavas, chose the Field of Kuru, tell me what happened, Krishna himself to go with him as his Sanjaya." charioteer. Those who placed material aid The word 1 dharma' is left in Sanskrit as no above spiritual thereby sealed their doom. single word translates it adequately. It implies Just as the battle was beginning, Arjuna uprightness or harmony, with its opposite told Krishna to drive his chariot between ' adharma' as unrighteousness or disharmony. It the two armies. Seeing this mighty concourse is natural or divine law and thence comes to gathered for mutual destruction, seeing more• mean the action that is true to a man's nature and the religiously inspired social order of a over friends, relatives and revered elders on community. Speaking of the individual, the Gita the side of the enemy as well as his own, pays (XVIII, 47): " Better one's own dharma though faultily performed than that of another i' The Field of Kuru,', kshetra meaning 'field' though well performed. Doing the duty ordained and Kuru being the ancestor of both Pandavasf and Kauravas. by one's own nature one incurs no sin." That is! 1965 THE BHAGAVAD GITA 119 to say that a man should act according to his Draupadi was the daughter of Drupada and own nature and the circumstances in which he is joint wife of the five Pandavas. Her five sons placed and not try to imitate another or play the took part in the battle. role of another. Speaking of society it says (IV, 7): 7 " Whenever dharma declines and adharma triumphs I manifest myself." " Know also, O best of the twice-born, who are foremost on our side and leaders Dharma is, perhaps, the central concept of of my army. Let me recite their names for Hinduism. It is significant that it is the opening you. word of the Bhagavad Gita. The expression " Dharmakshetra, Kurukshetra " indicates that the The twice-born are those of the upper castes, ibattle of Kurukshetra was also a battle of right• that is to say those who are eligible for initiation eousness against wrong-doing. In a deeper sense and spiritual guidance. [it implies that the battle is also the inner war• 8 fare of dharma against adharma that each man has to fight. " Yourself and Bhishma, and Kripa the vanquisher, Ashvatthama and Vikarna, 2 and also Somadatta's son. Said Sanjaya : " When Prince Duryodhana - 9 beheld the army of the Pandavas drawn up " And many other heroes that have pledg• in battle order he approached his teacher ed their lives for me, armed with diverse and spoke thus : weapons, all well skilled in war. Duryodhana was the eldest of the Kauravas, 10 that is of the sons of Dhritarashtra. It was he who was mainly responsible for the war. His tea• "Unlimited this army of ours marshalled cher was Drona, renowned instructor of both by Bhishma, while that of theirs, marshall• Kauravas and Pandavas in the art of war. ed by Bhima, is limited.

3 11 " Behold, Master, this grand army of the " Therefore stand firm, all in your ranks Pandavas marshalled by your able pupil and places, and all support Bhishma." Drupada. 12 4 To rejoice him then Bhishma the Mighty, " Here are archers mighty in battle, like eldest of the Kauravas, Bhishma the Grand- Bhima and Arjuna, warriors such as Yuyu- sire, let forth a roar like a lion and sounded dhama and Virata, here Drupada the Maha- his conch. ratha. 13

Bhima, one of the Pandava brothers and leader Suddenly conches and kettle-drums, tabors, of their forces, was famous for his strength and drums and horns blared forth and stupen• prowess. dous was the noise. 5 14 " Dhrishtaketu, Chekitana and the valiant Then Krishna and Arjuna also, seated in King of Kasi, Purujit, Kuntibhoja and their great chariot drawn by white horses, Shaibya mighty among men. blew their heavenly conches.

Kasi is the modern Benares. The names actually used are 'Madhava' for Krishna and ' Pandava' for Arjuna. 6

" The heroic Yudhamanyu and Uttamauja Krishna sounded Panchajanya and Arjuna the brave ; the son of Subhadra and those Devadatta ; Bhima of the mighty deeds of Draupadi, all mighty charioteers. sounded his great conch Poundra. 120 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

The name used, for Krishna here is ' Hrishi- 24, 25 kesha', meaning 'He of the splendid hair' and Sanjaya continued : Hearing Arjuna speak for Arjuna 'Dhananjaya' meaning 'Conqueror of wealth'. thus, O Bharata, Krishna drove his splendid chariot between the two hosts, facing Panchajanya, Krishna's conch, is so called because it was made from the bones of Pancha, Bhishma and Drona and all the kings, and a demon he had slain. ' Devadatta', the name of said : " Behold these Kurus assembled here, Arjuna's, means ' God-given '. O Son of Pritha."

The name used for Bhima is 'Vrikodara' mean• The name used for Arjuna here is ' Gudakesha ing ' Wolf-Belly', on account of his huge appetite. and for Krishna ' Hrishikesha '. 16 26, 27 Prince Yudhisthira son of ICtmti sounded Anantavijaya ; Nakula and Sahadeva sound• Then Arjuna son of Pritha saw fathers and ed Sughosha and Manipushpaka. grandfathers, teachers, uncles and brothers, sons and grandsons, fathers-in-law, friends Yudhisthira was the eldest of the Pandavas. He and the next two brothers, Arjuna and Bhima. and companions drawn up for battle in the were the sons of Kunti, Pandu's senior wife. Tht two armies. When Arjuna son of Kunti saw twins Nakula and Sahadeva were the sons of his all these kinsmen standing thus arrayed. junior wife, Madri. 28, 29 17, 18 Great compassion came over him and sor• The King of Kasi, great archer, Shikhandi rowfully he said : " Seeing these kinsfolk of the Maharatha, Dhrishtadumnya, Virata and mine drawn up for battle, Krishna, my limbs Satyaki the invincible, Drupada and the sons droop, my mouth is parched, my body of Draupadi, O Lord of the earth, and the trembles and my hair stands on end ; stout armed son of Subhadra, these from all 30 sides sounded their conches. "The bow Gandiva slips from my hand, L9 my skin is burning, my mind reels and I That tumultuous uproar, resounding cannot stand. through heaven and earth, rent the hearts of Dhritarashtra's sons. 31 20, 21 " I see ill omens, Keshava, nor do I fore• see any good from slaying my kinsfolk in Then Arjuna, son of Pandu, he of the battle. banner, seeing the sons of Dhrita- rashtra marshalled for battle, took up hi3 32 bow just as the fighting began and spoke "I desire not victory, Krishna, nor domi• thus, great king, to Krishna of the Splendid nion nor pleasures. Of what use to us is Hair : " Drive my chariot between the two dominion, Govinda, or pleasure or even armies, Achyuta, life ?

' Achyuta', a name for Krishna, means ' firm 33 or ' immovable'. 22 "Those for whose sake I desired domi• nion, pleasure and enjoyment are gathered ".So that I can see those gathered here here for battle, staking their wealth and for war, with whom I must fight now that life, the battle begins. 23 34 "Let me gaze upon those who have "Those teachers, fathers and sons, grand• assembled here to serve in battle the evil- fathers and uncles, fathers-in-law, grand• minded son of Dhritarashtra." sons, brothers-in-law and other kinsfolk, 1965 THE BHAGAVAD GITA 121

35 42 "These I do not wish to kill, O Slayer of " This intermingling brings the family and Madhu, even though killed myself, not for its destroyers down to hell ; their ancestors lordship of the threje worlds, much less for also fall, deprived of their offerings of rice the sake of this earth. and water.

The three worlds of heaven and earth and the Arjuna here maintains that destroying the moral intermediate zone. standards and traditional practices of a family causes the downfall not only of future generations 36 but past also, since those ancestors who have not " What joy would remain to us, Janardana, attained, final Liberation are still in need of ritual after slaying the sons of Dhritarashtra ? prayers for the dead, of which they will now be Only sin would accrue to us from the slay• deprived. ing of these evil-doers. 43 37 " Thus the evil deeds of those who des• " Therefore it does not behove us to slay troy families lead through the intermingling our kinsfolk, the sons of Dhritarashtra, O of castes to subversion of the dharma both Madhava. How can we be happy after kill• of race and family. ing our own people ? 44 38, 39 " We have heard it said, Janardana, that " Even though these, their minds clouded hell is the abode of those whose family by greed, see no evil in destruction of family dharma is subverted. and no sin in treachery to friends, should not 45 we have the wisdom to turn away from this sin, Janardana, and to see evil in the des• " Alas, what a great sin we are resolved truction of the family ? upon, to slay our kinsfolk through desire for the pleasure of dominion ! 40 46 " On the destruction of a family its ancient dharma perishes, and when its dharma " Better indeed for me were the sons of perishes adharma overtakes the whole Dhritarashtra, weapon in hand, to slay me family. unarmed and unresisting."

41 47 " When adharma prevails, O Krishna, the Sanjaya continued : " Having spoken thus women of the family become corrupt ; with on the battlefield, Arjuna cast aside his bow corruption of the women comes intermingling and, arrow and sank down on the chariot of the castes, O Descendent of the Vrishnis. seat, overwhelmed with grief."

Here ends the first chapter, the ' YOGA OF ARJUNA'S GRIEF ', in the Blessed Bhagavad Gita, an Upanishad of the wisdom of the Absolute, a dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna. THE SAGE OF ARUNAGHALA

By SWAMI ANANTA of Mauritius .

It is true he taught thro' silence, But never was silence more eloquent, From his luminous eyes flowed Cascades of soothing words To guide us, clear our doubts, Affirm us in our sadhana.

