Personal Spiritual Advice available: Uncover, recover, discover your own personal secret in writing, perhaps, to one you trust, riting with your companions in the way, writhing for joy, righting your mistakes and wrighting all you can to create a new world NOW...
First published in 1979 by The Research Publishing Co. (Fudge & Co. Ltd.),
Sardinia House, Sardinia Street London WC2A 3NW
Copyright © Joan Cooper 1979
First photoset by Specialised Offset Services Limited Liverpool
ISBN 0 7050 0063 X (hard-back) ISBN 0 7050 0064 8 (paper-back)
Yoga is now well known in the West, both in its more exotic Eastern forms, and as the exercise-based “yoga for health”. The author was taught yoga, which, as a once-secret oral teaching, is reputed to have derived from Sumerian origins nearly six thousand years ago. It is said to be the source of all subsequent forms of yoga, and never before to have been recorded fully. This is not a specialist yoga for either the body-twister or the spiritual gymnast, nor does it claim to be a definitive teaching on spiritual matters. It has appeal for the intellectual, the intuitive, and the practical - in fact, for anyone wishing to re-examine his ideas about himself, and the world in which he lives. Of especial interest and value are the mental exercises, which the reader can test for himself, and the fascinating information, based on Doctor Joan D'Arcy Cooper's own profound insight and experience, which she gives on the complex invisible universe of people and relationships. The author stresses that the oral yoga teaching was never intended to be taken as an abstract or theoretical philosophy, but as a body of knowledge about Man (in her sense of a word she has chosen still to use) and his spiritual evolution, which is only of use, if it is applied individually, and acted upon. The keynote of this book, therefore, lies in the encouragement it offers the reader to follow his or her own path of spiritual growth.
Editor's Note
Author's Preface
Chapter One - Yamas and Niyamas
Chapter Two - Asanas
Chapter Three - Pranayama
Chapter Four - Pratyahara
Chapter Five - Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi
My introduction to yoga took place at the age of eighteen, when I was studying Chinese philosophy at university, and first met the Tao - or Way† - and the eight-fold Path of the Buddha. Although these could not be called “yoga” in the strict sense, they marked the beginning of an ardent desire to discover Truth, which was what following “the way” or “the path” meant for me. The journey from that beginning continued during the study of a variety of academic subjects in different countries, which included international law, and theology, and a doctoral thesis in psychology. Many experiences were to clarify, and transform an eighteen-year-old's understanding, before the journey led to renewed meetings with yoga teaching.
† Author's note: Throughout this book initial capital letters have been given to those words having a clearly defined meaning for this particular yoga teaching.
In the late fifties and early sixties I belonged to an esoteric “school” of yoga, which combined the study of ancient teachings with experience in community living. This was essentially a school of Christian yoga. The Yoga-for-Health line of development in contemporary Britain, which is largely based on traditional Hatha Yoga, only became a field for personal study in 1970.
For every stage in my personal quest for knowledge and truth I am grateful, and to every teaching upon the way I owe some debt of thanks. Each experience and every stage has been a stepping-stone, but the knowledge acquired through schools or external places of learning would have brought me no nearer my own true path, and no nearer the original teaching of Yoga, if it had not been for the gradual coming into focus of the guidance and instruction I had, in fact, always been receiving from my own inner teacher.
Each person born onto this Earth does have an inner teacher, but most of us are so full of our own self-will and desire, that we fail even to seek the interior silence, within which alone his voice can be heard.* Many people end their days without awareness of the protection, inspiration, and instruction, which has always been - or could always have been - theirs.
* A Culbone Visitor's note: Cfr Helen Rhodes Wallace, How to Enter the Silence (15th impression, Romford: L. N. Fowler & Co. Ltd, 1983).
It is to my inner teacher that I owe the impetus and courage to commence both writing down, and teaching the knowledge, which he helped me to formulate. It is my inner teacher who reminded me of the guide-lines, upon which the oral teaching of Yoga was originally based, and the knowledge, which was transmitted by these schools of yoga down the ages. Every particle of knowledge which he clarified was imparted, not through words of communication alone, but also through experience. All that he has taught me about the essential Yoga was by way of physical, mental, and spiritual experiences. These experiences form the basis upon which the knowledge contained in this book is founded.
