Function Disabled

Πέμπτη 30 Νοεμβρίου 2017

MEN IN TIME, ABOVE TIME AND AGAINST TIME

Priestess Savitri Devi (30 September 1905 – 22 October 1982) was Mrs Maximiani Portas, Greek-English origin and citizen of India.

Excerpt from the Book  “The Lightning and the Sun”

MEN IN TIME, ABOVE TIME AND AGAINST TIME  

All men, inasmuch as they are not liberated from the bondage of Time follow the downward path of history, whether they know it or not, and whether they like it or not.

Few indeed thoroughly like it, even at our epoch, — let alone in happier ages, when people read less and thought more. Few follow it unhesitatingly, without throwing, sometime or other, a sad glance towards the distant lost paradise into which they know, in their deeper consciousness, that they are never to enter; the paradise of Perfection in time — a thing so remote that the earliest people of whom we know remembered it only as a dream. Yet, they follow the fatal way. They obey their destiny.

That resigned submission to the terrible law of decay — that acceptation of the bondage of Time by creatures who dimly feel that they could be free from it, but who find it too hard to try to free themselves; who know before hand that they would never succeed, even if they did try, — is at the bottom of that incurable unhappiness of man, deplored again and again in the Greek tragedies, and long before these were written. Man is unhappy because he knows, because he feels — in general — that the world in which he lives and of which he is a part, is not what it should be, what it could be, what, in fact, it was at the dawn of Time, before decay set in and before violence became unavoidable. He cannot whole-heartedly accept that world as his — specially not accept the fact that it is going from bad to worse, — and be glad. However much he may try to be a “realist” and snatch from destiny whatever he can, when he can, still an invincible yearning for the better remains at the bottom of his heart. He cannot — in general — will the world as it is.

But few people — as rare as the liberated ones, for whom Time does not exist, and perhaps rarer, — can and do; and act up to that will. These are the most thorough, the most mercilessly effective agents of the Death-forces on earth: — supremely intelligent, and sometimes extraordinarily farsighted; always unscrupulous to the utmost; working without hesitation and without remorse in the sense of the downward process of history and, (whether they can see or not as far as that) for its logical conclusion: the annihilation of man and of all life.

Naturally, they do not always see as far as that. But when they do, still they do not care. Since the Law of: Time is what it is, and since the end must come, it is just as well that they should draw all the profit they possibly can from the process that is, anyhow, sooner or later, to bring about the end.

Since no one can re-create the primeaval lost Paradise — no one but the wheel of Time itself, after it has rolled its full course — then it is just as well that they, who can completely forget the distant vision, or who never had a glimpse of its dying glow; they, who can stifle in themselves the age-old yearning for Perfection, or rather, who never experienced it; it is just as well that they, I say, should squeeze out of the fleeing moment (whether minutes or years, it matters little) all the intense, immediate enjoyment they can, until the hour copses when they must die. It is just as well that they should leave their stamp upon the world — force generations to remember them, — until the hour comes for the world to die. So they feel. It makes little difference what suffering they might cause to men or other living creatures, by acting as they do. Both men and creatures are bound to suffer, anyhow. Just as well through them as through others, if that can forward the aims of these people.


The aims of these people — of the men within Time, par excellence, — are always selfish aims, even when, owing to their material magnitude and historical importance, they transcend immeasurably any one man’s life, as they actually do, sometimes. For selfishness, — the claim of the “part” to more place and to more meaning than is naturally allotted to it within the whole, — is the very root of disintegration, and therefore a characteristic inseparable from Time. One can practically say that, more a person is thoroughly, remorselessly selfish, more he or she lives “in Time.”

But, as we have said, that selfishness is manifested in many different ways. It can find expression in that mere lust for personal enjoyment, which characterises the shameless voluptuary; or in the miser’s insatiable greed for gold; or in the individual ambition of the seeker of honours and position; or in the family ambition of the man who is ready to sacrifice every interest in the world to the welfare and happiness of his wife and children. But it can also be brought out in the exaltation of a man’s tribe or country above all others, not because of its inherent worth in the natural hierarchy of Life, but just because it happens to be the tribe or country of that particular man. It can be, nay, and often is, brought out in the undue exaltation of all human beings, however debased, above all the rest of living creation, however healthy and beautiful — the passion which underlies the age-old tyranny of “man” over Nature; the “love of man” not in harmony with the Godordained duties and rights of each and every species (as of every race and of every individual) according to its place, but in a spirit of mere solidarity with one’s kith and kin, good or bad, worthy or unworthy, solely because they are one’s own. Men “in Time” only know what is “their own” and what is not, and they love themselves in whatever is theirs.


As there are men “in Time,” so there are, also, philosophies and religions — “ideologies” — “in Time”; false religions, all of them, for true religion can only be above time. Such doctrines are more and more numerous, more and more varied, and more and more popular as the world proceeds nearer to the end of every historical Cycle. There was an epoch when they did not exist; an epoch in which a man “in Time” was necessarily against all professed doctrines. To-day, nearly all interpretations of age-old, true religions, and nearly all the “isms” that have replaced religions, are of the type “in Time.” Their function within the scheme of things, at this stage of world-history, is just to deceive the well-meaning weaklings and fools — the hesitating people, who want an excuse, a justification for living “in” Time without the unpleasant feeling of a guilty conscience, and who cannot find one for themselves. These are only too glad to catch hold of a philosophy loudly professing to be unselfish, which allows them, nay, encourages them, to work under its cover for their selfish ends.

The ones who use a really unselfish doctrine, — an originally “timeless” philosophy, — for that purpose, lie all the more shamelessly to themselves and to others. And, by doing so, they help in reality to forward the great tendency of history: to hasten the decay which leads to the great End and, beyond — to the following new Beginning.


But the actual, typical men “within Time” need no justifying ideology in order to act. Their thoroughly selfish attitude is, in all its glaring shamelessness, far more beautiful than that growing tendency of the tiny men to slip down the path to perdition while hanging unto some “noble” ends such as “liberty, equality, fraternity” or “the rights of international proletariate,” or unto some misunderstood religion. Whatever they may tell the people whom they wish to deceive, — whom they have to deceive, in order to succeed, — the real men “in Time” never deceive themselves. They know what they truly want. And they know the way to get it. And they do not care what it costs to others or to themselves. And, specially, they do not, at the same time, want anything else, which is incompatible with their aims.
And so, — whether on an ordinary scale, like the consistent voluptuary or the single purposed miser, or on a nation-wide or continentwide scale, like those who stir millions and sacrifice millions of people, that they might impose their own will, — they act, in a way, as gods would act.
And, both in the grandeur of their achievements and in the beauty of the first-rate qualities of character which they put to the service of their purpose, a few of them really have something god-like — as, for instance, that greatest conqueror of all times, whose extraordinary career forms the subject-matter of a part of this book: Genghis-Khan. They possess the awful splendour of the great devastating forces of Nature; of the roaring sea, rolling out of its bed over the land; of a lava stream, burning its way through all obstacles; of the lightning, that men used to worship, when they still understood what is divine.


Naturally, this can be said only of those men whose action exceeds, by its very magnitude, the limits of what is “personal.” It is difficult to imagine any mere seeker of physical pleasure, or even of individual riches, attaining such a grim, god-like greatness. The importance of the men “in Time,” as such, depends upon the nature of their action itself and upon the breadth of the surroundings which it influences, no less if not more than upon the way in which, and the one-sided, cynically selfish purpose for which, they act.
And this is understandable, for reasons other than the sheer aesthetic impression which the true story of a mighty life can leave upon the reader or the bystander. It is the consequence of the fact that, like the great forces of Nature which we mentioned, real men “in Time” are blind powers, serving unknowingly the purpose of the Cosmos. The same is true, of course, of the petty seekers after small profits, in their limited sphere of activity. They too are blind powers of destruction. But small ones, at our scale at least. We experience the awe of the Divine in presence of the big ones only — as we do, for instance, before a storm upon the Ocean, while the sight of a pool of water disturbed by the wind leaves us indifferent.
When the ends, — however petty and personal in themselves, — are masterfully served through such action as stirs the whole world; when, in order to attain them, a man “in Time” displays, upon the international stage, superhuman qualities worthy of much higher ends, then, one feels one’s self in presence not of a man “in Time” but of the divine Destroyer — Mahakala;

Time Itself, — everlastingly rushing the Thing that seems to annihilation followed by new birth and then again by further decay and annihilation.

