What is new
Introduction to the Basic Writings of Sri Ramchandra
|
Shri Ram Chandraji of Shahjahanpur is the founder and
President of the Mission called after His Guru Shri Ram
Chandraji of Fatehgarh (U.P.). The Mission was started to
spread the method of Raj Yoga, which Shri Ram Chandraji of
Fatehgarh devised during His lifetime. Though based on the
ancient method of Raj Yoga it is, in a sense, an innovation
and improvement on that method which also fell into disuse
owing to a variety of causes. The training given under this
new method for spiritual improvement is unique and is in
many respects different from what goes by the name. This is
in the considered opinion of the founder most important for
rescuing mankind from the faults of spiritual training
available today in every country and religion, which have
led to the deterioration of spiritual values and moral
degeneration and physical disintegration. The Mission
therefore has the universal purpose of uplifting humanity to
the real and basic spirituality that belongs to it and into
which its destiny is to evolve or attain. Shri Ram Chandraji of Shahjahanpur is a unique personality in many ways. He is unlike other yogis because His Yoga is called Sahaj Marg, the normal divine life which is capable of being accepted and followed by every human being, without any difference of race or caste or creed. He is not dogmatic but a practical idealist, testing every one of His methods by anubhava or experience. He is a householder living the ordinary life of a family man with all the duties and responsibilities belonging to that station and life (asrama). His simplicity and purity and all pervading peace are rare qualities. He enthuses every one who meets Him with this godly aspiration for Ultimate peace and simplicity and liberation both within and without, and what is more, has been able to train persons belonging to different levels of varna and asrama to live this divine life of purity, simplicity and peace amongst their fellowmen. Shri Ram Chandraji’s life was entirely spent at Shahjahanpur as an official in the District Court at that place. Uneventful in respect of the world, it was spiritually packed with sadhana, which his Guru trained Him in. He attained the highest limits of spiritual attainment in the brief span of thirty years. He was chosen to be the representative of His Master by His Master and since then He has been carrying on that work. Though as He puts it, all the powers of Nature are vested in Him yet since they are not the be-all and end-all and in fact they are the refuse of spirituality, He has been above them all. His most important work or mission has been the dedication to make men divine through the special training discovered by His Master. He has since then improved upon the technique of transmission and made it applicable to each and every type of man who seeks His help. He speaks of the special personality who has incarnated for the ushering in of the new age of true or real spirituality. Such a personality could be known through meditation. The new age of spirituality will be something quite different from the past when only a few persons were liberated or divinised. But even those men did not have the awareness of levels of Being which have now been opened up by Him, the most important being the Central Region beyond the levels of cosmic and supracosmic consciousnesses. Might be that some very advanced souls have had glimpses of the same—especially the mystics who had experienced the Nihil, the Unground, the Void, beyond all the apprehensions of the senses and the mind, beyond the levels of the waking, dream deep sleep and the fourth or turiya. This is a remarkable achievement in so far as not only has He been able to penetrate into it but also take along with Him at least some of those who have been trained by Him for this Experience of experiences. His philosophy of Sahaj Marg He has presented in the four works, which have been written from the spiritual level, namely the Reality at Dawn, Commentary on the Ten Commandments of Sahaj Marg, Efficacy of Raja Yoga and Towards Infinity. In the Reality at Dawn Shri Ram Chandraji describes the Ultimate Experience as it was at the Dawn of Creation. In that state Reality is in its highest potentiality. It has been known as the Base and origin of Creation. It has been described as the Night before the Day. It is a condition or Reality as it is in itself before it had proceeded to manifest the creation. Philosophers usually describe this state as the causal condition or just Causa sui. Mystics of the Upanishads have held that this is what has to be known, this is the Brahman, this is the Reality which once being known all get known. It is described as Sat, as containing the root of all existence or satyasya satyam. This is the Asat in the sense that it is the Non-existence that was prior to all this existence. It is the That (Tam) which is to be known, seen and entered into if one seeks liberation from the cycle of births and deaths. The philosophers have claimed that this has to be contemplated upon if one seeks to attain Truth. In fact truth is the Ultimate—the Primal Being which is verily non-existence to all the ways of knowing that man has at his command-perception, inference, analogy and even the Sabda or scriptural revelation. But it is something that could be known perhaps by being instructed by the seer by means of transmission of a new power of consciousness far above the conventional pramanas or ways of