It is true they dubbed him a gyani. No matter. The unfeeling can never sense. Was there ever a greater lover, A bhakta so madly immersed In the object of his adoration ? Bhagwan's eyes are 's own.

Eyes overflowing with such love, Divine love which sustains, Not for a matter of an hour but Consistently thro' the years, Those eyes brimming with His Light Thrilled all who came for his darshan.

Eyes which still mould us as they gaze From paintings, the immortal Lover's eyes, Eyes which love* and never question, Help but never chastise, Mildly encouraging all the time, E'en my heavenly Father's eyes.

His message sounds simple, Yet his tapasya was Herculean. Like some mighty giant of old This village youth walked with maturity The narrow way. From the first the approach Was masterly, the calm, and noble countenance, The lofty gave, the complete immersion in Self, All proclaimed him Avatar, The Lord Himself come to bless us with His Presence, Sri Krishna fulfilling His promise. SHAMANISM, ARCHAIC TECHNIQUE OF Supreme Being and belief in concrete communi• ECSTASY. By . (Routledge cations between heaven and earth." (p. 505) and Kegan Paul, Pp. 610, Price 45s.) The words " sometimes degenerated" are signi• Shamanism is an initiation and technique for ficant, and indeed the " sometimes" could well attaining at will states of ecstasy which involve be discarded. Historians of religion have long experiences of higher and lower worlds. It also abandoned the idea, based on a blind belief in confers powers of defence against sickness and progress and evolution, that monotheism was a psychic and spirit attacks, so that the shaman is late growth from an earlier animism and poly• the spiritual defender of his community. It is theism and found the opposite to be true : that not a religion, being only a mode of training for an original belief in a single Supreme Being later an elite, like yogic or tantric paths in India. It gets overgrown by the cult of gods or spirits who can therefore co-exist with a religion for the whole seem more accessible for the answering of pray• community. It must be considered less) far-reach• ers. While showing this to have occurred in sha- ing than the type of path that aims at , manistic doctrine also, Mircea Eliade; goes farther since it stops short at increasing the powers of and tells us that in practice as well as theory^ all the individual and does not in general envisage shamanistic traditions admit degeneracy and the Supreme Identity. On the other hand, it goes recognize the greater potency of the ancients. For farther than those modern versions of religion instance, the use of intoxicants for producing a which consist of mere belief, for its adepts go trance-like state is everywhere admitted to be a beyond belief to experience. late degeneracy. Shamanism has been mainly observed in Siberia Altogether this scholarly and attractive work and North Central Asia, but in his compendious builds up a very different and far more authentic and fascinating study of it Mircea Eliade shows picture of ancient man than the savage whom unmistakable signs of its present or former pre• an earlier generation of materialistic theorists had valence over most parts of the world — the Arc• imagined in their own likeness. tic, North and South America, Australia, Germa• nic Europe, with considerable vestiges in India, DOCTRINE AND ARGUMENT IN INDIAN PHI• Tibet and China. Moreover he shows it to go LOSOPHY : By Ninian Smart. (Allen and back to remote prehistoric antiquity, at least to Unwin, Pp. 255, Price 37s. 6d.) the people who made the paleolithic rock paint• ings of some 25,000 years ago and possibly much Indian philosophical systems are theoretical farther. " It is indubitable that the celestial ascent bases for spiritual training. To study them, apart of the shaman ... is a^survival, profoundly modi• from this, as mere academic theory ^ would be like fied and sometimes degenerated, of the archaic trying to portray a man by describing the clothes religious ideology centred on faith in a celestial he is wearing. Ninian Smart sees this more 124 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April clearly than most Western commentators. He ex• metic, Tantric and other, are in code and have plains the traditional philosophical systems, both to be deciphered. Hakuin is by no means the only orthodox and heterodox, in association with the Master who has attained the simple by way of systems of training they sponsor. This makes his the intricate. presentation more living than most such attempts A few other short translations at the end are by Western scholars. Added to that, he obviously more accessible. Obviously true Zen. The best has immense erudition without ever displaying it item is the story of a samurai in the time of the or becoming clogged by it. Instead he sets forth civil war who occupied a Zen monastery that was his subject with remarkable lucidity. thought to be favouring the other side. Finding This lucidity, however, is greatly impaired by the abbot sitting calmly in meditation, he nourished his abstension from the use of Sanskrit words. his sword and proclaimed : " Do you realize that Technical terms in any language have overtones you have to do with a man who could run you of meaning which are lost in translation. For through without batting an eyelid ?" To which instance, the implications of the word ' Purusha ' the abbot quietly replied: " And do you realize meaning literally ' man ', 1 person ' or ' Spirit' (as that you have to do with a man who could be contrasted with ' nature' or ' substance') are run through without batting an eyelid ?" The quite different from those of the word ' soulby samurai put up his sword and departed crest• which he renders it. And the implication of exile fallen. and hardship in the word ' samsara' is completely lost in 1 cycle \ And as for ' guna ', the translation

* strand-substance' is downright misleading, even KUMBHA, INDIA'S AGELESS FESTIVAL: By more so than ' stress' or ' tendency' would be, Dilip Kumar Roy and Indira Devi. (Bhavan's though neither of these would be adequate. Indeed Book University, Chowpatty, Bombay-7, Pp. the reader is put to greater effort in remembering 204, Price Rs, 2.50.) what each such word is supposed to imply than he would be in recognizing the Sanskrit words India's Kumbha Mela is a festival that occurs they misrepresent. only once in twelve years, drawing a vast con• course of pilgrims to, Prayag to bathe on the aus• The greatest weakness of the work, however, is picious days at the confluence of the Ganga, the that although it links up the philosophical systems Yamuna and the third river, now subterranean or with the spiritual disciplines, it shows no under• invisible, the Saraswati. Apart from lay pilgrims, standing or appreciation of the states or experi• crowds of sadhus gather there — to meet one ano• ences to which these disciplines lead. It, therefore ther and exchange views and experiences, to wor• fails really to come to life. While providing a ship and to be worshipped. Many of them are useful guide for the academic student (except for failures who have derailed on the path, many the faulty terminology it employs), it is of no frauds who have never} set foot on it, but who is use to the spiritual aspirant. to say that some few among them are not genuine and capable of disseminating light and grace ? THE TIGER'S CAVE : By Trevor Leggett. (Rider That is what Dilip Kumar Roy, the renowned & Co., London, Pp. 191, Price 25s.) singer and mystic, and his disciple Indira Devi set out to investigate at the last Kumbha Mela, " If you want a tiger's cub you must go into a which took place in 1954; and among the enor• tiger's cave " goes a Zen saying. Most of this book mous but regulated crowds of some six millions is a commentary on the ' Heart Sutra' by a Japa• they did indeed find some such. nese Zen abbot who has clearly not acquired the tiger's cub. It is sound and sensible nevertheless, Their book about it was written earlier than but without the sparkle and paradox so many Zen The Flute Calls Still, reviewed in an earlier issue, writers indulge in. 1 but has reached us later. Writing separate chap• Next follows an autobiographical study by ters, they give a vivid impression of this tremen• Hakuin, the 18th Century Zen Master whose dous gathering, the sea of heads wading out into ' Song of Meditation', as translated by Gary Sny- the river, the varied types, the important visitors, jder, we published in our issue of April 1964. It the babel of tongues, the sadhus' colony, the many is concerned with Taoist technicalities which are craving to worship or be worshipped. There are almost meaningless in any other tradition. Pure also convincing account of their meetings and Zen, like pure Advaita, is an open secret for those discussions with a sadhu of regal simplicity in, who can understand, but the technical paths, Her• whom they detected true achievement. 2965 BOOK REVIEWS 125

Dilip Kumar Roy is perhaps overly concerned sonal ambition, for John Smith or Kamala Devi with meeting the objections of the rationalistic will never attain that union. It is the conscious• cynic. Indeed a large part of the book is taken ness that they are and really know themselves! to up with such a dialogue, in which one feels that be — did they but give proper attention to the one tendency of his mind is perhaps confronting matter — who will attain. The- erroneous tempo• another. What convinces him is not argument but rary conception of oneself will then be seen to experience — direct experience of the transcem be only a temporary tool or instrument for dental and human experience of those radiant worldly (vyavaharika) living." souls whq are in touch with the transcendental.

A SOUL'S BLOSSOMS: By Pranav. (The Book

THE SAINTS OF INDIA:. By Swami Tattwa, World, Beach, Trivandrum-7, Pp. 27, Price nanda. (Oxford Book Co., Park St., Calcutta-16, Rs. 4.) Pp. 288, Price Rs. 10.50.) Nearly all poems written in English by Indian writers are far too facile both in metre and Swami Tattwananda gives brief biographies of rhyme. Some of those in the present little volume 40 Indian saints, all Hindus and mostly Vaishna* are quite exceptional in their restraint and their vites, that is bhaktas, although the book opens mastery of genuine English rhythms. Many of with the founder of and closes with Sri them are songs of praise and homage to Bhaga• Ramana Maharshi, both of whom could rather be van, as is the following: called Jnanis and Advaitins. Incidentally, in writ, ing of Sri Ramana Maharshi he makes the grave I KNEW OF THEE mistake of saying that he left home at the age of 16 in quest of Realization. Actually, young as Not in the crowd he was, he had already attained Realization. I saw Thee,

From Tirthankar, about the 5th Century B.C But in the hush the book jumps to , the founder of Of my heart. Sikhism, in the 15th Century AD. From here on Not from men the Vaishnava saints are described in geographical . Of great learning rather1 than chronological order. The omissions I heard of Thee, are remarkable. For instance, neither Sri Chai- But from the whisper tanya nor Sri is included, although Of the voice from they are two of the most famous Bengali bhaktas, A profound Depth, in me. This is the sort of book that many* will like to I got a glimpse of Thee dip into. To read it through as a whole is to see On a solitary hill-top with what powerful continuity the current of Crowned by the gold Hindu spirituality flowed on beneath the surface Of the setting sun. turmoil of Muslim'and British conquest and inter• Whenever I sat mute nal strife. And. my thoughts Made their adieu, VEDANTA DICTIONARY: By Ernest Wood, My Lord, I knew (Peter Owen, Pp. 225, Price 25s.) Thou wert within me.

