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I There are two physiological theories
advanced by two writers of the present day who
seek to explain the psychonic system in terms of
modern thought: The theory advanced by Sir John
Woodroffe and Pramathanath Mukhopadhyaya on the
one hand and Dr. Vasant Rele on the other. Dr.
Rele's theory is on the lines of neural
explanation and is worthy of study as it gives
excellent cues as to a future theory of Nadis
and chakras.
1.The theory of Dr. Rele:
Dr. Rele holds in his work on *Mysterious
Kundalini, that Kundalini is the right vagus
nerve and the physiological nervous plexuses are
the chakras and the several nerves can be
identified with the Nadis described by the two
books Satcakra Nirupana and the
Mahanirvanatantra. "All explanations about this
(kundalini sakti) though learned, could as well
apply to the autonomic nervous system" he says
(P-34). The static or anabolic power is the para-sympathetic
portion of it and the Dynamic or Katabolic power
is the sympathetic portion of it. "The Vagus,
pneumogastric or tenth cranial nerve, as we
know, is developed from the hind brain and has a
more extensive distribution than any of the
other cranial nerves.
The notes on Endocrinology were brought
up-to-date by Dr. V. S. R. Murthy, S. V.
University College, Tirupati.
*Mysterious Kundalini: vasant Rele: Bombay
Halliburtons Hand-book of Physiology Ch.XVI
P-171
"It arises with other cranial nerves (ninth
and eleventh) from the grey matter in the floor
of the fourth ventricle, where it is attached by
eight or ten filaments to the Medulla Oblongata
in the groove between the olive and restiform
body. The nerve as it emerges from the jugular
foramen at the base of the skull, presents a
well-marked swelling, called the ganglion of the
root of the Vagus (jugular ganglion). This
ganglion sends a branch to the carotid plexus
which is situated at the base of the skull and
is known as the taluka chakra.*
After its emergence from the jugular foramen,
it presents another swelling called the ganglion
of the trunk of the Vagus (ganglion nodosum)
from this the Vagus nerve passes along the
spinal column vertically down through the neck,
chest and abdomen where it ends into a plexus
and forms connections with the solar plexus. In
its journey downwards and before it ends, it
sends branches to the prevertebral plexuses of
the sympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous
system. In the neck, it sends a branch to the
pharyngeal plexus, i.e., Visuddha Chakra; in the
thorax it sends branches to the deep and the
superficial cardiac plexus i.e., Anahata Chakra;
in the abdomen it forms connections with the
plexus of the coeliac axis i.e., Manipuraka
chakra and then ends in a plexus known as the
solar plexus i.e. Kundalini chakra which is the
downward extension of the Manipuraka chakra. The
Vagus also supplies branches to the renal,
hepatic, splenic, and pancreatic plexuses."**
*Yoga Raja up. Mentions that the taluka
chakra is just below the Ajna at the root of the
palate as its name signifies.
**Mysterious Kundalini pp.46-47 and the plan
and origin of the Vagus nerve P.248. See also
the frontispiece of that work.
This then is the general outline of his
theory of Kundalini. One single nerve vagus
embraces all the plexuses and controls all the
plexuses and therefore the organs to which they
send nerve fibres.
More interesting than this is his appendix
which gives us his complete view with regard to
the nerves and pranas.
The Prana is a centre and vayu is an impulse.
The Samana Prana is identified with the
subsidiary nerve centre in the thoracicolumbar
region regulating the activities of the solar
plexus; Udanaprana with the subsidiary nerve
centre in the cervical region of the spinal
cord. And the Udana vayu is identified with the
afferent nerve impulse along the spinal cord.
Vyana prana is identified with the reflex centre
found at the bottom of the junction of prana and
apana impulses as well as of udana and samana.
Apanaprana is the subsidiary nerve centre in the
lumbar region and apana vayu is the afferent
nerve impulse along the autonomic nerves.
Prana according to him is a centre in spinal
region: apana and Udana are afferent nerve
impulses: samana vayu is efferent nerve impulse
along the cerebro-spinal nerves. "Vyana is the
reflex movement of the prana and apana, as well
as udana and samana". Here we have a theory
which even goes to the extent of tracing the
entire nadis along the paths described by the
tantra and hatha yoga. Not only this, Akasa is
identified with the sub-arachnoid space which
surrounds the brain and spinal cord. The mention
of the Akas-chakra would certainly, on this
interpretation, mean the plexus at the point.
Criticism of this theory:
1. The theory holds that the Vagus is the
Kundalini. Kundalini is according to the tantra
sastra placed within the spinal cord, the 'tube'
of the embryologists. The Kundalini is contained
by the Sushumna which is said to be in the
spinal cord. The plexuses are strung like
lotuses in the Sushumna. "It is said for
instance" says Woodroffe, "that the Adhara
Chakra is the sacrococcygeal plexus and that the
Svadhisthana is the sacral plexus and so forth".
*This work (Shatchakra Nirupana) not to mention
others, makes it plain that the chakras are in
the Sushumna. Verse I speaks of the lotuses
inside the Meru (spinal column); and as the
Sushumna supports these (that is the lotuses)
she must be within the Meru".
2. The identification of the Vagus with the
Kundalini is defective because the authors of
the upanishads as also the tantra claim that
they are so subtle as to be unseen by the eye
and that only a yogi can see them.
3. Dr. Rele by identifying the Sushumna with
the spinal cord and by identifying the Kundalini
with the Vagus commits two mistakes. Firstly,
the Sushumna is within the spinal cord and the
Kundalini is in the Sushumna. Dr. Rele takes
Vajranadi which is not mentioned by the
Upanishads but which is mentioned in the
Shatchakra Nirupana as being within the spinal
cord as the Fibre of Reissner.
Shatchakra Nirupana refutes the theory of
those who place the Sushumna, Ida and Pingala,
within the spinal cord (Meru)** The second verse
of the work says that inside the Vajra which is
within the Meru and the Sushumna there is the
Chitrini on which lotuses are strung as gems and
which like a spider's thread pierces all the
lotuses within the spinal cord.
*Shatchakra Nirupana: p.161-162 introduction.
'Serpent Power"
Serpent Power: Sir John Woodroffe. Ganesh and
Co. Madras.
**ibid: P 164-165
The author of the Shatchakra Nirupana further
refutes the view of the Kalpa Sutra that the
lotuses are within the Chitrini. These lotuses
are within the Sushumna but Chitrini only
pierces through them and does not contain them.
Thus the lotuses are within the Sushumna
which is the Brahmanadi and the spinal cord and
they exist as extremely vital and subtle centres
of radiative force and as centres of grossened
consciousness (more or less). Sir John quoting
the verdict of a medical man not finding the
chakras on dissection remarks that the chakras
as such are extremely subtle and vital centres
and are not available in a body after death: nor
could they be seen in life unless one is a Yogi.
All activity is due to constant vivification
of these centres which control however subtly
yet powerfully, by Prana which is the active
manifestation of Brahman. Only through the
chakras can the entire organism be controlled
and only through the control of breath can there
be actual and dynamic vivification of the
chakras.
Every cell of our organism throbs with its
own individuality of activity and though to a
certain extent the functions of a particular
organism can be usurped by another, yet it would
not be a substantial way of making that organism
function integrally. Every cell of the body has
a consciousness of its own which has sunk into
the unconscious or autonomic level. In
integrating the functions of the several
segments of our organism into a unity and in
making them function in a conscious and
purposive manner, void of the biological
accretions and habits to which it unduly
surrendered itself at the beginning of the
evolutionary career, the entire organism
undergoes a metabolic change which not unduly
and certainly profoundly alters its entire
facility in action, intuition and enjoyment. The
use of Prana according to the example described
by Dr. Rele seems to be that the entire nervous
system is made to focus itself on the primal
centres therefrom the drainage of neural and
psychonic power discharges itself and when it is
commanded into the reginiste channels. The
constant connection between the Vagus which
controls the several plexuses as shown by the
radio-photography of Dr. Rele and the spinal
cord (the Sushumna in other words for it is
myelinated by it) reveals the important manner
in which the entire vital energy is drained into
the spinal channel stimulating the entire series
of plexuses of the psychonic level. In
embryological development it is not the Vagus
but the tube that becomes the spinal cord and
develops into the brain and its parts and later
differentiates itself into the cranial nerves
etc.* Thus the theory of Dr.Rele reveals on the
one hand acute correlation between itself and
the theories of the Upanishads and on the other
the dissimilarity between itself and the tantric
theory. These dissimilarities Sir John Woodroffe
himself notes down in his introduction of
Dr.Vasant Rele's book.