knowing. It is something of a revelation by the Divine, an exposure of the Divine to the seeker or an uncovering of the Divine of the inner reality which sustains and supports all the known and knowable realities which we call truth and to which the criteria of truth and error apply. This primal condition is the Dawn. Having explained the Dawn what is the Reality that one apprehends at that stage. Reality is to what truth corresponds. But it is more than truth. And thought it is that goes by the name of truth and it is thought that makes the correspondence possible. But some levels of thought especially the discursive can never know reality and limits itself to consistency of one thought or idea with another. Truth is thus said to be judged by coherency with a system of knowledge or truths or consistency between the several truths belonging to one and the same level or to different levels. Thus uncontradicted knowledge is said to be truth. This is fairly applicable to the areas of our sources of knowledge but totally inapplicable to Reality that transcends them or incapable of being fully covered or embraced by them either singly or collectively. Thus Shri Ram Chandraji affirms that where philosophy ends spirituality begins. It begins with wonder or mystic experience. The mystic seer wishes to probe into that which is beyond thought and sense and even the individual ego-sense. He is determined to realise Reality through thought if possible if not through being itself. In one sense then being becomes the mode by which Being can be apprehended or grasped or made real to oneself. This is the meaning of anu-bhava, which may be properly translated as im¬perience rather than experience. It is an in-tuition rather than intellection or discursive and dichotomic dialectic. Reality is then what is to be known. It is to be known through the integral experience or imperience of the heart, which is the living organ in every human being. Considered in the context of anubhava the heart has reasons, which the head or intellect can never be aware of and more often the heart is right though the head refuses to credit it with wisdom. In other words, the anubhava that leads to the realisation of Reality is something different in kind from what operates through the head or intellect. This leads to the question whether these are not opposites. The thought that operates through intellect is, in nature, identical with that which works through the heart, but as Shri Ram Chandraji points out, there is inversion a phenomenon which we can witness in all cases of movement – a wavy process that causes inversion – the right becomes left, the up becomes down. This is the principle of Invertendo, which He expounds in His works. It is this principle that leads to our world – experiences and takes us from grossness to subtleness or vice versa. Thus successive stages of thought might appear to be contradictory or opposites when in fact they are just the same at different points of movement – as in motion that is way or wave – motions. Similarly we find that waves condense into particles and particles disintegrate into waves and Shri Ram Chandraji mentions a level of anubhava when the atoms in the body get broken up into vibrations at a very high level. In this He shows how the physiological processes abide by the laws involved in the breaking up of the atom. He also throws light on the origination of the atoms not mentioned in the Yoga or Samkhya sutras and He also shows that changes occur in the human body in a perfectly intelligible manner by the utilisation of the Divine thought force which operates on lines mystically noted in the Visesika doctrines of Pila-paka and Pithara-paka. These have been thoroughly forgotten by the schools. Thus Shri Ram Chandraji points out that it is absolutely necessary to go beyond the intellectual philosophers and philosophy and instead of finding refuge in an equally untenable religious solution, seek the spiritual awakening which puts us in direct touch with Reality. Reality is the Ultimate ground of all manifestations. It is the ground of all that we know as existence as well as thought. This Ultimate Reality is characterised by Peace, Calm, Plenitude and Simplicity and Infinity. It is the ‘That’ (Tam). Union with this is liberation and perfection and realisation, of one’s nature. To live with it is to attain the real thing which is natural to the human individual or individual as such. It is Sahaja – the natural condition arising from living with the Ultimate Reality which is the very stuff and soul of oneself in all one’s levels of existence from the subtlest to the grossest, from deep transcendent awareness to the sensory-motor life in the physical body. This is the deep aspiration within each individual to attain union with one’s deepest being and force of being or existence. This is the final Resting place and abode of all creatures aspiring for liberation. Disunion with this Source and ground never really completely happens. But manifestation or creation happens by an inexplicable movement from this Ultimate Ground and Source and this force or movement (ksobh) is what is known as Manas or thought. This is in fact what is the beginning of creative diffusion of the force, which is both thought and intelligence and the cause of all the levels of manifestation. It is suggested that this original primal impulsion from within is of the nature of Living sustaining breath (prana) which sustains all the creation from the Parabrahmanda