SRI RAMANASRAMAM, TIRUVANNAMALAI " Who can ever find Thee ? The Eye of the eye art Thou, and without eyes Thou seest, Oh Aruna- (A QUARTERLY) chala! " —The Marital Garland of " Arunachala! Thou dost root out the ego of those who Letters, verse 15.- meditate on Thee in the heart, Oh Arunachala ! "

—The Marital Garland of Letters, verse 1.

Publisher : Vol. IV JULY 1967 No. 3 T. N. Venkataraman,

Sri Ramanasramam,

Tiruvannamalai. CONTENTS

Page EDITORIAL : Total Therapy . . 181

Bhagavan on Yoga . . 184 Editor : What Are We Waiting For?—Douglas Harding 185 Arthur Osborne, What Yoga is Not—Dr. Sampurnanand . . 186 Sri Ramanasramam, Seeking (Poem)—L. P. Yandell . . 188 Tiruvannamalai. Raja Yoga — The Royal Path —Prof. Eknath Easwaran . . 189 Yama and Niyama—Prof. G. V. Kulkarni . . 194 * Some Misconceptions about Yoga —Dr. I. K. Taimni . . 197

Managing Editor : Yoga as —Prof. Eknath Easwaran . . 201

V. Ganesan, The Meaning of Yoga in the

Sri Ramanasramam, —Prof. G. V. Kulkarni .. 204

Tiruvannamalai. In Quest of Yoga—Swami Sharadananda . . 206 The Know-how of Yogic Breathing —Prof. K. S. Joshi . . 208 Patanjali's Interception on Yoga —Dr. G. C. Pande . . 213 Annual Subscription : Mouna Diksha—R. G. Kulkarni . . 216 . . Rs. 5. Some Aspects of Buddhist Yoga as Practised in FOREIGN . . \0sh, $ 1.50. the Kargyudpa School of the Tibetan Vajrayana—Dorothy C. Donath .. 217 Life Subscription : Ignatian Yoga—/. Jesuuasan, S.J. , . 222 Rs. 100 ; <£ 10 ; $ 30. How I Came to the Maharshi—Dinker Rai . . 224

Single Copy : Dialectic Approach to Integration—Wei Wu Wei 226

Rs. 1.50; 3 sh. ; $0.45 The New Apostles—Cornelia Bagarotti . . 228 The Known and the Unknown—Alone . . 229 A Leaf from Life (Poem)—Derek Southall . . 230 CONTENTS— (Contd.) fountain fait}

Page (A QUARTERLY) The Life and Teachings of Hari Prasad Shastri —M. H. . . 231 To Arunachala (Poem) . . 235 The aim of this journal is to set Reminiscences of Swami Ramprakash forth the traditional wisdom of all Ramasnehi . . 236 religions and all ages, especially The Bhagavad Gita —Ch. IX as testified to by their saints and —Prof. G. V. Kulkarni and mystics, and to clarify the paths Arthur Osborne . . 237 available to seekers in the condi• Arunachala (Poem)—Arthur Osborne . . 240 tions of our modern world. Book Reviews 241 " You and I " (Poem)—G. N. Daley . . 246 Ashram Bulletin . . 247 Contributions for publication Introducing ... . . 254 should be addressed to 4 The Editor, Glance of Grace—Sri Muruganar . . 256 The Mountain Path, Sri Ramanas- Letters to the Editor . . 257 ramam, Tiruvannamalai, Madras State' . They should be in English and typed with double spacing.

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(QUARTERLY)

Editor ; ARTHUR OSBORNE

Vol. IV JULY, 1967 No. 3

TOTAL THERAPY

Editorial

TV/TAN as we know him in the world the various religions are an exhortation to to-day is in an imperfect state which break free from this fallen state and an Christianity refers to as ' fallen \ That is indication of what this implies and how it to say that he is deprived of the sublime can be done. To wait for death in the hope awareness and resplendent powers which are that it will be done for you is a pusillani• his birthright. It is not the fault of any mous attitude. This life is the opportunity individual man that he grows up so, but it for doing it. is the fault of mankind as a whole, since it There are many ways of setting about it ; is only through neglect and misuse that but they can be grouped broadly into the powers are lost. Therefore Christianity positive and the negative. calls it i sin * but * original sin \ the sin or fault lying on mankind as a whole and The negative path is exemplified by causing its ' fallen' state. Although an Christ's saying that he who lays down his individual did not bring this unworthy state life for Christ's sake shall find it ; it is the upon himself, he can, with right guidance path of self-inquiry, seeking out the

and persistent effort, rectify it and recover imposter ego ; the path based on anatta? his lost birthright. According to Christian denying the very existence of an ego ; the teaching, he can be redeemed from it by the Mediaeval Christian path of ' self-naught- Christ born in his heart. I quoted in a ing ' which aims at extinguishing the pseudo- previous editorial that very profound say• self. To say that it is negative does not ing of Angelus Silesius : " Christ may be mean that it is.weak or effortless. Laying born a thousand times in Bethelhem, but if down one's life is not an easy thing to do. he be not born anew in your own heart you It means total abnegation of the individual remain eternally forlorn." The scriptures of pesudo-self who has lost his divine birth- 182 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July right. When the usurper vacates the throne torial of January 1965, karmamarga (and the true heir, the Christ-Self, is free to all positive paths are forms of karma occupy it. marga) does not alone lead to the ultimate goal. J Positive methods are methods of total therapy, of building up one's spiritual, Nevertheless, it is impossible in spiritual mental and physical nature into its true matters to go too much by forms and regu• likeness and thereby attaining to the state lations. It is the Spirit that is being har• known technically as 1 primordial man nessed and directed by these various disci• that is man ' before ' or unaffected by the plines, and the Spirit can break through to 6 Fall'. Such methods include yogic and the ultimate Goal beyond all disciplines. tantric disciplines in India, Hermetism in For instance, the Tibetan Buddhist poet Mediaeval Christendom, Islam and , Milarepa followed a Tantric path, and yet, and techniques practised in post-Han reading his life and poems, it is impossible Taoism. to doubt that he was established at the It might be said that on a negative path Source beyond all paths and states. a man attains first the Kingdom of Heaven, Mentioning the characteristics of each as Christ bade him, and all else is added to type of path does not mean deprecating him. The word * attain' sounds positive, but either. Each aspirant will be drawn by his in fact it is a way of attainment by renun• own nature and destiny to whichever is ciation, possession by dispossession. suitable to him. In one sense the positive methods could Yoga is probably the most widely known be considered more complete, since the 1 all and easily accessible of the ' positive ' types else ? which is added to a man on the nega• of path in the world to-day. Unfortunately, tive path does not necessarily include the however, it is regarded by many not as full nhysical health and supernatural powers total but only as physical therapy. This is a developed by the positive way. On the other degradation of a spiritual science and a hand, the negative way brings him to a grave curtailment of its efficacy. That does state where these have no value for him and not mean that one cannot use yogic exercise he does not care whether he has them or for physical therapy. One can and, with not. On the positive way various powers right guidance, they can be very effective usually considered supernatural may be and need not be dangerous ; but by doing deliberately developed, as described by so one is not practising yoga. Yoga is an Patanjali in his Yoga-Sutras. It is possible integral science which covers far more than that powers may also manifest in the these exercises. spiritual man who has eliminated the ego which cares whether they manifest or not, Many may find it surprising that what but they will not be deliberately acquired appears to be a mainly physical discipline or valued if they appear. should have spiritual repercussions at all. The same persons may also find it surprising From another viewpoint it is the positive that the prerequisite for a mainly physical way which is less complete. Some traditions discipline should be purity of mind, detach• have taught a twofold path, the lesser and ment, equanimity and celibacy. The two greater mysteries. The former are what man conditions explain each other. Purity and can achieve by his own disciplined effort equanimity are necessary because the dis• and culminate in the resnlendent state cipline is in fact far more than physical ; known as ' Primordial Man \ that is, accord• and because the discipline is in fact far more ing to Christian teaching the Edenic state than physical, spiritual effects can flow of Adam before the Fall. Resplendent as from it. this state is, it is not the state of Realized Identity : it is still human, thou cm in a sub• The word 1 yoga * is, of course, variously lime sense of the term. As I said in my edi• used, Etymologically akin to the English 19.67 TOTAL THERAPY 183 word * yoke % its basic meaning is ' union \ no store by them. If he allows himself to In the Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali it is used be captivated by them he will get stuck to mean a path to union, and in the there and never progress to the last three Bhagavad Gita also it is usually given this stages. And indeed, many sadhus who meaning. The word is generally used to-day exhibit powers may be failures who have to mean either hatha-yoga, that is the thus got stuck at a wayside station and lost science of physical postures, or raja-yoga, the incentive and initiative to push on : the eightfold path of yoga of which hatha- people rather to be pitied than admired. yoga is one of the steps. It is only the last three which Patanjali The first two of these steps, yama and describes as the ' inner limbs ' of yoga, all niyama, consist of self-restraint and disci• the five described up to now being ranked pline of mind and character. Yama is more as ' outer'. These three are : dharana or the actual discipline of life, involving truth, concentration, dhyana or meditation, and or injury to none, celibacy and samadhi or effortless absorption. In the neither stealing nor even accepting gifts. words of the Sutras : " Dharana is fixing the Niyama is concerned more with the state of mind on a particular point" (III-l). mind, stipulating purity, equanimity and " Dhyana is an unbroken flow of knowledge contentment in this disciplined life. Thus at that point." (III-2). " When this is the inner friction and outer grasping which absorbed in Reality, unaware of itself, it is consume the energy of the worldly man, samadhi." (III-3). These three inner stages leading him to frustration and exhaustion, are grouped together under the joint name are checked and a reservoir of energy is of Samyama. " These three in one sequence built up which can be directed to the great constitute samyama." enterprise. Only then, as the third step, are As can be seen from the abo^e quotations, yogic asanas or postures prescribed. These the Yoga Sutras are in an extremely terse are followed, as the fourth step by prana- and condensed style, requiring a commentary yama or regulation of breathing. for every verse. It may be added in paren• thesis that speculations as to the date at This does not mean that there is no over• which Patanjali composed them are of no lapping of the steps. They may indeed be importance for estimating the origin of undertaken simultaneously and the effort in yoga, much as scholars love such pastimes ; one strengthen that in another ; but they for it is not supposed that he invented the are envisaged as a whole process, and the science. He simply recorded in brief, cryp• easier, that is the physical, subserve the tic fashion a science which was already more difficult which concern the training of ancient in his time. Indeed, it is now mind and character. known that traces of the practice of yoga After control over the body (asanas) and have been found in the pre-Aryan civiliza• the breathing (pranayama), the next step tion of Mohenjodaro in the Indus Valley. is control over the mind (pratyahara) It will be seen, then, that raja yoga is a although, as I have just said, ' next' does science, but a science in which one is not not mean that they are never allowed to only the experimenter but also the labora• overlap. " The in-drawing of the senses is tory that the experiment is conducted in. accomplished by relinquishing their objects As with any other science, the materials so that they take the form of mind. This must be properly prepared and the experi• (pratyahara) results in perfect control over ment properly carried out according to the the senses." (Yoga Sutras, II, 54-55) instructions of somebody who knows how. Pranayama and pratyahara combined are If not they may be ineffective. Unfortunate• apt to result in experiences and powers ly they may also be destructive. One is which might well be called supernatural. handling dangerous material and an explo• The practicant has to ignore these and set sion may wreck the laboratory. BHAGAVAN ON YOGA

HPHE source of breath is the same as that lity cannot be new. It must exist already ; of the mind ; therefore the subsidence and it does exist. Therefore the Path of of either of them leads effortlessly to that Knowledge tries to find out how viyoga of the other. The practice of stilling the mind (separation) came about. It is only separa• through breath-control is called yoga. tion from the Reality ; that means illusion. What you have to do is to find out who has Fixing their minds on the chakras or the illusion ; then it will vanish. Generally psychic centres, yogis remain for any length people want to know about illusion without of time without awareness of their bodies. asking who it is that has the illusion. That As long as this state continues they appear is, foolish. Illusion (maya) is outside you to be immersed in some kind of joy. But and unknown, whereas the seeker is within when the mind which has been stilled and known, so find out first what is integral becomes active again it resumes its worldly to you before trying to find out what is thoughts. It is therefore necessary to train foreign to you and unknown. it with practices like dhyana (meditation) whenever it becomes externalised. It will K. M. Jivarajani: I sometimes concen• then attain a state in which there is neithei trate on the brain centre and sometimes on subsidence nor emergence. the heart — not always on the same centre. # # # Is that wrong ? Yoga means union and therefore implies Bhagavan : Wherever you concentrate prior division and subsequent reunion of and on whatever centre, there must be a one with another. But who is to be united you to concentrate, and that is what you with whom ? You are the seeker and you must concentrate on. Different people con• seek union with something. So this some• centrate on different centres, not only the thing must be separate, from you. But your brain and the heart but also the space bet• Self is intimate to you. Seek it and be it. ween the eyebrows, the tip of the nose, the Then it will expand into the Infinite, and tip of the tongue, the lowermost chakra and there will be no question of union. First find even external objects. Such concentration out who it is that has viyoga (separation) may lead to a sort of laya in which you feel before you talk about yoga (union)., a certain bliss, but care must be taken not

4f * * to lose the thought 11 AM ' in all this. You never cease to exist in ail these experiences. Yoga means 4 union' and is only possible when there is prior viyoga (separation). A K.M.J. : That is to say that I must be a person is now under the delusion of viyoga witness ? and this must be removed. Whatever method 5 of removing it is used can be called yoga. Bhagavan; Talking of the ' witness should not lead to the idea that there is a Question : Which is the best method ? witness and something else apart from him Bhagavan : That depends on the tem• that he is witnessing. The ' Witness J really perament of the aspirant. Each person is means the light that illumines the seer, the born with the samskaras from his past lives. seen and the process of seeing. Before, One person will find one method easy and during and after the triads of seer, seen and one another. Nothing definite can be said seeing, the illumination exists. It alone for all exists always.

# # # # # *

Yoga aims at union of the individual with .Desai : How can ore direct the prana the universal, that is the Reality. This Rea• or life-current into the sushumns nadi WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

(central channel) so thai, as prescribed in Desai: How can one chum up the nadis the * Ramana Gita' one can achieve the (subtle channels) so that the may severance of the ehit-jada granthi (knot go up the sushumna (central nadi) ? between body and consciousness) ? Bhagavan : Though the yogi may have 4 Bhagavan : By asking Who ami?', the his methods of breath-control, postures, etc., yogi may be definitely aiming at rousing the the jnani's method is only that of Self- kundalini and sending it up the sushumna, enquiry. When the mind is merged in the and the jnani may not have this as his Self by this method, the Self or its Shakti object ; but both alike achieve the same or kundalini rises automatically. result of sending the life-force up the sushumna and severing the chit-jada granthi # * * Kundalini is only another name for atma or

Self or shakti (force). We speak of its 4 Kundalini is one name given by the yogic being inside the body because we conceive people to what may be called the atmic of ourselves as limited by this body ; but it shakti inside the body. The followers of is really both inside and outside, being no vichara (Self-enquiry) call the same power other than the Self or the Shakti (Force) jnana (Knowledge). The Bhakta (devotee) of the Self. calls it love or bhakti.

What are We Waiting for I *

By Douglas Harding

Let us take the Maharshi seriously and If we want to know the truth, if we are stop pretending that we can't be who we interested to find out whether we are really are right now. What did he say about it ? the body or not, we have only to look, with• Listen : out any further delay whatever, at the spot The Self is within each one's experience we occupy. If we are secretly afraid of the every moment. truth and do not wish to see Who we. are, we shall find excellent reasons for continu• No aids are needed to know it. ing to overlook the Looker. We may even There is nothing so simple as being the persuade ourselves that we are all the better Self. devotees for ignoring the Master's clear We think there is something hiding our instructions ! Reality and that it must be destroyed before Reality is gained. That is ridiculous, The fact is not that we cannot see, but A great game of pretending. that we are determined not to see, the Obvi• What are you waiting for ? The thought ous. We are frightened of disappearing. ' I have not seenthe expectation of seeing Once admit this and we are at least half and the desire to get something are all way towards overcoming our fear. And really, of course, there is nothing to fear. workings of the ego...... Be yourself and In .the very same instant that one sees one nothing more. is nothing, one sees that one is AIL This idea of difficulty is the chief obstacle.

(Talks, pp; 99? 104, 116, 153, 177, 236.) * From the Ramxma Pictorial Souvenir. July WHAT YOGA IS NOT

By Dr% SAMPURNANAND

A teacher by profession, Dr. Sampurnanand was drawn into the freedom struggle in the late twenties and made his mark in politics. He was Minister for Education and later Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh before he became Governor of , which position he held until his retirement this April. A scholar of profound under• standing, well versed in Vedic lore and Yoga, Sampurnanand has written many books and articles, mainly in Sanskrit and Hindi, on philosophy, yoga, astrology as well as education and politics. He is a robust and trenchant exponent of Hindu dharma.

COMETIME ago, the Editor asked me, magic. Again, no one has definitely enu• to contribute an article to this journal merated the levels at which life functions. on some aspects of Yoga. I am not sure if There are forms of life not normally acces• the present article is an adequate and proper sible to human experience, elemental foci of response to his request. And yet, it seems consciousness and energy, which can be to me that there is some justification for harnessed, by suitable means, for service and what I am attempting. There is so much disservice of man. Those who dabble in such misunderstanding, at least some of which matters are responsible for creating around seems to have been deliberately created, yoga that atmosphere of fear and suspicion that it has become very difficult to describe which blurs the distinction between yoga and Yoga as the term was understood and used black magic. by the Masters who first introduced it as current coin in the language of spiritual dis• These are some of the factors which, cipline. understandably, create a great deal of mis• understanding about yoga. Some confusion Some part of the misunderstanding is per• has also been caused by the elaboration haps inseparable from the very nature of introduced by well meaning religious the subject. Whatever Yoga may be, it leaders. While formerly one simple word seeks to delve into the mysteries of life and yoga proved sufficient, the subject has now death and the secret regions of the here• proliferated into Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga, after, to reconcile the apparent duality bet• Hatha Yoga and Bhakti Yoga and, on the ween spirit and matter. In all these spheres, analogy of the Vidyas enumerated in some statements have to be made which are not of the , even some of the yogic amenable to such evidence as is available techniques have been dignified as indepen• to the ordinary man or verifiable by the dent branches of yoga. It is in this way methods of physical sciences. And the diffi• what we hear about Laya Yoga and Nada culty is enhanced by the frank admission Yoga. Giving something a separate name, that whatever experience is gained here invites the creation about it of a mass of transcends both intellect and speech. literature which may or may not be really helpful to fruitful study. In their anxiety to 'r It is well known that certain techniques maintain the separate identity of their sub• serve to develop some of man's dormant ject matter, there is a natural tendency on powers ; hypnotism and E.S.P., for example. the part of writers to exaggerate minutiae These techniques bear an affinity to some and build up walls where none formerly yogic exercises. The powers made manifest existed. in this way can be used for either benefi• cent or maleficent purposes and earn for In a way, these are perhaps natural, yoga a bad reputation as a near relation to though unfortunate, outgrowths, but what is 1967 WHAT YOGA IS NOT 187 really alarming is the coming into existence severely alone and confine themselves to of certain recent developments which I con• European audiences whose naivete can be sider to be of a very serious nature. Yoga easily exploited. Many people in the West has become tremendously popular and its are victims of the that it is possible popularity seems to be directly proportional to find in India a large number of people to general ignorance about it. The thing possessing deep spiritual knowledge through started when the discovery was made that the practice of yoga, but the) yellow robe certain yogic practices, some asanas and covers a multitude of sins. It is people of mudras and a moderate exercise in breath this kind who are deliberately creating, it control, have beneficient results from the seems to me, the impression that yoga is point of view of health. They are preventive something simple and easy, demanding and, to some extent, curative in certain types hardly any sacrifice or self-restraint. As an of psychosomastic disorders. example, I should like to refer to a book which has recently been published by a The greatest pioneer in this field was the School of Yoga, whose representative, a late Swami Kuvalayananda, His attitude young lady, recently toured the West was a thoroughly scientific one and he never with the mission of propagating yoga made exaggerated claims for the techniques in those countries. I had an occasion once he employed in trying to restore people to to point out mildly that perhaps it would be normal health and, what is more important, better to begin this great mission in India he never, to my knowledge, claimed the., itself but, for obvious reasons, my protests what he was teaching was in any sense the did not meet with a favourable reception. essence of yoga. In fact, he had the genuine I should like to quote a few sentences from scientist's fear that what he taught his this book whose name is " Dynamics of numerous pupils might be misused and lead Yoga." " You can continue enjoying the to harmful consequences. In some corres• good things of life and still be a yogi ; nor pondence which I had with him some years indeed is it necessary to give up world ambi• ago, I suggested that yogic exercises where- tions or material aspirations to take to the ever used in a number of institutions as a yogic way of life (p. 2) ". "In the snares part of physical training are essentially what and pitfalls of life, one cannot allow oneself might be called of a static nature and their to be divorced from reality, Patanjali's use as a part of the system of dynamic P.T., Yam as (moral abstinences) and Niyamas might prove harmful specially in the case (observances of conduct or character) as of girl students. If I remember aright, he popularly interpreted, were for an age that agreed with me that without adequate is gone and done with, and the simple experimentation it might be dangerous to adamantine fact is that they have no place, adopt yogic exercises as a part of a general if professed according to these interpreta• scheme of Physical Training. In his writings tions, in the world of today." (P. 4) he dealt, as was quite proper, with the higher aspects of yoga. But so far as I can see, I think, I need not give any more exerpts. what he wrote could lead to confusion and Yoga according to this publication has no misunderstanding about what is yoga proper. need for Vairagya or non-attachment. It gives the initiate a free hand to entertain But to-day yoga, as I have said earlier, is his worldly desires and ambitions and does becoming tremendously popular and it is not ask him to make any changes in his paving the penalty of popularity. A large normal ways of living. As a matter of fact, number of teachers of yoga have come into it is specifically stated : " for attaining this the field and institutions have been set up you need not give up any of your normal for propagation of this science. The lives of ways of living (Page 1)." many of these Professors of Yoga are open Every one who has been accepted as a books to many of us in India. They gene• Master has insisted on the necessity of Vai• rally take care to leave the Indian scene ragya. Patanjali says : 188 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

•*" Abhyasa vairagyabhyam tatmirodhah " good name of yoga. Those who became yogis (That control is by practice and non- m the sense contemplated here will remain attachment). on the low spiritual levels where they always have been but they will deceive and Sri Krishna says in equally clear lan• themselves into believing that they have guage : become yogis. Some of the practices advo• " Abhyasena tu Kaunteya vairagya cha cated in the book in the absence of those grihyate" [It (the control of mind) is moral qualifications which are the sine-qua- achieved by practice and non-attachment]. non of yoga may induce conditions like Patanjali has clearly stated that the Yamas auto-suggestion and self-hypnosis but these are a Sarvabhauma Mahavrata which admits things are very far indeed from the real of no exceptions on any grounds whatso• experiences of the true yogi. The increase ever. This book points out that these basic in the number of self-styled yogis brought canons namely, truth, non-violence, non- about through such propaganda would be possession and continence need not be fol• unfortunate. Yoga is not something cheap lowed too literally. I know that there is a It entails great sacrifice of the lower self. sentence or two here and there like this : As , one of _ our greatest mediaeval " One need not, however, become a slave of saints, has said : one's desires (Page 2) " In the first place, it is difficult to say what becoming a slave " Says Kabir, if one loosens the reins to one's desires means and in the second even a little, the mind crashes down from place ,no one will admit even to himself that the heavens to the earth he is such a slave. This piece of advice is It seems to me that many sincere western a pious wish which can have no restraining seekers after truth have had on the whole influence on any one. I have no particular a better idea of what yoga is and what its desire to cry down this particular School of practice implies than many of those who go Yoga but the statements made in this autho• out to the West to bring the message of ritative publication give a very good example spirituality to the benighted people of of how yoga is being deliberately prosti• Europe and America. The genuine seeker tuted for the purpose of propaganda. Teach• feels that the practice of yoga is like trying ing like this will not elevate anyone spiri• to ascend a Mountain Path. It is not a tually, but it will certainly bring down the morning walk in a pleasure garden.

Seeking

By L. P. Yandell

To seek 1 God ' or 1 Truth ' is to make a 'that' out of ' This \ < A further grasping by the ' me', As if really " A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and Thou " Could be the how. 1967 189 RAJA YOGA - THE ROYAL PATH

By Prof. EKNATH EASWARAN

JJ AJA YOGA is a system of meditation the aim of Raja Yoga which is to help man which, while having something in com• raise himself to the highest level of consci• mon with Buddhist techniques, is entirely- ousness possible for him. Hindu in origin and development. It is not a creed, but a method, which may be used by From the point of view of their final sig• all those who seek to know, experientially, nificance, all Scriptures may be the nature of the Ultimate Reality called God called treatises on yoga. The Hindus of in the various religions of the world. Those Ancient India sought Ultimate Reality not as who have practised it in India are the aristo• an intellectual concept, nor even as an ethi• cracy, not of birth, but of enterprise and cal activity, but as a creative principle of energy. life to guide them to a higher state of con• sciousness. The Bhagavad Gita describes The Sanskrit word yoga comes from the four paths for this great endeavour to suit same root as the English word yoke. In four different kinds of humanity. They are arithmetic yoga means addition ; but in phi• Karma Yoga or the path of action, Jnana losophy it has the double connotation of Yoga or the path of knowledge, Bhakti Yoga uniting and bringing under discipline. The or the1 path of devotion and, last but not scriptures give more than one definition of least, Raja Yoga or the Royal Path through yoga. According to the 1 a strange experiment performed by the mind " When all the senses are stilled, when the on the mind with the mind. The last one, mind is at rest, when the intellect wavers Raja Yoga, is for the scientific man who not, then, say the wise, is reached the highest insists on facts and their experimental verifi• state. This calm of the senses and the mind cation. has been defined as yoga." 4 The Bhagavad " There is no knowledge like Sankhya, no Gita implies that yoga can carry us beyond power like Yoga," runs an ancient saying in suffering when it says, " It is the breaking India. These two together form one system, of contact with pain." 5 In the words of the Samkhya providing a theoretical exposition Bible, " Be still and know that I am God",6 of the human predicament, and Yoga deal• may be said to indicate both the method and ing with the practical steps to be taken to the goal. achieve liberation from it. Those who try There is still a wide-spread impression in to separate theory and practice, Sankhya the West that yoga is a cross between physi• and Yoga, are called childish in the cal contortions and professional hypnotism, Bhagavad Gita. an impression that has gradually developed Kapila is believed to be the father of Sankh• through what is put out by the popular press ya, and might have lived, judging from the as occult literature. It is true that the yogi influence he exercised on the Buddha, about may develop what should be called super• the sixth century B.C. According to him, normal, not supernatural, powers such as the phenomenal world is founded unon the the ability to bring the automatic nervous two fundamental and autonomous categories system under conscious control ; just as we of Purusha and Prakriti, spirit and matter. would call supernormal, not supernatural, the consummate skill of a tennis champion 4' Katha Upanishad' II, III, 10, or a trapeze artiste. Moreover, these super• R Bhagavad Gita, VI. 19. normal powers have very little to do with •6 Psalms XLVT, 10, 190 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

The spirit is eternally free, ever serene, self- knowing subject and matter as the known sentient, while matter as the primordial object. While the Spirit is ever-serene source of the phenomenal world is ever- Being, matter is described as a state of changing. Perhaps a parallel to this cease• tension of the three cosmic constituents of less process of change may be seen in the law, energy, and inertia (sattwa, rajas, and theory of flux to which Heraclitus, the tamas). These three are said tq be in a Greek philosopher, referred when he said state of equilibrium in primordial matter that we could never plunge into the same until it begins to differentiate itself into the river twice. This is true not only of the tremendous process of cosmic evolution. physical world, but also of the mental world The Sankhya theory may be brief• or the stream of consciousness in which ly stated thus. The first product is images flow ceaselessly from moment to the intellect which stands nearest to moment. the spirit, and reflects the conscious• ness of the Spirit in such a way that it It may be pointed out in this connection appears to become conscious itself. From that Sankhya regards the physical and the the intellect comes the ego-sense which is psychical as nothing more than two different the principle of individuation. It gives rise modifications of primordial matter, there to the feeling of I, me, and mine, and leads being no difference of an ontological order the self to look upon itself as the agent of between them. That this view is not opposed all action. Third comes the mind which is to the discoveries of modern science may be the co-ordinating centre between the five seen from the considered opinion of such a cognitive senses of sight, hearing, smell, distinguished scientist as Sir Arthur Edding- taste, and touch, and the five conative organs ton. " The external world of physics has of speech, prehension, movement, excretion, thus become a world of shadows. In remov• and reproduction. ing our illusions we removed the substance, for indeed we have seen that substance is When Patanjali defines Yoga as restraining one of the greatest of our illusions." 7 Says the modifications of the Thinking Principle, Professor Karl Pearson in.' The Grammar of the definition has to be understood in the Science ' : " There is no better exercise for light of the theory of knowledge put forward the mind than the endeavour to reduce the by Sankhya. The term Thinking Principle perceptions we have of ' external things ' to is a comprehensive one for the whole the simple sense impressions by which we psychic apparatus which includes the intel• know them. The arbitrary distinction bet• lect, ego-sense, and mind-knowledge or per• ween outside and inside ourselves is then ception. It is because the Thinking Principle clearly seen to be one merely of everyday assumes all the forms presented to it by the practical convenience." 8 senses, imagination, emotion or memory that they tend to leave behind them impressions Sankhya is dualistic in contrast to the that may be permanent. These impressions monistic outlook of the Upanishads, and or latencies, called ' samskaras ' in Sanskrit, accepts as real both the world of Becoming which continue in the subconscious until they and Being, both matter and Spirit. The are revived under proper excitation, are of sages of Ancient India turned, in their quest paramount importance in Yoga psychology for Ultimate Reality to the world within, because our life is looked upon as a conti• and claimed to have found it not in the nuous activisation of these dynamic laten• objects of sense perception and intellectual cies. The Herculean task of Raja Yoga is cognition, not in Prakriti, but in that which to ' burn out' these latencies by restraining guarantees the reality of these objects, the the modifications of the Thinking Principle. cognitive self or Purusha.