ARTHUR OSBORNE. Ernest Wood follows up his dictionaries of Zen and Yoga with another efficient one on Vedanta. Certain philosophical questions are inevitably FOUNDATIONS OF TIBETAN MYSTICISM : By raised and not all will agree with his handling Lama Anagarika Govinda.. (Rider & Co., Lon• of some of them. For instance, his definition of don, Pp. 310, Price 30s.)

• samadhi' does not cover all possibilities. Never• " While my eyes were immersed in the golden theless it is a painstaking and useful work. The depths of the Maharshi's eyes, something happen• basic standpoint of Vedanta is excellently defined ed which I dare describe only with the greatest under the heading ' ambition'. " No one could be reticence and humility, in the shortest and simp• more ambitious, probably, than the Vedantist, who lest words, according to truth. The dark com• aims at union with Brahman or God, the one and plexion of his body transformed itself slowly into only, one and absolute being. Yet it is not per• white. This white body became more and more 126 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April luminous, as if lit up from within, and began to His chapters on the Five Dhyani Buddhas and radiate. This experience was so astonishing that, their role in the spiritual transformation of every while trying to grasp it consciously and with clear man on earth are breath-taking. thought, I immediately thought of suggestion, Half of the book is devoted to an exposition of hypnosis, etc. I therefore made certain ' controls the key Mantra of this Yoga-discipline, Om Mani like looking at my watch, taking out my diary Padme Hum, and in the process, the fundamentals and reading in it, for which purpose I had first oi! the science of Mantra are expounded most to put on my spectacles etc. Then I looked at the rationally. Incidentally, he warns against a mate• Maharshi, who had not diverted his glance from rialistic interpretation of the principle of mantric me; and with the same eyes, which a moment vibrations and. points out how it is the spiritual ago were able to read some notes in my diary, attitude and tapas-shakti (instinct in the initia• I saw him sitting on the tiger-skin as a luminous tion) that are really decisive in the matter. The form. precise manner of projecting oneself into the unu It is not easy to explain this state, because it versal consciousness through the syllables of this was so simple, so natural, so pnproblematic. How Mantra is sketched out in profound' terms ; so too I would wish to remember it with full clarity in the graded visualisation of the Deities while dwell-, the hour of my death ! " ing upon the Mantra. Quoting this entry from the Asian Diaries of This is a work of basic importance in the study "Baron Dr. von Veltheim-Ostrau, the author of this of the Tantras — of whatever religion — and de, notable book describes the radiation that ema• serves to be more widely known and studied than nates from a body that has undergone spiritual it has been so far. The writing here proceeds from transformation, a feature that is characteristic of living and hence its peculiar power and spell. the Tibetan Yoga on which this work is an exhaus• tive exposition. THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE Lama Anagarika Govinda has had first-hand MANDALA : By Prof. Giuseppe 'Tucci. (Rider experience of the practical side of this Yoga and & Co., London, Pp. 147, Price 25s.) his extensive studies in the original works on the If the Foundations gives the Tibetan approach subject have combined to place his writings in a to the Reality through JSound, the present book class apart from the others that have been appear• by Dr. Tucci traces the Way through Form. The ing^ during the last five decades and more. The problem is the same; how is the individual to present work, particularly, is a classic and his win back his lost identity with the Divine ? Or treatment of some of the essentials of this tradi• as the author puts it, how best to arrive at tion, viz., Mantra, Mandala, Chakras, Inner Fire reintegration ? etc. is not only brilliant but unique inasmuch as he brings out certain practical truths that are Dr. Tucci is well conversant with both branches lost sight of in most expositions of this type. of the Tantra, the Indian and the Buddhist, and

Discussing the question whether the. Buddhist draws parallels between the two at every stage Tantras derive from the Indian or' the Indian in his study. He describes how from the Absolute Tantras have been influenced by the Buddhist, the Issued this Creation through the Five, intermediary writer expresses his view that, by and large, the self-formulations — whether we call them the Five two pursued their independent lines, the Indian Buddhas or the Five Great , Shiva, Shakti, Tantra emphasising the Shakti (Power) aspect Sadasiva, etc., the truth is the same —and orga• and the Buddhist (in Tibet) concentrating upon nised itself in groups of Five, five elements, five the Prajna (Knowledge) aspect of the Divine. He airs, five directions, etc., etc. but around One is inclined to agree with the scholars who hold centre existing in each creature. Having arrived that the Buddhist Tantras are older and their at the nadir of fragmentation, the disintegration, practices did influence the developments in Indian the individual seeks its way back to its Source, Tantrism. to re-integrate itself. And towards this end the Tibetan adepts have perfected the institution of He makes it a point to underline a commonly the Mandala. What exactly is a Mandala ? neglected feature of the practical teaching of the Buddha: that Yoga as it has developed from the A Mandala is a diagrammatic representation of original Teaching does not turn its face away from the configuration of the subtle forces in Creation life, from form, into some Nothingness but includes which keep the Universe going. Each detail of in its scheme of Illumination the physical body it stands for a nodal point in the constitution of and seeks to embrace all Life in its vision. the Cosmos and by appropriate steps of concen- 1965 BOOK REVIEWS 127 tration, meditation and evocation on it, it is pos• have been waiting for it, like a friend who bit* sible for man to project himself in the determi• terry complained that in the whole of Israel he native scheme of the creative Forces and register could find only one old tattered copy of the book a transition from his ordinary human state to a and asked why -it could not be made available divine status and, if he would, gain complete more freely. This demand for the book is not identity with the Absolute that overtops the Crea• surprising for it is the most mature and finished tion figuratively rendered in the Mandala. work of Sir John Woodroffe who introduced the West —and even the intelligentsia of the India of The learned writer has had. personal experience today. — to the ancient tradition and lore of the of this tradition and leaves no point untouched Tantra and brought to the fore the great Truths in the course of his terse exposition of the sub• of God, Nature and Man it enshrines. Till the ject. His analysis of the symbolism of the Man• advent of this scholar-judge on the scene, all that dala, its various parts, the method of forming one was known of Indian spirituality to the modern and the very interesting means adopted by the mind was the Vedanta and a wrong perspective teachers in Tibet to determine the nature of the of the Vedas. No one admitted the Tantras into Mandala suited to the aspirant, are highly instruc• this fie*ld of study as they were held to be rem• tive. The last chapter describing how the Man• nants of a superstitious and ignorant — if not per• dala can be visualised in one's own body, to the verted—past. It was given to Sir John to clear last detail, and how it can be used to train and this mist of misunderstanding and neglect and to convert one's consciousness into its divine counter• reclaim the treasure that lay concealed under the part is very valuable. debris of overgrown ritualist practices and ill- The processes of ascent and descent, the im• understood formulae. With the collaboration of portance of personal effort in sadhana, the futi• indigenous scholarship and help of genuine prac• lity of suppression of tendencies in one's nature, titioners in the line, he unearthed and brought out the necessity of transfiguration, the indispensa* a number of editions of old Sanskrit texts. He bility of a sound physical base in the body, the wrote introductions, translated the texts, annotated limitations of the intellect vis a vis the soul — them, lectured on their contents and devoted his these are some of the topics touched upon in a whole life to the resuscitation of this great Science. manner that could be helpful to any sadhaka of And if today it is widely recognised that the whatever persuasion. For after all is said, the Tantra has a philosophy and a discipline which is Quest is the same for every one. And rightly more catholic and understanding of human nature understood, the Mandala has a universal signifi• and its -possibilities than the Vedanta, that it is cance. As the writer concludes: the one system which is free from .dogma- and offers itself for verification at every step, that it " When,' then, the Indian or Tibetan artist is unique inasmuch as it harmonises the claims designs a mandala, he is not obeying the arbitrary of both father Heaven and mother Earth onj man command of caprice. He is following a definite and therefore the most acceptable in the modern tradition which teaches him how to represent, in context, the credit for being the pioneer should go a particular manner, the very drama of his soul. to Sir John Woodroffe. He does not depict on a mandala the cold images of an iconographical text. ... He gives form to And of all the large number of books he wrote that world he eels surging within him and he and edited, The Serpent Power stands out as the sees it spread out before his eyes, no longer the most important, a worthy monument to the indus, invisible and unrestrainable master of his soul, but try, perceptive intelligence, wisdom and maturity a serene symbolic representation which reveals to of the soul of Sir John. The' work is built round him the secret of things and of himself. This two Sanskrit texts: (1) shat-chakra-nirupana, complicated juxtaposition of images, their syrcu which forms the sixth chapter of the Tattva, metrical arrangement, this alternation of calm and chintamani of Purnanandaswami who lived four of menacing figures, is the open book of the world hundred years ago in Bengal; and (2) * and of Man's own spirit." panchaka of unknown authorship. Both of them deal with the organisation of the Chakras or Lotuses which are the Centres of vital dynamism THE SERPENT POWER: By Sir John Wood- in the human system, and which are activated and roffe. Seventh edition. (Ganesh & Co., Mad- utilised in the path of Yoga, that is the soul of ras-17, Price Rs. 30)) the Tantra. That The Serpent Bower is again available will Apart from the Sanskrit text and the common* be glad tidings to many in India and abroad who tary thereon by another authority on the subject, 128 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

