Stages of Mind

Mind

What is mind ? From the yogic standpoint it is simply the

individualized consciousness, the whole of it, the whole of your

consciousness including your activities which the Western

psychologist puts outside mind. Only on the basis of Eastern

psychology is Yoga possible. How shall we describe this

individualized consciousness? First, it is aware of things.

Becoming aware of them, it desires them. Desiring them, it tries

to attain them. So we have the three aspects of consciousness--

intelligence, desire, activity. On the physical plane, activity

predominates, although desire and thought are present. On the

astral plane, desire predominates, and thought and activity are

subject to desire. On the mental plane; intelligence is the

dominant note, desire and activity are subject to it. Go to the

buddhic plane, and cognition, as pure reason, predominates, and

so on. Each quality is present all the time, but one

predominates. So with the matter that belongs to them. In your

combinations of matter you get rhythmic, active, or stable ones;

and according to the combinations of matter in your bodies will

be the conditions of the activity of the whole of these in

consciousness. To practice Yoga you must build your bodies of the

rhythmic combinations, with activity and inertia less apparent.

The yogi wants to make his body match his mind.

Stages of  Mind

The mind has five stages, Patanjali tells us, and Vyasa comments

that "these stages of mind are on every plane". The first stage

is the stage in which the mind is flung about, the Kshipta stage;

it is the butterfly mind, the early stage of humanity, or, in

man, the mind of the child, darting constantly from one object to

another. It corresponds to activity on the physical plane. The

next is the confused stage, Mudha, equivalent to the stage of the

youth, swayed by emotions, bewildered by them; he begins to feel

he is ignorant--a state beyond the fickleness of the child--a

characteristic state, corresponding to activity in the astral

world. Then comes the state of preoccupation, or infatuation,

Vikshipta, the state of the man possessed by an idea--love,

ambition, or what not. He is no longer a confused youth, but a

man with a clear aim, and an idea possesses him. It may be either

the fixed idea of the madman, or the fixed idea which makes the

hero or the saint; but in any case he is possessed by the idea.

The quality of the idea, its truth or falsehood, makes the

difference between the maniac and the martyr.

Maniac or martyr, he is under the spell of a fixed idea. No

reasoning avails against it. If he has assured himself that he is

made of glass, no amount of argument will convince him to the

contrary. He will always regard himself as being as brittle as

glass. That is a fixed idea which is false. But there is a fixed

idea which makes the hero and the martyr. For some great truth

dearer than life is everything thrown aside. He is possessed by

it, dominated by it, and he goes to death gladly for it. That

state is said to be approaching Yoga, for such a man is becoming

concentrated, even if only possessed by one idea. This stage

corresponds to activity on the lower mental plane. Where the man

possesses the idea, instead of being possessed by it, that

one-pointed state of the mind, called Ekagrata in Sanskrit, is

the fourth stage. He is a mature man, ready for the true life.

When the man has gone through life dominated by one idea, then he

is approaching Yoga; he is getting rid of the grip of the world,

and is beyond its allurements. But when he possesses that which

before possessed him, then he has become fit for Yoga, and begins

the training which makes his progress rapid. This stage

corresponds to activity on the higher mental plane.

Out of this fourth stage or Ekagrata, arises the fifth stage,

Niruddha or Self-controlled. When the man not only possesses one

idea but, rising above all ideas, chooses as he wills, takes or

does not take according to the illumined Will, then he is

Self-controlled and can effectively practice Yoga. This stage

corresponds to activity on the buddhic plane.

In the third stage, Vikshipta, where he is possessed by the idea,

he is learning Viveka or discrimination between the outer and the

inner, the real and the unreal. When he has learned the lesson of

Viveka, then he advances a stage forward; and in Ekagrata he

chooses one idea, the inner life; and as he fixes his mind on

that idea he learns Vairagya or dispassion. He rises above the

desire to possess objects of enjoyment, belonging either to this

or any other world. Then he advances towards the fifth stage--

Self-controlled. In order to reach that he must practice the six

endowments, the Shatsamapatti. These six endowments have to do

with the Will-aspect of consciousness as the other two, Viveka

and Vairagya, have to do with the cognition and activity aspects

of it.