The man “in Time” can have any aim, with the exception of a disinterested one (which would at once raise him “above Time”). He himself is always like a blind force of destructive Nature. (That is the reason why so many thoroughly “bad” characters in literature and in the theatre are so attractive, in their forceful evil.) He has no ideology. Or rather, his ideology is himself, separated from the divine Whole — i.e., it is the disintegration of the Whole (of the universe) for the benefit of himself, and, ultimately, the destruction of himself also, although he does not know it or does not care. And that is the case in every instance. But under certain conditions, when his action takes, in human history, the permanent importance that a great geological cataclysm has in the history of the earth, then, as I said, the man “in Time” disappears from our sight, and in his, place — but still bearing his features, — appears, in all His dramatic majesty, Mahakala, the eternal Destroyer. It is Him Whom we adore in the great lightning individuals such as Genghis Khan — Him; not them. They are only the clay images inhabited by Him for a few brief years. And just as the clay image hides and suggests the invisible God or Goddess — Power everlasting — so does their selfishness both hide and reveal the impersonal purposefulness of Life; the destructive phase of the divine Play, in which already lies the promise of the new dawn to come. And just as volcanic convulsions or invading sea-tides prepare, in the course of centuries, a new growth, in a re-shaped physical universe, so do the great men “in Time” bring us nearer the liberating end and thereby prepare the way for the next glorious Beginning. “Scourges of God,” in a way, they are also blessings in disguise. Far better their frank, brutal destructiveness for selfish ends than the silly patch-work of the ordinary well-meaning people who try to “do good” in this fallen world, without having the courage to strike and burn and tear; who have only “constructive” schemes — all useless! For destruction and creation are for ever linked. That is why we adore the Lightning as well as the Sun, and are overwhelmed by a feeling of sacred awe at the thought of the grand-scale exterminators without ideologies, human likenesses of great Mahakala.


But there are also men “outside Time” or rather “above Time”; men who live, here and now, in eternity; who (directly at least) have no part to play in the downward rush of history towards disintegration and death, but who behold it from above — as one beholds, from a strong and safe bridge, the irresistible rush of a waterfall into the abyss — and who have repudiated the law of violence which is the law of Time.
Of such men, most live a very special life, away from the world; a life of which the whole inner discipline, spiritual, moral and physical, is systematically devised to keep them in constant union with the great Reality beyond Time: the Thing that is, as opposed to the Thing that seems. They are the real ascetics (in the etymological sense of the word: those who have “trained” themselves to live in eternity). Others — far rarer — live in eternity without a particular “training,” even while living, outwardly, the life of the world; while being husbands and wives, parents and educators of children, manual or intellectual labourers, citizens, soldiers, rulers, etc.
Of those who live “outside” or “above” Time, some are saviours.
Others just leave things and people go their way, feeling that they are not called to intervene in anyone’s destiny and knowing that, in the course of centuries, all souls that care to be saved will, anyhow, evolve towards the timeless life of the saints. The distinction between these two types of “liberated” people corresponds, in Buddhist terminology, to that between the Bodhisattvas and the Arhats. Both these are free beings, outside the law of birth and rebirth — the bondage of Time. But, while the Arhat remains completely aloof from the fallen world, the Bodhisattva is born over and over again, of his own free will, in order to help living creatures to work themselves out of the ocean of life within Time.
But the salvation which the men “above Time” offer the world is always that which consists in breaking the time-bondage. It is never that which would find its expression in collective life on earth in accordance with Golden Age ideals. It is the salvation of the individual soul, never that of organised society. For the men “above Time” know fully well that that cannot be saved before the beginning of a new Time-cycle — specially not by peaceful preaching or even edifying examples. And even when they do, to some extent, try to bring a certain amount of organisation into being among a restricted number of disciples, — in monastic communities, for instance, — they know that, however saintly it be, the community as such is bound to degenerate sooner or later. The Buddha foretold the corruption of his sangha “after five hundred years.”
It is true that some — though extremely few — men, of those whom we have characterised as “above Time,” have been (or have tried to be) reformers in the worldly sense, by non-violent means. But none of them were “saviours” of society, really speaking. The saviours in the worldly sense of the word — those who set out to perfect not merely men’s souls but men’s collective life and government, and international relations — are what we call men “against Time.” And they are necessarily violent, although not always physically so. They may be, — in fact, they should be, — personally free from the bondage of. Time, if they are to act with the maximum of foresight and efficiency. But they have to take into consideration the conditions of action “within Time” to live “in” Time, also, in a way. The others — the men “above Time” who appear to have been reformers — have not really tried to remould the world according to their understanding of eternal truth (otherwise, they would not have remained non-violent). What they did was to live in the world their own timeless philosophy. And to the extent that they occupied a position of importance — like that most remarkable of them all, Akhnaton, King of Egypt, who was in his days the most powerful man on earth — their lives could not but have a repercussion upon those of their contemporaries.
It might seem strange that the Founder of a State-religion — for the cult of the “Heat-and-Light-within-the-Disk” was that, undoubtedly — should not be counted among the “saviours” of the world, but rather among those extremely rare men “above Time” who have lived the life of this earth while stubbornly remaining foreign to this earth’s grim realities. But appearances are deceptful. And we shall see, further on, in examining the nature of the much misunderstood Cult of the Disk and the life of King Akhnaton, its Promoter, that this view is the right one.

The most distinctive trait of the men “outside” or “above” Time, as opposed to those who live “in” Time or “against” Time, is perhaps their consistent refusal to use violence even in order to forward the most righteous cause. Not that they are at all squeamish about violence, like the weaklings, neither  good nor bad, who compose ninety per cent of mankind at our epoch. They could not possibly disapprove of the warrior-like ideal of detached, selfless violence preached by Lord Krishna — the divine Preserver of the Universe, Himself — in the Bhagavad-Gita; for that ideal is in harmony with everlasting truth, which any man who has transcended Time is bound to acknowledge. Only they are not Kshattriyas by nature, whatever be their race, their social position, their inherited responsibilities; they are not men of action, by nature, let alone fighters. Their action, like that of the Sun, lies essentially in their personal radiation of power, beauty and goodness. What they do is, of course, the integral reflexion of what they are, nothing more; nothing different; nothing which is foreign to them, for they are fully conscious of their being. And if they have any substantial influence at all, it is, like that of the Sun, an influence from above and from afar, characterised by its absolute impartiality, its indiscriminate and impersonal goodness.

They do nothing to compell others — nothing, at least, beyond certain limits, even if they live in the world. They know they cannot force the evolution of things, nor suppress the part played by Time in the lives of those who are still submitted to its iron law. Again, like the Sun, they shine. If the seed is alive, it will ripen sooner or later, never mind when, Violence would only help to produce an artificial growth. And if the seed be dead? Let it be!
There are new seeds; new creations, for ever and ever. The people who live in eternity can wait.

We have said: those who remain “above Time” do not resort to violence. This does not mean that all men who abstain from violence are necessarily liberated souls, living “above Time.” First, an immense number of cowards are non-violent for fear of taking risks. And they are- anything but free from the bondage of Time. Then, that which one often takes for non-violence, — that which actually goes under that name, — is, in reality, but a subtler form of violence: pressure upon other people’s feelings, more oppressive and — when one knows, in each case, what feelings to appeal to, many a time more effective than pressure upon their bodies. Late Mahatma Gandhi’s much admired “non-violence” was of that type: moral violence; not: “Do this, or else I kill you!”, but: “Do this, or else I kill myself!” Knowing that you hold my life as indispensable. It may look “nobler.” In fact, it is just the same — apart from the difference in the technique of pressure. It is, rather, less “noble” because, precisely on account of that subtler technique, it leads people to, believe that it is not violence, and therefore contains an element of deceit, an inherent falsehood, from which ordinary violence is free.
Late Mahatma Gandhi was by no means what we have tried to define as a man “above time.” He was what we shall call a man “against Time,” aiming now — far too late or... a little too soon, — at the establishment of a tangible order of justice (Ram raj) on this earth. But, inasmuch as it lacks the frankness of brutal force, his so-called “non-violence” — moral violence — is characteristic of our epoch of dishonesty (however honest and sincere he might have been himself.) It is, perhaps, the first instance in history of a disguised form of violence applied, on a broad scale, in a struggle for a good purpose. Its popularity in India can partly be credited to the fact that it was, or seemed to be, the only practical weapon in the hands of totally disarmed and, to a great extent, naturally apathetic people. But it enjoyed abroad, also, a tremendous publicity, quite out of proportion with its real value (and late Mahatma Gandhi’s tremendous reputation of “holiness” is no less out of proportion with his real place among the great men of India). The foreigners who have done the most to popularise it are people typical of our degenerate age: people who recoil at the mere thought of any healthy and frank display of force, but who cannot even detect moral violence; men and women (especially women) of the Western Democracies, the most hypocritical half of the world. It appealed to them precisely to the extent that it was violence in disguise. Even English people (some of whom had lived in India; some of whom had, nay, occupied a high position within the ranks of British colonial officialdom) could not help admiring it. It was not that hated brutal force which other great men “against Time” had used in, the course of history (or were using at our epoch) to bring about an age of justice. Oh, no!
But it surely was not, either, the non-violence of the men “above Time” who, if they cared at all to take an occasional stand against the unavoidable fall of mankind, would either use no real pressure at all to enforce their good laws — and fail, from a worldly point of view, as King Akhnaton did, — or else, exert “against Time” any amount of violence that might be necessary, in the spirit of the God Who speaks, in the Bhagavad-Gita, to the Fighter for a just cause (provided the latter happens to be, like Arjuna, a Kshattriya, i.e., a warrior by race and by nature).

