Sri Ramchandra's Rajayoga: New Darsana : Part-1 :The Darsana

The Goal of Sri Ramchandra's Rajayoga

Modern ameliorism only tries to mitigate the misery of the world, to coat its bitterness with the sugar of love, sympathy, understanding and social justice. Though we may correct all the instincts of man, the greatest defect of the earth-consciousness would be yet there - the naturalness of death and its meaninglessness. There have been yogis who are even now trying to make man immortal by means of drugs and descent of the Mother's supramental Grace, or descent of the Supermind itself. It is wrong to conclude beforehand its failure just because there have been failures so far. The other attempt to resign ourselves to the fate of the river - riverness as one man put it - to feel, know and live for the instant that flows into another - unwept, unhonoured and unsung - this natural resignation that seeks no immortality, for that is unnatural, is equally present before us from the days of Heraclitus and Buddha down to our own days.

Performance and impermanence, and permanence in impermanence, or impermanence in permanence, have been the alternatives which men have chosen at one time or other, and so far liberation seems to be a going from one to the other, or the escape from one to the other. Somehow none of them had been satisfactory to the human mind restless for a real solution.

It is contended by some that the spiritualism of Advaita, with its emphasis on the hierarchical disposition of values of the world superseded by the ultimate value of transcendental freedom or moksha, is the goal of man. The Brahman is the ultimate self (atman) of man, and all attempts to arrive at it in manifestation is illusion. Despite its being pessimistic it is the truth that one will realize ultimately.

These solutions make it necessary for man to develop a new kind of vision. It is true to affirm that our vision is adapted to the ends we have in view, and in one sense its limitations are limitations determined by our goals. It is not usually known that we know or see only that which we wish to see or know, except in those cases where Wonder or Danger are present or are apprehended. This jolt is what we always look out for as the cause of most philosophising; it is precisely this 'shock' that lifts man up to the Vision of his own future; it gives him an urgent necessity to solve the problem of his own existence. It is under such a stress or impact that one begins to sense the need for a newer vision and approach to the problem of existence.

Such a vision is not enough; it is necessary also to feel the adequacy of being, of life; what is called forth is a new impulse to realize being which seems to have lost its meaning in the context of the new shock. The philosophic theory of knowledge seeks only a knowledge - an explanation which, however comprehensive or synoptic and systematic, falls short of explaining or providing a sense of being in the knowing of this systematic formulation. This is what modern thinkers have discerned as the necessity for a philosophy based on the awareness of existence or being which transcends knowing. Some have gone to the extent of affirming that knowing might not lead to being at all, and therefore one need not have a philosophy to arrive at this existence or Being.

It is well-known that the attraction of mysticism lies in its claim to solve the problem of being or existence. Some proceed on the assumption that being is a category of personal existence and, therefore, separative and individuative of one's existence, marking one apart from others equally individuated; or marking one apart from the Whole to which one really belongs. Existence, in this sense, means a loss of being (called essence) and loss of existence would mean the gain of being (essence). Therefore mystics normally seek the dissolution or merger or losing of oneself in the Whole, God or Non-Being. Others, like the religious, see in the merging or uniting with the Whole an enhancement of Being or Existence, or living essence (ujjivana).

Realization means, then, to attain one's natural condition of being which is felt and recognized as such, whether it is attained through mergence in the All or God, or Non-existence which is understood as the loss or absence of existence in the sense in which we all know it, that is, the limited and finite and morel life that we live. Thus the idealists innovated a convention of putting (in the English language) the terms of the ultimate connotation in capitals viz. Reality, Existence (or Non-existence) Being (or Non-being), Nirvana and so on. Some have definitely made out that since our language cannot adequately speak about it either in the affirmative or in the negative, that condition should be deemed incommunicable through language-signs or by any other signs whatsoever. It is something to be attained, felt, or enjoyed, or lived, without the least idea of separateness from it.