II
Sri Aurobindo Ghose who holds a very high
place so far as Yogic culture goes, in his book
Yogic sadhan (His letters published in the
Advent August 1948, give a fuller account of the
chakras and their place in the Subtle body)
wrote, "I must warn you against stumbling into
the error of those who try to harmonize Yogic
science with the physical science of the
Europeans and search for the Yogic nadis and
chakras in the physical body. You will not find
them there. There are certain centres in the
physical nervous system with which the chakras
correspond, otherwise Hatha Yoga would be
impossible. But the Chakras are not these
centres." "The Sukshma prana moves in the
nervous system of the subtle body as prescribed
in the Yogic books, the sthula prana moves in
the nervous system of the gross body. The two
are closely connected and almost act upon each
other." He says, being himself an advanced Yogi,
that the identification of the physical and the
psychical centres (centres in the Sukshma body)
is fraught with "horrible confusion".
According to these two writers there is a
cleavage of opinion but Sri Aurobindo is true to
the Upanishads, whereas Rele's is a hypothesis.
Between them it is the Upanishads that have to
prevail, so far and so long as we are studying
the psychological aspect of the Upanishads.
III
We shall next consider what the modern
writers have to say regarding the psychonic
theories of psychology independently.
The latest writers on the subject of Mind
postulate a Psychon as different from a theory
of Neuron and the proton. Two writers on the
subject are Dr. Marston and Mr. Bousfield.
"Just as protons and electrons are aggregated
into protoplasm, it is suggested that the
psychons may be aggregated into psychoplasmic
structures. The protons and electrons which
constitute a protoplasmic structure are widely
spread apart and hence there is no difficulty in
the way of conception of an interpenetrating
psychoplasmic structure. The psychoplasm may be
regarded as a constituent of every living cell
including the germplasm and also as capable of
constituting psychic structures comparable with
the complex structures which are built out of
protoplasm. The protoplasm and the psychoplasm
are thus regarded as 'concomitants' the one
carrying the physical basis of life, the other
its psychical basis, both interacting electrons
and psychons belong to the physical realm.
Psychonic psychoplasm is regarded as being of
mass so small as to be practically negligible.
says Bousfield. He further says regarding the
brain, "we may conceive of the psychic brain as
distributed through the open atomic network of
the material brain, though this is not
essential. In any case the material brain and
the psychic brain are both bathed in the ether
which separates them and yet links them by
etheric vibrations without the necessity of any
direct paths such as nerves."
The suggestion of Mr. Bousfield is of value
if only for its recognition of the limiting
character of the neurological theories and
physiological explanations and because it goes
deeper and appears to suggest the theory which
Aurobindo hints, namely, the existence of an
overlapping psychonic brain functioning in all
psychic processes, and effecting all changes in
the physical through the vibration of ether that
whilst separating them yet links them. We have
the Sandilya Upanishad telling us that the prana
extends twelve digits above the head which seems
to be echoed by the theory of Bousfield who says
that ether envelops both the psychonic and the
physical brains.
The theory of the Upanishads also deals with
the problem of spandana (throbbing) of vayu as
the media of movement of chitta and Manas. All
associative virility issues out of the throbbing
movement of Vayu or akasa. The linga-sarira
itself is a product of Akasa and Vayu in one
sense. Mind, meaning Manas in Bousfield's
theory, is called the Mnema of all impressions
and is memory.* It is a manufacturer of
psycho-grams; that is, it carries the
impressions and congeals them into a set,
unbreakable but powerfully influencing the
entire mental processes.
Dr. Mc Dougall in his 'Mind and Body' says
"the fusion of effects of simultaneous sensory
stimuli to a unitary resultant is not a
physiological or physical fusion or composition;
but a purely psychical fusion; the unitary
result exists only in the psychic sphere." He
adds, "The materialistic assumption," that the
structure of the mind may be fully described in
terms of cerebral structure is untenable." There
exists in the brain no such psychical medium of
composition and the processes of the several
sensory nerves simultaneously excited do not
affect any common material medium to produce in
it a complex physical resultant." It is meaning
that is the cause of neural activity and there
exists 'no such' unitary neural process
correlated with 'meaning'. All response in fact
is really in relation to meaning or
significance. Thus there is needed this
psychonic system, a system which has place for
meaning and is able to correlate its activities
with the physical neural system and influence
all its motor expressions.
*Bousfield also affirms that there is no such
thing as Unconscious mind, for all storage of
impressions ideas etc. which are nascent are
unconscious
Mind and Body Dr. W. Mc Dougall p-293.ibid
p.289.
Dr. Marston in his Emotions of normal people
seeks to establish a theory of psychonic impulse
contradistinct from a neural impulse. "Motor or
affective consciousness is psychonic energy
released within the psychonic or connective
tissues of the motor synapse of the central
nervous system." Defining the 'psychon' he says
"the totality of energy generated within the
junctional tissue between any two neurones,
whenever the junctional membrane is continuously
energized, from the emissive pole of one
adjacent tissue to the receptive pole of the
next intrinsically constitutes consciousness ...
The structural unit of psychology is the
psychon; any wave of psycho-chemical excitation
initiated within the psychon is consciousness."*
The above definition, in spite of its chemical
explanation of change within the neural and
psychonic systems, is a clear statement of the
need for understanding the principle and
function of consciousness in terms of some
theory or hypothesis countering the
physiological and purely neural theories. But
the theory of psychon whilst useful is done away
with in the statement that consciousness is the
product of continuous energisation of the
membrane of the junctional tissue; and to say
that it is the energy so generated, is too
neural an explanation.
Rightly does Dr. Mc. Dougall write "many of
those who have written upon mental evolution and
comparative psychology began their study by
looking for indications of mental life in the
lowest organisms, and failing to find any such
indications of an indisputable kind, proceed to
search the scale of life from below upwards ...
It is a sounder procedure to attempt to trace
mind downwards in the scale from man in whom by
common agreement, we have the surest and
clearest expressions of mind, endeavouring by
analysis of animal behaviour in the height of
analogy of human behaviour, to seize every
indication of mental life, of purposive activity
as far down the scale as impartial observation
warrants." Dr. Mc. Dougall's observation is
mainly intended to show that consciousness has a
mechanism of its own which can best be
understood by the study of human consciousness
itself and in the measure the brain mechanisms
are active in the animals they may be considered
to be growing intelligent or conscious animals.
But there is an impulse in the entire
organism which is in nature at the beginning but
aims at integrating its nervous paths with all
the other systems (through exercise) thus making
for coordinated action which shows the absolute
vitality of purposive action in all evolution
and integration. The same purposiveness which
appears as the adjustment to the environment in
the animals appears as consciousness and will in
men and also as the integrative power which
affects the entire associative tracts in the
brain and links them together powerfully. It is
that again which seeks to make the consciousness
dominant in actual life. It is consciousness or
more truly spirit that seeks motor expression
and in its expressing it 'stoops to conquer!'
its own earlier manifestations. The Sukshma
(subtle) is an earlier stage in evolution than
the sthula (gross) according to the upanishads.
The sukshma has the psychonic system - which
expresses the antah karana (internal organ) and
its phases and whose centres are placed along
with the chakras within it and connecting with
the physical organs placed at those places
respectively.
But accustomed as we are to the physical
alone we have left behind the sukshma
conceptions and think in terms of gross neural
systems and therefore the whole of Yoga
philosophy and practice seeks to influence the
direction of the physical by making the sukshma
more efficient and vital with regard to our life
and experience. This means the recognition of
the theory which postulates the transmission of
energy from the neural to the psychonic and from
the psychonic to the neural systems
reciprocally, till finally they are completely
integrated. This also means perfect sensibility
and perfect knowledge and conscious control. In
a sense, the psychon and the neuron are next
brothers being born from a more primary element
say Akasa or ether.
Thus the latest theorists in psychology
reveal the anxiety to re-embrace consciousness
into psychology, which had first lost its soul
and then its mind in recent years thanks to the
Behaviourists. Lest finally consciousness the
epiphenomenon, should also be crucified. Dr. Mc.
