The Yoga Tradition

by Georg Feuerstein

  Only the realization of the transcendental Self (purusha), or Spirit, amounts to genuine everlasting freedom. This, however, is not a matter of union but of simple identity. Self-realization is the awakening of yogins to their authentic or essential being, which abides forever beyond the orbit of Nature, vast as it is.

  Patanjali did not accept the Upanishadic or Vedântic equation of the transcendental Self (âtman) with the transcendental ground of the objective world, called brahman. Even though the eightfold path of the Yoga-Sûtra became very influential, Patanjali’s dualistic metaphysics has always been considered an oddity within the fold of Hinduism. Most Yoga schools during his time and in subsequent periods espoused one or another form of nondualism (advaita), which can be traced all the way back to the Rig-Veda. The Yoga teachings that succeeded Patanjali but that did not adopt his dualistic metaphysics can be referred to collectively as Post-Classical Yoga.

  The literature of Post-Classical Yoga is even more diversified and richer in content than the literature of Pre-Classical Yoga. First of all, there are the Yoga teachings of the Samhitâs (“Collections”), the religious works of the Vaishnavas of both the north and south of the Indian peninsula, as well as the numerous works dependent on them. This voluminous literature is briefly discussed in Chapter 12. Like the gamas (“Traditions”) of the Shaivas and like the Tantras (“Looms”) of the Shakti worshipers, the Samhitâs have barely been researched. Their teachings are incredibly intricate, and I can do no more here than scratch the surface of what amounts to an ocean of works in Sanskrit and the vernacular languages. Another rich mine of yogic teachings is the Purâna literature, which is introduced in Chapter 13. The core of this literature was created in the Vedic Era, but in their present form even the oldest Purânas barely date back before the closing centuries of the first millennium B.C.E. The Purânas (“Ancient [Teachings]”), as we will see, are popular encyclopedias that, among other things, contain brief treatments of Yoga and numerous fascinating stories about aspirants and masters.

  A post-classical work that deserves to be singled out for special treatment is the tenth-century Yoga- Vâsishtha. Its radical idealism has for centuries been an unfailing inspiration particularly to Hindus of the Himalayan region. I will introduce this remarkable poetic creation in Chapter 14.

  The most significant texts of Post-Classical Yoga are the so-called Yoga-Upanishads—a designation invented by Western scholars. These are scriptures from various epochs and geographical areas that represent various points of view within the Yoga tradition, though all have a nondualistic slant. They will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 15.

  An important phase of Post-Classical Yoga, covering the period from approximately the seventh to the seventeenth centuries C.E., is represented by the schools belonging to the tradition of “body culture” (kâya-sâdhana), such as the Siddha movement and Nâthism. These include orientations like Hatha-Yoga that seek to approach Self- or God-realization by probing the spiritual potential of the human body. These schools will be discussed separately, in Chapters 17 and 18, because of their significance for the development of Hinduism and because of the growing attention they receive in the West.

  We will start this review of Post-Classical Yoga with the more extreme sects of the ramified Shaiva tradition, which has its root in the Vedic Era. Some of the Shaivite practices are rather radical, inasmuch as they severely challenge conventional morality. They are considered to be “left-hand” schools, because they champion the literal enactment of the ultimate truth of nonduality, while the “right-hand” schools, by and large, condone only the symbolic expression of that truth. The difference between these two approaches is best epitomized in their contrasting attitudes to sexuality. While the adherents of the right-hand schools generally see sexuality as a threat to spiritual growth, the followers of the left-hand path within Shaivism employ sexuality for their spiritual transformation.

  In India, as in many other parts of the world, the left side is associated with inauspiciousness or pollution, and the right side with auspiciousness, purity, and what is good. The Sanskrit term vâma-âcâra (“left conduct,” written vâmâcâra) has negative connotations in conventional contexts, but it is used by the left-hand schools themselves, though not because they admit to being partial to evil. Rather, in their exploration of our spiritual potential, they acknowledge the existence of the dark or shadow aspects of the human personality and of life in general. More than that, they actively associate with that which the “normal” person fears, avoids, or represses. The reason for this eccentric approach is partly to reclaim the repressed aspects of human existence and partly to demonstrate that life can and should be lived, under all circumstances, from the point of view of the ultimate truth of nonduality: If there is only the singular, all-comprising Being, then, to put it bluntly, it must also be the essence of genitals, death, and garbage.