TEddington, Arthur S., ? The Nature of the According to Kapila, all experience is Physical World9, p. XVI, Ann Arbor Paperbacks. 8 Pearson, Karl, ' The Grammar of Science *, based on the duality of the Spirit as the p. 65. the Meridian Library, New York, 1957. RAJA YOGA— THE ROYAL PATH 191

Thus long before psychoanalysis made its Thei first two limbs or the ethical part appearance in the West, Sankhya psycho• deal with Abstentions and Observances, logy had brought out in unmistakable fashion don'ts and do's, for achieving purification of the dominant role played by the subconsci• the mind. ous in shaping human destiny. While most Western psychologists are reluctant to Through the three physical limbs, Postures, believe that the subconscious can be con• Breath Control, and Withdrawal of the sciously controlled, Patanjali maintains that Senses, the yogi works through the body to it is possible for us to enter into the dark the mind to make it, in the words of the region of the subconscious and bring it under Gita, " like the light of a lamp which does complete conscious control. When the vast not flicker in a windless place." 10 The main continent of the subconscious is brought up purpose of the postures or physical exercises to the conscious level, claims Raja Yoga, man developed by the sages of Ancient India is to passes, here and now, " from the unreal to promote bodily health and to prepare the the Real, from darkness to light, from death mind for rapid progress in meditation. to immortality." 9 Raja Yoga regards the rhythm of breath• ing in the light of the theory that there exists Patanjali divides his book into four parts. a close connection between respiration and The first deals with the nature and purpose the states of mind. These breathing exer• of Raja Yoga, the modifications of the Think• cises are said to lead to prolonged suspension ing Principle, and the eight limbs or steps of breathing which in turn results in an of the system. The second is devoted to the increase in concentration of carbon dioxide means of attaining Illumination, the mental in the blood ; and this chemical change states which stand in the way, and the four• seems to help bring about a change in the fold theme of suffering, its causes, cessa• quality of consciousness, thus facilitating the tion, and the means thereof. The third part control of the mind. deals with Siddhis or supernormal powers such as telepathy and clairvoyance which The next step is the withdrawal of may develop through the practice of Raja thought from the tyranny of the nerves in Yoga, though we are warned over and over what is known as Abstraction in Christian again by the ancient seers not to attach any mysticism and aims at gathering together the importance to their acquisition, but to put out-going powers of the mind. ethical improvement and spiritual progress before them. The explanation given by The above five are called external limbs Raja Yoga is very simple. Each mind is a of Raja Yoga, and the remaining three, separate unit in one sense, and part of a Which form the internal and the fundamen• collective mind in another. Through one- tal, may be described as deepening stages pointed meditation the Yogi passes from of meditation •— Dharana or concentration, the individual mind to the cosmic mind or Dhyana or contemplation, and Samadhi or consciousness which is not bound by the identification. laws of time and space. According to Sankhya, the origin of It was the Buddha who said of the mind human suffering lies in confusing Purusha that there is nothing more rebellious when with Prakriti, changeless Spirit with chang• it is undisciplined, and nothing more obedi• ing matter. By suffering here is meant^ ent when disciplined. Raja Yoga disciplines much more than physical or mental pain, thq mind by first separating consciousness the consciousness of being limited, bound, from physical sensations and then from the conditioned, which is inseparable from this thoughts in the mind. It is a scientific human existence. It is in this sense that system with eight limbs, the first two being Patanjali uses the word. ethical, the next three physical, and the last 3 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, I, III, 27. three psychological. : "MBftagavtid Gi&a, VI, 19. 192 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

This suffering is not destructive and does " Thou art not a forester, thou art a king's not justify the charge of pessimism that has son." Immediately the image of the forester been brought against Hindu philosophy in is erased from the young man's mind, and the West. On the contrary, suffering is said he becomes the king's son again. It is to to be an ontological necessity and provides, enable the self-deluded forester to regain paradoxically enough, the means for putting his royal status that primordial matter goes an end to all suffering. It is by being thrown through the long drawn-out drama on the over and over again on the furnace of life stage of the phenomenal world. Purusha's that man comes to long for emancipation so (Spirit's) purpose is the cause of Prakriti's that the cosmos may be said to have an (Matter's) evolution. ambivalent function — to fling man into suffering, temporarily, on the one hand, and Liberation means the experiential recog• to help him escape, permanently, on the nition of the Self as the same as the Reality other, from the Wheel of Becoming. which is beyond the laws of time, space and causality, which is in no way involved in How then is man to achieve liberation the ceaseless flux of the phenomenal world from the human predicament, the central and which, therefore, is ever free and law of which seems to be suffering ? To immortal. This is the Moksha of the Hindus, the Buddha the cause of suffering is the the Nirvana of the Buddhists. craving for sense experience ; to Kapila and Patanjali it is nescience or ignorance of the There has been no greater discovery nature of Reality. Says Patanjali : " To in the whole history of mankind than that regard the noneternal as eternal, the impure contained in the three simple Sanskrit words as pure, the painful as pleasant and the non- Tat Twain Asi — That Thou Art — which Atman as the Atman — this is ignorance."11 embody the. highest teaching of the Upani• This primeval ignorance, which is held res• shads ' That' stands for Brahman, the ponsible for all our suffering, may be com• Ultimate Reality, from whom all words re• pared to the Fall in the Hebrew- Christian coil, as Shankara puts it with stark gran• tradition. deur. ' Thou ' stands for Atman, the indivi• dual Self, the Being behind every human There is but one way to terminate this being. primeval confusion, and that is to have This direct perception of Ultimate Reality direct knowledge of the Ultimate Reality. does not produce anything new, and is a He who knows the Spirit crosses over the simple awakening in the sense in which the sea of Becoming, declare the Upanishads. Buddha uses it in his answer to the puzzled Ignorance means bondage.; knowledge means disciples. liberation. With the direct perception of Reality, man is said to achieve his liberation " Are you a god ? " they ask. at once, and the Spirit regains its original " No," says the Buddha. freedom or sees its own native form, as Patanjali puts it with striking simplicity. In " Are you an angel ? " they ask, the language of psychoanalysis, the dissipa• " No," says the Buddha. tion of the repressing factor immediately " Are you a saint ? " they ask. results in automatic self-recollection. " No," says the Buddha. " Then what are you ? " they ask at last. This may be illustrated with the tradi• tional story of the King's son who was " I am awake," says the Buddha, giving banished to the forest as a child, and the literal meaning of the word Buddha. brought up there as a forester. He came, of course, to believe that he was really a n' How to know God \ ' The Yoga Aphorisms forester. On learning who the young man of Patanjali', translated by Swami Prabhava- nanda and , p. 112, Har• was, a Minister from the Court tells him : per & Bros., New York. 1967 RAJA YOGA — THE ROYAL PATH 193

This kind of awakening cannot come, bringing the concept of the, personal God according to Raja Yoga, through the agency into the system of Raja Yoga, holding of the intellect which is itself only a highly that devotion to a personal God can be a developed form of matter. Plato takes up very valuable aid in practising Raja Yoga. a similar position when he claims that noesis If you believe in a personal God, says is the highest kind of knowledge, which is Patanjali, it will be very helpful. If you immediate and supra-intellectual. don't, the task will be very much harder. Patanjali does not waste any words on the Such direct perception of Reality is beyond nature of Ultimate Reality because the only the, senses and the intellect and can be way one can know it is by realising it for obtained only through a transcendental oneself in the Yoga climax called Samadhi. experience in which there is complete identity between the subject and the object, Through this identification or illumina• between the knowler and the known. The tion the yogi passes permanently beyond the Upanishads do not dismiss the intellect as a human condition of being limited and bound. useless guide. It is very useful for dealing It is impossible to describe the nature of with finite things in the phenomenal world thi experience except in the way the Upani• of subject and object duality, but it has to shads try to do it — neti, neti, not this, not give place to another mode of knowing for this ! As Meister Eckhart puts it, " Every• the perception of infinite Reality. This view thing stands for God and you see only God finds corroboration in the philosophy of Kant in all the world. It is just as when one looks that the very organization of our intellect, straight at the sun for a while ; afterwards, which is bound forever to its innate forms everything he looks at has the image of the of perception, space, time and causality, sun in it."12 excludes us from a knowledge of the space• less, timeless Reality that is the Ding-an- All human experience is to lead man, sich or the ' thing-in-itself.' according to Yoga, to this final consumma• tion towards which all creation moves in This experiential knowledge of the Ulti• travail. As the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad mate Reality is said to be self-established, sings ecstatically, " Pure like crystal water self-evidencing, self-luminous. Nothing can is that Self, the only seer, the One without ever be the same after. With this identifi• a second. He is the kingdom of Brahman •—• cation comes to an end for the illumined man's highest goal, supreme treasure, grea• man the ceaseless tension between the Spirit test bliss."13 and matter that goes on throughout the cos• mic process. The illumined man or the perfected man has gone deep into his own ground and learnt To attain liberation from the human pre• to know himself at the root of his own being. dicament is not to run away from the duties He has found at last what he was and responsibilities of life. The liberated searching for — personal proof of his iden• man works in the world process no longer tity with the Supreme Self whom the Upa• as a helpless ego, but as a living center of nishads call Sat Chit Ananda — Absolute the Supreme Spirit. It is these illumined Existence, Consciousness and Bliss. Tat men, living on the highest pinnacle of Twam Asi — That Thou Art. consciousness, who dedicate their lives to the mighty task of elevating mankind. 12 Meister Eckhart, p. 123, Harper & Bros., New York. Patanjali takes over the cosmology and the 13 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, IV, III, 32. psychology of Kapila almost in its entirety, The quotations from the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads are from the translation of Swami but he makes an important addition by Prabhavananda. 194 YAMA AND NI YAM A

By Prof. G. V. KULKARNI

HPHE Yoga system, like other ancient ousness. When the mind flows unrestrained Hindu systems of philosophy, accepts it indulges in thoughts the opposite of these the Realisation of Being as the goal of life. and leads the aspirant astray from Yoga. According to Patanjali, its chief exponent The yamas are therefore primarily negative and the author of its scripture, the Yoga virtues in which restraint is predominant, but Sutras, Kaivalya or Heaven is the state they have positive content too. They remove where man enjoys the supreme bliss of alone- the obstacles on the path of yoga, thus ness, completely immune to the play of enabling the aspirant to set foot on the path. Prakriti ; and indeed, the very word * Kai• Incidentally, it will be noted that the fourth valya ' is from the root meaning 4 alone'. cx them, brahmacharya, meaning continence In order to attain this goal it is necessary to or celibacy, indicates that Yoga is one of withdraw one's mind from all distracting those spiritual paths which is accessible only thoughts and tendencies. The definition of to celibates. Yoga given by Patanjali himself at the very Let us consider briefly the implications of beginning of his great work is ' restraint of the five yamas. mental activities \ 1 1. Ahimsa (Non-violence). This means The yogic path has eight steps (literally not causing injury in thought, word or deed. ' limbs '),2 culminating in asamprajnata First one has to keep the mind quite free samadhi or perfect Self-realization. The from animosity, resentment and malicious first two of these are yama and niyama ; to thoughts. If any such do arise they are to be be followed by physical postures (asanas), immediately counteracted by contrary breath-control (pranayama) and sense- thoughts and feelings of love and well- withdrawal (pratyahara). These five are wishing.3 Secondly, one has to abstain from grouped together as the ' outer aspects'. uttering (or, of course, writing) words They are followed by concentration wlhich will insult others or wound their feel• (dharana) meditation (dhyana) and absorp• ings. Whenever such an impulse arises one tion (samadhi), which alone are termed must control one's speech and say whatever the ' inner aspects '. has to be said in a friendly way, with bene- violence and goodwill. Thirdly, no physical Of late there has been a wide vogue of violence should be perpetrated on another. what is called ' Yoga 5 outside India. It will be seen from the above that this consists Non-violence consists, says the com• only of parts of the third and fourth steps mentator Vyasa, in bearing ill-will towards of the eightfold path and, what is most none. He further adds that it is a very great serious, completely ignores the goal of the virtue and that all the other yamas and path. The last four steps are probably niyamas are based on it. When this virtue is beyond the practicants, while the first two firmly established in a yogi his very presence they conveniently ignore. suffices to remove animosity.4 The positive side of this virtue is to love Patanjali lists, as the beginning of the all creatures and strive for their well-being yogic path, five yamas and five niyamas. The in a selfless way. five yamas (from the Sanskrit root 1 yam \ to restrain) are forms of self-restraint or 1 Yoga Sutras, 1, 2, abstention. They are : non-violence, truth- 2 Ibid., II. 29. 3 7Md., II, 33. fulness, honesty, continence and abstemi- 4 Ibid., II, 35. 1967 YAMA AND NIYAMA 195

: 2. Saiga '{Truthfulness.).: This consists in and capable of imparting spiritual and yogic refraining from anything that is untruthful instruction.9 in thought, word or deed. One must avoid 5. Aparigraha (abstemiousness, freedom the temptation either to exaggerate or to from greed). This consists in not coveting make a false impression on others. One's things or accumulating more than is neces• thoughts must be based on truth. One's sary for the present day. It also implies not words must not only not be lies but also not accepting gifts, as doing so gives rise to be deceptive or misleading. One's actions thoughts of earning, saving and attachment. should be sincere and conducive to the well- When a yogi is firmly established in this being of all creatures, and truthfulness in yama he obtains the ability to see his past speech must be accompanied by gentleness and future lives.10 in action.5 It is apparent from the fourth and fifth of When a person is firmly established in this these yamas that Yoga is a path for the virtue, whatever he says comes true. renunciate, not for the family man. 3. Asteya (Honesty, non-stealing). This The chief common factor of all five yamas prohibits stealing both in its gross and is restraint or self-control. They are called subtle form. The subtle form of stealing the Mahavratas or 1 great vows' and are consists in possessing and enjoying things declared by Patanjali to be completely obli• which do not really belong to us or gatory on any one undertaking the yogic even possessing our own in a quantity path. exceeding our real needs. It also consists in Not so the niyamas. These are declared to enjoying things privately without sharing be desirable but not absolutely obligatory, them with others or surrendering them to and therefore they are termed simply God. The Bhagavad Gita calls one who does ' vratas'' or vows. It is not to be deduced this a thief6 and the Ishopanishad exhorts us from this so much that they are less im• to enjoy what comes our way in a spirit of portant as that they are less easy, less surrender.7 dependent on one's own will power. They Non-stealing is also interpreted to mean are rather positive achievements, that is not accepting from others things not sanc• abidance in the right, while the yamas are tioned in the scriptures and also not enter• rather negative, that is renunciation of the taining desires for things. wrong. Therefore, while a man can decide upon the yamas, he has rather to strive for Wealth is said to come spontaneously to the niyamas. For instance, a man can decide one who is established in this virtue.8 not to harm (ahimsa) ; but to be in a state 4. Brahmacharya (continence, celibacy, of contentment (santosha) is something he spiritual-mindedness). This, fully and pro• lias to aspire after rather than decide upon. perly understood means the quest for Let us consider briefly the five niyamas. Brahman and delight in Brahman. Therefore to seek any other consummation or find 1. Shaucha (purity, cleanliness). Purity delight in anything else is lack of Brahma• is both external and internal. Externally it charya. Therefore it implies full control not implies keeping one's body, clothing, sur• only of the senses but even of the desires. roundings and food pure and clean. Internal In its restricted sense it means sexual purity means keeping the mind free from control, but in thought and word as well as passion, inertia or any other form of egoism. in deed. This is a cardinal virtue and is very From external purity arises detachment from important for yoga. An aspirant has to be one's own body and the bodies of others j11 keenly vigilant about it and to keep body from internal purity arises concentration, and mind completely pure and free from self-control and ripeness for the vision of unhealthy thoughts and feelings. 5 Ibid, II. 36. 9 Ibid, IT. 38. When a person is established firmly in this 6 111, 12 10 Ibid.. II, 39. 7 1. n Ibid.. II, 40-41. virtue, Patanjali says, he is full of vigour 8 yoga Sutras, II, 37, 196 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July the Self. It is like a clear unflickering lamp self-help type of path not making use of the in a glass case. concept of a Personal God. It has even been regarded by some authors as a non-theistic 2. Santosha (contentment). This is the type of path. And yet Ishwara Pranidhana opposite of craving. It means satisfaction means surrendering all one's actions to God with what one has and therefore implies who is the Supreme Guru. This is real equanimity under all conditions and at all worship, not dependent on any forms or times. Outwardly it implies accepting life as ritual, and can be carried on while one is it is, but inwardly it is that experience of walking along the road or working in an everything being as it should be which office or whatever one may be doing. It comes when the ego subsides. It is said that implies habituating the mind to feel the when this niyama is fully mastered the omnipresence of the Divine Being and prac• highest form of pleasure ensues, and indeed tising the Presence of God everywhere and it is itself beyond anything called • pleasure '. always. One who practises this attains " Whatever delight one gets in having one's samadhi. desires fulfilled, whatever delight one gets even in heaven, such delight is negligible While yama and niyama are the initial compared with that which comes from con• steps of the Eightfold Yogic path, cer• tentment," says the Mahabharata. When tain flexibility has to be observed. It is ' contentment' is understood in the living, not necessary, for instance, that one step ego-free way just mentioned, this is no should be completely mastered before the hyperbole but is literally true. next can be started. If it were, fewr would 3. Tapas (austerity). This means remain• ever reach the third step at all. Also it is to ing indifferent to the opposites such as heat be noted that yama and niyama can very and cold, likes and dislikes, victory and well constitute a path in themselves, even defeat, success and failure. There are also apart from the remaining yogic steps. For specific forms of tapas like those implied by instance, the last three niyamas, called by the vows of krichchra and chandrayana. It Patanjali ' Kriya-yoga5 or ' the yoga of is threefold, concerning body, speech and action ', have an affinity with what is called mind. The first implies control of the body ' the path of yoga ' in the Bhagavad Gita. and senses, the second the control and right Then again, the yamas and niyamas together use of speech and the third the taming and add up to what the Bhagavad Gita calls calming of the mind. From tapas and the Daivi Sampad, that is c Divine Nature \12 decline of impurity comes various powers of Similarly, non-violence, purity, self-control, the body and senses. contentment, and submission to God come under the Gita definition of Jnana, that is 4. Swadhyaya (Study of the scriptures and ' Knowledge ' or ' Wisdom \13 incantation of and the Divine Name). This includes both the ancient It is noteworthy that the five vratas or scriptural texts and the sayings of the saints. vows of are the same as the five " Do not fail to study the scriptures" is an yamas, while the panchasila or five rules of upanishadic precept. The Shatapath Brah- conduct in Buddhism run parallel and mana says that " Study of the scriptures is include most of them. They are certainly the highest undertaking a man can engage not exclusive to the yogic path, or indeed in." It also includes the repetition of the to any one religion, but for those who do sacred mono-syllable OM or of any Divine aspire to take this path, Patanjali, the Name. supreme authority for it, lays down that the 5. Ishwara Pranidhana (Surrender or sub• yamas are obligatory and the niyama? mission to God). The inclusion of this as conditions to be steadily aimed at. the final and perhaps the culminating niyama 1*2 Bhagavad Gita. XVI. 1-3. is remarkable, since on the whole Yoga is a rzibid., XIII, 7-10. , 1967 197 SOME MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT YOGA

By Dr. I. K. TAIMNI

TN this article I would like to remove some ing mostly with Asanas and breathing exer• misconceptions about Yoga which are cises does not help people to lead a more prevalent and which are generally the sane and healthy life, but it is not Yoga and result of over-simplification of its problems. it vulgarizes the ideals and realities of the When the human mind has not enough, yogic life. Asana and Pranayama are parts knowledge about any subject and the dis• of Raja Yoga but they are used merely for criminative faculty is not sufficiently deve• clearing the ground for tackling . the mind, loped it always tends to over-simplify the where Yoga really begins. problems connected with it. That is why a Another kind of gross over-simplification sound theoretical background of knowledge which we find with regard to the technique is necessary before we enter the practical of Yoga is that which equates yogic techni• field pertaining to that knowledge. In the ques with the techniques of psycho-analysis. absence of such knowledge we see all the This is very common and some authors have problems connected with that field of endea• gone to the length of practically basing the vour out of perspective, are liable to enter technique of yoga on psycho-analysis. blind alleys, adopt wrong methods, get stuck Let us go into this problem and see where in non-essential activities, and in other ways the fallacy lies. This psycho-analysis tech• waste time and run risks of various kinds. nique of Yoga is based upon the idea that We may discuss here, a few illustrations of the object of Yoga is attained by bringing the over-simplification of the problems of about quiescence or a state of perfect still• Yoga to show not only how it creates all ness of the mind by letting the thoughts kinds of misconceptions about this sacred which lie suppressed in the sub-conscious science but also makes people adopt methods mind come out gradually until the store is which cannot by their very nature lead to exhausted and the mind becomes empty. the desired result. And in this emptiness or vacuum produced A great deal of interest has been aroused in the mind the Reality is supposed to be in the West about Yoga during the last two revealed. This idea is obviously erroneous or three decades. As a result of this many and based on a misconception of the nature books' have been written about Yoga and of the sub-conscious mind. It is true that many people, especially Indians, have set when the mind is sought to be emptied at themselves up as Yogis and teachers of the the time of meditation, suppressed thoughts Yogic Science. It is all a question of demand and desires of the sub-conscious mind do and supply. Whenever there is a demand for tend to rush into the comparatively empty anything there will be people who will sup• mind and this accounts for the wandering ply it whether the article supplied is and filling of the mind with all kinds of genuine or spurious. A large number of irrelevant ideas. It is also true that the books are being published these clays on release of such thoughts reduces the various aspects of Yoga and from these pressure on the mind. But this by itself books one can get some idea of the kind of cannot bring about Chitta-vritti-nirodha or knowledge which is being generally palmed the complete inhibition of the modifications off as Yoga in the West by people who either of the mind which is required in Yoga. This do not themselves know what Yoga is or is so because the sub-conscious mind is a pass on these trivial practices under the vast storehouse of unfathomable depths high-sounding title of Yoga to exploit the containing the impressions or samskaras of public. It is not that this kind of stuff deal- all our previous evolutionary stages. And 198 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

so if this process of merely emptying it is in a relaxed condition it is possible to arrive encouraged and continued it wi]l go on at a stage when the mind becomes empty, interminably and then start bringing up free of modifications, is untenable ; it is also atavistic tendencies and instinctive tenden• contrary to experiences obtained in the prac• cies of our savage and animal stages. These tice of Yoga. The mind cannot by its very tendencies or impressions lie deeply buried nature reach a state of vacuum in this in our sub-conscious mind and are some• manner. In order to produce a vacuum in a times brought up to the surface when in a vessel all sources of communication with the state of frenzy or uncontrollable excitement vessel must be closed tight and then only is we start indulging in inhuman acts or show it possible to get air from any source or other tendencies of the animal stage. All direction we want by opening the corres• these things of the remote past have passed ponding valve or door. This is why in yogic into the deepest levels of the sub-conscious meditation all sources of communication mind and are not meant to be brought up with the mind are cut off before Samadhi again. They belong to our past evolution. can be practised successfully. But you cannot cut off the sub-conscious mind from The real field and purpose of the psycho• the conscious as you do in the case of a analytic technique is to remove the distor• physical vessel by plugging a hole. The mind tions and abnormalities which are related to is not made that way and it cannot be our advanced human stage. It is these dis• divided into water-tight compartments by tortions and complexes which cause various mental plugs. The only way in which the kinds of pressures in our psyche that have mind can be cut off from all kinds of sources to be eliminated in order to restore its is by concentration. When we concentrate healthy condition. This is done in psycho• intensely on anything we cut off the mind analysis by its well-known technique which from, everything else. There is no other way is of a positive character. In this the abnor• of producing the metaphorical vacuum malities are resolved naturally and the referred to above. When the mind is con• psyche becomes free from them ; but since centrated successfully on any object it is there is a positive state of mind to replace closed completely on all sides except one the negative it does not lead to the produc• and that is its own centre, the Centre of tion of a vacuum which can be filled up only Consciousness. But a valve, as it were, closes by the thoughts and desires derived from this Centre and cuts off the super-conscious increasingly lower levels of the sub• levels of the mind which lie beyond the conscious mind. It is this fallacy which is Centre on the other side. What blocks this responsible for reducing the yogic technique Centre ? Of course, the object held in the tc the level of psycho-analysis and has made mind on which the mind is concentrated. If some writers in the West confuse yoga with this object which is called the seed of psycho-analysis. But the resemblance samprajnata samadhi is dropped, two things between yoga and psycho-analysis is only happen simultaneously: (1) A real mental superficial and there is really nothing in vacuum is produced in the mind, for it now common between the two. really contains nothing at all, as the only As this subject is important I would like object on which it was concentrated has also to go a little deeper into it. If we take this disappeared ; (2) the passage to the super- simile of producing a mental vacuum and conscious now becomes open, for it was the examine it a little further we shall see that object of pratyaya which was closing this there can be no vacuum produced in the passage. So consciousness slips through this mind as long as it is open at the lower end point, or centre connecting the conscious and towards the sub-conscious levels. You cannot the super-conscious levels of the mind and produce an ordinary vacuum in any vessel emerges into the next higher plane or level ; wyhich is in communication with an or one can say the super-conscious enters inexhaustible source of gas or atmosphere. the mind through the centre. This is the So the idea that by letting the sub-conscious technique of asamprajnata samadhi. mind empty itself into the conscious mind Now, why cannot asamprajnata .samadhi 1967 SOME MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT YOGA 199 be practised without first practising samprad• Another kind of over-simplification is nata samadhi ? Or to put it in non-techni• found in the technique in which we start cal terms, why is it not possible to drop the with becoming aware of our mind in order last object or image held in the mind at the to discover what is hidden behind the mind. time of meditation in an ordinal y manner This ignores important factors which and produce the mental vacuum referred to ? are actually involved in the problem The answer has been given above. Because and which prevent the aspirant from there is not in ordinary meditation that achieving his object. The technique appears1 degree of concentration which is required to quite attractive because it gives the impres• close the mind tight against all entrances sion that one can attain the highest prize of except its own centre. It is only in sampraj• human achievement by his own efforts in a nata samadhi that this degree of concentra• very simple manner without any external tion can be achieved. A state of mind in aid. which it is allowed to remain in a relaxed This technique starts with and is based on condition so that the sub-conscious thoughts developing the awareness of our mind, its and desires can emerge and discharge them• activities, its tendencies, its prejudices, pre• selves into it is the very opposite of this con• dilections, and biases which are due to pre• centrated condition and should by its very vious conditioning. It is claimed that when nature fail to produce that vacuum of utter we become really aware of these, they begin stillness which is needed for the hidden to dissolve gradually, one after another, and reality to reveal itself. That is why yogic ultimatly the mind becomes free from all technique is not a technique of relaxation the tendencies which condition it, assumes but a technique of the utmost concentration the state which is quite free from any kind based on will power. of modifications and which may be called pure Consciousness or Reality. The aware• But the student should not get the idea ness which, brings about this remarkable from what has been said above that Samadhi result is, of course, not ordinary awareness is a state of struggle and tension, in which which we exercise when we do ordinary the will tries to force concentration of the introspection. It is a special kind of aware• mind and the mind tries to resist this imposi• ness in which the mind is free from the tion of the will. That would give an entire• pressures and biases generated by past ly wrong impression about the nature of conditioning. It is this particular type of Samadhi. We should know that real exertion awareness alone which is supposed to have of spiritual will power is not a process the solvent property of dissolving all the involving tension or struggle at all. It is encumbrances which load the mind and quiet, confident, utterly in peace, without bringing about awareness of Reality. struggle. People who have real power of The first question we may ask is : who spiritual will are not the people who are becomes aware ? Or to put it more clearly, struggling with their mind or emotions. In to what does this faculty of being aware fact, this state shows not the presence of belong ? Is it the mind ? Does the mind spiritual will power but its absence. When become aware of itself ? Here is the first the Atma, the Inner Ruler who is the source gap in the line of reasoning on which the of spiritual will, is in command everything method is based. The mind has no capa• in us falls, into line and submits to His will city in itself to become aware. It shines just as when a King commands everyone with the light of Buddhi and it is the illu• obeys implicitly and immediately. So the mination of Buddhi which enables it to per• state of concentration produced in Samadhi ceive anything or become aware of anything. being the result of true will power is quite Obviously, therefore, Buddhi is an indispen• free from tensions and struggles, pressures sable factor in the process. And if the pro• and resistances. All these pressures have cess depends upon Buddhi, the condition in already been eliminated in the practice of which Buddhi is functioning wTill determine the previous techniques of yoga, yama, the result of this trying to become aware of niyama etc. our mind, and its tendencies, activities etc. J

M THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

Now, we know that Buddhi or intuition is being aware of our mind's condition but extremely sensitive to the condition of the simply carrying out certain instructions medium through which it works, namely, the which regulate the activities of the mind, mind. The, mind can carry out its ordinary emotions and desires and of course actions. operations even in an impure, disharmonised And so every one can begin this work and and disturbed condition but when it comes carry it out to a successful end whenever he to the question of seeing the significance of wants and wherever he stands. And when things, of seeing its own faults, its biases, its the mind has been purified and tranquilliz• distortions and the illusions of life in which ed in this manner and the light of pure it is involved, it is helpless unless the pure Buddhi has begun to shine through it, it light of Buddhi, coming through a pure and acquires the capacity to observe its own harmonised vehicle, is able to filter down aberrations. It is only then that the techni• into the mind. We know very well how que of awareness can be utilized as it is people whose minds have become debased utilized in all systems of spiritual culture with evil tendencies and activities are utterly and yoga. This technique of becoming incapable of seeing anything wrong in their aware of our mind is not an exclusive fea• own life and actions although these aberra• ture of this new philosophy. It is an essen• tions are of a gross character and others can tial feature of every system of spiritual see these things clearly. culture which has been practised since times immemorial. How otherwise can people who What does this show ? That, even for start• start as ordinary human beings with all ing this process of observing our mind we human weaknessses transform themselves need a reasonably controlled, pure and har• into saints ? The mind of a real saint is so monized mind through which at least some alert, so discriminative, so sensitive that the Buddhic illumination can come. Is the mind slightest ripple of an undesirable tendency of the ordinary man in such a condition ? in it is noticed immediately and eliminated If not, how can he then even begin this completely and instantaneously. And this work, to say nothing of completing it suc• sensitiveness and alertness is developed by cessfully ? He must have a reasonably pure, constant and prolonged self-discipline. So harmonized, tranquil and controlled mind we see that what is wrong with this philo• before the process can be begun. If this is sophy is not the inclusion of 6 awareness' in inescapable then how can this kind of mind its technique of Self-discipline, without which be acquired ? ' By becoming aware of the the technique of awareness cannot be prac• mind's tendencies ' reply the staunch sup• tised. As to the fear of self-discipline con• porters of this philosophy and technique. ditioning the mind, it is for the aspirant to Don't we see that this is arguing in a circle ? judge whether the right kind of self-dis• Illumination from Buddhi can come only cipline conditions an unconditioned mind or when the mind is pure, harmonized and deconditions a mind conditioned by all kinds tranquil, and the mind can be made pure, of undesirable tendencies which we gene• harmonized and tranquil only when it is rally find in human beings. What has been illuminated by the light of pure Buddhi. said above is enough to answer that ques• So how are we to bring about this mini• tion also. mum purity, etc., which is required even for Those who seriously try to use these initiating the process of becoming aware of apparently easy and simple methods soon our mind's aberrations ? This our new phi• discover that they involve really the whole losophy does not care to answer. But every technique of yoga. If one is trying to climb one can see that this minimum purity, tran• a mountain in order to reach its summit and quillity, etc., can be achieved by a simple takes a short cut, according to science he process of disciplining the mind. Thousands will have to spend the same amount of of people have done it and any one can do energy. If he wants to gain in time he must it now if he makes the effort in earnest. spend energy at a faster rate. Nature does This preliminary discipline does not require not give anything for nothing. 201 YOGA AS MEDITATION

By Prof. EKNATH EASWARAN

&i IV/f AYBE my ' block ' is not being able selves with the body, senses and mind with• to imagine," writes a friend from out losing our awareness or consciousness. America, " a life without welcoming what The second misconception, though not as the senses bring, which seems to be all drastic as the first, may be said to be more knowledge, all pleasure, all joy. Even my wide-spread in the West even among people concept of what the Professor wrote came genuinely interested in the spiritual life. For through the sense of sight. If I listen to him them meditation is a succession of thoughts and learn, the sense of sound and other or an association of ideas about a central senses, too subtle to name, will convey theme, while the mind continues to be instant knowledge, fragmentary though it " many-pointed". Patanjali, the great may seem. When my mind and senses are, teacher of yoga in ancient India, would say stilled, I'm a perfect blank ! " that the purpose of meditation is to make Perhaps the best way in which I can the mind " one-pointed " so that we may be answer this question is by trying to explain able to harness all our vital forces and direct what actually happens in meditation. I am them in one single direction. here using the term meditation as a working Now for the hypothesis for verifying which equivalent for yoga^ which is derived from we are undertaking this supreme scientific the Sanskrit root yuj (to unite) from which experiment ! It is : " Tat Twam Asi " or comes the English word yoke also. Thus " That Thou Art." In the memorable words meditation is neither cult nor dogma, but a of Meister Eckhart. " The seed of God is in piactical method, a dynamic process, for us. Given an intelligent and hard-working uniting the finite with the infinite, the farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, human with the divine. whose seed it is, and accordingly its will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into I would like to call meditation the supreme pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God scientific experiment we can all perform in seed into God." the laboratory of our own mind for attain• ing this perfect union. As in every scienti• According to the Upanishads — India's fic experiment, we start with a hypothesis pure spring of the •— which is to be verified under carefully this seed of God, called Atman in Sanskrit, controlled conditions in this laboratory. is encased in a number of sheaths or coats : It is this personal verification that Jesus physical, vital, mental, intellectual and refers to when he declares : " And you shall causal. The outermost of these is the physi• know the truth, and the truth shall make cal coat or the body, and almost all of us you free." spend our life in the honest belief that we are this body. But there are rare moments Let me here try to dispel two common when, for example under the inspiring misconceptions in the modern world on the impact of great literature or music or art subject of meditation. There are some who or Nature's loveliness, we are able to shed believe that meditation means making the the outer coats for the time being and iden• mind a blank -— a condition which could be tify ourselves with the mind and intellect. much more easily achieved by falling sound The mystic sheds his mental and intellectual asleep. What really happens in deep medi• coats also in order to enter the Kingdom of tation is that we are able to rise above phy• Heaven within by identifying himself with sical consciousness by disidentifying our• the Atman. 202 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

When we are told in yoga psychology that senses. Listen to the. beautiful invocation one coat is interior to another, it means that from the Upanishads of the sages of ancient the former is more subtle and pervasive than India : the latter. The classic example given is of " May quietness descend upon my limbs, ice, water and steam. A piece of ice, when My speech, my breath, my eyes, my it melts, occupies more space as water ears ; which, when it boils, occupies much May all my senses wax clear and strong. more space as steam. Thus water is said to May Brahman show himself unto me." be more subtle than ice, and steam much more subtle than water. When we learn to In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna warns us doff one coat after another through the prac• that we have three mortal enemies in our tice of meditation, we experience a gradual own minds : lust, fear and anger. By lust expansion of consciousness, because the mind is meant the craving for selfish satisfaction, can travel far beyond the reach of the physi• at the expense of everyone else, if necessary, cal body, and the intellect can travel far which is called tanha or thirst by the beyond the reach of the mind. The supreme Buddha. It is these terrible three — lust, climax comes when we shed all these coats fear and anger — which are responsible for and attain Cosmic Consciousness by identi• defiling the doors of our perception by mis• fying ourselves with the Atman. representing us to ourselves as separate frag• ments in a world of innumerable separate This higher state of consciousness may be fragments. described as a super-conscious mode of knowing in which the knower and the known We cannot escape this distorted view of become one. In this infinite mode of know• Reality as long as we are driven by the ing, knowledge is received direct without craving for personal pleasure, personal pro• the use of the senses, the mind and the intel• fit, personal prestige or personal power. We lect. The Buddha says, " It is by means of cannot serve God and Mammon at the same tranquillity of mind that you are able to time, or, as Sri Ramakrishna would put it, transmute this false mind of death and re• Rama and Kama cannot live together. If birth into the clear intuitive mind and, by we can eliminate this selfish craving we can so doing, to realize the primal and enlighten• simultaneously eliminate fear and anger ing Essence of Mind." also. I am what my deep driving desire is, point Now let us see what the world looks like out the ancient sages. As my deep driving to one who has become aware of the Atman, desire is. so is my will. As my will is, so is the Christ within. " You never enjoy the my deed. As my deed is, so is my destiny. world aright," says Thomas Traherne, " till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you It is this deep driving desire that forms are clothed with the heavens and crowned our capital of vital energy in life, which, with, the stars ; and perceive yourself to be when invested, may be called love. If we the sole heir of the whole world, and more try to use this capital in going after personal than so, because men are in it who are every pleasures or personal profit, personal pres• one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can tige or personal power, it will lead us, sooner sing and rejoice and delight in God, as or later, to increasing frustration instead of misers do in gold, and kings in sceptres, you fulfilment. As soon as we make this dis• can never enjoy the world." covery for ourselves, this feverish pursuit of the finite has served its purpose by making This is how the world will appear to you us understand, beyond the shadow of a doubt, and me when the doors of our perception that our deep driving need is for God, for have been cleansed, to use William Blake's God only, and nothing but God. As St. expressive phrase. The stilling of the senses, Augustine eloquently says, " Thou madest us mind and intellect in meditation is a pro• for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until cess of sanctifying and not of stultifying the it repose in Thee." 1967 YOGA AS MEDITATION 203

Through the practice of meditation we can The great mystics of ail religions are develop the precious capacity to recall our agreed that God cannot help revealing Him• vital capital — the capacity to love — from self to us in the depths of our consciousness the numerous destructive enterprises in if we learn to love Him " with all our heart which it has been recklessly scattered, to and all our soul, and with all our strength, recollect and reinvest it in the most crea• and with all our mind.". St. John of the tive, most challenging and most inspiring Cross tells us, " We shall observe that the adventure of realizing God in the depths of principal characteristic of contemplation, on our consciousness. In the words of the account of which it is here called a ladder, Bhagavad Gita. is that it is the science of love. This, as we have said, is an infused and loving know• " So, with his heart serene and fearless, ledge of God, which enlightens the soul and Firm in the vow of renunciation, at the same time enkindles it with love, until Holding the mind from its restless it is raised up step by step, even unto God roaming, its Creator. For it is love alone that unites Now let him struggle to reach my and joins the soul with God." oneness, Through the practice of meditation we can Ever-absorbed, his eyes on Me always. transform ourselves from the petty state of His prize, his purpose." loving this or loving that to the perfect state of being love itself, in which the lover and It is this most intense and ceaseless long• the beloved are one, and sing with the Sufi ing for God that cleanses the doors of our Saint Ansari of Herat : perception and raises us into a higher state " A beggar, Lord, I ask of Thee of consciousness, above the senses, above the More than a thousand kings could ask. mind, above the intellect and above the ego. Each one wants something, which he Without this unification of our capacity to asks of Thee. desire, of our limitless capacity to love, we I come to ask Thee to give me Thyself." cannot even dream of knowing God. As The Cloud Of Unknowing says, in words of May He move us to ask Him for Himself, sweet simplicity. " By love may He be gotten and may He give Himself to us to fulfil our and hoi den, but by thought never." hearts' longing.