Dougal and Dr. Marston have brought out a
psychonic theory which may yet save
consciousness to psychology.
Endocrine theory of chakras.
So far we have considered the neural and
psychonic theories. We shall now discuss the
endocrine theory of chakras. There is no theory
called as such but the identification in some
circles of the chakras with certain glands lends
the view that they have a plausible theory of
glandular correlation. The theory is stated in
two sentences. It is said the pineal gland and
the pituitary glands correspond with the
Sahasrara. Des Cartes * and his followers held
that the pineal gland was the seat of the soul.
The interest lies not in the fact that the
theory has the remotest chance of being accepted
but as revealing how a little known organ has
been pitched upon as the centre of the soul, or
the Sahasrara, the pineal gland and the centre
of the Divine.
The endocrine glands of the body are closely
connected with the metabolic processes of the
body and their importance is very great. With
the exception of the reproductive organs, the
ductless glands are all characteristic of the
vertebrate group alone and some authorities
regard them as relatively recent acquisitions
and their activities as something which came
into existence after the development of the
central and sympathetic nervous system. But it
would seem that the appearance of the primitive
nervous system and the reproductive organs are
about the same time and the development of the
nervous system into the autonomic system and the
cranial series occurs before the appearance of
the endocrine system.
The number of these glands is seven if we add
the thymus and the pancreas, namely, the pineal,
the pituitary, the thyroid, the thymus, the
pancreas, the adrenal and the genital. This
correspondence with the seven plexuses is no
doubt a basis of this hypothesis. The location
of the pineal in the cavity of the head, with
the pituitary close to it point to the value of
the theory of glands; added to this we have the
version of a Upanishad which speaks of the
genital organ as the Svadhisthana.
Dr. Sajous in his valuable work on 'Internal
Secretions and the Principles of Medicine' says
that there is complete coordination between the
several glands. "the close linkage of the
several glands to each other confirms the view
that they form a single system in close touch
with each other and the blood circulation and
the nerves of the central system. The pituitary
is connected with the adrenals by direct nerve
paths and it governs through the adrenals the
general oxidation metabolism and nutrition".
The genitals according to Sajous is
intimately connected with the adrenal system
because the testicular preparations give the
same reactions and tests in precisely the same
way as does the adrenal principle.* Milk also
contains the adrenal principle, the lactic
glands being thus united with the adrenal
principle. As to the physiological aspect of the
connection with the spinal system," the
pituitaro-adrenal path leaves the spinal cord
through the upper four or five rami, to enter
the sympathetic chain and then the great
splanchnic which through the intermediary of the
semilunar ganglia, supplies nerves to the
adrenals."
Dhyanabindu up: verse 48: Medhrameva
nigadyate: also Sajous Vol. I, P-87.
Sajous: Internal Secretions and Principles of
Medicine Vol.I. of Alice E Bailey: The Soul and
its Mechanism, where she identifies the Chakras
with glands. She equates sahasrara with the
pineal, Ajna with the pituitary, visuddha with
the thyroid, Anahata with thymus and Muladhara
with adrenal. The identifications of Anahata and
Muladhara are open to objection as the one is
too higher up and the other degenerates very
early after infancy.
*Sajous: p 87.
ibid P 97.
ibid pp 72, 79, 169, 171, and 173.
"There has been some speculation in the
literature as to which is probably the more
primitive integrating mechanism within
animals-nervous or endocrine. Obviously both
mechanisms, when broadly interpreted extend to
all forms of living organisms, both unicellular
and multicellular. (The phenomena of excitation
and conduction and chemical intercellular
transmission of information, the basic
underlying activities in the physiology of the
nervous system, are common to all cells ... Some
organizing and differentiating forces obviously
had to precede both of these coordinating
mechanisms in both phylogeny and ontogeny. In
development, gene induced differentiation must
precede organizer activity".)
"There is no good reason to postulate,
therefore that either the excitatory or the
chemical coordination factor is phylogenetically
the more primitive. Both types of coordinating
mechanisms probably evolved simultaneously and
entirely parallelly and in response to the
functional needs of the larger size
multicellular character and division of labour
within organisms, highly specialized,
cooperating nervous endocrine systems became
differentiated".
"There appears to have been an evolution of
certain essential endocrine sources from tissue
possessing a simple nervous or conductive
function and located within the central nervous
system through an intermediate stage where the
cells exhibited their secretary function while
still retaining the special conductile ability
of nerve cells, to a condition in which the
cells have become specialized for endocrine
activity alone and form glandular tissues or
organs apart from the nervous system."
"And in these instances where the secreting
cell bodies are still retained within nervous
organs special intracellular conductile means
are utilized to convey the secreted product
beyond the bounds of the highly specialized
'brain-blood barrier' and into proximity to
their own vascular beds. Secondarily, other
endocrine organs appear to have developed
morphologically, but never physiologically,
independent of either direct or indirect
regulation by the nervous system".
From Comparative Animal Physiology by
Prosser, C. L. and Brown, F. A. W. B. Saunders
Co. Philadelphia, 1962.
" ... the integration of endocrine activities
is a major function of the central nervous
system. The situation of the pituitary just
beneath the cephalic brain stem, to which it is
attached by the infundibular stalk and portal
circulatory channels, enables the basal fore -
brain and hypothalamus to bring their influences
to bear upon the secretion of trophic hormones
by this endocrine 'brain'.
From the Waking Brain by Magoun, H.W. Charles
C. Thomas, 1958.
"Characteristic hormones of protein nature
are extractable from the three lobes of
hypophysis. The trophic hormones of the
adenohypophysis are of great importance since
they regulate the functional states of other
glands belonging to the endocrine system. The
hypophysis is known to exercise direct or
indirect control over a wide variety of
physiologic processes.
Anatomically and physiologically the
hypophysis is closely associated with the
hypothalamic portion of the brain.
A relationship which is still poorly
understood seems to exist between the
neurosecretory cells of the brain and the
adenohypophysis. There can be no doubt that
nervous stimuli are important in regulating the
release of secretions from this important gland.
A reciprocal interaction has been
demonstrated between the hormones of the
anterior hypophysis and the adrenal cortex. A
similar reciprocity exists between the gonads
and the anterior hypophysis. The thyroid gland
and the anterior hypophysis are reciprocally
interrelated."
C. Donnell Turnor.
W.B. Saunders Co. Philadelphia. 1955.
Thus we have the adrenals as important as the
Manipuraka chakra and as important as the Solar
plexus of the nervous system, sending out its
currents to every portion of the body and
governing all metabolic action through its
connection with the pituitary gland as against
the rest. The pineal gland almost passes
unnoticed by the modern theorists as the
function of that gland is unknown.
In the Human adult, the organ is about a
third of an inch long and weighs some two grains
(0.18grm.) In children, it is relatively
somewhat larger. Beginning at about the seventh
year it begins to regress, from which time on it
tends to become loaded with sand-like
concretions of calcium salts ... brain sand.
Contrary to earlier belief, it persists in
fairly definite anatomical integrity throughout
life."
"The evidences available suggest that the
gland produces a hormone which helps to regulate
the rate of bodily development and the onset of
puberty'.
From Endocrinology - The glands and their
functions by Hoskins, R. G. W. W. Norton and Co.
inc. New York. 1950.
The pituitary gland in the body may
correspond with the Ajna chakra the next highest
chakra before the Sahasrara. In spite of this
fact the pituitary may be studied in another
connection viz. The Khechari Vidya, which
involves stimulation of the akasa centre in the
brain. Pro. Dakin describes the pituitary as the
outgrowth from the mouth "This small organ
(weighing only about 1/2 grm. in an adult man)
appended to the under surface of the brain has
for some time past been recognized as consisting
of two parts and since one of these lies in
front of the other, it was customary to speak of
the glandular anterior lobe and a nervous
posterior lobe. Not only is the structure of
these parts visibly different, but their origin
is also very different, for whilst this
posterior part arises from the brain at an early
stage; the anterior part is actually an upgrowth
from the buccal or mouth cavity of the embryo.
