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SAPTA-CHATUSHTAYA
I. SHANTI-CHATUSHTAYA
The basis of internal peace is samatā, the capacity of receiving with a calm and equal mind all the attacks and appearances of outward things, whether pleasant or unpleasant, ill-fortune and good-fortune, pleasure and pain, honour and ill-repute, praise and blame, friendship and enmity, sinner and saint, or, physically, heat and cold etc. There are two forms of samatā, passive and active, samatā in reception of the things of the outward world and samatā in reaction to them.
Passive samatā consists of three things:
TITIKSHA Titikşā is the bearing firmly of all contacts pleasant or unpleasant, not being overpowered by that which is painful, not being carried away by that which is pleasant. Calmly and firmly to receive both and hold and bear them as one who is stronger, greater, vaster than any attack of the world, is the attitude of titikşā.
UDASINATA
Udāsīnatā is indifference to the dvandvas or dualities; it means literally being seated above, superior to all physical and mental touches. The udāsīna, free from desire, either does not feel the touch of joy and grief, pleasure and pain, liking and disliking, or he feels them as touching his mind and body, but not himself,
he being different from mind and body and seated above them.
Nati is the submission of the soul to the will of God; its acceptance of all touches as His touches, of all experience as His play with the soul of man. Nati may be with titikşā, feeling the sorrow but accepting it as God’s will, or with udāsinatā, rising superior to it and regarding joy and sorrow equally as God’s working in the lower instruments, or with ānanda, receiving everything as the play of Krishna, and therefore in itself delightful. The last is the state of the complete Yogin, for by this continual joyous or ānandamaya namaskāra to God constantly practised, we arrive eventually at the entire elimination of grief, pain, etc., the entire freedom from the dvandvas, and find Brahmananda in every smallest, most trivial, most apparently discordant detail of life and experience in this human body. We get rid entirely of fear and suffering; ānandam brahmaņo vidvān na bibheti kutaścana. We may have to begin with titiksā and udāsinatā, but it is in this Ananda that we must consummate siddhi of sarmatā. The Yogin receives victory and defeat, success, and ill-success, pleasure and pain, honour and disgrace with an equal, a sarma ānanda, - first by buddhi-yoga, separating himself from his habitual mental and nervous reactions and insisting by vicāra on the true nature of the experience itself and of his own soul, which is secretly ānandamaya, - full of sarma ānanda in all things. He comes to change all the ordinary values of experience; amangala reveals itself to him as mangala, defeat ill-success as the fulfilment of God’s immediate purpose and a step towards ultimate victory, grief and pain as concealed and perverse forms of pleasure. A stage arrives even, when physical tin itself, the hardest thing for material man to bear, changes its nature in experience and becomes physical Ananda; but this is only at the end, when this human being, imprisoned in matter, subjected to mind, emerges from his subjection, conquers his mind and delivers himself utterly in his body, realising his true ānāndamaya self in every part of the ādhāra. Page-357 2. ACTIVE
It
is this universal or sama ānanda in all experiences
which
Rasa is the appreciative perception of that Guna, that āsavāda, taste and quality, which the Ishwara of the Lila perceives in each different object of experience (visaya) and for the enjoyment of which He creates it in the Lila. Prītih is the pleasure of the mind in all Rasa, pleasant or unpleasant, sweet or bitter. Ananda is the divine bhoga superior to all mental pleasure, with which God enjoys the rasa; in Ananda the opposition of the dualities entirely ceases.
Only
when samatā is accomplished, can śānti be perfect
in the system. If there is the least disturbance or trouble in the mentality, we
may be perfectly sure that there is a disturbance, or defect in the samatā.
For the mind of man is complex
and even when in the buddhi we have fixed ourselves entirely in udāsinatā
or
nati, there may be revolts, uneasinesses, repinings in
other
parts.
The buddhi, the manas, the heart, the nerves
(prāna), the
very
bodily case must be subjected to the law of samatā.
Page-358 Hasya Hāsyam is the active side of sukham; it consists in an active internal state of gladness and cheerfulness which no adverse experience mental or physical can trouble. Its perfection is God’s stamp and seal on the Siddhi of the samatā. It is in our internal being the image of Srikrishna playing, bālavat, as the eternal bālaka and kumāra in the garden of the world.