  II. THE LEFT-HAND FOLLOWERS OF SHIVA—“SKULL-BEARERS,” “PHALLUS-WEARERS,” AND OTHER ASCETICS

  In their quest for ultimate security and happiness, the spiritual seekers of India have at times, as have those of other countries, ventured into territory that lies well outside the social establishment. There were and still are individuals and small groups whose lifestyle or practices look extreme, even bizarre, to the conventional mind. In his book Sadhûs: India’s Mystic Holy Men, the Dutch psychologist, photographer, and traveler Dolf Hartsuiker has recorded in word and image some of the unusual manifestations of India’s otherworldly saints.2 The photographs depict naked ascetics whose bodies are completely covered with ashes or are laden with beads and flower garlands and painted in bright colors, or who dress and behave like women in honor of Goddesses Sîtâ and Râdhâ. Then there are those who wear a chastity belt or who stand on one leg or with an upraised arm withered from years of neglect.

  Hindus have the reputation of being exceptionally tolerant in matters of religion, and indeed no culture on Earth has produced so much variety in its religious practices and ideas as Hinduism. When we as Westerners look askance at some of the expressions of religious fervor and spiritual aspiration in Hinduism, we must remember that our vision is defined by the powerful biases current in our own highly secularized modern culture. It is particularly important to remember this in the following discussion of some of the more unusual manifestations of Hindu spirituality.

  In the Mahâbhârata epic (12.337.59), five religious traditions are mentioned as being prominent: the sacrificial religion of the Vedas, Yoga, Sâmkhya, Pâncarâtra, and Pâshupata. We will next turn to the Pâshupata tradition, which is a particular phase in the development of the religious community of Shaivism that identifies the Absolute with God Shiva.

  The Pâshupata Tradition

  The religious order of the Pâshupatas is commonly thought to have been founded by a certain ascetic named Lakulîsha, who may have lived in the second century C.E. However, Shiva worshipers included ascetics already in the pre-Buddhist period, so the Pâshupatas can be regarded as a comparatively late development within Shaivism. We know of Lakulîsha only through legends. The name means literally “Lord of the Club” and is explained by the fact that the Pâshupatas carried a club (lakula) as one of their sectarian insignia. Lakulîsha, or Lakulin (“Club Carrier”), was venerated as an incarnation of God Shiva himself.

  According to the Kâravâna-Mâhâtmya, a relatively recent work, Lakulin was born into a brahmin family of what is now Gujarat. He was an extraordinary child, possessing all kinds of superhuman powers, but died in his seventh month. His grieving mother cast his tiny body into the river. A group of tortoises carried it to the holy site of Jaleshvara-Linga, where the life force reentered his limbs. He was brought up as an ascetic and later became a renowned teacher. According to some accounts, Lakulin died after a life of severe austerities and Shiva entered his body to reanimate it so that the Pâshupata doctrine could be disseminated in the world. His followers regarded him as the last incarnation of Shiva.

  Lakulin is said t
o have had four principal disciples—Kushika, Gârgya, Kurusha, and Maitreya—to which sometimes the name of Patanjali is added as a fifth. But this is doubtful, since nowhere in the Yoga-Sûtra or the commentarial literature is there any suggestion of Patanjali condoning the kind of extreme practices for which the Pâshupata sect was notorious. There also is the traditional claim that Patanjali (the grammarian who is identified with the Yoga master) belonged to the tradition of Vaishnavism. The same Patanjali, who is assigned to the second or third century B.C.E., refers in his Mahâ-Bhâshya (5.2.76) commentary on Pânini’s grammar to itinerant ascetics who were draped in an animal skin (ajina) and carried an iron lance (lauha-shûla) and staff (danda).

  Hindu iconography typically depicts Lakulin seated in the lotus posture, with a citron in his right hand and a club in his left and his penis stiff with life force. We may see in the club and the citron the symbols of the male and female aspects of the Divine respectively, though undoubtedly they have other esoteric significances as well. The erect penis suggests not sexual licentiousness but the mastery of the sexual drive and the conversion of semen into the mysterious ojas, or subtle vitality, that is an important part of the alchemical processes occurring in the body of the Yoga adept.