In fishes and amphibia it originates as a solid
ingrowth from the surface in front of the
mouth.) At an early stage it becomes separated
from the mouth and applies to the downward
process of the brain. The development of the
cranium still further separates it from the
mouth and thus we have the anomaly of the
structure, which although it appears to be part
of the brain is non-nervous in character
(actually glandular) and whose origin in any
individual is distinct from that of the brain."
Thus the pituitary gland though situated in the
brain is an outgrowth from the buccal cavity.
This makes it possible for us to think of
Khechari Vidya in this connection.
The Khechari Vidya involves the reversal of
the tongue into the cavity of the brain in order
(perhaps) to reach this outgrowth which has
isolated itself leaving its embryonic parent. To
achieve this end, the freanum lingui is cut by
the Yogi and the tongue is made to go back into
the cavity by gently pushing it into the buccal
cavity and then still interior into the base of
the brain, where there are the brahmarandhra
(the third ventricle) and the Kapala vastra
(either the thalamus or the optic chiasma which
are full of nerve fibres.) Posterior to which is
the pituitary gland at the base of the brain
connecting itself with the third ventricle by a
hollow stalk, the infundibulum.
Whether this is a possibility or not, the
Yoga kundalini. Up and the Sandilya Upanishads
have mentioned this method. The chief point in
criticism of this method lies in the fact that
the pituitary to be stimulated or in fact any
nerve centre to be stimulated by the reversal of
the tongue so as to stir them into activity
needs the piercing through the bones of the
cranium, which alone separates the gustatory
from the neural portions.
Why should we speak of the possibility of the
pituitary rather than the pineal? The real
nature of pineal activity is yet conjectural;
but in the case of the pituitary we have a mass
of evidence. Dr. Sajous writes regarding the
pituitary:
"The pituitary body is the general governing
centre of the spinal system which includes the
grey substance of the base of the brain pons,
bulb and spinal cord and the nerves derived from
any of these structures, cranial or spinal,
though subsidiary centres, are also present in
the bulb and spinal cord."
The pituitary body is the governing centre of
all vegetative functions i.e. somatic brain.
The brain (as differentiated from the somatic
brain) is the organ of mental processes and not
the governing organ of motor functions though
capable through the voluntary impulse it
transmits to the spinal system of having its
mandates carried out.
"There is no obvious nervous interconnections
between the neural and the glandular part of the
hypophysis".
Paul Glees. Experimental Neurology, Clarendon
Press. Oxford. 1961. But the circulatory
relationship should prove valuable evidence of
their intermaintenance.
Neither the anterior nor posterior pituitary
body is a secreting gland. The anterior
pituitary body is a lymphoid organ which through
the mediary of the centre located in the
posterior pituitary body and a nerve path in the
spinal system, the upper dorsal sympathetic
ganglia and the splanchnic nerves governs the
functional activity of the adrenals. The
anterior pituitary body governs through the
posterior pituitary body all the oxidation -
processes of the body. The centre in the
posterior pituitary body through which the
anterior pituitary body governs the adrenals
also controls the functional activity of the
thyroid gland and thus constitutes the
adreno-thyroid centre.
The pituitary body, the adrenals and the
thyroid gland (including the para - thyroid) are
functionally united, forming the adrenal system.
The posterior pituitary body is the seat of the
highly specialized centres, which governs all
the vegetative or somatic functions of the body
and each organ individually.
The posterior pituitary body receives all the
sensory impressions belonging to the field of
common sensibility: pain, touch, muscular sense
etc., initiated in any one organ including the
mucous membrane, the skin and brain.
"Owing to this fact, the posterior pituitary
body is the sensorium commune upon which all
emotions, shocks, psychical or traumatic
concussions etc., react. The resulting
impairment of its functions being the cause of
the morbid phenomena observed under such
conditions.* The stimulation of such a centre
full of possibilities of a very intense life
also means death if it is done without proper
expert guidance. Thus the Khechari-vidya is a
dangerous procedure to undertake, as the Yoga
Kundalini Upanishad itself says, for it may slay
the individual." It is only after long and
continuous practice under the direction of a
guru that this should be undertaken: years must
elapse before the final stimulation or manthana
takes place and the psychic centre stirred into
divine action. The khechari-vidya may mean the
stimulation of the pituitary gland and not any
other thing.
The value of all these theories lies in the
fact that they breathe the air of research into
the intimate connections between the neural and
the glandular and the psychonic systems. The way
of their development studied embryologically
shows the way in which they progressed
coordinating themselves and reveals the
importance of their transformations. In their
differentiations lies the problem of separation
of functions and in their integrated activity
consciously carried out we may either shatter
the entire organism or develop unnatural phases
of our life or else we may be able to perfect
the organisms under the skilful operation of the
cortical and the supracortical centres, induced
by the psychonic system and the self. Small
lesions of the brain do not affect the rate of
learning for the entire mass of tissue in the
brain functions as a regulated organism and
therefore the importance of the cortical and the
supracortical areas of the brain whilst they
reveal the entire mechanism of the intelligent
life, are by themselves controlled by the
ideational sphere which cannot be explained on
the principle of neural - memory in association.
The Problem of Emotion.
It is a well known fact in psychology that
all emotion is explainable according to the
theory of James and Lange who hold that physical
attitudes reveal emotion and are emotion. The
theory of Dr. Cannon shows that adrenal
stimulation is the most important physiological
occurrence in emotion and that leads to visceral
function stopping and cardiac muscles being
enervated. Mr. Lashley holds "that the problem
of emotion is still in confusion that one can
draw no conclusion with confidence, but the
accumulation of evidence upon the variability of
expressive reactions and the repeated failures
to find any consistent correlations between
bodily changes and either exciting situations or
reported subjective states lends little support
to the visceral theory." He continues "the
weight of evidence, I believe favours the view
that in emotion, in all persistence of
attitudes, in all serial activity, there are
continuously maintained central processes which,
if they become intense, may irradiate to motor
centres, speech and the like. The pattern of
radiation varies from subject to subject
according to chance variations in the
excitability of the motor or vegetative nervous
systems and the peripheral activities are not an
essential condition for the maintenance of the
central processes" The maintenance of the
central processes throughout any emotion is what
is advanced by Mr. K. S. Lashley as a more
commendable theory than the visceral. The
adrenal function automatically increases the
heart beat, stops all vegetative functions and
in all emotion it is these adrenals that cause
the highest amount of tension in the physical
condition; reflection on the contrary is what
gradually inhibits all the activities of the
adrenals. The control exercised over the adrenal
secretions therefore is certainly from the
higher centres. But in a consideration of rage
and anger etc. we find that the stimulation
offered by the natural opponents leads to
enormous activity. Whilst emotion as such cannot
be explained on the lines of visceral theory yet
the adrenal action in emotion plays a very
important part. Neither the nervous system, nor
yet the adrenal system but the processes of
biological inheritance and suggestions from them
play a huge part in the emotive life of each
individual. These are called the vasanas of the
citta; it is these that stimulate the cortical
centres which allow them to express themselves
and when these intrigues between the vasanas and
the adrenal are cut off, all vitality floods the
other systems and supplying the needed power for
metabolic changes. The entire energy instead of
being released into the circulatory system is
drained into other paths of control and makes
for the control of emotion.
Thus neither the glandular system which is in
full command of the emotional and the metabolic
activity of the human body, nor the neural
system which is in full command of the sensory
and motor activity as also the autonomic system
and in fact radiates through the muscles and
glands and controls the entire system, offers
the complete solution of the problem of
psychical life and consciousness and its
expressions. It seems that all these systems
which have differentiated themselves from the
unicellular organism have developed an integral
dynamic rhythm. They are whilst distinct
mutually dependent and co-operative in function.
IV
Psychonic system and the Upanishad:
It is clear that the Upanishads offer
something like the psychonic system called by
them, the Sukshma Sarira. The Nadis belong to
this body, so also the chakras, and it is
Sukshma prana which flows through it, that
connects radiantly the entire functions of the
organism. It is also the Sukshma prana that
connects the Sukshma body with the sthula or
gross body at the corresponding places, for
emotions with the adrenal and other glands and
the solar plexus, for sensory functions with the
brain and the sensory centres of the brain, for
intellectual and highly specialized reactions
with the cortex and the supra cortex, and the
nervous system for the preservation of the body
with the entire organism. The nervous system may
be considered to be the fire-tattva, the glands,
water tattva and the Sukshma Sarira is formed
not out of the gross vayu which pervades the
body and helps the organism to live but is
formed out of akasa and the sukshma akasa which
is indivisible and subtle. The link between the
sthula and the sukshma sarira is supplied by
vayu in its subtler phase. That the vayu extends
twelve digits above the head is a suggestion in
point. And it is suggested that through control
the entire prana must be made to be neither more
nor less than the physical body. That leads to
complete control of the physical body and is
perfect integration of all levels, perfect
harmonization of the functions of the body. This
is one definition of yoga according to the
Sandilya Upanishad.
