488 lines
30 KiB
Plaintext
488 lines
30 KiB
Plaintext
(Part 4 of 8)
|
||
|
||
************************************************************
|
||
YOGA FOR YAHOOS.
|
||
|
||
FOURTH LECTURE. ASANA AND PRANAYAMA.
|
||
|
||
The Technical Practices of Yoga.
|
||
************************************************************
|
||
|
||
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
|
||
|
||
1. Last week we were able to go away feeling that the back of
|
||
the job had been broken. We had got rid of bad ways, bad wives, and
|
||
bad weather. We are comfortably installed in the sunshine, with no
|
||
one to bother us. We have nothing to do but our work.
|
||
Such being our fortunate state, we may usefully put in an hour
|
||
considering our next step. Let us recall, in the first place, what
|
||
we decided to be the quintessence of our task. It was to annihilate
|
||
dividuality. 'Make room for me,' cries the Persian poet whose name I
|
||
have forgotten, the fellow Fitzgerald translated, not Omar Khayyam,
|
||
'Make room for me on that divan which has no room for twain' -- a
|
||
remarkable prophetic anticipation of the luxury flatlet.
|
||
We are to unite the subject and object of consciousness in the
|
||
ecstasy which soon turns, as we shall find later on, into the more
|
||
sublime state of indifference, and then annihilate both the party of
|
||
the first part aforesaid and the party of the second part aforesaid.
|
||
This evidently results in further parties -- one might almost say
|
||
cocktail parties -- constantly increasing until we reach infinity,
|
||
and annihilate that, thereby recovering our original Nothing. Yet is
|
||
that identical with the original Nothing? Yes -- and No! No! No!
|
||
A thousand times no! For, having fulfilled all the possibilities of
|
||
that original Nothing to manifest in positive terms, we have thereby
|
||
killed for ever all its possibilities of mischief.
|
||
Our task being thus perfectly simple, we shall not require the
|
||
assistance of a lot of lousy rishis and sanyasis. We shall not apply
|
||
to a crowd of moth-eaten Arahats, of betel-chewing Bodhisattvas, for
|
||
instruction. As we said in the first volume of 'The Equinox', in the
|
||
first number:
|
||
'We place no reliance
|
||
On Virgin or Pigeon;
|
||
Our method is science,
|
||
Our aim is religion.'
|
||
|
||
Our common sense, guided by experience based on observation,
|
||
will be sufficient.
|
||
2. We have seen that the Yogic process is implicit in every
|
||
phenomenon of existence. All that we have to do is to extend it
|
||
consciously to the process of thought. We have seen that thought
|
||
cannot exist without continual change; all that we have to do is to
|
||
prevent change occurring. All change is conditioned by time and
|
||
space and other categories; any existing object must be susceptible
|
||
of description by means of a system of co-ordinate axes.
|
||
On the 'terrasse' of the Cafe des Deux Magots it was once
|
||
necessary to proclaim the entire doctrine of Yoga in the fewest
|
||
possible words 'with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel,
|
||
and with the trump of God.' St. Paul's First Epistle to the Thessa-
|
||
lonians, the Fourth Chapter and the Sixteenth Verse. I did so.
|
||
'Sit still. Stop thinking. Shut up. Get out!'
|
||
The first two of these instructions comprise the whole of the
|
||
technique of Yoga. The last two are of a sublimity which it would be
|
||
improper to expound in this present elementary stage.
|
||
The injunction 'Sit still' is intended to include the inhibition
|
||
of all bodily stimuli capable of creating movement in consciousness.
|
||
The injunction 'Stop thinking' is the extension of this to all mental
|
||
stimuli. It is unnecessary to discuss here whether the latter can
|
||
exist apart from the former. It is at least evident that many mental
|
||
processes arise from physical processes; and so we shall at least be
|
||
getting a certain distance along the road if we have checked the
|
||
body.
