The Yoga Tradition

by Georg Feuerstein

  The Great Adepts ofTantric Buddhism

  Tantric Buddhism is the result of the contact between Indian Buddhism and the native Tibetan Bon religion. Hence we find that in the Vajrayâna tradition, more than in any other Buddhist tradition, the loftiest metaphysical doctrines are mingled with the earthiest magical practices. This becomes strikingly evident when we examine the biographies of the eighty-four mahâ-siddhas (“great adepts”) of Tibetan Buddhism. They were not only enlightened beings but also accomplished thaumaturgists possessing all kinds of paranormal powers (siddhi).

  Thus, prior to his spiritual conversion, Tibet’s most famous yogin, Milarepa (1038-1122 C.E.), was wreaking havoc with his black magic. His pupilage under Marpa “the Translator” is said to have been especially hard because he had to atone for his sins during the course of his practice (sâdhanâ). Yet in his “Hundred Thousand Songs of Mila” (Mila-Grubum), Milarepa, whose name means the “cotton-clad,” praises his guru for his great love and patience. Milarepa is the most illustrious figure of the Kagyu order, whose members usually live as hermits in mountain caves, dedicating their lives to solitary meditation. They trace their lineage back through Milarepa to Marpa the Translator (1012-1097 C.E.), who uniquely combined in himself intellectual and spiritual genius, and then to Marpa’s Indian teacher Nâropa (1016-1100 C.E.). Nâropa’s teacher was, in turn, Tilopa (988-1069 C.E.), who had no human preceptor but is said to have received initiation into the highest spiritual practice directly from his chosen deity (Tibetan: yidam, Sanskrit: ishta-devatâ). Tilopa is deemed the first patriarch of the Kagyu order.

  The Kagyupas are well known for their practice of chod (“severing”), which is a meditation in which the practitioner, through visualization and ritual, step by step dismembers his or her own body, offering it as food to deities, dâkinîs, and lower beings. What remains is a purified consciousness that no longer anxiously clings to the physical body or the physical realm at large.

  The Kagyu order is one of the three “Red Hat” sects of Tibetan Buddhism, so called because of the color of the head dress worn by their members on ceremonial occasions. The other two are the Nyingmapa and the Sakyapa schools. The former is the oldest Vajrayâna order, which dates back to the Tibetan monastery of Samye where the great Tantric master Buddhaguhya and over one hundred monastic scholar-translators worked on translating Sanskrit scriptures into Tibetan. An early master, who did much to spread Buddhism in Tibet and is often called the founder of the Nyingma order, is Padmasambhava, “Precious Teacher” (Guru Rinpoche), who arrived in Tibet in 747 C.E. Most Nyingmapas are married householders who are as well versed in the scriptures as they are in Tantric practices.

  The distinctive practice of the Nyingma order is dzogchen, which has become very popular among Western Buddhists. It is the practice of the highest of the three “inner” Tantras, namely (in ascending order) mahâyoga, anuyoga, and atiyoga. At the mahâyoga stage, the practitioner realizes that all phenomena are emanations of the mind, which is a combination of appearance and voidness (shûnyatâ). At the level of anuyoga practice, all appearances and one’s own thoughts are recognized as empty (shûnya), and this emptiness is identified with Samantabhadrî, the feminine form of Samantabhadra, who is the embodiment of the dharma-kâya, the “body” of Reality. Atiyoga consists in the realization that all phenomena arise as a combination of appearance and emptiness. It transcends all visualization, which the Nyingmapas consider inferior to dzogchen. But, as many Western students tend to forget, direct perception of the empty nature of the mind and of all existence presupposes great inner calm and clarity. Thus, there is a place for other forms of meditation and visualization as an aid to achieving inner stillness.

  The Sakyapas trace their lineage back to the Indian adept Virûpa and, beyond him, to Atîsha Dîpamkara Shrîjnâna (982-1052 C.E.). Atîsha was born into a royal family of Bengal, renounced the world at the age of fifteen, and became a monk (bhikshu) at the age of twenty-nine. After twelve years of intensive monastic study and discipline, he achieved great fame as a scholar and adept. However, when he realized the importance of generating bodhi- citta, the will to enlightenment, he made a thirteen-month-long journey to Indonesia to receive the teachings on bodhi-citta from their greatest exponent, the adept Dharmakîrti.