For nearly six thousand years the original teaching of Yoga remained an oral teaching. This oral teaching was never recorded over the long period of its history, for reasons given in the Introduction, although some of the basic knowledge found its way into certain writings - often in a different context, or misrepresented. It is being recorded fully, for the first time, in this book, because of the critical condition of life today on this planet.
Societies are being increasingly dominated in their cultural, political, and economic life, by people who have no understanding of the spiritual purpose of human lives on Earth.* In some instances, the men ruling their societies are even dominated by the will to corrupt, or destroy the spiritual substance of human life.
* A Culbone Visitor's note: As an Ascended Mistress of the Rainbow Programme, Joan now, no doubt, is both saddened and amused at the extent to which this assertion has sometimes been verified in both the attitudes and behaviour of the Culbone Community Trust (Porlock Weir, Somerset), established to continue her work, and from whom printed copies of her individual publications and further information may, therefore, most readily be obtained.
This teaching is being made available now to aid all human beings‡ who desire spiritual growth, or who seek spiritual understanding within the confusion of contemporary life, together with a re-structuring of their own lives. It is presented with the hope that, in all who read it, some particle of knowledge may find root, and so help to lead them to the beginning of their own “way” to healing, and wholeness.
‡ A Culbone Visitor's notes:
Culbone, Porlock, Somerset February 1979 + March 1999
The Yoga teaching which finds written expression in this book was originally an oral teaching, and devised as such to be passed down from teacher to pupil over countless generations, without recourse to textbooks or scripture. The reason for this emphasis on a purely oral transmission of knowledge was the desire, on the part of both the originators of the teaching and also most of the subsequent teachers, to avoid any petrification of the teaching. Since the aim was to provide individual men (and women in later times) with knowledge concerning their spiritual evolution, and to encourage the formation of a desire in them for such growth of being, written texts could have had the reverse effect, by providing a structure that satisfied the logical mind, but failed to stimulate the spiritual or etheric being.
The aim of the oral teaching was also to develop flexibility of mind and the ability, in individuals, to adapt to, and use for purposes of spiritual growth, the continually changing circumstances of which human life on Earth is constituted in every age or epoch. To this purpose knowledge was not given as an absolute or constant body of data, once and for all time, but gradually, and only in relation to particular men's needs at particular times. In the beginning, only an outline of purpose, certain principles, and a little knowledge about the nature of man were provided for students of Yoga. From time to time, more knowledge was given - as appropriate to men's needs, and in response to their expressed requests. This was a rule upon which the transmission of knowledge was generally based, that, apart from certain principles, it was given to men only in response to individual need or request. In this way a body of knowledge did not simply build up over the centuries, to become the automatic property of later students of Yoga; but rather, at each period in history, and within each particular Yoga group or community, only certain aspects of the teaching were imparted, which were relevant to the needs of particular individuals. No knowledge was given in order to satisfy the logical mind's needs for order, or structure, or authority, or to satisfy its desire for literal truth, nor was knowledge provided in response to curiosity. Knowledge could only be given where there was need, for only then could it be used practically, and not retained in the mind in abstract or theoretical form. (A written documentation of the Yoga teaching could not have contributed to the fulfilment of any of its aims, and would in many respects have had an adverse effect.)
The oral teaching of Yoga - which was the first Yoga teaching - originated in the “schools” of learning set up for this purpose in ancient Sumeria, around the beginning of the fourth millennium B.C.* It originated in not one but a number of such schools, each school receiving, and working out, part of the knowledge about man's spiritual nature, which was appropriate to that particular time and the needs of individual people at that time. Knowledge was imparted from the spiritual plane to the holy men in each school. These holy men worked out details of the knowledge, which had been given to them in outline form, and the schools then brought together the different aspects of their knowledge to form a whole - but not a complete - teaching.