Such a nir-vikalpaka experience is the goal which a religious mystic seeks. It is the goal which is the ultimate good for man. The secret of manifestation can only be known by this experience and not without it or outside it. To speak about the nature of light or colour from the objects it falls upon, or which it shows up, is perhaps a near way, but it cannot give any real explanation of the nature of light itself. In our existence or experience we can never discern the nature and meaning of ourselves; that is why we are compelled to go beyond ourselves and not merely out of ourselves - the latter process makes knowledge itself a successful illusion or hallucination. To rise beyond ourselves and gain that height of Being is our only way towards real experience and Being.

But it is a very distant goal, and such a transcendent state is not aimed at by most seekers. Any one who sees or feels the call of the Ultimate would however discern the need for the highest alone. Some would like to imagine the highest in the lowest, and become content with the lowest state itself because it potentially contains the highest; but it must be said that this potentiality is quite different from the potentiality as power to manifest itself in the lowest fully. The so-called potentiality of the gross to contain the subtle, or the effect to contain the cause, is abstract, and an exhausted condition not capable of revealing the highest. The potentiality of the effect in the cause is a dynamic potentiality. Similarly the Ultimate is veiled (self-veiled?) in the gross in a different sense than that in which the potentiality of the gross is veiled in the subtle. This means that the subtle manifests the gross or evolves itself in the effect or gross condition. Sri Ram Chandra states that this could be expressed in a different way. The outer contains the inner and as it is opened, the inner becomes the cover of the outer. God contains Nature and the individual souls. Just as the outer is Nature and the inner is the Ultimate spirit, even so, for each individual soul, the outer is Nature and the inner is its own ultimate spirit in its individuated form. Therefore what is true of the Ultimate and its manifestation or Nature is equally true of the individual souls. It is, therefore, necessary for each individual to recover, or re-cover, or uncover the inner, and thus make it the outer, and the outer the inner if it cannot be abolished. Nature thus becomes veiled, and the spirit gets unveiled or revealed, and this is realization of the Ultimate spirit.

The individual soul has therefore to retrace its steps, and with assiduity and energy persevere in the unveiling of the spirit within, either by making the inner the outer, or by abolishing entirely the outer. The more natural way is just to invert the whole process by restoring the primacy of the Spirit and assigning a subordinate status to Nature. This happens in two natural ways: first is the process which automatically reverses the movement which tends to the maximum of unfolding or pravrtti; the process by which Nature which is concealed, or potential in Spirit, is made the outer visible gross nature, and consequently spirit appears to be almost completely absent in Nature in its grossest form. This of course, does not happen completely, for before this limit of absolute non-existence of spirit happens, the process gets automatically reversed. This principle is known to be present in all natural phenomena. Similarly it is perhaps to be assumed that the process of nivrtti, or reversal of nature, leads to the more and more subtle states of spirit being manifested, as grossness seems to be removed, or turned inward or withdrawn, till the limit of absolute non-existence of gross Nature is attained. This is the Zero or nihil or the Absolute Spirit. The philosophical problem would be whether the nivrtti also reverses itself automatically when it tends to the maximum. Obvious it is that this should be so. The two are inseparable.

Sri Ram Chandra makes it out that activity and inactivity go together, and support each other through out. When activity is fully on, one begins to feel that there must be an inactivity which was its cause or prior condition, and similarly inactivity would become the aposterori condition of activity as well. This he explains in his "Towards Infinity" (Anant ki Or); and that is why philosophers ask questions about the cause of activity or creation, whereas religious persons seek peace or rest or inactivity. If we take it that activity (rajas) and inactivity (tamas) are inseparable, and one is the support of the other, then the samatva (balance) is sattva. In other words, though Ultimate Liberation is possible only when one realizes the Ultimate limit or Absolute nivrtti (inactivity or peace or santi or zero), it is seen that one can attain the point of zero which keeps up the minimum of Nature, and thus one experiences that ultimate condition whilst yet remaining in this gross condition, which of course is, astrally considered, very subtlized or divinized. Thus that condition of liberation is realizable, even when remaining in the body. The body however, for astral vision, is fully subtle and divinized. That is to say, the gross or material condition is more and more subtlised or submerged under the subtlest spiritual condition.

