“Prana is the name by which we designate a universal principle, which principle is the essence of all motion, force, or energy, whether manifested in gravitation, electricity, the revolution of the planets, and all forms of life, from the highest to the lowest. . . .
“This great principle is in all forms of matter, and yet it is not matter. It is in the air, but it is not the air nor one of its chemical constituents. It is in the food we eat, and yet it is not the same as the nourishing substance in the food. It is in the water we drink, and yet it is not one or more of the chemical substances which combining make water. It is in the sunlight, but yet it is not the heat or the light rays. It is the ‘energy’ in all these things—the things acting merely as a carrier.
“And man is able to extract it from the air, food, water, sunlight, and turn it to good account in his own organism.
“Prana is in the atmospheric air, but it is also everywhere, and it penetrates where the air cannot reach. The oxygen in the air plays an important part in sustaining animal life, and the carbon plays a similar part with plant life, but Prana has its own distinct part to play in the manifestation of life, aside from the physiological functions.”
Prana is in the air and it is apparently to absorb Prana that the Yoga system has developed ways of breathing. Once the proper posture has been found, several kinds of breath-control are possible. Professor Leuba is a little impatient with them: “It is external in case there is no flow of breath after expiration; it is internal in case there is no flow of breath after inspiration; it is the third or suppressed in case there is no flow of either kind.[1] The puerile subtleties into which sutras and commentaries enter in this connection cannot interest us. We need note merely that the fourth and perfect control of the breath involves the total suppression of the passage of air to and from the lungs. Since death would speedily supervene should this be realized, we must suppose that the Yogin, in consequence of the bodily and mental attitude he assumes, is deceived into the belief that breathing is totally suspended. That he suffers many similar illusions and hallucinations there cannot be any doubt. But why this unnatural behavior? Because in restraint of breath, ‘the central organ’ becomes fit for fixed attention and complete mastery of the organs is attained; i.e., the sense organs are ‘restricted,’ their activity ceases, and that, as we know, is a step towards complete disinterestedness and passionlessness.” But the American Yogin assures us that the Prana is important for, while the oxygen in the air feeds the blood, Prana feeds the nerves.
It was a happy day when the American orientalizers discovered that there was a sutra on eating. Oddly, the mystic teaching coincided with that of the good millionaire, Horace Fletcher. But the Yoga doctrine of mastication could hardly be expressed in the comparatively specific terms of an American, even of a New Thought American. It was important to know, first, that “the Yogin has conquered appetite, and allows hunger to manifest through him.” This being so, and Prana manifesting itself in food as well as in the air, thorough mastication, which Mr. Fletcher advised because it made digestion perfect, is incorporated in the Yogi system because it permits the fuller absorption of food-Prana. “The act of mastication liberates this Prana, by separating the particles of the food into minute bits, thus exposing as many atoms of Prana to the tongue, mouth, and teeth as possible. Each atom of food contains numerous electrons of food-Prana, or food energy, which electrons are liberated by the breaking-up process of mastication, and the chemical action of certain subtle chemical constituents of saliva, the presence of which have not been suspected by modern scientists, and which are not discernible by the tests of modern chemistry, although future investigators will scientifically prove their existence. Once liberated from the food, this food-Prana flies to the nerves of the tongue, mouth, and teeth, passing through the flesh and bone readily, and is rapidly conveyed to numerous storage-houses of the nervous system, from whence it is conveyed to all parts of the body, where it is used to furnish energy and ‘vitality’ to the cells.” (The italics are mine.)
This masticated food melts away in the mouth and “to describe this sensation is almost impossible”; it may be compared to a “kiss from the loved one,” in its radiation of magnetism. It is of course to be understood “that the mental attitude aids materially in the process of absorbing Prana. This is true not only of the Prana absorbed from the air, but also of the food-Prana. Hold the thought that you are absorbing all the Prana contained in a mouthful of food, combining that thought with that of ‘Nourishment,’ and you will be able to do much more than you can without so doing.”
The methods by which the oriental mystic obtains concentration are not appropriate subjects for criticism here. The whole language of Vedanta, or Yoga, is clear only to the adept. For a layman to criticize it without profound study is an impertinence. What the layman is justified in criticizing is the adaptation of this philosophy in America and one’s first impulse is to say that this mysticism translated into a health cult is a peculiarly exasperating form of buncombe. Such a characterization, however, fails to explain and a somewhat closer analysis becomes necessary. The first thing that comes out is the special emphasis upon bodily health which the American vulgarizers of Yoga gave it. For them, Yoga was only another mystic proof of God’s intentions regarding the viscera. That this has almost nothing to do with the purposes of the Yogin’s exercises is apparently considered unimportant in the American adaptation. The mania for health which brought into being on one side the cult of sport, fostered every variety of cure, from diet to Christian Science, on the other. To the true pagan, the true mystic, and the normal healthy individual alike, this preoccupation with health is as disquieting as hypochondria. To them, health either comes naturally or is not of supreme importance. The American cult-follower, for a variety of reasons, made a religion of being well and was most happy when he could add well-being to a mystic conception of the universe.