The men who remain “above Time” seem to be those who have the least influence of all upon the course of events in this world. And that too is to be expected in a world which is sinking deeper and deeper every day into the abyss. In the Age of Truth, and even in later ages pictured in the sacred books of India, the men “above Time” — the true Brahmins, in union with eternal Reality — were the natural and actual counsellors of kings; genuine spiritual authority then backed legitimate temporal power. But as the temporal order on earth became more and more unlike the ideal heavenly Order, kings were less and less inclined to act according to the commands of an increasingly rare timeless wisdom. And what is true of kings is, also, here, true of commoners. As a result, men “outside Time” or “above Time” enjoy less and less authority as the world proceeds towards the end of every Time-cycle. Even when, — like King Akhnaton — they themselves happen to be rulers endowed with absolute power, their lives do not — cannot — in what the Hindus call the “Kali Yuga,” leave upon the sands of time the trace which they normally should.
Moreover, sometimes, — and that, even if they be ascetics, apparently separated from the world, — men “above Time” can, like the Sun, with which we have constantly compared them, be destructive, indirectly. Their light, indiscriminately shed upon the righteous and the unrighteous, can have the most varied and unexpected effects amidst a humanity evolving from bad to worse. One can think of the destructiveness of King Akhnaton’s “Golden Age” attitude to international affairs, viewed from the Egyptian side. One can think also of the true religions, conceived by such men “above Time” as were not in possession of temporal power, and then distorted by clever people who lived, most of them, entirely “within Time,” and used by them in the service of the most selfish, the most destructive of all worldly ends. It is, naturally, “not the fault” of the men “above Time” — any more than it would be “the fault” of the Sun, if, in some land where the heat of the sun-rays is unbearable, a man were to tie his enemy to a pillar in a shadeless place and leave him to die there. Truly speaking, it is not “the fault” of the men “within Time” either. It is a consequence of the law of general decay, inseparable from life in time: as the world becomes less and less capable of penetrating their eternal meaning, even the best things are misunderstood, and, either hated and rejected or else put to some criminal use.

Exiles of the Golden Age in our Age of Gloom, the men “above Time” either live entirely within their own inner world, or else live and act in this one also, but as though it were still in its Golden Age. They either renounce this world or ignore it — or, better, forget it, as a man forgets the scars of sin and sickness upon a once beautiful face, which he still loves, in spite of all. They see the everlasting and unchangeable behind the downward rush of the stream of time; the Thing that is, behind the thing that seems.
Even when they live in the world of forms, colours and sounds as earnestly and intensely as King Akhnaton — that supreme artist — did, still those impressions take on, for them, a meaning entirely different from that which they retain in the consciousness of people submitted to the bondage of Time. Men “above Time” enjoy with detachment, as people who know they will never die. They also suffer with detachment, being constantly aware of their blissful real Self, which is beyond pleasure and pain.
And the fallen world can never understand them, i.e. know them, any more than they can understand the fall of man, in which they have no part, as others, who share it, can, and do. And yet, untiringly, — like the Sun, far away and omnipresent — they shed their light; that light which is, in our growing gloom, like a glimpse of all the past and future dawns.

But, as we have said, there are also people with a Golden Age outlook, — fully aware of what a splendid place this world could be, materially and otherwise, — who can, however, neither renounce life “as it is” nor ignore it; people who, in addition to that, are endowed with what the Hindus would call a “Kshattriya” nature: born fighters, for whom difficulties exist only to be overcome, and for whom the impossible has a strange fascination. These are the men “against Time,” — absolutely sincere, selfless idealists, believers in those eternal values that the fallen world has rejected, and ready, in order to reassert them on the material plane, to resort to any mea within their reach. As a consequence of the law of Time, those means are necessarily all the more drastic and all the more brutal as every historical Cycle draws nearer to its end. The last Man “against Time” is, in fact, no other than He Whose name, in Sanskrit Tradition, is Kalki, — the last Incarnation of the divine Sustainer of the universe and, at the same time, the Destroyer of the whole world; the Saviour Who will put an end to this present “yuga” in a formidable display of unparalleled violence, in order that a new creation may flourish in the innocence and splendour of a new “Age of Truth.”

Men “outside Time” or “above Time,” at the most saviours of souls, have, more often than not, disciples who are definitely men “against Time.” (Sometimes even men “in Time”; but we do not speak of these, for they are mere exploiters of religions or ideologies for selfish ends, not sincere disciples of saints.) The true disciples — and, in some rare instances, the Masters themselves — who are “against Time,” thorough organisers, unscrupulous propagandists and ruthless fighters, are the actual founders of most of, if not all, the great Churches of the world, even when the religions preached by those Churches are doctrines originally “above Time,” as they generally are. And this is unavoidable inasmuch as a Church is always or nearly always, not only itself a material organisation, but an organization which aims at regulating the lives of thousands, when not millions, of people in this world — in Time. Apparently, the one exception to that law is Buddhism, the only important international religion which has conquered over half a mighty continent without the help of men “against Time” and without the use of violence; the one in the name of which persecution of other faiths was never carried on but twice in the whole course of history, — and that, by men “in Time,” and for reasons decidedly political, not religious.
But then, we must remember that this creed is, more than any other, dominated by the yearning to escape the bondage of Time, and that it is, in fact, not intended at all for life in Time. A person who accepts its postulates cannot possibly think of a better world, except if it be “outside” or “above Time.” But, as a result of this, there is perhaps a more shocking disparity between the high ideals of the religion and the life of the faithful in Buddhist countries than anywhere else. The religions that have spread and maintained themselves partly through violence, have had, in spite of many shortcomings, and of less high moral standards, a greater practical influence upon the lives of their followers as a whole, strange as this may appear.
One does not always realise this clearly enough, when one criticizes the great active disciples for being inconsistent with “the spirit” of their contemplative masters. One does not realise that, without the ruthless passion of those men, the organisations that have, one must admit, kept to some extent “the spirit” alive, would just not exist, in, many places where they still flourish, and that many “spiritual treasures,” that one values so much, would be lost to the world. If one really values those “treasures,” one should not find fault with the men “against Time” or, more often than not, “in Time,” who recoiled from nothing so that they might be put, and kept, within man’s reach. Without the brutal methods of Charlemagne, the Saxonslayer, so obviously anything but “Christ-like,” the Germans would perhaps, to this day, have remained attached to their old gods; so would have the Norwegians, without the drastic sort of evangelisation imposed upon them by King Olaf Tryggvason. Without the equally sincere, equally fanatical, and even more brutal activities of many men “against” or “in” Time, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, half Goa, and the whole of Mexico and Peru would probably not be, to-day, professing the Christian faith.

Christianity owes a lot to men “against Time” — and perhaps still more to men “in Time.” We, who are not Christians, may — and do, — deplore it. We are aware of the fact that many spiritual treasures other than those contained in the Gospels — the truths contained in the old European Paganisms, or long preserved in the solar cults of Central and Southern America; treasures of which, to-day, one knows much too little, — were lost to the world precisely through the impersonal zeal of religious-minded men, by nature “against Time” (or through the wanton destructiveness of men “in Time”) such as those we have mentioned. But we believe that, wherever such losses were suffered, there was something wrong not with the forgotten truth (which is eternal) but with the people who should have managed to stand for it against the new and hostile doctrine; we believe, in fact, that there were not enough men “against Time” among those people — not enough persons in whose Eyes the now lost teachings were, then, sufficiently alive to be made a basis for the organisation of human society against the growing current of decay; not enough who, in order to defend them on those grounds, were prepared to be as ruthless and as perseverant as the Christians were in order to destroy them.

