Psychospiritual technology is more than applied knowledge and wisdom. It is also an instrument of knowledge, insofar as its use opens up new vistas of self-understanding, including the higher dimensions of the world that form the reaches of inner space.
The Indian liberation teachings—the great Yogas of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism—clearly represent an invaluable resource for contemporary humankind. We have barely scratched the surface of what they have to offer us. It is obvious, however, that in order to find our way out of the tunnel of materialistic scientism, we require more than knowledge, information, statistics, mathematical formulas, sociopolitical programs, or technological solutions. We are in need of wisdom. And what better way is there to rejuvenate our hearts and restore the wholeness of our being than on the wisdom of the East, especially the great lucid insights and realizations of the Indian seers, sages, mystics, and holy folk?
III. REALITY AND MODELS OF REALITY
It is important to remember that India’s spiritual technology is also based on models of reality only. The ultimate realization, known as enlightenment or God- realization, is in the last analysis ineffable: It transcends thought and speech. Hence, the moment the God- or Self-realized adept opens his or her mouth to speak about the nature of that realization, he or she must resort to metaphors, images, and models—and models are intrinsically limited in their capacity to communicate that indivisible condition.
In some respects, the models proposed in the consciousness disciplines of the East have greater fidelity to reality. The reason for this is that the yogic models have been forged by a more comprehensive sensitivity. The yogins use means of cognition whose existence is barely acknowledged by Western scientists, such as clairvoyance and higher states of identification with the object of contemplation, which are called samâdhi. In other words, Yoga operates with a more sophisticated theory of knowledge (epistemology) and theory of being (ontology), recognizing levels or dimensions of existence that most scientists do not even suspect exist. At the same time, however, those traditional spiritual models are not as rigorously formulated as their modern Western counterparts. They are more intuitive-hortatory than analytical-descriptive. Manifestly, each approach has its distinct field of application and usefulness, and both can learn from each other.
The reigning paradigm of Western science is Newtonian materialistic dualism, which affirms that there are real subjects (observers) confronting real objects “out there.” This view has of late been challenged by quantum physics, which suggests that there is no reality that is entirely divorced from the observer. India’s psychospiritual technology has likewise been subject to a ruling paradigm, which can be described as verticalism: Reality is thought to be realizable by inverting attention and then manipulating the inwardly focused consciousness to ascend into ever-higher states in the inner hierarchy of experience until everything is transcended. Thus, the motto of typical Indian Yoga is “in, up, and out.”
This vertical model of spirituality is founded in archaic mythical imagery, which pictures Reality in polar opposition to conditional existence: Heaven above, Earth below. As the contemporary adept Da Free John (Adi Da) has shown, this model is a conceptual representation of the human nervous system. As he put it succinctly:
The key to mystical language and religious metaphor is not theology or cosmology but anatomy. All the religious and cosmological language of mysticism is metaphorical. And the metaphors are symbols for anatomical features of the higher functional structures of the human individual.
Those who enter deeply into the mystical dimension of experience soon discover that the cosmic design they expected to find in their inward path of ascent to God is in fact simply the design of their own anatomical or psychophysical structures. Indeed, this is the secret divulged to initiates of mystical schools.9
Joe Nigro Sansonese explored the somatic origins of myth in his important but not widely enough known work The Body of Myth. He defined myths succinctly as “cultureladen descriptions of samâdhi.”10 As he explained, each meditation takes the yogin or yoginî deep into the body, putting him or her in touch with this or that oigan. This somatic journey is then externalized in mythic utterances. There is much truth to Sansonese’s statement, but it is not the entire truth. Some states of consciousness go beyond proprioception, beyond the body, and it is precisely these states that the Yoga adepts seek to cultivate. Enlightenment or liberation itself is definitely a body-transcending condition. Here the entire universe becomes a “body” for the liberated being. Also, not all mythmaking derives from ecstatic experiences
The most severe limitation of the verticalist paradigm is that it involves an understanding of spiritual life as a progressive inward journey from unenlightenment to enlightenment. This gives rise to the misconception that Reality is to be found within, away from the world, and that, consequently, to renounce the world means to abandon it.