* A Culbone Visitor's note: For impressively strong, if indirect confirmation of this assertion, cfr. Samuel Noah Kramer, History Begins at Sumer (University of Pennsylvania Press 1981).
These holy men were “holy” because they were whole1 human beings, and more highly evolved men, than were those who formed the majority of people in the societies in which they lived; they were also “holy” through the simple and single-minded desire which motivated them to serve G-d and man, without wanting power for themselves.
1. Both words come from the Old English or West Germanic hãl or hãlig meaning “whole” and “well”.
Ancient Sumeria was the cradle of all subsequent civilizations,2 apart from China. It was the stimulus or inspiration for all cultures to the South, North, and West. The fourth millennium B.C. saw the commencement of all historically-known civilizations in embryo, and, for this reason, it was the time - and the place - for the creation of a teaching, which would provide guide-lines for man's spiritual evolution, whatever the culture or historical epoch in which a person found himself. The oral Yoga teaching was developed, and given out in the schools of ancient Sumeria, and travelled on a wave of Sumerian cultural expansion, as far West as that part of Britain which is now called the West Country. Here, several centres of learning were established, where Yoga was taught, and from which the more general cultural influence of ancient Sumeria spread. (There was no direct political influence nor any overt use of power.)
2. According to the oral tradition of Yoga, Sumeria was originally formed as a coherent culture and society in the mountainous region between the Black and Caspian Seas, south of what is now called the Caucasus. At a later date, it extended southwards, and from this centre influenced the beginnings of the Babylonian culture. A Culbone Visitor's note: For further details cfr. Zecharia Sitchin, Genesis Revisited and Divine Encounters (Santa Fe: Bear & Co. 1991; New York: Avon Books 1996) and his The Earth Chronicles series of books; China was not entirely an exception.
Before the fourth millennium had come to an end, however, the oral Yoga teaching was supplanted by other forms of yoga, which had, in many respects, a different aim or purpose. In the course of time, texts were compiled, and students followed set and authoritative patterns of mental and physical training. Nevertheless, the oral teaching continued to exist in its original form, either openly or in secret, in many of the societies to which it had been transplanted; and it has continued down to the present day, over a period of nearly six thousand years, in the form in which it was originally presented, and with the same purpose, or aim.
A particular organization of subject matter is followed in this book*, which may be compared with the traditional “limbs of yoga”, as expressed by the later Patanjali, nearly two thousand years ago, and by many subsequent teachers of different forms of yoga. The primary reason for this order of presentation is that it is the chronological order in which knowledge was given to students of Yoga at different historical epochs. To begin with, only the material of which the first two chapters are comprised, yama / niyama and asana, was taught in the earliest Sumerian schools. Few men had at that time evolved to a stage where they could have taken in the knowledge given in subsequent chapters. The knowledge presented under the heading, pranayama, was taught in later Sumerian times. The knowledge comprised by the term Pratyahara was taught from approximately 500 B.C. onwards; and the material in the final chapter, Dharana-Dhyana-Samadhi, was given to students only in the Christian era, after the death of Christ.
* A Culbone Visitor's note: The fact that, with the exception of Guided Meditation and the Teaching of Jesus (Element Books 1982, 2nd impression 1985), copies of the original printed editions of Joan Cooper's various individual publications can only be obtained by those seeking for them c/o The Culbone Community Trust, Porlock Weir, Somerset, and that this her own posthumous edition of them in collected form, as well as the Index and additional notes provided for the benefit of readers of the original first printed editions, is, in agreement with both her and the present Preliminary LibrArian I+N The Neith Network, only electronically being made more widely available is also part and parcel of the particular organization Joan and her currently incarnate friends and associates are now seeking to nurture and nourish.
The second and subsidiary reason for presenting the material in this particular order is that it allows for a certain amount of repetition. Facts of a psychological, etheric, or cosmic nature are often repeated in the different sections, in different contexts, so that they are seen from other perspectives. As growth of all kinds is spiral in form, each seed of knowledge is deliberately repeated in the oral teaching - but never exactly, and always from a slightly different angle - so that it may take root in a person's being, and grow through every stage of his learning.