This may be called the
Siddhi of the temperament or nature in the lower system, in the internal Triloka
of mind, life and
body, Manas,
Prana, Annam. To put it from a higher standpoint, it is the Siddhi of the divine
Shakti working in these
three principles.
Virya By vīrya is meant the fundamental svabhāvaśakti or the energy of the divine temperament expressing itself in the fourfold type of the cāturvarnya - in Brahmanyam, Brahmashakti, Brahmatejas, in Kshatram, Kshatrashakti, Kshatratejas, in Vaishya, Vaishyaswabhavashakti and Tejas, Shudraswabhavashakti and Tejas. We must realise that the ancient Aryan Rishis meant by the Chaturvarnya not a mere social division, but a recognition of God manifesting Himself in fundamental Swabhava, which our bodily distinctions, our social orders are merely an attempt to organise in the symbols of human life, often a confused attempt, often a mere parody and distortion of the divine thing they try to express. Every man has in himself all the four Dharmas, but one predominates, in one he is born and that strikes the note of his character and determines the type and cast of all his actions; the rest subordinated to the dominant type and helps to give it its com- Page-359 plement. No Brahmana is a complete Brahmana unless he has the Kshatratejas in him, the Vaishyashakti and the Shudrashakti, but all these have to serve in him the fullness of his Brahmanyam. God manifests Himself as the four Prajapatis or Manus, catvāro manavah of the Gita, and each man is born in the amśa of one of the four; the first characterised by wisdom and largeness, the second by heroism and force, the third by dexterity and enjoy- ment, the fourth by work and service. The perfected man develops in himself all four capacities and contains at once the god: of wisdom and largeness, the god of heroism and force, the god of skill and enjoyment, the god of work and service. Only one stands dominant and leads and uses the others.
Jñānalipsā,
jñanaprakāśo brahmavarcasyam, sthairyam iti brahmatejah. LIPSA I give only the dominant qualities of the type in these definitions: The Purna Yogin does not reduce his nature to inaction but perfects it and uplifts in order to place it at the service of the Ishwara in His Lila. He accepts the Jnanalipsa and purifying it of desire turns it into a divine reaching out towards Prakasha of knowledge; this divine desireless reaching out of Brahman in personality to Brahman in the vişaya or object, is the new sense which lipsā acquires in the language of the siddha.
JNANAPRAKASHA Jñāna includes both the Para and the Apara Vidya; the knowledge of the Brahman in Himself and the knowledge of the world; but the Yogin, reversing the order of the worldly mind, seeks to know Brahman first and, through Brahman, the world. Scientific knowledge, worldly information and instruction are to him secondary objects, not as it is with the ordinary scholar and scientist, his primary aim. Nevertheless these too we must take into our scope and give room to God’s full joy in the world. The methods of the Yogin are also different for he tends more and Page-360 more to the use of direct vision and the faculties of the Vijnana and less and less to intellectual means. The ordinary man studies object from outside and infers its inner nature from the results, his external study. The Yogin seeks to get inside the object, know it from within and use external study only as a means of confirming his view of the outward action resulting from an already known inner nature.
BRAHMAVARCHASYA Brahmavarcasya is the force of Jnana working from within man, which tends to manifest the divine light, the divine power, the divine qualities in the human being.
Sāhasam is the active courage and daring which shrinks from no enterprise however difficult or perilous, and cannot be dismayed or depressed either by the strength or the success of the opposing forces.
YASHAS By Yaśas is meant victory, success and power. Although the Page-361 Kshatriya must be ready to face and accept defeat, disaster and suffering, yet his objective, the thing towards which he moves, is yaśas. He enters the field to conquer, not to suffer. Suffering is only a means towards victory. Here again the reaching out, the lipsā must come to be free from desire and consist in the divine reaching out of God within to His self-fulfilment as the Kshatriya. Therefore the Kshatriya must manifest in himself the nature of the Brahmin, Jñāna and sthairyam, since without knowledge in some form, desire cannot perish out of the system.
