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Yoga
Yoga for Yellowbellies
First Lecture
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Let us begin this evening by going briefly over the ground covered by my first four lectures. I told you that Yoga meant union, and that this union was the cause of all phenomena. Consciousness results from the conjunction of a mysterious stimulus with a mysterious sensorium. The kind of Yoga which is the subject of these remarks is merely an expansion of this, the union of self-consciousness with the universe.
We spoke of the eight limbs of Yoga, and dealt with the four which refer to physical training and experiences.
The remaining four deal with mental training and experiences, and these form the subject of the ensuing remarks.
2. Before we deal with these in detail, I think it would be helpful to consider the formula of Yoga from what may be called the mathematical, or magical standpoint. This formula has been described in my text-book on Magick, Chapter III., the formula of Tetragrammaton. This formula covers the entire universe of magical operations. The word usually pronounced Jehovah is called the Ineffable Name; it is alleged that when pronounced accurately its vibrations would destroy the universe; and this is indeed quite true, when we take the deeper interpretation.
Tetragrammaton is so called from the four letters in the word:
Yod, He, Vau, and He'. This is compared with the relations of a family-Yod, the Father, He, the Mother; Vau, the Son; and the final He', the Daughter. (In writing she is sometimes distinguished from her mother by inserting a small point in the letter.) This is also a reference to the elements, fire, water, air, earth. I may go further, and say that all possible existing things are to be classed as related to one or more of these elements for convenience in certain operations. But these four letters, though in one sense they represent the eternal framework, are not, so to speak, original. For instance, when we place Tetragrammaton on the Tree of Life, the Ten Sephiroth or numbers, we do not include the first Sephira. Yod is referred to the second, He to the third, Vau to the group from 4 to 9, and He' final to the tenth. No. 1 is said to be symbolised by the top point of the Yod.
It is only in No. 10 that we get the manifested universe, which is thus shown as the result of the Yoga of the other forces, the first three letters of the name, the active elements, fire, water and air. (These are the three 'mother letters' in the Hebrew alphabet.) The last element, earth, is usually considered a sort of consolidation of the three; but that is rather an unsatisfactory way of regarding it, because if we admit the reality of the universe at all we are in philosophical chaos. However, this does not concern us for the moment.
3. When we apply these symbols to Yoga, we find that fire represents the Yogi, and water the object of his meditation. ((You can, if you like, reverse these attributions. It makes no difference except to the metaphysician. And precious little to him!)
The Yod and the He combine, the Father and Mother unite, to produce a son, Vau. This son is the exalted state of mind produced by the union of the subject and the object. This state of mind is called Samadhi in the Hindu terminology. It has many varieties, of constantly increasing sublimity; but it is the generic term which implies this union which is the subject of Yoga. At this point we ought to remember poor little He' final, who represents the ecstasy -- shall I say the orgasm? -- and the absorption thereof: the compensation which cancels it. I find it excessively difficult to express myself. It is one of these ideas which is very deeply seated in my mind as a result of constant meditation, and I feel that I am being entirely feeble when I say that the best translation of the letter He' final would be 'ecstasy rising into Silence.' Moral: meditate yourselves, and work it out! Finally, there is no other way.
4. I think it is very important, since we are studying Yoga from a strictly scientific point of view, to emphasise the exactness of the analogy that exists between the Yogic and the sexual process. If you look at the Tree of Life, you see that the Number One at the top divides itself into Numbers Two and Three, the equal and opposite Father and Mother, and their union results in the complexity of the Son, the Vau Group, while the whole figure recovers its simplicity in the single Sephira of He' final, of the Daughter.
It is exactly the same in biology. The spermatozoon and the ovum are biologically the separation of an unmanifested single cell, which is in its function simple, though it contains in itself, in a latent form, all the possibilitiies of the original single cell. Their union results in the manifestatiion of these qualities in the child. Their potentialities are expressed and developed in terms of time and space, while also, accompanying the act of union, is the ecstasy which is the natural result of the consciousness of their annihilation, the necessary condition of the production of their offspring.