Every effort has been made deliberately to discourage the
reader of this book (or any visitor to our family of websites) from approaching it with his logical mind, and to
encourage him - or her - to make that kind of effort which results in
growth of his own spiritual being.Its “success”is only measurable in
terms of individual evolution, which is,in fact, not
measurable at all.
The first two “limbs” of Yoga,
yama and
niyama, may be considered
together, for they form the ground upon which all subsequent teaching
is based. This first stage in the practice of Yoga marks the
commencement of personal effort, where the person endeavours to act
from all that he understands - and has understood through his past
experience - before he is introduced to new teaching, or new
knowledge.
The stage called
yama and
niyama states the first
truth about the original Yoga teaching, which is that it is about
change of being, and not
simply about the acquisition of knowledge. It is about learning to
act from the knowledge gained from experience - about each person
learning to act from his own individual storehouse of knowledge,
through which he makes it truly his own. The corollary of that first
truth is that this teaching is not an abstract or theoretical
philosophy, but a body of knowledge, about man and his spiritual
evolution, which is only of use, if it is applied individually, and
acted upon. The second corollary is that learning consists in
learning to act from within,
instead of from without:
from inner discernment, inner understanding, inner truth, and not
from external commandments, or authority.
This first stage in Yoga may be called Karma Yoga, which
means the total reversal, in a man, of the direction from which
thinking, and acting, proceed. This reversal has to do with looking
to the interior spiritual plane for
meaning, or
causes, or
guidance, rather than to the
external material or physical world.
Yama or
niyama are activities of
mind, in which a person seeks to discern “right” expression from
“wrong” expression - that is, what belongs to his
own nature, as distinct from
all that covers it, or has been laid upon it - and to act from his
inner being.
In the earliest form of Sanskrit the word
yama meant an activity of
discernment, and the ability, not only to distinguish right
expression from wrong expression, but to have control over all forms
of expression that derive from
external commands or
authority. The very word
yama stands for the essence
of the original Yoga teaching about man's spiritual evolution, and
the importance of his becoming free from the coercion of influences
external to his own nature. The teaching about
yama states that the ability
to discern right expression from wrong expression exists, in the
etheric (or spiritual) being of every person, as a clear and actual
point of reference, after the person has reached a certain stage in
his own growth of being. Thus, the activity of discernment is based
on a real point in a man's inner being, not on anything imposed from
without, or placed in him through auto-suggestion.1
1 In some forms of yoga teaching, the
yamas are defined as
“abstentions”, and became a set of commandments for the pupil to
follow. When yoga teachings began to define the first step in yoga as
a set of commandments for the pupil to follow, they reversed the only
aim for which the teaching had originally been devised, namely, the
freeing of man's etheric being from external influences, in order to
make possible his individual spiritual growth.
The five yamas
comprise an activity of discernment that applies to the working of a
man's whole being: the attitudes of mind upon which a person bases
his judging, the motives for his external forms of behaviour, the
direction of his thinking, the kind of active / passive balance in
his being, and the direction, and use, of his energy. In each case,
it is a matter of discerning the extent to which a particular aspect
of his being derives from
within, and of seeking to have command over all
manifestations which derive from
without: i.e., from forms of
direct social / cultural authority, or from the more subtle forms of
internalized social coercion. This does
not mean that a person
should attempt to stop, or directly oppose, what he observes as
coming from outside himself - even if this were possible.
To have command over means
to be aware of, and to learn to make some effort to choose, or
determine, the extent of the influence. This is the only time when
the pupil of Yoga is asked to make efforts of this kind, because it
is only through these efforts to have command over influences, which
have, for a long time, determined the structure, and behaviour, of
his own being, that a person begins to realize something of the
dangers that threaten his experience and, even more, the
growth of his being. Through
making the kind of effort called for by the
yamas, he begins to realize
the amount of effort that is needed to reverse the direction in which
his being has been oriented, and to begin to express from within
himself; he begins to understand the qualities of persistence and
courage necessary to pursue the aims of the Yoga teaching.