to the Pinda (gross physical world). But it must be remembered that the original manas continues to abide in a very gross condition in the grossest sensible matter which we meet with. In a serious mystical sense one can say that all this is manas or thought, and all levels of being or manifestation are verily thought or manas. For outer vision the manifestations appear to be disunited fragments but for the spiritual vision they are all operating from the original impulsion of Manas which keeps their organisation and organic unity in a multi - phasic unity. Separateness is for the purposes of deeper unification in terms of the organic multi phasic unity. The problem of man may be posed in two ways. It may be considered by some that they should realise the fullest dimensions and possibilities of the manifestation and integration. This ‘creative advance’ is to them adventurous and pleasure – granting and heroic. The whole process is leading up to external manifestation of an infinite inwardness in the Primal Ground or Primeval Motion (Ksobh). But this creative advance and pleasure consequent on that may turn out dialectically into pain and bondage and misery and an unending prison-house of boredom if the connection with the Centre or Life Force is somehow attenuated or snapped or forgotten. When thought becomes a thing and nothing more than this it is the end of all peace. This may be play of doom not the play of liberation. Though it appears as a pessimistic play or tragic drama of lila, it is true. Pleasure that culminates in its opposite, and an adventure that becomes its opposite viz. cowardice and fear cannot obviously be the goal of man. The opposite tendency is to seek the origin and return to it because all the outward movements have become exhausted, in their results. Having come down to the level of veriest matter and sense and found that all these lead to bondage and suffering, one returns to the original self—nature—giving up attachment to the sensory and motor worlds and ego-centricisms. This is the path of renunciation. According to the exponents of Divine Evolutionism, divine evolution or the evolution by the Divine Force is not a movement to the centre, from which it has started but a movement away from the centre whose infinity is sought to be exhibited in terms of multiplicity in terms of space-time. In fact it is asserted that this outward going dynamism is really continuous with the Centre which supports the multiplicity and grossness and once this is restored or kept up constantly it will be a play of ecstasy and acceptance rather than the rejection of the manifestation or creation. Rejection of manifestation is not necessary nor inevitable for the realisation of the Divine freedom, which is freedom realised and experienced in terms of manifestation and multiplicity. But the grossening process in the last terms of the downward or descending process leaves evolution in the grip of materiality and immutability. So much so even this theory would have to provide for the Yoga which entails the rejoining or linking up of the lowest and lowliest with the Central Original Force of the Divine, so that these may have continuous flow of divine energy which remains Divine even in matter. The necessity therefore to conceive of the Divine as remaining divine even when it has descended into matter becomes more and more clear and this means that we have to conceive of a second or third or fourth force different from that which has descended to form the levels and is seeking experience in each of them. God then has to be brought down to the lowest level if there is to be divine evolution. Ancients knew that the Divine is indeed the Guru or Teacher who constantly undertakes this task of linking up the outermost with the innermost – and not only does he himself do it but also provides for the constant working of this process through those whom he had trained in it. The Avatars also are considered to perform this divine function of linking up the Divine with the manifestation from the centre which is Himself to the fringes of matter or the inconscient gross being, all of which are the extensions of His thought-force or Manas or prana. Ordinarily Yoga or linking is the attempt at union by the individual with the Divine Centre. But really it is the conscious assistance that one gives to the Divine in linking up itself with the Divine. In other words whilst Yoga is what the Divine is performing and maintaining at all times and levels unceasingly, it is the individual’s recognition and renewal on his part of the connection with the Divine in a complementary effort to that of the Divine. The connection of the soul with God is Yoga and it is seen that this can be done only with the help of the Centre or God Himself or His original power. God of course is not thought of as even the primal one for He is beyond manas or thought. But it is undoubted that without His will this connection cannot be made by the individual soul in a conscious way and unless this connection is established between the soul and God as complementary to that between God and the soul, there is no possibility of full Yoga. Integral Yoga, in a new sense, would mean not the integration or combination of the three yogas or more of the kind we know, based on individual efforts alone according to the three modes of man’s affective, cognitive and conative functions but the integration of the twofold processes of the Divine link with the soul and the soul’s link with the