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Written by Swami Vivekananda |
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WE have finished a cursory review of the different steps in
Raja Yoga, except the finer ones, the training in
concentration, which is the aim, the goal, to which Raja
Yoga will lead us. We see, as human beings, that all our
knowledge which is called rational is referred to
consciousness. I am conscious of this table, I am conscious
of your presence, and so forth, and that makes me know that
you are here, and that the table is here, and things I see, feel
andhear, are here. At the same time, there is a very great
part of my existence of which I am not conscious—all the
different organs inside the body, the different parts of the
brain, the brain itself; nobody is conscious of these things.
When I eat food I do it consciously, when I assimilate it I
do it unconsciously, when the food is manufactured into
blood it is done unconsciously; when out of the blood all the
different parts of my body are made, it is done
unconsciously; and yet it is I who am doing this; there
cannot be twenty people in one body. How do I know that I
do it, and nobody else? It may be urged that my business is
only in eating the food, and assimilating the food, and that
manufacturing the body out of food is done for me by
someone else. That cannot be, because it can be
demonstrated that almost every action of which we are
unconscious now can be again brought up to the plane of
consciousness. The heart is beating apparently without our
control; we none of us here can control the heart; it goes
onits own way. But by practice men can bring even the heart
under control, until it will just beat at will, slowly, or
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quickly, or almost stop. Nearly every part of the body can
be brought under control. What does this show? That these
things which are beneath consciousness are also worked by
us, only we are doing it unconsciously. We have, then, two
planes in which the human mind is working. First is the
conscious plane; that is to say that sort of work which is
always accompanied with the feeling of egoism. That part of
mind-work which is unaccompanied with feeling of egoism
is unconscious work, and that part which is accompanied
with the feeling of egoism is conscious work. In the lower
animals this unconscious work is called instinct. In higher
animals, and in the highest of animals, man, the second part,
that which is accompanied with the feeling of egoism,
prevails, and is called conscious work.
But it does not end here. There is a still higher plane
upon which the mind can work. It can go beyond
consciousness. Just as unconscious work is beneath
consciousness, so there is another work which is above
consciousness, and which, also, is not accompanied with the
feeling of egoism. The feeling of egoism is only on the
middle plane. When the mind is above or below that line
there is no feeling of “I,” and yet the mind works. When the
mind goes beyond this line of self-consciousness it is called
Samadhi, or super-consciousness. It is above consciousness.
How, for instance, do we know that a man in Samadhi has
not gone below his consciousness, has not degenerated,
instead of going higher? In both cases the works are
unaccompanied by egoism? The answer is, by the effects,
by the results of the work, we know that which is below, and
that which is above. When a man goes into deep sleep he
enters a plane beneath consciousness. He works the body all
the time, he breathes, he moves the body, perhaps, in his
sleep, without any accompanying feeling of ego; he is
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unconscious, and when he returns from his sleep he is the
same man who went into it. The sum-total of the knowledge
which he hap before he went into the sleep remains the
same; it has not increased at all. No enlightenment has
come. But if a man goes into Samadhi, if he goes into it a
fool, he comes out a sage.
What makes the difference? From one state a man comes
out the very same man that went in, and out of another state
the man becomes enlightened, a sage, a prophet, a saint, his
whole character changed, his life changed, illumined. These
are the two effects. Now the effects being different, the
causes must be different. As this illumination, with which a
man comes back from Samadhi, is much higher than can be
got from unconsciousness, or much higher than can be got
by reasoning in a conscious state, it must therefore be
superconsciousness,
and Samadhi is called the super-conscious
state.