Regarding chakras we have no mention of them
by the Sariraka and the Garbha Upanishads which
are considered to be physiological Upanishads.
The Garbha mentions the Sushumna and the
coursing of vayu in the body as prana, the
original prana, which descends through the
Sushumna to be the heart at the time of birth.
Thus at the time of the Garbha and the Sariraka
either the literature with regard to the chakras
have not been known generally or else their
descriptions being merely the physical gross
descriptions, they have not referred to the
nadis and chakras which belong to the Sukshma
Sarira and could be seen only by Yogis.
Whilst it is true that the neurons are
instruments of mind and act as the medium of the
bodily expression, it is not absolutely true
that the phenomena of mind "can only be
correctly interpreted in terms of neurons and
neuronic arcs" for the neurons are just one
stage of evolution of the organism and not the
most important, but along with other systems
they form an inseparable function in the body.
The neural explanations as much as the
glandular explanations do not make their
explanations perfectly acceptable in psychic
life in both cases with all good intentions
after a search for behaviour and experimentation
of reactions, the motive of an action or an
expression is not found - that subtle mark which
makes all the difference does not make any
difference in behaviour of the internal organs
nor external organs. This crux of the situation
in Yoga and mystic life leads many to postulate
that the mystic and the Yogic life are merely
due to neurosis and this is not an explanation
at all. It states the disease or it calls what
some think as the highest consciousness - the
perception of true spirit and the finding of
true Individuality by a name and seeks to
explain them away. In order to avoid such a
summary treatment of mystic, William James
writes in his Varieties of Religious Experience
that "the states of consciousness of the mystics
have a right and are true to those who have that
experience."
The Psychological phases of motive or
sankalpa which plays such a part in psychic life
have indeed as yet no active counterpart
physiologically and but for the barest instincts
we cannot show the physiological situation or
organ of reception of ideas and location of
ideas, in a portion of the brain and the cortex.
We have as yet no shade of distinctions drawn
between one idea and another corresponding
superficially to it. We have for all of them the
same kind of response and the same stimulation,
provided the circumstances are similar though
this similarity is as superficial as mere
identity of dress.
This is atleast the criticism of K. S.
Lashley against the theory of visceral
connection to emotion. The basic neural
mechanism differentiates neither between one set
of incidents and another set of incidents having
but a slight similarity: nor does it vary even
its intentive response with the shades of
intensity of the circumstances. It is inhibition
by the intellectual functions that inhibits also
the intensities of reaction of neural mechanism.
True yoga consists in ordering all things and
functions within the body. With the
consciousness or purposiveness of a harmony
which can only arise out of deep contemplation
of all forms and their relations and their
bearing to the making of a cosmos. It means the
attempt at a synthesis of all levels of
individual life, all planes of consciousness,
all organs of activity and all activities of
senses and sensory functions and emotive
influence. Direct perception does not jump into
being of a sudden. All the fatalities of life
and conception and embryonic growth have to take
full course, the normal period of human
gestation must take place and then will be
brought out the finest flower of intellect and
feeling, the direct perception which is the most
intrinsic function of the self. It is something
having birth in congenial surroundings of
harmony of the intellect and feeling, emotion
and sensibility, memory and aspiration. The
physical body no less than mental life has to be
organized and controlled by the will which seeks
harmonization between the psychic and the
physical hemispheres of being. Regulation means
harmonization through self control and self
ordering which is performed by the Prana when
guided consciously. Thus the effort of will
towards a creation of new and facile type of
being fully aware of the moral and real bear; of
his life and conscious and deliberate and facile
in each of his actions, involves rigorous moral
training and in this consists the moral aim and
ethical observance of the Yoga system. It is no
less moral than it is aesthetic; and skill in
action has been not stressed by the Gita as the
consummation of Yoga. This conscious exercise
for the betterment of the individual as also the
whole world (the latter being the larger aim
nascent only at the beginning of his course of
yoga) involves inhibitions of emotional habits
and mental associations and memory inflictions
on sensory content and means acceleration and
strengthening of those synaptic connections
which are inhibitory of the autonomous actions
and emotional outbursts. It means the draining
off of the entire vital reserve energies towards
development of volitional and metabolic centres
in the brain. In a yogic sense it means the
utilization of these energies for the purposes
of connecting the physical annamaya chakra with
the highest centre of our being, or the
Muladhara with the other higher centres and
finally with the Sahasrara. This and nothing
else will make knowledge direct perception
aparokshanubhuti.
In trance, it is said, that the body is
apparently depleted of all consciousness and yet
the mind is vigilant and is aware of the
fullness and expansiveness of its sway; its
power and perfection are said to become luminous
and function as self-consciousness. As intrinsic
Turiya consciousness, the self rests in its
pristine purity, perfection and splendour and
functions with complete mastery on its return to
the levels of ordinary life of waking
consciousness over all the organs,. Then not
manas nor chitta, not ahamkara, not buddhi, not
even prana, but only the self suffusing the
entire organism literally bathing it in its own
radiance and harmony. This is the samadhi which
is inducive of direct apperception. On the path
of samadhi, unconsciousness does not mean
anything other than non-activity of the senses
and the memory and it does not mean the loss of
self-consciousness as self.
Thus, we have in Yoga, Inhibition as the
first mantra of self-control and
self-consciousness. This means the renunciation
of activity for a while so that the mind
established in harmony may become facile through
intelligent direction. The physiological control
is also psychic control; the explanation which
merely cares for behaviour will certainly face
in the explanation of the mystic consciousness,
a rock on which it will break and flounder. The
reciprocal explanation even if it be
satisfactory will not go far unless the
explanation issues out of the problem of
attitude. In morals, as in mysticism, the
explanation must proceed from motive to
expression, attitude to behaviour and never from
behaviour to motive, for that is not what is
characteristic of the mystic's life. One goal,
the goal of union, is the absolute criterion. It
is the one poise, the one destiny of his being.
This is the differentia between the behaviourist
and the true psychologist; one seeks for the
expression or behaviour, the other for the
attitude, the all governing and focussing idea.
For "the identity of symptom does not mean
identity of person. Deep oscillations of
emotional tone, ecstasies and even hysterical
attacks do not necessarily imply the
intellectual and moral insufficiency
characteristic of Medeline and her class. They
may, on the contrary be allied with traits which
make the genius.*
V
We shall now discuss the criticisms levelled
against the methods of yoga: about its
metaphysics we have nothing to do especially
because the metaphysics of the Yoga theory are
not perhaps acceptable to the Vedantic thinkers.
Truly later interpreters of yoga have made it
into a system instead of what was called a
darsana: a way or method of knowing the real, of
experiencing reality of being.
"To characterize Yoga as a system of
philosophy or ethics would be misleading. Its
more direct analogy is with our manual of
religion, for its central purpose, like that of
our own books of worship is to teach salvation.
But its practical directions are imbedded in
more or less fanciful psychology and unnecessary
metaphysics." says Leuba who devotes an entire
chapter to the consideration of the Yoga system
and its relation to Religious Mysticism. But he
fails to observe that some of the tenets of the
yoga have as hoary an association with its past,
as the later Christian mystics have their own,
however, flexible metaphysical theories on which
was based their own experiences.
We have the admission of Patanjali even at
the very start of his Sutras, that his Yoga
sutras are a restatement (anusasana) of the Yoga
of the ancients, of the Upanishads and the
Vedas. Anusasana is what he speaks of as the
attitude of his book. That there is an endeavour
on his part to treat the Isvara as merely a
governor and the Ideal of world life to whom all
things are subordinate because he is free from
their influences, may be a theory that is not
justifiable from the vedantic or Upanishadic
point of view; with this phase of his thought
there follows the acceptance of the absolute
caintany (mere consciousness or Intelligence) as
the real nature of individual Purusha.