The relation between the Master, permanently “above Time,” and the ardent realist “against Time” — builder and defender of all militant Churches — who happens to be his disciple, has never been so perfectly pictured as in the words addressed to the Christ by the grand Inquisitor, in Dostoyevsky’s famous episode of “The Karamazov brothers.” “Thou hast resisted the three temptations of the Devil” — refused the means to rule, offered to Thee by the! One who knows men and time, better than any other. “Thou hast refused to turn stones into bread” — to give the multitudes material goods; “Thou hast refused to throw Thyself from the height of the Temple” — to give the people astonishment and awe; “Thou hast refused to bow down to Me — the Master of lies; the Master of Time — to live “in Time,” to some extent at least. “As a result, the people have drifted away from Thy teaching and from Thyself, and Thou canst not save them. It is we” — we the unscrupulous, we, the violent, the men who stop at nothing to make the truth they love a reality in this world — “it is we, I say, who save them, in Thy stead, by doing all that which Thou hast refused to do and therefore by damning ourselves in Thine eyes. And we accept that damnation for the love of Thee — for Thy name to be praised.”
This is the substance of the Inquisitor’s discourse, if not its textual wording. And the militant champion of the organised creed tells the Christ: “Do not come back! — do not destroy the work that we are doing in this fallen world, for Thy glory!”
For no organisation can live “outside Time” — “above Time” — and hope to bring men back, one day, to the knowledge of the eternal, values.
That, all men “above Time” have realised. In order to establish, or even to try to establish, here and now, a better order, in accordance with Truth everlasting, one has to live, outwardly at least, like those who are still “in Time”; likes them, one has to be violent, merciless, destructive — but for different ends. Therein lies the tragedy of bringing into reality any dream of perfection. And the more perfect the dream — the further away from the conditions of success in this fallen world, — the more ruthless must necessarily be the methods of those who sincerely wish to impose it upon men, too late or... too early.

Knowing this, the real men “above Time” are the first ones to understand and to appreciate the whole hearted efforts of their disciples “against Time,” however “awful” these ‘night appear to ordinary people neither good nor bad. The Christ, in Dostoyevsky’s famous page, says nothing. What could he say? There is nothing to be said which the leader of the militant Church could understand. To the Inquisitor, the Christ will always remain a mystery. But the Christ understands the Inquisitor and values his love. Before leaving the prison-cell — and the world of Time — he kisses him.

As we have pointed out above, no man “outside Time” can enjoy any real influence upon human society unless he has such disciples, or unless he is himself prepared to become, also, a man “against Time.” For it is a fact that one can be both “above Time,” in one’s personal outlook, and “against Time” in one’s activity in the world. All the really great creative men “against Time” possess these two aspects: they are men of vision aware of timeless truths; but they are, also, men who have been stirred to the depth by the glaring contrast between the ideal world, built according to those truths, and the actual world in which they live; men who, after what they have seen and experienced, can neither remain any longer cut off from time, in their own inner paradise, nor act in life as though all were well, but who must devote their whole life and energy to the reshaping of tangible reality on the model of their vision of Truth. One such Man is the warrior-like Adolf Hitler — whose unparalleled greatness is yet unrecognised, because his follow lost a war instead of winning it — is the tragic and beautiful figure that dominates the history of the West in our own times.

I have compared men “in Time” to the Lightning, and men “outside Time” or “above Time” to the Sun. Using the same metaphorical language, one can say that men “against Time” partake both of the Sun and of the Lightning, inasmuch as they are truly inspired by Golden Age ideals, rooted in timeless Truth, and as, — precisely in order to be able to stand for such ideals on the material plane, in the Age of Gloom, against the current of Time — they are compelled to display all the practical qualities of the men “in Time”; inasmuch as the only difference between them and the latter lies not in their methods (which are the same, and cannot but be so) but in their selfless, impersonal ends.

They serve those ends with merciless realism but, to the extent they are “above Time” also, with the detachment preached to the warrior in the Bhagavad-Gita. In fact, the Teaching of the Bhagavad-Gita is nothing else but the philosophy of the perfect Man “against Time,” yogi in spirit, warrior in action; a Man like King Akhnaton, the Only-One of the Sun, free from the bondage of Time, and whose strength is cosmic Energy Itself, but... who uses that strength, on the material plane, in the service of his ideals, with all the remorseless logic of a Genghis Khan.

Alone Kalki — the last Man “against Time,” at the end of every historical Cycle; the last Saviour, Who is also the greatest Destroyer — impersonates that double ideal perfectly, and succeeds completely. 
It is He Who restores to the world its primeaval health, beauty and innocence, thus opening a new Time-cycle.

The other men “against Time” — before the very end of each humanity — succeed, and are recognised and exalted by millions, permanently, inasmuch as they, or their followers, abandon their spirit and work decidedly “in” Time, compromising with the forces of death; in other words, inasmuch as they have in them, — like the Prophet Mohamed, — more “lightning” than “sun.” Otherwise, they are defeated by the agents of the dark forces, broken in their might by the down-ward rush of history, which they are unable to stem. And such a fate awaits, always, until the very end of any Time-cycle, those who are too magnanimous, too trusting, too good; those who put too much confidence both in foreigners and in their sown people; those who do not “purge” their following often enough and thoroughly enough; who love their people too much to suspect ingratitude or actual treachery where it lies; who are not merciless enough, and sometimes spare their, fleeing enemies; in one word, those who, like Adolf Hitler, have, in their psychological make-up, too much “sun” and not enough “lightning.”

Be He, himself, but the last one in date of these, come back with superhuman might after apparent annihilation, or a new one altogether, “Kalki” will avenge them and the people who struggled at their side, for no visible result whatsoever, in their days. And then, He will make their apparently impossible dreams the living reality of the next great Beginning!
In every great Beginning, the men “above Time,” lonely ascetics, saviours of souls, or planners of an ideal order, too good for the fallen earth — Arhats, Boddhisatwas, or Rajrishis, to use the Sanskrit terminology, — meet the great Ones “against Time” on the material plane as on every other.
Then, in a world in which violence is no longer necessary, nay, no longer thinkable; in which freedom and order go hand in hand, things are, according to the very law of manifestation in Time, what both the men “above Time” who cared to give a thought to collective life, and the greatest men “against Time” wanted them to be. The City-of-the-Horizon-of-the-Disk as King Akhnaton dreamed it; the “Seat of Truth” which, even in his far-gone days, he failed to establish upon earth, and the world New Order which Adolf Hitler fought in vain to install in the midst of our present-day, worthless humanity, are, then one and the same living, tangible reality in time, — as long, at least, as unavoidable decay does not once more set in.

And thus, through the perfect, impersonal — mathematical — justice of the Cosmos, each different agent of universal Destiny has the success which is due to him as a man.
Those who work for the immediate result of their action, in a selfish spirit, obtain that result (and what a tremendous one, sometimes!) and play their part in the evolution of a world that must pass through degradation and death before it can experience the glory of a new birth and of a new youth. They bring that world nearer to its end.
On the other hand, those who have renounced the bondage of Time and, purposely, either do not act, or else act in the selfless spirit of the warrior in the Bhagavad-Gita, get the glorious result of their life’s thought and work at the beginning of the following Time-cycle.
And it may well be that the efforts of the men “against Time,” apparently wasted upon an ununderstanding and ungrateful world, actually do add to the beauty of every new Beginning, and that they even hasten its advent. For nothing is ever lost.

And as we have said, Destruction and Creation are inseparable. Even the most destructive men “in Time” are creative in their way. Men “above Time” are also destructive in their way — indirectly, as the former are creative.
Men “against Time” are actively, consciously, willingly both creative and destructive — like Lord Shiva Himself: the divine Principle behind all change; the Destroyer, Who again and again creates; and like Vishnu, the Preserver, Who, once at least in every Time-cycle, comes as Kalki, to destroy completely.

In them, the Cosmos is for ever seeking its Principle, against the irresistible Law of Time, which steadily draws it away from It, from the beginning to the end of every successive material manifestation in time.




Παρασκευή 3 Νοεμβρίου 2017

ΟΝ & ΜΗ ΟΝ

ΔΕΝ ΚΑΝΟΥΝ ΟΙ ΙΔΕΕΣ ΤΟ ΠΝΕΥΜΑ ΑΛΛΑ ΤΟ ΠΝΕΥΜΑ ΤΙΣ ΙΔΕΕΣ
ο ΠΛΕΙΟΨΗΦΙΚΟΣ ΨΥΧΙΣΜΟΣ και ο ΜΕΙΟΨΗΦΙΚΟΣ ΨΥΧΙΣΜΟΣ

ΤΟ ΠΛΕΙΟΨΗΦΙΚΟ ΨΥΧΙΣΜΟ ΤΟΝ ΒΡΙΣΚΟΥΜΕ ΣΤΟ 90% ΤΗΣ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΤΗΤΑΣ, ΑΥΤΟ ΤΟ ΕΙΔΟΣ ΑΤΟΜΟΥ ΜΕ ΠΛΕΙΟΨΗΦΙΚΟ ΨΥΧΙΣΜΟ ΤΟΝ ΒΡΙΣΚΟΥΜΕ ΣΤΙΣ ΙΔΕΕΣ ΤΩΝ ΔΕΞΙΩΝ ΦΙΛΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΩΝ, ΣΤΙΣ ΙΔΕΕΣ ΤΩΝ ΑΡΙΣΤΕΡΩΝ ΚΟΜΜΟΥΝΙΣΤΩΝ (αυτοί φέρουν και το όνομα Μπολσεβίκος που σημαίνει πλειοψηφία), ΤΩΝ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ ΣΟΣΙΑΛΙΣΤΩΝ, ΤΩΝ ΠΡΑΣΙΝΩΝ (δήθεν οικολόγων), ΤΟΝ ΒΡΙΣΚΟΥΜΕ ΣΤΗΝ ΑΚΡΑ ΑΡΙΣΤΕΡΑ ΤΩΝ ΑΝΑΡΧΙΚΩΝ, ΟΠΩΣ ΚΑΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΑΚΡΑ ΔΕΞΙΑ ΤΩΝ ΠΑΤΡΙΩΤΩΝ.