  What was so controversial about the Pâshupatas was their insistence on shocking the public with their eccentric behavior, such as babbling, making snorting sounds, imitating the walk of a cripple, pretending to suffer from tremor of the limbs, making foolish statements, and making sexual gestures in the presence of women. With these escapades they sought to court public disapproval, which would test their capacity for humility and self-transcending practice. In his commentary on the Pâshupata-Sûtra, Kaundinya observes:

  He should appear as though mad, like a pauper, his body covered with filth, letting his beard, nails, and hair grow long, without any bodily care. Thereby he cuts himself off from the estates (varna) and stages of life (âshrama), and the power of dispassion is produced. (3.1)

  But there was a further purpose to this strange practice. The Pâshupatas thought that by attracting censure they absorbed the bad karma of others, while transferring their own good karma to them, thereby enhancing their impulse toward total transcendence of the realm of good and bad. This curious practice is known as the pashupâta-vrata or “Pâshupata vow.”

  As is evident from the Pâshupata-Sûtra, ascribed to Lakulîsha, the earlier schools of this tradition were heavily ritualistic, and philosophy played only a secondary role. The ritual Yoga of the Pâshupatas included many ecstatic practices, such as singing, dancing, and laughter. But these were only engaged in the “unmanifest” (avyakta) or concealed state, when the initiates were amongst themselves, whereas the above- mentioned eccentric behavior was displayed in the “manifest” (vyakta) or public state, when they removed all identifying sectarian marks and behaved like complete outcasts.

  The Pâshupatas were surprisingly successful, and their order grew rapidly in size and influence. By the sixth century, Pâshupata temples were scattered throughout India. There are two possible explanations for the success of this sectarian movement. The first is that it offered a sense of belonging that was not based on the prevalent caste hierarchy. The second is that the movement promised active participation in simple religious rituals, as well as an emotion-based experience of the sacred.

  The philosophical elaboration of the Pâshupata sect began with Kaundinya, who composed his Panca-Artha- Bhâshya3 (“Commentary on the Five Topics [of the Pâshupata-Sûtra]”) sometime in the fifth century C.E. A further level of philosophical sophistication is present in the Gana-Kârikâ, attributed to a certain Haradatta, which has a fine commentary, called Ratna- Tîkâ (“Jewel of Exposition”), by the famous tenth-century logician Bhâsarvajna.

  In brief, the Pâshupatas are theists. For them the Lord (îshvara, îsha) is the creator, sustainer, and destroyer of the world. He comprises a manifest and an unmanifest aspect, and is utterely independent of the world. He has unlimited power of knowledge (jnâna-shakti) and unlimited power of action (kriyâ-shakti). One of the most controversial dogmas of the Pâshupatas is the notion that the Lord’s will is entirely independent of the karmic law. He can, theoretically, reward evil-doers and punish the good. The consummate state of liberation, which is called the “end of suffering” (duhkha-anta, written duhkhânta), is entirely a gift of grace (prasâda). This is explained as a state of undiminished attention (apramâda) on Reality.

  Prior to liberation is the accomplishment of the condition of Yoga, which is defined as “the union of the self (âtman) with the Lord.” As is made clear in the Pâshupata-Sûtra (5.33) itself, this union is not a complete merging of the self with the ultimate Reality, as in nondualistic Vedânta, but a form of transcendental bonding, which Lakulîsha gives the technical designation of rudra-sâyujya, “alliance with Rudra,” Rudra being Shiva. Here the yogins body-mind is constantly informed by the Divine, and his practice consists in continual surrender to Shiva.

  The liberated being shares in most of the transcendental capabilities of the Lord, such as freedom from fear and death, and lordship over the universe. As in Classical Yoga, the relationship between the liberated beings and the Lord is a curious one: Although they are absolutely one with God, God is at the same time something more than those liberated beings, either individually or collectively. Whereas Patanjali rejected the deistic idea of the Lord as Creator, Lakulîsha celebrated Shiva as Pashupati, the “Lord of Beasts.” The “beasts” (pashu) are none other than the fettered souls that, in birth after birth, are forever recycled in the great ecology of Nature—unless they experience the grace of Shiva.4

  Pâshupatism shares none of the gender-positive attitudes of Tantra. For the Pâshupata ascetics, women are, in the words of Kaundinya’s commentary (1.9), “horror and illusion incarnate.” They can entice and delude men even at a distance and therefore are to be avoided at all cost. This kind of misogynism is quite characteristic of what I have called mythic or verticalist Yoga, which in its drive for total transcendence succumbs to seeing the cosmos as inherently hostile and dangerous. Many schools of Mediterranean Gnosticism committed the same error, and whenever bodily existence is rejected, the denigration of the female gender is never far behind.