Consciousness which cannot be annihilated is
shrouded by Prakriti and release from the shroud
of Prakritic forces is what makes the individual
come into his own effulgent consciousness. He
will never again be implicated in the shroud of
Prakriti and will be free even as the Isvara,
resting in his own consciousness. This is the
Kevalatva proposed by Patanjali. But in the
sense of Vedanta and in a meaningful sense, it
means not only the release from the bondage of
objects and objective leanings, it also means
the utilizing of nature and her forces in a
manner which will lead to Jivanmukti or Isvara
type: not the Jivanmukti of mere getting rid of
bondage or the attitude of bondage and acting
like a man who has renounced life, and its
normal activities. In life the attitude of
freedom actually realized in him dominates
dynamically every incident and every phase of
evolutionary ascent and governs them with the
inner light which is the light of all. This is
'lordship over the Prakriti and its movements'
in the light of the Isvara who is the antaryamin
of all beings dwelling in the heart caves of all
beings. This is the synthetic acceptance of Yoga
which is the poise supreme, the real samanvaya
of the external as well as the internal in the
Supreme, the Brahman; this is the highest aim of
Yoga.
The criticism of fanciful psychology and
unnecessary metaphysics is a criticism that will
not be justified from the standpoint of Indian
thought or even modern thought, because the
metaphysical theory is absolutely adequate for
any religious consciousness and some basis of
procedure which shall avoid great complications
of mythical symbolism is what is provided by
Patanjali. He avoids the extraordinary proposals
of Vedanta of the evolution of elements and
merely accepts them to have proceeded from one
common substance, the Prakriti and then he
avoids the implications of causal connection
between the Isvara and the evolution of the
world or even its appearance. He takes only
those absolutely necessary factors which make
for an uninterrupted course of Yogic practice,
for the light that comes in freedom is
unriddling, dissolving and vouchsafes direct
apprehension of all Reality. Till then
metaphysical theories about God and the
individual may stand. The minimum of metaphysics
is what one finds in Patanjali and not
unnecessary complications. As to fanciful
psychology we have surely instances of the
extraordinary lengths to which conjectural
relations can be formulated. In fact it follows
the lead of inner introvert experiencing more
than observation of outer expressions and the
physiological bases. This building up of
psychology, though it is open to grave charges
of misinterpretation from a physiological and
behaviouristic angle, is indeed true to its
mystical instinct and purpose. It is the
mysticism of Unity of all life that is the
mystic's greatest and profoundest metaphysical
principle formed out of a greater vision and
experience.
In Patanjali in fact there is no metaphysical
bearing but only the instruction as to the
profoundest depths of being and attainment. God
is necessary and only as a spiritual guru is He
to be appealed for help on the path of Yoga.
But the criticism of Mr. Leuba is not
altogether wrong. But he ventures to state that
"an ethical purpose and practice is,
nevertheless not logically demanded by the goal
of Yoga; for honesty, friendliness etc. are
irrelevant to one who seeks utter detachment in
isolation. Cultivating friendliness and
rejoicing with those who rejoice are demands
hardly in agreement with a desire for
suppression of personality. This is one of the
incongruities that betray the confusion of
thought from which this system suffers".* This
criticism far from being right is positively
wrong, because all mystics by virtue of their
aspiration to alter the circumstances in which
they are placed, pass through a moral
preparation. The isolation which the Yogi of the
Patanjali school demands is the isolation from
the bondage of Prakriti,, for the promise always
remains that he can become the splendid
ever-free Isvara of the Guru free from the
bondage of Karma; the acceptance of Kapila is
not a fault in Patanjali, because both of them
wanted to represent to humanity the acuteness of
the stress of environment, habitual actions and
emotional disturbances and unethical behaviour
on individual personality which contradict the
way of harmony and because of their intimate
connections with bondage. All bondage is due to
uncognized and unconscious and unthought out
activity and to lift all actions to the level of
consciousness means to inhibit consciously all
actions connected with such actions having their
play in an autonomous fashion. To break the
autonomy of the several habits and nerves and
nervous systems and endocrine systems is the
true aim of intelligence (Jitendriya). This can
be done only through nirodha, restrain or
control of all modifications in mind, that is in
thought, all movements of habit all autonomic
functions of the several organisms. Truly it is
the way of regaining control. Once the control
has been transferred to the levels of spiritual
being, there is samadhi, the trance-state in
which all are absorbed into the fold of spirit
and thence function spiritually. This is the
highest morality, beyond even the limits of
social morality. If reflective action seeking
harmony of being is unmoral and has no bearing
on the moral practices of honesty and
friendliness then one cannot understand the aim
of mysticism, of even morality. That the initial
aim of Yoga is utter detachment from prakritic
influences is an absolute fact and is admitted;
but that is the culmination of his entire
existence or being is not necessarily involved
in his attainment of perfect control or
detachment from their leading strings. The
isolation which is gained through the Yogic
practice is the freedom to be within himself,
'ekanti', and that is not annihilation or
becoming a prisoner in his own cave, nor is it
the atomic existence which the individual seeks.
Such is not the aim of Yoga, which is purely a
mystical effort to join the true and the real
and the perfect so as to be real, true and
perfect. The meaning of cittavritti nirodha is
not to be construed as the Path of Nirvana of
Buddhist psychology, it is rather this
self-establishment within oneself that one
seeks. That there may be individuals who seek
the release from the physical plane of existence
does not involve the statement that those who
exist in this world of matter are bound and
those who are released from the bodily
encasement are free and boundless.
That in trance the body assumes a state of
absolute unconsciousness for days together
sometimes is not due to the fact that trance
constitutes the prime factor in freedom; it is
rather the absolute domination of the self
within which is able to deplete or withdraw
consciousness from the physical body and its
organs and functions. This is the Turiya
consciousness - the self itself as it ever is
and sees itself to be. In the Upanishad there is
a passage which goes to show in the form of a
parable how the several organs of the body
claimed supremacy and how prana getting out made
all of them impotent. Then did they realize that
prana was Brahman the real self. Prana is the
physical manifestation of active self, the saman
as Brihadaranyaka says. Morality being an
essential harmonizing principle of life makes
for the lucid functions of consciousness or the
self, since it would not lead to internal
conflicts or external conflicts with either
truth or the society. The progress of the Yogi
in actual existence is difficult and in the
avoidance of all conflict which may make for
disharmony with oneself and truth, in
harmonizing the self and its movements with the
best and the Good, one becomes less and less
obsessed by the disharmonious elements of one's
life. On the one hand, there is demand for a
strict discipline over the external environment
and, that is moral action and friendliness and
others mentioned under Yama and Niyama, on the
other hand, there is complete mastery of the
mind which leads to the state of amanaska
(Mindlessness) or unmani (above mind) when the
mind (manas) does not function with fluctuating
movement. Anyone who misunderstands the moral or
ethical preparation of the Yogic path has not
understood the broader motive and higher
altitude of the Yogin's mind.
Mr. Leuba thinks that the entire scheme of
Yoga is based on the creation of automatisms and
hopes that concentration and relaxation of
effort play a capital role in the productions of
various automatisms. Such a statement is truly a
misunderstanding of the motive underlying the
yogic practice. That those who undertake the
Yogic practice out of superficial motives may
make use of very many automatisms is possible.
But neither concentration nor relaxation is out
to create automatisms. The relaxation of all
effort is undertaken for the sake of
transforming the lower levels and making them
feel the infusion of a richer consciousness, a
noumenal light of supreme scintillative power.
The postures of Yoga are integral part of the
practice in order to make concentration or
attention steady and unflickering and to this
end all external strains must be avoided since
strain will have its reaction on the system. The
dialectical process of attentive consciousness
has been very well understood by those ancient
Yogis. They knew that every attention is
inviting exhaustion to release itself from. Yoga
aims at suspension of both this (attention or)
concentration or expectancy - neurosis and
exhaustion - neurosis, or relaxation.
They instruct not only steadiness of posture,
but also moral training of neither enjoying too
much nor attachment to anything too much good or
bad as ordinarily conceived in the meaning of
pleasurable. Their instruction thus consists of
Vairagya, freedom from attachment and nirodha,
control of mental activities which lead to
attachment.