|
||
3. Let me digress for a moment, and brush away one misunder-
|
||
standing which is certain to occur to every Anglo-Saxon mind. About
|
||
the worst inheritance of the emasculate school of mystics is the
|
||
abominable confusion of thought which arises from the idea that
|
||
bodily functions and appetites have some moral implications. This is
|
||
a confusion of the planes. There is no true discrimination between
|
||
good and evil. The only question that arises is that of convenience
|
||
in respect of any proposed operation. The whole of the moral and
|
||
religious lumber of the ages must be discarded for ever before
|
||
attempting Yoga. You will find out only too soon what it means to do
|
||
wrong; by our very thesis itself all action is wrong. Any action is
|
||
only relatively right in so far as it may help us to put an end to
|
||
the entire process of action.
|
||
These relatively useful actions are therefore those which make
|
||
for control, or 'virtue.' They have been classified, entirely
|
||
regardless of trouble and expense, in enormous volume, and with the
|
||
utmost complexity; to such a point, in fact, that merely to permit
|
||
oneself to study the nomenclature of the various systems can have but
|
||
one result: to fuddle your brain for the rest of your incarnation.
|
||
4. I am going to try to simplify. The main headings are:
|
||
(a) Asana, usually translated 'posture,' and
|
||
(b) Pranayama, usually translated 'control of breath.'
|
||
These translations, as usual, are perfectly wrong and inadequate.
|
||
The real object of Asana is control of the muscular system, conscious
|
||
and unconscious, so that no messages from the body can reach the
|
||
mind. Asana is concerned with the static aspect of the body.
|
||
Pranayama is really the control of the dynamic aspect of the body.
|
||
There is something a little paradoxical in the situation. The
|
||
object of the process of Yoga is to stop all processes, including
|
||
itself. But it is not sufficient for the Yogi to shoot himself,
|
||
because to do so would be to destroy the control, and so to release
|
||
the pain-producing energies. We cannot enter into a metaphysical
|
||
discussion as to what it is that controls, or before we know where we
|
||
are we shall be moonstruck by hypotheses about the soul.
|
||
5. Let us forget all this rubbish, and decide what is to be
|
||
done. We have seen that to stop existing processes by an act of
|
||
violence is merely to release the undesirable elements. If we want
|
||
peace on Dartmoor, we do not open the doors of the prison. What we
|
||
do is to establish routine. What is routine? Routine is rhythm. If
|
||
you want to go to sleep, you get rid of irregular, unexpected noises.
|
||
What is wanted is a lullaby. You watch sheep going through a gate,
|
||
or voters at a polling station. When you have got used to it, the
|
||
regularity of the engines of a train or steamship is soothing. What
|
||
we have to do with the existing functions of the body is to make them
|
||
so regular, with gradually increasing slowness, that we become
|
||
unconscious of their operation.
|
||
6. Let us deal first with the question of Asana. It might be
|
||
thought that nothing would be more soothing than swinging or gentle
|
||
massage. In a sense, and up to a certain point, this is so. But the
|
||
activity cannot be continued because fatigue supervenes, and sooner
|
||
or later the body protests by going to sleep. We must, therefore,
|
||
make up our minds from the start to reduce bodily rhythm to its
|
||
minimum.
|
||
7. I am not quite sure whether it is philosophically defensi-
|
||
ble, whether it is logically justifiable, to assert the principles of
|
||
Asana as they occur in our practice. We must break away from our
|
||
sorites, turn to the empiricism of experiment, and trust that one day
|
||
we may be able to work back from observed fact to a coherent
|
||
metaphysic.
|
||
The point is that by sitting still, in the plain literal sense
|
||
of the words, the body does ultimately respond to the adjuration of
|
||
that great Mahatma, Harry Lauder, 'Stop your ticklin', Jock!'
|
||
8. When we approach the details of Asana, we are immediately
|
||
confronted with the refuse-heap of Hindu pedantry. We constantly
|
||
approach the traditional spiritual attitude of the late Queen
|
||
Victoria. The only types of Asana which offer even the most trans-
|
||
ient interest are those of which I am not going to speak at all,
|
||
because they have nothing whatever to do with the high-minded type of
|
||
Yoga which I am presenting to this distinguished audience. I should
|
||
blush to do otherwise. Anyhow, who wants to know about these ridicu-
|
||
lous postures? If there is any fun in the subject at all, it is the
|
||
fun of finding them out. I must admit that if you start with a
|
||
problem such as that of juxtaposing the back of your head and should-
|
||
ers with the back of the head and shoulders of the other person
|
||
concerned,(*1) the achievement does produce a certain satisfaction.
