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Sri Ramchandraji of Shahjahanpur has made
startling investigations in Yoga psychology.
These are found in his Reality at Dawn, Efficacy
of Rajayoga and Towards Infinity. He reveals
that all creation is of the Mind (Manas) which
is the first Stir of the reality. This Primal
Manas radiating in vibrations from that Centre
or Reality created concentric circles so to
speak and upto a point really revealed the
potentialities of the Centre itself. This
luminous region upto the extent of seven
original circles was known as the Central Region
of the Mind. This area is not open to the area
of knowledge and therefore was known as the
Ajnana or Region of Ignorance - where knowledge
does not penetrate and which can only be
investigated with the help of Ajnana and the
Ultimate Tam itself, that is beyond the original
Stir and may be known as God.
The regions that follow are the Region of
Egoism firstly cosmic and later individualized
for each person. The same pattern is in the
Cosmic as it is in the individual or particular
individuals or persons. The Manas now diminished
in its force remains subtle but tends to become
grosser and grosser. Eleven circles of egoism
are known as the Region of the Mind and this is
followed by the grosser region of the Heart. The
human organism as a matter of fact from almost
the head to the feet is the region of the heart
in the gross level as well as in the subtle
level. The Heart becomes the essential region
governed by the circulation by the heart
processes. Physically everybody knows that the
heart is central to the body. (Though today
there are cases of transplantation of the heart,
yet it would not disprove the thesis that the
heart remains the main pumping station of power
to all the portions or limbs of the body
including the brain). Whilst the nervous system
is centred in the brain and the nervous system
including the spinal ones the heart is the
circulatory hub of all processes. Towards the
harmonization of the two centres alone is
evolution working. This conception of the three
regions - the heart, the mind and the central
region, is unique. He, however, nearly
identifies the three regions with the Indian
conception of Pinda, Brahmanda and Parabrahmanda
and the Kendriya or central regions which means
that he considers that while the heart is
individual, the manas is more cosmic, and
para-brahmanda is still more cosmic and the
Central goes to the supracosmic and acosmic
levels of Experience.
Every individual, is connected with the
Ultimate and sub-ultimate regions
physio-psychologically.
The stir (ksobh) for expansion is stated to
have taken place from below the Centre. This is
significant, as showing that creation is a
downward movement rather than an upward
movement. Sri Ramchandra has mentioned that
there are what are called kala-dasa points -
points that belong to Time, which emerges along
with the movement in space that is below the
Centre. They all stand under the Centre. This is
also the significant metaphor of the Veda which
speaks of the Urdhva mulam adhas sakah - the
root is above, the branches etc. are below. So
too the Gita mentions this analogy.
Kala-dasa points are all placed along the
spinal cord of the individual body. They are
below the Central point which is in the region
of the Cerebellum. Sri Ramchandra points out
that there is also the point of destruction just
below the Centre. But by crossing down or by
implication discovering that the creative
downward movement is really a process of
destruction of the Ultimate Happiness,
perfection, existence and so on, one may
conceive of the downflow of evolution
(pravrtti).
Thus we have the points numbering twenty.
From laya avastha one descends to the conversion
of vibrations into particles, the higher minds
conversion into the lower. Though upto this
point divine knowledge is present, the downward
movement takes it to subtle desires (kama),
which moves to the point of rage (krodha), which
tends to flow down to habits and tendencies
(lobha, moha), this moves towards hunger and
grosser desires pertaining to the maintenance of
the body and lower though for perpetuation,
preservation, sexual appetites and finally ends
up in Kundalini. Thus desire, anger, possession,
self-preservation, delusion and sex are all
clearly necessary for the extension of the field
of the individual evolution. All individuals are
the basic results of the downward movement of
the ari-sat, or the sixfold which may be said to
typify also the six-fold sat-cakras of the
Tantrik conception. The centres there too are
considered to be downward facing or hanging down
buds, which it is the business of the yogi on
this path to upturn or make them unfold upwards
by piercing them from below with the help of the
energy of the Kundalini. It is somewhat of a
strange conception that the grossest power
should be awakened and made to pierce the points
or centres of lotuses from below and then move
upwards till the Ultimate Centre is reached.
Sri Ramchandra presents a more rational
explanation of the spinal downward turned points
which represent the life-forces of instinctive
evolution, which is also considered to be that
of Nature.
It may not be very difficult to equate the
six centres with points of Sri Ramchandra's
diagram. These too are subtle centres except
perhaps the last ones - a fact recognized by the
Minor Upanishads also.*
Unlike the method adopted by the tantriks who
wish to move by the same route as by which the
original force had descended - an impossible if
not risky job, Sri Ramchandra proceeds to show
that the route of ascent is different from the
spinal route of descent. This route is frontal
rather than spinal and posterior. The starting
point is the heart as stated by the Upanishads,
where the Jiva is resident and where the Isvara
is also working. Without entering into the
metaphysics of the double presence of the Jiva
and Isvara in the heart, we can state that one
has to move upward from the heart to the Centre
that is above. The path is not direct but rather
zig-zag. From the point of the heart (left) one
proceeds to the right and from that one ascends
to point three just above the nipple (left) and
proceeds from thence to the point four which is
upwards of the right nipple. From that point one
proceeds to the throat point which corresponds
to the visuddha point in the spinal in the
front. This completes the frontal ascent in the
pinda-pradesh or the individual evolution or
ascent. It is from the thoracic point one moves
to the point in the top of the forehead - not
the bhru-madhya which is said to be point
corresponding to the ajna cakra in the spinal
level. It is the experience of many practicants
at this point - to have vibrations or throbbing.