VAISHYASHAKTI
Diinam,
vyayab, kausalam, bhogalipsii iti vaisyasaktib. Dānam and pratidānam are the especial Dharma of the Vaishya; his nature is the nature of the lover who gives and seeks; he pours himself out on the world in order to get back what he has given increased a hundredfold. Vyaya is his capacity to spend freely for this purpose without any mean and self-defeating miserliness in the giving. Kauśalam is the dexterity and skill which is able so to arrange the means, the equipment, the action as to produce the greatest results possible and the best arranged results. Law, arrangement, suiting of means to ends, of expenditure to return, are the joy of the Vaishya. Bhoga is his object; possession and enjoyment, not merely of physical things, but all enjoyment, enjoyment of knowledge, of power, of self-giving, of service, comes within its scope. The Vaishya, purified and Page-362 liberated, becomes the supreme giver and lover and enjoyer, Krishna’s amśa preserving and making the most of the world. He is the Vishnushakti, as the Brahmana is the Shivashakti and the shatriya is the Rudrashakti.
Śakti is the perfection of the different parts of the system which enables them to do their work freely and perfectly.
DEHASHAKTI
The body is the pratisthā in this material universe; for the working out of the divine līlā on earth it is necessary that it should
have
especially the dhāranasāmarthyam or power of sustaining the
full stream of force, of Ananda, of widening knowledge and being which descends
in to mind and prāna and the vital and bodily functions with the
progress of the siddhi. If the body is unfit, the system is unable to
hold these things perfectly. In extreme cases
the physical brain is so disturbed by the shock from
above as
to lead to madness, but this is only in entirely unfit and impure Adharas
or when Kali descends angrily and violently,
avenging the
attempt of the Asura to seize on her and force her to serve his foul and impure
desires. Ordinarily, the incapacity of the body, the nervous system and the
physical brain shows itself in slowness of progress, in slight derangements and
ailments, in unsteady
hold of the siddhi which comes and slips away,
works
and is spilled out. Dharanasamarthya comes by purification of the mind, prāna
and body; full siddhi depends upon full śuddhi. PRANASHAKTI When in the physical sensations we are conscious of a full and steady vital force which is clear and glad and bright and undisturbed by any mental or physical shock, then there is the siddhi of the prāna, the vital or nervous system. Then we become fit for whatever bhoga God imposes on the mind and body.
Snigdhatā, tejahslāghā, kalyānaśraddhā, premasāmarthyam iti cittaśaktih.
Page-364 BUDDHISHAKTI
Visuddhatā,
prakāśah, vicitrabodhah, jñānadhāranasamarthyam buddhiśaktih. Chandibhava
Candībhāvah is the force of Kali manifest in the temperament. (The detailed description of this power is deferred. )
Śraddhā is necessary in two things:
Śaktyām, bhagavati ca iti śraddhā.
Page-365
III.
VIJNANA-CHATUSHTAYA
Siddhis - their justification, dangers and uses: The two first Chatushtayas of the ādhāra have reference mainly to the central principle of man’s existence, the antahkaran; but there is one superior faculty and one inferior instrument which have each its peculiar Siddhi, the vijñāna or supra-intel1ectual faculty and the body. The Siddhi of the vijñāna and the siddhi of the body belong both of them to that range of experience and of divine fulfilment which are abnormal to the present state of humanity. They are called specially Siddhis, because of their abnormal nature, rarity and difficulty; they are denied by the sceptic and discouraged by the saint. The sceptic disbelieves in them and holds them to be impostures, fables or hallucinations, as a clever animal might disbelieve in the reasoning powers of man. The saint discourages them because they seem to him to lead away from God; he shuns them just as he shuns the riches, power and attainments of this world, and for the same reason. We need not shun them and cannot shun them, because God is sought by us in His world-fulfilment as well as apart from the world and in the world there are the riches of His power and knowledge which we cannot avoid, once we dwell in Him perceiving and sharing His nature. Indeed, there is a stage reached by the Yogin, when, unless he avoids all action in the world, he can no more avoid the use of the Siddhis of power and knowledge than an ordinary man can avoid eating and breathing, unless he wishes to leave his body; for these things are the natural action of the vijñāna, the plane of ideal consciousness, to which he is rising, just as mental activity and physical motion are the natural action of man’s ordinary life. All the ancient Rishis used these powers, all great Avatars and Yogins and Vibhutis from Christ to Ramakrishna have used them, nor is there any great man with the divine power at all manifest in him, who does not use them continually in an imperfect form, without knowing clearly what are these supreme faculties that he is employing. If nothing else, he uses the powers of intuition and inspiration, the power of īśitā which brings him the opportunities he needs and Page-366 the