  The most numerous sect today is the Gelug (“Virtuous”) order, also called “Yellow Hat” sect, which has the Dalai Lama (“Ocean [of Compassion] Teacher”) as its head. It traces its lineage back to the great reformer Je Tsongkhapa Lobsang Drakpa (1357-1419 C.E.) and, beyond him, to the Indian adept Atîsha. Tsongkhapa (“He who hails from the onion country”) reaffirmed Atîsha’s insistence that the Tantras should be studied only after mastery of the Sûtras and their practices has been achieved. On the basis of Atîsha’s “A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment” (Byang- chub lamgyi groma, Sanskrit: Bodhi-Patha-Pradîpa), he developed the teaching of the “graduated path” (lam rim) on which all spiritual practices of the Gelugpas are based. This is an impressively systematic teaching of the stages (rim) of the path (lam) to liberation, serving as a syllabus of instruction.

  Shortly before his death, Je Tsongkhapa asked his main disciples who among them would assume the responsibility for passing on the Tantric teachings. Only Jetsun Sherab Sengye stepped forward, and he received all the precious Tantric teachings from his guru. They were handed down in an unbroken line of transmission by the Segyu monastery, which, with numerous other monasteries, was destroyed during the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959. Only a handful of monks were able to flee to India and Nepal, where they created two new monasteries (in Kalimpong and Kathmandu respectively). Through Sherab Sengye, the Tantric teachings also were transmitted to other monasteries and now form the backbone of the Gelug tradition.

  Je Tsongkhapa wrote many works, including his magnum opus “The Great Exposition of the Stages of the Path,” his influential “The Essence of Good Explanations,” and “The Great Exposition of Secret Mantra.” In 1409, at the age of fifty-two, he founded the famous Ganden Monastery,34 which once housed around four thousand monks. His disciples founded the other well- known monasteries of Drepung (1416) and Sera (1419). After their complete destruction at the hands of the Chinese communists, they were rebuilt in India.

  Je Tsongkhapa’s reforms were primarily aimed at restoring the monastic vows and disciplines, reintroducing clear thinking, and resuscitating pure Tantric practice among the Tibetans. He was particularly concerned about the sexual practices of those involved with higher Tantric Yoga (anuttara- yoga-tantra), which clashed with the monastic ideal.

  The Six Yogas of Nâropa

  The adept Nâropa deserves our special attention, because his name is associated with the teaching of the “Six Yogas of Naro” (naro chodrug).35 This practice is expounded in the Tibetan text “The Epitome of the Six Doctrines,” which was translated in 1935 by Kazi Dawa-Sam-dup and introduced by W. Y. Evans Wentz, and contains the following:

  The Yoga of Psychophysical Heat (tummo): This practice combines visualization and breathing techniques. Utilizing the surplus of bio-energy produced through strict sexual abstinence, yogins visualize, among other things, one half of the letter a of the Tibetan alphabet, causing it to glow brightly until their entire body is filled by the blaze and then extending it to fill the cosmos. Finally, they control the blaze, gradually reducing it to a pinpoint, until it merges into the void itself. This practice generates a considerable amount of psychophysical heat, which allows the yogins to meditate naked for prolonged periods at temperatures well below zero in the high altitudes of the Himalayas. Several expeditions have returned with film footage documenting this extraordinary feat. This practice presupposes intimate knowledge of the “winds” (Tibetan: lung’, Sanskrit: prâna, vâyu) and the subtle channels (Tibetan: tsa; Sanskrit: nâdî), as well as the psychoenergetic centers (Tibetan: tsakhor, Sanskrit: cakra).

  The Yoga of the Illusory Body (gyulu): Meditating on the flat image of their body in a mirror, which gives the illusion o
f having three-dimensional depth, yogins proceed to experience that image as arising between the mirror and themselves. Finally, they contemplate the ultimate illusoriness, or voidness, of their own body. This leads ultimately to practitioners’ identification with the “diamond body” (Tibetan: dorje’i ku; Sanskrit: vajrâkâya) of absolute Reality.

  The Yoga of the Dream State (milam): In order to discover the illusoriness of the waking and the dream state, yogins enter the dream state at will, without sacrificing the continuity of their awareness. They carefully control the dream events. In recent years, research on what is called “lucid dreaming” has shown that it is possible to insert oneself into one’s dreams consciously, and even to control the events in them.