|
||
But this, I think, is mostly vanity, and it has nothing whatever to
|
||
do, as I said before, with what we are trying to talk about.
|
||
9. The various postures recommended by the teachers of Yoga
|
||
depend for the most part upon the Hindu anatomy for their value, and
|
||
upon mystic theories concerning the therapeutic and thaumaturgic
|
||
properties ascribed to various parts of the body. If, for instance,
|
||
you can conquer the nerve Udana, you can wlk on water. But who the
|
||
devil wants to talk on water? Swimming is much better fun. (I bar
|
||
sharks, sting-rays, cuttle-fish, electric eels and picanhas. Also
|
||
trippers, bathing belles and Mr. Lansbury.) Alternatively, freeze
|
||
the water and dance on it! A great deal of Hindu endeavour seems to
|
||
consist in discovering the most difficult possible way to attain the
|
||
most undesirable end.
|
||
10. When you start tying yourself into a knot, you will find
|
||
that some positions are much more difficult and inconvenient than
|
||
others; but that is only the beginning. If you retain 'any' posture
|
||
long enough, you get cramp. I forget the exact statistics, but I
|
||
gather that the muscular exertion made by a man sleeping peacefully
|
||
in bed is sufficient to raise fourteen elephants per hour to the
|
||
stratosphere. Anyway, I remember that it is something rather diffi-
|
||
cult to believe, if only because I did not believe it myself.
|
||
11. Why then should we bother to choose a specially sacred
|
||
position? Firstly, we want to be steady and easy. We want, in
|
||
particular, to be able to do Pranayama in that position, if ever we
|
||
reach the stage of attempting that practice. We may, therefore,
|
||
formulate (roughly speaking) the conditions to be desired in the
|
||
posture as follows: --
|
||
1. We want to be properly balanced.
|
||
2. We want our arms free. (They are used in some Pranyama.)
|
||
3. We want our breathing apparatus as unrestrained as possible.
|
||
Now, if you will keep these points in mind, and do not get side-
|
||
tracked by totally irrelevant ideas, such as to imagine that you are
|
||
getting holier by adopting some attitude traditionally appropriate to
|
||
a deity or holy man; and if you will refrain from the Puritan abomi-
|
||
nation that anything is good for you if it hurts you enough, you
|
||
ought to be able to find out for yourself, after a few experiments,
|
||
some posture which meets these conditions. I should very much rather
|
||
have you do this than come to me for some mumbo-jumbo kind of author-
|
||
ity. I am no pig-sticking pukka sahib -- not even from Poona -- to
|
||
put my hyphenated haw-haw humbug over on the B. Public.(*2) I would
|
||
rather you did the thing 'wrong' by yourselves, and learned from your
|
||
errors, than get it 'right' from the teacher, and atrophied your
|
||
initiative and your faculty of learning anything at all.
|
||
It is, however, perfectly right that you should have some idea
|
||
of what happens when you sit down to practise.
|
||
12. Let me digress for a moment and refer to what I said in my
|
||
text-book on Magick with regard to the formula IAO. This formula
|
||
covers all learning. You begin with a delightful feeling as of a
|
||
child with a new toy; you get bored, and you attempt to smash it.
|
||
But if you are a wise child, you have had a scientific attitude
|
||
towards it, and you do *not* smash it. You pass through the stage of
|
||
boredom, and arise from the inferno of torture towards the stage of
|
||
resurrection, when the toy has become a god, declared to you its
|
||
inmost secrets, and become a living part of your life. There are no
|
||
longer these crude, savage reactions of pleasure and pain. The new
|
||
knowledge is assimilated.
|
||
13. So it is with Asana. The chosen posture attracts you; you
|
||
purr with self-satisfaction. How clever you have been! How nicely
|
||
the posture suits all conditions! You absolutely melt with maudlin
|
||
good feeling. I have known pupils who have actually been betrayed
|
||
into sparing a kindly thought for the Teacher! It is quite clear
|
||
that there is something wrong about this. Fortunately, Time, the
|
||
great healer, is on the job as usual; Time takes no week-ends off;
|
||
Time does not stop to admire himself; Time keeps right on.(*3)
|
||
Before very long, you forget all about the pleasantness of things,
|
||
and it would not be at all polite to give you any idea of what you
|
||
are going to think of the Teacher.