means
which
make these opportunities fruitful and the power
of vyāpti by which his thoughts go darting and flashing through
the
world and creating unexpected waves of tendency both
around him and at a distance. We need no more avoid the of these things than a
poet should avoid the use of his poetcal genius which is also a siddhi unattainable
by ordinary men or artist renounce the use of his pencil. At the same time there
is a justification for the denial of the sceptic and the renunciation the
saint, and
of this justification we must take note. The saint
renounces because when these Siddhis show themselves fragmentarily in a weak ādhāra
dominated by egoism, the egoism becomes
enormously
enhanced, the ignorant sādhaka thinking that
he is the possessor and creator of these abnormal powers and a very
great man indeed, (just as we find an abnormal egoism
very frequent in the small poet and the half-artist, for those who
have a
really great power, know well enough that the power is
not theirs
but a gift from God, and feel that the power of God is using
them and not they the power); so the sādhaka, misled by the ahankāra,
goes running after these powers for their own sake and
leaves following
after God. The denial of the sceptic is justified
by
the credulity of ordinary men, who regard these things miracles
and invent them where they do not exist, and by the
weakness
and egoism of the sādhakas
themselves and of many who are not sādhakas; for if they catch
even a glimpse of these things
in
themselves or others, they exaggerate, puff, distort and build
around some petty and imperfect experiences all sorts of jargon,
mysticism,
charlatanism and bujruki of all kinds which are
an offence and stumbling-block to the world. We must therefore keep in view very
strictly certain fixed principles: 3. That when they manifest in the unpurified state, they are a dangerous ordeal to which God subjects us, and we can only Page-367 pass
through it safely by keeping our minds clear of vanity,
pride, selfishness
and by remembering continually that they are His gifts and not our acquirements. Subject to these cautions, we have not to reject these powers when they come but accept them, to be used in us by God for His own purposes and not by us for ours, to be poured out by vyāpti on humanity and not kept for our own use and pride.
Vijnana
By jñāna is meant that power of direct and divine knowledge which works independently of the intellect and senses or uses them only as subordinate assistants. It perceives the things that are hidden from the ordinary man, helps us to cease seeing the world in the terms of our sense experience and enables us to become sensitive to the great unseen forces, powers, impulses and tendencies which stand behind our material life and deter- mine and govern it. To jñāna the whole machinery of the world reveals itself in its hidden principles; the nature of Purusha, the workings of Prakriti, the principles of our being, God’s purpose in His world-workings, the harmony of His Gunas,- Brahman, Ishwara, Atman, man and beast and object, idea and name and form, reality and relation, all these show themselves to the eye that God has illuminated with the sun of His know- ledge, jñānadīpena bhāsvatā.
Vrtte tu karmalni ca satyadharma eva jñānam. Page-368 Jnana is of three kinds, jñāna of thought, jñāna of experience (realisation or pratibodha) and jñāna of action or satyadharma. Jnana of thought consists of three powers: 1. Drsti, revelation or svayamprakāsa. 2. Śruti, inspiration. 3. Smrti, consisting of: 1. Intuition. 2. Viveka.
Drsti is the faculty by which the ancient Rishis saw the of Veda, the direct vision of the truth without the need of observation of the object, reasoning, evidence, imagination, memory or any other of the faculties of the intellect. It is as when man sees an object and knows what it is, even if sometimes he mot put a name on it; it is pratyaksadarśana of the Satyam.
SHRUTI Śruti is the faculty by which we perceive as in a flash the truth hidden in a form of thought or an object presented to our knowledge or in the word by which the thing is revealed. It is that faculty by which the meaning of the mantra dawns on the mind or , the being of the sādhaka, although when he first heard it, he Id not know its meaning nor was it explained to him. It is as when a man hears the name of a thing and by the name itself, without seeing the thing, comes to know its nature. A special power of śruti is the revelation of truth through the right and perfect vāk in the thought.