Divine. The process of linking or yoga is however again a point of great interest. Undoubtedly all of us have to link up with the help of our thought, which has its basis in the affective, cognitive and volitive functions. This thought has unfortunately become so particularised to the needs of bodily survival and adjustment and adaptation to the environment that its power to link it with the original thought has become lost. But without this original thought descending into the individual nothing really can happen. This original prana (manas) known to the ancient Rsis as Satyasya satyam, Rtasya rtam, pranasya pranah and manaso manah, is already waiting to descend if the individual could but purify himself of all other goals and seekings, and desires. But mankind has come to a pass when even this simple life of purification of one’s thoughts including emotions and instincts or cravings, is found to be almost impossible. Every effort to do so only lands it in more complexities. In fact, the definition or function of Yoga, according to Patanjali seems to refer to this work of stemming or arresting or once and for all abolishing the mental modifications — Yogah cittavrttinirodhah. But this is undoubtedly a very difficult thing without the grace of the Divine. Isvara prasada. As Sri Krsna says: maccittah sarva durgani mat prasadat tarisyasi: becoming of my mind through my grace you will cross over all these walls or forts (of mental modifications). Shri Ram Chandraji indeed refers to the formations of the circles of thoughts from the most subtle to the most gross, from the circles of splendour to the circles and rings of Maya in the Reality at Dawn. The grace of God comes when one surrenders one’s mind to God, one’s thought, however gross to God so that by that influx of that original thought or Godly Manas or thought the gross thoughts of the particularised and individualised person will receive purification and get restored to divine activity. Shri Ram Chandraji herein introduces the real function of the Guru. It is He who having attained the Ultimate Central Anubhava is capable of introducing that supreme superfine thought into the heart of the seeker or abhyasi so as to evoke the processes of mental control and spiritual aspiration and ascent. He is the Ignitor, initiator of the spiritual union. All others, however, learned and scholarly and even walking encyclopedias can hardly do this work. Thus we find saints among the unlearned or those who have unlearned their book knowledge and not among the scholars of knowledge. Hence the need to select a proper Guru on the Yoga path who could train is imperative. Further in the real Raj Yoga, since it starts with the meditation on the heart wherein the Master or Guru introduces the Ultimate living force (prana), the other steps seem to follow naturally. The natural formation of spiritual nature or reformation of individual behavior is something quite natural and effortless because of the nature of the force that works from the centre of one’s heart towards the periphery of all behavior. There is a superconscious development, which almost makes this reformation of one’s behaviour miraculous and evolutionary. Yama, the fivefold virtues of truthfulness (Satyam), chastity (brahmacarya), non-injury (ahimsa), non-robbery (aparigraha) and non-theft (asteya) as well as niyamas or cleanliness and godliness happen as the very nature of spiritual life. As for the seat (asana) and breath-control (pranayama) they are found to be naturally following from the intensity of one’s meditation which brings these about in a satisfactory way. Physical health is something that follows from spiritual health, unlike what materialists would like to maintain that a sound mind can only be in a sound body which every one knows is a materialist doctrine. Supporting the goal in one’s mind is dharana whereas dhyana is basic to all Yogic practice of spiritual union with the Ultimate Yoga as control of mental modifications thus is a consequence of Divine descent or introduction of Prana into the heart by the Guru. Once this is grasped Shri Ram Chandra shows how the process leads to the Ultimate union in the shortest possible time. Yoga is really the method of swiftest self-evolution to the Divine nature as contrasted with the biological evolution that has been taking place through millions of years. Pranahuti or the introduction of the Divine Life – principle of the nature of Divine superfine superconscious thought is therefore the Guru’s work and unless one does it or can do it ably he cannot be a Guru of Yoga. It is the introduction of this ‘breath’ or life spiritual that awakens, illumines and leads the seeker to aspire, persevere and move upward to the Centre through all the several rings of ignorance, illusion and egoism and splendour. Without it Yoga is incomplete or rather has no capacity to start at all. The Yoga of Shri Ram Chandraji shows that the heart is pivotal for dhyana (meditation on the divine thought), purification of the entire psycho-physical system of all gross particles and patterns. He shows that the Divine Centre is subtly placed in the region marked as ‘C’ in the Central Region (which is also the discovery of the Master) in the Occipital protuberance or just below it. He shows that the heart can be connected with that Centre through the superfine thought vibrations of the Pranahuti and only then does the Sahaja samadhi take place. Sahaja samadhi is the state of being in the divine consciousness even in