1. The first Yama
concerns Judging.
Judging comes from man's mind, and
is the foundation of his activity and thought. The discernment which
the yamas call for, and
which proceeds from an actual point in a person's etheric being, is
the commencement of judging.
Every manifestation of a man's being is based upon some
form of assessment, some distinction as to “this” or “that”, some
judgment formed, regarding the situation and persons concerned. Every
decision is based on a prior judgment; every action is based on
selection, which is preceded by the activity of judging. All thinking
proceeds by the selection of one thing, and the rejection of another.
The life of every man, in thought and act, depends upon how he
judges, and the ground from which he judges. It was to uncover this
subconscious foundation of a person's life, and its expressions, that
the first yama was called “judging”, and that the pupil's first
efforts were directed towards becoming aware of the basis upon which
his judgments were founded, which determined the daily expression of
his thought and action.
With growth in awareness, a person comes to see that
assessment of people or
situations often implies
censure as well, and that
this censure comes from forms of value-judgment that do not derive
from his own experience. He discovers that, whereas
assessment is based on his
own experience, and upon a certain degree of personal involvement and
understanding, censure is
based on a feeling of separateness from the person judged. The
feeling of moral superiority which it implies derives from abstract
categories outside the persons involved. With growth in awareness, a
man becomes increasingly sensitive to the entirely different nature
of those judgments, which derive from outside his own understanding
and experience, to the forms of judgment, which are reflections of
his own nature or etheric being. The first kind of judging he comes
to think of as “wrong” judging, and the second as “right” judging.
Violence is implicit in all forms of wrong judging, because wrong
judging comes from a feeling of being separate from other people.
There is no violence in right judging, which derives from the etheric
being of a person, however unformed or weak the nature of that being.
Finally, the person discovers that the origin of the various forms of
wrong judging lies in the authority-structure or value-systems of the
society around him, or in the home or school environments which
formed his early thinking.
As awareness deepens, and a person gains clearer insight
into the various strata, which form the basis for his judging, a
desire to gain control over certain manifestations of wrong judging
begins to express itself within his own etheric being. The efforts a
person makes to control judging must always be the expression of his
own desire, if they are to be effective, for
real effort does not derive
from commandment or coercion of any kind.
In order to have command over wrong judging, a person also
learns to understand more about the nature of other people, and sees
that they can only change from where they
are in themselves. This quality of acceptance is
one of the results that comes to a person through the efforts he
makes in relation to this
yama.
2. The second
Yama concerns
Personal Action and
Social Behaviour.
The discernment on which this
yama is based has to do with
identifying social
behaviour, as distinct from the
personal actions, which are
expressed from the true nature of the person.2 As in the case of
judging, this
yama also teaches the pupil
to discern the different forms and layers of his behaviour that
derive from requirements placed on him by his society in all its
implicit as well as explicit forms. Just as the desire arises in a
person to learn to control certain forms of
judging, which do not belong
to his etheric nature, so a similar desire eventually awakens in him
to have command over those forms of behaviour which are entirely
derivative, and do not reflect his own nature. But the desire to
take command only grows
through observation and understanding.
2 In most later forms of yoga teaching this
yama is expressed as
“abstention from falsehood”. It is as crude an interpretation of this
yama as the preceding one,
which, in a number of yoga teachings, is expressed as “abstention
from violence”.
There are “wills” within each person that do, in fact,
attract, and desire many forms of Social Behaviour. These cannot be
stopped at command, and this
yama - like all the
yamas - is about inner
discernment, and becoming more aware of the nature and origin of all
that the being of the person expresses. As awareness grows, so a
little control becomes possible in the form of choice.