  The Yoga of the Clear Light (ösel): This practice anticipates an experience that is said to be universal shortly after death, in which the deceased person sees momentarily the brilliant white radiance that is a form of the transcendental Reality itself. In the Yoga of the Clear Light, adepts enter into levels of awareness where that radiance can be seen, and in this way they prepare themselves for the after-death encounter with the Void in its luminous form, thus avoiding the common danger of being terrified by it and fleeing from it rather than recognizing it as their true nature.

  The Yoga of the Transitional Realm (bardo): This practice is closely related to the Yoga of the Clear Light. Again adepts acquaint themselves with the after-death phenomena while they are still alive, and as a result of their “rehearsal” are able to penetrate the hallucinatory appearances that are likely to assail them in the after-death bardo state. Furthermore, expertise in this Yoga empowers yogins to decide their destiny after death, including the option to become reborn in human form into a particular environment. Generally, six bardos are distinguished: (a) the ordinary waking state, which lies between birth and death; (b) the dream state, which lies between deep sleep and waking; (c) the unconscious state, which is called “reality state” (choyid bardo) because here the mind is thrown back upon its real nature; (d) the state of becoming (ridpa bardo), during which the individual in the hereafter experiences all kinds of phantasmagoric and often terrifying sights—all mental projections; (e) the state of meditation (samtan bardo), which is a condition of inner balance accompanied by the withdrawal of the senses from the external world; and (f) the state of birth (kyena bardo), which is the period from fertilization of a female egg to the moment of birth (or, rather, rebirth). These bardos are powered by a person’s karmic tendencies. However, the first, second, and fourth bardos also are special opportunities for spiritual practice and growth.

  The Yoga of Consciousness Transference (phowa): Through complex visualizations, combined with breath control, yogins conduct the bio-energy to the crown of the head. This highly secret technique is supposed to lead to actual anatomical changes. As John Blofeld observed:

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  This yoga is practised for a time by nearly all initiates. At death, in accordance with their skill, they will be able to transfer themselves to realms of radiant light, into an apparitional existence or at least into a desirable incarnation. For, if they are fully successful in mastering this yoga, they will succeed in transferring the consciousness through an aperture which can be opened in the crown of the head at the sagittal suture where the two parietal bones come together or, if less skillful, from various other parts of the body, of which the mouth, anus and penis are the least desirable. The practice is performed daily until success is signalled by lymph or blood oozing from the crown of the head at the spot just mentioned. That this indeed occurs and that a small hole spontaneously opens there as a result of the yoga has been attested by numbers of reliable witnesses in China and in the Indo-Tibetan border regions.35

  Techniques like Nâropa’s Six Yogas are part of what is known as the Path of Form (dsin-lam). There also is a Formless Path, which consists in the moment- to-moment recognition of the manifest objects as the transcendental Reality. This Zen-like discipline is also called gya-chenpo (Sanskrit: mahâ-mudrâ, “great seal”). The attitude of seeing the absolute identity of the phenomenal world and the transcendental Reality creates an inner immunity to all fear and doubt. It establishes practitioners in their authentic being, which is sheer bliss.

  This concludes our brief excursion into the heterodox traditions of Buddhism and Jainism. The next chapter picks up the historical thread within Hinduism at the time of the two great epics of India—the Râmâyana and the Mahâbhârata.

  Buddhist Refuge Prayer

  buddham sharanam gacchâmi, “I go for refuge to the Buddha.”

  dharmam sharanam gacchâmi, “I go for refuge to the Teaching.”

  sangham sharanam gacchâmi, “I go for refuge to the Community.”

  “The body knows touch; the tongue, taste; the nose, scents; the ears, sounds; the eyes, forms, but men who do not know the deep Self (adhyâtman)1 do not seize that Supreme.”

  —Mahâbhârata (12.195.4)

  I. OVERVIEW

  With this chapter we resume our delineation of the historical unfolding of Hindu Yoga, which we left off in Chapter 5. The focus of the present chapter is on the developments in the fecund period between the mysticism of the early Upanishads and the systematized Yoga of Patanjali. This period, which covers what I have called the Epic Age, stretches from c. 600 B.C.E. to C. 100 B.C.E.