It happens that both the philosophy and the goal of Yoga are opposed to the underlying affirmations of American life, as they are opposed (in part) to the essence of Christianity. To the Yogin, “life is evil and death is merely the beginning of another painful existence . . . the goal is escape from the round of rebirths.” The Christian perfects himself, and his reward is endless life in which his personal soul persists. The object of the Hindu mystic seeking perfection is different. In his philosophy, the pain he suffers is a penalty for evil done by himself in a previous incarnation and, if he lives one life without sin, he “considers that victory over his imperfections entitles him to an honorable dismissal from conscious existence.” The object of his concentration, of his ascetism, and of his complete realization of self, is to be annihilated forever. The principle of Hatha Yoga (from which Americans drew methods of breathing and eating) is described by a French Orientalist as an effort to slow down the pace of life, to burn with the smallest flame, to make the nervous system almost insensible and to create in oneself a calm so profound that meditation is no longer troubled and ecstasy supervenes. This relaxation of the hold on life corresponds somewhat to the surrender of the ego in psychoanalysis and in religious conversion. Particularly, the sutras call for relaxation of the intellect. It is through the mind that we become conscious of the world and, when we know the world, we are possessed by ambitions, torn by desires and, beginning to worship our will, become personalities. According to Yoga, it is desirable that the self should be isolated, and become unconscious of any object, wholly passionless and without purposes, so that personality gradually fades and the self becomes pure. This is the way of deliverance. In the highest state the adept “ceases to become conscious of any object.”
Yet—a point which endeared Yoga to the children of the Transcendentalists—at this very moment the believer becomes possessed of all truth. It is not the result of an active and disciplined intelligence. It is “the flash of insight which does not pass . . . through the serial order of the usual process of experience.” Possessing all truth, the Yogin knows the
essence of things and sees them as they are. The critical faculty is rejected and knowledge with it, just as they were rejected by uneducated revivalists, by mesmerists, by Mrs. Eddy. This is the familiar rapture of the saint. According to St. Teresa, feeling as well as thinking must abdicate in the truly mystical communion. “The soul,” she says, “is fully awake as regards God, but wholly asleep as regards things of this world and in respect of herself. During the short time the union lasts, she is as it were deprived of every feeling, and even if she would, she could not think of any single thing. Thus she needs to employ no artifice in order to arrest the use of her understanding: it remains so stricken with inactivity that she neither knows what she loves, nor in what manner she loves, nor what she wills. In short, she is utterly dead to the things of the world and lives solely in God. . . .” And again: “If our understanding comprehends, it is in a mode which remains unknown to it, and it can understand nothing of what it comprehends. For my own part, I do not believe that it does comprehend, because, as I said, it does not understand itself to do so.” The activities of the mind are repudiated and, in their place, comes either a direct revelation from the outside or an impulse from the unconscious. The two are not as far apart as is often imagined. Suppress the activities of the mind, say the sutras, contemplate the wheel of the navel, and you will learn intuitively the arrangement of the body. Concentrate on the well of the throat, and hunger and thirst will cease.
Professor Leuba’s criticism of Yoga notes the points of similarity and difference between oriental and Christian mysticism; but Yoga, as brought to America, was intended less for mystics than for nervous and idle women. One may turn to a less intelligent critic to see what compromise could be affected between the self-annihilating doctrine of the East and the aggressive common philosophy of America.
The rules of Yoga are inexorable: Stamp out ambition, stamp out desire of life, stamp out desire of comfort. But in America:
“The lesson to be learned from these rules is that we should rise above the incidents of personality, and strive to realize our individuality. That we should desire to realize the I AM consciousness, which is above the annoyances of personality. That we should learn that these things cannot hurt the Real Self—that they will be washed from the sands of time, by the waters of eternity.”
Yoga is another way of transcending, but it is a way unknown to Americans. The typical response to desire in an aggressive western country is to strive for satisfaction; the way of Orientalism is to seek the cessation of desire. One is the life of effort, the other the life of renunciation. The western mode is individualistic. The individual holds himself apart, sharply defined from others, making his own way. The mystic way is to deny distinctions, to say, I am thee and thou art me. The western is the way of research; the eastern, that of contemplation. The danger of the western attitude of mind is that it may glorify effort for its own sake (records, championships, firsts) and aggression for its own sake, and believe that personality is greater as it expands and becomes influential through possessions. But these are the excesses of its nature. The philosophy of the East, as the East has reason to know, is opposed utterly to taking and grasping. Chesterton has contrasted the Buddha with closed eyes, his mind turned inward, rapt in an objectless contemplation, with the eyes of the Christian martyr, bright and burning, turned outward upon the world. Even the ascetic cannot turn his eyes away and, for the common man in the West, nothing serious exists except the material universe. To the West, the mind is the instrument by which the world is conquered; in eastern mysticism, it is the instrument by which the world undermines and enslaves the individual.