It is to the credit of India’s adepts that this paradigm did not remain unchallenged. For instance, in Tantra, which straddles both Hinduism and Buddhism, a different understanding of spirituality is present. As will be elaborated in Chapter 17, Tantra is founded in the radical assumption that if Reality is anywhere, it must be everywhere and not merely inside the human psyche. The great dictum of Tantrism is that the transcendental Reality and the conditional world are coessential—nirvâna equals samsâra. In other words, transcendental ecstasy and sensory pleasure are not finally incompatible. Upon enlightenment, pleasure reveals itself to be ecstasy. In the unenlightened state, pleasure is simply a substitute for the ecstasy that is its abiding ground. This insight has led to a philosophy of integration between spiritual concerns and material existence, which is particularly relevant today.
IV. YOGA AND THE MODERN WEST
In our struggle for self-understanding and psychospiritual growth, we can benefit immensely from a liberal exposure to India’s spiritual legacy. We need not, of course, become converts to any path, or accept yogic ideas and practices without questioning. C. G. Jung’s warning that we should not attempt to transplant Eastern teachings into the West rings true at a certain level; mere imitation definitely does more harm than good.11 The reason is that if we adopt ideas and lifestyles without truly assimilating them emotionally and intellectually, we run the risk of living inauthentic lives. In other words, our role- playing gets the better of us. Yet, Jung was overly pessimistic about people’s ability to sift the wheat from the chaff, or to learn and grow whole even from their negative experiences.
Moreover, his insistence that Westerners differ radically in their psychic constitution from Easterners is plainly incorrect. There are indeed psychological differences between the Eastern and the Western branches of the human family—differences that are readily apparent to seasoned travelers and those who cross the cultural divide between “East” and “West” or “North” and “South” in order to do business. These differences are, admittedly, even considerable when we compare ancient Easterners and contemporary Westerners, but they are not radical or unbridgeable.
Here we must remember that with the possible exception of a few isolated tribal peoples, humanity has shared the same structures of consciousness ever since what the German philosopher-psychiatrist Karl Jaspers has called the “axial age,” the great transformative period around the middle of the first millennium B.C.E. During the axial age, the world of antiquity went beyond the mythopoeic form of thought characteristic of earlier ages. Pioneering spirits like Socrates, Gautama the Buddha, Mahâvîra, Lao Tzu, and Confucius embodied a new cognitive style, showing a clear preference for thinking in more strictly rational terms rather than in predominantly mythological metaphors.12 Hence we can resonate with the ancient teachings of Yoga, even though they are the product of a personality type and culture that did not yet suffer from the excessive growth of left-brained thought, or abstract intellection, which is the hallmark of our own epoch.13
The dialogue between East and West is one of the most significant even
ts of our century. If, as Jung confidently asserted, the West should create its own Yoga in the centuries to come, it will not be on the foundations of Christianity alone, which was his contention, but rather on the new global foundations laid as a result of that dialogue between the two halves of planetary humankind. At any rate, it is important to understand that this dialogue is necessarily a personal matter, which occurs on the stage of each individual’s heart and mind. That means we—you and I—must initiate and nurture it. This undertaking is an enormous challenge and obligation, but also an unparalleled opportunity for assisting the “Atman project” as it moves us toward our own awakening in the larger Reality.
ADDENDUM TO THE 2008 EDITION
In addressing the spiritual impulse, we must not ignore the sad fact that today spiritual concerns are deeply buried beneath the growing garbage mountains of commercial counterfeit products. In fact, this has become a serious problem, because spiritual seekers must first learn to recognize the dross before they can discover genuine liberation teachings. A good indicator of the latter is that they require personal commitment to the always challenging and long-term work of self-transformation. Any teacher or teaching that promises quick “success” by “easy” means predictably belongs to the consumer mind-set and is mere commercial exploitation. The commodification of spiritual teachings has been astutely analyzed by Jeremy Carrette and Richard King in their valuable book Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion (London: Routledge, 2005).