  The Kâpâlikas

  The early history of the Kâpâlikas (“Skull Bearers”), also called Mahâvratins (“Great-Vowed”), is unknown. They got their name from the occult custom of carrying around a human skull, which served as a ritual implement and an eating utensil. References to skull bearing are found already in works belonging to before the Common Era, but it appears that the Kâpâlika order originated only toward the middle of the first millennium in the south of India. Certainly by the sixth century C.E., the Kâpâlikas were frequently referred to in the Sanskrit literature.

  As in the case of the Kâlâ- mukhas, no Kâpâlika scriptures have come down to us, and the little we know of them stems largely from the opponents of this extreme form of asceticism, though we also have a few positive (or at least neutral) accounts. For the most part, these descriptions seem accurate, since to this day the small group of surviving Kâpâlikas in Assam and Bengal engage in the practices for which they have been notorious for many centuries.

  In his Harsha-Carita, a beautifully crafted but incomplete Sanskrit biography of the seventh-century king Harsha, the celebrated court poet Bana describes an encounter between King Pushpabhûti and the Kâpâlika adept Bhairava. The ascetic accepted the king into pupilage and soon asked him to participate in the kind of nocturnal rite for which the Kâpâlikas were famous. After anointing a corpse with red sandalwood, Bhairava, painted black and wearing only black garments and ornaments, seated himself on its chest. Then he lit a fire in the corpse’s mouth and offered black sesame seeds into it, while reciting magical incantations. Suddenly the ground before them split open and a fierce-looking spirit entity emerged and attacked Bhairava, the king, and three other disciples who were present. Bhairava managed to disable the
entity but refused to kill it and was later rewarded for his mercy by Goddess Lakshmî. At any rate, the ritual proved successful, and Bhairava acquired the status of a vidyâdhâra or “possessor of wisdom.”

  That not all Kâpâlikas were such relatively benign individuals is brought home by another story found in the Dâsha-Kumâra-Carita (“Biography of the Ten Princes”) by the renowned seventh-century poet Dandin. According to this story, Mantragupta, one of the ten princes, overheard a husband and wife complain that they had constantly to do chores for their teacher, and thus they had no time for each other. They called their guru a black magician (dagdha-siddha)—literally “burnt adept.” Curious about it all, the prince surreptitiously followed them back to their teacher’s hermitage.

  Soon Mantragupta spotted the adept seated at a fire. He was smeared with ashes and wore a necklace of human bones, and his appearance was quite frightening. Then the prince heard the magician sternly order his hapless servants to sneak into the palace and abduct the king’s daughter, which they did. The prince remained in hiding. Then, to his horror, he saw the magician swing his sword to decapitate the princess. Just in time, Mantragupta jumped forward, seized the sword, and beheaded the magician instead.

  In Mâdhava’s Shankara-Dig- Vijayâ (“Shankara’s World Conquest”), a fourteenth-century hagiography of Shankara, the great teacher of nond- ualistic Vedânta, there is another fascinating story. One day, so the legend goes, a cruel-hearted Kâpâlika approached the venerable Shankara, praising him as a true adept who has realized the Self and begging him for mercy. Shankara listened to him openheartedly but with sublime indifference. The Kâpâlika explained that he had been performing austerities already for a hundred years to win Shiva’s favor. He wanted to ascend into Shiva’s heavenly domain with the physical body, and Shiva promised to fulfill this desire if he were to offer him the head of a king or an all-knowing sage. Having failed to procure the head of a king, the Kâpâlika now asked for Shankara’s head. He had gauged the great adept correctly, for Shankara agreed without a moment’s hesitation. He fixed a time and place where the transaction could take place without the knowledge of Shankara’s disciples, who would surely try to prevent the decapitation. At the appointed hour, Shankara entered into the state of formless ecstasy (nirvikalpasamâdhi), patiently awaiting the sword blow to his neck.