  A fair number of scriptures relevant to our study of the evolution of Yoga have survived from that period. First is the Râmâyana, whose epic nucleus long antedates the Buddha and even the earliest Upanishads. In fact, King Râma—the hero of this epic—lived during the late Vedic era, perhaps between 3000 B.C.E. and 2500 B.C.E., certainly prior to the notorious war between the Kurus and Pândavas recorded in the Mahâbhârata. Râma’s father Dâsharatha (“Ten Chariots” or “He who drives his chariot in all ten directions”) was the ruler of the fabled city of Ayodhyâ. His actual name was Nemi, which means “Rim” or “Circumference,” this being perhaps a reference to the king’s lordship over an extensive area. Scholarly consensus assigns the final redaction of the present Sanskrit version of the Râmâyana to c. 300 B.C.E., whereas the core of the current Sanskrit version of the Mahâbhârata, which includes the celebrated Bhagavad-Gîtâ, is generally thought to have been composed by c. 500 B.C.E. To be sure, these figures are largely guesswork, and we may well have to allow a far longer interval between the final redactions of these two epics.

  Other survivals from the Epic Age are Upanishads such as the Maitrâyanîya, the Prashna, the Mundaka, the Mândûkya, the Râma-Pûrva-Tapanîya, and the Râma-Uttara- Tapanîya.2 Their esoteric teachings go beyond the ideology of the orthodox ritualism of the brahmins. The Upanishadic sages typically rejected the idea that the brahmanical rituals inherited from Vedic and early post-Vedic times had the potency to lead to enlightenment, though they generally conceded that external rites had their proper place in religious life. Their main interest, however, was in communicating the liberating realization of the transcendental Self, and to this end they put forward more or less elaborate liberation teachings.

  To the Epic Age also belongs the final redaction of the juridical-ethical literature, such as the Dharma- Shâstra of Manu, and the Dharma-Sûtras of Baud- hayana and pastamba, though again, their nuclei go back to late Vedic times, the period of the early Brahmanas. This is certainly the case for the two Sûtras, but scholars think that there also may have been a Sûtra by Manu, which according to our revised chronology would have been created before 2000 B.C.E.

  Unquestionably the most important Yoga document of the Epic Age is the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, which according to its colophon claims the status of an Upanishad, even though it forms an integral part of the Mahâbhârata. Before we can examine the remarkably holistic teaching of this Hindu classic, we must turn our attention to the Râmâyana.

  II. HEROISM, PURITY, AND ASCETICISM—THE RMYANA OF VLMÎKI

  No single literary creation has been more influential in the lives of millions of people in India and Southe
ast Asia than the ancient poem Râmâyana (“Life of Râma”), which is traditionally deemed the “first poetic work” (âdi-kâvya). For countless generations, the tragic love story between King Râma and his beloved wife Sîtâ has served as a repository of spiritual teachings and folk wisdom. Many popular sayings derive from it, and to this day it is recited and retold during festivities. Since 1987, Indian television has broadcast a weekly serial based on the epic poem that is watched by over eighty million viewers.3

  In its present form, the Râmâyana consists of around 24,000 polished verses distributed over seven chapters, with the seventh being a later addition. Although the Râmâyana appears to be the work of many authors, tradition acknowledges Vâlmîki as its sole composer. His name means “anthill” and is connected with a colorful story. According to legend, Vâlmîki was born a brahmin but lived as a robber for many years. Through the intervention of some well-meaning sages, he came to recognize the wrongness of his lifestyle. He repented for his transgressions by meditating while transfixed to a single spot for thousands of years, during which time ants built a hill over his body.

  The drama recorded in the Râmâyana unfolds in the ancient country of Koshala. The story begins with the aged Dâsharatha, ruler of the capital city Ayodhyâ, stating his intention to make his son Râma successor to the throne. Kaikeyi, the youngest of King Dâsharatha’s three wives, whom he owed two boons, asked for her own son, Bhârata, to be appointed and for Râma to be banished for fourteen years. The king had no choice; much against his will, he exiled his beloved son. Râma, son of the senior queen Kaushalyâ, received the news with stoic equanimity and promptly repaired to the forest with his brother Lakshmana and his wife Sîtâ. Sîtâ was a foundling who had been adopted by Janaka, ruler of the neighboring kingdom of Videha. Her name means “Furrow,” which Janaka bestowed on her because he had found her in a furrow of the field he was tilling as part of a royal ritual.