This, in short, is the idea of Samadhi. What is its
application? The application is here. The field of reason, or
of the conscious workings of the mind, is narrow and
limited. There is a little circle within which human reason
will have to move. It cannot go beyond it. Every attempt to
go beyond is impossible, yet it is beyond this circle of reason
that lies all that humanity holds most dear. All these
questions, whether there is an immortal soul, whether there
is a God, whether there is any supreme intelligence guiding
this universe, are beyond the field of reason. Reason can
never answer these questions. What does reason say? It
says, “I am agnostic; I do not know either yea or nay.” Yet
these questions are important to us. Without a proper answer
to them, human life will be impossible. All our ethical
theories, all our moral attitudes, all that is good and great in
human nature, has been moulded upon answers that have
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come from beyond that circle. It is very important,
therefore, that we should have answers to these questions;
without such answers human life will be impossible. If life
is only a little five minutes’ thing, if the universe is only a
“fortuitous combination of atoms,” then why should I do
good to another? Why should there be mercy, justice, or
fellow feeling? The best thing for this world would be to
make hay while the sun shines, each man for himself. If
there is no hope, why should I love my brother, and not cut
his throat? If there is nothing beyond, if there is no freedom,
but only rigorous dead laws, I should only try to make
myself happy here. You will find people saying, now-adays,
that they have utilitarian grounds as the basis of all
morality. What is this basis? Procuring the greatest amount
of happiness to the greatest number. Why should I do this?
Why should I not produce the greatest unhappiness to the
greatest number, if that serves my purpose? How will
utilitarians answer this question? How do you know what is
right, or what is wrong? I am impelled by my desire for
happiness and I fulfil it, and it is in my nature; I know
nothing beyond. I have these desires, and must fulfil them;
why should you complain? Whence come all these truths
about human life, about morality, about the immortal soul,
about God, about love and sympathy, about being good, and,
above all, about being unselfish?
All ethics, all human action, and all human thought, hang
upon this one idea of unselfishness; the whole idea of human
life can be put in that one word, unselfishness. Why should
we be unselfish? Where is the necessity, the force, the
power, of my being unselfish? Why should I be? You call
yourself a rational man, a utilitarian, but, if you do not show
me a reason, I say you are irrational. Show me the reason
why I should not be selfish, why I should not be like a brute,
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acting without reason? It may be good as poetry, but poetry
is not reason. Show me a reason. Why shall I be unselfish,
and why be good? Because Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so says so
does not weigh with me. Where is the utility of my being
unselfish? My utility is to be selfish, if utility means the
greatest amount of happiness. I may get the greatest amount
of happiness by cheating and robbing others. What is the
answer? The utilitarian can never give it. The answer is that
this world is only one drop in an infinite ocean, one link in
an infinite chain. Where did those that preached
unselfishness, and taught it to the human race, get this idea?
We know it is not instinctive; the animals, which have
instinct, do not know it. Neither is it reason; reason does not
know anything about these ideas? Whence did they come?
We find, in studying history, one fact held in common by
all the great teachers of religion the world ever had; they all
claim to have got these truths from beyond, only many of
them did not know what they were getting. For instance, one
would say that an angel came down in the form of a human
being, with wings, and said to him, “Hear, oh man, this is the
message.” Another says that a Deva, a bright being,
appeared to him. Another says he dreamed that his ancestor
came and told him all these things. He did not know
anything beyond that. But this thing is common, that all
claim either that they say angels, or heard the voice of God,
or saw some wonderful vision. All claim that this
knowledge came to them from beyond, not through their
reasoning power. What does the science of Yoga teach? It
teaches that they were right in claiming that this knowledge
came to them from beyond reasoning, but that it came from
within themselves.
The Yogi teaches that the mind itself has a higher state of
existence, beyond reason, a super-conscious state, and when
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the mind gets to that higher state, then this knowledge,
beyond reasoing, comes to a man, metaphysical knowledge,
beyond all physical knowledge. Metaphysical and
transcendental knowledge comes to that man, and this state
of going beyond reason, transcending ordinary human
nature, sometimes may come by chance to a man who does
not understand its science; he, as it were, stumbles into it.
When he stumbles into it, he generally interprets it as from
outside. So this explains why an inspiration, or this
transcendental knowledge, may be the same in different
countries, but in one country it will seem to come through an
angel, and in another through a Deva, and in another through
God. What does it mean? It means that the mind brought
the knowledge by its own nature, and that the finding of the
knowledge was interpreted according to the beliefs and
education of the person through whom it came. The real fact
is that these various men, as it were, stumbled into this
super-conscious state.