ΑΚΟΜΑ ΑΥΤΟΝ ΤΟΝ ΤΥΠΟ ΨΥΧΙΚΟΥ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥ ΤΟΝ ΒΡΙΣΚΟΥΜΕ ΣΤΟΥΣ ΤΕΚΤΟΝΕΣ, ΣΕ ΟΛΕΣ ΑΝΕΞΑΙΡΕΤΩΣ ΤΙΣ ΜΟΝΟΘΕΪΣΤΙΚΕΣ ΘΡΗΣΚΕΙΕΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΙΣ ΑΙΡΕΣΕΙΣ, ΑΛΛΑ ΚΑΙ ΜΕΣΑ ΣΧΕΔΟΝ ΣΕ ΟΛΕΣ ΤΙΣ ΘΡΗΣΚΕΙΕΣ ΑΚΟΜΑ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥ ΠΟΛΥΘΕΪΣΜΟΥ, ΕΚΤΟΣ ΜΕΜΟΝΟΜΕΝΩΝ ΠΕΡΙΠΤΩΣΕΩΝ ΟΡΙΣΜΕΝΩΝ ΕΘΝΙΚΩΝ ΘΡΗΣΚΕΙΩΝ (όπως για παράδειγμα της ατόφιας Ολύμπιας Ορφικής θρησκείας)!!!
ΑΥΤΟ ΤΟ 90% ΕΙΔΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥ ΜΕ ΠΛΕΙΟΨΗΦΙΚΟ ΨΥΧΙΣΜΟ ΤΟΝ ΒΡΙΣΚΟΥΜΕ ΚΑΙ ΜΕΣΑ ΣΤΑ ΙΔΙΑ ΤΑ ΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΙΚΑ ΚΑΙ ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚΑ ΜΑΣ ΜΟΝΟΠΑΤΙΑ, ΕΙΤΕ ΑΥΤΟ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΣΤΟΥΣ ΣΤΩΪΚΟΥΣ, ΣΤΟΥΣ ΚΥΝΙΚΟΥΣ, ΣΤΟ ΓΙΟΓΚΑ, ΕΙΤΕ ΣΤΟ ΤΑΝΤΡΑ…ΔΙΟΤΙ ΔΕΝ ΚΑΝΟΥΝ ΟΙ ΙΔΕΕΣ ΤΟ ΠΝΕΥΜΑ…ΑΛΛΑ ΤΟ ΠΝΕΥΜΑ ΚΑΝΕΙ ΤΙΣ ΙΔΕΕΣ !!!
Ο ΙΕΡΟΔΙΔΑΣΚΑΛΟΣ ΠΑΡΜΕΝΙΔΗΣ ΑΥΤΟΥΣ ΑΠΟΚΑΛΕΣΕ ΩΣ
ΜΗ ΟΝ«ΨΕΥΔΑΙΣΘΗΣΗ»

ΤΟ ΟΝ ΜΕ ΜΕΙΟΨΗΦΙΚΟ ΨΥΧΙΣΜΟ
ΑΥΤΟ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΤΟ ΣΠΑΝΙΟ ΑΠΟΘΕΩΜΕΝΟ ΕΙΔΟΣ ΑΤΟΜΙΚΗΣ ΠΡΟΣΩΠΙΚΟΤΗΤΟΣ «ΠΝΕΥΜΑ» ΠΟΥ ΚΑΝΕΙ ΤΙΣ ΙΔΕΕΣ!!!
ΑΥΤΟ ΤΟ ΕΙΔΟΣ Ο ΙΕΡΟΔΙΔΑΣΚΑΛΟΣ ΠΑΡΜΕΝΙΔΗΣ ΤΟ ΑΠΟΚΑΛΕΙ ΩΣ
ΟΝ «ΑΥΤΟ ΠΟΥ ΜΟΝΟ ΥΠΑΡΧΕΙ»!!!
ΤΟ
ΟΝ ΜΕ ΜΕΙΟΨΗΦΙΚΟ ΨΥΧΙΣΜΟ ΔΥΝΑΤΑΙ ΝΑ ΟΔΗΓΗΣΕΙ ΤΟ ΜΗ ΟΝ ΜΕ ΠΛΕΙΟΨΗΦΙΚΟ ΨΥΧΙΣΜΟ ΣΤΗΝ ΖΕΥΞΗ ΤΟΥ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ…ΤΟ ΑΝΤΙΘΕΤΟΝ ΔΕΝ ΔΥΝΑΤΑΙ !!!

~ ΔΕΛΦΕΙΟΣ ΑΤΤΙΚΟΣ




Δευτέρα 16 Οκτωβρίου 2017

Musculus PSOAS Major

Ποιός είναι ο "μυς της ψυχής" ή λαγονοψοΐτης ? Είναι ένα όργανο "ανιχνευτής" των συναισθημάτων?


Τι είναι ο PSOAS;


Επίσης λέγεται και  λαγονοψοΐτης , είναι ένας από τους σημαντικότερους μύες του σώματος, ακόμη και αν οι περισσότεροι από εμάς δεν γνωρίζουν καν ότι υπήρχε.


Ο PSOAS βρίσκεται στην περιοχή της λεκάνης και το τελικό τμήμα της πλάτης, συνδέει τα πόδια με την σπονδυλική στήλη και χρησιμεύει για να σταθεροποιήσει το σώμα .


Στους Ανατολικούς πολιτισμούς, όμως, ο μυς έχει προστιθέμενη αξία: θεωρείται ο "μυς της ψυχής", ένα είδος πηγής της πνευματικής ενέργειας, και πρόσφατες μελέτες έχουν επιβεβαιώσει αυτήν την πεποίθηση.


Πιστεύουν ότι το κεντρικό νευρικό σύστημα και, κατά συνέπεια, το σύνολο της περιοχής που σχετίζονται με τα συναισθήματα, είναι στενά συνδεδεμένη με τον λαγονοψοΐτη ο οποίος μεταφέρει νευρικά ερεθίσματα στον εγκέφαλο και το διάφραγμα, και ότι είναι ένα όργανο "ανιχνευτής" των συναισθημάτων.


PSOAS


Όταν είμαστε αγχωμένοι, η αδρεναλίνη που  παράγεται από το σώμα μας εξασφαλίζει ότι ο λαγονοψοΐτης είναι σε διαρκή ένταση:

Αυτή η συμπεριφορά είναι ένας μηχανισμός αυτοάμυνας που προέρχεται από την φύση μας.

Το  Ένστικτό μας αντιδρά σαν αυτό: μια πηγή άγχους ή φόβου, παράγει  αδρεναλίνη, ο εγκέφαλος στέλνει εντολή και το σώμα προετοιμάζεται για να τρέξει ή να παγώσει. Στην αλληλουχία αυτή, όταν επαναλαμβάνεται πολύ συχνά, ο PSOAS μειώνεται και γίνεται άκαμπτος  και, με τον τρόπο αυτό, μπορεί να έχουμε διαφορετικές συνέπειες, όπως:

η εμφάνιση της ισχιαλγίας,

ανεπάρκεια οργάνων της κοιλιάς,

εκφυλισμό του ισχίου,

επώδυνη εμμηνόρροια,

προβλήματα κατά τη διάρκεια της πέψης, στους  ώμους και στην πλάτη.


Επίσης μπορεί να επηρεάσει :

την αναπνοή,

τη στάση μας,

τη σωστή κίνηση των υγρών

και τελικά στο ανοσοποιητικό σύστημα.


Γιατί είναι σημαντικό να φροντίζουμε τον  μυ της ψυχής και πώς μπορούμε αυτό να το κάνουμε στο σπίτι, χωρίς να χρειάζεται να παρακολουθούμε  υποχρεωτικά μαθήματα γιόγκα ή πιλάτες;


Η εκπαίδευση του PSOAS, που συνδέεται άμεσα με τα συναισθήματα, μπορεί να βοηθήσει να ξεπεράσουμε το άγχος και, σε γενικές γραμμές, τη συσσώρευση του στρες.

Μέσα από απλές ασκήσεις, μπορούμε να δημιουργήσουμε:


μεγαλύτερη ρευστότητα στη λεκάνη,

βελτίωση των λειτουργιών των κοιλιακών οργάνων

και την στάση της σπονδυλικής στήλης,

να καταστίσουμε  πιο ισορροπημένο ρυθμός της καρδιάς και της αναπνοής.