As pointed out by Sri Ram Chandra, there is apparently a parallelism between the divine and the human, the spiritual and the material or the subtle and the gross; in creation the material is manifested, and in involution the spiritual is manifested. It is clear that one is covered by the other, and when any deep crisis or necessity arises in material conditions, then, in the void so created, the spiritual enters, for Nature abhors a vacuum. Divine intervention in human affairs occurs under such circumstances. The aspiration for spiritual peace is one such crisis, and the hiatus created by material conditions is the opportunity for the divine descent in each individual, or in society itself when such a gap develops in a community or race and so on. This inbreaking of the Spirit, which overturns the material and makes it go under, whilst itself becoming more and more manifest, reveals the precise conditions which produce avatars, conversions, and so on. The reverse is perhaps also the case when materialistic conditions seem to engulf the spiritual endeavours. Great spiritual movements have, after a brief brilliant spell of spiritual activity, been followed by most materialistic goals and activities which normally go by the name of spiritual institutions that preserve and construct materialistic foundations for them. That is the reason also why the truly spiritual beings are averse to founding institutions.

However, it is suggested that if the spiritual quality or subtle ingressing of the spiritual into the material moulds it at every point, a hiatus develops, is made or maintained; then it is possible to keep the spiritual going on towards the fullest realization of Ultimate spirituality.

One of the important discoveries of Sri Ram Chandra's method of transmission is to maintain the material or gross form at the minimum, without being afflicted by either the prarabdha or sancita samskaras, which are fried up in such a way that they do not lead to bhoga (experience of results of karma). In other words, karma matter is completely removed from effective checking of the super-conscious life within this body.

We know from the prayers and hymns of great sages, who are stated to have arrived at the jivanmukta state,that they have felt this body to be a serious bondage to freedom of consciousness or self. This is true so long as the consciousness is of the level of abstraction from the material existence, and there is a contradiction between the subtle and the gross, the spiritual and the gross, or where consciousness itself is defined in terms of this contradiction. The truly spiritual or purest thought is such that it is not so: on the other hand, it appears that the truly ultimate spirit is not only not opposed to matter, but is also capable of completely utilizing this gross matter for its own supreme purposes. This condition is declared to be the differential between the Divine and the human: the human consciousness tied up to matter feels itself constricted or restricted by matter which it holds as its own body - albeit temporarily.

The freedom or liberation that one experiences is surely of the absolute order - a freedom from all misery, from all bondage to grossness, from all restrictions and limitations of rings, sheaths and twists or knots which make impossible the fullest expression of peace at all levels. The inactivity or rest or peace is not, then, a mere negative condition that restricts the activity, but something that makes activity itself subtle and most penetrating. Sri Ram Chandra affirms that this forceless activity of the Centre, or the Ultimate, is the essence of peace and perfection, and its interpenetration and omnipresence is something that is rendered possible in each individual, and at any level of existence, by transmission into the heart of that individual.

Of course it is well-known that Sri Aurobindo affirmed that the supermind can be brought down not only in each individual but in the entire humanity, and that the descent would secure immortality to each and every individual member of humanity. But the whole question had been whether in fact it is efficient, and whether it has been done. Sri Ram Chandra, by his method of transmission, has shown that it is possible to introduce this supreme Consciousness called Prana - the Breath or life - into the heart of every one who seeks to attain the Ultimate only, and not any penultimate being as a poet or philosopher does.