Personal Action, as opposed to Social Behaviour, does not
mean “right” or “moral” action. Personal Action is action which
expresses from the etheric being of the person, and each person's
etheric being contains weaknesses, as well as strengths. The actions
which express from weaknesses - for example, the actions which are
caused by fear - are “right” actions for that person, only in so far
as they are a reflection of his true nature. A man's etheric being is
visible to himself only by way of reflection, in the actions it
expresses. Only in this way is the many-sidedness of his true nature
revealed to himself, of which weaknesses are part. Until he begins to
see himself as he is, a person cannot desire changes of
being.
Social Behaviour may be “right” for the society in which a
person lives. From the point of view of society, controls must be
placed on the most extreme actions of its members. But unless - or
until - a person is able to reveal, in some degree, what society
seeks to hide, or repress, he can never discover the true nature of
his own etheric being, and begin to fulfil the reason for which he
came into a physical life. This is why every form of authoritarian or
highly-organized society is inimical to individual spiritual
evolution, because it prevents the individual person from expressing,
and, therefore, facing his true self, from which experience alone
comes the desire for his own spiritual growth.
Most of a person's actions may be
expressive of Social Behaviour, and derive from a set of
mores imposed, from outside
himself, by the society in which he lives. In fact, these actions
derive only in part from overt social convention or ethics. Most
people are a multiplicity, and most actions, even without the
particular social context in which they are expressed, would
not flow naturally from
their own inner beings; these actions would in some falsify, or cover
up, or distort the etheric being, because they would reflect a
texture of half-truths and fantasies, which the person
believed to be true about
himself. Although most of these half-truths and fantasies derive
originally, and in a certain sense, from outside the person, he
weaves their particular form himself, as his own protective covering,
with which he meets and relates to the world around him.
It is this “protective covering” which he thinks of as his
“self”; with it, he seeks to impress or have power over others;
because of it, his feeling of “I” or “self” is outward-oriented, and
dependent upon the world in which he lives, the way it treats him,
the relationships it has with him. This state of affairs is exactly
opposite to the conditions in which man was originally intended to
live, and which are best suited to the growth of his own being.3 Few
people on Earth now lives so that their actions express from their
own etheric beings, whatever their degree of spiritual advancement.
Yet this was - and is - the aim of man's physical life on
Earth.
3. These conditions are illustrated briefly - although
with certain distortions - in the story of the Garden of Eden, where
man and woman originally lived in a natural state,
without need for protective
covering, and walked and talked daily with G-d.
In this natural state, their beings unfolded gradually, as they
expressed their true inner natures, and were able to see these
natures reflected in the forms in which they expressed them. “G-d”
gave guidance and direction to their lives, and, in this way, they
grew. This was the life originally intended for man in the
etheric sphere, long before
the physical plane was thought of - or created. Man and woman in the
Garden of Eden had no thought for their
appearance: they were
themselves.
The “Serpent” in the story symbolizes those people who had
advanced a little way beyond the majority of mankind, but whose wills
had become distorted, through the desire for power. They had
discovered that it was possible to use the Creative Force as a source
of personal power, and that they could perform “magic”. When they had
learned a little magic, they sought to impress others with it,
insinuating that such magic was, in fact, a short-cut to human
growth, which G-d was witholding from mankind through jealousy. The
Serpent said that man did not need to remain in his Garden, growing
only slowly in knowledge and power - at a
tempo determined by G-d; he
could “eat” of the magic power, and quickly acquire what it would
otherwise take him endless periods of time to do.
Seeds of dissatisfaction, desire, and envy were sown in
the Garden, and men were persuaded that G-d - and the Angels of Light
- had duped man, and kept from him this knowledge, by which he could
quickly - and easily - transform himself into a new being: a more
powerful being.
But G-d could see man as he truly was; in this new state
men became aware, for the first time, of their “nakedness”, and
sought to creative protective covering which would hide this
nakedness - the natural state - from the eyes of G-d. This was the
beginning of false action,
from which originated all actions derived from outside the person,
from the desire to impress, or to cover the natural state of being,
or to create an imaginary “self”.