What then could be the appeal to Americans of Yoga, and theosophy, and Bahaism, and the other forms of oriental mysticism? If we could assume that these ways of salvation were thoroughly understood and honestly practiced by western people, the answer would not be far to seek. We would say that, possessing the world, men had lost their souls and were trying to find their way back to God. Or that satiety had set in, after all our grasping and possessing, and that we wished to rid ourselves of our encumbrances. Or that our nervous systems had broken down under the flogging demands of daily life. Mysticism would then be our escape from the implications of our own materialistic philosophy. Without question, in isolated cases, this is precisely the function which the philosophy of the East has fulfilled.
But it is almost impossible to believe that the wholly undisciplined followers of New Thought could understand or seriously practice the discipline of Yoga. A decade after its vogue had begun, a half dozen other ways of escape were taking its place. Yoga was a fad and not a philosophy. It served actually to soothe exasperated nerves and to throw an aura of mystery over certain types of infidelism. For the most part, those who practiced it had not the faintest intention of giving up the world. Yoga was for them a mystic way of renouncing whatever was irritating and preserving whatever was pleasing. It was an elaborate game of pretense by which noisy people went into silence and distracted people imagined that they were concentrating. The glamor of renunciation suffused the picture which they had of themselves. Actually nothing was renounced and whatever was desired was lifted to a transcendental plane where it could be enjoyed a hundred-fold. No doubt the delusion was as effective as the actuality might have been. One fancies oneself becoming ageless and deathless, and full of perfection, sinking into eternal nothingness. And if, in fact, one was only resting a little and sinking into a perfumed bath the result was about the same. For Yoga had given a reason beyond reason. It had, in a strange way, transfigured the commonplaces of life. One was lifted successively to higher and higher planes of being, not knowing exactly what they were, but vaguely satisfied because they were higher. The little irritations of the world fell away. One was alone with the mysterious spirit and, breathing in a refined way, one returned to conquer the world.
[1] The internal respiration of Thomas Lake Harris comes to mind.
XXIV. Christian Science.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE is the culmination not only of the religion of mental healing and of spiritualism in America, but of the whole process by which the ancient disciplines of society have been destroyed. It is perhaps possible by acrobatic feats of logic to reconcile formal Calvinism with the letter of Christian Science, but I do not know of any attempt to do this and no master of dialectics can persuade the average intelligent being that the two religions are not poles apart. Essentially, the religion of Edwards assumed the reality of death and of hell, or paradise, hereafter. It was a religion of fear and hope, not a religion of comfort. It found, in a way which seemed inhumanly cruel, a place for sin and evil and disease and, in spite of its harsh determinism, it left some room for moral effort. The religion founded by Mary Baker Eddy specifically ranked death as a synonym of Error and, while it accepted the Christian promise of redemption, it never believed in the reality of death itself. Possessing true belief, the Christian Scientist needs to suffer no anxiety; he has assurance in a religion of love which surpasses justice. There is no need to discover the use or function of evil and disease because Christian Science denies their existence and, in common with New Thought, substitutes the intensity of belief for the discipline of moral effort.
The sensitiveness to criticism of Christian Science is easily understood. Against Mrs. Eddy are brought modern equivalents of all the accusations which founders of religions have been compelled to meet. One of the sources of strength of Christian Science, its existence in modern times with the power of publicity to spread its doctrines, turns out to be a weakness. For publicity is, as Emerson called it, pitiless, when applied to trivial things, to slips in grammar, to business dealings, to a few inconsistencies, or to the common symptoms of religious hysteria. There is no glamor of distinction about Mrs. Eddy. In a time over-anxious to “humanize” its prophets, she remains all-too-human and, by her own insistence, she has made it virtually impossible to separate her private life from the doctrines of her church. That is the fatality of claiming divine in
spiration. If you utter your doctrine exclusively with the tongues of angels and claim authority chiefly because of your source, you must be prepared to let the doctrine drop into oblivion the moment the authenticity of your voice is successfully challenged. So long as Mrs. Eddy lived, at least, Christian Science had to stand or fall as she stood or fell.
She not only stood; she withstood the most withering ridicule, the most bitter attacks on her intelligence and probity, the most thunderous declamations from established pulpits, the most logical discussions of her whole edifice. Against the claim of divine inspiration, which at times amounted to an imputation of equality between herself and Jesus Christ, was offered the testimony of witnesses who had seen the Quimby manuscripts. When she repudiated Quimby they printed her pathetic little poem:
Lines on The Death of Dr. P. P. Quimby Who Healed with the Truth That Christ Taught, in Contradistinction to All Isms.
Did sackcloth clothe the sun, and day grow night,—
All matter mourn the hour with dewy eyes,—
When Truth, receding from our mortal sight,
Has paid to error her last sacrifice
Can we forget the power that gave us life?
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