By a study of your own mind, you can find out how far you are

ready to begin the definite practice of Yoga. Examine your mind

in order to recognize these stages in yourself. If you are in

either of the two early stages, you are not ready for Yoga. The

child and the youth are not ready to become yogis, nor is the

preoccupied man. But if you find yourself possessed by a single

thought, you are nearly ready for Yoga; it leads to the next

stage of one-pointedness, where you can choose your idea, and

cling to it of your own will. Short is the step from that to the

complete control, which can inhibit all motions of the mind.

Having reached that stage, it is comparatively easy to pass into

Samadhi.

Changes of Consciousness and Vibrations of Matter

Changes of Consciousness and Vibrations of Matter

It is necessary to understand something about that consciousness

which is your Self, and about the matter which is the envelope of

consciousness, but which the Self so often identifies with

himself. The great characteristic of consciousness is change,

with a foundation of certainty that it is. The consciousness of

existence never changes, but beyond this all is change, and only

by the changes does consciousness become Self-consciousness.

Consciousness is an everchanging thing, circling round one idea

that never changes--Self-existence. The consciousness itself is

not changed by any change of position or place. It only changes

its states within itself.

In matter, every change of state is brought about by change of

place. A change of consciousness is a change of a state; a change

of matter is a change of place. Moreover, every change of state

in consciousness is related to vibrations of matter in its

vehicle. When matter is examined, we find three fundamental

qualities--rhythm, mobility, stability--sattva, rajas, tamas.

Sattva is rhythm, vibration. It is more than; rajas, or mobility.

It is a regulated movement, a swinging from one side to the other

over a definite distance, a length of wave, a vibration.

The question is often put: "How can things in such different

categories, as matter and Spirit, affect each other? Can we

bridge that great gulf which some say can never be crossed?" Yes,

the Indian has crossed it, or rather, has shown that there is no

gulf. To the Indian, matter and Spirit are not only the two

phases of the One, but, by a subtle analysis of the relation

between consciousness and matter, he sees that in every universe

the LOGOS imposes upon matter a certain definite relation of

rhythms, every vibration of matter corresponding to a change in

consciousness. There is no change in consciousness, however

subtle, that has not appropriated to it a vibration in matter;

there is no vibration in matter, however swift or delicate, which

has not correlated to it a certain change in consciousness. That

is the first great work of the LOGOS, which the Hindu scriptures

trace out in the building of the atom, the Tanmatra, " the

measure of That," the measure of consciousness. He who is

consciousness imposes on his material the answer to every change

in consciousness, and that is an infinite number of vibrations.

So that between the Self and his sheaths there is this invariable

relation: the change in consciousness and the vibration of

matter, and vice versa. That makes it possible for the Self to

know the Not-Self.

These correspondences are utilised in Raja Yoga and Hatha Yoga,

the Kingly Yoga and the Yoga of Resolve. The Raja Yoga seeks to

control the changes in consciousness, and by this control to rule

the material vehicles. The Hatha Yoga seeks to control the

vibrations of matter, and by this control to evoke the desired

changes in consciousness. The weak point in Hatha Yoga is that

action on this line cannot reach beyond the astral plane, and the

great strain imposed on the comparatively intractable matter of

the physical plane sometimes leads to atrophy of the very organs,

the activity of which is necessary for effecting the changes in

consciousness that would be useful. The Hatha Yogi gains control

over the bodily organs with which the waking consciousness no

longer concerns itself, having relinquished them to its lower

part, the " subconsciousness', This is often useful as regards

the prevention of disease, but serves no higher purpose. When he

begins to work on the brain centres connected with ordinary

consciousness, and still more when he touches those connected

with the super-consciousness, he enters a dangerous region, and

is more likely to paralyse than to evolve.

That relation alone it is which makes matter cognizable; the

change in the thinker is answered by a change outside, and his

answer to it and the change in it that he makes by his. answer

re-arrange again the matter of the body which is his envelope.

Hence the rhythmic changes in matter are rightly called its

cognizability. Matter may be known by consciousness, because of

this unchanging relation between the two sides of the manifest

LOGOS who is one, and the Self becomes aware of changes within

himself, and thus of those of the external words to which those

changes are related.