" Meditation is your true nature. You call it meditation now, because there are other thoughts distracting you. When these thoughts are dis• pelled, you remain alone — that is, in the state of meditation free from thoughts ; and that is your real nature, which you are now trying to gain by keeping away other thoughts. Such keeping away of other thoughts is now called meditation. But when the practice becomes firm, the real nature shows itself as true meditation." — SRI RAM AN A. 204 July THE MEANING OF YOGA IN THE BHAGAVAD GITA

By Prof. G. V. KULKARNI

HPHE Sanskrit word yoga is derived from ter II, having instructed Arjuna in pure the root yuj meaning to unite or join. advaitic doctrine which he calls ' the wisdom It is etymologically related to the English of Sankhya', Krishna continues : " Hear word 'yoke'. Yoga should, therefore, mean now the wisdom of Yoga," 1 and proceeds to the state of realised Union with the Divine. describe the path of dispassionate activity. It is indeed used in this sense in a number At the beginning of Chapter III Arjuna asks of places in the Gita, for instance in Chap• which is better, the path of Knowledge ter VI, verse 4 : " When a man is attached (Sankhya) or the path of Action ; and again neither to sense objects nor to actions but at the beginning of Chapter V, he asks the has renounced all sankalpa (mental pre• same question about the path of renuncia• occupation) he is said to have attained tion and that of action. In both cases ' yoga ' Yoga." is used to mean ' action ' or ' a path of dis• passionate activity ' ; and in both chapters It is also used to mean religion or right Arjuna (who, it must be remembered, is doctrine as an approach to Union, a sense a Kshatriya and a married man) is exhorted in which it comes very near to the meaning to follow the path of action by fighting a of dharma. For instance, in the first three battle which, if victorious will make him verses of Chapter IV, Sri Krishna speaks of joint ruler of a kingdom, but to fight it dis• it as that imperishable secret which he had passionately as a duty, without craving for proclaimed to the ancient royal Sages, which victory or dread of defeat. had been lost " through long lapse of time " and which he was now expounding anew to It comes rather as a surprise, then, to see Arjuna. the term yoga used in Chapter VI, verse 10 and following, much as it would be to-day, A third meaning is a path to Union, not for a path in which a man under a vow of any one specific path but any path, much as celibacy sits in an asana in a solitary place, the word marga is used to-day. For concentrating his mind in meditation. Later instance, in the colophon to each chapter in the chapter, Krishna speaks rather of the the Gita is referred to as a Yoga Shastra, achievement of the yogi than of the means that is a text-book of yoga, while that parti• used in achieving it, but enough has, been cular chapter is referred to as some specific said in these few verses to show that what yoga or approach to Union. Even the first he is describing is not the path of dispassio• chapter, describing the dejection of Arjuna, nate activity to which he has hitherto been is referred to as a yoga, since an emotional urging Arjuna. upheaval and questioning of one's dharma, such as Arjuna underwent, can also be a Thus, it will be seen that the term 1 yoga ' means of approach to God. is used in various senses in the Gita. How• ever, there is one quality which seems to run However, ' yoga' is also used in the Gita through all uses of it. That is samatva which to denote a specific type of path, and this can be rendered ' equanimity 'or ' equal- is the fourth use of the word that we have mindedness ' or ' seeing all things with an to note. In the first five chapters it is used equal eye ', whether friend or enemy, sue- to denote the path of action, what to-day would be called ' karma marga '. In Chap- ill. 39. 1967 THE MEANING OF YOGA IN THE BHAGAVAD GITA 205

cess or failure. In Chapter II samatva is All the yogas mentioned in the Gita are actually defined as being yoga.2 Yoga is variants of this fundamental quality. When elsewhere defined as the wisdom which, if the term ' yoga ' is applied to action, that is rightly grasped, will free one from the to dispassionate performance of one's duty bondage of action.3 without consideration of success or failure and without regarding oneself as the doer, One of the most surprising definitions is the quality of samatva refers rather to the when yoga is spoken of as ' skill in action '.4 will. With the path of Knowledge it refers This obviously means more than mere physi• rather to understanding ; with the yoga of cal dexterity. It means the sort of dispas• Divine Love to the emotions ; with the sionate, harmonious action which meets the method of concentration, to which the term needs of the occasion While creating no ' yoga' is most often applied nowadays, to attachment and therefore no sin and no new the mind. These are various approaches vasana, leaving the actor unstained. In the suited to people of different temperaments,11 same chapter an ideal yogi (Sthithaprajna) but they are not mutually exclusive. The is described, and his main characteristic is Gita, through its varied uses of the term equanimity. In other chapters also the ideal ' yoga' aims at harmonisation of will, intel• yogi is described, notably in Chapters V, VI, lect and emotion in a completely integrated XII, XVII and XVIII, and in every case personality. emphasis is laid on this quality of equal- mindedness. In Chapter VI Arjuna refers to The Gita is not a dry exposition of phi• Krishna's teaching as ' This yoga of equani• losophy ; it is animated by the warmth of mity.' 5 Divine Love. Its setting is not only one of war but also of this all-pervading, all- This equal-mindedness involves accepting penetrating Love. It is essentially a song, alike whatever life may bring ; pain and a gita and again and again it reiterates the pleasure, gain and loss, victory and defeat.6 supreme value of love. It reiterates that It involves being free from craving. It yoga must be animated by intense, single- involves equal consideration for all, for one's minded love and devotion to God. friend and enemy, for a learned Brahmin, an outcaste and a dog.7 This does not mean " Even among yogis, he who devoutly treating them all alike, giving meat to a cow Worships Me with his mind fixed on Me is and grass to a dog, waiting on a servant or regarded by Me as the best."12 giving commands to a superior, entrusting valuables to a thief or suspecting a friend. The final message of the Gita is thus the It does not involve stultifying oneself by message of equal-mindedness towards the abjuring one's critical faculty. What it world based on complete Love and total implies is regarding each one alike as a surrender to God.13 manifestation of the One Self, entitled as such to like consideration.8 The profound

basis for it is seeing the whole world in one's 2 11, 48. Self and one's Self in the whole world.9 SIX, 39. Therefore it implies abiding ajways in one's 4 11, 50 5 VI, 33. 10 Self and being immersed in the bliss of it. 6 11, 38; II, 56-57; VI, 7. In other words, it means transcending pheno• 7 V, 18; VI, 9. menal existence and being established in 3 There is an article explaining this by P. C. Goyal in The Mountain Path of January 1965, Brahman. That is to say that samatva, as (Editor). taught in the Gita, goes far beyond the realm 9 V, 35 ; VI, 29. of outer action and involves making one's 10 V, 21 ; 11, 55 ; V, 24. 11 VI, 47. ife a conscious expression of the One Self. 12 XVIII, 66. 206 July IN QUEST OF YOGA

By SWAMI SHARADANANDA

rT*^HE scriptures say that yama and niyama, take stock of himself very carefully before the control of behaviour and character, embarking on yogic practices. are the foundation on which the edifice of The author here continues with a detailed yoga is to be built. I decided to start with description of the very rigorous austerities that ahimsa, satya and brahmacharya, harmless- he practised and of the very slight results that ness, truth and continence. My beloved accrued, and that too of a psychic, not a spiri• guru, Sri Swami Sivananda, has written in tual nature. Incidentally, his practices included his books that sirshasana and siddhasana are the head-stand, which can coupe irreparable the best for continence, One who can sit physical and mental damage owing to the in siddhasana for three hours attains asana excessive pressure of blood on the brain. He

;jaya, while one who can do sirashasana for then continues : three hours awakens his kundalini shakti, so At this stage I wrote to my Guruji and that his virya (sexual virility) is converted asked him why my Kundalini had not arisen into ojas (spiritual force). although I was doing three hours sirsha• sana daily. My Guru wrote back calling I immediately started practising. Day and me a fool and advising me not to do sir• night I dreamed of nothing but converting shasana for more than five minutes and to virya into ojas and of the joy of awakening change my sadhana to introspection. I was kundalini. My talk and reading was of very disappointed and wondered, if that nothing but how to convert virya into ojas, was yoga, why people wrote differently in how to awaken kundalini, how to become books about it. dwandwatheetha (indifferent to heat and cold, good and bad, pain and pleasure). I So much for sirshasana. Now let me was living in a strange world of my own, come to siddhasana. I had learnt to hold fully convinced that such practices alone this for six hours continuously, but it had could make a yogi and a jivanmukta of me. neither brought mind control nor enabled I imagined that mere physical attainment on me to withstand heat and cold. Nevertheless, these lines would automatically produce the all this practice had developed my will spiritual results. The mere thought thrilled power and dispassion and thereby prepared me. The desire to master the senses was so me to face real spiritual sadhana, that is the strong that I practised continually. I felt effort to eliminate all desires and become that there was nothing in the three worlds humble and ego-free. Obviously, such an that could tempt or distract me from my ego-free state means either identifying one• practice. self with the Universal Self or seeing the whole universe within oneself. I was now in The mere suggestion that anything was quest of real spirituality, not mere psychic helpful or harmful to Sadhana was enough powers. A sadhaka can advance spiritually to make me adopt or renounce it. I had no only in so far as his vairagya or equal- very bad habits, but on hearing that they mindedness grows and he becomes more were, to a greater or less extent, obstacles humble. For this, all desires must be des• to sadhana, I gave up tea, coffee, sugar, salt, troyed, and even the ego itself. I turned chillies and sour food without a moment's towards this kind of sadhana by means of hesitation. I do not say all this out of vichara, that is Self-enquiry. boastfulness but to show with what strong determination I started and yet how quickly I settled down in Gangotri and stayed it cooled down, so as to warn the reader to there four years doing Sadhana. Apart from 1967 IN QUEST OF YOGA 207

Self-enquiry, I also used to meditate on the you choose to go out ; but here in winter various virtues and try to acquire them. even if you go out there is nothing new to Another of my disciplines was to try to see see, only the same desolate snow. That is God in all. At first I found this very difficult, why in ancient times, spiritual aspirants but I thought out a method that proved very retired to desert places, like the Christian helpful. There was a certain relative for ' Desert Fathers ' in the Egyptian and Syrian whom I had great love and admiration in my deserts. There comes a time when you have earlier days, before taking up sadhana, for no more desire to see, no hope that anything whom I would have done anything and new1 will turn up for you to see ; so your whom I would have forgiven anything. So I sight turns inwards in its search for some• used to visualise him in each person I had thing new to see. It is the same also with to deal with. If I was irritated by any one your senses of touch, smell, taste and hear• I used to consider that it was he who was ing ; they too turn inwards for want of any vexing me in this form. And if I felt reluc• new outer stimulant. This, I believe, is the tant to serve any one I used to see him as real pratyahara state which books on yoga the person requiring service. To a large describe. Once it starts it can go on for extent it helped. months, until winter ends and a new stirring in nature begins with the spring, or until Another obstacle was the desire for tasty some one arrives to interrupt your state. things to eat. In order to overcome that I decided never to eat alone ; instead I used One has to be well prepared and well to prepare enough food for the other sadhus trained before attempting such solitude. who were living together with me to share. Some one who could not stand the strain Although there were only seven of us, this might well go mad or commit suicide. All the meant a good deal more work and expense vasanas rise up from the heart and give you for me and prevented me eating elaborate a terrible shaking at first, making your stay or expensive things. Then too there were the there very difficult. But if you do not give in comments made by my sadhu-friends to to them they quieten down and you are per• restrain me. They used to say that I was vaded with universal love for all beings. unfit to live in this solitude if I was so fond One evening I was standing outside my hut of eating ; and this sort of remark uprooted when I suddenly saw a huge black panther the desire for tasty food from my heart. strolling leisurely towards me, about twenty-five feet away. I saw it before it The scriptures say that fearlessness is a noticed me ; then we stood and gazed at sign of egolessness, so to test myself for this each other for about a minute, after which I wtent to live at a place called Cheedvasa it coolly turned and went back the way it which is quite uninhabited. It is approached had come, while I went into my hut. I felt by a mountain path ; the nearest village is absolutely no fear. Actually I had an impulse about twenty miles away ; and during winter to fetch some chapaties from my hut to it is inaccessible, the path being buried in offer it, but it had already gone. This was five or six feet of snow. The first few weeks the first time I had even seen a wild animal were terrible. The mind was urging me to in its. natural surroundings and it was a fine leave and all sorts of ideas and fears used test of my fearlessness. to present themselves before me in mental pictures. But I was adamant. This sort of For any who can stand the strain of it, solitude is quite different from shutting such solitude is an excellent training for see• yourself up in a room in your house. It is ing what is God and what is ego, what variety that the mind craves ; and in your hidden desires there are in them and how to house you know that it can have variety if identify themselves with the Universal Self. 208 July THE KNOW-HOW OF YOGIC BREATHING

By Prof. K. S. JOSHI

Professor Joshi, Head of the Department of Yogic Studies, Saugor University, has taught yogic breathing for many years and assures us that there is no danger in it if practised as here prescribed, but the prescription should not be exceeded and especially the pause or kumbhaka should not be extended further.

TX7E shall, for the purpose of this article, us believe, breathing has an intimate rela• use the phrase " yogic breathing " as tion with the working of the mind, that is to an equivalent of the Sanskrit word say, if we succeed in making the breath " pranayama", which seems to have come silent, the mind becomes silent too. It is to enjoy a very important place in yoga indeed an experience of those who practice literature. The word " prana " is perhaps as yogic breathing for a sufficiently long time, old as the word " yoga" itself, but the that the mind becomes silent and passive elaborate technique concerning its control, thereby. which forms a part of the eight-fold system Patanjali, the well-known author of the of yoga, seems to be of a later origin. Yogic Yoga Sutras has defined yogic breathing in breathing has often been very highly talked terms of the cessation or stoppage of the acts about and the marvellous phenomena which of inhalation and exhalation. are supposed to take place as a result of its intense and prolonged practice, have been Patanjali's definition of yogic breathing acknowledged at several places in the yoga seems to imply, as shown by his commen• texts. tator Vyasa, that yogic breathing is not only deep breathing, but also is an act in which The word pranayama is composed of two the movement of breath is stopped comple• parts, namely prana and ayama. The latter tely, at least temporarily. In fact, our nor• is a noun form derived from the root yama mal breathing always includes a state of meaning ' to make silent \ Yogic breathing pause, although just for a fraction of a thus means a process by which prana is second. Normally, we respire about fifteen made silent. The word prana seems to have times every minute. This means that each been in use in the Sanskrit language to normal respiration is completed in nearly mean two different things, namely : (i) the four seconds, including inhalation, exhala• life force or the principle of life and, (ii) the tion and a state of rest. air (vayu) which flows in the body. Perhaps there is no fundamental difference between These three acts are also included in yogic these two meanings, because the various breathing, for all practical purposes. But forms of air, called the vayus are themselves the emphasis there is not on inhalation or looked upon, sometimes, as being basic to exhalation but rather on the state of pause, any life activity. So far as yogic breathing which is characterized by a stoppage of the is concerned, the word ' prana' must be movement of air to or from the lungs. The taken to mean the air that we inhale and state of pause can be achieved in two differ• exhale, so that yogic breathing can be ent ways, first by making a deep inhalation defined, for all practical purposes, as a pro• and then not allowing an exhalation to cess of making the breath silent. happen immediately, by holding the air inside the lungs. Secondly, the state of pause may It would be important to note the idea be produced by holding the breath out after underlying the notion of silencing the making a deep exhalation, and not allow• breath. As our ancients would rightly have ing the air to enter the lungs immediately. 1967 THE KNOW-HOW OF YOGIC BREATHING 209

The state of pause is called kumbhaka in the advanced students of yoga and is called, yoga terminology. This word indicates the on that account siddhasana. In it, the left fact that during that state, the air does not heel is set against the soft portion between move either in or out, so far as the lungs the anus and the genitals, and the right heel are concerned. is placed above the left one and is set against the pubic bone, the genital organs being Both the varieties of yogic breathing kept well adjusted between the two heels mentioned above are accompanied by the (if it is a male who is attempting the pos• acts of inhalation and exhalation. The only ture). The toes are held in between the difference between the two is with regard opposite thigh and calf. This posture is to the order in which these stages of breath• believed to have a special significance. ing are arranged. For example, in the first Padmasana is another suitable posture in variety described above, the state of pause which the two heels are kept near each other is preceded by inhalation and is followed by on the opposite thighs. exhalation. In the second variety, this order of events is reversed and the state of pause Yogic breathing is an art which must be is made to follow an act of exhalation. There developed with care and caution. It is is a third kind of yogic breathing which is advisable to practise only deep inhalations irrespective of inhalation or exhalation. This and exhalations, (without holding the is called Kevala-Kumbhaka, in which the breath) for some months before an indivi• state of pause just happens at any moment dual makes himself ready to start yogic without any regard to inhalation or exhala• breathing proper. For this, one should first tion. The first two varieties of yogic breath• of all see, sitting in a suitable posture, how ing are to be practised till the third kind long it takes him to make a deep exhalation comes into being. It is this third variety comfortably, after making the lungs full. that really and truly constitutes the meaning The time taken by each one of five succes• of the term ' yogic breathing '. It is a state sive deep exhalations should be noted. Sup• in which the process of breathing comes to posing that this is ten seconds, one should a standstill, together with the process of start with the practice of what we may call thought and desire. It is indeed a state of deep breathing in the following manner. complete merger of the breath and the Each inhalation should take exactly half the mind, which is characterized by deep time that is required for each exhalation. 'silence and passivity. This means that an inhalation should take five seconds if the exhalation takes ten A steady sitting posture is required to be seconds. One respiration here is completed assumed before one actually starts practis• in fifteen seconds. This is called one round. ing yogic breathing. Swastikasana is found Four such rounds should be made on the by many to be a suitable posture for this first day, and that is all. Inhalation and purpose. exhalation in each round should take five and ten seconds respectively, making four The procedure involved is fairly simple. rounds in a minute. One of the legs, say the left, is folded at the knee and its heel is set at the base of Five rounds may be made on the second the right thigh, beyond the external genitals. day, six on the third day, and so on, up to The right leg is then similarly folded and ten rounds. When a dose of ten rounds is its heel is set (from above the left one) at reached, say after one week, one should the base of the left thigh. The toes of both observe the following points very carefully. the feet are thrust in between the opposite (1) Each inhalation and exhalation must be thigh and calf. The ankles should not come completed exactly within the specified time one over the other. Both the knees are (e.g. five and ten seconds respectively). It placed well on the ground. The head, neck may happen sometimes that the lungs are and the back are held erect. There is either filled or emptied a little before the another posture which is much favoured by completion of the required time limit, or it 210 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July may even happen that the required act re• The first puraka should be done through mains unfinished even when the time limit the left nostril. This should be followed by is over. Both these situations must be a rechaka through the right nostril. The strictly excluded by adjusting the time for next puraka should be done through the right inhalation and exhalation properly, accord• nostril, followed by a rechaka through the ing to one's capacity. There should be no left nostril. The rule here is that the nostril hurry at all to prolong the breaths beyond is to be changed for every rechaka i.e., after comfortable limits. (2) In each inhalation, every puraka. Each puraka (excepting the the lungs must become full and in each very first one) should be made through the exhalation they must be emptied to the same nostril that had been used for the pre• maximum limit. The acts should not re• ceding rechaka. One round will here main incomplete. (3) At no stage should include two purakas and two rechakas there be any feeling of suffocation or any through alternate nostrils. need to inhale or exhale forcefully to hurry up with the process. (4) A feeling of com• When a dose of ten rounds is achieved and fort and control should be experienced all practised for over four weeks, one can think along. (5) The movement of air inward as of increasing the duration of each round. well as outward must be smooth and uni• The ratio of the time taken by puraka and form. (6) The abdominal muscles should be rechaka would however remain the same, slightly contracted toward the end of each i.e. 1:2. In place of a round of thirty inhalation, so that the belly is not allowed seconds, a round of thirty-six seconds may to be protruded: This causes an increase in now be introduced. On the first day, nine the amount of inhaled air as well as in the out of the ten rounds may be made as before, intra-thoracic pressure. (7) The last round i.e. taking thirty seconds each. The tenth should be performed with equal ease and round (which would include two purakas and comfort as the .first few rounds. two rechakas like every other round) would take six seconds for puraka and twelve A deep inhalation performed in the above seconds for rechaka taking in all thirty-six manner is technically called a puraka. seconds (instead of thirty seconds) for that Rechaka is a yogic term for a corresponding round. After two days, the last two rounds deep exhalation. After achieving equal ease, out of the, ten rounds may be made to cover comfort and completeness over ten succes• thirty-six seconds each. If there is no feel• sive rounds of puraka and rechaka, one can ing of discomfort, the number of rounds of safely assume that one has made a good start the longer duration may be increased pro• toward the preparation for yogic breathing. gressively until at last, within a period of One should then start breathing through three weeks Or more, all the ten rounds alternate nostrils. should be of thirty-six seconds each. This For keeping only one nostril open at a, dose should be maintained steady for a few time, the other one is required to be closed. more weeks, and then a next higher duration, This is done with the right hand. The middle say forty-two seconds, for each round may finger and the one between it and the thumb, be introduced in the same fashion. This are both folded together on the palm. Now would take about three weeks. The pro• the right nostril can be closed by placing the cess may be continued until a duration of thumb slightly pressing on it and placing the one minute for each round is achieved. This index finger and the one adjacent to it, may take about six months from the start. together on the bridge of the nose. The left nostril can be closed by pressing it with It is not always necessary that everybody these two fingers while the thumb is kept must start with a duration of thirty seconds on the bridge of the nose. Both the nostrils per round as stated above. Some persons should be closed while restraining or hold• may be able to take up a round of one ing the breath. This should not be accom• minute in the very beginning. One should panied by unnecessary contraction of the judge his capacity for deep breathing pro• facial muscles. perly, and should select a suitable duration 1967 THE KNOW-HOW OF YOGIC BREATHING 211

for each round accordingly. There should morning and evening, at midnight and at be no haste and no strain. Patience and noon. Eighty kumbhakas must be practised practice should be the watchwords of an in each sitting, making a total of three individual who wants to draw the benefits hundred and twenty kumbhakas every day. of yogic breathing. Preparation for yogic Each kumbhaka should be of forty-eight breathing proper, may be said to be com• seconds duration. Such a heavy dose is re• plete when one can very comfortably prac• quired to be practised over several months tise ten rounds of breathing through alter• or even years. nate nostrils, taking one minute for each round. Each respiration would here be In yogic breathing, the lungs get filled completed in thirty seconds, (ten seconds for completely in each inhalation, so that the each inhalation and twenty seconds for each walls of all the alveoli or the air sacks are exhalation), making twenty consecutive res• stretched fully. Usually the lungs do not pirations in ten minutes in all. expand or contract fully in normal respira• tions. Yogic breathing thus provides good After practising this for a couple of exercise to the lung tissue itself. During months, one can introduce retention of inhalation, the pressure in the thoracic cavity breath (kumbhaka) after inhalation. On the remains at less than atmospheric pressure, first day, kumbhaka should be done only in whereas during exhalations, this pressure the last round, allowing ten seconds for it. becomes more than atmospheric pressure. This means that only two kumbhakas of ten In yogic breathing, these situations are made seconds each should be practised on the first to continue for longer durations. These day. Jn about three weeks time, all the ten pressure changes promote blood circulation rounds would be containing two kumbhakas and render a sort of massage to the heart each of ten seconds. This means a total time and to the viscera contained in the abdomi• of a little over thirteen minutes for ten rounds. This may be practised for a couple nal cavity. This effect is much enhanced by of months and then the duration of each the slight contraction of the muscles of the kumbhaka may be raised from ten seconds abdominal wall during puraka. Yogic to fifteen seconds. In about three weeks, all breathing can be of immense importance in the ten rounds would be containing kumbha• the prevention of diseases like asthma, and kas of fifteen seconds duration. This would affections of the lungs or the heart. For1 the take a to+al time )f fifteen minutes. This normally healthy individual, yogic breath• dose is quite sufficient for the purpose of ing can be of great help in the maintenance maintaining the health of the body in a prime of health. \ • \ •• condition. We shall now consider the utility of yogic Bodily fitness is, however a secondary breathing from the point of view of yoga. benefit which accrues from yogic breathing. As pointed out earlier, yogis are interested The main purpose of yogic breathing is the in pranayama mainly for the arousal of coming into being of what is called kevala- kevala-kumbhaka. A notion which is often kumbhaka which brings with it silence and, mentioned in this connection is the rising peace par excellence. For achieving that of the Kundalini. This is supposed to be objective one is required to practise yogic a representative of the divine power stored breathing four times every day — once in the up in human beings.

" There is only one consciousness. If you talk of individual con• sciousness, you have to concede a Cosmic Consciousness. In your dream you recognised a kingdom and a king and a rule of law to which you bowed. It is the same with what is called Cosmic Consciousness." — SRI BHAGAVAN.

1967 213 PATANJALI'S INTERPRETATION OF YOGA

By Dr. G. C. PANDE

Dr. Pande, Head of the Department of History and Indian Culture, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, is both scholar and sadhaka. He is well known in literary and cultural circles and is the author of two books concerning Buddhism.

'VT'OGA is the universal method of spiritual rally speaking, considered in the context of life and the Yoga-sastra attempts its much Western or Semitic moral and mystical self-conscious and systematic delineation. speculation, the very possibility of yoga as Patanjali's Yoga Sutras contain a classic a unique and universal science appears though particular version of Yoga-sastra.1 The doubtful since such a science presupposes a usage of the word Yoga oscillates between certain theory of the relation of Mind to its basic general meaning of spiritual method Nature and Spirit. such as in the expressions Jnana Yoga, The fact is that if we give unpredictable Bhakti Yoga, etc., and the narrower meaning freedom to man as well as to God no science of Patanjala Yoga. It will be argued here of any kind, and no philosophy either, would that while Patanjali must be given the credit be possible. The very concept of method for creating the first extant scientific system pi esupposes the determinateness of events. of Yoga or as such, he If man or God could act arbitrarily erred in parts owing to his peculiar philoso• i.e. wholly unpredictably, it would be phical predilections. Taking for granted a futile to expect any order in human life rich variety of spiritual practices, Patanjali and all human endeavour would be in defines their universal essence and classifies perpetual jeopardy. Without going further the practices in an ascending order of subt• into the philosophical paradox of freedom lety and inwardness. He thus succeeds in and order, it may be stated here that ulti• adumbrating a truly universal science of mately the opposition of spontaneity and spiritual culture. At its highest point, how• determinateness must be resolved in terms of ever, where the realm of nature is completely self-determination. Man, God and the natu• transcended, Patanjali's exposition tends to ral world must ultimately be united as a wobble on account of its Sankhyan orienta• single self-determining organism which in tion. its temporal aspect appears as a multiplex There are some who believe that spiritual causal sequence. On any other supposition, life is, in its nature, a negation of science insuperable philosophical difficulties are and system. If the spirit is free and trans• bound to emerge. What appears at first as cendent, how can it be made the object of a purely physical order indifferent to human logical thought ? Is not the effectiveness of aspirations and purpose — so much so that spiritual means purely subjective and indivi• man's moral nature is provoked to revolt dual, a matter of psychic suggestion depen• dent on personal associations and socio-cul- 1 The earliest extant adumbrations of Yoga Sastra are found in the Upanishads (Katha, tural symbolism ? Or, as an alternative, is Mundaka and Svetasvatara) but I have argued not spiritual life simply the unpredictable elsewhere that these do not represent the begin• expression of divine grace ? One may even ning of yogic science — see my ' Studies in the Origins of Buddhism' (Allahabad, 1957). think of spiritual life as simply human value- 2 it may be recalled how the great modern seeking considered as such, or as any kind Indian philosopher, K. C. Bhattacharya declared yoga without yoga vibhuti merely idealistic of idealistic aspiration and effort.2 Gene• sentiment. 214 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

against it and stake a claim for freedom, non-discrimination of the self and the n6n- apparently spurious since it cannot be vali• self is a transcendental illusion and is neither dated in the court of natural reason — must an object nor an effect. It is, however, the appear ultimately as a spiritual order arising necessary ground of natural experience and out of the very nature of the Spirit. This is can be removed only by self-knowledge. In implicity recognized in the Sankhya Kari- seeking to attain to true freedom, man merely kas as well as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali seeks to become aware of his innate and because both of them concede the inevitabi• inalienable supernatural status. As a way lity of the spiritual goal and make it the to freedom, Yoga is thus essentially a way destiny of man. Nature and God work so to self-knowledge. This self-knowledge, that the human spirit may be liberated.3 being innate or eternal is not really produced Spiritual life and natural life are both the but merely attained in the temporal order functionings of the same psyche though in through a manifestation at the psychic level. different directions. We must not think that Since in its priority the psyche or mind is while natural science explains natural events, all-reflecting this manifestation is spontane• spiritual life merely transcends science and ous as soon as the obscuring factors are re• intelligibility. Spiritual life uses and deve• moved. The obscuring factors are the dis• lops natural science differently. It needs the tracting empirical forces mentioned above. science of subtle physical, psychic and para- Normally man's self-consciousness is obscur• psychic phenomena. Yoga begins with the ed by his object-consciousness. This pro• control of physical behaviour and culminates duces a restless extrovert stream of aware• in self-knowledge. Throughout it requires ness. Yoga thus involves a series of inhibi• the application of the will in the light of a tory processes which lead to the abstraction, systematic theory. Being genuinely scientific introversion and concentration of conscious• its true theory is open-ended and progressive. ness. From the standpoint of objective forces At a certain point in his development the and its own normal reactions, the mind may Yogi necessarily becomes an experimentalist thus be said to have been inhibited. It has, who cannot be adequately guided by existing however, to be saved from lapsing into in- theory and has to amend it by fresh dis• conscience. Only then can supernal wis• covery. That is why despite the amazing dom of Prajna dawn. The process of Yoga achievement of Patanjali it is now possible requires the withdrawal of the, senses from to see his limitations in the light of later and the objects and their subordination to the continuing developments in Yoga. mind, the withdrawal of the mind from the senses and its subordination to . the indivi• Patanjali discovers the essence of Yoga in dual self and finally the withdrawal of the psychic inhibition4 which includes concent• individual self from its beginningless com• ration. Normally the mind constantly func• panion, the mind,/and its merger in the uni• tions in response to external and internal sti• versal self.5 Throughout this process, con• muli. A stream of consciousness is thus set sciousness becomes increasingly concentrated in motion where a thousand different and spiritually transfigured. tlioughts flash past in unending array. Cer• What is the causal process underlying this tain empirical as well as transcendental con• spiritual transfiguration of the mind ? The ditions underly this course of experience.