The Yogi says there is a great danger in stumbling into
this state. In a good many cases there is the danger of the
brain being destroyed, and, as a rule, you will find that all
those men, however great they were, who have stumbled into
this super-conscious state, without understanding it, grope in
the dark, and generally have, along with their knowledge,
some quaint superstition. They open themselves to
hallucination. Mohammed claimed that the Angel Gabriel
came to him in a cave one day and took him on the heavenly
horse, Harak, and he visited the heavens. But, with all that,
Mohammed spoke some wonderful truths. If you read the
Qur’an, you find the most wonderful truths mixed with these
superstitions. How will you explain it? That man was
inspired, no doubt, but that inspiration was, as it were,
stumbled upon. He was not a trained Yogi, and did not know
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the reason of what he was doing. Think of the good
Mohammed did to the world, and think of the great evil that
has been done through his fanaticism! Think of the millions
massacred through his teachings, mothers bereft of their
children, children made orphans, whole countries destroyed,
millions upon millions of people killed!
So we see in studying the lives of all these great teachers
that there was this danger. Yet we find, at the same time,
that they were all inspired. Somehow or other they got into
this super-conscious state, only whenever a prophet got into
that state by simple force of emotion, just by heightening his
emotional nature, he brought away from that state some
truths, but also some fanaticism, some superstition which
injured the world as much as the greatness of the teaching
did good. To get any reason out of this mass of incongruity
we call human life we have to transcend our reason, but we
must do it scientifically, slowly, by regular practice, and we
must cast off all superstition. We must take it up just as any
other science, reason we must have to lay our foundation, we
must follow reason as far as it leads, and when reason fails,
reason itself will show us the way to the highest plane. So
whenever we hear a man say “I am inspired,” and then talk
the most irrational nonsense, simply reject it. Why?
Because these three states of the mind—instinct, reason, and
super-consciousness, or the unconscious, conscious, and
super-conscious states—belong to one and the same mind.
There are not three minds in one man, but one develops into
the other. Instinct develops into reason, and reason into the
transcendental consciousness; therefore one never
contradicts the other. So, whenever you meet with wild
statements which contradict human reason and common
sense, reject them without any fear, because the real
inspiration will never contradict, but will fulfil. Just as you
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find the great prophets saying, “I come not to destroy but to
fulfil,” so this inspiration always comes to fulfil reason, and
is in direct harmony with reason, and whenever it contradicts
reason you must know that it is not inspiration.
All the different steps in Yoga are intended to bring us
scientifically to the super-conscious state, or Samadhi.
Furthermore, this is a most vital point to understand that
inspiration is as much in every man’s nature as it way in the
ancient prophets. These prophets were not unique; they
were just the same as you or I. They were great Yogis. They
had gained this superconsciousness, and you and I can get
the same. They were not peculiar people. The very fact that
one man ever reached that state will prove that it is possible
for every man to do so. Not only is it possible, but every
man must, eventually, get to that state, and that is religion.
Experience is the only teacher we have. We may talk and
reason all our lives, without ever understanding a word of
truth, until we experience it ourselves. You cannot hope to
make a man a surgeon by simply giving him a few books.
You cannot satisfy my curiousity to see a country by
showing me a map; I must have actual experience. Maps
can only create a little curiousity in us to get more perfect
knowledge. Beyond that, they have no value whatever. All
clinging to books only degenerates the human mind. Was
there ever a more horrible blasphemy than to say that all the
knowledge of God is confined in this or that book? How
dare men call God infinite, and yet try to compress Him into
the covers of a little book! Millions of people have been
killed because they did not believe what the books say,
because they would not see all the knowledge of God within
the covers of a book. Of course this killing and murdering
has gone by, but the world is still tremendously bound up by
a belief in books.