Smrti
is
the faculty by which true knowledge hidden in the mind reveals itself to the
judgment and is recognised at once as the truth. It is as when a man has
forgotten something he knew to be the fact, but remembers it the moment it is
mentioned to him. INTUITION
AND VIVEKA Intuition is the power which distinguishes the truth and suggests at once the right reasons for its being the truth; viveka the power which makes at once the necessary limitations and Page-369 distinctions and prevents intellectual errors from creeping in or an imperfect truth from being taken for the whole satyam. The importance of viveka for the purpose of man’s progress in his present stage is supreme. At present in the greatest men the powers of the vijñāna act not in their own power, place and nature, but in the intellect; as helpers of the intellect and occasional guides. Directly we get an intuition or revelation, the intellect, memory, imagination, logical faculty seize hold of it and begin to disguise it in a garb of mingled truth and error, bringing down truth to the level of the nature, Samskaras and preferences of a man instead of purifying and elevating his nature and judgments to the level of the truth. Without viveka, these powers are as dangerous to man as they are helpful. The light they give is brighter than the light of the intellect, but the shadow which the intellect creates around them is often murkier than the mist of ignorance which surrounds ordinary intellectual knowledge. Thus men who use these powers ignorantly, often stumble much more than those who walk by the clear though limited light of the intellect. When these powers begin to work in us, we must be dhira and sthira and not be led away by our enthusiasm; we must give time for the viveka to seize on our thoughts and intuitions, arrange them, separate their intellectual from their vijñānamaya elements, correct their false extensions, false limitations, misapplications and assign them their right application, right extension, right limitation, - make, in the image of the Upanishads, the vyūha or just marshalling of the rays of the sun of knowledge, sūryasya raśmayah. Knowledge is not for the hasty mind but only for the dhira, who can sit long accumulating and arranging: his store and does not rush away with fragments like a crow darting off with the first morsel of food on which it can seize.
Realisation or jñāna of experience is the perception of things through bhāva, - bhāva of being or Sat, realising the truths of being, - bhāva of Chit or knowledge, realising the truths of throught, bhāva of Tapas or force, realising the truths of force and action, - bhāva of love or Ananda realising the truths of emotion and sensation and bliss. Page-370 SATYADHARMA Satyadharma is the carrying out of the jñāna in bhāva and action.
Trikāladrşţi is a special faculty of jñāna by which that general power is applied to the actuality of things, their details of event, tendencies etc. in the past, present and future of the world as it exists, has existed and will exist in Time. It deals with particular facts just as jñāna deals with general truth. Trikāladrşti works in several ways:
1. Directly, without a means or
excuse, by dŗşţi, śruti and smŗti. 3. By using as a means some external sign or some indicative Jence such as sāmudrika, astrology, augury etc. These sciences are worth little, if not used by the higher vijñāmaya faculties; for the signs they use are mostly indications of tendencies and to distinguish perfectly tendencies of possibility from actual eventualities cannot be done by following written Shastra or by rule of thumb. 4. By the two powers of vyāpti and prākāmya which constitute what the Europeans call telepathy. Ashtasiddhi Vyāptih, prākāmyam, aiśvaryam, īśitā, vaśitā, mahimā,
laghimā, animā iti astasiddhih. Aşţasiddhi is of three orders: 1. Two Siddhis of knowledge, - vyāpti and prākāmya. 2. Three Siddhis of power, - aiśvarya, īsitā, vaśitā. 3. Three Siddhis of the body, - mahimā, laghimā, animā. Page-371 PRAKAMYA
By prakāmya is meant the full prakāsa of the senses and
the 2. Of objects, scenes and events belonging to other planes of existence. 3. Of objects, etc. belonging to the past or future the images of which are contained in the object of our study. 4. Of the present states of mind, feeling, sensation etc. of others or of their particular thoughts, feelings and sensations; or of such states or particular thoughts etc. which they have had in the past and of which the impression remains in the Chitta record or which they will have in the future of which the image is already prepared in the prescient part of the Chitta.