God Without and God Within

God Without and God Within

That leads us to the next point, the relation of God without to

God within. To the yogi, who is the very type of Hindu thought,

there is no definite proof of God save the witness of the Self

within to His existence, and his idea of finding the proof of God

is that you should strip away from your consciousness all

limitations, and thus reach the stage where you have pure

consciousness--save a veil of the thin nirvanic matter. Then you

know that God is. So you read in the Upanishad: "Whose only proof

is the witness of the Self." This is very different from Western

methods of thought, which try to demonstrate God by a process of

argument. The Hindu will tell you that you cannot demonstrate God

by any argument or reasoning; He is above and beyond reasoning,

and although the reason may guide you on the way, it will not

prove to demonstration that God is. The only way you can know Him

is by diving into yourself. There you will find Him, and know

that He is without as well as within you; and Yoga is a system

that enables you to get rid of everything from consciousness that

is not God, save that one veil of the nirvanic atom, and so to

know that God is, with an unshakable certainty of conviction. To

the Hindu that inner conviction is the only thing worthy to be

called faith, and this gives you the reason why faith is said to

be beyond reason, and so is often confused with credulity. Faith

is beyond reason, because it is the testimony of the Self to

himself, that conviction of existence as Self, of which reason is

only one of the outer manifestations; and the only true faith is

that inner conviction, which no argument can either strengthen or

weaken, of the innermost Self of you, that of which alone you are

entirely sure. It is the aim of Yoga to enable you to reach that

Self constantly not by a sudden glimpse of intuition, but

steadily, unshakably, and unchangeably, and when that Self is

reached, then the question: "Is there a God?" can never again

come into the. human mind.

Some Definitions

Some  Definitions

There are a few words, constantly recurring, which need brief

definitions, in order to avoid confusion; they are: Unfolding,

Evolution, Spirituality, Psychism, Yoga and Mysticism.

"Unfolding" always refers to consciousness, "evolution" to forms.

Evolution is the homogeneous becoming the heterogeneous, the

simple becoming complex. But there is no growth and no

perfectioning for Spirit, for consciousness; it is all there and

always, and all that can happen to it is to turn itself outwards

instead of remaining turned inwards. The God in you cannot

evolve, but He may show forth His powers through matter that He

has appropriated for the purpose, and the matter evolves to serve

Him. He Himself only manifests what He is. And on that, many a

saying of the great mystics may come to your mind: "Become," says

St. Ambrose, "what you are"--a paradoxical phrase; but one that

sums up a great truth: become in outer manifestation that which

you are in inner reality. That is the object of the whole process

of Yoga.

"Spirituality" is the realisation of the One. "Psychism" is the

manifestation of intelligence through any material vehicle.[FN#5:

See London Lectures of 1907, "Spirituality and Psychism".]

"Yoga" is the seeking of union by the intellect, a science;

"Mysticism" is the seeking of the same union by emotion.[FN#6:

The word yoga may, of course, be rightly used of all union with

the self, whatever the road taken. I am using it here in the

narrower sense, as peculiarly connected with the intelligence, as

a Science, herein following Patanjali.]

See the mystic. He fixes his mind on the object of devotion; he

loses self-consciousness, and passes into a rapture of love and

adoration, leaving all external ideas, wrapped in the object of

his love, and a great surge of emotion sweeps him up to God. He

does not know how he has reached that lofty state. He is

conscious only of God and his love for Him. Here is the rapture

of the mystic, the triumph of the saint.

The yogi does not work like that. Step after step, he realises

what he is doing. He works by science and not by emotion, so that

any who do not care for science, finding it dull and dry, are not

at present unfolding that part of their nature which will find

its best help in the practice of Yoga. The yogi may use devotion

as a means. This comes out very plainly in Patanjali. He has

given many means whereby Yoga may be followed, and curiously,

"devotion to Isvara'' is one of several means. There comes out

the spirit of the scientific thinker. Devotion to Isvara is not

for him an end in itself, but means to an endÄthe concentration

of the mind. You see there at once the difference of spirit.