5. It would be easy to develop this thesis by analogies drawn from ordinary human experiences of the growth of passion, the hunger accompanying it, the intense relief and joy afforded by satisfaction. I like rather to think of the fact that all true religion has been the artistic, the dramatic, representation of the sexual process, not merely because of the usefulness of this cult in tribal life, but as the veil of this truer meaning which I am explaining to you tonight. I think that every experience in life should be regarded as a symbol of the truer experience of the deeper life. In the Oath of a Master of the Temple occurs the clause: 'I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul.'
It is not for us to criticise the Great Order for expressing its idea in terms readily understandable by the ordinary intelligent person. We are to wave aside the metaphysical implications of the phrase, and grasp its obvious meaning. So every act should be an act of Yoga. And this leads us directly to the question which we have postponed until now-Concentration.
6. Concentration! The sexual analogy still serves us. Do you remember the
Abbe in Browning? Asked to preside at the Court of Love, he gave the prize to
the woman the object of whose passion was utterly worthless, in this admirable
judgment: 7. Now this is exactly what the Yogi has to do. All the books they disagree
on every other point, but they agree on this stupidity-tell him that he has to
give up this and give up that, sometimes on sensible grounds, more often on
grounds of prejudice and superstition. In the advanced stages one has to give up
the very virtues which have brought one to that state! Every idea, considered as
an idea, is lumber, dead weight, poison; but it is all wrong to represent these
acts as acts of sacrifice. There is no question of depriving oneself of anything
one wants. The process is rather that of learning to discard what one thought
one wanted in the darkness before the dawn of the discovery of the real object
of one's passion. Hence, note well! Concentration has reduced our moral
obligations to their simplest terms: there is a single standard to which
everything is to be referred. To hell with the Pope! If Lobster Newburg upsets
your digestion-and good digestion is necessary to your practice- then you do not
eat Lobster Newburg. Unless this is clearly understood, the Yogi will constantly
be sidetracked by the sophistications of religious and moral fanatics. To hell
with the Archbishops!
8. You will readily appreciate that to undertake a course of this kind
requires careful planning. You have got to map out your life in advance for a
considerable period so far as it is humanly possible to do so. If you have
failed in this original strategical disposition, you are simply not going to
carry through the campaign. Unforeseen contingencies are certain to arise, and
therefore one of our precautions is to have some sort of reserve of resource to
fling against unexpected attacks.
This is, of course, merely concentration in daily life, and it is the habit
of such concentration that prepares one for the much severer task of the deeper
concentration of the Yoga practices. For those who are undertaking a preliminary
course there is nothing better, while they are still living more or less
ordinary lives, than the practices recommended in 'The Equinox'. There should
be-there must be-a definite routine of acts calculated to remind the student of
the Great Work.
9. The classic of the subject is 'Liber Astarte vel Berylli', the Book of
Devotion to a Particular Deity. This book is admirable beyond praise, reviewing
the whole subject in every detail with flawless brilliancy of phrase. Its
practice is enough in itself to bring the devotee to high attainment. This is
only for the few. But every student should make a point of saluting the Sun (in
the manner recommended in Liber Resh) four times daily, and he shall salute the
Moon on her appearance with the Mantra Gayatri. The best way is to say the
Mantra instantly one sees the Moon, to note whether the attention wavers, and to
repeat the Mantra until it does not waver at all.
He should also practise assiduously Liber III. vel Jugorum. The essence of
this practice is that you select a familiar thought, word or gesture, one which
automatically recurs fairly often during the day, and every time you are
betrayed into using it, cut yourself sharply upon the wrist or forearm with a
convenient instrument.
There is also a practice which I find very useful when walking in a christian
city-that of exorcising (with the prescribed outward and downward sweep of the
arm and the words 'Apo pantos kakodaimonos') any person in religious garb.
All these practices assist concentration, and also serve to keep one on the
alert. They form an invaluable preliminary training for the colossal Work of
genuine concentration when it comes to be a question of the fine, growing
constantly finer, movements of the mind.
10. We may now turn to the consideration of Yoga practices themselves. I
assume that in the fortnight which has elapsed since my last lecture you have
all perfected yourselves in Asana and Pranayama; that you daily balance a saucer
brimming with sulphuric acid on your heads for twelve hours without accident,
that you all jump about busily like frogs when not seriously levitated; and that
your Mantra is as regular as the beating of your heart.