|
||
14. Perhaps the first thing you notice is that, although you
|
||
have started in what is apparently the most comfortable position,
|
||
there is a tendency to change that position without informing you.
|
||
For example, if you are sitting in the 'god' position with your knees
|
||
together, you will find in a few minutes that they have moved gently
|
||
apart, without your noticing it. Freud would doubtless inform you
|
||
that this is due to an instinctive exacerbation of infantile sexual
|
||
theories. I hope that no one here is going to bother me with that
|
||
sort of nauseating nonsense.
|
||
15. Now it is necessary, in order to hold a position, to pay
|
||
attention to it. That is to say: you are going to become conscious
|
||
of your body in ways of which you are not conscious if you are
|
||
engaged in some absorbing mental pursuit, or even in some purely
|
||
physical activity, such as running. It sounds paradoxical at first
|
||
sight, but violent exercise, so far from concentrating attention on
|
||
the body, takes it away. That is because exercise has its own
|
||
rhythm; and, as I said, rhythm is half-way up the ridge to Silence.
|
||
Very good, then; in the comparative stillness of the body, the
|
||
student becomes aware of minute sounds which did not disturb him in
|
||
his ordinary life. At least, not when his mind was occupied with
|
||
matters of interest. You will begin to fidget, to itch, to cough.
|
||
Possibly your breathing will begin to play tricks upon you. All
|
||
these symptoms must be repressed. The process of repressing them is
|
||
extremely difficult; and, like all other forms of repression, it
|
||
leads to a terrific exaggeration of the phenomena which it is
|
||
intended to repress.
|
||
16. There are quite a lot of little tricks familiar to most
|
||
scientific people from their student days. Some of them are very
|
||
significant in this connection of Yoga. For instance, in the matter
|
||
of endurance, such as holding out a weight at arm's length, you can
|
||
usually beat a man stronger than yourself. If you attend to your
|
||
arm, you will probably tire in a minute; if you fix your mind reso-
|
||
lutely on something else, you can go on for five minutes or ten, or
|
||
even longer. It is a question of active and passive; when Asana
|
||
begins to annoy you the reply is to annoy it, to match the active
|
||
thought of controlling the minute muscular movement against the
|
||
passive thought of easing the irritation and disturbance.
|
||
17. Now I do not believe that there are any rules for doing
|
||
this that will be any use to you. There are innumerable little
|
||
tricks that you might try; only it is, as in the case of the posture
|
||
itself, rather better if you invent your own tricks. I will only
|
||
mention one: roll the tongue back towards the uvula, at the same
|
||
time let the eyes converge towards an imaginery point in the centre
|
||
of the forehead. There are all sorts of holinesses indicated in this
|
||
attitude, and innumerable precedents on the part of the most respect-
|
||
able divinities. Do, please, forget all this nonsense! The advan-
|
||
tage is simply that your attention is forced to maintain the awkward
|
||
position. You become aware sooner than you otherwise would of any
|
||
relaxation; and you thereby show the rest of the body that it is no
|
||
use trying to disturb you by its irritability.
|
||
But there are no rules. I said there weren't, and there aren't.
|
||
Only the human mind is so lazy and worthless that it is a positive
|
||
instinct to try to find some dodge to escape hard work.
|
||
These tricks may help or they may hinder; it is up to you to
|
||
find out which are good and which are bad, the why and the what and
|
||
all the other questions. It all comes to the same thing in the end.
|
||
There is only one way to still the body in the long run, and that is
|
||
to keep it still. It's dogged as does it.
|
||
18. The irritations develop into extreme agony. Any attempt to
|
||
alleviate this simply destroys the value of the practice. I must
|
||
particularly warn the aspirant against rationalising (I *have* known
|
||
people who were so hopelessly bat-witted that they rationalised).
|
||
They thought: 'Ah, well, this position is not suitable for me, as I
|
||
thought it was. I have made a mess of the Ibis position; now I'll
|
||
have a go at the Dragon position.' But the Ibis has kept his job,
|
||
and attained his divinity, by standing on one leg throughout the
|
||
centuries. If you go to the Dragon he will devour you.