On the empirical level we have the contacts 3Cf. Vyasa and Yoga Sutras 1.25. , with physical objects mediated through the 4 Chitta-Vritti-nirodha. Some degree of con• senses, the cumulative force of past experi• centration or focus is everpresent in the mind. Yoga arises when a habitually recollected mind ences manifesting itself in predispositions (ekagra-bhumika-chitta) engages in deep con• and memories, and the reactive force of past centration. On the role of cortical inhibition in actions. These forces are all empirical in the ordinary psychic and parapsychic phenomena cf. Vasiliev, LL., Mysterious Phenomena of the sense that they are all the products of experi• Human Psyche. (Tr. S. Volochova, New York, ence, have a definite origin in time and have 1965). ,»Cf. Kaviraj, C. N., Aspects of Indian Thought an objective status. On the other hand, the (Burdwan, 1966) pp. 115ff. 1967 PATANJALI'S INTERPRETATION OF YOGA 215

mind mediates between Nature and Spirit. practice of asanas is really an effort at It has apparently no nature of its own except effortless poise. Such a poise is a necessary limitless plasticity and transparency. Just as step in acquiring body-unconsciousness. The light, itself remaining invisible, renders theory and practice of pranayama is a objects visible, so mind, instead of present• mystery and appears to have undergone a ing itself, presents the objects by assuming vast development after Patanjali who does their forms. It is through Mind that Nature not even fully elucidate the nature of Prana evolves out of its utter inchoateness into an which is not a distinctive Sankhya category. ordered world but in the process the mind Patanjali, in fact, thinks of pranayama becomes extrovert and the Spirit finds its essentially as a preliminary to dharana or very means of self-realization obscured and concentration at some point, although he as a result sinks into natural bondage. The mentions its illuminative operation (Pra- senses are channels through which the mind kasavarana Karya). In its higher develop• becomes externalized while the discursive ment pranayama is not so much the willed agitation and dull inconscience of the mind suspension of breath as an application of keep it in a periodic rhythm which helps to Smriti or recollection.7 That is why the Bud• produce the sense of a stable and defined dhists put it under the practice of Smriti world as the proper content of consciousness. Prasthana.8 Even the ordinary pranayama In Yoga, the mind must become withdrawn, involving the practice of rhythmic breathing stilled, pointed and luminous. The senses and pause tends to easily induce pratyahara must become quiescent, the discursive acti• or introversion. Dharana corresponds to vities of the mind stopped, its sleepy dull• Smriti among the ' means ' or Up ay as men• ness prevented from supervening, and its tioned by Patanjali while Dhyana or con• natural agitative distraction subtituted by a templation is its continuous flow. At this one-pointed flow of awareness. All these stage consciousness is no longer distracted. changes are produced by the inhibiting of Samadhi or absorption arises as the logical the habitual modes of mental functioning by discursiveness of consciousness also subsides the continued application of the will. This in stages. leads the mind to a point where its trans• parency becomes sufficient to reflect the pure Samadhi or Yoga proper is transcendence nature of the Spirit. Ignorance and habit of the mind (Asamprajnata) following its ' naturalise ' the, mind, while counter-habit full illumination (Samprajnata). Sometimes and illumination spiritualize it. a deep and long lasting stage of inconscience supervenes and simulates true transcen• The will has to operate at various levels — dence. Some beings are born in such a state physico-psychic, psycho-physical, psycho- when in their previous lives they have spiritual, spirituo-psychic, and spiritual.6 attained a stage of desirelessness without The will springs from a certain acceptance transcendental wisdom. The seminal force of and aspiration. This is called Sraddha, active life being thus suspended, their minds 1 placing the heart on ', explained as ' inner remain in a state of latency but are not lucidity of the mind' (chetasah sampra- transcended. True transcendence is possible sadah). Sraddha leads to virya or effort. The only through knowledge. Such knowledge practice of yama, niyama, asanas, prana• arises from that state of yogic absorption yama, and pratyahara, corresponds to these where the mind is non-discursively concen- factors. Aspiration counteracts the force of distracting desire and the resultant effort 6 This terminology is due to my Teacher, the great contemporary saint and Siddha Sri Sri seeks to inhibit long standing habits, physi• Anandamurtiji of Anandanagar, District Parulia cal and psychic. Moral life arises from spiri• (West Bengal). 7 The full power of Pranayama is seen in the tual idealism but is in the beginning largely story of Kaka Bhushundi in the Ypgavasishta or the obedience to certain rules, the cultivation the writings of the Siddhas or in Kundalini Yoga. of one set of feelings against another and 8 Where, to quote the Prajnaparamitasutras, 1 the mind becomes non-mind' (Yatra chittama- the resolute effort to abide by them. The chittam bhavati). 216 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July trated on an object and even subtle logical and pure spiritual life. For Patanjali, how• constructions are abandoned.9 Reality is ever, the loneliness of the individual Spirit, thus revealed in its individuality more its freedom from Nature, is itself the final freshly and vividly than in sense-perception end of the pilgrimage. If that were so, and more essentially than through. logical Kapila himself would not have been able to operations. Intuitive knowledge or Prajna teach Yoga through a psychic body combines essentiality with a higher imme• (Nirmana-chitta) ; besides, the spiritual diacy. At its highest it is the full revelation experience of Mahayana, Vedanta and of universal Reason (Mahat or Sambodhi). Vaishnavism, lying beyond ordinary emanci• When consciousness acquires a sure footing pation, would not be possible. in it i.e., when the individual acquires an inner and constant union with the universal 9 Vide Yoga Sutras 1.17, 41-51. The Buddhists principle of ' Active Reason the ego-mind also indicate a fourfold classification of contem• plative stages which is somewhat similar vide is transcended. This is the beginning of true e.g., Buddhaghosa's 1 Vishuddhimaggo '.

Mouna Diksha

By R. G. Kulkarni

About twenty years back an urging came cies from the past, and this puzzled me a to me to have darshan of a Mahatma who good deal. This state of affairs lasted for was a Jivan-Mukta and I was in search for two days and I was quite worried over it. one when I happened on a small book in Had my coming here done more harm than Gujerati entitled ' Bhagavan Sri Ramana good ? Then on the third day these thoughts Maharshi-no-parichaya 9 written by one Sri dissolved and an ever increasing peace swept Madhavanand of Baroda. I was much de• over my mind. This went on for three days lighted on reading it and became convinced and finally became so strong that I felt that this Swami really was a Jivan-Mukta. obliged to stand up before Bhagavan with I accordingly wrote to the Ashram to ask folded hands and testify to having received whether I could have Sri Bhagavan's darshan. the inner diksha from him and been brought After an exchange of correspondence with to a state of peace and contentment through the Ashram I was fortunate enough to arrive his Grace. Bhagavan looked at me and there. I took darshan of Bhagavan and smiled. I knelt before him and he extended sat before him in the meditation hall. his right hand over my head in blessing. I was very eager to receive from him Immediately after this an inner voice told the inner or silent initiation of which me that what I had come for had been I had read and I wfrote out a request for this accomplished and I could now go back to which I placed on the small table beside his where I had come from. So I took leave of couch. Bhagavan read it and then placed Bhagavan and left the Ashram. it in one of his books. I was eagerly await• Since that time there is a constant aware• ing his response but he just sat silently, ness dimly, at the back of my mind, and resting his gracious gaze on me and* others experienced directly in the gaps between in the hall. sankalpas. By the Gijace of Bhagavan there After a few hours my mind began to be is a steady conviction that only Self is, while oppressed by harmful thoughts and tenden- all else is only the interplay of the gunas. 1967 217 SOME ASPECTS OF BUDDHIST YOGA AS PRACTISED IN THE KARGYUDPA SCHOOL OF THE TIBETAN VAJRAYANA

By DOROTHY C. DONATH

Tl/ITLAREPA was one of the greatest Yogis Songs of Milarepa' (University Books, and Saints in Tibetan history, and the, 1962) : Kargyudpa School (sometimes known as the "Whispered Succession") — founded by "Tibetan Tantrism (Buddhist Tantric Yoga) is a form of practical Buddhism abounding in Milarepa and his Guru, Marpa the Transla• methods and techniques for carrying out the tor, in the 11th Century — developed and practice of all the Mahayana teachings. In carried on the Yogic Tradition of the Tan• contrast to the ' theoretical' forms of Buddhism, tric Vajrayana as exemplified in the esoteric such as Madhyamika, Yogacara, Hwa Yen teachings of the great Indian Buddhist sage, (Jap.: Kegon), Tien Tai, etc., Buddhist Tant• Tilopa, and of his disciple and successor, rism lays most of its stress on practice and Naropa, who was Marpa's principal Guru. Realization, rather than on philosophical specu• lations. Its central principles and practices may be summarised as follows : In addition to formulating his famous " Doctrine of the Six Yogas " — the basis of " (1) That all existence and manifestation the Kargyudpa Yogic Traditions — Naropa can be found in one's experience, that this experience is within one's own mind, and that held the chair of Professor of Philosophy at Mind is the source and creator of all things. the renowned Indian Buddhist University of " (2) That mind is an infinitely vast, un- Nalanda — a power in Buddhism for a fathomably deep complex of marvels, its thousand years. An enlightening account of immensity and depth being inaccessible to the this great Master and of his doctrines may uninitiated. be found in R. V. Guenther's * Life and " (3) That he who has come to a thorough Teachings of Naropa' (Clarenden Press, realization and perfect mastership of his own Oxford, 1959), and an Epitome of the "Six mind is a Buddha, and that those who have not Yogas" in G. C. C. Chang's 'Teachings of done so are unenlightened sentient beings. Tibetan Yoga ' (University Books, New Hyde " (4) That sentient beings and Buddhas are, Park, N.Y., 1962).1 Here in this brief essay, in essence, identical. Buddhas are enlightened writing merely as a humble disciple, I can sentient beings, and sentient beings unenlighten• outline a very small part of the Kargyudpa's ed Buddhas. vast store of yogic knowledge ; but I shall " (5) That this infinite, all-embracing try at least to convey some idea of its scope Buddha-Mind is beyond comprehension and and of the philosophical, mystical, and attributes. The best and closest definition might be: psychological insights underlying it. ' Buddha-Mind is a Great Illuminating-Void In Buddhist Tantric Yoga, the unfoldment Awareness' of the Buddha-Mind, of Realization of Ulti• (This, of course, can be only an intellectual mate Enlightenment, may be approached by approximation, as Professor Chang has empha• two major Paths, or methods, best explained sized throughout his Commentary, to That

in the following passages quoted from iFor a further, and more detailed account of G. C. C. Chang's " Commentary " in Vol. II the " Six Yogas," and the Mahamudra practice to of his translation of that great Tibetan be discussed later, see W. Y. Evans-Wentz, ' Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines' (2nd Edi• Buddhist classic. ' The Hundred Thousand tion, Oxford University Press, N.Y., 1958). THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

which, in the final analysis, must be experi• collectively as " The Arising and Perfecting enced to be known). Yogas," may be found in rigorous and com• " (6) That all Buddhist teachings are merely plex bodily and Prana exercises, combined exaltations, preparations, and directions leading with advanced breathing techniques, deep one toward the unfoldment of this Great concentration, visualization (an important Illuminating-Void Awareness. (As a Zenist part of this method), (invocation), would say, " Fingers pointing to the moon.") and other thought processes and psycho• " (7) That infinite compassion, merit and physical practices revealed orally by Guru marvels will spontaneously come forth when to disciple, step by step, according to the this Buddha-Mind is fully unfolded. chela's capabilities and level of readiness ; " (8) That to unfold this Buddha-Mind, two in the use of the Mala, or prayer beads for major approaches, or Paths, are provided for repetitive mantric invocation ; and in the differently disposed -individuals; the Path of Tummo, Means (Energy Yoga) and the Path of Libera• or Heat Yoga practice — in the form tion (Mind Yoga). The former stresses an developed and systematized by Naropa. approach to Buddhahood through the practice of Tummo is the mystical fire, or heat, pro• taming the Prana (vital energy) and the latter duced in the Navel Centre during Buddhist an approach through the practice of taming the Yoga practice, is basic to all other formal mind. Both approaches, however, are based on practices, and is one of the factors that make the truism of the Identicality of Mind and it possible for Yogis such as Mila to live Prana, . . . which is the fundamental theorem happily in the bitter cold of the high Hima• of Tantrism. layas clad only in a single cotton garment. " The principle of the Identicality of Mind Repa means ' cotton-clad ' and was the dis• and Prana may be" briefly stated thus: The tinguishing mark of Milarepa and his disci• world encompasses and is made up of various ples. . contrasting forces in an ' antithetical' form of relationship — positive and negative, noumenon In order to clarify the unique place of and phenomenon, potentiality and manifesta• Tummo tion, vitality and voidness, mind and Prana, and in the Buddhist Vajrayana, it is the like. Each of these dualities, though necessary to review certain principles which apparently antithetical, is an inseparable unity. radically differentiate it from the perhaps The dual forces that we see about us are, in better-known " Serpent Fire " personified by fact, one ' entity' manifesting in two different the Goddess Kundalini of the Hindu Tan- forms or stages. Hence, if one's consciousness or trics. The distincton between the two lies mind is disciplined, tamed, . . . illuminated, and mainly, though not entirely, in emphasis. sublimated, so will be his Pranas, and vice Briefly (I quote in part Lama Anagarika versa. The practice that stresses taming the Govinda's ' Foundations of Tibetan Mysti• Prana is called the ' Yoga with Form', or the cism' — Rider & Co., London, 1939), this ' Path of Means'; the practice that stresses taming the mind is called the ' Yoga without emphasis, in the Buddhist system " is not on Form', or the ' Path of Liberation.' The former the Power aspect, the Shakti, but on the is an exertive type of Yoga practice, and the Knowledge aspect, the Prajna (in its ' intui• latter is a natural and effortless one known as tive, spontaneous form')." Hence the Shakti Mahamudra:' Kundalini " is not even mentioned in the Buddhist system — still less is'she made the These two Paths exist as separate prac• subject of meditation." In the " Six Yogas of tices only in the early stages, however. Most Naropa ", the seat of the Kundalini (in the of the great Kargyudpa Yogis practised Muladhara Chakra — the psychic nerve both in order to hasten their spiritual pro• centre at the root of the spine, associated gress — either simultaneously or by using with the element Earth), is not included in one to supplement the other, as did Milarepa. the path of visualization, and the disciple meditates solely on the four upper Chakras THE YOGA WITH FORM or planes of consciousness — the navel, Examples of the Yoga with Form, all heart, throat, and Crown Centres. Here, as employing some form of effort, and known Govinda has emphasized, the opposite prin- 1967 SOME ASPECTS OF BUDDHIST YOGA 219

ciple, i.e., that of the Dakini (Tib : Madhyamika, together with Yogacara (the Khadoma), the female personification of Mind-only doctrine of Asanga and Vasu- Prajna or Wisdom, is invoked. The Buddhist bandhu, 5th Century, A.D.) are the two great Tantrics neither deny nor underrate the foundation stones of all Mahayana " importance or the reality of the forces Buddhism. connected with the Kundalini" — their Since the whole Tummo system is closely method is simply a different one, and the bound up with the foregoing doctrines, we use made of these forces is different. Hence, have not wandered from our original point, in Buddhist Yoga, " concentration is not that is a consideration of Tibetan Buddhist directed upon the Kundalini or the Root Heat Yoga within the framework of the Yoga Centre ", but on the three principal psychic With Form. Govinda, in his scholarly and Channels or Nadis — Ida, Pingala and inspired book already referred to, has Sushumna — the main power currents of the said (p. 194) : body, generally considered to be located in the median duct, and on either side, of the '•• Khadomas, like aU female embodiments of spinal column. These " psychic counterparts ' Vidya' or knowledge, have the property of of the physical nervous system " respond, as intensifying, concentrating and integrating the forces of which they make use, until they are does the physical system, to mental and focused in one incandescent point and ignite psychic stimuli. Hence, through advanced the holy flame of inspiration, which leads to yogic techniques toward which the disciple perfect Enlightenment. The Khadomas, who is led step by step, the tension (or ' gravita• appear as visions or consciously produced tional force') of the main Channels may be images in the course of meditation, are there• regulated and thus controlled " through a fore represented with an aura of flames ..." temporary damming-up and modification of Called up by means of her mantric and the energy-content of the upper Centre ". integrative seed-syllable, or through the Mantra which belongs to her, the Khadoma Thus Prajna — Wisdom — " the inspira• is revealed as " the embodiment of that tional impulse of consciousness " in the form 1 Inner fire '. which surrounds and protects of Khadoma (Dakini) or, by extension, the saint like a ' pure soft mantle,' (and through her mantric or seed-syllable equi• which) in Milarepa's biography has been valents, becomes the leading principle, open• called ' the warming breath of Khadomas '." ing the entrance to the Sushumna (central In the deepest sense, therefore (to quote channel) " by removing the obstructions Govinda again), Tummo signifies " the fire and by directing the inflowing forces." of spiritual integration, which fuses all Taking the matter to its ultimate conclu• polarities . . . and kindles the flame of sion, the Khadoma symbolizes nothing less inspiration from which is born the power of than the Plenum Void — THAT from which renunciation This process of per• all form (matter, solidity) and movement fect integration is represented by the Flame (heat, energy) arise and to which all return, or Flaming Drop (Skt. : Bindu : Tib : although it does not consist of them. In other Tig Le)." words, the Khadoma represents the reality Here, in brief, lies the philosophic and of Sunyata, or Voidness — the origin and mystic basis for Tibetan Tummo practice. • matrix of all manifested things. This doc• As a final comment, I quote from Mila• trine of Sunyata, that which transcends all repa's translator : dualism, forms the theme and basis of the Madhyamika (Middle Path) teaching of " The statement that the Divinity of Buddha- hood is omnipresent, but the quickest way to Nagarjuna (2nd Century A.D.) as set forth realize it is to discover it within one's body- in the Prajnaparamita (the Perfection of mind complex (that is, within one's own Wisdom) literature, of which the profound psycho-physical personality), will apply to Diamond and Heart Sutras (the " Wisdom every technique of Buddhist Tantric Yoga which has gone beyond ") are the epitome. except Mahamudra." 220 THE MOUNTAIN PATH

THE YOGA WITHOUT FORM " the sole dynamo of universal life and power") may, as Evans-Wentz has said, In the Yoga Without Form, the Path of through Yoga " attain ecstatic consciousness Liberation — Mahamudra, the Great Symbol of its parental Source and become one with — is best expressed in the words of Milarepa it in essence." himself : With the deepest of insights, Milarepa " Buddha cannot be found by searching, sang : So contemplate your own MIND." " The mind is omnipresent like space ; Professor Chang continues (I quote in It illumines all manifestations as; the part) : " This sentence is extremely Dharmakaya (the body of Truth, the One important as representing the essence of the Ultimate Reality) ; Mahamudra teaching, for Illumination and It knows all and lightens all. Voidness are the two immanent characteris• I see it clearly like a crystal tics of Mind." It is the Buddha-Mind within In my palm ! " that concerns us here. And again : " In general Buddhism, one is taught to " In the Mind-Essence, the quintessential search for Enlightenment and to attain ' Light,' Buddhahood ; but in Mahamudra the Guru, There is no adulteration by distracting (in giving the Pith Instructions) points out thoughts. to the disciple that one's own mind is In the real nature of beings, the Realm Buddha Himself, and therefore to search for of Mind, anything, even Buddhahood, is a waste of There is no subject-object defilement. time. In the natural state Of Mind-Essence There is no ground from which habitual- " The main concern in Mahamudra, there• thought may rise. fore, is the unfoldment of the true Essence ' The nature of the mind is Dharmakaya of one's own mind. To accomplish this, the It is not defiled by forms disciple may meditate alone, following his And from attributes is free." Guru's instructions, or may be given the Those who are familiar with the methods ' pointing-out' demonstration in an effort by and teachings of Zen will not find these ideas the Guru to open his mind instantaneously. so very foreign or so very strange. The Yoga This can be done in different ways —- a Without Form has often been referred to as smile, a blow, a push, a remark, etc. This is " Tibetan Zen," and is identical with it in strikingly similar to the tradition of Zen, essence, if not in method, because, as an although the style and process may differ. effortless and natural practice, it stresses the " Again, most meditation practices are cultivation of that innate Buddha-Mind, or devised for the development of mental con• Essence, which permeates the universe and centration — to hold on to a single object in every living being in it, including oneself. the mind's eye — and a mental effort is required in all of them ; but in Mahamudra, Detachment, of course, is implicit in both meditation is spontaneous, effortless, and teachings ; and in Mahamudra, as in Zen, natural ; in its practice, no object whatso• Dhyana (the pure concentrative state ever is held in the meditator's mind." Thus, achieved in meditation), in its earlier stages through complete relaxation of mind and (often mistakenly over-valued by the begin• body — an utter " letting-go " — awareness ner) is only preliminary to a realization of of Awareness itself unfolds. the Goal. However pleasant or blissful it may be, ecstatic Dhyana should never be And so we see that the microcosmic mind clung to, as liable to plunge one into what (the mind of sentient beings), as a mani• is known as the " dead-void", where all festation, or offspring, of the Macrocosmic awareness is lost. Milarepa speaks vividly Mind (the Infinite Mind of the Universe — of this matter in the following stanzas : 1967 SOME ASPECTS OF BUDDHIST YOGA 221

"When your body is rightly posed, and your Chang's * The Practice of Zen' (Harper, mind absorbed in deep meditation, N.Y. 1959 ; and Rider, London, 1960) will You may feel that thought and mind both merit careful attention. disappear ; Yet this is but the surface experience of 1. Look inwardly at your state of mind Dhyana. before any thought arises. By constant practice and mindfulness 2. When any thought, does arise, cut it off thereon, One feels radiant Self-awareness shining like and bring your mind back to the work. a brilliant lamp. 3. Try to look at the mind all the time. It is pure and bright as a flower, 4. Try to remember this " looking sensa• It is like the feeling of staring tion " in daily activities. Into the vast and empty sky. The Awareness of Voidness is limpid and 5. Try to put your mind into a state as transparent yet vivid. though you had just been shocked. This Non-thought, this radiant and trans• 6. Meditate as frequently as possible. parent experience 7. In the midst of the most tumultous Is but the feeling of Dhyana. activities, stop and look at the mind With this good foundation One should further pray to (direct one's for a moment. heart to) the three Precious Ones 8. Meditate for brief periods with the (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha), eyes wide open. And penetrate to Reality by deep thinking 9. Read and reread as often as possible and contemplation (on Sunyata, or Void• the Prajnaparamita Sutras (particular• ness) . ly the Diamond and Heart Sutras). He thus can tie the non-ego Wisdom With the beneficial life-rope of deep Dhyana. If we are truly dedicated, the Buddha-Mind With the power of kindness and compassion, within will be our Teacher. And with the altruistic vow of the Bodhi-Heart, This is the message of the Yoga Without He can see direct and clear Form — of Mahamudra, which is direct The truth of the Enlightened Path, awareness of the Essence of Mind itself. Of which nothing can be seen, yet all is clearly visioned. The Yoga With Form, particularly in its He sees how wrong were the fears and hopes higher aspects, is designed primarily for of his own mind. Yogins, who devote their whole lives to this Without arrival, he reaches the place of Buddha; practice, and should never be attempted, Without seeing, he visions the Dharmakaya ; even in its simplest forms without the Without effort, he does all things guidance of a competent Guru or teacher. naturally." But the Yoga Without Form (in the aspects outlined above), while highest of all, may In seeking to follow such teachings as be at least touched in essence by the these, a modern disciple, if at all possible, humblest disciple who knows and follows the should train under an enlightened Guru or basjc Precepts and teachings of the Buddha, Teacher ; but if such cannot be found (as is and through his very dedication will unfold so often the case, particularly in the West), for him an ever clearer vision of the Goal, the " Ten Suggestions " as given in G. C. C. and ever greater opportunities for attaining it.

When does a man attain salvation ? When his egoism dies.

— SRI RAMAKRISHNA. 222 July IGNATIAN YOGA

By I. JESUDASAN, S. J.

Various Christian sects or groups practise what they call 1 Yoga' nowadays. How• ever, rather than describe such a hybrid, we have chosen to include an article on an indigenous Christian system of spiritual exercises.

' "Y^OGA' is often used in two senses ; one reparation he carried his fasts and other aus• broad and general, of means to union terities so far that his health was thereafter with God, the other, narrow and specific, of permanently impaired and he became sub• austerities or exercises undertaken for this ject to chronic spells of acute pain in the purpose. I have used the word in both senses stomach. Three months of excessive penance in this little article. were also a time of much inner trial and serious temptation to despair and even to The Ignatius who stood silhouetted on the suicide. Pampeluna fortress against the on-rushing French troops was far from being a yogi. All this while there was perhaps too great In the brief snatches of autobiography which a concentration on self. Too much intros• he stinted to posterity, he refers to himself pection was no good. So he turned his as a vain young knight given to worldly thoughts from his own misery to God's mercy pursuits. and to others' suffering. The result was that His yogin life begins with the cannon ball, he who had so far tried to find God in the providential in the fullest sense, which solitude of the cave, now sought Him in his brought him unconscious to the ground. The neighbours — in service to his suffering fel- first flashes of the yogic ideal shone on his lowmen in hospital. He changed his resi• inward eyes and its peal resounded in his dence from the cave to St. Lucy's Hospital at inward ear during his reading of the lives Manresa. When he prayed and fasted, he of the saints, again providential in the cir• had only thought of his own salvation. When cumstances. He responded to that call. He he served the sick, he only relieved their4 renounced his worldly career, renounced the physical pain. But what of their eternal sal• Loyola castle, its pomp and power, changed vation ? The salvation of the neighbour ? the purple of nobility for the coarse sack• A new dimension was added to his spiritual cloth of a beggar — DETACHMENT OR odyssey. A new realisation had dawned on THE SPIRIT OF POVERTY IS THE FIRST him. He had passed to a new phase in his CONDITION OF DIVINE UNION — and spiritual development. He sought people, wended his way to the cloistered Carthusian but the people could not as easily approach monastery at Montserrat. Thence he retired him because of his too ascetical look. Hence to the secluded cave at Manresa where he his long hair and nails had to go. He had fasted and prayed and flogged himself and to be presentable in order that he might kept long hours of vigil. Nails and hair grew effectively present the Kingdom of God. He forbiddingly long and matted. He lived on taught them the basic truths which he had only one poor meal a day, and that too realized. Meanwhile four months of his stay begged from door to door. Imagine a prince at Manresa were over. He had had the vision among the Loyolas and the captain of the on the bank of the Cordoner, made the Spi• Pampeluna garrison doing that! ritual Exercises and written the first draft of them. All his thought at this time was of self- purification. He must make amends for his The Spiritual Exercises are the Ignation past sins. And in his first fervour to make Yoga par excellence, the way he himself had 1967 IGNATIAN YOGA 223

trod in order to find God's will in his regard serve Christ in his neighbour, must preserve and that he recommends to others for the his health for the same service. Hence no same purpose. We shall deal with it in longer the excesses of bodily austerity. The greater detail in a separate article later on. body is not to be looked upon as just an But here suffice it very briefly to indicate its instrument of sin and the foul prison of the salient features. To begin with, one does not soul. It is the co-principle of our composite come to the Spiritual Exercises to find God being and activity, an instrument of service for the first time, as it were. That is done to Christ, and a temple of the Blessed Tri• already at baptism when we are made sharers nity. Therefore also he must preserve it, in the divine life. But amid the stress and While keeping it in due subjection to the hurry of external life we are likely to lose higher principle. A certain amount of aus• sight of, or cool in, the inner life. The terity, moderate austerity, there must needs Exercises are a help to keep it alive and be ; but as it were to make up for this growing — to find God's holy will in every moderation, the greater stress is laid on inter• circumstance of our life and keep on doing nal mortification, on breaking our will (our it, and thus grow in the divine life of union. self-will) and disorderly affections, because This St. Ignatius does through a continuous they lie at the root of every difficulty and process of different methods of prayer, obstacle to our attainment of full union with prayerful self-examination and prayerful re• God. It is for this purpose that St. Ignatius collection. Recollection makes us attentive recommends the cheerful bearing of humi• to God and the least manifestation of His liations ; for, they unite us to the humble will. The self-examination which is not a Christ laden with humiliations, and in Him, barren review of one's sins and failings, but to God. One may practise the most extra• a contrite petition for forgiveness and a firm ordinary bodily macerations and still be as purpose of amendment, removes every proud as the Devil. And what can be a obstacle to the vision of God. Prayer obtains greater obstacle to union with God than light to find His will and strength to carry pride ? On the other hand, what is more it out. To do each of these well, there are difficult and repugnant to nature than not further helps pointed out. But of these at only to put up with injuries, but even to another time. rejoice in them for Christ's sake ? Here is the highest way of union with God in Christ Union with God is the end of all Yoga, while here on earth. whatever form it may take. St. Ignatius, and for that matter every good Christian and This then is the Ignatian yoga ; detach• every Christian Saint, consciously attains this ment, self-purification, sanctification of the existential union already introduced at bapt• neighbour, suffering with Christ. He arrived ism, by meditating on Christ, by loving at them step by step. But they can co-exist Christ, by living Christ. Bodily austerities all at once, because one does not exclude the and mortifications are either a preparation other, and we need all of them at the, same for this union, or an expression of this love. time while here below to arrive at perfect But Ignatius, who has learnt to recognise and union with God.