To each form of prākāmya, there is a corresponding form of vyāpti, i.e., reception or communication. By prākāmya, for instance, we can have the perception of another’s feelings; by vyāpti those feelings are felt striking- in our own consciousness or ours are thrown into another. Prākāmya is the sight of one looking from a distance and seeing an object; vyāpti is the sensation of that object coming towards us or into contact with us. It is possible by vyāpti to communicate anything we have in our system, - thought, feeling, power etc. to another, and if he is able to seize and hold it, he can make it his own and use it. This can be done either by a sort of physical throwing of the thing in us into the other or by a will upon the Swabhava compelling it to effect the transfer. The teacher and the Guru habitually use this power of vyāpti which is far more effective than speech or writing, but all men use or suffer it unconsciously. For every thought, feeling, sensation or other movement of consciousness in us creates a wave or current which carries it out into the world- consciousness around, and there it enters into any Adhara which is able and allowed to receive it. Half at least of our habitual Page-372 thoughts and feelings are such unconscious borrowings.
Aiśvarya is effectiveness of the Will acting on object or event without the aid of physical means. It may work
1. By pressure or tapas of the caitanya straight on the object
that has to be affected.
4. Without pressure, by mere thought that is will, the ājñā
The last is the highest power of Aishwarya and its supreme sddhi for here cit and tapas become one as in the win of God himself. ISHITA Iśitā is the same effectiveness of the will acting not as a command or through the thought, by ājñānam, but through the heart temperament (citta) in a perception of need or pure lipsā. Whatever the lipsā reaches out towards or even needs without conscious knowledge of the need, comes of itself to the man who possesses Ishita. Ishita also expresses itself either by pressure on the object or Prakriti or by simple perception automatically effective of its aim. The last is again the highest power of Ishita and its supreme Siddhi.
Vaśitā is
the control of the object in its nature so that it submissive to the spoken
word, receptive of the thought conveyed
or
sensitive and effective of the action suggested. Page-373 The Conditions of Power It should be noted that none of the Siddhis of power can act perfectly or freely so long as there is impurity of the citta, egoism in the thought and temperament or domination of desire in the use of the Siddhi. Under such circumstances there may be occasional use and irregular effectivity of the powers, - a thing not worth having in itself, but useful only as training the mind to give up its own Samskaras and habitual processes and accept the activity of the vijñānamayī śakti; or there may be a regular and effective use of limited powers by fixed Tantric processes (Kriyas). The latter should be shunned by the sādhakas of the Purna Yoga.
It should also be noted that perfect jñāna and trikāladrsti
are only possible by complete śuddhi of the antahkarana, especially
the exclusion of desire and visuddhi of the buddhi, absolute
passivity of the manas, and, finally, perfected action of the powers of
the vijñāna. An imperfect and irregular action of these higher
powers is always possible and is possessed obscurely by many who are not Yogins
or Sadhakas.
PHYSICAL
SIDDHIS The physical powers, mahmā, laghimā, animā, need not be considered at present, as, although belonging to the Dharma of the vijñāna, they act in the body and are strictly part of the physical Siddhi.
Samadhi is the power by dwelling fixedly of the caitanya on its object to extend the range of knowledge and consciousness through all the three states of waking, dream and sleep, to the realisation of those tattvas of the Brahman to which the ordinary waking consciousness is blind and to the experience, either in reflected images or in the things themselves, of other worlds and planes of consciousness than the material earth or this waking physical consciousness. The consideration of samādhi may also be postponed for the present. Page-374 IV.
SHARIRA-CHATUSHTAYA Sharirasiddhi Theśarīra-catu~taya, likewise, need not be at present explained. Its four constituents are named below:
Ārogyam, utthāpanā, saundaryam, vividhānandah iti śarīracatustayam. These are the four Chatushtayas of the ādhāra-siddhi. In addition, there are three general Chatushtayas-
VI.BRAHMACHATUSHTAYA Sarvam,
anantam, jñānam, ānandam, brahma iti brahmacatustayam. VII.
YOGACHATUSHTAYA OR SANSIDDHICHATUSHTAYA The last or seventh is at once the means, the sum and the completion of all the rest. Its explanation is essential to the full understanding of the others and will be separately treated. Page-375 |
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