Kalicharana, the volume contains the full trans• time of "Shankara onwards have inveighed against lation in English of both the text and the com• this path without taking the trouble to make a mentary, by Sir John Woodroffe, his elaborate careful study of it or of the texts on which it notes based or| other commentaries on the works, is based. However, its goal is unexceptionable: and — what is more important — a magnificent that is realization of one's identity with Being Introduction running into 300 pages giving a lucid in its aspect of Becoming. The path also is in and detailed account of the philosophy and prac• no way objectionable if rightly understood. The tice of the Kundalini Yoga that is the subject- strict advaitin rejects the objective world as illu• matter of the text. sion, but the tantric accepts it as a means of sadhana, enjoying it not as an objective reality in The Supreme Consciousness as it is, the Cons• itself but as a manifestation of the Divine and a ciousness in its embodiment in the universe and path to the Divine. On the Kaula path the sakta the individual, the centres of Connection between approaches his goal like a veer a or hero by the individual and the Universal Consciousness, enjoying creation in its three modes or gunas of the means to activise them, the process of deve* satva, rajas and tamas. But while enjoying it he loping the individual human consciousness into remains aloof from it, as only a hero can. He the cosmic and transcendent divine Consciousness holds fast to the understanding that everything — are the fundamental topics that are dwelt upon. seen is in truth a manifestation of the seer of it. There is much else of- interest: differences bet• But the adoption of this sadhana is only for the ween the location of the Chakras according to the few, the real heroes who can use and enjoy the old tradition of the Tantra and the visualisation beauties of nature without becoming enslaved by of the Theosophists; the famous correspondence them. Indeed a perusal of the qualifications re• between Sir John and his Indian collaborator and quired of the initiate and the restrictions imposed friend Prof. Pramathanatha Mukherji (now Swami on the ritual of enjoyment will show that few Pratyagatmananda) on the question whether when are capable of the Kaula sadhana and remove any the Kundalini is awakened and rises up, she leaves prejudice against those who are. the base entirely or only partially, etc., etc. Unfortunately the spirit of the age is' against Enriched by the addition of eight colour-plates this kind of sadhana. Still the publisher must be illustrating the different lotuses and nine half-tone congratulated for the spirit of true culture which blocks showing the asanas and mudras mentioned alone could induce hirn to bring out this account in the book, this Volume is a capital production. of a lost method of seeking realization. M. P. PANDIT. KRISHNA BHIKSHU. KULARNAVA TANTRA: Annotated translation by M. P. Pandit, with an introduction by Sir STUDIES IN THE TANTRAS AND THE VEDA. John Woodroffe. (Ganesh & Co., Madras, Pp. By M. P. Pandit. (Ganesh & Co., Madras, Pp. 357, Price Rs. 25.) 146, Price Rs. 6.)

The Kularnava Tantra is one of the authorita• The book reviews by the learned writer M. P. tive texts of the much traduced Kaula school of Pandit collected together in this volume are worth sadhana. It is said to have originally contained a preserving in their own right. One of them, for hundred thousand verses, although only some two instance, brings out clearly the Vedic origin of the thousand verses arranged in seventeen chapters Tantras. It explains the theory of the Yoga of now survive. There have been other translations cosmic energy which Tantra is. Tantric yoga, in• but the present one is preeminent for its free, deed, comprises a wide range of techniques includ• clear translation and excellent selection from tex• ing asanas, pranayama, bandha, mudra, medita• tual variants as well as for its admirable print• tion, japa, shakti upasana, etc. Its distinctive ing and get-up. It is further improved by a valu• feature is that it rejects the escapist asceticism oi able introduction taken from the writings of Sir some forms of yoga, preferring >o face Nature John Woodroffe. A valuable appendix gives a whole and master it. The author further brings clear explanation of the many technical terms out clearly the significance of Tantric rituals such used in the book, thereby making the text more as pancha makara and shadchakra. intelligible. * Among varied and interesting chapters, it is The Kaula sadhana has had many detractors very good that the author has one on Raurava through the ages. Even apart from modern Agama, for that is the very mainspring of Siva Western-educated Hindus, many from the Jnana Bodham and Divya Tantra which leads to 2965 BOOK REVIEWS 129 a polarity of life in Siva-Shakti consciousness. S. Radhakrishnan (all of whom became Knights We also have to thank the author for much valu-. later), not to mention two Mahamahopadhyayas. able information on the Gayatri and Purusha Later, as Principal of a Government College and Suktas and Nivida from the Rig Veda with the of two private colleges, he set a much-needed original text in Devanagari. Altogether this col* example of rectitude in administration. On the lection of studies is a very welcome addition to teaching of English, especially through written the growing body of literature on Tantrism. work, on the responsibilities of Hostel Wardens, and on the relationship of principals to manage• YOGI SHUDDHANANDA BHARATI. ments, he has much of value to say.

GURU PREMAMRIT: By Swami Muktananda. But our primary interest in this work relates to (Shree Gurudev Ashram, P.O. Vajreswari, his persistent and, on the whole, successful efforts Dist. Thana, Maharashtra. Pp. 23. Price through lectures and books to spread among stu• 60 Paise.) dents and the general public a sound knowledge

Guru Bhakti is one of the recognized forms of of Hinduism, its scriptures and philosophy, its bhakti marga. Swami Muktananda, successor to saints and sages, its history and development, the late Swami Nityananda, gives an eloquent ex• True to Indian/ tradition, he would base religion position of it in this little booklet. on reason as well as authority and experience and he would welcome and utilize modern knowledge Writing in simple language which obviously and progress in science. He has no patience with springs from his own deep experience, he shows J. Krishnamurti's summary dismissal of all insti• how the devotee by first concentrating all his tutions. In fact, he holds that religion is the con• heart and mind on the beloved Guru, gradually tinuation and fulfilment of our everyday life, of comes to see him in all living beings and pervad* artistic experience, scientific discovery and social ing the whole universe, until he is led through service. The result of the spiritual experiences of love and surrender to the experience of absolute prophets and seers, who belong to the present an non-duality. well as the past and who reveal the unity behind Lest we should be tempted to regard this as an the multiplicity of phenomenal existence, religion easy short cut for those who have little inclina* is a social art and a spiritual science which can tion to subject themselves to the rigorous discip. transform individuals and society by making them line imposed bV other paths, the author reminds grow in a vertical dimension towards the infinite. us that whole-hearted concentration on the Guru automatically imposes its own discipline requir• The interview with Bhagavan which gave rise ing constant effort and is not gained in a day, to Prof. Sarma's well-known essay on " A Great Guru Bhakti is not ' roses all the way ' but the Jnana-Yogin of Modern India " (The Hindu Stand, true devotee, accepting all as by the Grace of point, M.L.J. Press, Madras-4) is reported at Gurudev, delights in the thorns no less than the pp. 148-50 of the book under review and it con- fragrant petals. He may think that the stern prac• tains the declaration : - tice of is not for him but he achieves it " Sadhana implied an object to be gained, and all the same. the means of gaining it. What is there to be

Western readers who may be predisposed to gained which we do not already possess ?..., consider this form of sadhana strange and per• - The self is realized not by one's doing some, haps even open to question are particularly re. thing, but by one's refraining from doing any. commended to read this simple, warm-hearted thing, by remaining still and being simply what little exposition of it. It is well translated from one really is." the original by Dr. Kokila. PROF. K. SWAMINATHAN.

R. ROSE. HIDDEN RICHES, TRADITIONAL SYMBOLISM

FROM LITERATURE TO RELIGION : An Auto• FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO BLAKE. By biography. By D. S. Sarma (Bharatiya Vidya Desiree Hirst. (Eyre and Spottiswoode, Pp. Bhavan, Bombay-7, Pp. 232, Price Rs. 6.) 348, Price 42s.)