The remaining four limbs of Yoga are Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi.
I will give you the definition of all four at a single stroke, as each one to
some extent explains the one following. Pratyahara may be roughly described as
introspection, but it also means a certain type of psychological experience. For
instance, you may suddenly acquire a conviction, as did Sir Humphry Davy, that
the universe is composed exclusively of ideas; or you may have the direct
experience that you do not possess a nose, as may happen to the best of us, if
we concentrate upon the tip of it.
11. Dharana is meditation proper, not the kind of meditation which consists
of profound consideration of the subject with the idea of clarifying it or
gaining a more comprehensive grasp of it, but the actual restraint of the
consciousness to a single imaginery object chosen for the purpose.
These two limbs of Yoga are therefore in a sense the two methods employed
mentally by the Yogi. For, long after success in Samadhi has been attained, one
has to conduct the most extensive explorations into the recesses of the mind.
12. The word Dhyana is difficult to define; it is used by many writers in
quite contrary senses. The question is discussed at some length in Part I. of my
Book IV. I will quote what I have written about it in conclusion:
13. Samadhi, on the contrary, is in a way very easy to define. Etymology,
aided by the persistence of the religious tradition, helps us here. "Sam is
a prefix in Sanskrit which developed into the prefix 'syn' in Greek without
changing the meaning-'syn' in 'synopsis,' 'synthesis,' 'syndrome.' It means
'together with.'
'Adhi' has also come down through many centuries and many tongues. It is one
of the oldest words in human language; it dates from the time when each sound
had a definite meaning proper to it, a meaning suggested by the muscular
movement made in producing the sound. Thus, the letter D originally means
'father'; so the original father, dead and made into a 'God,' was called Ad.
This name came down unchanged to Egypt, as you see in the Book of the Law. The
word 'Adhi' in Sanskrit was usually translated 'Lord.' In the Syrian form we get
it duplicated Hadad. You remember Ben Hadad, King of Syria. The Hebrew word for
'Lord' is Adon or Adonai. Adonai, my Lord, is constantly used in the
Bible to replace the name Jehovah where that was too sacred to be mentioned, or
for other reasons improper to write down. Adonai has also come to mean, through
the Rosicrucian tradition, the Holy Guardian Angel, and thus the object of
worship or concentration. It is the same thing; worship is worth-ship, means
worthiness; and anything but the chosen object is necessarily an unworthy
object.
14. As Dhyana also represents the condition of annihilation of dividuality,
it is a little difficult to distinguish between it and Samadhi. I wrote in Part
I., Book IV.-
15. But that was written in 1911, and since then I have had an immense
harvest of experience. I am inclined to say at this moment that Dhyana stands to
Samadhi rather as the jumping about like a frog, described in a previous
lecture, does to Levitation. In other words, Dhyana is an unbalanced or an
impure approximation to Samadhi. Subject and object unite and disappear with
ecstasy mounting to indifference, and so forth, but there is still a
presentation of some kind in the new genus of consciousness. In this view Dhyana
would be rather like an explosion of gunpowder carelessly mixed; most of it goes
off with a bang, but there is some debris of the original components.
These discussions are not of very great importance in themselves, because the
entire series of the three states of meditation proper is summed up in the word
Samyama; you can translate it quite well for yourselves, since you already know
that 'sam' means 'together,' and that 'Yama' means 'control.' It represents the
merging of minor individual acts of control into a single gesture, very much as
all the separate cells, bones, veins, arteries, nerves, muscles and so forth, of
the arm combine in unconscious unanimity to make a single stroke.
16. Now the practice of Pratyahara, properly speaking, is introspection, and
the practice of Dharana, properly speaking, is the restraint of the thought to a
single imaginary object. The former is a movement of the mind, the latter a
cessation of all movement. And you are not likely to get much success in
Pratyahara until you have made considerable advance in Dhyana, because by
introspection we mean the exploration of the sub-strata of the consciousness
which are only revealed when we have progressed a certain distance, and become
aware of conditions which are utterly foreign to normal intellectual conception.
The first law of normal thought is A is A: the law of identity, it is
called. So we can divide the universe into A and not-A; there is no third thing
possible.