the waking sensory-motor condition of the normal man. Such a person in whom the two points have been closely linked achieves liberation from the cycle of births and deaths and also attains the bright worlds of freedom after death. The Divine centre is not the Sahasrara of the tantrik – yogins or even the Brahmarandhra through which one is said to depart at death. These are shown to be placed in the third region and not in the Central Region. The very fact the Central Region is marked in the physical plane of the Head shows that one can attain it even whilst in this body. But if the turiya is above and outside the physical then liberation or experience of the Divine worlds could only take place after death. Consciousness such as the individuated particularised individuals possess is not the Ultimate. True consciousness is something very different. Even so Shri Ram Chandraji considers that the “soul possesses consciousness as a result of God’s will to effect creation” (Reality at Dawn p.31 first ed.). The soul is said to be conscious only because it arises from it when it is called upon to function. A state of realisation, which is for oneself, goes behind this consciousness which is needed for work outside itself and for others. Even in the case of our knowing God this is normally directed outward towards manifestations and images or representations or symbols of God. But in the case of knowing God as He is in Himself and for Himself, one has to go behind this consciousness. Thus alone can one enter into the Divine (tattvena pravestum) as the Gita puts it. Thus one attains the Divine through the Divine’s help as Guru. The Isvara in the Yoga system is known as the teacher or perfect teacher – perfection being translated as Isvaratva. Even so, in the Sahaj Marg, the Divine or Guru is teacher and trainer and transmitter of the Divine breath and thought and consciousness by which the dhyana is cultivated and improved and perfected into Samadhi of the Sahaj Marg. All this is seen to happen naturally, simplified and efficient, producing what we may call welfare all round and peace in everybody. One finds that one’s problems of the evolution into Divine nature get solved easily and without the arduous practices which do more harm by producing tensions in the life. Theories of Maya have produced more tensions than solved them. Similarly renunciation has produced tensions of a different kind. Even the practice of virtue has become a hazardous enterprise in the modern world. The ethical life is a life of tensions whereas really it is the life of vice that ought to be so. In any case vices produce tensions and create more complexities at the physical, mental and spiritual levels. Shri Ram Chandraji in the Reality at Dawn presents a simple philosophy of the Sahaj Marg which could help everyone to become normal, undepressed and unrepressed, detensioned and happy even amidst the chaos that is shrouding the world today. The ethics of Sahaj Marg consists in its being the preparation and practice of spiritual life. It has been held that before one undertakes the practice of Yoga one should possess or cultivate the fourfold means (sadhana catustaya), as pointed out in the Reality at Dawn viveka, vairagya, sama and dama, uparati, tittiksa, sradha, and samadhana. The Vedantic explanations are slightly different from those adopted by Yoga. In any case every one is agreed that it is necessary to awaken to the sense of the temporary and the permanent, out of which the others follow necessarily. The Yogic transmission of the highest consciousness, which becomes the divine censor within or conscience, makes the following of the several steps of moral reformation easy. The will to do the right, knowing the right, is all that is necessary. One should not be in the state of mind of many a weakling; ‘I know what is righteous, but am unable to follow it; I know what is wrong (evil) but am unable to resist doing it.” This predicament of the moral degenerate like Duryodhana is made impossible once the individual comes into the path of spiritual regeneration and evolution through spiritual transmission. All yoga involves the practice of self-restraining (yama) in all conduct, and certain basic observances (niyama). The ‘Commentary on the Ten Commandments’ expounds at length the commandments or directions for daily routine observance by every abhyasi. One should practise these consistently and uniformly with the feeling that all this is pleasing to the Divine. Love dictates the moral life rather than mere duty. Thus one is instructed to rise early and offer prayer to God at fixed hours sitting in a pose which is convenient for meditation on the heart. One should have the goal steadily before one’s mind—this goal being the Ultimate condition of Reality itself. One must become more and more identical with Nature, the Ultimate superfine superconscious state of Reality. This is known to be plain and simple and capable of producing and maintaining sublime peace. Love for the Ultimate is most necessary, but it is also something that grows in and through the practice of spiritual reception of the transmission from the Master. Faith also grows and so too constant remembrance of the Divine and the Master. The fifth commandment affirms the necessity to speak the truth. Be truthful. This is the most important element of the principles of Yama. Be honest with oneself refers to asteya. Be not revengeful for the wrongs done by others refer to ahimsa. To treat all people as brethren