For* many years a highly respected Professor in The neo-paganism of the Renaissance that has Presidency College, Madras, then at the height been so much written about is far from being tha of its glory, Prof. D. S. Sarma counted among his* whole picture. Miss Hirst shows in this fascinat• friends and colleagues Mark Hunter, R. M. ing study that there was also a strong wave of Statham, H. C. Papworth, S.E. Runganatham and mysticism based largely on neo-Platonic, Pythago. 130 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

rean and Cabbalistic symbolism. Profuse illustra* becomes externalised in some form of human ex- tions of the complex symbolism used add still perience." (p. 111-112). further to the value of the book. There wasj even Like all Joel Goldsmith's books, this one also a suspicion that behind the philosophy of proclaims the simple, universal truth of Advaita, Grace lay the deeper profundity of Egypt that "I and my Father are One", in ordinary and India and a readiness to recognize the language, avoiding philosophical complexities. It basic truth of all religions. " This movement is a profound and beautiful book with a scriptu• was pursued as much by churchmen as by ral quality about it.

anyone else. Its whole impulse was Christian SAGITTARIUS. piety. Though the speculations of a Pico or a Giorgio, a Nicholas of Cusa or Egidio, were OBJECTIONS TO ROMAN CATHOLICISM: daring, they were put forward in a spirit of com* Edited with an introduction by M de la Be, plete loyalty to the Church." (p. 41). In Catholic doyere. (Constable, London. Pp. 184, Price Europe the movement was smothered (although 18s.) the author overlooks this fact) by the Counter* Most people are aware that important changes Reformation. It reached its greatest profundity are taking place in the Roman Catholic Church, in the German Protestant mystic Jacob Boehme ; but few probably realise how profound and far- and in Protestant England it continued right reaching they are. When Pope John summoned through the 17th and 18th Centuries with Robert the Vatican Council he said that his purpose was Fludd, the Cambridge Platonists, William Law ' to give back to the face of the Church of Jesus and many others, to have a final flowering in the Christ the splendour and the pure and simple early 19th Century in the symbolical poems and lines of its birth and to present it as the divine art of William Blake. To any interested in the Founder made it'. It is this drama of the renewal long struggle of mysticism against encroaching of the inner life of the Church, of its interior Western materialism this is a most informative (spirit, which is being enacted in the Vatican Coun• book. It is marred unfortunately by a glib '-Con• cil to-day and if it still falls short of its objective, clusion ' in which the author plays the it cannot be denied that an astonishing transfor• schoolma'am, putting the neo-Platonists and mation is taking place. mystics in their places, but in spite of that it is One way of expressing what is taking place well worth its price. is to say that the Vatican Council marks the end of the ' Constantinian era' in the Church. When SPIRITUAL INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE:/ the Emperor Constantine became a Christian and By Joel S. Goldsmith. (Allen and Unwin, Christianity instead of being a persecuted sect Pp. 235. Price 15s.) became the established religion of the Roman Empire, it undoubtedly brought with it great ad•

"Christ may be born a thousand times in vantages ; the Church entered into an alliance Bethlehem, but if he be not born anew within with the world, and was largely responsible for your own heart, you remain eternally forlorn," moulding the civilisation of Europe which came said the German mystic Angelus Silesius. into being in the next thousand years. But it also Similarly Joel Goldsmith, in this illumined work, brought great disadvantages: it meant that every expounds the symbolical meaning of Biblical kind of credulity and superstition began to find istories and ' sayings from both Old and New a place in Christianity and what was perhaps more Testament. This symbolism does not exclude serious, the lust for power and wealth began to their historical truth but, as he says, is invade the Church. Movements of Reform which of profounder importance. " The stories of Moses, attempted to purify the Church have taken place constantly — the Reformation and the Counter- Jesus, Paul and John are only of value to Reformation of the sixteenth century were but you when you discover their relationship to the culmination of many similar movements —* your life" (p. 18). In fact he goes still but the need for reform is always present, and further to point -out the symbolical value not this is what the Vatican Council is now attempt• only of scriptural stories but of the events and ing. circumstances of your own life, as reflections of your inner state. "There is no external change One of the most significant signs of this new without an internal development" (p. 52). And jspirit in the Church is the spirit of self-criti• conversely: " Whatever we take into our con-, cism which is awakening everywhere. A good jsciousness and make a part of our consciousness example of this is the book ' Objections to Roman 2965 BOOK REVIEWS 131

Catholicism' by a group of English lay people, is the same tendency to corruption. An over• which has already had a sensational effect in emphasis on sacramentalism gives rise to super• England. The book is not outstandingly good, but stition, on religious organization to casteism and it is valuable as a sign of the kind of criticism communalism, on theology to a barren dogmatism. which is being leveled at the Church by loyal It is the mystical life which is the cdre of reli• and devoted members of it and not, as so often gion and the inspiration of all these external in the past, by hostile critics. The charges against forms. What we need to-day, and what to a large the Church are basically three; the encourage• extent we are witnessing, is a renewal of this ment of credulity and superstition — denned as Jinner life of religion. This alone can recover the ' any belief or practice inspired by an unworthy purity of true religion and at the same time bring view of God' — which is the subject of the first the different religious traditions closer to one an• chapter; Worldliness, the subject of the second other. This is what may be ultimately hoped chapter ; and Authoritarianism, the subject of the from the present reform in the Roman Church.

third, which manifests itself in the practice of DON BEDE GRIFFTHS. Censorship — perhaps the .best study in the book

—and in lack of respect for the freedom of the SUFISM individual, which is studied in the fifth chapter.

The sixth chapter opens fresh ground in an THE SUFIS : By Idries Shah. With an Introduc• attack on Scholasticism, especially the system of tion by Robert Graves. (W. H. Allen, Pp. St. Thomas Aquinas, who holds a position as the XXVI and 404, Price 45s.) criterion of Orthodoxy in the Catholic Church, DIVINE DWELLERS IN THE DESERT: By akin to that of Sankara in Vedanta. This is rather Gurdial Mallik. (Grambhawana Prakashan, a weak and unbalanced attack, but it is signifi• Karnal, Pp. 113, Price Rs. 1.25.) cant as showing the freedom of criticism which is now tolerated and also as showing some of the An authoritative account of the Sufis and their real weaknesses in the Scholastic system. Finally, teachings is long overdue. Obviously writing from Archbishop Roberts — the only non-layman in the the inside, Syed Idries Shah is most informative group, of whom it should be noticed two are about the tradition, even expounding Sufi methods women—writes on Contraception and War, two of training so far as is possible in a book intend• -subjects on which Catholic thought is seriously ed for the general public. He also has chapters engaged in re-thinking its attitude at present. on a number of the most famous Sufi poets, saints ' and philosophers, such as Al Ghazali, Jalaluddin This book is not only of interest to Roman Rumi and Ibn Arabi. Not the least interesting of Catholics; it marks rather the opening of the these is that on the traditional Sufi humorist Catholic Church on the world, its honest attempt Mulla Nasruddin. It makes delightful reading be• to re-assess its faith and practice in the face of cause he really is very funny and, what is more the modern world. This is something which all important, it illustrates the use of humour, shock religions have to face to-day. Baron von Hugel and surprise in Sufi training. once said that in every religion there are four elements, a sacramental, a social, an intellectual If the author had only stuck to his subject this and a mystical. Basically all religion is mystical; would have been an altogether excellent book. it is man's endeavour to relate himself to that Unfortunately, however, he is forever trying to ultimate reality, which alone gives meaning to prove the ascendency of Sufism over other tradi• life. But because we are not pure spirits, but tions and their dependence on it. While it is embodied souls, this aspiration normally finds ex• impossible to deny the great influence which pression in bodily acts and gestures, and so gives Sufism has had on the theory, practice and lite• rise to rites and sacraments. Again because we rary expression of esoterism in the West, the are not isolated individuals but ' members of one author spoils his case by over-stating it and com• another', sharing a common ^destiny, religion nor• pletely ignoring the very real indigenous spiri• mally takes a social form, involving some kind of tual heritage of Judaeism and Christianity. Turn• organization. Finally because we are rational ing to the East, he is even more crude, and in beings, our religious faith demands some kind of fact downright absurd, in trying to assign an rational formulation and so finds expression in Islamic origin to Hindu and Buddhist spirituality. creeds and systems. These elements are present Rival claims for pre-eminence are to be expected not only in Christianity but in Hinduism, from the exoteric exponents of the various reli• Buddhism and Islam, and in each religion there gions, but one ' has a right to expect greater 132 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April understanding from an author who has penetrated ever, to read the author's conclusion that little if to the spiritual essence of any one of them. anything of this glorious heritage remains in Sindh to-day. The introduction, echoed in the blurb, further A. QUTBUDDIN. increases the crudity, referring to the author as the Grand Sheikh of the Sufis and as. being in the GOD : By Mrs. Dinshaw S. Paowalla. (Publish• senior male line of descent from the Prophet ed by Framroj Dhanbhoora, Bulsar, pp. 13, Mohammed. Actually there is no Grand Sheikh Price not stated.) of the Sufis, each order having its own sheikh Mrs. Paowalla has sent us from Hong Kong a or head, and there is no male line of descent little booklet recommending love and service as from Mohammed, his only descendents being a discipline for people in general and self-enquiry through his daughter Fatima. for those who seek spiritual life culminating in Despite the narrow and quarrelsome tone in Divine Union. which this book is written, it remains a valuable and informative work on a subject about which GLIMPSES OF GOD: By M. D. Japheth. (The few have written with comparable authority. author, 24-B, Hamam St., Bombay-1, Pp. 72, However regrettable its approach, there is at pre• Price Rs. 3.75, 6s., $1.00.) sent no replacement for it. Fifteen selected sermons delivered by the

Gurdial Mallik's little book on the Sufis of author in a Bombay synagogue touch on various Sindh also speaks of the universality of Sufism religious and sociological problems. They are bu'; in a gracious and tolerant manner, unlike the idealistic and high-minded but completely exote• ether. It is verbose rather than informative but ric, with no glimpse of the Knowledge that is makes pleasant reading. It is depressing, how- Being.