|
||
19. It is through the perversity of human nature that the most
|
||
acute agony seems to occur when you are within a finger's breadth of
|
||
full success. Remember Gallipoli! I am inclined to think that it
|
||
may be a sort of symptom that one is near the critical point when the
|
||
anguish becomes intolerable.
|
||
You will probably ask what 'intolerable' means. I rudely
|
||
answer: 'Find out!' But it may give you some idea of what is, after
|
||
all, not *too* bad, when I say that in the last months of my own work
|
||
it often used to take me ten minutes (at the conclusion of the
|
||
practice) to straighten my left leg. I took the ankle in both hands,
|
||
and eased it out a fraction of a millimetre at a time.
|
||
20. At this point the band begins to play. Quite suddenly the
|
||
pain stops. An ineffable sense of relief sweeps over the Yogi --
|
||
notice that I no longer call him 'student' or 'aspirant' -- and he
|
||
becomes aware of a very strange fact. Not only was that position
|
||
giving him pain, but all other bodily sensations that he has ever
|
||
experienced are in the nature of pain, and were only borne by him by
|
||
the expedient of constant flitting from one to another.
|
||
He is at ease; because, for the first time in his life, he has
|
||
become really unconscious of the body. Life has been one endless
|
||
suffering; and now, so far as this particular Asana is concerned, the
|
||
plague is abated.
|
||
I feel that I have failed to convey the full meaning of this.
|
||
The fact is that words are entirely unsuitable. The complete and
|
||
joyous awakening from the lifelong and unbroken nightmare of physical
|
||
discomfort is impossible to describe.
|
||
21. The results and mastery of Asana are of use not only in the
|
||
course of attainment of Yoga, but in the most ordinary affairs of
|
||
life. At any time when fatigued, you have only to assume your Asana,
|
||
and you are completely rested. It is as if the attainment of the
|
||
mastery has worn down all those possibilities of physical pain which
|
||
are inherent in that particular position. The teachings of physio-
|
||
logy are not contradictory to this hypothesis.
|
||
The conquest of Asana makes for endurance. If you keep in
|
||
constant practice, you ought to find that about ten minutes in the
|
||
posture will rest you as much as a good night's sleep.
|
||
So much for the obstacle of the body considered as static. Let
|
||
us now turn our attention to the conquest of its dynamics.
|
||
22. It is always pleasing to turn to a subject like Pranayama.
|
||
Pranayama means control of force. It is a generalised term. In the
|
||
Hindu system there are quite a lot of subtle sub-strata of the
|
||
various energies of the body which have all got names and properties.
|
||
I do not propose to deal with the bulk of them. There are only two
|
||
which have much practical importance in life. One of these is not to
|
||
be communicated to the public in a rotten country like this; the
|
||
other is the well-known 'control of breath.'
|
||
This simply means that you get a stop watch, and choose a cycle
|
||
of breathing out and breathing in. Both operations should be made as
|
||
complete as possible. The muscular system must be taxed to its
|
||
utmost to assist the expansion and contraction of the lungs.
|
||
When you have got this process slow and regular, for instance,
|
||
30 seconds breathing out and 15 in, you may add a few seconds in
|
||
which the breath is held, either inside or outside the lungs.
|
||
(It is said, by the way, that the operation of breathing out
|
||
should last about twice as long as that of breathing in, the theory
|
||
being that breathing out quickly may bring a loss of energy. I think
|
||
there may be something in this.)
|
||
23. There are other practices. For instance, one can make the
|
||
breathing as quick and shallow as possible. Any good practice is
|
||
likely to produce its own phenomena, but in accordance with the
|
||
general thesis of these lectures I think it will be obvious that the
|
||
proper practice will aim at holding the breath for as long a period
|
||
as possible -- because that condition will represent as close an
|
||
approximation to complete stillness of the physiological apparatus as
|
||
may be. Of course we are not stilling it; we are doing nothing of
|
||
the sort. But at least we are deluding ourselves into thinking that
|
||
we are doing it, and the point is that, according to tradition, if
|
||
you can hold the mind still for as much as twelve seconds you will
|
||
get one of the highest results of Yoga. It is certainly a fact that
|
||
when you are doing a cycle of 20 seconds out, 10 in, and 30 holding,
|
||
there is quite a long period during the holding period when the mind
|
||
does tend to stop its malignant operations. By the time this cycle
|
||
has become customary, you are able to recognise instinctively the
|
||
arrival of the moment when you can throw yourself suddenly into the
|
||
mental act of concentration. In other words, by Asana and Pranayama
|
||
you have worked yourself into a position where you are free, if only
|
||
for a few seconds, to attempt actual Yoga processes, which you have
|
||
previously been prevented from attempting by the distracting activi-
|
||
ties of the respiratory and muscular systems.