Δεν πρέπει να υποτιμηθεί επίσης η ψυχολογική, και η πνευματική πλευρά:

ότι μπορείτε να χαλαρώσετε το  σώμα σας διοχετεύοντας  ενέργεια, αν ο PSOAS είναι ευέλικτος, η  ενέργεια της ζωής μπορεί να ρέει μέσα από το κέντρο του σώματος χωρίς να συναντήσει αντίσταση.


Κρατήστε αυτό τον μυ εκπαιδευμένο,  είναι τόσο θεμελιώδους σημασίας για

την κίνηση,

τη λειτουργία των αρθρώσεων,

την ισορροπία

και, σε γενικές γραμμές, για τη σωματική και ψυχική μας ευεξία.



Τρίτη 29 Αυγούστου 2017

What is Yoga by Swami Satyananda Saraswati

What is Yoga?

All we can do is to broadly indicate the direction in which yoga can take you, if not its destination. For example, it is possible to indicate on a map the route to a specific town and even describe the layout of the area. Yet at the same time it is impossible for anyone else to experience the journey or to know the town for you. You must do it for yourself. It is the same with yoga. We can indicate the path, the signposts and make adequate attempts to explain the higher aims, but for the personal experiences you must tread the path yourself. And this is the essence of yoga – neither descriptions, nor theories, nor suppositions, but direct personal experience. In this topic we will discuss mainly the meaning of yoga, giving an outline of its origin and development through the ages.

Definition

Yoga is usually defined as union: union between the limited self (jiva) and the cosmic self (atman). Without trying to confuse things any further, we would like to point out that there is an anomaly in this definition. For there to be an aim or goal of union there must first be a state of separation. And in fact this separation does not exist. At this very moment you are united with the cosmic consciousness. Even this statement is not true, for you actually are the cosmic consciousness. So the aim of yoga is not really to unite you with anything, for you are already united. It is to make you realize your identity with the greater Self, to make you know and tune in with your existing inner nature. Yoga is so called (i.e. union) because it is seen and defined in terms of everyday normal life, where each person feels separation from, or does not comprehend the possibility of a higher being. In other words, yoga is seen as union from the point of view of personal identity.

At a higher level of awareness there is no separation or any distinction between the so- called individual and consciousness. It is our low level of awareness that clouds the issue and prevents us realizing this identification. There is a beautiful and often quoted Indian story illustrating this point. The general theme is that there is a large elephant being held at different parts of its body by a number of blind men. Each of the blind men in turn attempts to describe the elephant. One holds the tail and says: “The elephant is just like a snake.” The second man holds one of the legs and cries: “No, the elephant is like a large pillar.” “You’re both wrong,” says the third man who was holding one ear, “the elephant is exactly like a big fan.” The fourth man, who was running his hands along one of the tusks, shrugged his shoulders declaring: “This elephant doesn’t resemble in any way the descriptions you have given; it is like a horn.”
“You’re all crazy,” said the fifth man who was pulling the trunk,” the best description of an elephant is that it is like the trunk of a banana tree.” These five men saw the one elephant in different ways. The elephant itself did not change, and had the blind men been blessed with eyesight they would have seen the reason for the differing descriptions; they would have realized that they were talking about different aspects of the one thing. This is the same conception that most of us have regarding our identity. We see separation; we see ourselves as distinct from our surroundings and other people, because we are really like the blind men, not seeing or knowing ourselves and our environment as they really are.

In review, we can say that yoga is not really union. It is in fact realization of the union already existing. This is the culmination of yoga. At the same time yoga as it is usually known and understood is the method or path which one adopts to attain the realization of yoga, of one’s true identity. Thus yoga has a double meaning; it encompasses both the method and the end point. The meaning of yoga can also be denoted by the words unity and oneness; for the practice of yoga aims at rooting out the ego, this being the aspect of our individuality that enhances the sense of separation from our surroundings. Once the ego is transcended, the individual becomes himself and realizes his real, inner nature.

The definition of yoga that we have just given is a purely spiritual one. There are many other definitions which apply to all the levels of existence and awareness. For example, at the physical level most people have a body that is continually in a state of disruption. The functions of the different organs, muscles and nerves no longer harmonize and assist each other. Instead, they often hamper and act in opposition. For instance, the endocrine system becomes irregular; the efficiency of the nervous system decreases with the result that disease manifests in one form or another. Yoga aims at bringing all these different functions into perfect coordination, so that they work for the overall good of the body. So we can say another definition of yoga is physical harmony and health.

Many people suffer mental disturbances in the form of conflicts, neuroses, phobias and so on which make them unhappy and depressed in life. Yoga aims to smooth out and eliminate all mental problems, both large and small, obvious and subtle. Yoga can also be defined as mental balance and mental peace. Yet another definition of yoga is coordination and harmony between mind and body, so that our body responds perfectly to our mental commands, conscious and subconscious. This was very succinctly explained by Swami Sivananda when he said that:

“Yoga is integration and harmony between thoughts, words and deeds, or integration between head, heart and hands.”

From the harmony of the mental and physical aspects of man (including of course the pranic or bioplasmic body and our emotional nature) are derived other positive virtues as by- products. From these arise many other definitions of yoga. The following are a selection taken from the classical yoga text, the Bhagavad Gita:

Yoga is equanimity in success and failure (2:48)
Yoga is skill and efficiency in action (2:50)
Yoga is the supreme secret of life (4:3.)
Yoga is the giver of untold happiness (5:2)
Yoga is serenity (6:3)
Yoga is the destroyer of pain. (6:17)

Although there are other definitions in the Bhagavad Gita these few are the main ones. Maharishi Patanjali, writer of the classical yogic text, the Yoga Sutras, defines yoga as:

” . . . complete control over the different patterns or modifications of consciousness.” In other words, yoga implies control over the conscious, unconscious and super-conscious realms of our being. One becomes the observer of these different higher states attaining complete knowledge of them. Yoga can be defined as a science for developing creativity; as the science for unfolding the deeper aspects of the personality; as the science of being; as the science of consciousness. Actually, the definition of yoga will be perhaps a little different for each practitioner, for the individual will relate to yogic experiences and hence explain them in different ways. One thing is certain, whatever definition of yoga is chosen, the implications on one’s life are vast, for yoga concerns itself with the very core of our lives: body, mind and consciousness. With this in mind, we leave the reader to work out his own definition of yoga through personal experience.

The origin and development of yoga The origin of yoga lies hidden in the mists of pre- history. It was slowly evolved and developed by the ancient sages, not only in India but all over the world. However, it has been modified to suit regional languages, social ideas and so on. The essence of yoga was wrapped up in or explained in different symbols, analogies and languages. Some traditions believe that yoga was a divine gift revealed to the ancient sages so that mankind could have the opportunity to realize its divine nature.

Generally the techniques of yoga were passed on from teacher or guru to their disciples by word of mouth. In this way there was a clear understanding of the meaning of the techniques and aims of yoga, for the guru, through his personal experience, could guide the students along the right path and away from any confusion and misunderstanding. In fact, it was only when the various systems of yoga were written down that people began to see contradictions in the teachings. However, these discrepancies are only superficial and arise through misinterpretation. The writers of the classical texts cannot be blamed, for they recorded their ideas on yoga as clearly as possible in order to avoid misinterpretation. they expounded their ideas with the minimum amount of words so that people would not lose themselves in trying to understand or intellectualize about word meanings, or in other cases they clothed their writings in symbolism and analogies. This was done so that only a person prepared and ready for a teaching would be able to understand the symbolism, if necessary with the help of a guru. However, even though these precautions were taken, many misunderstandings arose, mainly among overly verbose and intellectual scholars who did not have the personal experience to support their commentaries. Unfortunately people have listened to the commentators without resorting to the original texts and the advice of people more in touch with the spirit of yoga. The result has been confusion, and as a consequence many well-intentioned people have performed the most bizarre acts in the name of yoga. Some often quoted examples are walking on fire, sitting in the midday sun and torturing the body in a variety of ways, such as standing on one leg in one place for months on end. The list is endless and could almost be laughable except for the fact that many of these misguided people were so intent and confident in their minds that these are the methods to higher awareness.

The yoga that we now know, that which developed in India, was utilized, at least in its rudimentary form, more than five thousand years ago. In archaeological excavations made in the Indus valley at Harappa and Mohanjodaro in what is now Pakistan, various statues have been unearthed depicting people practising yoga. They show Lord Shiva (the mythological originator of yoga) and his wife Parvati sitting in various asanas and practising meditation. These ruins were once the dwelling places of people who lived in the so-called prevedic age. These discoveries are a definite indicator that yoga was practised in India even before the Aryan civilization invaded and started to flourish in the Indus subcontinent. The first books to mention yoga were the ancient Vedas. Though scholars are not positive, it is generally felt that these books were written at least four thousand, five hundred years ago. They don’t give any specific yogic practices, however, but generally allude to yoga in symbolic form – in fact the verses of the Vedas were uttered by rishis or yogis in states of spiritual bliss and knowledge (samadhi).