Another matter that deserves being singled out here is that of the rapid collapse of our natural environment. Seven out of ten biologists now believe that we are in the midst of what they call the “Sixth Mass Extinction,” which is predicted to exceed in its devastating sweep the mass extinction of 65 million years ago. This grim fact makes genuine Yoga practice, especially its moral disciplines, a pressing priority. In light of what is happening today, I feel, all Yoga practitioners must without further delay commit to a green lifestyle that is as radical as they can make it (see Georg and Brenda Feuerstein, Green Yoga, 2007). More than ever, unless we engage the spiritual process bearing all living beings in mind, as well as future generations, we must not expect much, if any, real benefit from our efforts. If Yoga practitioners will not step up to the challenge, who will? I have said a little more about all this on page 426 of this third edition.
“Yoga is collectedness (samâdhâna).”
-Shankara’s Yoga-Sûtra-Bhâshya-Vivarana (1.1)
I. THE ESSENCE OF YOGA
Yoga is a spectacularly multifaceted phenomenon, and as such it is very difficult to define because there are exceptions to every conceivable rule. What all branches and schools of Yoga have in common, however, is that they are concerned with a state of being, or consciousness, that is truly foundational. One ancient Yoga scripture, Vyâsa’s Yoga-Bhâshya (1.1), captures this essential orientation in the following equation: “Yoga is ecstasy.”
In this Sanskrit text the word used for “ecstasy” is samâdhi. Vyâsa’s definition has caused his commentators and modern scholars no end of difficulties, because how can samâdhi, as he insists, be a stable quality of consciousness (citta) when consciousness is seen to change constantly? We can understand this peculiar notion only when we relate it to the idea that the transcendental Self, the purusha, is forever in the condition of ecstasy, and that this condition remains always the same regardless of the changing moods and qualities of the human mind.1 Be that as it may, Vyâsa’s use of the term samâdhi in this context clearly has overtones of the ecstatic state that is the hallmark of the yogic path.
The term samâdhi is of crucial importance in Yoga and will be encountered again and again in this volume. Therefore it seems appropriate to explain it more carefully at the outset. Sanskrit, the language in which most Yoga scriptures are written, is particularly suited for philosophical and psychological discourse. It allows the concise expression of nuances in thought that in English often require several terms. The word samâdhi, for instance, is composed of the prefixes sam (similar to the Latin syn) and â, followed by the verbal root dhâ (“to place, put”) in its modified form dhi. The literal meaning of the term is thus “placing, putting together.”
What is put together, or unified, is the conscious subject and its mental object or objects. Samâdhi is both the technique of unifying consciousness and the resulting state of ecstatic union with the object of contemplation. Christian mystics speak of this condition as the “mystical union” (unio mystica). As the world-renowned historian of religion Mircea Eliade observed, samâdhi is really “enstasy” rather than “ecstasy.” 2 The Greek-derived word “ecstasy” means to stand (stasis) outside (ex) the ordinary self, whereas samâdhi signifies one’s standing (stasis) in (en) the Self, the transcendental Essence of the personality. But both interpretations are correct, because we can only abide in and as the Self (âtman or purusha) when we transcend the ego-self (ahamkâra). Yoga, then, is the technology of ecstasy, or self-transcendence. How this ecstatic condition is interpreted and what means are employed for its realization differ, as we will see, from school to school.