|
||
24. And so? Yes. Pranayama may be described as nice clean
|
||
fun. Before you have been doing it very long, things are pretty
|
||
certain to begin to happen, though this, I regret to remark, is fun
|
||
to you, but death to Yoga.
|
||
The classical physical results of Pranayama are usually divided
|
||
into four stages:
|
||
1. Perspiration. This is not the ordinary perspiration which
|
||
comes from violent exercise; it has peculiar properties, and I am not
|
||
going to tell you what these are, because it is much better for you
|
||
to perform the practices, obtain the experience, and come to me
|
||
yourself with the information. In this way you will know that you
|
||
have got the right thing, whereas if I were to tell you now, you
|
||
would very likely imagine it.
|
||
2. Automatic rigidity: the body becomes still, as the result of
|
||
a spasm. This is perfectly normal and predictable. It is customary
|
||
to do it with a dog. You stick him in a bell-jar, pump in oxygen or
|
||
carbonic acid or something, and the dog goes stiff. You can take him
|
||
out and wave him around by a leg as if he were frozen. This is not
|
||
quite the same thing, but near it.
|
||
25. Men of science are terribly handicapped in every investiga-
|
||
tion by having been trained to ignore the immeasurable. All pheno-
|
||
mena have subtle qualities which are at present insusceptible to any
|
||
properly scientific methods of investigation. We can imitate the
|
||
processes of nature in the laboratory, but the imitation is not
|
||
always exactly identical with the original. For instance, Professor
|
||
J. B. S. Haldane attempted some of the experiments suggested in 'The
|
||
Equinox' in this matter of Pranayama, and very nearly killed himself
|
||
in the process. He did not see the difference between the experiment
|
||
with the dog and the phenomena which supervene as the climax of a
|
||
course of gentle operation. It is the difference between the exhil-
|
||
aration produced by sipping Clos Vougeot '26 and the madness of
|
||
swilling corn whiskey. It is the same foolishness as to think that
|
||
sniffing cocaine is a more wholesome process than chewing coca
|
||
leaves. Why, they exclaim, cocaine is chemically pure! Cocaine is
|
||
the active principle! We certainly do not want these nasty leaves,
|
||
where our sacred drug is mixed up with a lot of vegetable stuff which
|
||
rather defies analysis, and which cannot possibly have any use for
|
||
that reason! This automatic rigidity, or Shukshma Khumbakham, is not
|
||
merely to be defined as the occurrence of physiological rigidity.
|
||
That is only the grosser symptom.
|
||
26. The third stage is marked by Buchari-siddhi: 'the power of
|
||
jumping about like a frog' would be a rough translation of this
|
||
fascinating word. This is a very extraordinary phenomenon. You are
|
||
sitting tied up on the floor, and you begin to be wafted here and
|
||
there, much as dead leaves are moved by a little breeze. This does
|
||
happen; you are quite normal mentally, and you can watch yourself
|
||
doing it.
|
||
The natural explanation of this is that your muscles are making
|
||
very quick short spasmodic jerks without your being conscious of the
|
||
fact. The dog helps us again by making similar contortions. As
|
||
against this, it may be argued that your mind appears to be perfectly
|
||
normal. There is, however, one particuliar point of consciousness,
|
||
the sensation of almost total loss of weight. This, by the way, may
|
||
sound a little alarming to the instructed alienist. There is a
|
||
similar feeling which occurs in certain types of insanity.
|
||
27. The fourth state is Levitation. The Hindus claim that
|
||
'jumping about like a frog' implies a genuine loss of weight, and
|
||
that the jumping is mainly lateral because you have not perfected the
|
||
process. If you were absolutely balanced, they claim that you would
|
||
rise quietly into the air.