It is for this reason that the Vedas are regarded as revealed scriptures – the rishis did not compose the verses but acted in a sense as transmitters through which these revelations were expounded.
The Vedas are regarded as the first yogic texts, for they illustrate, even in an indirect manner, the essence of yoga.
The word yoga is mentioned in various places in the Vedas, particularly the Rig Veda, but it is generally a vague reference to the meaning of yoga in relation to something else, such as harnessing horses together for example. Of course the terms are symbolic, but one would learn little of yoga as it is understood today by reading the Vedas. Many aspects of yoga are mentioned, such as dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and so on, though in little detail. The Self or consciousness was fully understood as being something beyond the body and mind and yet to be realized within. This is not, however, surprising in view of the fact that the inspiration behind the Vedas is from highly evolved yogis. This higher knowledge transcends all national and language barriers. It is something that has been realized by persons in every part of the world and at every period of history. The seers of the Vedas clearly recognized that there existed a dynamic life principle which they called vayu (prana). They also clearly saw that this prana was closely related to breathing. The Vedas also briefly mention the existence of pranic centres (chakras) within but not of the physical body. The science of sound was clearly recognized for they mention various mantras (psychic sounds) that can be used for the attainment of both material or worldly goals as well as spiritual aims. In this sense they were probably more advanced than the people of today in the science of mantras, for it is only recently that people have begun to understand the power of sound.

In conclusion we can say that the concept of yoga was known in vedic times in one form or another, as it had been for many thousands of years before. This is not surprising, for there have always been people who have aspired and attempted to tune in with higher consciousness and to transcend their limited individuality. However, in all probability the system of yoga was not properly formulated before and during the time of the recording of the Vedas. The experiences of yoga were known but the science of yoga had yet to be systematized.

It is with the advent of the Brahmanas and Upanishads that we begin to see yoga take shape and assume the form that it has today. The Brahmanas are texts which deal mainly with sacrificial and ritualistic practices, though there is a wealth of knowledge and historical information contained within its pages. They mention japa (meditative techniques involving chanting of mantras) and mouna (another technique for inducing meditation, which can be translated as ‘inner silence’) as being two important aspects of yoga2. In these texts the universal mantra Turn is mentioned in written form for the first time, together with its significance. The foundations for the later development of the science of swara yoga (study of the breath and flow of psychic currents and relationship with life) were also laid down, which later led to the classical swara text called Shiva Swarodaya. The development of psychic powers through yoga are also mentioned in the Brahmanas, such as the ability to read other people’s thoughts. It is the Upanishads, however, which put yoga on a firmer foundation. It is in these varied texts that we start to see yoga assume a more definite shape. The Sanskrit word Upanishad is made up from the words shad, ‘to sit’, upa, ‘near’ and ni, ‘learn’. The whole word can be interpreted to mean sit down near and receive teachings from a master. The word upanishad can also be interpreted as secret teaching.

There are believed to have been about two hundred different Upanishads, the oldest of which was written somewhere around 600 B.C. and the most recent as late as the fifteenth century A.D. Traditionally, one hundred and eight of these Upanishads are regarded as authentic, and of these only about twelve or thirteen are regarded as being authoritative. The major Upanishads are the Isha, Kena, Katha, Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Chhandogya, Swetasvatara and Brihadaranyaka. They vary enormously in their contents – the Mandukya is the smallest with a mere twelve verses while the Brihadaranyaka and Chhandogya each contain a few thousand words. The Upanishads are also known as the Vedanta – the culmination of the Vedas, for they are said to contain the essence of the Vedas.

The essential message of the Upanishads is that the Self can only be known through union (yoga) and certainly not by mere speculation and learning. Furthermore, it is emphasized again and again that the Self is not to be realized outside; it is not something separate, but at the very core of our being. The Upanishads use words as a means and not as an end.

When asked to define the Self, or consciousness, one of the sages gave the wonderful but very unintellectual or alogical reply: ‘neti-neti’, which means ‘not this, not this’. The Upanishads don’t paint a completely rosy picture of the yogic path – effort is required. For as the Katha Upanishad says, the path is as narrow as the razor’s edge. There is a similar saying from another great yogi and spiritual teacher, Christ, who said: “Narrow is the way which leadeth unto life (selfrealization).” Many of the Upanishads try to describe the highest spiritual experiences and the illumination or knowledge that they received. To this end they use analogies, stories and sometimes beautiful poetry. Other Upanishads are more practical and describe mental attitudes that must be cultivated and adopted in order to both begin and make progress on the yogic path. Others make brief statements regarding methods that can be practised in order to induce meditation. Many other topics are also discussed.

The Upanishads are numerous and the subjects that they cover too diversified for there to be any full treatment of their contents here. However, we can give a brief summary of the scope of their teachings. Many of the Upanishads devote much space to describing prana and its implications. The earlier Upanishads – the Brihadaranyaka, Chhandogya, Taittinya, etc., were fully aware of the fact that prana is the substratum behind all life forms. They describe the psychic pathways which exist witbin, but not of the physical body, through which prana flows, including the all important nadis, ida, pingala and sushumna. In the later Upanishads such as the Prashna and the Katha this theme was further developed. The different forms of prana within the body were mapped out according to the functions performed and it is stated that there are seventy two thousand nadis or pranic channels within the body. The concept of the kundalini (psychic and spiritual power) in the form of a serpent within the body is also indicated.

The early Upanishads, such as the Kena and Isha, began to indirectly develop and formulate the precepts of karma yoga, though it is left to the later Bhagavad Gita to fully expound the essence of karma yoga. It is these Upanishads that first indicate the possibility of treading the yogic path and reaching the culmination while performing one’s everyday duties. Until this time there was a tendency to see the yogic and spiritual paths as being completely separate and divorced from worldly pursuits. Various Upanishads, such as the Prashna and Katha, deal quite extensively with the mantra Aum. In fact the Mandukya devotes its entire commentary to this topic and nothing else. These texts again and again emphasize that meditation can be most easily induced by concentration on Aum. The Mundaka Upanishad considers Aum as a bow, the individual self as an arrow and Brahman or the Self as the target. If the arrow is aimed with full concentration, then there is no doubt that it will pierce and merge with the target. So it is with Aum that one can attain the highest states of meditation.

The early Upanishads lay down some of the basic rules of raja yoga which were later fully systematized and expounded by Patanjali. In fact, various useful suggestions are mentioned such as the following two examples: “With the body, head and neck held upright, direct your awareness to the heart region; and then Aum will be your boat to cross the river of fear.”

(Swetasvarara Upanishad)

In fact this is the first time that a sitting pose suitable for meditational practice was specified in a scriptural text. “The supreme path begins when the five senses and the mind are stilled and when the intellect is silent. This tranquillity of the senses is yoga.”

(Katha Upanishad)

This clearly defines the meaning of the fifth state of raja yoga, pratyahara, where a person’s awareness is withdrawn from the external world and the sense organs. In fact, this all important stage is preliminary to the attainment of meditation through raja yoga techniques and is elucidated again and again in the Upanishads. We have only mentioned some of the earliest Upanishads, and the ones that are regarded as being the most important. There is a goldmine of information on other aspects of yoga in the texts we have mentioned, as well as the large number of so-called minor Upanishads. For example, the Yoga Chudamani covers a wide range of practical aspects of yoga ranging from asanas and pranayama to psychic centres and self-realization. It also deals with some yogic practices that are part of kriya yoga, though not in much detail. The other Upanishads are also a source of many practical and theoretical principles of yoga. However, the only thing that the Upanishads lack is a systematic treatment and summary of the paths of yoga; they are a conglomeration of profound ideas mixed with various other kinds of information. In fact, we can say that the Upanishads are intended more to inspire than to instruct. During the era of the writing of the Upanishads, right up until quite recently, instructions on practical yoga were always imparted personally by a gum. The writers knew this and so detailed techniques were not recorded. This was left to the discretion of the guru and to later yogic texts.

Though they don’t explain yogic practices in any depth, the joy of higher awareness shines through the Upanishads as clearly as the midday sun. They tackle sublime questions of existence with the utmost simplicity and directness. The answers they give are revelations in themselves. The Upanishads are such that they can be read by any person in the world with at least some kind of comprehension and empathy, without becoming lost in a haze of over-intellectualization as is so easy with many other scriptures. They are meant to simplify not to complicate.