That the Yogi seeks mere automatisms is pure
conjecture on the part of Mr. Leuba. Indeed the
very reverse is the case. He seeks consciousness
rather than unconsciousness; he seeks not
habitual reactions but intelligent and
consciously willed or supra - consciously
directed actions; he seeks not mere continuity
of this quiescence of uniformity, dull, wooden,
and binding but seeks full peace, harmony and
the Bliss of dynamic attainment of reality. That
Mr. Leuba should have styled the methods of Yoga
as similar to the savage practices of
stimulation only shows the terrible
misinterpretation of the real Yoga. Even the
Yoga sutras do not take the highest state to
consist of intoxication. A study of caitanya and
all Bhakti Yogins does reveal the psychic
intoxication, which Mr. Leuba says corresponds
to the Savages - cult. But the Raja Yogin is not
one who is very much anxious to have
intoxication that unbalances; rather he prefers
the complete mastery of the self and its forces.
Truly it must be said that what Yoga aims is
to "conquer oneself", Whilst the aim of Vedanta
is to "know oneself". In synthesizing the two
ideas of Yoga of the Upanishads is justifying
its true character of integral harmony. This is
perfect Yoga , not mere ecstatic conversions,
nor mere prayer that makes for partial
stimulations , partial alterations and partial
fulfillments in union. It is not reduction of
mental activity, but it is the transcendence of
mental activity, a direct intuition of universal
harmony that issues out from concentration and
meditation. Trance is not intoxication. Nor is
ethical practice mere humanization; on the other
hand both trance and ethic make for real and
integral uniqueness, Which is at the same time
unique universal. Consciousness of the universal
is the consciousness of the individual and vice
versa. Real morality passes beyond the
universals of social ethics and becomes truth
expression; truth in action. These criticisms
are based on a misinterpretation of the yoga
system; secondly the criticisms leveled against
yoga morality is merely baseless. Connection
between yoga and morals is intrinsic and
absolutely determinative of the capacity for
undertaking the path of yoga; without Morals
there is no mystic achievement. On the whole the
philosophies of Patanjali and the Samkhya are
absolutely empiricistic mysticism and cannot be
utilized to prove the metaphysical theories of
Advaita or single soul. In all cases, the
realistic pluralistic position has been taken up
by Patanjali. Purusha Bahutvam Siddham . The
world of matter of prakriti is also real. And
there is an Isvara, the moral governor or guru
of the universe, the ever-free and the ever
-blissful being, lending a helping hand to each
and every striving soul. All this is not
metaphysics but mere ordinary acceptance. We may
even say it is commonsense realism. It seeks to
discover the real through svanubhava-
self-experience. Towards this end, this amount
of hypothesis is sufficient. The Varaha
Upanishad speaks about the problem of the
relation between the individual Jiva and the
Supreme as a problem that can wait till fruition
or fulfillment of perfection. And if we have the
instruction into the mysteries of the universal
and the individual relationship, it is something
that is given after the practice of yoga. It is
only when the lower self, the self that is
burdened by the stigmata of experiences and
karma due to Prakritic bondage, conquers or
releases itself from the grasp of these forces
of Prakriti and its consequences, that the mind
perceives its unique relation to the supreme
luminously. Till then, even though the veil is
lifted through an answer to prayer or any other
pathway, the intimate relation of the universal
self and the individual self cannot be fully
discovered. It is therefore that in practice
this conceptual fight between dualism or spirits
or multiplicity of finites or existence of a
single self are all misleading and mischievous
if not merely misleading.
Now why is morality allowed to control the
entire behaviour of the yogi from the very
start? The moral preparation is the best cure
against misuse of power, which naturally comes
to an individual on the path of concentration
and citta-vritti nirodha. Conquest over certain
aspects of material existence within ourselves
means an increased Power over those factors. It
means the control over every organ in the body
control leads to consciousness of power, over
every organ of the body.
In a secondary significance it means control
over every element in existence even through
belonging to the objective realm. The
constitution of the physical body is of the same
substances as the outer world, whose natural
product of evolution it is. This possession of
power and exercise of them is what is called
siddhi. As to the possibility of there being a
pure siddhi, yoga says and Samkhya substantiates
it, in its statement that the siddhis are facts
and they occur through the will of the yogi.
There is no absolute non validity about the
theory of siddhi which is the appreciation of a
profounder law and the right use of the law of
nature. It is that knowing of such laws and the
ability to utilize them for its own purpose
which constitutes a siddhi.
But siddis as such are what the yogi is
instructed not to worry about or even asked for.
Morality guides the use of the power which
accrues to the individual as he develops and
this power then becomes not the Neitszchian
power that is intolerant and consumes, but the
self -disciplined power that works for synthesis
and harmony. In one word he is heading towards
Godhood (Isvaratva). It is the cosmic
consciousness, the coterminality of vision and
consciousness with the divine and the ineffable,
having its birth in a perfect morality and an
aesthetic harmony overflowing with cosmic
delight. For all universal acts are indeed moral
acts. All harmony is aesthetic; all perfection
of being is reality of existence and truth; thus
through them the individual lifting himself to
the vision of delight, becomes at one with the
Divine inalienably and supremely. This is the
highest consummation of his entire existence
this joyous freedom even of the stars in the
firmament of God. But one has to pass through
the fireheat of life and even through the world
of soul making gathering the experience and seek
spiritual regeneration through the divine. It is
this union of the individual and the divine
borne from out of an entire sorrow and strain
and awaiting and expectation that makes the
achievement all the richer and greater and
profounder. It has then the lyric of love, the
passion of the soul and the symphony of life
gathered into its essence. This is Yoga, which
is synthesis.
The usual criticism offered against the Yoga
practices, even by the orthodox Indian Thinkers,
is that it is a dangerous method of mystic
practice and that it involves great danger to
the physical system. The practice of breath
control tones up the system undoubtedly, but the
hathayogic practice of stimulation of the
centres through uniting prana and apana, which
constitutes in their opinion pranayama, is
really courting disaster. The primary centre of
the body is the Muladhara and along with the
Svadhisthana forms the physical system and the
piercing through these two centres causes
undoubtedly terrible metabolic changes
culminating sometimes even in death, or great
perversions. But, even as the Varaha Upanishad
says, the path has to be followed even to its
fullness, even till death claims us for its own,
for even through death shall we learn to live
integrally. This fearfulness of the inert and
the incapacitated is not preferred by some
Yogins who feel that mere contemplation of the
Essence of Existence, the Divine would make for
release. The Bhakti and the Jnana Yogins seek
philosophical contemplation and emotional
expression, which latter sometimes tends to
great emotional outburst. Pranayama occupies a
regular but minor phase in the life of the
ordinary individual and one chooses a life of
mere study and philosophic speculation or else
intense bhakti through the way of prapatti. The
aim of an integral life, the integral
transformation of the entire psychonic and the
physical system, has been abandoned completely
in exchange for aery metaphysics and silent or
passive dogmatism, or else to a kind of vehement
emotionalism that is not grounded in integral
purification. And when the practice has been
undertaken, we have not an integral
transformation but an effort at mere physical
development of muscular control in Asanas, or
else mere pranayama without significance or
purpose. In both cases, it has led to mere
formalism or ritualism. Formalism is the
complementary phase of materialism, it too is
binding and has no purposive outlook which
sustains it. It is as much dead of life and
movement as matter itself. The bondage of forms
and formal elements once they have standardized
or habituated themselves in us, acts as a cog in
the wheel of spiritual evolution. Indian thought
in its practices has come to the level of
formalistic inertness, without courage of
movement towards great vistas of active union
with the highest, the Divine. The mystic
outlook, which is essentially dynamic
regulation, firm discipline and intense
purposiveness towards enlightenment and
enlargement of life in and out of us, is the
very negation of formalistic practice and silent
or passive dogmatism. Mysticism challenges life
and thus evaluates its formalistic movement
materialistic attitude and moulds the world in
significance. Thus tradition which loses its
soul is resurrected into vital and dynamic
existence in the mystic consciousness. For to
the Yogi and the mystic nothing in this world is
material or spiritual, but the significance each
person is prepared to give to it and in this
quality of attributing significance to even dead
dogma consists his turn of mind and spiritual
activistic outlook. The Upanishads breathe this
daring spirit of absolute mastery over
everything and inculcate that life of strenuous
practice even till death. For the brave and the
courageous is the world of God the great destiny
of coitive union with the highest, the spirit
that is resident in all, attaining which he is
the master of the world. Siddhis as such are
merely the intimations of the equality growing
steadily within the individual, who knowing that
all these are merely taking him to the Divine
and not making for perfect union, prefers the
perfect to his manifestations and loyally clings
to the Goal of Union - Yoga and none other.