is to practice ‘aparigraha (non-robbery)—to treat all as sharers in God’s bounty. To eat divine prasada or offerings made to God is to have contentment as well. One should accept all wrongs and sufferings and miseries and diseases even, as gifts of God. They have to be accepted with gratitude as heavenly gifts. Above all the ethical person should practise repentance for the wrongs one does or has committed and shun once and for all their repetition. Thus spiritual ethics does not exalt the necessity to choose and discern and weigh and act. He is not concerned with the problem of choice between the pleasure and unpleasure, good and evil understood as productive of pleasure or pain, misery or happiness, wealth or illth. His goal being the realisation of the Ultimate Reality which has been chosen as such there is one necessity, the necessity to feel the omnipresence of the One Divine in all one’s living and moving and being. Shri Ram Chandraji has beautifully explained the commandments not as vidhis (inviolable obligations) but as basic observances which help spiritual progress. Any deviation only causes delay and one’s co-operation with his Master or Guru is obviously necessary. This is all that is needed on the individual’s part. It is his effort (yatna) which will help the speedy progress of his evolution. Though the Guru’s transmission would do all these too, the individual’s conscious collaboration is valuable on the path. In this sense these are commandments. These commandments do not prescribe or proscribe any duties or acts, which are against the decent behavior of persons who wish to live a good life among men and society. The virtues, which are requisite, are universal virtues. There is no prescription that men should on becoming spiritual, be beyond good and evil moralities. On the contrary it is clear that no one can be said to live a normal life that creates tensions within himself and in his environment. The goal, if attaining the highest good, which is liberation or freedom from all misery and perfection of one’s spiritual nature determines the inner voice which is indeed the divine awakened within by the spiritual transmission. One’s awakening of the divine within and hearing the inner voice is a true moral attainment, which will be in tune with the divine Nature. The real moral life arises from the surrender that one makes to the Ultimate Reality, giving up oneself in all one’s nature to its realisation. Surrendering oneself to the Divine Force and Reality also means the recognition that one is by oneself incompetent to pursue it integrally. It is not merely the resignation of oneself to the fate in things, but a willing acceptance of the hazards on the path of integral spirituality till the final goal is reached. It is true that doubts and scepticisms may arise on the path of spiritual evolution as in every other walk of life, but they may be recognized as merely the testing periods of the progress made and the steadiness acquired so far, thanks to the transmission of the Guru. In a sense they are verily the stepping stones to success. There is no pessimism on this path since the path is a great moral anti-depressant and anti-tensionist. The spiritual utterly exposes the moral pathology of repression and conditionings and possibly makes the downward movement to antisocial and criminal behavior impossible. But these are not merely large claims A moral or spiritual transformation of man must involve these. If religious codes have failed—as we can see the religious pathology—it is because they have not taken man seriously for the transformation and provided outlets for social pathology. In the Efficacy of Rajyoga, Shri Ram Chandraji reveals the magnitude of His discoveries in the field of Yoga. Rajyoga has been said to be the original system of practice which tried to connect the Divine with the help of divine thought with the human individual mind or thought. Thought being the sovereign principle in man, the method has been called Rajyoga or sovereign Yoga. The other features of thought are not eschewed, but they are in the human being divided and disintegrated. The integral or unified divine thought takes care of all the processes in man once it is introduced into the system or organism of the seeker after Ultimate emancipation. It is not the goal of Yoga to attain powers of control over nature, which go by the name of siddhis (or miracles). Nor is it the aim of Yoga to attain the trance state (samadhi) whether it is called nirvikalpaka (asamprajnata) or savikalpaka (samprajnata). On the contrary the goal is attainment of liberation from all material organs and outward going mind and intellect. One realises the soul as different from its causal, astral and physical bodies, and attains the condition of Being in the Divine. All his activities are restored to the original condition of Nature. One attains the condition of real Isvaratva (freedom from the nature and its modifications). In the Efficacy of Rajyoga Shri Ram Chandraji reveals the levels or regions of Heart, Mind and the Central Region to be placed even within the human anatomy. It means that as in the Cosmos so also in the individual, the regions are interconnected or reproduced. Yatha brahmande tatha pinde—as in the macrocosm so too is the microcosm. This metaphysical mystic assumption is now being more and more recognized by science itself as shown most lucidly by Professor Errol Harris in his monumental work ‘Foundations of the Metaphysics of Science’. The