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In order to reach the super-conscious state in a scientific
manner we have to pass through these various steps that I
have been teaching you in Raja Yoga. After Pratyahara and
Dharana, which I taught you in the last lecture, we come to
Dhyana, meditation. When the mind has been trained to
remain fixed on a certain internal or external location, there
comes to it the power of, as it were, flowing in an unbroken
current towards that point. This state is called Dhyana.
When this power of Dhyana has been so much intensified as
to be able to reject the external part of perception, and
remain meditating only on the internal part, the meaning,
that state is called Samadhi. The three—Dharana, Dhyana
and Samadhi—together are called Samyama. That is, if the
mind can first concentrate upon an object, and then is able to
contiune in that concentration for a length of time, and then,
by continued concentration, to dwell only on the internal part
of the perception of which the object was the effect,
everything comes under the control of such a mind.
This meditative state is the highest state of existence. So
long as there is desire no real happiness can come. It is only
the contemplative, witness-like study of objects that brings
us to real enjoyment and happiness. The animal has its
happiness in the senses, the man in his intellect, and the God
in spiritual contemplation. It is only to the soul that has
attained to this contemplative state that the world has really
become beautiful. To him who desires nothing, and does not
mix himslf up with them, the manifold changes of nature are
one panorama of beauty and sublimity.
These ideas have to be understood in Dhyana, or
meditation. We hear a sound. First there is the external
vibration, second, the nerve motion that carries it to the
mind, third, the reaction from the mind, along with which
flashes the knowledge of theobject which was the external
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cause of these different changes from the ethereal vibrations
to the mental reaction. These three are called in Yoga,
Cabdha (sound), Artha (meaning), and Jnana (knowledge).
In the language of physiology there are called the ethereal
vibration, the motion in the nerve and brain, and the mental
reaction. Now these, though distinct processes, have become
mixed up in such a fashion as to become quite indistinct. In
fact, we cannot now perceive any of these causes; we only
perceive the effect of these three, which effect we call the
external object. Every act of perception includes these three,
and there is no reason why we should not be able to
distinguish between them.
When, by the previous preparations, the mind becomes
strong and controlled, and the power of finer perception has
been attained, then the mind should be employed in
meditation. This meditation must begin with gross objects
and slowly rise to finer, then to finer and finer, until it has
become objectless. The mind should first be employed in
perceiving the external causes of sensations, then the internal
motions, and then the reaction of the mind. Whenit has
succeeded in perceiving the external causes of sensations by
themxelves it will acquire the power of perceiving all fine
material existence, all fine bodies and forms. When it can
succeed in perceiving the motions inside, by themselves, it
will gain the control of all mental waves, in itself or in
others, even before they have translated themselves into
physical forces; and when he will be able to perceive the
mental reaction by itself the Yogi will acquire the knowledge
of everything, as every sensible object, and every thought, is
the result of this reaction. Then will he have seen, as it were,
the very foundations of his mind, and it will be under his
perfect control. Different powers will come to the Yogi, and
if he yields to the temptations of any one of these the road to
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his further progress will be barred. Such is the evil of
running after enjoyments. But, if he is strong enough to
reject even these miraculous powers, he will attain to the
goal of Yoga, the complete suppression of the waves in the
ocean of th emind; then the glory of the soul, untrammelled
by the distrations of the mind, or the motions of his body,
will shine in its full effulgence. And the Yogi will find
himself as he is and as he always was, the essence of
knowledge, the immortal, the all-pervading.
Samadhi is the property of every human being—nay,
every animal. From the lowest animal to the highest angelic
being, some time or other each one will have to come to that
state, and then, and then alone, will religion begin for him.
And all this time, what are we doing? We are only
struggling towards that stage’ there is no no difference
between us and those who have no religion, because we have
had no experience. What is concentration good for, save to
bring us to this experience? Each one of the steps to attain
this Samadhi has been reasoned out, properly adjusted,
scientifically organised, and, when faithfully practised, will
surely lead us to the desired end. Then will all sorrows
cease, all miseries; the seeds of actions will be burned, and
the soul will be free for ever. |
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