The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are the two vast epics which were written about three thousand five hundred years ago, a little before the time of Buddha. The Mahabharata can be roughly translated using a little imagination as ‘The Great Book of Indian Culture’ and the Ramayana as ‘The Path of Rama’. The Mahabharata contains well over one hundred thousand verses and the Ramayayia, though smaller, is still sufficiently bulky to call it more an encyclopaedia than a book. We only intend to give a cursory glance at their contents, for while they propound yoga, they are mainly wrapped in symbolism and stories. Though these two books are works of art in themselves, they don’t in the main give a systematic treatment of yoga, apart from the Bhagavad Gita, which we will discuss shortly. The Ramayana is a particularly popular scripture even today in India. It portrays the life of Rama in poetry of unsurpassed beauty, which is often sung to the accompaniment of music. Though it contains little or no direct instructions on yoga, it conveys in symbolic form the essence of yogic life and the path that must be undertaken in order to attain selfrealization.

Superficially it deals with the life of Rama, his wife Sita, various other people and the tribulations that they face during life. But in fact, hidden under this thin disguise is a description of the trials and challenges that a yogi must face, both internally and externally, on the path to transcendental awareness. Another spiritual text called the Yoga

Vashishtha is regarded as a direct offshoot and continuation of the Ramayana. This too is a compendium of spiritual inspiration and notable for the depth of its scientific and spiritual ideas. Many scientific ideas only recently promulgated are clearly written in this treatise. The text attempts to explain all aspects of creation and link them ultimately to consciousness. All aspects of life are discussed, from health and disease to happiness and misery. It discusses various methods to attain spiritual realization and emphasizes time and time again the importance of direct perception and experience as opposed to second-hand knowledge. It speaks of various yogic paths, in particular the path of meditation and jnana. Pranayama is also recommended as a method of controlling the mind and inducing meditation. It is not, however, a book to be read by beginners of yoga, for although it is a goldmine of knowledge and beautiful poetry, it does not map out in any detail the path to be taken. It is essentially devoid of practical aspects of yoga and is really intended for people who already have a knowledge of yogic techniques and have had higher experiences.

The Mahabharata contains many passages which directly relate to yoga interposed in its main theme – the military struggles during a certain period of Indian history. However, the essence of its teachings is contained in the world famous section called the Bhagavad Gita.

It is a poem of seven hundred verses in which Arjuna, a great warrior, is instructed in the practice of yoga by Krishna, incarnation of God, who assumes the role of charioteer during the main battle of the epic. Though its text can be easily seen as contradictory by overintellectual analysis or an over-literal interpretation, it has been and still is a source of inspiration and guidance to those following the path of yoga. As one makes progress along the yogic path, so one sees more and more layers of wisdom emerge from its pages; it continually unfolds higher and higher levels of meaning. The apparent contradictions and anomalies slowly fade and one begins to realize what a wonderful text it really is. The Bhagavad Gita is a yogic scripture par excellence, and is applicable to people throughout the world and in every walk of life. It maps out in concise, but specific manner, the yogic paths of karma yoga (the path of action), jnana yoga (the path of intuition), bhakti yoga (the path of devotion) and dhyana yoga (the path of meditation). In fact, with regard to karma yoga it can be considered the supreme treatise. It is in the Bhagavad Gita where we really see that yoga is for everyone and not for the recluse. Before the writing of this text there was a tendency to regard yoga as unworldly and unconnected with daily life. It is the Bhagavad Gita that urges everyone to start practising yoga here and now, and not to consider it something to be practised on retirement from one’s responsibilities or some time in the future when the opportunity presents itself. It is to be practised now as an integral part of one’s life. Another important aspect of the Bhagavad Gita is that it blends all die different aspects of yoga into a comprehensive whole. With the practice of yoga there should not be confinement to one path. In fact this is impossible. Integration of all the different paths is necessary.

Though a person might follow one path in particular, the other paths should also be practised where possible. The Gita makes this point very clear. Before the time of writing the Gita, there was a tendency to see separation between the different paths and even to consider some of the paths as mutually exclusive. It is the Gita that formulates the basic structure of the science of yoga as it is known today.

So far we have mainly concerned ourselves with the development of literature on yoga. This must be the case, for we only know with certainty the direction of yogic development by reference to the ancient texts. At the same time, however, yoga was simultaneously being refined and developed by its practitioners and gums, who then passed on their teachings by word of mouth. In fact, it is certainly these people who evolved and improvised yoga practices by their personal experience in an endeavour to achieve the best results. All the texts can do is to reflect current and prevalent ideas.

Since the teachings of yoga were generally passed on orally, its development was haphazard. Different teachers taught different methods so that before it was systematized, yoga was a collection of varied and unrelated techniques, riddled with all types of personal beliefs and superstitions. It is here that the writers of the ancient texts served their greatest purpose by bringing all these different ideas together and integrating them. One of the most successful of these writers was Rishi Patanjali who wrote the text called the Yoga Sutras some time before the birth of Christ. This is still regarded as the classical and authoritative book on raja yoga. In a mere one hundred and ninety six verses, Patanjali has considered the essential philosophy, background, techniques and attainments of raja yoga.

In a sense, it can be said that he is the compiler more than the writer, for he took all the important existing practices which were used for many centuries up until his time and united them into one comprehensive and harmonious system. He certainly did not invent the path of raja yoga for its constituents were known in essence since the beginning of the vedic period thousands of years before. The whole subject of raja yoga is treated in a most scientific manner starting from moral precepts, leading on to the physical and mental aspects and finally self-realization. Some of Patanjali’s terse comments on the mind are far ahead even of modern day psychological ideas. In fact the modern trend in psychology is towards adaptation and implementation of the ancient ideas of yoga, particularly those propounded by Patanjali.

The essential foundations of yoga as we now know it were laid down by the time Patanjali had finished writing his Yoga Sutras. Many more texts and developments were to follow, but the stmcture of yoga was outlined; all that was required was the filling in of the empty spaces. This was done mainly by large numbers of commentators who interpreted and reinterpreted the traditional texts. Often this caused more confusion than clarity, because many differing commentaries arose resulting in controversy and speculation. Nevertheless a few of these scholars did throw some light on the traditional yogic texts. An example is Shankaracharya, who personally interpreted twelve different Upanishads, and the Bhagavad

Gita, as well as writing many original books on yoga such as Viveka Chudamani (Crest Jewel of Wisdom), Aparokshanubhuti (Direct Experience of Reality) and the Atmabodha (Knowledge of the Self). These treatises are masterpieces in themselves. Shankaracharya was a man who had extensively practised yoga for himself and knew through personal experience the significance of yoga. He was not content, as were so many others, to merely analyze intellectually the science of yoga without personal experience. There are many other contributors to the development of yoga who we have yet to mention. Bhakti yoga, though practised throughout the eras of yoga, was given a particularly strong boost in the middle ages by such bhakti yogis as Kabir, Tulsidas, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Nam Dev and many more.

They all wrote wonderful poetry which even now inflames the heart with its devotional feeling. People such as Kabir not only expressed their intense love in their poetry, but also interspersed it with clear practical advice on the path of bhakti yoga and other paths. Large numbers of hatha yoga texts were written throughout the ages. The most wellknown of these are the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the Shiva Samhita, the Gherand Samhita and many more. These texts give details on asanas, pranayama and other hatha yoga practices, together with techniques for performing mudras, bandhas, etc. However, all the books emphasize that the hatha yoga practices are not specifically aimed at making the body healthy. They are a means to higher ideals, which first demand a healthy body. There are many sages and yogis who have contributed to the growth of yoga, such as the ancient yogis Gorakhnath, Matsyendranath, Janaka, Yajnavalkya, Ashtavakra, Vyasa and so many others, as well as the yogis of recent times such as Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi, Swami Sivananda and our guru Swami Satyananda. The list is endless. The number of books on yoga runs into the thousands. For example, the Ashtavakra Gita is a sublime text containing the utterances of yogis in advanced states of meditation; the Anu Gita of the Mahabharata, which is said to be a further explanation of the Bhagavad Gita by Krishna to Arjuna, his disciple; the Brahma Sutras, which attempt to consolidate in a condensed form the essence of the Upanishads; the Vyasabnasya which gives a masterly commentary on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras; Narada’s Bhakti Sutras, which gives rules for practising bhakti yoga, and so on. And this list grows with every year that passes. We have only given a brief glimpse of the origin and development of yoga. There is much more to be said, but there is no space, for many volumes would be required and besides, those who are sincerely interested in the history and literature of yoga can take the steps to find out for themselves. For those who want to tread the yogic path, such a deep knowledge is not necessary. The books that we have mentioned contain the essence of yoga and can easily be obtained by anyone who wants to investigate the original yogic texts.

However, for personal growth through yoga it is not necessary to read any of these books, for yoga is one hundred percent practice. These techniques are widely available in modern books on yoga, in ashrams and yoga schools and can be learnt from a compretent guru, which is the best way.


                                   Bihar School of Yoga / Satyananda Yoga
         Swami Sivananda                 Swami Satyananda             Swami Niranjanananda         Swami Satsangi