Sri Ramanasramam The Mountain Path Life Members Life Subscribers

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INDIA: INDIA: V. SESHADRI, Calcutta. K. G. SUBRAMANIAM, Shimoga. MRS. S. MAHINDRA, Poona. Y. VENKATESA SASTRY, Nellore. Miss JER DADABHOY, Bombay. N. P. MAHESH, Meerut. THE EASTERN AGENCIES, Bangalore-2. N. PARAMESWARAN THAMPI, Trivandrum. MAHARAJAH OF MANDI & H. II. RANI SAHEBA OF M. S. VISWANATHAN, Pal . MANDI. DARIUS D. NICHOLSON, Bombay. L. N. BIRLA, Calcutta. M. S. SATYANARAYANA RAO, Bangalore. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: K. V. RAMANAN, Madurai. GopALji p. DESAI, Navsari. E. SCHUNICKE, Florida. PRINCESS MEENA DEVI, Bombay. PAUL REPS, Hawaii. SONI GOVINDJI MAMAIYA, Bombay. FIJI:

MALAYSIA: KARAN SINGH JASWAL. MASTER THONG WOONG LEONG. ENGLAND: MASTER THONG YIN HOWE. J. DELLAL, London. U.S.A.: J. REISS, London. M ARKELL - RAYMER, C alif ornia. A. KALMAN, London. JOSEPH R. RAYMER, California. AFRICA : GERMANY: R O. AMINU, Lagos, Nigeria. Jos FR. HAAGEN, Porz Zundorf. SWEDEN : ENGLAND: F. C. SMITH, Poole. MRS. VERA HEDENLO, Oskarshamn. ITALY : SWEDEN:

MRS. VERA HEDENLO, Oskarshamn. DR. ALBERTO BEGHE, Milano. A?

JAYANTI

The 85th birth anniversary of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi was celebrated at his Ashram at Tiruvannamalai according to the Tamil calen• dar on Monday, December 21st., 1964. The celeb• ration opened in the early morning with hymn's to Sri Maharshi and to Arunachala. The elabo• rate morning pujas included Ekadasa Mahan- yasa Abhishekam, chanting of the Taitiriya and Mahanarayana Upanishads and Laksharchana of Ramana Sahasranamam, the thousand names of Ramana. , Then followed the arthi to Sri Bhaga• van and to Sri Matrubuteswarar. The Presence of introduced to members of the Board of Trustees Sri Maharshi was powerfully felt. A large num• and to distinguished members of the Ashram. He ber of guests were invited to stay to lunch and took part in the entire celebration and only left thousands of the poor were fed. for Pondicherry in the evening.

The Lt. Governor of Pondicherry, Sri Sayaji In the afternoon there was singing of Sri Lakshman Silam, came here specially to attend Ramana Gitam by Sri Om Sadhu and his party. the celebration and w^as received by the Presi• The celebrations concluded with the singing of dent of the Ashram, Sri Venkataraman. He was Tamil hymns to Sri Maharshi and Sri Arunacha- leswarar.

Good wishes for the occasion were received from Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, President of India; Sri Karan Singh, Governor of Kashmir ; Sri Jaya. chamaraja Wadiyar, Governor of Madras^ Sri K. Kamaraj, President of the All-India Congress Committee; Sri T. T. Krishnamachari, Finance Minister of India ; Sri N. Sanjiva Reddy, Minister for Steel and Mines, and others.

Among the distinguished visitors were

Dr. T.N M. P. Mahadevan, head of the philosophy department of Madras University; Dr. T. N. Krishnaswami, A. R. Narayana Rao, Sri Framji The Trustees of Sri Ramanasramam: (L to R) Dorabji, Sri Umesh Dutt, N. R. Viswanathan, Pro• Sri S. S. V. S. Muthiah Chettiar, Dr. T. N. fessor of Physics at Annamalai University, Mr. and Krishnaswamy, Mrs. F. Taleyarkhan, Lt. Governor Mrs. Martin, both internationally known artists, of Pondicherry, Sri Sailam (Chief Guest), Sri Dr. V. N. Sharma and the Swiss lady psycholo• T. N, Venkataraman, President and Sri K, Srinivasachariar. gist Dr. Kockel. 134 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

BOMBAY A Sri Ramana Festival was celebrated for nine days in Bombay, from December 16th to 24th

On the 23rd February, the 85th Jayanthi of inclusive, art the Gita Govind Hall in Sion East Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi was celebrated On the 16th evening it was inaugurated by the in Bombay at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan by the Hon. C. R. Pattabhiraman, Union Deputy Minister Sri Ramana Jayanti Celebration Committee. for Information and Broadcasting.

The Governor of Maharashtra, Dr. P.. V. MADRAS Cherian, presided over the function. Dr. C. P. Sri Ramana Bhakta Sabha, Alwarpet, Madras, Ramaswamy Aiyar, who was the chief speaker, celebrated the Jayanti on December 27th. After could not be present on the occasion since he had Veda par ay ana Mr. Justice K. S. Venkataraman to leave for Delhi on urgent matter; however, spoke, explaining the trials and triumphs of his written speech was read by the Committee's sadhana, whether one pursued the traditional Vice Chairman, Sri P. V, Puranik. Dr. K. M. Hindu or Buddhist methods or the less formal Munshi's presence and participation in the func• technique of Sri Ramana. tion added grace to its glory. There was a good number of Ramana Bhaktas and the function was DELHI a great success.

. Devotees in Delhi celebrated the Jayanti on December 25th at a public meeting organized by the Ramana Kendra at the Satsang Hall of the Vinayaka Temple, Sarojini Nagar. After Veda

Ramana Jayanthi: Celebrated in Bombay on February 23rd by Sri Ramana Jayanti Celebration Committee: Governor of Maharashtra, Dr. P. V, Cherian, speaking; by his side are, Dr. K. M. Munshi, Sri P. B. Kotak, Sri G. V. Puranik and Ramana Jayanthi at Sri Ramana Kendra in Mrs. Mani Sahukar. New Delhi. 1965 ASHRAM BULLETIN 135 parayana, Sri Tandaveswara of Sankara Vidya Kendra and Prof. K. Swaminathan spoke of the profound impact of Bhagavan's presence and the universal appeal of his teachings. Sri K. Rama- krishna Bhat recited his Sanskrit slokas on Bha-, gavan. Verses from Bhagavan's hymns to Aruna- chala and Muruganar's Tamil poems to Bhagavan were sung.

PALGHAT

The Vijnana Ramaneeya Mandiram, Palghat, Kerala, celebrated the Jayanti both on the 20th and 21st. This is quite legitimate, since Sri Ramana was born about midnight between the two dates. On both days there were pujas, arena, Smt. M. S. Subbulakshmi's concert: She thrilled nas and nama- in the morning. Soon after the audience with her devotional songs. the morning puja on the 20th the eighteen chapters of the Bhagavad Giia were recited by Sri Mani Iyer and his children and in the evening there were praised by no less a person than Mahatma was a discourse on Sri Ramana Darsana by Sri Gandhi, gave a concert at the Ashram in willing G. Balakrishnan Nair, lecturer at Victoria College. response to our request. She was accompanied On the 21st evening Sri P. V. Rajagopal, Divi• on the violin by Sri Subramaniam and on the sional Superintendent of the Southern Railway, by Sri Tanjavur Murthy. The con. gave a -discourse on ' The Path of Bhagavan Sri cert consisted of devotional songs in Tamil,* Sans• Ramana Maharshi krit and Hindi chosen by the singer herself and lasted for three and a half hours. The large audience, consisting of both Hindus and foreigners, RAJAHMUNDRY were held spell-bound and some of them moved A Ramana Jayanti meeting was held at the to tears by her vibrant, melodious voice and the Hindu Samaj Buildings. There was chanting of devotion and feeling in her singing. passages from the Upanishads and a number of eminent persons spoke on the importance of Bha• Smt. Subbulakshmi's husband, Sri T. Sadasivan, gavan's teaching. editor and owner of the popular Tamil weekly ' Kalki \ also honoured us with his presence on CALICUT the occasion. They were presented with Ashram publications as well as a large portrait, of Sri There is no Sri Ramana organization at Cali• Bhagavan. Both of them seemed very pleased cut, but the Jayanti was celebrated with great with their visit here, and after their return to enthusiasm at the Sri Sai Baba Mission Bhaj an Madras Sri Sadasivan wrote : "It would not be Mandir. There was bha j an and recitation of entirely correct to say that we enjoyed our short Bhagavan's Upadesa Saram and of Sanskrit slokas stay at the Ashram ; it would be more correct to composed in praise of Bhagavan by Kavyakanta say that we felt blessed." Ganapathi Muni. After this several devotees who had had the inestimable privilege of sitting at the Devotees are the more grateful to them since feet of Sri Bhagavan told personal reminiscences this is the first of a series of benefit performam of him as well as speaking about his teaching. ces which this great musician has graciously con• Dr. M. Anandan, Secretary of the Shri Sai Baba sented to give in aid of the building fund needed Mission, who is" also an ardent devotee of Sri to erect the large meditation hall that is planned Bhagavan, spoke briefly but clearly on the central in front of Sri Bhagavan's samadhi. theme of Self-enquiry in Bhagavan's teaching. MOUNTAIN PATH NEWS A MUSICAL PERFORMANCE The July issue of The Mountain Path will be On New Year's Day Smt. M. S. Subbulakshmi, largely on the theme of Realization and Guidance leading vocal musician of in and the October issue largely on the theme of South India, whose voice and depth of devotion Orthodoxy. 136 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