The great inspirations caused by contact with great men are mainly due to the unconscious evocations or opening up of certain centres or points within the body and not due to any great inflow of spiritual power that really awakens one to the Reality or its value for one's very existence. It is also witnessed in some cases that one feels attracted once for all to a man or personality, and becomes his very servant and, later, his alter ego. These phenomena are of a different order from the supreme felicity and peace that develops on the path of transmission through this supreme Prana. This breath of breaths, which is at the back of, and sustaining, all life and existence, is the supreme prana spoken of by the Upanisads, and is the First Ksobh or stir of the Ultimate in creative mood. To bring it down and make it flow into the abhyasi is possible only to those who have themselves become one with the Ultimate, or at least with the First Divine Mind or Ksobh. The Divine of course, has no "mind", for mind belongs to the Ksobh or first stir.

Therefore it is that this highest Mind (superior to the supermind, overmind and other lesser level minds obviously) can lead one to the Ultimate condition of being beyond all mind itself. This state some of the yogis call the Amanaska, but most often they consider this to be a state higher than the particular mind of the individuals alone. One goes beyond all these minds and is in direct union with the Ultimate, beyond Mind. This is Sayujyata - complete realization of the Ultimate State or the Ultimate. This is perfection.

While the liberation of the lower levels only assumes freedom from lower states, even when such states are as high as the Parabrahmanda, the perfection of the Realization is when one has union with the Ultimate and becomes of its very essence - brahmabhuta. One perhaps passes through the status of Jivabhuta before one attains the condition of Brahmabhuta. As Sri Ram Chandra puts it, one has to know and become, and then merge completely in each of the higher states which open up at higher and higher levels, till the final leap into the Ultimate takes place, and one is merged in it fully so that the Divine has opened itself up to him because he has completely opened himself up to the Divine. Samipya, sarupya and then sayujya are the three steps in liberation, and each earns a freedom that is exquisitely blissful. However, it is the last that is sought by those who seek union, even if it entails complete loss of oneself and one's identity. Others rest content with lesser status. However, if the Will of the Ultimate entails their emergence out of Him for His work they come out of Him, but carrying with them the central Peace that is infinite.

Thus divine saints are born again and again, not because of any lack of perfection in their essence, but because of what Sri Krsna called divine work. (Janma karma ca me divyam: my birth and my acts are divine). Such divinized souls bring to the earth-consciousness a supreme felicity and value, and transform almost the entire universe by their radiating power. The worlds get re-established in their true order of being and hierarchy - true dharma, and that is what humanity has been all along moving towards, and aspiring to in its darkest days of degradation, depression and disgrace.

The total divinisation of humanity is the aspiration of many saints. Whether this is possible or not, it is nevertheless conceivable. But the possibility is more for individual human beings and perhaps certain, rather than for the whole of humanity as such, for humanity is a genus, an idea, a convenient fiction or some such. It is at best a plane of consciousness qua man, and not an individual or a person aspiring for liberation. This, of course, leads us to the intellectual solution of the problems of the individual, the genus or universal or concept. Since in Yoga, as in life, we have to deal with individuals, the entire aspiration, growth and development or evolution belongs to individual men confronted with the basic problems of life - its misery, ignorance, bondage, recurrence and rebirth, materialization or grossness and so on. This does not mean that all individuals cannot aspire for, and attain, the highest state of divinization, though Sri Ram Chandra states that there can only be one supreme personality who directs the entire universe, and that there are indeed several levels or offices in the cosmic government. Probably the very notions of liberty, equality and fraternity undergo differentiations in connotation as the divinising process takes place. There could hardly be any annulment of their present meanings, and we may not be confronted with paradoxical counter meanings, as happens in the field of idealistic metaphysics and political practice.

The goal of man is verily the divine nature and attainment of utmost peace. It is truly Bliss and the Source of all bliss, truth and consciousness or awareness. It is beyond all description in terms of our human logic, nor could it be defined by means of our terms. It is transcendental to all our descrip-tions and definitions, but not to our most intimate immanental experiences, where one overcomes the ignorance and bondage and all limitations to free oneness with all Reality qua reality. It is the experience of the Essence of Being which is also the source of all existence, from the most subtle to the most gross, from the veriest homogeneity to the most prolific heterogeneity.