From that time on, there spread throughout the etheric
sphere this new influence of the Serpent - a two-fold influence,
which created in man both the desire to be powerful (to have power
over others), and the desire to
pretend or
falsify, in order to cover
his real powerless-ness or naked-ness.
It was after this time that the Angels of Light sought to
create other conditions into which man could be placed, which would
enable him to become free of this influence, and able to resume his
path of spiritual growth. In time, the physical plane of
manifestation was created, and the physical Earth evolved, and men
incarnated (at a much later time), one by one, to work on a plane
where they could express - and see revealed - more clearly the nature
of their own beings); and where, through the necessity of making
physical effort, they would
learn the need for and acquire the ability to make
spiritual effort.
A Culbone Visitor's note: The immediately preceding
important note of Joan's is one of several which were not part of her
original text, but which she was clearly inspired to add to it only
at a later stage, when her own continuing personal growth and
spiritual evolution had disclosed the now present need for
them.
As Navajata, Chairman of the Sri Aurobindo Society, wrote
in his Foreword to Kevin & Venika Kingsland's
Hathapradpika - The Means by which Constant
Change may be transcended to reveal the Eternal Light of the
Self (Torquay: Grael Communications 1977): “The
aim of yoga is to find the Divine Presence in and around us, and
awaken it in all the planes and parts of our personality, so that a
Divine Perfection may manifest on Earth. One should keep one's focus
on this goal.”
Growth in understanding of the true meaning of the
teaching contained in the early chapters of the biblical book of
Genesis is, like all forms
of growth, gradual, and needs to take place from within; it cannot be
imposed from without. In note 2 to the Introduction attention was
drawn to Z. Sitchin's apparently divergent disclosures concerning
Adam & Eve, and the real Garden of Eden. As Joseph Blenkinsopp
states in The Pentateuch - An Introduction to the
First Five Books of the Bible (New York:
Doubleday 1992, p.28): “"What should be affirmed at the present
juncture is the need for coexistence between different interpretative
systems, with their quite different but not necessarily incompatible
agendas. We need an edict of tolerance, to discourage the tendency of
new theories to proscribe their predecessors. This… would leave us
free to look for the aesthetic aspects of the ‘text in itself’,
without feeling obliged to condemn the quite different project of the
historical practitioner.”
Although not himself a historical practitioner, Zecharia
Sitchin is a very well-informed commentator. Introducing himself on
screen in 1982, the year of Joan Cooper's death, to viewers of the
1-hour video-film, Are We Alone? (In the
Universe) [Switzerland: Paradox Media Ltd. &
Why Not Productions], he said: “I devoted a life-time to the study of
ancient civilizations, ancient languages, their art, their beliefs,
and the knowledge that they had, and the question is, when you study,
when you look at all that: Is it myth? Is it mythology? Or did it
really happen? I believe that it all really happened.”
What Joseph Blenkinsopp calls “the text in itself” is,
instead, the primary focus of Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer
in Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth - Her
Stories and Hymns from Sumer (Harper & Row
1983). As Diane Wolkstein emphasizes: “We need to approach these
stories as sacred narratives, spiritual explorations of the place of
the gods and the human psyche in the universe. In all the stories
there is a focusing on such spiritual concepts as rule, destiny, and
the me (the sacred culture of Sumer)… The Sumerian stories have a
stark, raw, wide-eyed quality, as if the poet were attempting to
pierce through conventions into the very essence of life, in order to
see ‘what is’, to understand what it is all made of, how, and why… I
have felt the strange opening-up quality of these stories, as if I
were falling out of the storyteller-audience framework into a deeper,
more eternal soul-place.”
Joan Cooper's reference to the Serpent's having encouraged
pre-physical man to believe that “he could quickly and easily
transform himself into a new being,” reminds this Culbone Visitor of
the false hopes and illusory anticipations that have been aroused in
many persons prior to their first use of LSD. Cfr. Ernest Scott's
“The Start” in Doing your own Being - The Baba
Ram Dass Lecture at the Menninger Foundation
(London, Neville Spearman 1973). Books helpful in developing a
balanced approach towards and / or in consolidating a distorted
perception of the New Age include: Eileen Campbell & J. H.