Donations of books to The Mountain Path IN MEMORIAM library will be gratefully received. Many readers were impressed by the articles CHINNASWAMI'S ARADHANA we published in our issues of April and July 1964 on the Secrets and Symbolism of Arunachala, The 12th aradhana or death anniversary of Now we have regretfully to announce the demise Chinnaswami' or ' The Lesser Swamithat is of their author, Sri T. K. Sri Niranjanananda Swami, who was the Ashram Sundaresa Iyer, whose last Sarvadhikari (as described in our issue of article, entitled ' Siva "M Jan. 1964) was celebrated Lingam', appears in this in the Ashram where his issue. After being a close samadhi or shrine is loca• devotee of Sri Bhagavan ted, on 17th Jan. The for some fifty years he devotees assembled for passed away in Sri the occasion and paid due Ramana Nagar at 6-10 a.m. homage to one whose life• on Friday Feb. 5th at the long guidance of the age of 68. Although not Ashram in a spirit of ser• of a great age, he had vice and devotion to Bha• become very frail. For gavan led to the construc• quite a while he remain• T. K. S. tion of the fine Ashram ed permanently on the 1 1 premises we now enjoy. Chinnaswami Ashram precincts, not even visiting his children. He passed away peacefully, conscious to the very

VISITORS end and was cremated with due rites in the pre• sence of many Ramana bhaktas. As usual at this time of year, there was a con* stant flow of visitors. Outstanding among them Born into a strictly orthodox family, was, perhaps, Anthony he was at first put off by accounts of Sri Bhaga- Brooke of Sarawak who van's impatience wTith formal orthodoxy and had spent several weeks here to be literally forced by a cousin to pay his first He was much drawn to visit to him in 1908. Having once seen him, how• Arunachala and often ever, he became his ardent devotee. As he ex• spent the whole day alone plained with profound insight to . this editor: there, setting forth in the " Bhagavan was above formal orthodoxy or un- morning with a bunch of orthodoxy. Whatever he did was orthodox be• bananas for sustenance. cause he did it, since he was higher than Manu He also circumambulated and was himself the source of orthodoxy. People the holy hill almost every who failed to see that were putting the letter day. .above the Spirit." We were also interested . to have a visit from the Anthony Brooke He was always very helpful to the Ashram Italian novelist Piero authorities, gladly lending a hand with office cor• Scanziani. He presented us with a signed copy of respondence, publication work, pujas and the Veda

his novel 11 Cinque Continenti' (' The Five Patasala. Continents') in which there is mention of Bha• Sri Sundaresa Iyer was one of those who was gavan and his teaching. Unfortunately there is no captivated by the magnetic personality of Sri English translation of it. Kavyakanta Ganapathi Muni, about whom there Fast on the heels of Olga Mago, mentioned in is an article in this issue. He learned the Rig our last News Bulletin, comes another lady from Veda Sutras from him and under his guidance fol• Venezuela, this time Irma Potess de Valera, an lowed for a length of time the Mantra- artist of international repute who is going on, Marga. When the Muni left for Belgaum in 1926 from here to Beyruth, where she is holding an he remained here and practically made the exhibition. She was already a firm devotee of Ashram his home. Bhagavan before leaving home and came to India only for the sake of visiting his Ashram. May he rest in peace at the Feet of Bhagavan. OS?

INTRODUCING ....

Of Bhagavan's few short books one of the most beautiful is Spiritual Instruction. It is little known because Bhagavan never wrote it out in a continuous form, as he did Who am I ? and Self- Enquiry but left it in its original form of ques• tion and answer, and it was therefore not includ• ed in his Collected Works. In particular, it con• tains beautiful definitions of the Guru and upa• desa, including the following passage which shows in what an uncompromising sense Bhaga• van used the term ' Guru': " The Guru is one who at all times abides in the profound depths of the Self. He never sees any difference between himself and others and is quite free from the idea that he is the Enlightened or Liberated One, while those around him are in bondage or the darkness of ignorance. His self-possession can never be shaken under any circumstances, and he is never perturbed."

• Most of these explanations were given to an elementary school teacher, by name Natesa Muda- liar. It was as far back as 1918, before the pre• sent Ashram was built, that, fired with enthusiasm from his reading of Swami Viyekananda, he approached Bhagavan in Skandashram Cave and sought his upadesa. In those days Bhagavan spoke little and the rumour spread that he took no dis• However that only strengthened his resolve. A ciples and gave no upadesa. And indeed the first Sat-Guru must be found, and where was another ? time Natesa visited him he sat silent, not vouch• His mind always flew to the Maharshi. In 1920 safing a word, and Natesa returned home dejected. he wrote a few letters to the Maharshi, but there was at that time no Ashram office and no corres• pondence was maintained, so no reply came. In one letter he said that if .Sri Maharshi would not bless him with upadesa in this life he would have to be reborn to do so in another incarnation. A few days after this Sri Maharshi appeared to him in a dream and told him that his help would follow if he first meditated on God in the form of Maheswara. Natesa followed this instruction for some time and then to his surprise and plea• sure-received a reply from Sri Vasudeva Sastriar on behalf of Sri Bhagavan that his letters had been placed before Bhagavan and that he could come for darshan.

He accordingly went to Tiruvannamalai and first worshipped the Lord in the temple there. A Brahmin there to whom he told his story advised him that it would be a good sign if he could first Natanananda get upadesa from the elusive Seshadri Swami who 138 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April also lived on the Hill.i The two of them accord, After following this dream upadesa for some ingly went in search of Seshadri Swami. After time Natesa had another dream in which he" a good deal of search they contacted him and he affirmed to Sri Maharshi that he was not the said : " When the mind rejects objects one after body, whereupon Sri Maharshi placed his hand another what survives this elimination is Jnana on his head and then on the right side of his and That is God. All is That and That alone. It chest, pressing hard. This caused some pain but is madness to run to hills and caves in quest of he considered it a gift of Grace. On waking he it. Go without fear." felt that the Maharshi had given him Hasta Diksha and opened his ' heart'. Full of joy, Natesa went up the hill to Skam On his next visit to Skandashram the Maharshi dashram and sat before the Maharshi for some told him that the Atman was already present so hours. The Maharshi still did not speak to him that there was no such thing as obtaining it. It but before rising to go for food twice looked is already obtained. On this he experienced intently at him. Henceforth Natesa visited the peace. Ashram every month but a year went by before About 1926 Natesa asked Bhagavan for permis* he presumed to open his mouth and ask Bhaga* siori^to renounce the world and become a hermit, van for his anugraha or Grace. Bhagavan said : Bhagavan dissuaded him, but in spite of this he " I am always giving it. If you can't apprehend could not give up the idea and finally donned it what can I do ? " Still the silent Grace was the ochre robe unauthorised. He did not find that not apprehended. it brought him the peace he had anticipated and

Some days later Sri Maharshi appeared ^o him after a few years he was persuaded to resume his in a dream and instructed him to unify the vision normal mode of life. He wrote in Tamil ' Ramana of his two eyes, withdrawing it from objects, Darsanam' in which there is a happy blending external and internal, and to make this his form of Gurujnana and Gurubhakti. He is still in Tiru. of practice. In the dream he disputed the utility vannamalai, under the name of Natanananda,* of this form of practice but Sri Maharshi told him but living in retirement and known to few. to try it and see. * We are glad to inform our friends that he has since purchased a house in Ramana Nagar and i For whom see ' Ramana Maharshi and the Path has settled down very near the Ashram, thus of Self-Knowledge', Ch. VI, by Arthur Osborne, enabling his fellow-devotees to contact him Rider & Co., London. whenever they wish to.

ANNOUNCEMENT

We are glad to inform our readers that the response to the journal from readers in India and abroad has been far in excess of our most sanguine expectations. We will be glad to receive offers for the representation of the journal in all countries out• side India for the purpose both of enrolling subscribers and of distributing copies to them in their own country. For terms and conditions please apply to :

The Managing Editor, ' THE MOUNTAIN PATH', Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, S. India. Like an expert cook who knows the tastes of zines with a universalist mentality. I would very his customers, to use a mundane example, your much appreciate your approval and authorisation Mountain Path caters excellently to the tastes of for this. your vast audience. I have over the years perused MARIO ALLGAYER COSTA, many journals dealing with spiritual matters but Brazil. none has brought such a fresh breath as yours on these difficult topics. As Lord Macaulay humo• By all means. We are glad to have our articles rously remarked that the best part of an uncle's translated and republished — with acknowledge• ment, of course. letter was in the seal, so the best part of The Mountain Path is in the last item, that is in its Editor. letters from readers and the editor's replies. 4f # The spiritual Mountain Path is steep and a hard S. ANANTHALWAR. climb, as we all know, but you are making the * *• path smooth through your Mountain Path. I consider it my rarest privilege to have fallen 1 must write and say " Bless you and thank you at the feet of Sri Ramana in 1939. for the spreading of Bhagavan's teachings." They M. P. SELLASAMY, are a wonderful inspiration. May the Blessing of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. God fall on all who read The Mountain Path. •5f I was very thrilled to read in your January Without a question of a doubt this is the finest issue that a person from my home town of Sale, journal I have ever had the privilege to read. Cheshire, had written in to you, and even more You can quote me as saying that the universal so to read the inspiring article by Joel Goldsmith, Truth, Faith and Hope expressed in the various whom I have heard speaking in England and to articles, especially in the works of Sri Ramana, see in an earlier issue the letter from our good is the real hope for the future of mankind in these friend Clare Cameron of Chichester. I never ex* troubled days. I want to thank you personally pected to see their names in The Mountain Path. for giving such a work to us. Sri Ramana dwells Isn't it surprising how spiritual seekers are some• on each page and in each breath.