Devotion to Isvara is the path of the mystic. He attains

communion by that. Devotion to Isvara as a means of concentrating

the mind is the scientific way in which the yogi regards

devotion. No number of words would have brought out the

difference of spirit between Yoga and Mysticism as well as this.

The one looks upon devotion to Isvara as a way of reaching the

Beloved; the other looks upon it as a means of reaching

concentration. To the mystic, God, in Himself is the object of

search, delight in Him is the reason for approaching Him, union

with Him in consciousness is his goal; but to the yogi, fixing

the attention on God is merely an effective way of concentrating

the mind. In the one, devotion is used to obtain an end; in the

other, God is seen as the end and is reached directly by rapture.

The Literature of Yoga

The Literature of  Yoga

Unfortunately for non-Sanskrit-knowing people, the literature of

Yoga is not largely available in English. The general teachings

of Yoga are to be found in the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad-Gita;

those, in many translations, are within your reach, but they are

general, not special; they give you the main principles, but do

not tell you about the methods in any detailed way. Even in the

Bhagavad-Gita, while you are told to make sacrifices, to become

indifferent, and so on, it is all of the nature of moral precept,

absolutely necessary indeed, but still not telling you how to

reach the conditions put before you. The special literature of

Yoga is, first of all, many of the minor Upanishads, "the

hundred-and-eight" as they are called. Then comes the enormous

mass of literature called the Tantras. These books have an evil

significance in the ordinary English ear, but not quite rightly.

The Tantras are very useful books, very valuable and instructive;

all occult science is to be found in them. But they are divisible

into three classes: those that deal with white magic, those that

deal with black magic, and those that deal with what we may call

grey magic, a mixture of the two. Now magic is the word which

covers the methods of deliberately bringing about super-normal

physical states by the action of the will.

A high tension of the nerves, brought on by anxiety or disease,

leads to ordinary hysteria, emotional and foolish. A similarly

high tension, brought about by the will, renders a man sensitive

to super-physical vibrations Going to sleep has no significance,

but going into Samadhi is a priceless power. The process is

largely the same, but one is due to ordinary conditions, the

other to the action of the trained will. The Yogi is the man who

has learned the power of the will, and knows how to use it to

bring about foreseen and foredetermined results. This knowledge

has ever been called magic; it is the name of the Great Science

of the past, the one Science, to which only the word " great "

was given in the past. The Tantras contain the whole of that; the

occult side of man and nature, the means whereby discoveries may

be made, the principles whereby the man may re-create himself,

all these are in the Tantras. The difficulty is that without a

teacher they are very dangerous, and again and again a man trying

to practice the Tantric methods without a teacher makes himself

very ill. So the Tantras have got a bad name both in the West and

here in India. A good many of the American " occult " books now

sold are scraps of the Tantras which have been translated. One

difficulty is that these Tantric works often use the name of a

bodily organ to represent an astral or mental centre. There is

some reason in that because all the centres are connected with

each other from body to body; but no reliable teacher would set

his pupil to work on the bodily organs until he had some control

over the higher centres, and had carefully purified the physical

body. Knowing the one helps you to know the other, and the

teacher who has been through it all can place his pupil on the

right path; but it you take up these words, which are all

physical, and do not know to what the physical word is applied,

then you will only become very confused, and may injure yourself.

For instance, in one of the Sutras it is said that if you

meditate on a certain part of the tongue you will obtain astral

sight. That means that if you meditate on the pituitary body,

just over this part of the tongue, astral sight will be opened.

The particular word used to refer to a centre has a

correspondence in the physical body, and the word is often

applied to the physical organs when the other is meant. This is

what is called a " blind," and it is intended to keep the people

away from dangerous practices in the books that are published;

people may meditate on that part of their tongues all their lives

without anything coming of it; but if they think upon the

corresponding centre in the body, a good dealÄmuch harmÄmay come

of it. " Meditate on the navel," it is also said. This means the

solar plexus, for there is a close connection between the two.