Now, quite early in the meditation practices, the Yogi is likely to get as a
direct experience the consciousness that these laws are not true in any ultimate
way. He has reached a world where intellectual conceptions are no longer valid;
they remain true for the ordinary affairs of life, but the normal laws of
thought are seen to be no more than a mere mechanism. A code of conventions.
The students of higher mathematics and metaphysics have often a certain
glimmering of these facts. They are compelled to use irrational conceptions for
greater convenience in conducting their rational investigations. for example,
the square root of 2, or the square root of minus 1, is not in itself capable of
comprehension as such; it pertains to an order of thinking beyond the primitive
man's invention of counting on his fingers.
17. It will be just as well then for the student to begin with the practices
of Dharana. If he does so he will obtain as a by-product some of the results of
Pratyahara, and he will also acquire considerable insight into the methods of
practising Pratyahara. It sounds perhaps, at first, as if Pratyahara were off
the main line of attainment in Yoga. This is not so, because it enables one to
deal with the new conditions which are established in the mind by realisation of
Dhyana and Samadhi.
I can now describe the elementary practices.
You should begin with very short periods; it is most important not to
overstrain the apparatus which you are using; the mind must be trained very
slowly. In my early days I was often satisfied with a minute or two at a time;
three or four such periods twice or three times a day. In the earliest stages of
all it is not necessary to have got very far with Asana, because all you can get
out of the early practices is really a foreshadowing of the difficulties of
doing it.
18. I began by taking a simple geometrical object in one colour, such as a
yellow square. I will quote the official instructions in 'The Equinox'.
'Dharana-Control of thought.'
19. Now one of the most interesting and irritating features of your early
experiments is: interfering thoughts. There is, first of all, the misbehaviour
of the object which you are contemplating; it changes its colour and size; moves
its position; gets out of shape. And one of the essential difficulties in
practice is that it takes a great deal of skill and experience to become really
alert to what is happening. You can go on day-dreaming for quite long periods
before realising that your thoughts have wandered at all. This is why I insist
so strongly on the practices described above as producing alertness and
watchfulness, and you will obviously realise that it is quite evident that one
has to be in the pink of condition and in the most favourable mental state in
order to make any headway at all. But when you have had a little practice in
detecting and counting the breaks in your concentration, you will find that they
themselves are useful, because their character is symptomatic of your state of
progress.
20. Breaks are classed as follows:
With an earnest personal appeal, therefore, to come up frankly to the
mourners' bench and gibber, I will take my leave of you for this evening.
Love is the law, love under will.
This page last updated:
02/27/2018
'Let us try a final definition. Dhyana resembles Samadhi in many respects.
There is a union of the ego and the non-ego, and a loss of the sense of time
and space and causality. Duality in any form is abolished. The idea of time
involves that of two consecutive things, that of space two non-coincident
things, that of causality two connected things.'
'These Dhyanic conditions contradict those of normal thought, but in Samadhi
they are very much more marked than in Dhyana. And while in the latter it
seems like a simple union of two things, in the former it appears as if all
things rush together and unite. One might say this, that in Dhyana there was
still this quality latent, that the one existing was opposed to the many
non-existing; in Samadhi the many and the one are united in a union of
existence with non-existence. This definition is not made from reflection, but
from memory.'
21. I have already indicated how tedious these practices become; how great the
bewilderment; how constant the disappointment. Long before the occurrence of
Dhyana, there are quite a number of minor results which indicate the breaking up
of intellectual limitation. You must not be disturbed if these results make you
feel that the very foundations of your mind are being knocked from under you.
The real lesson is that, just as you learn in Asana, the normal body is in
itself nothing but a vehicle of pain, so is the normal itself insane; by its own
standards it is insane. You have only got to read a quite simple and
elementary work like Professor Joad's 'Guide to Philosophy' to find that any
argument carried far enough leads to a contradiction in terms. There are dozens
of ways of showing that if you begin 'A is A,' you end 'A is not A.' The mind
reacts against this conclusion; it anaesthetises itself against the
self-inflicted wound, and it regulates philosophy to the category of paradoxial
tricks. But that is a cowardly and disgraceful attitude. The Yogi has got to
face the fact that we are all raving lunatics; that sanity exists-if it exists
at all-in a mental state free from dame's school rules of intellect.