how drawn together! I will certainly be with DAVID TEPLITZ, your Sale correspondent and others everywhere in San Rafael, California.

meditation at 10 p.m. not only on Thursdays but # # every evening. I have received the January 1965 issue with

MRS. E. PRESTNER, your exquisite poem in it —' Be still . . .' Oh how Sale, Cheshire. hard it is to be so in this modern age but how absolutely essential it is. That poem is a gem. * •* Have you written any others like it ? 1 I am so much impressed by the contents of Needless to say I sent my subscription for ano• The Mountain Path that I can hardly refrain from ther year. It's a fine paper — I think unique in helping to spread it to all my Brazilian brothers its scope by its embrace of all facets of religion by translating some of your articles and publish• with, no bias on any one. ing them in Portuguese in our papers and maga• NELL SHARP, Surrey. 140 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

The beauty of truth shines over the poem, ' The withstanding, but then he perplexes „me. He is Two Paths' in the October editorial. opposed to meditation and at the same time

HANS DE REEDE, Elba. friends who have known him over the years say

4fr * * he is the product of meditation. All very con. I have just read every sentence of the editor's fusing. book reviews in the back numbers. What clarity, JUNE L. HEATH, what ripeness of mind! And I have just read the Menlo Park, California. answers he gives to readers' letters. I feel that To do what you can first and then leave it to he just says what Bhagavan would have said him• God when you can do no more means that you self. The way he legitimately condemns certain are using God as a last instrument for furthering books in his reviews will do a lot of good to your interests; but how do you know that they readers. I feel it will be difficult to maintain this ought tjo be furthered ? In the editorial of the standard of excellence. I shall be happy to be wrong in this. Jan. 1965 issue of THE MOUNTAIN PATH you will have seen the quotation from the Bhagavad Gita: BABCHT, New Delhi. "Do not be motivated by the fruit of action, but # * * also do not cling to inaction." That answers your The Mountain Path is improving from issue to problem. You should act in the way that seems issue and I must congratulate you on this. Your to you right, simply because it is right, and leave editorial on ' Karma Marga' is superb in form the outcome to God. and expression. D. S. SASTRI, Madras. Editor.

# # *• * * * I have to compliment you on your magazine, There is always great joy for me in receiving It is so far the only magazine which I really read The Mountain Path, not only because of the from the first to the last page and to which I splendid articles but also for the news of so many refer back when reading other publications. people I met at Sri Ramanasramam who are now K. PRACHT, Bombay. dear to me. The pictures of Bhagavan and Muru- # * * ganar in the October issue made me extremely I would like to request you to include photo, happy. graphs of Sri Ramana in different positions. This DOROTHEA GRAEFIN VON MATUSCHKA, will be of much help to those like me ""who had Berlin. not the good fortune of seeing Bhagavan in * # fl• human form. it is with pleasure and anticipation that I send DR.1 M. D. NAYAK, you the enclosed Postal Order for next year's Kumta, North Kanara Mountain Path.

I am a teacher of English in the BBC's world• From time to time as occasion offers. wide service of ' English by radio ' and it was in Editor. our library here in Bush House that I first came # * * across Mr. Osborne's book of the Maharshi's Col• The Mountain Path is indeed a joy and a bless, lected Works. I was transfixed. Here was a ing. Being a devotee of only recent standing, 1 hundred percent corroboration of the teaching I can nevertheless marvel at the way Sri Bhaga« was beginning to learn from the lectures and van's influence has been shaping all my life. His books of Joel Goldsmith. kindness and help in various recent trials have been tremendous. Now I have found the same teaching hidden in

JAMES WARNER, Buddhism and Islam. Really The Mountain Path Ramataim, Israel. is an inspired publication. # * *• NORMAN FRASER, Thanks for the * super' October issue. To London. Mr. Devaraja Mudaliar who wrote 'Ramana * * -x- Maharshi and the Path of Devotion' I can only I have just bought your quarterly. The Moun• give grateful thanks. The problem for me is this: tain^ Path, and I feel that I must write to you to I have been conditioned since childhood to do congratulate you on such an enterprise, and so everything I^can first and then surrender. Some• well produced too. where I am confused. We seem to be able to do I have been interested in the published accounts something about our problems, Krishnamurti not- of Sri Ramana Maharshi's sayings and answers for 1965 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 141 over ten years now. Soon after reading the first more they loosen their hold, thus lightening pure volume of 'Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi' I awareness. had a dream in which he sat quite unperturbed 3. His exposition of . while outside the room in which he sat and just It is a profound article and should be read and behind his back there occurred the most violent re-read. earthquake and storm. He seemed not to know U. D., fear at all, and I then realised that this is what Sri Ramanasramam, realisation is, a rebirth into a new life where * * * there is fear no longer but only serenity. I appreciate the spiritual tone of your journal Perhaps one day I may be able to visit you in and note that your appeal is a universal one. Any the Ashram. Whether a visit would help me to other approach is immature and the Christian follow the so hard yet so simple precepts of the Church itself will have to re-think its attitude to Maharshi I do not know. I rather think; that we other religions. stay with the same thoughts wherever we are and ERNEST SWIFT, it is these thoughts, the mind, that are the impedi• Wiltshire. ment, is it not ? *- * •# Will you write an article giving us_ who never The fortieth verse of Bhagavan's 1 Forty Verses met the Maharshi some idea of the silences and on Reality' on page 205 of the October 1$64 the sort of length of time they lasted. For ins• Mountain Path reads: "If it is said that Libera• tance, I often wonder whether the Maharshi tion is of three kinds, with form or without form always answered immediately the questions put or with and without form, then let me tell you to him in the Talks ? Was there a pause ? How that the extinction of the three forms of Libera• long did it last ? Did any questioner ever leave tion is the only true Liberation." without an answer ? Or was it more conversa• It is my humble opinion that this does not con* tional in style and for the most part rapid? vey the exact meaning so I request you to correct Thank you again for including all religions and that verse. The real meaning is that the extinc• faiths in your net — a truly wonderful attitude — tion of the ego which enquires which form of and most refreshingly new — the spirit of the age Liberation is true is the true Liberation. to come. This is an important difference and, as the MARK WILDING, Maharshi's words are eternal, they should be Bournemouth. translated true to the spirit.

Also at the beginning when I saw in the first It is, of course, one's own mind that is the im• issue of The Mountain Path the words " after the pediment. Nevertheless, the pervading Presence death of the Maharshi" it pained me and I wish• "of Bhagavari at Tiruvannamalai can be a great ed to write to you about it. I take the opportunity help in mastering it. It varies from case to case to do so now. whether and for how long such help is needed. M. S. NAGARAJAN, The Maharshi's replies to questions also varied Tiruchirappalli. from case to case. Usually they were quick and conversational, but when the motive behind them Thank you. Your correction of the translation was not right or when silence was called for he is justified and important. might delay or withhold a verbal reply. Typical As to the expression " the death pf the Mahar•

9 illustrations of this are given in the ' Letters of shi", it is more usual to say u the Mahasamadhi" Nagamma in our first three issues. or "Mahanirvana" and to say thai a saint "attain• Editor. ed Mahasamadhi" rather than that he died; but in the case of the Maharshi this is not strictly Permit me to congratulate Prof. K. Subrah- correct, since he was already in a state of Maha- manyam on his brilliant article 1 Transcendence of nirvana in his lifetime and attained npthing on Karma '. In particular I liked : death. As he himself said: " There is no differ• 1. His saying that sadhana " in earnestness and ence between Jivanmukti and Videhamukti. There humility renders us less and less ineligible to is nothing more to attain." On the other hand, he receive the highest gift." But adding that finally ppoke frequently of the 'death' of a Jnani, ex• it is always an act of Grace. plaining that it made no difference to him. There• 2. " Attention is alertness, it is sraddha." " Inat• fore it was considered better to use this expres• tention is death itself." The more one becomes sion, as he did, to denote a simple physical event. attentive to one's vasanas and watches them, the Editor. 142 THE MOUNTAIN PATH April

CORRESPONDENCE NETWORK

The following would be glad to correspond with other Mountain Path subscribers:

Mr. and Mrs. Heath, —Particularly for letters on the relationship 759 Roble Avenue, between scientific teaching and Advaita. Menlo Park, California 94027, USA.

S. Ananthalwar, Mrs. E. Prestner, Ronald Hodges, Parijat No. 12, 5 Legh Road, P.O. Box 3492, CSD(l) Estate, Sale, Cheshire, Nairobi, Kenya, Bombay 77 (AS) England. East Africa.

"THE MOUNTAIN PATH"

Statement about ownership and other particulars about The Mountain Path (according to

Form IV. Rule 8, circulated by the Registrar of Newspapers for India):

1. Place of Publication Madras-18.

2. Periodicity of its Publication Quarterly.

3. Printer's Name T. K. Venkatesan.

Nationality Indian.

Address The Jupiter Press Private Ltd., 109-C, Mount Road, Madras-18.

4. Publisher's Name T. N. Venkataraman.

Nationality Indian.

Address 109-C, Mount Road, Madras-18.

5. Editor's Name Arthur Osborne.

Nationality British.

Address Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai.

6. Names and addresses of individuals who Sri Ramahasramam, own the newspaper and partners or Tiruvannamalai. shareholders holding more than 1% of the total capital.

I, T. N. Venkataraman, hereby declare that the particulars given above are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Signature of the Publisher, Date: 20-3-1965. (Sd.) T. N. VENKATARAMAN.