Good and evil exist in this world for the man who is not self- controlled and who, through ignorance, sees multiplicity. — Bhagavata 224 July HOW I CAME TO THE MAHARSHI

By DINKER RAI

T HAD a religious upbringing and was ings. I felt that he was all in all to us —• married at the age of fourteen ; but soon father, mother, everything. He awakened after marriage I left home and began love and devotion in me. wandering about in search of some one or something called ' God '. In this first attempt On my next visit I took my wife and two I had some vivid experiences of sadhus. I children with me. I knew that the Maharshi returned home but the inner quest continued. was very gracious with children, so when• I fell under the spell of Swami Viveka- ever we left the hall we sent our children nanda, Rama Tirtha and Prabhuddha running up to him to touch his feet as he Bharati and attended the * Katha ' of Swami walked out, so that they should bring the Jayendrapuriji of Ahmedabad. touch back to us. After three days the Sarvadhikari called and asked me to stop Again I left home and this time I made this, as the Maharshi was very stiff-legged tapas at a quiet place near Mt. Abu. How• from rheumatism and might easily fall as a ever not enough food was forthcoming, so I result of it. We then realized our folly and left that place on account of hunger and stopped the children doing it. began travelling from one pilgrim centre to another. I visited almost all the famous One of my visits was at the time of the places of pilgrimage. However all this pro• Golden Jubilee Celebration or the fiftieth duced no result and again I returned home. anniversary of the Maharshi's arrival at Tiruvannamalai. That was a sight I shall Now the ' householder ' phase of life began never forget. He was sitting on a couch for me. I almost forgot God, thinking that as decorated with garlands and jewels. The best I had not found peace that way I would try singers from all India were singing. There another way of life. Twelve years passed were large, colourful crowds full of devo• during which I remembered God only when tion, such crowds, in fact, that police had to in trouble. arrange and direct the movements of the In 1942 I again turned inward, this time people. Thousands of poor people were fed. under the influence of Swami Madhava- And through it all the Maharshi looked tirtha who had written a book called solemn and serene, as though it did not * Bhagavan Raman Maharshi' (sic). He concern him. explained everything to my satisfaction and He would sit inscrutable before us. He with his blessing I went to see the Maharshi wanted nothing from us. Once he said to a in 1944. I arrived in a powerful mood of foreigner who asked him about it : " I am anticipation. I had brought the best of flower not idle. Every second my heart is active." garlands I could find from Madras. The Maharshi was at breakfast with the devotees At first I used to trouble him by asking in the dining hall when I arrived and I questions, and he always answered them. straightaway wanted to garland him, but he Once I asked him which yoga I should fol• motioned me to put the garlands down on low : Jnana, Karma, Bhakti or Hatha. He the floor. I did not then know that we were replied : " Yoga is derived from the word not supposed to touch his body, and my ego ' yuj 9 meaning ( uniteHow did a Jnani was hurt. I felt slighted. However I forgot become an agnani, a karmi an akarmi, a all about this later in the day when I came bhakta a vibhakta ? Discovering that is in contact with him and received his bless- yoga." 1967 HOW I CAME TO THE MAHARSHI 225

Someone else once asked what is the enough. Every May or June I used to go to greatest miracle in the world. The Maharshi see him, although it is the hottest time of answered, " The body. It is lifeless and yet the year, because that was when I could get acts as though living." away from my business. Sometimes I would leave my business specially to visit him. Gradually I stopped asking questions. I received my elucidations inwardly. And yet, The last time I visited him was shortly of course, they were bestowed by him. before he left the body. He was very thin and I could fill a book with incidents and bent and had his arm in a sling. And yet he remarks about him. I have seen his grandeur looked cheerful and impersonal as ever as and at the same time his naturalness. I have he sat in the big new hall. Before leaving I seen him appear like an enthusiastic youth went up to him to say good-bye. His eyes and at the same time like a bent and aged were shining as he looked at me, and he Rishi. I have seen him friendly and familiar nodded very slowly. When I got outside the and yet at the same time aloof. I have seen hall I suddenly burst out sobbing in a way him caring for squirrels, monkeys, parrots, I could not restrain. Even now I do not know peacocks and the cow Lakshmi. In the last why. A crowd of onlookers gathered round. days of Lakshmi, when she was old and ail• My wife was at first astonished and then she ing, he used to go daily to the cowshed and too began weeping. It went on for about a feed her with his own hands. I saw a great quarter of an hour. Someone asked me what Maharani from my part of India, was the matter but I could not say. After• Smt. Shantadevi of Baroda, at the Ashram, wards when I received news of his passing and as soon as she saw the Maharshi she away I could not believe it. I still do not. prostrated herself on the dustry ground He is still there. Not only there but every• before him. I have seen in him what I can where. He cannot leave us. He is still in our never forget. The total of my visits to him hearts as before. He is the Heart of our adds up to 200 days, and yet I never had hearts. 226 July DIALECTIC APPROACH TO INTEGRATION

By WEI WU WEI

TT may be said that there is only one thing experience could only be a temporal illusion, that need be profoundly understood, Outside a time-context, unsubjected to any without which no understanding could be concept such as a space-time, there can be valid, and from which — if that is comple• no entity to be abolished, and nothing that tely comprehended — all else must neces• is not liberation to be known. sarily follow. Therefore the phenomenon does not abolish That understanding is the total, and final, itself -— since what-is is not phenomenal absence of oneself, that as such I have never and noumenally can have no ' self' to existed, do not now exist, and never will abolish — and so ' it' cannot be liberated, exist, for I can have no being subject to And conversely, since noumenally there can ' time '. be no ' self' to be liberated, there cannot be any such event as ' liberation' to occur II in intemporality. Phenomena can have only an apparent The concept itself is at fault, for — as the space-time existence as concepts in mind. T'ang-dynasty Masters knew, the said "self- Then who is there " competely to conw supposed entity " neither exists nor does not prehend " this ? Nobody, I do. exist, never has nor ever will either exist As any sentient-being may say, if he or not-exist, so that all that ' it' can be nou• menally is the absence of its phenomenal apperceives that— non-existence. Therefore nothing whatso• Objective absence is subjective presence, ever can factually occur, to what is entirely Which is absolute release. phenomenal, the noumenality of which is Ill transcendent to all concepts including those of 'space' and 'time' in which phenomena Unless a self-supposed entity can abolish are necessarily extended. itself it cannot be liberated (since 'libera• tion ' is liberation from the idea of itself), IV but conversely, since it is self-supposed, un• It may be said that noumenally there is — less it is liberated it cannot abolish itself. Neither Here nor There, Such a problem appears to be insoluble ; Neither Now nor Then, which comes first, the acorn or the oak-tree, Neither This nor That. the egg or the hen ? This is the answer : subject to the con• These are axiomatic, and inclusive of all cept of sequential duration there can be no phenomenal manifestation. answer to a question posed in the form of a The first abolishes opposing positions in vicious circle, whereas un-subjected to the Space, the second abolishes opposing posi• concept of ' time ' there can be no question, tions in Time, the third abolishes opposing In a time-context there can be no release, positions of Self and Other, and all three and no experienced occurrence of the libe• abolish opposing positions of the Thinker or ration of a phenomenon can factually take Speaker in either space or Time. place — since the experiencer has not any But the thinking entity as such remains but an apparent existence and the imagined intact. As subject it is removed from all 1967 DIALECTIC APPROACH TO INTEGRATION 227

three dimensions of Space, from Past, Pre• V sent and, Future, and from identification with This apparent solution of continuity, Subject and Object, but it remains undisturb• speaking dialectically, between apparent ed as an entity, for it is affirmed as not being events in a time-context and their in tempo• either of each of these pairs of inter-depen• ral noumenality should not be taken to imply dent counterparts. separation — for there can be none ; and the In abolishing the relative positions of transcendence of the noumenal is surely the Space, Time, and Thinker, all remain as immanence of the phenomenal and vice- underlying concepts, and until these remain• versa, as viewed from the one or the other ing objects are negated their subject remains standpoint. intact. Integration or re-integration undoubtedly That, no doubt, is why Shen-hui pointed ' occurs ', whereby as a result of a very rare out the inadequacy Of the Masters' habitual equilibrium between normally excessive formula "neither nor ", and positive and normally deficient negative imposed a further negation, which he called factors in a psyche — rendered possible by the double absence or the double negative, intensive negation — adjustments arise in ' the negation of neither ...... nor '. that psyche. In these inclusive examples this will be the Descriptions involving an access of ' divine negation or abolition of no-Space and of no- love ', ' compassion ', ' ecstatic happiness ' Time whereby their subject-entity also is and what-not, all effective manifestations, negated as having conceptual being. It patently temporal and separated from their should here be evident that as long as any inseparable counterparts, are evidently conceptual object remains, the subject there• phenomenal. What may be assumed to take of can never be released. place is simply that the phenomenon, sud• The, Chinese manner of expressing this denly relieved of its egoity, freed thereby ' double negation ', by negating the negative from a burden of cares, pseudo-responsibi• element of the initial negation, is apt to be lities, phobia and what-not, rebecomes nor• confusing to us ; therefore it is preferable mal, and by contrast with the worries of the here just to apply the word ' absence ' to the living-dream feels as though gravity were no whole negation. In this case the formula more, laughs hilariously perhaps, wishes to becomes :— dance for joy and to embrace all phenomenal creation. And this is interpreted and re• ' We are required to apprehend the absence corded as ' divine grace ', universal benedic• of " neither Here nor There", of " neither tion, and all the characteristics attributed to Now nor Then", of " neither This nor a bodhisattva. That", and thereby the absence of Space and of a conceiver of Space, of Time and of a VI conceiver of Time, of Self and of a conceiver Affectively attributed to an ' enlightened 1 of Self.' sentient-being is a phenomenal manifesta• If we shall have apperceived these tion of what sentience is, with its inevitable absences,, in depth, we should thereby have and inescapable counterpart, like that attri• apperceived our own objective absence, our buted to any ' unenlightened' sentient- total absence of one, whereby we may being, the origin of which is noumenal also. apprehend that we can never know what we Any direct manifestation of noumenal ' affec- are — since we are nothing objective that tivity', if such were conceivable, would could be known. Nor can we ever be con• necessarily be intemporal and imperceptible scious of what we are -— since that is no as such in the sequence of duration. At most ' thing ', and what is cognising cannot cognise it could, perhaps, be represented by some what is cognising, any more than what is impalpable ' quality ', recognisable in a time- being conscious. sequence as ' Grace ' or ' Serenity '. 228 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

Sentience, let us not forget, is not ' some• simply the abolition of the inferential thing ' that ' we' possess or experience, but entity. is an indirect manifestation of what we are. No dualistic emotion is thereby sublimated, If there could be any question of ' posses• for there is nothing in emotional counter• sion ' it would surely be sentience (what-we- parts to sublimate, and split effectivity (such are) that ' possesses ' what we think is ' us ' ; as attraction and repulsion) remains ' whole ' the concept of a ' self' is that of some in the unsplit mind of the intemporal. ' thing ' which is sentient, and so ' has ' sen• Therefore it cannot be supposed to manifest tience, and such entity is entirely supposi• directly in an ' enlightened' phenomenal tional. This false identification, of course, object in a time-sequence as affectivity is ' bondage '. which as such as necessarily split. As a * wholeness' it cannot be phenomenally The apparent effectivity of an ' enlighten• experienced, since it is what is experiencing ed ' phenomenon is therefore not different phenomenally as subject and object. This from that of an ' unenlightened ' phenome• imminence might conceivably be cognisable non since both are individualised representa• psychically in an ' enlightened ' phenomenon tions in mind of the same ' sentience '. In a and be called ' Grace ', which should be the temporal context it must always and inevi• common noumenality of perceiver and per• tably be thus, the ' enlightenment * being ceived, and all that ultimately they are.

The New Apostles

By Cornelia Bagarotti

It is far too easy to become a spectator light of Christ. When one has lived in the rather than a participator in Spiritual life. darkness of the material world, bound to Those who chose as did Paul to discover one's lower self or ego, the sudden blaze of the Christ and to reveal him are those who TRUTH into every corner of one's inner have become participators and not spec• being is not only a shock but a tremendous tators in Spiritual life. Many do not realise adjustment. The Disciples had three years that the Bible has been given to Man as a preparation for the Pentecost. Each seeker present source of inspiration and illumina• of the Spirit is slowly preparing himself to tion and it is neither a legend, nor a para• receive the Christ and must die and be

ble, but an EVERLIVING reality which is reborn again as Christ told Nicodemus before meant to awaken to apostleship the sleep• that illumination can take place. ing hearts of men. To take in the Christ Not until each word becomes a living means to be reborn and utterly transformed. reality, and each parable speaks directly to The road to Damascus is an inner experience the soul and enters into daily life as the of that revelation and illumination after inner ethic and yardstick of all activity does which one's entire life is changed. Man become a participator in the Spirit.

The slightest knowledge that is LIVED is Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of Christ, greater than all the theoretical wisdom of became St. Paul, the great Apostle of Christ. the world. Christ seeks servers and Men It is said he was literally blinded by the who are transformed in His being. 1967 229 THE KNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN

By ALONE

HPO know the ' past' or the ' future ' by Let us ' try ' this line of * thinking' ...... astrology or by what they call ' the sixth sometime sense to know the mind of others, to have visions (I include in this seeing ' colours' and let that psychological and hearing ' sounds ' about which occultists memory (so to say) the get-up of talk) the psychological composition of that time On hearing or reading about such things in short let ' child' (in one may be ' tempted' to have such facul• us) be our constant teacher con• ties. stant Guru

One may have them naturally but, By going to child ' if they know their limits [One can grasp by As it is a far journey, we are not ' inclin• such faculties the ' known ' only — they ed ' to extol or condemn our then psycholo• cannot touch ' the Unknown' !] gical state (so to say) are we ? perhaps such faculties may drop off from As we were fresh in the world (at that one, or if they remain one may ' use ' them time) as our mind (at that time) in the most proper and benevolent (to one• had not so many encrustations on it self and to others for whom one is ' using' as it has now them) way. By so doing If one does such things out of ' compas• Our conditioning may fall off from the sion ' and ' uses ' such faculties (— powers —) ' past' and a different kind of make• the ' compassion' is the most up [Kindly ...... I am lame at using the important (and is what we need most) ! right words !] may be created —- may be there — of our mind which will not We will not give any heading to the issue take upon it new conditionings as we move we are ' discussing ' ' going into ' along life, which means ; there is now, because, it may take a ' form ' Action now ! [Action is that which has no in our minds. residues.] but, as we go along ...... we [Please ' catch ' what I have put will come directly upon the experiencing of down ! ] it! ! [Please go over the last paragraph again !] Let us have a ' feeling ' of ' think• Further ...... by going to ' child ' ing ' in the following line. [Mind we may go back back back Please ! This is not a thought !]...... up to ' birth ' . [Let us do it ...... psychologically it is an experiment ] Shall we be able to ' capture ' the ' child ' We may perhaps remove ' birth' ...... in us ? By this is meant go back as far as totally from the field [ I mean possible, as far back as possible, to when we from the psychological field] altogether .... were 'child' Not the physical It is a strange queer memories of our childhood but our psycho• subject logical get-up at that time ...... [Please try ] Do we follow ? In this way ...... in this way we Do we comprehend ? go back, so far back back to ' birth.' 230 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

and thus ' eradicate ' * birth' ...... YOGA and automatically eradi• cate ' death '. So also there are faculties for knowing the When there is no ' birth' there is no past and (perhaps) the future there ' death '. are some people who are born with an apti• tude for Yoga [I presume that readers know [We have (unnecessarily) associated the the range and implications of Yoga] word 'fear' with death]. and they may even become advanced in that particular direction. JUST A HINT but if, perhaps at the very beginning, they know the proper scope of About: " exploring the 'child' in us".. Yoga, that is the limitations and implications of it then when they come to It does not require a detailed knowledge ' intelligence ' they will themselves ' see ' of the psychological get-up of that time .... and ' understand ' all this ! but a gesture — drift towards [I think that is all that need be said about such exploration this !]

A Leaf from Life

By Derek Southall

Earthbound, one crisp and tingling night Insisted, banished sleep, Of scurrying clouds and pale starlight, In homage to the Deep. With steps deliberate we walk Across the fresh mown lawns and talk Within nothingness lives Of Zen Satori, Freedom's Way. Ever-expanding joy, He lucid, clear, with piercing darts , Exquisite patterns Of ice-pure wisdom, the core imparts Of unbearable splendour Of visioned truth. . I hesitate Tenderly suffused, But try in vain to communicate Eternal, stark, aware. My understanding of the way : Thus our original home was born, Words obscure, not light the play. An abstract which endured till morn, When the bright sunlight showed anew A mood emerged, both calm and strong, In concrete shapes the empty view. Powered by poignant wish, by urge To celebrate the silent song, God has no form, but in His sight The holy harmony, the True. Stones glow, eyes meet and all is light. Thoughts raced and rippled, frothed and flew, Yet still men weep, yet still men sleep. 1967 231 THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF HARI PRASAD SHASTRI

By M. H.

TTARI PRASAD SHASTRI was born in a poor Brahmin family in 1882 in the little town of Bareilly in the United Pro• vinces of India. His father, Narayana Prasad, was a householder who work• ed all his life as a station master on the Indian railways, but he was also a great saint and Mahatma who collect• ed a band of disciples around him in each of the towns to which he was posted and and taught the Yoga of the Gita and the Upanishads in the traditional way. He gave allegiance to the school of Advaita of Sri Sankara. He was a pupil of the monk Swami Krishnanandaji who had also numbered Swami Mangalnathji among his pupils. ...

Hari Prasad Shastri, who was the second of Narayana Prasad's children, was brought Hari Prasad Shastri up in an atmosphere of great spirituality on behalf of the Sanatana Dharma Sabha, and was educated as an orthodox Pundit the orthodox Hindu Society, and became first in the local schools ; but later, because much in demand as, a speaker in many of of the great brilliance and promise which he the towns in Northern India which he visit• showed, he studied Sanskrit philosophy as ed. He spoke always as an exponent of the one of the personal pupils of Pundit Rama Vedanta of Sri Sankara and the yoga of the Misra Shastri of Benares, who had also Gita and the Upanishads, but was also taught George Thibaut and was acknow• becoming increasingly well-read in the ledged throughout the world as an authority philosophy, poetry and literature of India, in Sanskrit philosophical studies. Persia and the West. When he finished his formal education at One of the main principles of Narayana the age of twenty-one, Hari Prasad thus had Prasad's teachings was its universality. He all the qualifications for a brilliant career, regarded all religions as different paths to either in the academic world or in admini• the same goal and invited Mohammedan Pirs stration or some branch of the Indian Civil and Christian priests to speak at his Sat- Service. But his soul was already on fire Sanga. He was opposed to the inequalities with a desire to know* God, and he preferred of the caste system and took a special inte• to leave himself free to follow the spiritual rest in the welfare of the untouchables, pro• quest and to seek out the Mahatmas dwell• viding medical care and health educuation ing in the holy places of India from whom and catering for their physical needs. Hari he could learn more of Vedanta with a view Prasad Shastri followed in the foot-steps of to imparting it to others. He had already his Guru and father, and his broad-minded begun in earlier days to give public lectures and universal outlook brought considerable 232 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July opposition from the orthodox Pundits, who the Eastern Mystical Teachings ' (Shri Dada were often jealous of the success, and popu• Sanghita). The portrait of Shri Dada which larity of his lectures and were not above is "given there is eloquent testimony to his spreading false rumours about his heresy and supreme power of spiritual insight which supposed atheism and even hiring ruffians to depended on no worldly attainment, but eject him from some of the public meetings. conferred on its holder the ability to see clearly into the hearts of people and to To help to support the growing family and minister to their higher needs with wisdom to pay for the education of his younger and compassion. brothers, he, took a number of teaching posts in Northern India, but always when the Following his pilgrimage to opportunity came he loved to return to the Tirthaji in 1906, Hari Prasad became the holy places and to frequent the Sat-Sangs headmaster of several schools in the district of the Mahatmas. of Hoshiarpur, but continued his lecturing work. It was at this time that His Highness Between 1906 and 1913, he was frequently Maharaja Lakshmishwar Singh, President of at the ashrams of Swami Mangalnathji, the the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal, and a greatest of the monks who lived and taught great Sanskrit scholar, conferred upon him at Rishikesh at that time. An even greater the title Mahopadeshak (great teacher). He influence on his life was Paramahamsa Swami was also offered a post at the Court of the Rama Tirthaji. He visited the Paramahamsa Maharaja of Alwar after the ruler had heard when he was living in a hut in the high him speaking on the Vedanta of Sankara and peaks of the Himalayas, after a long and on ' Sri Krishna and the Gopis', but he did arduous journey with two companions, in not wish to remain tied to the Court and 1906. This was just'before the death of refused the offer with thanks. Swami Rama Tirtha, and Dr. Shastri has left us an eloquent account of this visit in At one time he thought of becoming a his Life of Rama Tirtha, published under the Sadhu and was preparing to take the vow title " Scientist and Mahatma." of Sanyasa under Dhaniraj Giri, one of the best known Mahatmas and scholars of that Swami Rama Tirtha, a former Professor of time, who had taught Swami Mangalnathji Mathematics at Lahore, with his familiarity grammar and philosophy at one time and with Western literature and science, com• Was now head of a very large ashram, the bined with a God-intoxicated personality, Kailash Ashram at Rishikesh. But when he made a deep and life-long impression on came, to examine his heart he found that the Dr. Shastri, and next to his own Guru, path of Sankhya was not his path and that Narayana Prasad, affectionately known as he would rather serve the Lord and his Shri Dadaji, he was perhaps the main guid• teacher through a life in the world. ing spirit of his life. When Swami Rama adopted Sanyasa, he left his considerable He became headmaster of a small village library to a friend, and Dr. Shastri read its school in Chartgarh and during the holidays contents with interest. went on pilgrimage to the famous temple of Durga at Jwalaji in the beautiful Kangra But it was of course Shri Dadaji himself valley where a large flame of fire issued from whose teachings made the first and greatest the rock. He has described this pilgrimage impression on him. These, devoid of any in an article in the quarterly magazine sophistication and unadorned by great learn• Self-Knowledge, Volume II, Nos. 3 and 4. ing in literature or philosophy, appealed to the heart of their hearer simply by their His father, Narayana Prasad, died on spiritual power and wisdom. The account of March 9th, 1910, and in order to support the Shri Dada's Sangha and of the life and family Hari Prasad got an appointment in the teachings of the Saint has been beautifully railway at Moradabad. It was very uncon• embodied by Dr. Shastri in ' The Heart of genial work and not well paid, although he 1967 LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF HARI PRASAD SHASTRI 233 was able to augment it by tutoring a num• But the general trend of the people was ber of students for their examinations. materialistic at that time, and the spirit of Buddhism was being forgotten in the fever His lecturing activities were severely cur• of militaristic nationalism. His- outspoken tailed by lack of time, but he continued to opposition to this Philosophy and his refusal read voluminously, particularly in English to approve of the Indian agitators like the Literature. It was at this time, he said, that Bengali revolutionary R. B. Bose and his he became first acquainted with, Ernest followers, led to a campaign of vilification of Haeckel, Herbert Spenser, Huxley, David him, both in private and in the press, not Hume, and others. stopping short of attempted assassination. In April 1913 he had a call to visit the The Japanese police followed him every• holy places and left on a pilgrimage to where. But the, work of bringing the truth Kailash, Badrinath and Kedar, and from of Advaita to the people of Japan was con• there went on to Tibet where he was tinued, regardless of these difficulties' and received by the Tashi Lama and was per• hardships. He learned Japanese and also read mitted to bring back a number of valuable widely on the country and its culture. manuscripts. He was now thirty-one years old. Many of the impressions gained on that It was while in Japan that he first met pilgrimage must be incorporated in the story Dr. Sun-Yat-Sen, who treated him with of the pilgrim Prakasha, Brahmachari, which great respect as a scholar and became a he has left in the book A Tale of Spiritual close friend. It was he who invited Unfoldment. It seems that it was on this Dr. Shastri to go to China. He understood his pilgrimage that he achieved full self- difficulties with the Indian and Japanese realization. nationalists.

In 1916 he was inspired by his Guru to He landed in China on April 20th, 1918, take the holy Truth of Advaita Vedanta to Dr. Sun-Yat-Sen being the only person he Japan, which was then in the grip of a knew in China. Dr. Sun was of course the mounting fever of nationalism and mili• founder and first President of the Republic tarism, which threatened to engulf and des• of China. Through a well-known Jewish troy not only the Japanese people themselves Scholar, Mr. N. E. B. Ezra, Dr. Shastri was but the whole of Asia. The nation was asked to contribute articles to a monthly obsessed by the delusive dream of world periodical, the Israel Messenger, of which conquest on the pattern of Chengiz Khan, Mr. Ezra was the founder and editor ; and and the deep and eternal spiritual truths also to lecture on Hindu philosophy to the were being lost sight of. He stayed for two Quest Society, and elsewhere. Mr. Ezra also years in Japan, arriving at Kobe on October offered him the Chair of English Literature 9th, 1916, and in that time gave many in Hardoon College in Shanghai, which was hundreds of lectures on Vedanta and the founded and financed by Mr. S. A. Hardoon, spiritual ideals, founded a Yogic Centre, a Bombay Jew who was the richest man in Advaita Guha, and lectured on Indian China at that time. He became a great per• Philosophy at Waseda University and also at sonal friend of Mr. Shastri, who loved him the Imperial University in Tokyo. on account of his simplicity and democratic outlook. Mr. Hardoon was a great philan• While in Japan, Dr. Shastri made a deep thropist and completely without any narrow• study of Zen Buddhism and visited many of ness. Through his generosity, Dr. Shastri was the most famous monasteries where he con• able to bring out, while in China, the Har• ferred with the monks. The spirit of • doon edition of the Buddhist Canonical nese Buddhism made a deep impression on Scriptures in Chinese with the help of him as his many articles on Japan bear Chinese scholars. testimony. Some of these have been collect• ed in the, little volume Echoes of Japan Dr. Shastri also supervised the translation 1916-1918. of the Koran into Chinese. Perhaps there 234 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

could be no better testimony to Dr. Shastri's Yoga Vasishta was first written, now pub• universality of outlook than that he, a Brah• lished as The World within the Mind (1937), min scholar, should influence a Jewish A collection of his lectures at the Centre was merchant to endow Buddhist temples and to also published at this time in the book publish Buddhist, Confucian and Islamic Wisdom from the East (1936). The number classics. He also himself translated the of pupils was gradually growing, and within Analects of Confucious into Hindi, and this Shanti-Sadan the teachings of the Yoga were edition was later published in India by the transmitted in the traditional way. Besides Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda. the lectures and the personal teaching, Dr. Shastri instituted a weekly traditional Dr. Shastri left China in 1929 and came to reading of the Ramayana of Tulsidas, which England. It had always been the wish of his he himself gave throughout his life. teacher that the Yoga teachings should be Over the following years, a whole series brought to England and that a traditional of books and translations followed, including school should be set up there and it was his monumental translation of the Ramayana with this express purpose in mind that he of Valmiki, published in 3 volumes, an arrived in July 1929 together with his wife, English translation of Vidyaranya's " Pancha- Yachio Shastri, a Japanese lady whom he had dashi ", the ' Vira Vijaya' by Paramahamsa married while in China after she had nursed Mangalnathji and the " Astavakra Gita" him back to health following a serious Translations were also published of the illness. ' Narada Sutras' and the ' Aparokshanu- He stayed in England until his death in bhuti' by Sri Sankara, both with extensive January 1956. During these 27 years, his commentaries by the translator. time was devoted to lecturing on Vedanta However, the published works which and the teachings of the Yoga of the Gita number many more than have been mention• and the Upanishads, writing original works ed, by no means exhaust the mass of and translating some of the great spiritual translations and original writings which classics into English. The least of his Dr. Shastri has left. He was particularly achievements in this field is formidable. fond of poetry, and a small selection of his Among his first works was a popular and translations from the Urdu and Hindi poets simple translation of the Bhagavad Gita, is to be found in the Indian Mystic Verse, published under the title, Teachings from but by far the greater part is still un• the Bhagavad Gita. An English translation published. of the Avadhut Gita followed shortly after• wards together with a book of original poems, Many of his articles have found their way ' Spring Showers ' which had been first pub• into the pages of the quarterly Magazine lished in Shanghai. All these were brought Self-Knowledge, which was started by out within a few years of his arrival. Shanti-Sadan in 1942 and has continued ever since, but appeared for the first seven With the help of one of his pupils, years of its existence under the title Shanti Mrs. M. E. Mitchison, O.B.E., a Yogic Cerrtre Sevak, (Messenger of Peace). Shortly was founded, called Shanti-Sadan, the before his death he was invited by Foyles to Temple of Peace, in 1953. From this time contribute a Handbook on Yoga. to their onwards, regular lectures were given two or Handbook series, and this he was working on three times a week and other lectures were up till the time of his death. It was finished also arranged elsewhere, either by invitation from his notes by his pupils and appeared or by the Centre. in 1957.

# # * # In the early years, Dr. Shastri used to spend the mornings working in the British Three threads seem to run through the Museum among the oriental manuscripts, and fabric of his life. He had a life-long of it was here that his translation of part of the letters and scholarship and was at home in 1967 TO ARUNACHALA 235

the literature and philosophy of both East This spirit of universality he had already and West ; then he was also a Mahatma, a learnt from his Guru, Shri, in his child• God-realized man whose mind and persona• hood ; but it was with the authority of one lity were steeped in the, spiritual teachings who had met and known intimately the and alight with wisdom and benevolence. great figures of the Muslim, Hindu, Chris• He made contact with all those who tian and Buddhist traditions,, not only in approached him with an open mind and a India but also in China and Japan and the sensitive heart, whatever walk of life they West, that he spoke on this theme. He there• may have come from ; thirdly, he had a deep fore spoke as one who had known the inner spirit of universality and a belief in the unity truth of all religions, but was also familiar of all religions and of all mankind. To him, with the outer form as well. It is such vision all barriers of creed, colour and nationalism, that the world needs today perhaps more were a manifestation of spiritual myopia. than anything else.

To Arunachala

Author unknown: sent by J. J. de Reede

Arunachala ! Lost in Freedom — Resplendence — Bliss Thy silence calls me Hitherto unknown, undreamt of, More powerful than a thousand voices I found myself Oh Hill of wonder ! I lost Myself. The way is so long, it seemed so near Whispering shadows, rocks come alive, Beloved ! Whither shall I seek Thee ? Arunachala, Hill of Peace, In the abyss of thought, Free me of fear ! In the Tempest of feeling I find Thee not. Sweet flame within my heart Spread over the universe, Plains, rivers, mountains, caves ! What does it mean ? Tell me I pray, Hill of Wisdom ! Do you hide Him ? Doubts assail me, Did He pass your way ? I dare not believe.

Motionless dancing, boundless waves In vain I spent my days, Rose, within my mind, In vain I wept at night, All-engulfing dark waters Cool moon and stars ! On the surface in letters of flame Lend me your light " I AM " To find Him that is. hidden In my burning heart. —.

Like a hawk whose wings Arunachala — Bhagavan ! Darkened the sky Hill of Water ! Thou pouncest on me — a worm in dust — Hill of Grace! And carried me off. Quench my thirst, Into limitless all-knowing radiance. Have mercy ! 236 July REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI RAMPRAKASH RAMASNEHI

AS TOLD TO M. D. SAGANE

I first saw a photograph of the Maharshi Some time later I was able to spend in the house of M. D. Sagane in July 1948. I eleven days at the Maharshi's Ashram. I had immediately felt a thrill of happiness. He never known samadhi before but now when• attracted me like a magnet. I did not sleep ever I entered his presence I fell into that night. His divine figure shone before samadhi. I was overwhelmed and lost con• my eyes. I was beside myself. sciousness. When I was in a state to do so I used to ask the Maharshi questions. The On July 21 I obtained a book about him following is the gist of his replies to them. and read his life. Tears came to my eyes " For the present remain in the sadhana and my whole body quivered. I no longer stage, not always in dhyana-samadhi. Eat liked people coming and talking but sought and sleep little. Speak little. Keep the mind solitude. I felt unattached. I wept much. in the blissful state of Brahmananda. In On the. 27th and again on the 30th the the Siddhawastha or Sahaja Samadhi state Maharshi's luminous form appeared briefly the mind is Brahmakar (absorbed in Infi• before me. nity), and yet all activities are carried on normally. It is like a river merging in the On Sept. 14 I felt ill and lethargic. I put ocean. a photograph of the Maharshi in front of me and prayed to him steadily from seven in the " Continue constantly the practice of Self- evening till two o'clock in the morning. enquiry. That will destroy the knot of Then I saw him standing before me and ahankara (ego-sense). You will then dwell immediately I felt almost normal and fell permanently in Brahmananda (pure happi• asleep. After that I was constantly pray• ness). ing that he would take me to his feet. I " There is no Maya. Everything is felt physically immersed in the flood of Brahman. There is neither birth nor death, peace-giving rays of divine light emanating for who is to be born or to die ? Who is to from him. Once I felt entranced and be worshipped and who is to perform merged in his wonderful power for ten or dhyana ? All is Brahman. Bodily ailments, fifteen minutes. It is impossible to des• pains and pleasures are only creations of cribe that state of ecstacy because it is the mind. Once the ego-sense is destroyed beyond the mind. only the Pure Principle remains."

Lead me not into the wheel of birth and rebirth but guide me over to the shore of immortality. — Yajur Veda.

* * * * $

By the pure in heart is he known. The Self exists in man, within the lotus of the heart, and is the master of his life and of his body. With mind illumined by the power of meditation, the wise know him, * the blissful, the immortal. —Mundaka Upanishad. 1967 237

The Bhagavad Gita

CHAPTER NINE

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

(Chapter VIII was published out of sequence in our issue of July 1966, so we continue here with Chapter IX.)

1 experience, consistent with dharma, very easy to practise and imperishable. Sri Bhagavan said : To you who are without envy I will now 3 declare the great secret of knowledge com• bined with wisdom, by knowing which yon Those who lack faith in this dharma, O will be free from evil. Scourge of the Foe, do not attain to Me but return to the mortal round of samsara. 2 ' Samsara' is the course of mortal life but the This is the, sovereign science, the sovereign word has overtones of suffering, privation and mystery, of great sanctity, accessible to direct struggle which no English word can render. 8 238 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

4 9 Nor do these actions bind Me, O Wealth- By Me in My Unmanif est Aspect the entire Winner ; I remain unattached to them, like universe is pervaded. All beings exist in Me, one they do not concern. but I am not contained in them.

The Unmanifest pervades all manifestation and 10 contains it but cannot be contained in it. Under My mere regard Prakriti produces 5* all things, both the moving and the unmov- ing. On this account, O Son of Kunti, the And yet beings do not exist in Me. Behold world revolves. My Divine Power, My Self, creating and supporting all beings does not abide in them. 11

And yet beings do not exist in Purusha, the The foolish disregard Me clad in human pure Spirit, but in Prakriti, His Nature, while He remains aloof. The word translated here as form, not knowing My higher state as ' Power' is ' Yoga ' the word translated as ' Self ' Supreme Lord of beings. 'Atma'. The Divine Power or Union, not other than God, creates and sustains all that appears to 12 be other. Of vain hopes, / vain actions and vain In this chapter statements are carefully quali• knowledge, these senseless people are endued fied and apparently contradicted to safeguard with the deceptive nature of rakshasas and against partial and therefore faulty understand• asuras. ing. See also, in this connection, verses 8, 9 and 10. Rakshasas are equivalent to the ogres of West• 6 ern mythology ; they are powerful and menacing and attack and devour men but can be killed by Understand that just as the mighty wind, them. The asuras, characterised rather by greed though moving everywhere, dwells in space, and stupidity, are the enemies of the Devas on so do all beings dwell in Me. gods (for which see v. 20) and can best be translated ' demons \ That is, as the wind moves in space without affecting space. ' Akasha ' means either ' space ' 13 or ' ether'. But the great souls, O Son of Pritha, those 7 of divine nature, worship Me with undivid• ed mind as the Imperishable Source of beings. All beings, O Son of Kunti, return to My Prakriti at the end of a kalpa ; at the begin• 14 ning of the next kalpa I send them forth again. Ever glorifying Me, striving and firm in vows, prostrating before Me with devotion, This has already been said in Ch. VIII, v. 16, where the possibility of avoiding a return to they worship Me, ever steadfast. samsara is also mentioned.

A kalpa is a great cycle containing fourteen manvantaras. A kalpa is 'one day of Brahma' Others again, with knowledge as their followed by pralaya or dissolution, which is a mode of sacrifice, worship Me in various 'night of Brahma'. ways, as the One, as the Other, as the Omni• 8 present.