But to meditate on that is to incur the danger of a serious

nervous disorder, almost impossible to cure. All who know how

many people in India suffer through these practices,

ill-understood, recognize that it is not wise to plunge into them

without some one to tell you what they mean, and what may be

safely practiced and what not. The other part of the Yoga

literature is a small book called the sutras of Patanjali. That

is available, but I am afraid that few are able to make much of

it by themselves. In the first place, to elucidate the Sutras,

which are simply headings, there is a great deal of commentary in

Sanskrit, only partially translated. And even the commentaries

have this peculiarity, that all the most difficult words are

merely repeated, not explained, so that the student is not much

enlightened.

Samadhi

Samadhi

Some other important words, which recur from time to time in the

Yoga-sutras, need to be understood, though there are no exact

English equivalents. As they must be used to avoid clumsy

circumlocutions, it is necessary to explain them. It is said:

"Yoga is Samadhi." Samadhi is a state in which the consciousness

is so dissociated from the body that the latter remains

insensible. It is a state of trance in which the mind is fully

self-conscious, though the body is insensitive, and from which

the mind returns to the body with the experiences it has had in

the superphysical state, remembering them when again immersed in

the physical brain. Samadhi for any one person is relative to his

waking consciousness, but implies insensitiveness of the body. If

an ordinary person throws himself into trance and is active on

the astral plane, his Samadhi is on the astral. If his

consciousness is functioning in the mental plane, Samadhi is

there. The man who can so withdraw from the body as to leave it

insensitive, while his mind is fully self-conscious, can practice

Samadhi.

The phrase "Yoga is Samadhi" covers facts of the highest

significance and greatest instruction. Suppose you are only able

to reach the astral world when you are asleep, your consciousness

there is, as we have seen, in the Svapna state. But as you slowly

unfold your powers, the astral forms begin to intrude upon your

waking physical consciousness until they appear as distinctly as

do physical forms, and thus become objects of your waking

consciousness. The astral world then, for you, no longer belongs

to the Svapna consciousness, but to the Jagrat; you have taken

two worlds within the scope of your Jagrat consciousness--the

physical and the astral worlds--and the mental world is in your

Svapna consciousness. "Your body" is then the physical and the

astral bodies taken together. As you go on, the mental plane

begins similarly to intrude itself, and the physical, astral and

mental all come within your waking consciousness; all these are,

then, your Jagrat world. These three worlds form but one world to

you; their three corresponding bodies but one body, that

perceives and acts. The three bodies of the ordinary man have

become one body for the yogi. If under these conditions you want

to see only one world at a time, you must fix your attention on

it, and thus focus it. You can, in that state of enlarged waking,

concentrate your attention on the physical and see it; then the

astral and mental will appear hazy. So you can focus your

attention on the astral and see it; then the physical and the

mental, being out of focus, will appear dim. You will easily

understand this if you remember that, in this hall, I may focus

my sight in the middle of the hall, when the pillars on both

sides will appear indistinctly. Or I may concentrate my attention

on a pillar and see it distinctly, but I then see you only

vaguely at the same time. It is a change of focus, not a change

of body. Remember that all which you can put aside as not

yourself is the body of the yogi, and hence, as you go higher,

the lower bodies form but a single body and the consciousness in

that sheath of matter which it still cannot throw away, that

becomes the man.

"Yoga is Samadhi." It is the power to withdraw from all that you

know as body, and to concentrate yourself within. That is

Samadhi. No ordinary means will then call you back to the world

that you have left.[FN#4: An Indian yogi in Samadhi, discovered

in a forest by some ignorant and brutal Englishmen, was so

violently ill used that he returned to his tortured body, only to

leave it again at once by death.] This will also explain to you

the phrase in The Secret Doctrine that the Adept " begins his

Samadhi on the atmic plane " When a Jivan-mukta enters into

Samadhi, he begins it on the atmic plane. All planes below the

atmic are one plane for him. He begins his Samadhi on a plane to

which the mere man cannot rise. He begins it on the atmic plane,

and thence rises stage by stage to the higher cosmic planes. The

same word, samadhi, is used to describe the states of the

consciousness, whether it rises above the physical into the

astral, as in self-induced trance of an ordinary man, or as in

the case of a Jivan-mukta when, the consciousness being already

centred in the fifth, or atmic plane, it rises to the higher

planes of a larger world.