Sri Ramchandra advises that this point should
not be touched at all on the upward journey. May
be that this point corresponds to the
destructive eye or point in the back and might
open up that point's activity. However, many use
this for material power some even present it as
the third eye of Shiva. However, this point is
bypassed on the ascent. One reaches the Cit-lake
at the top of the forehead. One begins to
experience the Mind region - as it opens up the
cosmic levels, leaving behind the individual
particularized life. Ego at this region is no
longer identified with the body or the
sense-cum-motor organs, but is free from their
limitations and restrictions.
Waking-consciousness according to mandukya
Upanishad refers to the sensory-cum-motor-mind
awareness. But the true waking-consciousness
seeks to be beyond these restrictions of
limitations or grossness. The real awareness of
the cosmic linkings of the mind or ego as mind
becomes possible when one dwells more and more
in the cit-lake (manasarovar of the Upanishads).
The modern tendency to emphasize the place of
the waking-consciousness arises from the fact
that one would like to be held responsible for
one's actions - especially the errors and sins
that so much dominate it. The
waking-consciousness involves that one must be
conscious of one's powers and be able to plan
the future according to whatever ideals that one
has. In fact, it is the practice of some to see
that the subconscious and unconscious levels of
consciousness are gradually abolished. The Yoga
sutra itself admits that nidra or sleep is a
great impediment to Yoga. More so dreams also
that set the mind wandering from one idea to
another idea. Obviously we have to conclude that
the yogi never ought to sleep or dream but be in
the waking-consciousness.
In all these what is the essence of the
matter is that one forgets the inner self - the
fourth. Our waking consciousness suffers much
from this loss of inner consciousness - the
turiya. Therefore, it is not really jagrat -
watchful but pleasure - hunting. Its world is
narrowed to the field of desires which fulfil
the appetites of the senses - motor and sensory.
Similarly the svapna - su - apna is equally void
of the inner awakenness of the self - dhi - and
as such is nightmarish and wish-fulfilling
rather than free and luminous (taijas). The
Su-supti without the fourth or dhi is again not
a sound sleep of the prajna but just a fatigue
consciousness or a state of a-prajna.
It is the fourth that must inform all these
three states - all of which are necessary for
the real up - bringing of the body as an
instrument of the inner self. If the philosophy
behind these discoveries was the attainment of
the turiya or the fourth which is of the
dis-embodied being then it is conceivable that
some have never bothered to exercise the fourth
in the three states of the body. If, on the
other hand, the goal is to see that the fourth
functions in and through the three states then
it would really manifest the visva, taijas and
the prajna. This might be the essential meaning
of the attempt to arrive at that
waking-consciousness which has all the richness
and amplitude of the cosmic and supra - cosmic
levels of Reality.
It is, however necessary to plumb the depths
or ascend the heights of the Reality as it is in
itself so that it might be made to function with
that same force and energy and consciousness in
the lower levels without dissolving them into
nothingness - a fact well known to the earlier
yogis who attempted nisprapancikarana
dissolution of the fivefold unification or
aggregation that gave rise to the world.
The Bhagavad Gita has a passage, which
reveals that the night of the Yogi is daytime
for the common man and the waking state of the
yogi is the sleepy state of the ordinary man.
This gives the clue that one has to understand
by the waking state not the state of the senses,
motor and sensory and the lower mind operating
through them, but the state of the inner
self-the purusa. The purusaic consciousness or
the Dhi is the waking state of the Purusa,
whereas it is the state of sleep of the prakrti,
contrariwise, the waking state of the prakrti is
the sleep state of the Purusa- the prajna.
All these reveal that technical terminology
has been rather loosely applied by expositors,
without a firm grasp of the experience that is
boded by the states and levels.
Therefore, Sri Ramchandraji supplies a firm
interpretation of the prakrtic evolution on the
one hand as explained by the Kala-dasa points
and the purusaic evolution, which is explained
as the frontal heart cerebral movement of the
consciousness.
Samadhi as transcendental meditation is a
double-edged experience. On the one hand samadhi
provides the break away from the prakrtic
embodied consciousness into the purusaic-that
involves suspension of all bodily activities.
This samadhi has been known to be reserved for
those who have totally discarded attraction for
the body and given up any attempt to use it for
any purposes. Of course the actual practice has
been rather opposed to this total renunciation.
Therefore, samadhi as the radical withdrawal of
the consciousness from the body is not fully
accepted as the way to realisation, though a few
yet cling to it as the only truth.
Samadhi as the state of purusa -
consciousness really realizing itself within the
prakrti, which is, as it were, but its ksobh,
and externalized, is what the sahaja method
seeks to attain. This does not mean the
severance of the link between the purusa and the
prakrti, which are usually set against each
other. The realisation of the highest
consciousness - the purusaic within the prakrti
or the body is naturally brought about by the
transmission of the Ultimate thought arising
from the Ultimate purusa or Self or God, samadhi
is not a state of trance - loss of bodily
consciousness as such. It is a deepest state of
absorption in the Ultimate from which one
derives all power and consciousness and bliss
and existence for then one goes beyond all these
too.
The correlations made by Sri Ramchandra are
invaluable and form a corrective to the
speculative conjectures of the tantrikas and the
mantrikas.
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