This verse has been variously interpreted. It Resorting to My Prakriti, I send forth again seems to refer to worship of the Lord as the Self, and again this whole multitude of beings, as other than the worshipper and as All-encom• helpless in her power. passing. 1967 THE BHAGAVAD GITA 239

16 Those who desire heaven still have an ego that desires; therefore, as explained in the next verse, I am the ritual, I the sacrifice, I the offer• when the rewards of their merits are exhausted, ing „to the ancestors, I the herbs, I the mantra, they must return to strive again, since it is only I also the ghee, I the fire, and I the offering. in this world that spiritual progress can be made and the ego dissolved. This is explained also in 17 Ch. VI, vv. 41-42. The possibility of going beyond the heavens and I am the Father of this world, the Mother, avoiding return to samsara by complete surrender the Provider and the Ancestor ; I am That of the ego is explained again in the present chap• which is to be known, I the Purifier, the, ter, as it has been in Chapters II, VI and VIII. chanting of OM, the Rigveda, the Sama and the Yajur. 21

Only the first three Vedas are mentioned; the Having enjoyed the vast realm of heaven, fourth, the Atharva, is not regarded as of the

they return, on the exhaustion of their meritt same, sanctity. See also v. 20. to the world of mortals. Following the 18 dharma of the three Vedas, they entertain desires and are subject to going and return• I am the Goal, the Supporter, the Lord, the ing; Witness, the Abode, the Refuge, the Friend, the Origin, the Dissolution, the Foundation, 22 the Treasure-House and the Imperishable Seed. To those, however, who dwell on Me in single-minded worship I guarantee fulfilment 19 of needs and security. I give heat, I withhold and send down rain, I am both immortality and death, both being 23 and non-being, Arjuna. Even devotees of other gods who worship 20 them with faith really worship Me, O Son of Kunti, though not in the right way.

The knowers of the three Vedas, drinking One who turns to higher powers turns to the soma and purified from sin, worship Me with Self, though indirectly. In verses like this and the sacrifice and pray for the attainment of following it is more evident than elsewhere that heaven. On coming to the holy world of the ' I' and ' Me' must be understood as univer• the Lord of Devas they enjoy in heaven the sal. celestial delights of the devas. 24 Soma is said to have been the intoxicating or halucinogenic juice of a . Its use in contexts For I alone am the En j oyer and Master oi like the present shows that it is also a symbol of all sacrifices ; but they do not rightly know divine ecstasy. Me, and so they fall. It seems better to keep the word ' devas' than to translate it as ' gods'. The Supreme may be approached from one angle or another and 25 referred to by various names — as Brahman or Atma or Bhagavan or Siva or Vishnu — but Worshippers of the devas go to the devas ; never as plural. The devas are divine beings who of the ancestors to the ancestors, of spirits to are immortal for the duration of the kalpa — ad the spirits ; My worshippers come to Me. saecula saeculorum — but, as explained in Chapter VIII, vv. 16-19, at the end of the kalpa 26 they are absorbed in the universal dissolution (pralaya or Night of Brahman), to be manifested Whoever offers me a leaf, a flower, or fruit forth again at the dawning of the new kalpa. or water with devotion, that I accept when The Lord of the Devas is Indra. it is offered devoutly by the pure of heart. 240 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

27 31

Whatever you do, whatever you eat, what-* He soon becomes right-minded and attains ever you offer in sacrifice, whatever you give, eternal peace. Know, O Son of Kunti, that whatever tapas (austerity) you perform, do My devotee never perishes. it as an offering to Me, O Son of Kunti. 32 28 If they take refuge in Me, O Son of Pritha, Thus will you be set free from the bondage even those of low birth, women, Vaishyas, of karma with its good and ill effects and, even Shudras, attain the Supreme Goal. with mind established in the Yoga of renun-< Vaishyas and Shudras are the third and fourth ciation, will come Liberated to Me. respectively of the traditional four varnas or social orders. 29 33 I am alike in all beings. None is hateful to Me and none dear. But those who wor• How much more, then, holy Brahmins and ship Me with devotion abide in Me and I in devoted royal Sages. Having come to this them. transient, sorrowful world, worship Me then.

As was said in the note on v. 5, difficult or 34 contradictory statements abound in this chapter. They have to be understood. Being is the same in With mind set on Me, be My devotee, sac• all beings ; but by understanding and devotion a rifice to Me, bow down to Me alone. Thus being can participate consciously in Being. harmonised in yourself, with Me as your Supreme Goal, to Me alone shall you come. 30

Even a most vicious person who worships Here ends the Ninth Chapter of the Me whole-heartedly must be accounted Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga of Sovereign righteous, for he has rightly resolved. Knowledge and Sovereign Mystery.

Arunachala

By Arthur Osborne

I sought to devour Thee ; Let now the deception end. Come now and devour me, There was no lover or friend Then there will be peace, Arunachala Apart from Thyself, Arunachala !

You bade me give all for you —- Now that at last I know Take now the giver too, All this a magic show, Survive alone, Arunachala ! Let it dissolve in Thee, Arunachala !

* The third and last syllables are long; the third is accentuated. The poem is based on v. 28 of Sri Bhagavan's Marital Garland of Letters to Sri Arunachala. 1967 241

E: views

TWENTY CASES SUGGESTIVE OF REINCAR• nation at will. Why should he will ? The Advai-, NATION. By Dr. Ian Stevenson (American tin might ask. Society for Psychical Research, New York, 1966, pp. 362, price not stated.) THE YOGA SYSTEM OF PATANJALI OR THE

Our issue of July 1966 was devoted to the ques• ANCIENT HINDU DOCTRINE OF CONCENT• tion of reincarnation and contained two brief RATION OF MIND, Embracing: The Mnemonic empirical accounts of presumed cases as a sort Rules, called Yoga-Sutras, of Patanjali; of light relief. We have now received a book The Comment, called Yoga-Bhashya, attri• describing twenty such cases investigated by buted to Veda-Vyasa; the explanation called Dr. Stevenson of the School of Medicine of Vir• Tattva-vaisaradi, of Vachaspati-Misra, trans• ginia University, U.S.A., the foremost investigator lated from the original Sanskrit by James in the field today. The descriptions are monu• Haughton Woods, Professor of Philosophy in ments of painstaking research and scholarly inte• Harvard University. (Harvard Oriental Series, grity and the author invites people who have Volume Seventeen, Authorised Indian Reprint evidence of such cases to write to him about them by Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, pp. 381, price at the School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Rs. 7.50). Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A. However, ' The It is at once apparent from a glance at the intro• Mountain Path' is not much interested in such duction to the present work that its probe into evidence. What concerns us more is the fact that contingent matters such as date and authorship is reincarnation is taught in the Hindu and Buddhist thorough. On the other hand, with regard to the scriptures and by the Ancients such as Pythagoras, meaning of the text, it is enough to read Plato and Plotinus in the West and, within the Book II, v. 5, where the concluding word, avidya bounds of dualism, is the only intellectually (meaning ignorance) is translated ' undifferentia• satisfying solution. From the viewpoint of ted consciousness'. The verse runs as follows: Advaita, there is, of course, no one to be reincar- " The recognition of the permanent, of the pure, nated. of pleasure, and of a self in what is impermanent, One condition attendant on reincarnation is that impure, pain and not-self is undifferentiated con• memory does not normally carry over, and sciousness." It is not; it is ignorance. therefore cases of remembered former lives still remain phenomena. It is interesting, however, SQUARE SUN SQUARE MOON: A Collection to note that the ability to recall past incarnations of Sweet Sour Essays. By Paul Reps. (Turtle, is one of the skills which Patanjali lists as obtain• Rutland, Vermont, U.S.A. and Tokyo, Japan. able by yogic practice. The early Buddhists also $2.50). claimed to have a technique by which a man oi Why should a travel book be reviewed in The spiritual concentration could recall a past incar- Mountain Path ? The best answer seems to be : 242 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

" Because it is by Paul Reps." Whether he is tector. So confident was he of the protection that describing a Norwegian wedding or Japanese he called on it, when in need, to change the massage, whether tea-drinking or education, he course of events — for instance in healing a sick• strikes through the superficial to the essential and ness or bringing much needed rain; and things says surprising things. In Fiji, for instance, he happened as he demanded.

writes that " some of us might bridge primitive ARTHUR OSBORNE. and trivialised existence." Just that one epithet —' trivialised ' instead of ' civilized ' — and we are LIGHT ON YOGA: By B. K, S. Iyengar reminded where we stand. (George Allen and Unwin, pp. 342. Price 75s.)

When describing traditional Japanese dance and In the first part of the book, the author has music that is supposed to " purify the universe " described what yoga means, mainly on the basis he forestalls a cynical smile with the reminder : of Patanjali, the well-known author of the Yoga- " The universe is in us." sutra. The second part deals with the technique Speaking of a woman whose use of jjapa and and effect of various yogic exercises. The third whose way of life makes her more dynamic at 74 part, a comparatively brief one, is concerned with than most women are at 30, he adds the potent yogic breathing. This is followed by two appen• little phrase : " Try it." dices, the former containing a course of asanas He faces us with the question : " Where are we spread over a period of three hundred weeks, going in our rush for machinery to have living and the latter giving hints as to some groups of more convenient and to travel around the stars ? asanas useful in curing various ailments. The We are going out and around. May there be book also includes a well drawn up glossary of another inner travel ?" There may be and is Sanskrit terms. The most outstanding part of and it is good to be reminded of it. the book is made of six hundred art plates de• picting different yogic poses. These pictures do

PRAYERS AND : Compiled from make an impression, and show clearly how an the Scriptures of India, being No. 183-184 of individual properly trained in yoga exercises can Vedanta and the West. (Vedanta Press, Holly• obtain flexibility of various muscles of the body, wood, 1967, pp. 136, yearly subscription $.4.00.) making for a good control of them. Many people seem to think that yoga consists The editors have gathered into this small book mainly of bodily postures and breathing exercises. a marvellous wealth of quotations from the Vedic Actually, the asanas were originally looked upon Hymns and the Upanishads. As they rightly Say, simply as comfortable sitting positions useful for Vedanta is not exclusive of devotion. Granted the purpose of prolonged meditation and it was that the ego does not exist, it still behaves as perhaps at the hands of the Hatha Yogis of later though it does and must therefore be faced with times that many intricate and funny-looking pos• the alternative that either it doesn't exist or, tures came to be practised. The utility of many insofar as it does, it must submit in devotion to of them for maintaining the body in a healthy the greater Reality of the Lord. So it is caught condition is no doubt beyond question. either way. But the science of yoga, as brought out in the Unfortunately, the later chapters are not so well Upanishads and texts like the Gita, is really con• selected and many of the items are in very cerned chiefly with the development of human regrettable English verse translations that impede "personality in such a way that the rare state of reading; but these first two chapters are enough jivan-mukti comes into being. It is for this, in and more than enough to justify the work. the main, that yoga has come to be held in high esteem by all men of wisdom in India. And this , THE MYSTIC SAGE OF has obviously little to do with the Asanas which ARUNACHALA: By M. D. Sagane (Pub• seem to form the main topic of Mr. Iyengar's lished by A. M. Sagane, Rukmini Nagar, Ama- book. The feeling cannot thus be avoided that ravati, M.P., pp. 196. Price Rs. 4). the title of this book is rather a misnomer. A A brief life sketch of the Maharshi is followed correct title would have been " Light on Asanas ". by the late author's ideas, dreams and visions and And this light is also very dim, for unfortunately various remarkable episodes. He felt the need to not much is yet scientifically known about the spend only a short time in the physical presence corrective, restorative or therapeutical value of of the Maharshi but for the rest of his life yogic exercises. In the light of this fact, the experienced a powerful bond between them, with prescription offered by the author for curing himself as dependent and the Maharshi as pro• various ailments appears an over-simplification. 1967 BOOK REVIEWS 243

The usefulness of this book for the average Upanishads from that point of view. In this book, reader would have been increased by reducing the she interprets the Katha Upanishad. Her main number of plates to about a hundred and avoid• point is that the Samkhya is not a materialist ing excessive modifications of traditional poses. school, as it does not say Matter is the only rea• The author should, however, be congratulated lity, or that consciousness is a product of Matter. for sincerity in what he writes — a quality not to The Prakriti of the Samkhya is a Chetanadheena be found in all writers on yoga in our time. Tattva, consciousness-dependent principle. While the Samkhya vitalises unconscious material cause PRANAYAMA: By Swami Kuvalayananda. by a conscious principle, it does not ascribe even (Popular Prakashan, Bombay. Pp. l4D-f 43 art efficient causality to Purusha. This is a signifi• plates. Price Rs. 12.50) . cant point. And this is consistent, says the The pioneering efforts of Swami Kuvalaya• author, with the Upanishadic doctrine of asan- nanda in the field of scientific yoga are well- gatva and aparinamitva of atman. Now Shan- known to the educated public. In this book he kara did the same; he denied all causality to gives a clear and lucid account of what Pranayama Brahman to affirm nirgunatva; Dr. Anima Sen must be taken to mean, its importance from the Gupta seizes on this point and says that " this physiological and spiritual points of view, its tech• may be viewed as an effect of the influence of nique for various purposes, and the caution that the Samkhya philosophy, for the Samkhya is the one should exercise in its practice. The book also first among the orthodox schools to say that contains valuable information regarding a use• immutability and causality cannot belong to the ful, graded course in yogic exercise, and a glossary same principle ; (while " the God that has been of Sanskrit- terms commonly found in yoga lite• admitted by him (Shankara) as the cause of the rature. , world is a false ruler of a false world "). In the first chapter the author has described the Now, what does this interpretation prove ? mechanism of respiration in all its details. The Even if it is true, what it tends to prove is the second chapter deals with the postures appropriate fact that both the Samkhya and the Vedanta are to pranayama. This is followed by general con• involved in a common and genuine philosophical siderations and Patanjali's four types of Prana• difficulty of transcendental reason; something yama. The subsequent chapters are concerned must he so and so, and yet, it cannot he so and with the eight varieties of Kumbhaka as found so. And, since there does not seem to be only in the Hatha Yoga texts. The chapter on physio• one way of solving or expressing the mystery of logical and spiritual values of Pranayama is an Being, the Upanishads will continue to interest original effort. us, and schools like the Samkhya and the Vedanta The description of the processes involved bears arise. the mark of scientific precision, coupled with a thorough grasp of traditional ideas. Yet, it is BARUCH SPINOZA: Letters to Friend and Foe. fairly simple for a common man to understand. (Edited by Dagobert D. Reeves. Philosophical The language the author uses is not that of an Library, New York. Pp. 109. Price $3.75.) arrogant master of the yoga tradition but rather of a sincere well grounded teacher. This makes The Jews, who were persecuted by the Chris• an impression. The diagrams and figures are on tians, persecuted Spinoza who was a Jew. He was the whole clear and wisely designed. It seems, expelled from the Jewish Synagogues and Chris• however, that the captions of some of the figures tians and Jews regarded him as a " dangerous have got jumbled up ; those of figures 32 and 34, atheist. And Spinoza declined, for this reason, to for example, seem to be interchanged. Figures accept an appointment to teach in public. " Reli• 28 to 31 appear rather puzzling. When both the gious quarrels," he said, " do not arise so much nostrils are to be kept open it would be unneces• from ardent zeal for religion, as from mens' vari• sary to keep the right hand on the face. ous dispositions and love of contradiction, which The book, however, deserves praise and com• causes them habitually to distort and condemn mendation for its clarity and scientific value. everything, however rightly it may have been PROF. K. S. JOSHI. said." In these letters, Spinoza carried on a patient and courteouus correspondence explaining KATHA UPANISHAD—Samkhya Point of View : the principles of his philosophy. He said that By Dr. Anima Sen Gupta (65/64, Moti Mahal, correct knowledge was needed on these points; Kanpur, 1967. Pp. 68. Price Rs. 7.50,) the first cause. and origin of all things, the trua Dr. Anima Sen Gupta has attempted to "re• nature of the human mind, and third, the true surrect " the Samkhya system by interpreting the cause of error. He said : " I do not presume tha* 244 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

I have found the best philosophy, I know that 1 effort is discussed in the second section. The sys• understand the true philosophy ". And " truth is tem of man is analysed into its several consti• the index of itself and of what is false." tuents of planes of consciousness and their vehicles of bodies, physical, astral, mental, MEANING FOR MAN: By Rollin Chambliss buddhic, atmic etc. The process of self-culture (Philosophical Library, New York, 1966, proceeds by way of activisation, purification and Pp. 191. Price: $4.50.) subtilisation of each vehicle (kosha as termed in The author is Chairman of the Department of the Vedanta), till all of them respond to the Sociology at the University of Hartford, and these vibrations of the soul within and begin to func• are lectures delivered by him on " Basic Issues oi tion in harmony in the growing Light of the Sun Man" at Continuing Centres of Education in of spiritual knowledge. America. The book contains interesting socio- The third section contains helpful hints from philosophical reflections on Man. Although our the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Bhakti Sutras of knowledge of nature has increased, our know- Narada, etc. for the development of human per• ledge of human nature remains very deficient, sonality in line with the object of the cosmic and what Socrates said long ago, " know thyself " manifestation of the. Supreme Reality. is still pertinent to-day. The dominant influence The book is very informative and useful to to-day is western civilization, but the image of every one who seeks self-improvement. Man in western civilization does not give us the whole truth about Man. We have to discover the ASPECTS OF INDIAN THOUGHT: By basic truth about Man through the knowledge Dr. Gopinath Kaviraj. (University of Burdwan, that modern communication has brought about of 1966. Pp. 240. Price: Rs. 25.) other cultures. While social disorder is increasing, and is nothing new,' it now threatens not indivii Dr. Gopinath Kaviraj was one of those rare duals but nations, and could destroy mankind. The savants who have an equal grasp of the princi• author views the nature of Man from the stand• ples of the different systems of philosophy and of point of heredity, environment, personality, rea• the techniques employed for translating these son, freedom, morality, love, and he recognises truths into practice. He had combined both in that as he has drawn his ideas wholly from west• his own life to an eminent degree. The present ern sources, his book presents an image of west• volume is a collection of his papers on some of ern, rather than universal, man. He leaves the the different approaches to the Reality in Indian task of showing how western man resembles his Thought. brothers in other cultures, to others. The author draws attention, at the outset, to

PROF. N. A. NIKAM. the common feature of all these systems of philosophy; they are not based on ratiocinative SELF-CULTURE: By I. K. Taimni (Theosophi- intellection but originate in pratibha, an intuitive cal Publishing House, Madras-20. Pp. 304. Price revelation. Reason comes afterwards to clothe not stated. Second Revised Edition, • 1967). the perception in terms of human thought. Dr. Taimni is a well-known theosophist whose The contributions on the tantric philosophies, works show a happy integration of the funda• e.g. Shakta, Pashupata, Virasaiva, System of mentals of ancient Indian thought with the deve• Chakras according to Gorakshanatha etc. are very lopments in modern sciences in the domain of scholarly and exhaustive. Papers on subjects like physics, biology and psychology. Discussing the Nirmanakaya, Nyaya-Vaiseshika Philosophy, Kai- necessity of self-culture, the author first poses the valya are notable for the fresh light shed on the problem of man which cannot be understood, subjects. In the chapter on Stages in Yoga, much less solved, in isolation from the Universe Dr. Gopinath speaks of three large steps: " In of which he is a part and from the Reality of lowest stage of spiritual perfection, Yoga is the which he is an emanation. Each form in the uni• withdrawal of the senses from the external world verse is a spark of the Divine Reality and as such and their convergence on the mind. Ascending a partakes of the character of that Reality in step higher up, one would find it in the suspen• essence. To evolve progressively in consciousness sion of the modalities of the mind itself and its and corresponding form so as to ultimately mani• consequent unity, as it were, with the individual fest overtly what it contains within itself is thd self, from which it appears as distinct only destiny of each individual unit. through its workings. When the mind ceases to How this evolution of man proceeds in Nature be active its distinctness as an entity vanishes and how it can be speeded up by enlightened altogether — As soon as the artificial barrier 1967 BOOK REVIEWS 245 raised between the higher and the lower self is will write a full-length biography of this love- demolished the Pure Self emerges as a radiant able, heroic and yet so tantalisingly mysterious and eternally self-aware existence of Joy in which Teacher. the two aspects of its being appear as united in JOHN SPIERS. an eternal embrace of ineffable sweetness. This is Yoga in the truest sense of the word." (P. 117) SHINING HARVEST : By M. P. Pandit (Ganesh A book for reference and serious study. and Co., Madras, pp. 289, price Rs. 10/-). : M. P. PANDIT. Mr. Pandit is well known to all students of spiritual teaching through his various writings, CHATTAMBI SWAMIGAL — The Great Scholar- especially on Yoga and Tantra. He is also a proli- Saint of , a short biography : By K. P. K. fie reviewer of books on religion and culture and Menon (published by P. G. Narayana Pillai, as such shows extensive learning and sound Perumbavur, Kerala, pp. 70, price Re. 1/-). judgment.

Though brief, this is a most welcome booklet The present book is a collection of his recent about a Yogi and Guru whose open absolutist reviews divided into three sections, on yoga, ways, marvellous endowments, freedom from con• philosophy and mysticism. The variety of topics ventions, deep mystical and scholastic learning raised makes for interesting reading, and indeed, and extraordinary psychic attainments (siddhis) but for the author's reviews some of the books were all the more remarkable when we consider might have remained comparatively obscure. The the Cimmerian darkness of the Travancore (he reviews on the Tripura Rahasya, the Yoga was born at Kollur on the outskirts of Trivan- Vasishta and the Pratyabhijna system are fairly drum) of his time (1853-1924). detailed and give the lay reader some funda•

Like the author, I am inevitably drawn to the mental ideas about these works. Those on Tibetan parallel case of Narayana Guru (1854-1928), who Yoga and the Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism was not only Chattambi Swami's contemporary, are thought-provoking, and whether the Hindu but his close companion and his sishya in the Tantras were derived from the Buddhist, as Lama transmission of esoteric wisdom. How two such Govinda , or the other way round, spiritual giants emerged out of such an environ• Mr. Pandit succeeds in making us understand in ment is baffling without some theory of Grace. broad outline the characteristics of Tibetan mysti• cism. I well remember, on my first visit to Travan• core, only thirty-five years ago, how hard it was Even a casual reading of this book will take to get even a glass of water in some parts of the reader through a variety of systems and this caste-ridden domain. Chattambi Swami beliefs, familiar or obscure. The book is well got up, like all ' Ganesh' publications, and is well ignored it completely, and took food from Ezhavas worth acquiring. although this was scandalous in the Nair tribe to which he was affiliated. He and Narayana PROF. S. RAJAGOPALA SASTRI. Guru split open the theocratic prison of south Kerala and let in the light of spirituality by the application of advaita. By their efforts and deep ASK A POTATO: By Paul Reps, pp. 16, price Scholarship in Sanskrit and Tamil they were $. 1.00. (Published by the author at Paanilo, able to prove their case for the sameness of Hawaii 96776.) human beings. The pretensions of the Brahmins were shattered. Although this had its social reps is ripping, results, the cause was definitely the spiritual style staccato, figures gripping, principles involved. well-boiled, well-oiled, spiced and garnished, This booklet breathes the wonder of the salted to taste, absolute. When we read of this great Yogi's nothing to waste, intimacy with ants and snakes, his power over to be munched and masticated, mad dogs and tigers and his love for the whole not swallowed in haste of life, we are transported into the realm of the everything we ought to know luminous which Gita extols in II. 29. from editor A.O. Everyone interested in the lives of those who is seen to grow have followed the way of the Absolute will on this Potato. welcome this booklet and hope that Dr. Menon K.S. 246 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

MISREPRESENTATION (2)

" Sri Ramana Maharshi, it is said, created a (1) spiritual heart, seated on his right side, while the natural one lay to the left." From ' Kriya Yoga' The April issue of Mother India contains a of Yogoda Satsangha (India) by M. S. Rama- lengthy and appreciative account of the life and krishna, p. 95 of 'The Brahmavadin', April 1967. teaching of Sri Ramana Maharshi. Unfortunately, however, the writer of it has fallen into the so The Maharshi did not create an additional heart common mistake of regarding the experience of for himself; he taught that in everybody the Self-enquiry that came to him spontaneously when spiritual heart is at the right arid is different he was a youth of seventeen as the beginning only from the physical heart at the left. of His quest. " A moment of eternity had touched him and turned him into a seeker of light beyond MISREPRESENTATION ? life and. death." On the contrary, the quest had In our issue of July 1966 we reviewed a trans• , been consummated in that one experience leaving lation of 'The Surangama Sutra' by Charles Luk. him no longer a seeker but permanently immersed We have since been informed that this is not the in the "Light beyond,life and death". real Surangama Sutra but what Etienne Lamotte

- Another mistake may be the fault of injudicious in his annotated French translation of the latter cutting by an editor. After describing the death published at Louvain in 1965 refers to as an of the Maharshi's mother in 1922, the article eon* apocryphal Chinese work composed in the 8th Century A.D., probably by a Court official of the tinues: " The Maharshi was not yet seventy but Empress Wu of the T'ang Dynasty. looked much more aged." This sentence, taken from Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self* Not being competent to verify this, we forward• Knowledge, by Arthur Osborne, refers not to 1922, ed the statement to the translator, Charles Luk when his mother left this life, but to 1950, when on January 23rd this year, asking him if he would he died! In 1922 he was in quite robust middle care to make any comment or rejoinder but our age. letter remained unanswered.

" You and I "

By G. N. Daley

Mind, Body or consciousness — Change like a body or mind ? Which of these are you ? O, Changeless one, O, Self alone, Which of these is the changeless Being, Bliss and Consciousness. God, Self, Guru ? O Changeles One, O Self alone, Body mind and consciousness — Being, Bliss and Consciousness. Two are not and one is, all! O, come sweet Self, Guru, God — no less Be the perceiver's Perceiver Than 'I' shall be my all. And thus deceive the deceiver. O ! Changeless one, O, Self alone ! How can the One Who is changeless Being, Bliss and Consciousness. 1967 247

KUMBHABHISHEKAM CELEBRATED

A THRILLING FULFILMENT!

It is traditional for a Spiritual Master to be buried, not cremated. According to the general wish of the devotees, Sri Maharshi was buried south of the Old Hall, between the Old Hall and the Temple. A simple bamboo structure with a palm-leaf matting roof was erected over the grave. The Vedas continued to be chanted there, morning and evening, as they had been in his presence before, followed by Puja. Devotees used to sit around the shrine. The Ashram had no large or regular income and it was not until 1962 that it was found possible to start work on the permanent shrine. Even then the work slowly, not only because of shortage of funds, but also because the stone-carving is highly skilled work done by master-craftsmen. Despite this, however, the main central structure was ready by July 1964, as may be seen from the photographs in our issue of that date. There was a minimum of dust and noise, as the stones were shaped and carved at a distance and only brought to the site to be hoisted into place. Nevertheless, it was found advisable to transfer the chanting and pujas temporarily to some other place. Accordingly a special rite was performed deconsecrating the shrine and transferring its influence to a temporary structure, Balalaya, in the New Hall. Devotees have been eagerly looking forward to the opening and re-consecration of the actual shrine and the resumption of pujas there. This was at last found possible on June 18th this year.

The Sri Ramaneswara Mahalinga Kumbhabhi- brahmins and assembled vidwans, accompanied by shekam ceremonies celebrated at Sri Ramanasra• mantras, to perform the religious portions of the mam started on the 14th June. The Ashram Pre• above ceremonies. After this, pooja was done to sident and his wife acted as the Yajamanas (pre• Ganesha, the Initiator of enterprises, and the Lord siding hosts). The ceremonies started with of construction, Vastu Purusha. The worship mangala vadyam (nagaswaram) and with anujna, included the Vastu Homam, i.e. offering of several i.e. formal permission was taken from thebhaktas, things through fire to the Vastu Purusha. After 248 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July the Vastu Pooja comes a major function called the was performed after midnight on the 16th/17th, Rakshokhana Homam, which is performed to dis-} at 1 o'clock. pel all the asuric forces which may surround the When the construction of the Vimana over the premises of the Ashram and try to create loop• tomb of Sri Ramana Bhagavan was begun the holes in the proper performance of the various power in the Ramaneswara Mahalinga was with• ceremonies of the Kumbhabhishekam. It is a very drawn by special mantras and was transferred to peculiar ceremony. A fire-brand is taken all and located temporarily in a place called Balalaya, round the premises of the Ashram with a nourish in the front Hall of the Mathrubutheswara Temple of trumpets, followed by the chanting of mantras on 6th June, 1962. Poojas were performed and and symbolizes the creation of a sort of a cordon Vedas chanted there all these days. The cere• of fire all round the Ashram, keeping out all evil mony by which this transference was made is forces. called Kalanyasum. During the Ghatasthapana The 15th of. June was an off-day, it being an ceremony this linga in the Balalaya was carried inauspicious day (masa thyajyam). over to the Yaga Sala, the powers therein being The 16th saw the _ beginning of the ceremony invoked into the earth, water and fire, worshipped proper. It started with Ganesha Pooja followed in the Yaga Sala. This is called the Ghatastha• by Go Poojai (worship of the cow), Gaja Pjooja pana. Sacred waters from various rivers like the (worship of the elephant), and Dhana Popja Ganga and Yamuna, were poured into the Ghatas (worship of all the materials required for the (decorated brass pots). consecration ceremony). Thereafter the performance of Pooja at the * * * Balalaya stopped. In the evening, as a part of the Seminar arrang• ed for in this connection, Sri Krishna Bhikshu On the 17th morning the necessary Poojas were spoke in Telugu on 'The Ramana I worship', Sri performed before all the five pedestals established Viswanathan presiding. The lecturer tried to in the Yaga Sala. In the evening, Sri Krishna explain the rationale of the Kumbhabhishekam Bhikshu presiding, Sri R. K. Viswanatha Iyer, ceremony. retired Professor of Physics at Annamalai Uni• * * * versity, addressed the audience on ' Ramana as seen by a Scientist'. After the night meal the purohits went around in a ceremonial manner for Mrut-Sangrahanam. * * * Afterwards at 5-30 p.m. the Ramaneswara It may be explained in this connection that the Linga was taken out with due ritual from Divine powers are invoked into the three elements the Yaga Sala and finally restored to its mentioned in the Veda: earth, water and fire. original place on the tomb of Sri Bhagavan where• The power of the earth is to produce and sustain on a twin-faced lotus pedestal in white marble all creation, and the creative aspect of energy had been installed as the support of the sacred is worshipped by collecting selected earth in nine Linga. Precious stones of nine varieties were put parts dedicated to nine griha-devatas, in which in the socket of the lotus and were covered by a the seeds of nine dhanyas (different ) are gold plate on which was engraved the sacred made to sprout. These seedlings are put in water Pranava (OM). On this the Sri Ramaneswara stored in kvtimbhas (pots) which have been wor• Mahalinga was firmly fixed by a special cement shipped along with mantras, i.e. the creative prepared in the traditional way (ashtabundana power of the earth is added to the water stored marundu). This Linga will not be removed from in the pots. There were five such pots in a row here any more and will be worshipped for ever on the pedestals specially erected in the pictures• at this place. que Yaga Sala, beautifully decorated. Water in The final ceremony took place on June 18th each of them is sanctified by the power of the before dawn. The purohits began worship in the mantras. Before each pedestal there is a Homa Yaga Sala and separately, to the west of the Kunda (sacrificial pit) where fire is worshipped office room, the Sthapathi or architect, Sri S. K, by offering several articles for the devas. In this Achary, began his Sthapatya Homam before a ceremony Ramana Maheswara, Mathrubutheswara, specially constructed pedestal, on which the Yogambika, Sri Chakra and the Pariwaru Deva- Kalasa (dome-pinnacle in copper) to be establish• thas were worshipped on five different decorated ed on the Vimana of Sri Ramaneswara Mantapa pedestals.

After the Mrut-sangrahanam and planting of i It will be seen throughout this account that the word ' worship' has not the meaning it ordi• nine types of seeds, called Ankurarpanam, the narily bears in English. There is no exact equi• Ghatasthapana (installation of the sacred pots) valent. THE SHRINE OF GRACE AND BLISS Reconsecrated

The Shrine of Peace, SRI RAMANESWARA MAHALINGA, as it is worshipped now at Sri Ramana Mantapa.

The Holy Waters, into which the spirits of the shrines, have been prayerfully received, taken out in procession to the Yaga Sala. KUMBHABHISHEKAM

A group photo taken over the Mantap after the abhisheka on the Gopura (tower). CEREMONY—

Thousands of devotees felt the presiding Presence of Sri Maharshi during the procession. RAMAN A PICTORIAL SOUVENIR" Released

Lt. Governor of Pondicherry, Sri S. L. Silam, addressed the devotees after releasing the " Ramana Pictorial SouvenirMr. Osborne and Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan also spoke. Dr. T. N. Krishnaswami gave a vote of thanks.