|
||
I do not know about this at all. I never saw it happen. On the
|
||
other hand, I have often felt as if it were happening; and on three
|
||
occasions at least comparatively reliable people have said that they
|
||
saw it happening to me. I do not think it proves anything.
|
||
These practices, Asana and Pranayama, are, to a certain extent,
|
||
mechanical, and to that extent it is just possible for a man of
|
||
extraordinary will power, with plenty of leisure and no encumbrances,
|
||
to do a good deal of the spade-work of Yoga even in England. But I
|
||
should advise him to stick very strictly to the purely physical
|
||
preparation, and on no account to attempt the practices of concentra-
|
||
tion proper, until he is able to acquire suitable surroundings.
|
||
But do not let him imagine that in making this very exceptional
|
||
indulgence I am going to advocate any slipshod ways. If he decides
|
||
to do, let us say, a quarter of an hour's Asana twice daily, rising
|
||
to an hour four times daily, and Pranayama in proportion, he has got
|
||
to stick to this -- no cocktail parties, football matches, or funer-
|
||
als of near relations, must be allowed to interfere with the routine.
|
||
The drill is the thing, the acquisition of the habit of control, much
|
||
more important than any mere success in the practices themselves. I
|
||
would rather you wobbled about for your appointed hour than sat still
|
||
for fifty-nine minutes. The reason for this will only be apparent
|
||
when we come to the consideration of advanced Yoga, a subject which
|
||
may be adequately treated in a second series of four lectures. By
|
||
special request only, and I sincerely hope that nothing of the sort
|
||
will happen.
|
||
29. Before proposing a vote of thanks to the lecturer for his
|
||
extraordinarily brilliant exposition of these most difficult sub-
|
||
jects, I should like to add a few words on the subject of Mantra-
|
||
Yoga, because this is really a branch of Pranayama, and one which it
|
||
is possible to practise quite thoroughly in this country. In Book
|
||
IV., Part I., I have described it, with examples, quite fully enough.
|
||
I need here only say that its constant use, day and night, without a
|
||
moment's cessation, is probably as useful a method as one could find
|
||
of preparing the current of thought for the assumption of a rhythmi-
|
||
cal form, and rhythm is the great cure for irregularity. Once it is
|
||
established, no interference will prevent it. Its own natural
|
||
tendency is to slow down, like a pendulum, until time stops, and the
|
||
sequence of impressions which constitutes our intellectual apprehen-
|
||
sions of the universe is replaced by that form of consciousness (or
|
||
unconsciousness, if you prefer it, not that either would give the
|
||
slightest idea of what is meant) which is without condition of any
|
||
kind, and therefore represents in perfection the consummation of
|
||
Yoga.
|
||
|
||
Love is the law, love under will.
|
||
|
||
---------------
|
||
*1) In coitu, of course. -- ED.
|
||
*2) One Yeats-Brown. What *are* Yeats? Brown, of course, and
|
||
Kennedy.
|
||
*3) Some Great Thinker once said: 'Time *marches* on.' What
|
||
felicity of phrase!
|
||
|
||
|
||
f gentle operation. It is the difference between the exhil-
|
||
aration produced by sipping Clos Vougeot '26 and the madness of
|
||
swilling corn whiskey. It is the same foolishness as to think that
|
||
sniffing cocaine is a more wholesome process than chewing coca
|
||
leaves. Why, they exclaim, cocaine is chemically pure! Cocaine is
|
||
the active principle! We certainly do not want these nasty leaves,
|
||
where our sacred drug is mixed up with a lot of vegetable stuff which
|
||
rather defies analysis, and which cannot possibly have any use for
|
||
that reason! This automatic rigidity, or Shukshma Khumbakham, is not
|
||
merely to be defined as the occurrence of physiological rigidity.
|
||
That is only the grosser symptom.
|
||
26. The third stage is marked by Buchari-siddhi: 'the power of
|
||
jumping about like a frog' would be a rough translation of this
|
||
fascinating word. This is a very extraordinary phenomenon. You are
|
||
sitting tied up on the floor, and you begin to be wafted here and
|
||
there, much as d |