previous thinkers stopped with the Mind Region and did not realise that there was the Central Region and the Centre. The conception of levels of super-existence in close conformity with the Ultimate Reality within the human organism itself is astounding and amazing but making it amenable to experience is what makes this formulation of the Rajyoga unique. It is not a mere conception but like the modern discoveries in outer space it is directly verifiable with the help of the divine thought instrument, which can be transmitted to those centres under well-defined conditions and under the guidance of the Guru. It is shown how the human consciousness, which is at the gross stage, tied down to outer objects and needs of the body, can be transcended at the heart region. The Heart region holds the key to evolution as it is known by all to be the key organ wherein the soul and the Divine dwell, to be awakened. Thus we appeal to the heart rather than to the head. The living being is known by its heart rather than by its head. The Rajayoga begins with the awakening of the gross heart to the divine vibrations of the transmission and since the transmission is of the nature of divine love, the heart begins to glow with the light of the divine thought within it. The purification of the points near the heart helps the perception or vision of the light within. The calm and lightness follow almost very soon. The individual awakens to its real task in birth. It begins to seek and aspire strongly for the Divine life. Through several centres or points which Shri Ram Chandraji calls knots (granthis*), the soul illumined by the Divine thought begins to travel upward to the region known as the Mind region. Of course this region is an inversion of the Heart Region, but it is a rarefied superfine consciousness that prevails in this region which is already connecting itself with the Cosmic regions beyond the body. This region is said to be so vast comprising all the cosmos that it would take millions of years for the soul to cross it. It may appear on the physiological scale to be very small but experiential and evolutionary scale would put it in terms of perhaps cosmic distances. But with the help of divine transmissional thought it is possible to pass through these regions almost within a few decades. This is the field of cosmic energies and as such is known also as Brahmanda. One may venture further to imagine that the higher levels of this area are Parabrahmanda. In fact Shri Ram Chandraji holds that very few, if at all, among the Yogis of the past have gone so far as that. * “Existence comprises all the various forms and conditions in which the different elements appear to us. … At the time of the creation the Origin wherefrom the currents began to flow out was cold because it was unalloyed with matter. As they flowed out they gave out jerks which went on multiplying. The jerks occurred mostly at the point wherefrom the process of creation had started. It will be more comprehensible if, for the sake of understanding we divide it into three parts. When the coolness got extended up to the limit where it started generating heat mostly by its own actions, therefrom it began to assume the differentiated form. It was, of course, the central part. Now the same central part came to our lot in the form of Granthi (knot). There we find some circling rings in it. To be more plain I may frankly say that the very Root-element now by itself turned into a knot and owing to the multiplicity of actions and counter actions assumed such denseness as to transform in into matter. Now we are absorbed in it through our thought and are wandering round in it so that we may be able to proceed onwards…” (p.10-11. Anant Ki Or translation into Towards Infinity). What He now unfolds is a region, which is beyond this region
itself. It is the Central Region which comprises the first
primal thought-force (ksobh) radiating from the Centre. That
primal impulsion in the form of the superfine vibration
forms, bright rings—seven in number the outermost being the
limit of the brightness and extraordinary, unimaginable,
indescribable consciousness. This may be the bright world to
which the liberated ones go after death. One who crosses
into it with the help of the Guru no longer returns to the
dark worlds and the worlds of Maya or reversed realities.
Surely the Master or Guru alone can do this for man,
individual effort hardly avails at this stage. Superb
description of this region makes it almost beyond man’s
reach in one life. But for the divine thought-force nothing
is impossible. It can take one uptill its own starting
point, namely the Ksobh—primal impulsion. Of course no one
enters into the Centre, which is, in one sense, the
refutation of all ksobh with which thought is concerned. One
who goes beyond enters a zone of Reality that is beyond
thought and which has variously been named Zero, which is
not what Buddha called the Sunya. More truly it could be
called the Absolute God. In any case this bright region of
splendour was not accessible for experience or indwelling to
those who were embodied up to now. Shri Ram Chandraji
affirms that this is possible and reveals a new dimension in
spiritual ascent and evolution. Though this region is
intended for the Divine incarnations and special personality
or personalities who is said to be there only one at any
time, it is now possible to have that superfine
superconsciousness for any embodied being who has adequate
faith and Guru’s grace. |