(L to R) Dr. T. N. Krishnaswami, Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan, Mr. Osborne, Sri S. L. Silam, Lt. Governor of Pondicherry, and Sri T. N. Venkataraman, President of the Ashram. 1967 ASHRAM BULLETIN 249 was worshipped in the ritualistic way. Kumbha• presided while Sri Swami Chidanandaji, Presi• bhishekam literally means pouring the sanctified dent of the Divine Life Society, Rishikesh, exhort, water on the Linga which is said to be the ed the audience in an English speech to constant Sukshma (subtle) Linga and on the Kalasa endeavour on the spiritual path. Afterwards established on the Vimana, which is said to be Ekadasa-rudrabhisnekam was done to the Sthula (gross) Linga ; the Karana (causal) Linga Sri Ramaneswara Mahalinga, which is called the being a mere mental conception is worshipped in Mahabhishekam. This was followed by Sahasra- mind only. These three things are the pratikas nama Pooja, which lasted upto 10-30 in the night. (icons) into which the Divine Power that was * * * manifested through the sacred body of Sri On the 15th and 16th, Sri Krishna Bhagavathar Bhagavan descends to be worshipped by devotees of Bangalore, a well-known devotee of Sri for their spiritual and other benefits. Ramana, regaled the audience with a Kalakshepam After the Sthapathya Homam the Kalasa was on ' Tukaram' on the first day and on ' Sri carried in a big procession to the ecstasy of all Ramana' on the second. On the 17th, after the assembled to the top of the Vimana of Rama• lectures, Sri Purisai Murugesa Mudaliar gave a neswara Maha Mantapa and finally fixed there, discourse on ' Bhakta Markandeya '. Meanwhile, the sacred waters in the three Kum- * * * bhas on pedestals set apart for worship in the The elaborate programme chalked out for the Yaga Sala for Yogambika, Sri Chakra and Pari- four-day celebration of the Kumbhabhishekam wara Devathas were carried into the Mathru• was carried out meticulously in every detail, and butheswara Temple through a consecrated path, the whole function came to a very successful cordoned off by ropes, and the abhishekas were conclusion. There was an immense crowd of done for the three entities. The final acts of devotees. A happy and friendly atmosphere pre• consecration, pouring the sacred waters on the vailed throughout. Sri Ramaneswara Mahalinga, on Mathrubuthes• wara Linga and on the Kalasas on the Vimanas For the first time since the lifetime of Sri of the two shrines were done between 7-30 and Bhagavan the crowd was so great that the spacious 8-30 a.m. and this finally closed the ceremonies. Ashram dining hall was inadequate and it was * * # necessary to serve meals under a pandal erected over the open space in between the flower-garden At! 10 a.m. a meeting was held in the front Hal] and dining hall. The handling of the large crowd of the Mathrubutheswara Temple with Sri S. L, for meals was most efficient, more so than on Silam, Lt. Governor of Pondicherry presiding. The previous occasions, and for this we, have to thank Lt. Governor was received at the Ashram by the among others, two devotees, Hugo Maier and Sai President, Sri T. N. Venkataraman and Trustees, Das. Apart from the regular meals served, there Messrs. T. S. Bhathirajalam Pillai, K. Srinivasa- wasi also large-scale feeding of the poor. This was chari, K. Padmanabhan, and B. S. Ranganadham, possible largely owing to the generous contribu• Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan, Padma Shri, addressed tions of several devotees from Nellore district the gathering on Advaita Vedanta as expounded who sent rice and paddy for the purpose. We by Sri Shankara and Sri Ramana. Sri Osborne should also gratefully mention the following then spoke, declaring that the Kumbhabhishekam donations in kind by the devotees : silver articles will be the starting point of a new and glorious for Deeparadhana by Smt. T. R. Kanakamma epoch in the life of Sri Ramanasramam, (Ramana Nagar), Rani of Peddapavani (Madras) Sri Silam, then released the ' RAMANA PICTORIAL and Mrs. T. N. Venkataraman ; pooja vessels in SOUVENIR ', published by the Ashram in com• brass from K. Subrahmanyam, (Nagapattinam) memoration of the Kumbhabhishekam, containing and oil lamp from N. R. Krishnamoorthy Iyer, many rare photos of Sri Bhagavan, and also (Madurai) ; and flowers, , honey and various selected utterances of his and a number of spe• other articles were donated by several devotees, cially written articles. It is priced at Rs. 7.50 who usually offer such things year after year on (plus postage) or £ 0-15-0/$ 2.25 (postage free). special occasions.

In the afternoon Brahma Sri Kumaraswami The benevolent, presiding Presence of Sri Dikshitar of Kanjeevaram, a well-known agama Bhagavan was felt throughout. The beauty of the pundit, explained the Ramana-tattwa in a beauti• Ramana Mantap in every detail, from Gopura to ful Tamil speech. Sri Om Sadhu, a devotee of polished pillars, created awe and wonder in the Sri Bhagavan, then conducted a bhajan. There• thousands of people who assembled for tha after a meeting was held at which Sri Osborne occasion. 250 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

Messages wishing the function a success were of the good old days, when we gathered round the received from hundreds of devotees and officials : Master, like planets round the sun, to be illumined H. H. Sri Shankaracharya Swamiji of Puri, Mother by his radiance and enjoy of his presence. Rama Devi, Mangalore, Mother Krishna Bai, Anandashram, The President of India, Ex-Presi• Above all, going round the old familiar parts of dent of India, Vice President of India, The Prime the Ashram I grew reminiscent of the historic asso• Minister and Dy. Prime Minister of India, ciation of every one of them. There is not a spot Governors of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, where he has not set his foot, or left his mark. Madras and Kerala States; Speaker, Parliament The place where his sacred body lies buried is in of India, Sri Bishnuram Medhi, ex-Governor of fact the most memorable, at least to me. It was Madras. the identical spot where he received me on 3rd February, 1936, when I arrived and first set eyes Among the distinguished visitors were: H. H. on him. It was his seat where he used to receive Sri Swami Chidanandaji, President, Divine Life people and also take his meals for a number of Society, Rishikesh, Lt. Governor, Sri S. L. Silam, years before the present spacious dining hall was Pondicherry, Sri Janaki Matha and her party from Tanjore, Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan, J. V. Somaya- built in 1937-38. The present enclosed area of the julu and family from Madras; Vishnupant K. Samadhi was then a dining room adjoining a small Kadav, K. Gopala Rao and K. K. Nambiar kitchen. from Bombay ; Dr. S. Nath with his family, from Most of the several thousand devotees who at• Banaras; H. R. Chadha from Calcutta; Satya- tended the Kumbhabhishekam on 18th June, were narayan Tandon and his brother from Kanpur • new faces to me. A large number, it is true, were A. R. Natarajan and family from New Delhi; old devotees who used to visit the Ashram off and Dr. W. Radhakrishnayya from Pakala ; A. Dwarak-* on in the life-time of Sri Bhagavan. They came nath Reddi and family from Chittoor ; Bangalore and went without being noticed by the resident Krishna Bhagavathar; Smt. Suri Nagamma from disciples, flitting in and out as circumstances per• Vijayawada. mitted.

* * * On the whole the celebration was most success• ful : the organisation was splendid, the crowd THE MOST MEMORABLE EVENT orderly and full of devotion, and the vaidiks at We will end our account of the Kumbhabhishekam their best. The function was high-lighted by the by quoting the impression it made on one of the publication of the Si RAMANA PICTORIAL SOUVENIR " old devotees, that is S. S, COHEN, whom we intro• on that day. This contains more than 80 photo• duced to our readers in the previous issue. graphs of the Master in various postures and with * ^ * varied expressions, most of them previously un• published. It has also a large number of short For a number of years I have been staying away articles by devotees in praise and reminiscences of from the annual celebrations of Sri Ramanasramam. him. Although the negatives were old, the photo• Advancing age after regular attendance for more graphs had, with great care, been made clear than a quarter of a century appeared excuse enough (without sacrificing fidelity) to be medi• enough. But the Kumbhabhishekam or consecration tated on. of the shrine over the Samadhi of Sri Bhagavan was an obligation and a pleasure. First of all it Although the physical presence is absent I fqlt is for the Samadhi of my Guru; secondly it is an the Master's influence the moment I stepped into event which sanctifies to eternity one of the holiest the Ashram, A POWERFUL, PERVADING PRESENCE.

places on earth. Bhagavan shines no less splendidly in his teach•

Sri Ramana Maharshi was not an ordinary tea- ing, for in this age none has been more recondite cher, but an embodiment of Absolute Truth, so yet transparently lucid than he. His theme is the that it is in the fitness of things that his devotees theme of life, the theme of the universe, namely should perpetuate his Samadhi, the very heart of EXISTENCE, which he also calls HEART or SELF. his Ashram, as a place of pilgrimage for those who Man is Self, God is Self, Time is Self, the Uni• follow him. verse is Self — ALL SELF.

So I attended and was fully rewarded. A number The Mandukya Upanishad, anticipating Shankara of my old friends and co-disciples I found still and Bhagavan by two thousand years or more, alive and happy at our reunion, in remembrance begins with : 1967 ASHRAM BULLETIN 251

"AUM is all this. All that is past, present and The Lt. Governor of Pondicherry, Sri Sayaji future is truly AUM. Silam and his wife were the chief guests. So is also AUM that which lies beyond the A portrait of Sri Maharshi was positioned in triple concept of time. front of the Samadhi Mantapam which was almost All this truly Brahman: this Atman (Self) complete and, after the religious rituals in is Brahman." ' Balalaya' devotees congregated in front of the Here we are face to face with the absolute Samadhi and paid their silent homage to truth : man, God and universe are the one, same Bhagavan. In keeping with the usual tradition, the guests and only Reality. were invited to lunch and poor feeding was con• $ * * ducted on the usual scale. It was the largest SEVENTEENTH ARADHANA Aradhana gathering there has yet been. The large The seventeenth anniversary of Sri Maharshi's dining hall was packed to capacity. There was a Maha-Nirvana was celebrated on the 7th May. A very friendly and cheerful atmosphere. large gathering of devotees assembled for the Among the hundreds who participated in the occasion. function were the trustees of the Ashram, The celebrations commenced with the chanting Dr. T. N. Krishnaswami (former Trustee) and of ' Arunachala Stuti' at 5 a.m., followed by iTramjee Dorabjee from Madras, Mrs. Brigette, 'Ramana Sadguru Stuti'. The usual Puja with Sundin from France, Sister Diana and Kameswara the chanting of Upanishads, Rudra, Ghamaka, Rao from Pondicherry, Mrs. Soona Nicolson of Purusha Sukta, etc., culminating in the chanting Bombay, Messrs K. Ramaswami and T. R. G, of Sri Maharshi's Sahasranamam (The Thousand Krishnan from Bangalore and Smt. Nagamma (a Names), and Maha Mangalarathi was performed number of whose ' Letters from Ramanashram ' at 11-30 a.m. we have published) from Andhra.

AT BOMBAY i

17th Anniversary Celebration of the Mahanirvana of Sri Bhagavan was celebrated by the Bombay Jayanthi Celebration Committee, at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay on 13th May 1967. Sri Swami Akhandananda Saraswati presided and Mr. Justice Gordhandas A. Thakker was the Chief Guest (third and second from right, respectively). 252 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

AT PALAKOL SEMINAR

On 14th April, the Mahanirvanothsavam of We are planning to hold a seminar on the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi was celebrated theme The Basic Unanimity of the Religions in in the house of Sri Sarrar Narasimharao in the December with Dr. T. M. P. Mahadevan, Head of presence of a large gathering of Bhaktas. the Philosophy Department of Madras University, presiding. Jayanthi is on December 19th and the At 8 a.m., Rudrabhishekam and Sahasranama seminar will be from the 20th to the 22nd inclu• Puja to Bhagavan was performed. Later on sive, so that Jayanthi visitors who are interested Upadesa Saram of Bhagavan was read and can stay over. All participants are invited to stay explained to all those present. as Ashram guests. No paper should be longer than Theertha prasadams were distributed to all who eight folio pages typed in double spacing or last attended the function. longer than half an hour. The papers will be followed by discussions. Invitations will be sent VISITORS out. Any one else wishing to give a paper should notify the Ashram and send a copy of his paper We had a short but interesting visit from before the end of November. Mr. Rudkin, export manager of Hutchinson, the parent firm of Rider & Co., London who are pub• LIFE MEMBERS AND CONTRIBUTORS lishers of The Collected Works of the Maharshi and also of Arthur Osborne's Ramana Maharshi It has become our practice to print our ever• and the Path of Self-Knowledge. It was a useful growing list of life members of the Ashram and as well as a pleasant new contact. life contributors to The Mountain Path only once * * * a year, in our January issue. However, this time

Terry Nicoll left for England and professional we have decided to print a mid-year list also, work after spending six months here. We wish since the list needs some re-arranging and there him well in his new chapter of life. have been quite a number of new additions to it.

THE MOUNTAIN PATH Dr. Mahadeva Iyer has been a frequent visitor here for some years past, with his American wife Our next issue will be devoted to the ETHICAL Cynthia. They have now left for America, where BASIS OF THE SPIRITUAL QUEST. The first Dr. Iyer is taking up a job at Los Angeles. May two in 1968 are to be on SACRED POETRY. Bhagavan's Grace be with them. After that we are changing our system. * * * NEW YORK Mrs. Douglas (' Kitty' to the older devotees) and her daughter Aruna were here again on a In our last issue we spoke of the founding of a visit, staying with the Editor. centre in New York, that is the ' Arunachala * * * Ashrama,' Bhagavan Sri Ramana Center, Inc., 78 St. Mark's Place, New York City, N.Y. 10003 Another visitor who has now left us is Ronald Its chief organiser, Arunachala Bhakta Bhagawat, Hodges from Nairobi, whose photo appeared in now writes in a spirit of ecstatic faith and devo• our previous issue. tion of the fervent little group who congregate * * * there and the many visitors who are drawn there and respond, some more, some less, to the Grace Dr. Vaidyanathan is a Tamil doctor with a and teaching of Bhagavan. He writes : flourishing practice in Bombay. He was helpful and hospitable to Mr. and Mrs. Osborne when " We come to the Ashram in the late afternoon they were there in January. He made a pilgrimage and hold the chanting and meditation and read• of the holy places of South India by car with his ing from 7 p.m. and conclude the meditation by wife and his younger brother, coming first to sharing prasadam. The Ashram hall faces north Sri Ramanashram. Dr. Vaidyanathan came here and between the two windows we have enthroned more than once in the lifetime of Bhagavan and a large picture of Bhagavan and burn incense has been a subscriber to The Mountain Path from and offer flowers and fruit. the outset. His brother, who holds a position in " In the hall there are two rugs on the floor Bangkok, became our first subscriber from and we all sit on them with the help of cushions. Thailand. There are about ten chairs also, placed along the 1967 ASHRAM BULLETIN 253 wall, so that those not used to squatting on the In the Hours of Silence by Swami Omkar floor can avail themselves of them. We play a Aspects of Indian Thought by Mahamahopadhyaya gramophone record of the Vedic chants and the Gopinath Kaviraj songs of Bhagavan that are chanted and sung at Ramana Maharshi, The Mystic of Arunachala by the Ashram at Tiruvannamalai. There is no M. D. Sagane charge for visitors or devotees and we depend The Mystic World by M. D. Sagane entirely on voluntary contributions. The Fateful Seven by M. D. Sagane , The Man and His Mission " I find that all along Bhagavan has been widely

by Sanat Kumar Rai Chaudhury ( read in New York City. Now and then he sends Conversations on Spirit Divine, Parts I and II, by us evidence of his Grace. Some! one drops in and Swami Vishadananda tells us that he has been following Bhagavan for Spiritual Science by Swami Vishadananda some time but never before found a centre entire* Square Sun, Square Moon by Paul Reps ly devoted to him. There are many of his devotees Self-Culture by I. K. Taimni right here in New York City, but we have no India in the Ramayana Age by S. N. Vyas means of reaching them. Gradually the news The Status of Women in the Epics by S. Jayal spreads. We are a very small ashram and it will Baruch Spinoza, Letters to Friend and Foe edited take a good deal of time before wider circles are drawn in. Almost every day Bhagavan shows ua by Dagobert D. Reeves in one way or another that what is needed is Meaning for Man by Rollin Chambliss steadfast faith and devotion to him. Whoever Katha Upanishad; Samkhya Point of View by comes here and sits in Bhagavan's spiritual Pre• Dr. Anima Sen Gupta sence experiences peace and happiness. Many A Panorama of by R. C, such experiences have been related to us by com• Pandeya pletely new visitors." The Concept of Man, A Study in Comparative Philosophy compiled by S. Radhakrishnan . With the Grace of Bhagavan this centre will and P. T. Raju flourish and expand. We send them our sincere The Psychoanalytic Revolution by Marthe Robert good wishes. Confucianism by F. C. Hshu * # * Gayatri Rahasya by Shri Prabhu Ashrit Swamiji THE MOUNTAIN PATH LIBRARY Kalidasa, His Style and his Times by S. A. Sabnia Kalidasa, A People's Poet, by G. H. Rao NEW ADDITIONS Mystic Approach to the Veda and the Upanishad A Study in Kierkegaardian Aesthetics, The First by M. P. Pandit Sphere, by A. G. George Nilakantha Brahmachari Kuladananda by Brahma- Sense, Understanding and Reason, A Digest of chari Gangananda Kant's First Critique by N. A. Nikam. A Study of Alexander's Space, Time and Deity A Critical Study of Aurobindo by L. G, Chincholkar by S. R. Dasgupta Religion in a Changing World by S. Radha• Five Approaches to Philosophy by A. Jamal krishnan Khwaja Shinto, At the Fountain-Head of Japan by Jean Ancient Indian Culture Contacts and Migrations Herbert by K. P. Chattopadhyay Neo-upanishadic Philosophy by K. V. Gajen- The Yoga-System of Patanjali by James Houghton dragadkar Woods Patanjali Yoga Sutras by Swami Vasantananda Bhagavad Gita and Modern Life by K. M. Munshi The Yogavasishta and its Philosophy by B. L, Bhakti Yoga by Asvini Kumar Datta Atreya Flaming Faith by Yogi Raushan Nath The Religion of the Jainas by Walter Schaubring, The Idealist Theory of Value by Apala Chakra- translated from the German by Amulya* varti chandra Sen and T. C. Barke Logical Positivism as a theory 'of meaning by The Soul of Omkar by Swami Omkar Sachindranath Ganguly Cosmic Flashes by Swami Omkar Ask a Potato by Paul Reps 254 Juhj I NT R OP U C I NG

BHAGAVAN'S ATTENDANTS

Devotees who came to the Ashram for medi• tation and functionaries who served in the Ashram fell into two distinct categories. A third category were the personal attendants of Bhagavan. He was very particular about cleanli• ness. They swept the hall several times a day and arranged the couch, daily covering it with a clean cloth. Especially in the later years, when his knees were swollen with rheumatism and it was feared that he might fall, one of them accom• panied him wherever he went.

The attendants were all men, mostly unmarried, since such could reside in the Ashram and be more constantly available, and were drawn from all sociahclassesand all the states of South India. Their way of life is well described in the follow• ing passage by Kunjw Swami, one of them whom we introduced to our readers . separately in April 1966.

• "Bhagavan used to sleep on the sofa in the hall while I and a few other attendants used to sleep on the floor near it. Regularly at half past three in the morning Bhagavan used to get up and go out for his ablutions. As soon as he got up from the sofa one of us would give him the torch which was kept for his use. But not once was it necessary for Bhagavan to call us by name or wake us up and ask for the torch. The moment he got up,we also used to wake up without any there was distraction even in this, one should Special effort on our part. Bhagavan's look in our recite stotras (verse from the scriptures). In this direction produced a sense of brilliant light in manner one would be engaged continuously in us and we used to wake up at once. Bhagavan practising one of these four means. I accepted never ordered his servants about. He preferred to these words as an upadesa and have ever since do everything for himself, but the attendants been devoutly practising the above sadhanas." would always anticipate his wishes and do what This long line of attendants begins with was necessary." Palaniswami, who was indeed the first devotee to attach himself permanently to Bhagavan after . Bhagavan watched constantly over their he came as a youthful Sage to Tiruvannamalai. Sadhana. Kunju Swami goes on to say, " I once There was no Ashram, no organisation; Palani• asked Bhagavan's permission to live outside the swami simply showed his devotion by performing Ashram and to devote all my time to spiritual such services as he could. He was a Malayali and practices. I said I was not completely satisfied had difficulty in reading Tamil, and it was large• with .doing service. To this he replied that real ly for his sake that Bhagavan became learned in service was not the washing of his clothes, etc., Tamil texts in order to explain to him. He but that it lay in the cleaning of one's mind. As remained with Bhagavan till his (Palaniswami's) for spiritual practices, he said that one should death at the end of the Virupaksha Cave period. practise self-enquiry. When one found it tiring, one should practise dhyana or concentration. Palaniswami was succeeded by Aiyasami When this became difficult one should practise ideal Sadhu and devotee, very often remembered japa (repetition of sacred words or names). If and spoken of by Sri Bhagavan. Many a time he 1967 INTRODUCING 255 used to bring things from town which the years he died at Kumbakonam while staying with devotees wanted but had forgotten to ask him some devotees of Bhagavan. for when he went. When asked how he happened After him came a group of attendants, Satya-> to bring just those things, he would say " some• nanda, who was Malayali, Venkataratnam who was how it occurred to me ". It was next to a miracle Telugu, and the following Tamilians: Krishna* and even Bhagavan used to join in admiration swami, Sivanandaswami, Vaikuntavasar and with the others. Aiyasami was in Sri Bhagavan's Annamalaiswami. For some years, a Tamil married service for four or five years. man Rajagopalan, used to serve Bhagavan as an He was succeeded by Kunju Swami (already attendant, while his family lived in a house out• mentioned) and Ramakrishna Swami. Both came side the Ashram. After some time, finding it at about the same time while Bhagavan was still difficult to support his family, he decided to leave at Skandashram and continued to serve him Tiruvannamalai and take a job. in the present Sri Ramanasramam. After some Annamalai Swami is now in Pelakothu, the time Kunju Swami began to live outside the small Sadhu's colony just west of the Ashram. Ashram though an inmate for all practical pur• poses. He brought Madhava Swami to serve Venkataratnam, an impressive, bearded figure, Bhagavan before he left the Ashram. Ramakrishna travels around. He spends a part of each year at Swami was taken by the Sarvadhikari, Niranjana^ the Ashram here. nanda Swami, to assist him in the management Satyananda Swami first came to Bhagavan in of the Ashram. 1938 in Virupaksha Cave. Both there and, later on Madhava Swami was a very devoted attendant in Skandashram he performed service ; but it was in his service to Sri Bhagavan, but after some only in the present Ashram, in 1946, that he

(L to R) Sadhu Rangaswami, Swami Satyananda, T. P. Ramachandra Iyer, Venkataratnam, Ramakrishnaswami, , Sivanandaswami. 256 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

became a permanent attendant. He has given us which Bhagavan was, turned into a statue the following account of the Mahanirvana. instantaneously."

" After one operation there was profuse bleed• Satyananda Swami is still living here. After ing from the body of Bhagavan. There was a big the Mahanirvana he was put in charge of the crowd outside the New Hall but none were little 'Nirvana Boom' where it happened and allowed inside. I was very moved and, shedding also of the Ashram Library. For twelve years he tears, told Bhagavan that it was painful to see observed mouna, but he broke it on a Maha• such suffering. Bhagavan was absolutely uncon• nirvana anniversary and is now speaking again.

cerned about his condition and said " What Krishnaswami went away for some years after suffering ? All is Bliss." the Mahanirvana but he is now back at the " I was blessed to be near Bhagavanj during the Ashram. He is acting as caretaker at Mahanirvana. At 6 that day, we massaged Bha- Skandashram. gavan's legs. At 6-30 Bhagavan wished to sit The other former attendants also, if not per• upright so we helped him into that posture. Then manently resident are often seen here. started the chanting of Arunachala Akshara There are others also who, though not full- Mana Malai (" The Marital Garland of Letters ") time attendants, often performed personal ser• by the devotees outside the Nirvana Room. There vices for Bhagavan out of love and the joy of were profuse tears from Bhagavan though there serving him. Such are Sri T. P. Ramachandra was no change in the expression on his face. It Aiyar, Viswanathan, Dr. M. R. Krishnamurthy was such an immense outflow that Dr. T. N. Iyer, Dr. Srinivasa Rao, Dr. Shankar Rao, Krishnaswami asked me to wipe the tears away. and the late Dr. Ananta Narayana Rao, the first I did so, but it would not stop. This continued two of whom have been introduced to our readers. till 8. I was asked, to give a little water and fruit Mention should also be made in this connection juice to Bhagavan which I did with the aid of a of his barber, Natesan who had the task • of 'spoon. shaving the Maharshi's head and beard every " The most thrilling moment was the physical full moon day. He completed 25 years of ser• demise of Bhagavan. There was no physical vice with his last shave of Sri Bhagavan. He movement of any kind, no visible change, not is still residing here and is still the Ashram even a flutter. It was as if the human frame in barber.

Glance of Grace*

by Sri Muruganar Let us meditate on Ramana, Take and hold your fill. The Teacher of Reality Approach him freely, Who dwells within my inmost self Minds and hands wide open. As I, as I, Drink to your heart's content. Bringing in full measure Defeated and frustrated, do not reel The joy of silence Beneath Fate's blows. Ending the delusive pride Turn your eyes, your thoughts Of a divided self's self-love. Towards those sovereign Feet In one unbroken silence let us dwell Which can transmute a devotee On the twin feet of the Guru Into Siva radiant. Glorified above all kings Like a tree which on a scorching day Because His glance of grace revealed Offers cool shade to every comer The Hill of bright Awareness By nature, not by choice, Shining in a world Troubled by darkness of desire. Even so He stands Calm, immutable, impartial, Dear devotees, avid for grace, Liking or disliking none, Our Master is an ocean, But saving all who reach His Feet.

* From " Ramana Pictorial Souvenir ". 1967 257

to the EDITOR

THE MAHARSHI'S TEACHING Practising Self-enquiry is the best training fort practising. It is not discovering anything new or (1) TWO FORMS strange outside yourself but only dwelling on the real self of you. Therefore Bhagavan said : " In I should like to know whether the Maharshi this method the final question is the only one and recommended other forms of meditation when is raised from the very beginning." He never people found difficulty with concentration on the prescribed any other introductory methods, nor heart and Self-enquiry. I believe he said : " There did he authorise any one else to.

are two ways to be followed : either ask yourself, EDITOR. ' Who am I' ? or trust in a Guru." I do not understand what he meant when he said, " Trust * * * in a Guru," inasmuch as in my case and many (3) HOW TO BEGIN? others there is not one present. JOSE ORTEGA Coco, For years I have read only about the Maharshi, Granada, Spain. Nothing else impresses me any longer. But my

The Maharshi often said: 11 There are two ways, concentration is very bad and I am afraid the ask yourself 'Who am I? * or suibmit. That means, vichara is not for beginners. It is said in Mouni either dissolve the illusion of an ego or surrender Sadhu's book on Concentration that one must first it completely to God or Guru, to Universal Being learn concentration before one can start to use or to Its conscious manifestation in human form. the vichara. That would meanj that I should have This can mean basing one's whole life entirely on to spend years learning if I were ever to master the dictum : ' Thtt/y will be done \ If it is inter• this. But is it not possible that the vichara itself preted as surrender to a Guru in human form may be the way to concentration ? Or am I not one should be very careful, because there are at all fitted for this path ? many claimants to the states of authentic and Miss OLGA GILGEN, divinely illuminated Guru, but few valid ones. Schwarzenburg, Switzerland. The Maharshi also said that it is not necessary It is quite incorrect to state that any prelimi• for the Guru to be in human form. We have nary exercises in concentration are necessary abundant evidence that, since shedding that form, before starting Self-enquiry. The Maharshi never he has mot ceased to be the Guru and to guide said so, never prescribed any such exercises and and support those who submit to him. never authorised any one to make such a state• EDITOR. ment. On the contrary, he definitely stated: " In

* * # this method the final question is the only one and is raised from the very beginning." Self-enquiry (2) WHEN TO BEGIN? teaches concentration while at the same time eliminating the ego, whereas other exercises in How does one tell when the soul is ripe to concentration do not eliminate the ego and may meditate on ' Who am I' ? even strengthen it.

MRS. C. LAMBERT, EDITOR. Sydney, N.S.W., Australia. 258 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

(4) THE MAHARSHI AND KRISHNAMURTI about the significance and importance of japa. I believe that Sri Ramana Maharshi recommended 1 request you kindly to explain the difference it to those for whom Self-enquiry was unsuitable between Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi's teach• or uncongenial. Is this so ?

ing and that of J. Krishnamurti. WILLIAM GILLESPIE, RAMANA DAS, Lanarkshire, Scotland. Dharwar, Mysore State. From time to time we will have more articles Why ? How will it help you? Not at all unless on Japa. The Maharshi seldom if ever actually you regard teaching, in the traditional Hindu way, recommended it, but when asked he gave permis• as a basis for practice. If you do, then try both. sion to use it. Anything that keeps the mind Krishnamurti tells you to follow no path and no turned calmly and one-pointedly in the right guru but just be in a state of effortless, choiceless direction is good. awareness. Well, try that first. If you can do it, EDITOR. well and good. You need nothing else; but I have never yet met any one who could. If not, * * * then the Maharshi tells you either to practise Self- A HINDU JOURNAL?—! enquiry or to submit to God or Guru; so try that.

EDITOR. I earnestly looked forward to. seeing my article about Naga Baba with the picture of the Sage adorn your page, but instead I find articles by

(5) 'BE CHANGELESS' writers like Wei Wu Wei, Sagittarius and Abdulla Qutbuddin. I do not object to their fine articles Way back in 1938 I visited Ramanashram for being published, but I do think that The the first and last time. I was there for four days Mountain Path published under the auspices of during which time (late Presi• Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, ought to contain dent of India) and Sri also visit• more about the teaching of Bhagavan. Indeed, I ed the Ashram. agree with Sri Satyanarayan Tandon of Kanpur, I was in a depressed and dejected mood. On whose letter to you appeared in April 1967, when the last day of my stay in the Ashram I happened he says: " Is not expected to predomi• to be sitting just opposite Sri Bhagavan at lunch nate in the journal ? " Only instead of ' Hindu• time. I took my courage in both hands and com• ism ' I should say ' Advaita'. However, if the plained : " I have been here for four days but article on Naga Baba and the picture of the Sage there is no change in me." Sri Bhagavan replied : can be recovered from the heaps of other papers " Be changeless." in your custody awaiting publication, they may I shall be grateful if you or some one else will kindly be sent back to me. write a short commentary on Sri Bhagavan's JAGANNATH CHATTOPADHYAYA, two words and elucidate the secret implicit in the Rishra, Hooghly. injunction. I take this opportunity to apologise not only to ' UNWORTHY ', the writer of this letter but to other contributors Ahmedabad. also who have been kept waiting. I like to pub• No secret, and no commentary needed on it. lish one article about some saint, mystic or guru The restless egjo complained that it saw no change in each issue and one in the series ' How I came and was told to give up the craving for change to the Maharshi'; however, I have quite a wait• and abide in and as the Changeless Self. ing list and some are kept waiting. On the other

EDITOR. hand, I am not going to clear off arrears by sus• pending other matter and filling one whole issue • * * * with them. Indeed, the three writers referred to (6) JAPA in this letter are very popular with our readers. I can only ask contributors to have patience. The April issue of The Mountain Path contains EDITOR. some very good articles, but a whole issue devot• * * * ed, to one theme tends to make for monotony and repetition. I look forward to return to the policy A HINDU JOURNAL?—II of general issues. There was a letter in April by Mr. Murray on I read the April issue almost at a sitting, as I Self-enquiry and Japa. Could we have more found it so deftly constructed and every piece information, either from yourself or someone else, in it so absorbingly interesting. 1967 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 259

Father Merton, Dom Griffiths, Wei Wu Wei, some of them are not even Hindus. It might be Dorothy Donath, ' Alone' — all are here again in best if you were to pay a visit here and see for full strength and good form. This time Sagittarius yourself how things are. and Qutbuddin both come very close to Advaita. EDITOR. Starcke is splendid on Joel. Dr. T. N. K.'s quota• * * * tion from Bhagavan's, deposition is of the utmost human value and incidentally provides an answer RITUAL—I! to Satyanarayan Tandon's complaint that The Mountain Path is not sufficiently Hindu. When Is it necessary to paint faces and foreheads with one admires a beautiful lotus one doesn't dwell ashes and sandal paste in order to become a lovingly on the mud in the pond out of which it bhakta ? If not why do the so-called religious grew. It was because he rose above and left people do it ? behind the individual and divisive categories that D. SHARMA, Ramana became Bhagavan. Varanasi.