The Sanskrit term yoga is most frequently interpreted as the “union” of the individual self (jîva-âtman) with the supreme Self (parama-âtman).3 This succinct definition is at home in Vedânta, the dominant branch of Hindu philosophy, which also greatly influenced the majority of Yoga schools. Vedânta proper originated with the ancient esoteric scriptures known as the Upanishads, which first taught the “inner ritual” of meditation upon, and absorption into, the unitary Ground of all existence.4 However, nondualist metaphysics is foreshadowed in the archaic hymns of the Vedas (see the diagram in Chapter 3, mapping out the sacred literature of Hinduism).
According to Vedânta, the individual self is alienated from its transcendental Ground, the supreme Self (parama-âtman), or Absolute (brahman). How this alienation is understood differs from school to school. Some regard the finite self, together with the phenomenal universe, as merely illusory or as a superimposition on Reality; others consider it to be quite real but caught in the “dis-ease” (duhkha) of estrangement from the ultimate Reality. Because of these differing notions about the true existential status of the individual self, there are also a variety of interpretations of the nature of its re-union with the transcendental Reality. Some schools of thought even deny that there can be such a re-union, because we are never separated from the Ground, and our discovery of this fact is more a kind of remembering our eternal status as the ever-blissful transcendental Self.
While the notion of union makes some sense within the tradition of Vedânta, it is not representative of all forms of Yoga. It is valid in regard to the earlier (Pre-Classical) schools of Yoga and also applies to the later (Post-Classical) schools of Yoga, which subscribe to a type of Vedântic nondualist philosophy. However, the metaphor of union does not at all fit the system of Classical Yoga, as formulated by Patanjali in the second century C.E. In Patanjali’s Yoga-Sûtra, the basic scripture of Classical Yoga, there is no mention of a union with the transcendental Reality as the ultimate target of the yogic endeavor. Given Patanjali’s dualist metaphysics, which strictly separates the transcendental Self from Nature (prakriti) and its products, this would not even make any sense.
One of Patanjali’s aphorisms (2.44) merely refers to a coming in “contact” (samprayoga) with one’s “chosen deity” (ishta-devatâ) as a result of intense self-study. This chosen deity is not the Absolute itself but a specific deity of the Hindu pantheon, like Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, or the Goddesses Durgâ and Kâlî.5 The yogin, in other words, may have a vision of his adopted representation of the transcendental Reality, just as a devout Christian may have a visionary encounter with his or her favorite patron saint. No more is implied in that aphorism.
Patanjali (in Yoga-Sûtra 1.2) defines Yoga simply as “the restriction of the whirls of consciousness” (citta-vritti-nirodha). That is to say, Yoga is the focusing of attention to whatever object is being conte
mplated to the exclusion of all others. Ultimately, attention must be focused on and merged with the transcendental Self. This is not merely a matter of preventing thoughts from arising. It is a whole-body focusing in which one’s entire being is quieted. As is clear from a study of the Yoga-Sûtra, the terms citta and vritti are part of Patanjali’s technical vocabulary and therefore have fairly precise meanings. We learn, for instance, that the process of restriction reaches far deeper than the verbal mind, because in the end one’s entire conditional personality must be held in a state of balance and transparency. We can readily appreciate the difficulty of this undertaking when we try to stop the conveyor belt of our own thoughts even for thirty seconds.
Patanjali explains that when this psycho-mental stoppage has been accomplished, the transcendental Witness-Consciousness shines forth. This Witness- Consciousness, or “Seer” (drashtri), is the pure Awareness (cit) that abides eternally beyond the senses and the mind, uninterruptedly apperceiving all the contents of consciousness. All schools of Hinduism agree that the ultimate Reality is not a condition of stonelike stupor but of superconsciousness.
This assertion is not mere speculation but is based on the actual realization of thousands of Yoga adepts, and their great discovery is corroborated by the testimony of mystics in other parts of the world. The immutable Essence, or Spirit, is Being-Consciousness. All else is, according to Patanjali’s philosophy, insentient matter that pertains to the realm of Nature, the counter-pole to the Witness-Consciousness.
The Yoga Tradition Page 4