There is nothing to say against the
possibilities of Siddhis and any one who walks
the path of Yoga may expect to get at the
siddhis. That the siddhis are improbable and
mere arthavada is the opinion of some writers,
but in philosophy as in dogmatism we have this
scepticism in Indian thought. But the
upanishadic position, is that they accept
Siddhis as normal to the knower of the Divine
and in this they are supported even by the
ancient Upanishads which speak of samya, with
the Divine, who is satyasankalpa and satya kama.
The Vedanta sutras also speak of the individual
as being equal to the Divine in all respects
except with regard to agency of the
world-creation and sustenance and destruction.
The siddhis are further supported by the Samkhya
which claims that when buddhi is purified it
manifests the powers of anima and others.*
VI
The turiya and its Relation to Evolution
In the first chapter an effort was made to
show that the Turiya and the Turiyatita are not
states of consciousness as much as the Self
itself. The Turiya is the individual self, the
Turiyatita is the cosmic self, the divine. The
fusion of both is so integral and complete,
there resting in each other so overflowing, that
there can be distinction between the Turiya and
the Turiyatita. They are aspects of how we view
the individual. One is the body of the other.
The vaster truer consciousness or being is the
Divine the satyasya satyam, mahatomahiyana. The
turiya is described by the Mandakyopanishad -
speaks about the turiya as the highest state,
beyond the three states of our pragmatic
existence, which bind. The three states of our
conscious life, are the deep sleep, the dream
and the waking. The functions of these three
states are in the deep sleep, sushupti- the mind
is absolutely set in abeyance and the self is
merely looking on, or there is mere awareness
(prajna) in the second state of consciousness.
There we have dream-consciousness full of
gorgeous splendour of images string - like
phantoms on the state: but there is one order of
desire of the Isvara, the maker; this is the
stage of imagination. No implicit stage of
consciousness reveals the extraordinary part
imagination plays in the dream - life - it is
full of revelations of combinations of sensual
data which are reformed or unformed and
synthesized by the logic of desire. In fact in
the early period of one's life the
wish-fulfillment has a predominant phase in
dream-life: and later only we have the
compensation playing an almost supreme role in
dream-consciousness. Waking consciousness is the
meeting ground of the actual field of
imagination and fulfillment. Deterred
fulfillment seeks its compensation in
dream-life; success also seeks its wings in
speculative dreams.
But it is also interesting to think of these
states of consciousness as merely establishing
that continuity of our life with our evolution.
These three are merely phases of our biological
experience. The deep sleep is the state of our
primitive life already undergone which
apparently seems to be so alien to our modern
existence of our waking life. But an
investigation into the study of the unconscious
level reveals it to be no mystery as the
psychoanalysts seek to make it. The only mystery
is the mystery that it is the complete history
of our consciousness and its experience written
even in blood. It is the memory that has sunk
into ineffectuality, but yet operating through
the trait developed by the race, as also the
individual, in the forms of instinctive traits
common to all individuals and special tendencies
peculiar to the individual alone. It is
therefore the background of our waking and
imaginative life. The dream - consciousness
analysed to its source of simplicity is the
imaginative level which seeks fresh combinations
in actuality, it is the creative factor of our
life. The waking is the creative or imaginative
phase of our being seeking manifestation
conditioned by the deep unconscious. In
dream-con-sciousness, the imagination may take
the way of perversion of the unconscious or else
a straight transfiguration of the unconscious or
else it may argue for its continuation. In every
case, the dream and the unconscious far from
merely vanishing into each other seek that
completion or satisfaction of their expression
in the waking, the world of experience. The
comparison thus means in other words, the
unconscious level, is the level of the past, the
biological background of our life; the dreaming
is the future, the ideational and the
imaginative and the waking-consciousness is the
present - the meeting of both dream and the
unconscious. But considered as a product of the
strife between the unconscious universal
background, the individuation of the individual
must have been due only to his seeking to
formulate his environment himself. The
imaginative process or the process of
associating a distinct activity instead of the
routine makes for perfect individuation. Dream
and ideation lead not a little to the
culmination of creative activity. That
intelligent occasion has got coherent
conceptions whilst dream-life does not possess
them reveals only that the imagination seeks
expression somehow and factors of unconscious
make that goal nebulous, in intelligent thought
it becomes clear and coherent; the dream is the
substitute for creative life of imagination and
in the measure that it acts as the stimulus to
creative art and formative evolution consists
its claim to be called the intimator of
futurity. Dream in the intelligent and developed
people moves between the unconscious level of
biological self and the future of the ideational
level and becomes a house of conflicts,
compensations and subtle expressions. The
provocation of the biological life, undergone in
the lower strata of being grip the entire life
and coming into conflict with ethical and social
norms of a civilized society, seeks escape in
symbolism or else in and through a naked
expression of the biological instinct. The
symbolic activity is the activity of adjustment,
which the dream refuses to express, when such an
expression is not conducive to development. In
all cases the dream is just the period of
adjustment and symbolism, a stage when
consciousness relieved from the stress of life
and its completely binding nature, releases
itself to its freedom and sometimes runs riot
also on the wake of great repression of content
seeking expression in the waking life.
Compensation, the play of imagination, symbolism
and repressed contents seek their fulfillment in
dream. That the theory that Isvara inflicts
these several chariots and other sensations
occur, could only mean that what a man deserves
that he gets, what a man has by his activities
stimulated seek their manifestation in the dream
state. That a man suffers for what he does
outside in his waking life is merely the theory
of compensation in life. But it also means the
index to temperament.
Yoga tries to control this dream life as well
as the waking life. The causes of dream are
imaginative liveliness and associative
potencies. In making these associations entirely
moral and consciously so, we make the
oscillatory movements between
waking-consciousness and dream-life merely a
continuity and not violent as in the case of
immoral and high-tension actions. The bondage to
the unconscious elements can be got over when we
make the biological collectivity merely
non-existent to us, that never shows the least
attention to its commandments and potencies. In
triumphing over the instinctive life or
reorganizing our life in the light of conscious
spirituality all the several stages of our life
lose their meaning and one becomes free from the
wheel of evolutionary reactions. One becomes
himself and does not travel into the realms of
unconscious or dream, but expresses himself from
the turia in the waking. The continuity is made
by one leap.
Jung's Unconscious and the Turia:
Jung calls his unconscious the collective
history of Mankind. "The unconscious is
continually active creating from its material
combinations that serve the needs of the future.
It creates subliminal prospective combinations
just as does the conscious, only they are
markedly superior to the conscious combination
both in refinement and extent. The unconscious
therefore can also be an unequalled guide for
man." But this would mean reducing the level
intelligent fulfillment to the instinctive
level, however, it may guarantee continuity of
history between the individual and the
collective society. Yet he thinks that the
deep-rooted prejudices the instincts and
tendencies of the race preserved in its bosom
will be invaluable guides for man seeking
intelligent function. For Jung "Individuation
dispositions of mankind since an adequate
consideration of the peculiarity of the
individual is more conducive to a better social
achievement, than when the peculiarity is
neglected or repressed." Here Jung seems to be
lapsing into the view that collective
dispositions of mankind is exactly the
aspiration of the entire Humanity to its
completed height. The collective disposition of
mankind is almost a product of social adjustment
and its aspiration is however the aspiration for
a better kind of world that what was available
through the biological history. The aspiration
of mankind of the most imaginative people of the
world and the most creative spirits is to make
man more divine and less animal like. The
spiritual aspiration is not identical with the
aspiration of biological history, which has sunk
into the unconscious below the threshold of
consciousness. But it is true that the true
individuality seeks its expression through the
intermediary biological history, inhibiting
gradually the trait of its course and tortuous
experience and limitation. The spirit is born in
matter and finds itself. This is the lila of the
spirit.
CG.Jung: Two essays in Analytical Psychology
pp.162.
Ibid. pp.184.
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