However, a correspondence section should con• No kind of ritual is necessary but many kinds tain brickbats as well as bouquets. of ritual may be helpful. It would be wrong in K. SWAMINATHAN, the present circumstances for any one who finds New Delhi. ritual helpful to insist that every one should prac• tise it; but it is equally wrong for some one who « * * does not find it helpful to object to others who A HINDU JOURNAL?—ill do practise it. Bhagavan did not approve of either kind of intolerance. I especially enjoy the articles ' How I came to EDITOR. the Maharshi', ' Arrows from a Christian Bow' » * * and also the ' Letters to the Editor'. C. GORDON WESTERLUND, MYSTIC EXPERIENCE Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. In your January number Dr. R. Fuchberger * * * writes on ' Brief Eternity', giving his experience and describes it as a ' glimpse of Realization'. I RITUAL—i am interested in this because I had exactly the same type of experience while walking in Pondi• Would you please make the following points cherry a few years ago. When I, referred the mat• clear. ter to two Swamis considered to have reached the 1. Is it a fact that Brahmins dine separately stage of Self-Realization one said that it was not from non-Brahmins there and that caste is of much importance except that it showed the observed ? ardent desire to reach that ideal, and the other 2. What about samskaras, individual ashram said that it was only a mystic experience and had life, posthumous rites, cremation, jala-samadhi or nothing to do with Realization. I would like to bhu-samadhi ? Can it also be done for those who know how Bhagavan would have interpreted it are not sannyasins ? and whether any other of his devotees have had 3. For myself I want the proper discipline such experiences. observed by the sadhaka. No sraddha kriya of Miss S. BAPAT, the samartha method is necessary for them, Poona. is it? What do you mean when you speak of Swamis KHOIMACHE SINGH, who are considered to have reached the stage of Radhakund, Muttra Dt. Self-Realization ? Self-Realization is not a stage It is true that Brahmins and non-Brahmins but the final and natural state. Mystic experien• dine separately here and always did in Bhaga• ces which are pre-glimpses of it, with or without van's lifetime. It was not his mission in life to simultaneous outer awareness, are not uncommon. revolutionise social conditions. He expected each A number of Bhagavan's devotees have had thern. person to live according to the conventions of They may come to people who are not advanced his family, social and religious background, unless on the path or have not even set foot on it. The they took Sannyas, which he did not encourage poet Tennyson sometimes had such an experience, people to do. No general rule is laid down for which he described in a letter to a friend, and the rites appropriate to all Sadhakas here — he did not even know that there was a path to 260 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

follow. Bhagavan sometimes quoted it or refer• APRIL red to it as a true experience. Such an experi• ence is very aptly called a ' brief eternity \ since Of all the copies of the quarterly so far, I most it is timeless and therefore eternal while it lasts enjoyed reading the latest one, April 1967, and I but of brief duration. It is just its brief duration have to read it over and over again — there is so which distinguishes it from the state of Bhagavan, much to reflect upon. with whom it was constant and unbroken, what• M. RUTNAGAR, ever he was doing outwardly. That is a very rare Bombay. thing. * # # An experience such as Dr. Fuchsberger des• cribes can be said to be not very important inso• POEMS far as it does not necessarily betoken an advanced state of development, and it may be harmful if it Your poem ' The Elixir of Youth' in the Janu• leads a person to think too highly of himself; but ary issue is marvellous in poetic beauty as well in itself it is undovibtedly a true experience. The as in idea. The Garland, of Guru's Sayings is thing to do is to try to make it constant by worth daily repetition. May we have the full removing the traces of ego which obstruct it, by garland in this style. The Bhagavad Gita trans• keeping the mind constantly prepared for its arri• lation by Prof. Kulkarni and yourself is simple, val. That is the meaning of Christ's injunction to lucid and to the point. Your book reviews are be always alert and expecting him, because he always good reading and learned.

comes like a thief in the night. DR. PREYA SHARAN DAS,

EDITOR. Mathura.

* * * * * *

PREDESTINATION CLARIFICATION

There is a quotation from Valmiki Ramayana: May I request a clarification by the learned " Only cowards and weaklings take shelter under author of the article ' Pain and Pleasure' ? In destiny." Is that a fallacy? line 5 of the last paragraph the word ' until'

SARRAZ NARASIMHARAO, should be ' as long asor alternatively the words Palakol. ' cease to' should be inserted before ' identify ourselves '. If it was a fallacy it would not be in Valmiki Similarly in the 12th line the word should be Ramayana. As is explained in the editorial of ow ' rapture ' instead of ' rupture '. April issue and also by our contributor A. Qut- E. V. MUNIRATHNAM, buddin on page 130, nobody knows what is des• Guntur. tined for him and therefore everybody must take responsibility for his actions and if he fails, can• Thank you for pointing out the mistake with

not lay the blame on destiny. He has no right to 1 as long as'. It ought to have been corrected in 'say : " How can I succeed if it is my destiny to proof reading. In the second sentence, however, fait ?"; because he does not know that it is his ' rupture' is correct. It means a breach of cons• destiny to fail. ciousness, a switch to a different mode of cons•

EDITOR. ciousness.

EDITOR. * * * * * * JANUARY PHOTOGRAPHS The January 1967 issue I found possibly the finest so far. Your editorials continue to be, as is It seems to me very objectionable to touch up the magazine, something so beautifully planned Bhagavan's photographs. They are more beauti• and compressed that each issue must reach the ful in the natural state, as the photograph on the hearts of those who read it. jacket of your book 'Ramana Maharshi and the

CORNELIA BAGAROTTI, Path of Self-Knowledge \ That is a precious pic•

Tarrytown, N.Y., U.S.A. ture. Miss SALLY MARLIN, * * * Sacramento, , 1967 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 261

We never touch up Bhagavan's photographs in which we are apparently in bondage. For 'free•

the ordinary sense of the word. I specifically dom 9 correctly understood, is freedom to do as mentioned in my reference to reconditioning on we are required to do — freedom from the ima• page 76 of;the January issue that it refers only to ginary constraint of ' bondage' to volition and its negatives that have got damaged. illusory effects.

How do you like the frontispiece of this issue ? Of course there is effort, of course it is sam- EDITOR. sarically a struggle, continuous and exhausting, but it is that of a volitional I-concept seeking to maintain its dominion. The conflict is not due to PRINTING a positive effort to achieve its own extinction — as appears to be currently assumed — but to its The Mountain Path is not a magazine for an pertinacious resistance to that threatened disas• hour or so. It is permanent printed matter to ter. Only a relative ' ego' can struggle ! The ego be preserved. Every enquirer into Self who sees is King Canute wielding his sword : he is wields it once will ask for back numbers. So why not ing it against the inflowing tide. And only he get it printed in greater quantity ? Every page ' suffers of it is a treasure. The number of readers for WEI WU WEI. spiritual matter is increasing daily. TlRITHDAS HOTCHAND, * * * Hyderabad, West Pakistan. WEI WU WEI We have several times already increased the number of copies printed but the circulation also 1. AGAINST keeps on increasing. I can't see why you allow Wei Wu Wei space EDITOR. in your magazine ? Can't you see that man is enmeshed up to his neck in delusion ? Reiterat• # •* * ing in so many ways all the time at great length that everything is ' I-I' manifesting, he is express• VALID ACTING AND INVALID ing the transcendental viewpoint when he should REACTING realize the relative one is the valid one, especially for him. Everything is the Self from one angle. In discussing Determination and Free-will an From another everything is not the Self. Both essential discrimination should not be overlooked. views are true from their own level and we should The apparent universe is a colossal conceptual use discrimination and choose the one which helps structure in mind, extended in the basic; concepts us to realize the Self. His realization that every• of ' space ' and 1 duration'. Consequently all voli• thing is ' I-I' is simply a convenient way for him tional reactions (yu wei), so extended, are con• to believe that everything is achieved and there cepts extraneous to that conceptual structure in is nothing to strive for, so why bother ? His mind. It follows, no doubt, that any effect they statement in the Jayanthi number, January 1966, may appear to have must be conceptual also, but that he has " a very profound regard for Bhaga• independent and in no sense integrated with what van, yet he is not a devotee" (and who cares is implied by the concept of ' Determination'. what he is?) and that everything is the Self are On the other hand non-volitional ' acting' (wu evidence of his delusion. Also his statement in wei) —resulting in apparent actions in space- a letter you published that he can't see any need time which are spontaneous and unconceived — for a guru and that the Maharshi's eyes are no ' act' directly within the conceptual structure in different from those of a cat, etc., show he is which they inhere, and in which all phenomena completely blind to the fact that the inner reali• appear to exist and all events to occur. Such zation of the Self is very different from what he action, therefore, is valid in relativity and pro• means when he says ' Enlightenment' is a ' pro• duces a relatively valid effect, whereas the egotic found realization' that everything is the Self. His demonstration is superficial and ultimately in• ' profound realization' of the ultimate truth is effectual. just a means he has of keeping himself in delu• NOTE : That, also, is cognate with our freedom sion. His ' I-I' manifesting is just a label he tacks to understand what we are, which the Maharshi on to something to convince himself it is what it in particular implied, for apprehension as such plainly is not. His attitude is very tamasic and is noumenal, and with our inability to express out of touch with reality. His deluded attitude such apprehension except in the relative terms to will only be communicated to his ' fans' (Lord 262 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

help them!) and he will get them drowned in medical director of the Saskatchewan Provincial the same unrealistic dream world he has created Hospital, in which . mention was made of the for himself. mystical type of experiences which many persons

JOHN JARRED, seemed to have when under the influence of such Surrey Hills, N.S.W., Australia. " psychedelic" (consciousness-expanding) sub• stances as LSD, mescaline and peyote. I became 2. FOR interested for this reason, and since that time we have used one or the other of these with some 200 May I express my appreciation of the articles people, for the purpose of inducing religious and extracts appearing in The Mountain Path insight. Under proper conditions, it would seem under the name of ' Wei Wu Wei'. They are re• that a deep understanding, beyond concepts, is markably clear and precise expositions of the achieved by a large percentage of subjects. As a themes found in Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta and psychiatrist at UCLA (U of Calif at Los Angeles) Ramana's expositions; and such formulations ift says, " To see oneself and the world from a new modern idiom are rare. From these articles I ven• perspective, even for a short time, can be most tured into his books and I found the experience helpful." We insist that in order to maintain this exhilarating because of the use of words in their new awareness it is necessary to apply the unambiguous, etymological meaning to present insights in action, to change old habit patterns — abstract ideas such as space, time and individua• for which there is no substitute for the recognised lity in terms as lucid and logical as in Euclidean spiritual disciplines. One of our subjects was an geometry. In the context of Hinduism at the pre• atheist. He said " In my • first experience I saw sent time, the following extract from Wei Wu God; in my second one, I became God." You, Wei seems to be most apt: unlike many here, will understand this statement. " There seems never to have been a time at He has spent the past two years in an Ashram in which sentient beings have not escaped from the India (with Amar Jyoti at Poona). When used dungeon of individuality. In the East Liberation properly, we have seen no damage from these was elaborated into a fine art but it may be ^substances. As one familiar with medicine, I doubted whether more people may not have made would say that they are less damaging physio• their escape from solitary confinement outside the logically than aspirin or penicillin. There are, organized religions than by means of them." however, psychological hazards when improperly I would recommend Wei Wu Wei's writings to used. Many are not ready to face the loss of the all earnest seekers and specially to those too much ego which often occurs in this experience. In a concerned with tradition. sense, the psychedelics may be considered as

R. VENKATARAMAN, anaesthetics to the thinking mind (though there New Delhi. is no inability to think). One finds himself as THAT of which the thinking mind is only a tool; * * * and to one who has not considered this possibility, it can be frightening, and without understanding HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS and loving support (so often lacking in casual

I recently noticed, in The Mountain Path for group of self-administration), can result in a July 1966 your comments on hallucinogenic drugs psychotic break. In other words, psychedelics, like and spiritual growth, and your request for infor• all other things, are in themselves neither good mation from a medical man who had had experi• nor bad. But our experience indicates that there ence with them. are very important and constructive uses which may be made of them, as well as destructive I wholly agree with your statement that uses. We hear much of the latter, and little of the glimpses of Reality, or of Self-realization, must be former, as a result of the public hysteria which maintained by the usual spiritual discplines. I is itself a result of distortion and magnification in have been a student of Ramana's way for several the news media of a few spectacular casualties. years, having started with your books dealing DR. JOHN AIKEN, with his teachings. For me, Ramana and Huang Socorro, New Mexico. Po (I have John Blofeld's translation, The Zen Teachings Of Huang Po) seem to point the Way It is better if one can take the Path without better than most, but each of us must walk that such incentives. If one uses them, the sooner one way for himself. can renounce them the better.

Some 6 years ago, in a medical journal, I read EDITOR. an article by Dr. Humphry Osmond, at that time * * * 1967 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 263

• WHO AM I ' AND ZEN the Being which makes the very act of seeing possible — attention is centred on eye-ball and Occurring in Philip Kapleau's book 'The Three external objects. Pillars of Zen', reviewed in The Mountain Path ' Last time you said I was not my mind and of October 1966, is an episode which is of far more not my body, I don't understand. If I am neither than routine relevance and interest for those of these, nor a combination of them, what doing the sadhana of Atma Vichara as taught by am I ? ' Ramana Maharshi and it seems worth while giving an outline of it for the benefit of those It is so difficult, that she must address the ques• who may not have had a chance to read the book. tion to her Master rather than to herself. And then, fear It appears in the section on ' Dokusan ' (inter• views between the Roshi and students), starts on 'I have always thought of myself as a mind page 136 and concerns the first efforts of a and a body. It frightens me to think differently.' thirty-three year old westerner to practise self- Yasutani-Roshi listens with infinite patience enquiry, her day-by-day reports to the Roshi and and his replies cannot fail to arouse a deep res• his consequent guidance and advice. ponse from devotees of Ramana Maharshi. So The student had been practising Za-Zen for similar are they in character to the answers given two years previous to her present participation by Bhagavan when questioned by seekers, that in the sesshin of Yasutani-Roshi, principally on they could easily be mistaken for his own words. the koan ' Mu', but without any apparent suc• A few examples will illustrate this. cess ; in fact she admits to finding it distasteful. ' Remember you are neither your body nor The Roshi tells her that concentration on ' Mu' is the same as enquiry into one's essential being your mind. And you are not your mind added but suggests that she might find a slightly differ• to your body. Then what are you ? If you would ent approach more absorbing, such as investigat• grasp the real You and not merely a figment, ing ' What am I ? ' or ' Who am I ? ' She agrees you must constantly ask yourself " Who am I ? " that the last would be more meaningful for her with absolute devotion.' and so embarks upon this ' koan' for the ' If you persistently question yourself " Who remainder of the Sesshin. am I ? " with devotion and zeal — that is to say, moved by a genuine desire for Self- What very quickly becomes apparent to the knowledge — you are bound to realise the reader, and rather surprising to one who has him• nature of Mind.' self been enquiring in this way for quite a ' So long as you think of yourself as this while, is how extraordinarily difficult, boring and small body you will feel restless and dis• fruitless the student finds the practice, as can be contented. But when through enlightenment you seen from the following quotations picked at actually experience the universe as identical random from her reports. with yourself, you will attain lasting peace.' ' When I question myself " Who am I ? " I say '[.... man is forever seeking and grasping. to myself, Why ? He grasps for the world because " I am bones, I am blood, I am skin ". Where intuitively he longs to be rejoined with that do I go from there ? ' from which he has been estranged through In other words, she cannot dissociate herself from delusion.' the body. ' The fact is that in their essential nature all

' But I don't know who it is that is asking sentient beings transcend their body and their " Who am I ? " and not knowing this, or who mind which are not two but one. The failure of it is that is being asked, how can I find out human beings to perceive this fundamental who I am ? ' truth is the cause of all their suffering.' ' I have come to the conclusion that I am this ' The question " Who am I ? " precipitates you body, that is these eyes, these legs and so forth. into an awareness of your fundamental soli• At the same time I realise that these organs do darity with the universe.'

not exist independently.' ' The answer can only come out of persistent

But the possibilities of this last statement are questioning with an intense yearning to know.' dimmed when she goes on to say that her eyes ' The question " Who am I ? " brings you to need objects to perceive in order to perform the the radiant core of your being.' act of seeing and that therefore she must be part But in spite of these wonderfully illumined of the universe. No hint is given of knowledge of words of guidance, the account ends as the 264 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

Sesshin draws to a close, with the student in the been active in spiritual work for more than same perplexed and confused state of mind and fifteen years. one is left pondering over why, for some seekers, Through The Mountain Path I learned to know it is so difficult as to be almost impossible to and understand Sri Ramana Maharshi, and this recognise that, in essence, they are most definitely was a turning point in my life. In future I hope not a body despite all apparent evidence to the to dedicate myself completely to him and his contrary and that if once this can be grasped and teachings. I have already told many people about actually seen, the keys to the " paradise garden " him and they were all very impressed by the is theirs for evermore. wonderful photograph of him. Knowing that in SARAH FARRAND, serving The Mountain Path I serve the Maharshi, London. it would be a joy for me to help you.

* * * R. P. JASPERS, Overveen, The Netherlands.

HOLLAND Gladly. We have known indirectly for some As far as I know you do not yet have a time past that there is great spiritual interest in stockist for the Netherlands. Perhaps you would the Netherlands but have had few direct contacts accept me as a stockist. I have many friends who up to now. are interested in spiritual matters and I have EDITOR.

RAMANA

Pictorial Souvenir Commemorating the KUMBHABISHEKAM OF SRI RAMANESWARA MAHALINGAM ON 18—6—1967 We have brought out a Pictorial Souvenir on Foreign Real Art Paper, containing 86 full page reproductions of rare photographs of Sri Bhagavan. It also contains 32 pages of thoughtful articles specially contributed. Size: 5J" x 8", A book worth possessing and preserving; such an opportunity may not recur. Price : Indian : Rs. 7.50 — postage 75 paise extra. Foreign : 15 sh. or $2.25 (postage free) President,

BOARD OF TRUSTEES, Send your order of requirement to: SRI RAMANASRAMAM,

TIRUVANNAMALAI, (S.I.) 1967 265 Sri Ramanasramam

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ANDHRA PRADESH GUJARAT Smt. Uma Ramamurthi Nellore Dr. C. Satyanarayana Gopalji P. Desai, Navsari T. B. N. Murthy G. Padmanabha Rao M. M. Thakore, Ahmedabad Dr. T. Raghavan G. Sesha Reddy Kisor , Ahmedabad M. S. Sundaram G. V. Subbaramayya Navnit Pragji Desai, Bulsar R. Sankarayya Ramesh Chandra Amin, Baroda V. Satyavagiswara Iyer A. Dasaratha Rama Reddy S. Krishnamurthy, Chidambaram N. Surya Narayana Iyer KERALA Madurai S. K. Srinivasan C. Venkata Reddy N. Parameswaran Thampi, M. Sundara Rama Reddy N. R. Krishnamurthi Iyer Trivandrum A. P. Venkatesan, Tindivanam T. Ramana Reddy M. S. Viswanathan, Palghat S. Satyanarayana Coimbatore M. Easwaramma MAHARASHTRA K. Sippy A Devotee C. Panchala Reddy Bombay S. Srinivasan, Tiruchy K. Rangam Reddy N. B. Parekh N. Rangabhashyam, Thanjavur. Y. Venkatesa Sastry K. K. Nambiar A. K. S. Mani, Namakkal Ch. Jagan Mohan Rao K. N. Panday Thapas Swami, Naduvakalappal D. Nageswara Rao Mrs. Freny Panday A. R. Venkatasubramania Iyer, Dr. G. Subramanyam Miss Mehroo F. Screwalla Vanapuram Vishakapatnam G. K. Desai N. Rukmini Ammal, Salem V. Venkateswara Rao B. G. Jaising Sri Ramanasramam S. Raju Naidu Shiavax R. Vakil K. Padmanabhan Dr. O. Ramachandriah, Waitair Smt. Dhiruben Patel V. Venkatakrishniah P. Jagannatha Raju, Jinnur Popatlal B. Kotak S. K. Venkataraman Bh. V. Narasimha Raju, Jinnur Miss Nargis Dubash G. Santhanam Iyengar T. Satyanarayana, Vijayawada Darius D. Nicholson L. P. Koppikar N. Subbrayudu, Prodattur Princess Meena Devi S. S. Narayan, M. V. Suryaprakasam, Guntur Soni Govindji Mamaiya Mrs. Roda Maclver N. D. Patel, Tirupati Surya Prakash Tiruvannamalai Hyderabad M. C. Palekar Dr. D. Subbarayan P. Venkateswaralu Kum. L. H. Desai V. Ramachandra Chetty M. Subramanyam R. H. Dastur PONDICHERRY Major I. J. Taneja T. G. Nair K. Subramanyam R. G. Sundaram Pondicherry G. Narasimha Murthi Prof. R. S. Aiyar Dr. J. Pierry K. Dr. (Mrs.) T. Uma Rao R. Elamboornan R. Ramanujam K. R. K. Murthy N. Rangasamy Reddy. D. F. Pandey Thondamanathan P.O. Vizianagaram Sri & Smt. R. M. Sabharwal K. S. Sanyasi Raju V. G. Govekar MYSORE K. Papa Rao A.^pN. Karnataki, Gargot S. Ramachandra Raju M. N. Chandavarkar, Mysore S. Ganapathi Iyer, Kurnool Godbole Radharaman Puru- M. Sadasiva Setty, P. V. K. Raju, Tadepalle shottam, Poona Chickmagalur Prof. V. S. Athavle, Kirloskar- V. V. Narasimha Rao, Ongole Mangalore wadi N. C. Amin BIHAR M. S. Nanjundiah, Nagpur Vanmalidas Gokuldas A. K. Sanyal, Katihar Bangalore N. K. Sethuram, Sindri MADRAS M. Ramana K. V. Ramanan, Ranchi Madras M. S. Satyanarayana S. Vasudevan Maj. K. S. Abdul Gaffar CHANDIGARH C. S. Prakasa Rao K. S. Rajasekhariah A. R. Narayana Rao Inder Singh Puri, Chandigarh D. Gurumurthi Y. Ramakrishna Prasad T. R. G. Krishnan A. K. Ramachandra Iyer R. V. Raghavan DELHI B. Venkatadri M. Ramakrishna Rao K. S. N. Rao N. Sambasivan B. N. Poornachandra Sadhu D. Subbanna Smt. Namagiri Sambasivan K. Parthasarathy Iyengar, A. R. Natarajan V. Vaidya Subramanyam Chamarajanagar Mr. and Mrs. Navin Khanna Krishnakumar Thyagarajan L. N. Ganesh Bhat, N. Kanara Gulzarilal Bhargava T. S. Sundaresan Dr. M. Satya Sundara Rao, R. Venkataraman K. Arunachala Sivan Puttur Dr. S. Mull Mrs. Kalyani Nambiar K. G. Subramanya, Shimoga 266 THE MOUNTAIN PATH July

K. Vishwanathaia, Chintamani UTTAR PRADESH Maj. Hanut Singh, S. M. Deshpande, Hubli Babina Cantt. Kanpur G. R. Narasimhachar, Lakshmi Narayan Joshi, Bhadravati H. C. Khanna Naini Tal PUNJAB & HARYANA Mr. & Mrs. Suresh Khanna WEST BENGAL Ambala Satyanarayana Tandon Sri & Smt. K. C. Khanna K. C. Kapur Calcutta Dewan Hukum Chand Om Nath Rohatgi Rajeev Goenka Raja Saheb of Mandi, Mandi V. Seshadri K. D. Kher Mrs. K. Khosla, Jullundur J. C. Das Gupta Dr. Atma Ram, Agra Radha Charan Chatterjee RAJASTHAN N. P. Mahesh, Meerut Jaipur R. C. Kapur, Allahabad MADHYA PRADESH M. M. Varma Lilaram Pohumal H. W. L. Poonja, Lucknow S. K. Khare, Lagargawan

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ARGENTINA SWITZERLAND Renata Gradenwitz, Peter Greider, Pfafflausen. Buenos Aires. TANZANIA BRAZIL DONORS R. M. Patel, Dar-es-Salaam. T. F. Lorgus, Porto Allegre. INDIA ETHIOPIA UNITED KINGDOM H. J. Saenger, Addis Ababa. H. C. Ramanna, Bangalore. W. E. Evans, Poulton-Le-Fylde. Dr. R. Subramaniam, Madras. F. C. Smith, Poole. FRANCE Indra Mohan Chopra, Mrs. Thalia Gage, Bridgenorth. New Delhi. Neuilly Dr. Sidheswar Nath, Varanasi. Hazel Stafford OF Frederick Stafford AMERICA GREECE Mrs. B. Sundin Sivakumar, Berkeley. Her Majesty Queen-Mother Mrs. Annalisa Rajagopal, Ojai. ISRAEL Frederika, Athens. Mrs. Mark ell Raymer, M. Yieshar Warner. Pacific Palisades. MONTE CARLO Joseph R. Raymer, KENYA Terence Gray. Pacific Palisades. H. R. Hodges, Nairobi. Mrs. Natalia Gray. David Teplitz, San Rafel. John P. Carey, Napa. MALAYSIA WEST GERMANY A Devotee, Sedona. Miss Madeline Mende, Ecorse. Kedah Api Brenner, Berlin. Winifred Stapleton, Detroit. Thong Yin Yeow Peter Elsaesser, Mannheim. Madam Loh Kim Thye WEST GERMANY Master Thong Woong Leong UNITED KINGDOM Thong Yin Howe Frau Dorothea Graffin Von Mr. & Mrs. C. Donovan, Kotah Baru Matuschka, Berlin. London. Khoo Tuan Chia Fritz Kreie, Hofgeismar. Patricia Robinson, London. Thong Eng Kow Werner Voitel, Stuttgart. N. Thambiduray P.J.K., Mrs. Anna Leifheit, Frankfurt. Seramban. Jos. Fr. Haagen, Pors-Urbach. Miss Gertrude Fugert, Munich. SOUTH AFRICA Michael Schacht, Kessel. Dr. Leonard O. Bo wen, SWEDEN Mrs. Trudel Elsaesser, Johannesburg. Mannheim. Mrs. Vera Hedenlo, Dr. Vimla Devi Naidu, Dipl-Ing Reinhard Richter, Pine Town. Oskarshamn. Mannheim. 1967 267

The Mountain Path

Life Subscribers—Indian

ANDHRA PRADESH B. S. Ranganadham, DELHI Sri Ramanasramam Dwarakanath Reddy, Chittoor Lilavati Bhargava Charitable S. S. V. S. Muthia Chettiar, N. Balarama Reddy, Uttukuru Trust Tiruvannamalai P. Venkateswara Rao, S. R. Bhargava V. T. Seshadri, Vellore Vizianagaram Lt. D. Subbanna Hyderabad Mrs. Sheroo Framjee MAHARASHTRA M.aj. I. J. Taneja Mrs. Jogesh Malik K. R. K. Murthy Mrs. S. D. Toorkey Poona S. V. G. Naidu, Vishakapatnam Indra Mohan Chopra Raja Sadashiva Rao Pandit ASSAM Mrs. S. Mahindra PUNJAB & HARYANA Ramsing Sulhyan, Miraj Mrs. Prabha Bhatia, Sillong Jullundur Umesh Dutt Bombay CHANDIGARH Mrs. K. Khosla V. R. Bhatia, Chandigarh K. K. Nambiar Ambala Ashok Pal Singh Hukum Chand GUJARAT K. Gopal Rao Mrs. Sunita Khanna Bhupen Champaklal H. H. Sen Mandi and the Rani M. M. Thakore, Ahmedabad K. N. Panday Saheba of Mandi, Mandi Dr. (Mrs.) Satyavadi, Baroda Smt. Anjali J. Shah Shiavax R. Vakil RAJASTHAN KERALA M. S. Abhichandani Jaipur S. K. Mullarpatan C. S. Krishnan, Palghat M. M. Varma Miss Jer Dadhabhoy N. Parameswaran Thampi, Lila Ram Pohumal Trivandrum R. M. Sabharwal Miss M. L. Tantia UTTAR PRADESH MADHYA PRADESH Mrs. K. Banavalikar R. Ramanujam Kanpur Rani Padmavati Devi, Bhopal Maharani Saheba of Cutch K. P. Jhunjhunwala S. Krishna Khare, Lagargawan Maharajkumar Sri Bhupat K. D. Kher Raja Shankar Pratap Singh, Singhji of Cutch Satyanarayana Tandon Chichhli Smt. Radha Ramana Moily H. C. Khanna J. C. Khanna, Gwalior Smt. Lily B. Desai Navnit B. Parekh, Almorah J. K. Makhijani Lama Anagarika Govinda, MADRAS Kum. Dolly D. Kolah Dinapani Madras Lt. Col. Ottar Singh Mirtola Dr. T. N. Krishnaswamy A. K. S. R. Trust MYSORE Wm. Mc Aitken Ashram M. A. Chidambaram Fr. Lazarus, Naini Tal A. R. Narayana Rao Bangalore H. W. L, Poonja, Lucknow D. S. Sastri Eastern Agencies Dr. S. Nath, Varanasi Smt. Mahalakshmi Maj. Abdul Gaffar Gopi J. Thadani K. S. Rajasekhariah WEST BENGAL Vaidya Subramanyam D. Gurumurthi T. S. Sundaram R. V. Raghavan V. Subramaniam, Durgapur J. Jayadevlal Dave J. Srinivasan Calcutta V. Krishnamurthy V. Seshadri Dr. Satya Sundara Rao, T. V. Ganesan, Tiruchi Sadanand Mukherjee R. F. Rose, Nagore Puttur (S.K.) Mrs. Parvati Goenka Coimbatore M, L. Vasudevamurthy, S. K. Tapuria P. R. Narayanaswamy Chickmagalur L. N. Birla B. Sarat Chandra Dr. K. Parthasarathy Iyengar, Cecil Stack A Devotee S. P. Puri Chamaraj anagar Janaki Matha, Thanjavur Vikram A. Chadha S. K. Srinivasan, Madurai G. R. Narasimhachar, Mahalaxmi Suryanandan Bhadravati 268 July

The Mountain Path

Life Subscribers—Foreign

ARGENTINA MALAYSIA Blackpool Buenos Aires A. R. Nambiar, Kuala Pilah Kenneth Marsden Renata Gradenwitz Mrs. Marion Sanderson Mrs. Margaret Banaset MONACO F. C. Smith, Poole Mrs. Elizabeth Povazska, Olivos Mrs. Terence Gray, Monte Carlo J. R. Eales-White, Brighton Mrs. Janet Fraser, Eden Bridge AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND John Jarred, Surrey Hills, Mrs. Oira E. Gummer, UNITED STATES OF N.S.W. Auckland AMERICA Miss M. B. Byles, Cheltenham, N.S.W. NIGERIA Hawaii BELGIUM R. O. Aminu, Lagos Mrs. Joel S. Goldsmith, Rina Vredenbregt, Antwerp Honolulu SOUTH AFRICA Paul Reps, Paauilo BRAZIL Johannesburg A Devotee, Arizona T. F. Lorgus, Porto Alegre Mrs. Gladys de Meuter Leroy A. Born, Syracuse Mrs. Giovanni Bagarotti, CANADA X. Naude Tarrytown Noella Clavel, Regina Sask Dr. Vimla Devi Naidu, Pine Town Prof. Ernest Dale, New York CHANNEL ISLANDS Betsy J. Bridge, Elmhurst D. I. Davis, Samares SWEDEN Miss Madeline Mende, Ecorse Mrs. Vera Hedenlo, John Carey, Napa CORSICA Mrs. Annalisa Rajagopal, Ojai Mrs. Francoise Moeyaert Oskarshamn Donald R. Hodgman, San Marino Lamote, Ajaccio SWITZERLAND Dr. Eva Konrich, Los Angeles CZECHOSLOVAKIA Louise Trachsler, Coppet Marion E. Jasperson, Dr. Robert Fuchsberger, Peter Greider, Pfaffhausen Indianapolis Bratislava Jurgen Stramke, Geneva E. Schumicke, Coral Gables F. A. Pollock, Latour-le-Peilz Walter Starcke, Key West FIJI Mrs. Lester R. Mayer, Karan Singh Jaiswal, Tavna TANZANIA Philadelphia R. V. Patel, Lautoka R. M. Patel, Dar-es-Salaam C. Gordon Westerlund, Portland FRANCE UNITED KINGDOM Henri Hartung, Paris London VENEZUELA Neuilly Mrs. Douglas Mrs. B. Sundin Sr. Adolfo Blanco Adrianza, J. Dallal Mrs. Hazel Stafford Caracas Peggy Creme Pilling Dr. Fredou Pierre, Saint-Mande Phiroze Mehta WEST GERMANY GREECE J. Reiss Miss Gertrude Fugert, Munich Her Majesty Queen-Mother A. Kalman Mannheim Frederika, Athens Dr. Ch. Sharma Mrs. H. Sheps Dipl-Ing Reinhard Richter HOLLAND Mrs. J. M. Hubbard Trudel Elsaesser Mrs. J. M. Kunst, The Hague N. Vasudevan Prof. Dr. Frederich W. Funke, S. Meihuizer, Amersfoort G. F. Allen Seelscheld R. G. Robinson Dr. P. J. Saher, Munster HONG KONG Mrs. R. G. Robinson Miss Helga Knutzen, Pfronten Mrs. Banoo J. H. Ruttonjee Miss Muriel Daw Fritz Kreie, Hofgeismar Dinshaw S. Paowalla Gordon Davies Jos. Fr. Haagen, Porz-Sundorf ITALY Lionel Franklin Mrs. Anna Liefheit, Frankfurt G. J. Yorke, Forthampton Court Stuttgart Dr. Alberto Beghe, Milan Mrs. T. Gage, Bridgenorth Werner Voitel JAPAN Miss E. G. Blanchard, Mrs. Gertrude Lietz Gary Snyder, Kyoto Shrewsbury Gottingen Peter Bright, Oxford Margarete Deuring KENYA A. E. Gladwell, Cornwall H. Burger Homi Byramji Contractor, Roger C. Knight, Haselmere Heinz Niedrig, Bonn Mombasa W. E. Evans, Poulton le Fylde Brother Dhammapala, Utting