Brennan, The Aquarian Guide to the New
Age (Aquarian Press 1990); Michael Cole, Jim
Graham, Tony Higton & David Lewis, What Is
The New Age? (Hodder & Stoughton 1990);
Constance Cumbey, The Hidden Dangers of the
Rainbow (revised edition - Lafayette LA:
Huntington House 1983); Marilyn Ferguson, The
Aquarian Conspiracy (Paladin 1982); Walter
Martin, The New Age Cult
(Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House 1989); Martin Palmer,
Coming of Age (Aquarian /
Thorsons 1993); Ron Rhodes, New Age
Movement (Carlisle: OM Publishing 1995); M.
Basilea Schlink, New Age
(Radlett, Herts.: Evangelical Sisters of Mary 1988); Stephen Verney,
Into the New Age (Collins
Fount Paperbacks 1976); What's Behind The New
World Order?: excerpts from E. G. White,
Will America Survive?
originally published more than 100 years ago under the title,
The Great Controversy
(Jemison, AL: Inspiration Books East, Inc.
1991).
3. The third Yama
concerns
Dissatisfaction.
The third yama is
about dissatisfaction. The
life of every person on Earth today is stratified with layers of
dissatisfaction or discontent; the kind and quality of life on the
physical Earth increases man's vulnerability to it. Dissatisfaction
is the largest single drain on man's energies, and is often, and in
many of its forms, completely unconscious to him. It is of great
importance for the Yoga pupil to become aware of the sources of
dissatisfaction in himself, and to make efforts to control
them.
The cause of every form of dissatisfaction lies in
wrong thinking. Thinking may
be defined in terms of the direction from which man thinks, “wrong”
thinking being every kind of mental activity which proceeds from the
material/physical world in the form of ex-pectations, or desires.
Every expectation, every anticipation that depends for its fulfilment
upon material or physical results, and every desire to possess or
obtain even intangible responses to request - in fact, every possible
form of wanting something,
makes a person vulnerable to dissatisfaction, if the desired result
is not obtained, or the expectation fulfilled. To
want something - anything -
creates a dependence upon factors outside the person, and often
beyond his control. The desire for personal achievement - even the
desire for psychological achievements - is a desire for results that
are measurable by external criteria, or through comparisons of a
quantitative nature. Everything can be a source of
dissatisfaction.
Dissatisfaction does not rest solely on desire or
anticipation, but on every form of dependence, which makes man
vulnerable to change. Change
is a principle upon which all physical life is based; change is
continuous, even if ordered, and nowhere on Earth do manifestations
of life remain the same, or ever return exactly to previous forms of
expression. Yet most people act, as if the world around them
ought to be unchanging, and
their thinking proceeds from static concepts, or absolutes, and
expectations of a kind of automatic result, which could only be
looked for on an assembly-line. The mental world inhabited by an
ever-increasing number of people is a fantasy world, structured by
concepts which apply to machines rather than to people, and which
create forms of expectations not realisable on any plane of
existence.
Wrong thinking is not only thinking from the wrong
direction, but thinking from a non-existent world of fantasy. Right
thinking proceeds from an understanding of the
nature of both the etheric
and physical worlds, and is always relative, never absolute, or
static. Even the coming down into manifestation of actions from the
highest spiritual planes is relative to what is possible, and
contingent upon the unpredictability of men's wills; even the “Angels
of Light” cannot make exact plans, or anticipate specific results.
The Yoga pupil's own pattern of growth can be distorted - by habits
of wrong thinking, through expectation, impatience, and inevitable
dissatisfaction.
A person may think he is contented, and feel that all is
essentially “well” with his life, and yet suddenly become
dissatisfied and depressed. He may not have realized his
vulnerability, unless he is aware of the ground upon which his
thinking is actually based. For he can lose the ground of his
contentment overnight, if it is based upon any forms of wrong
thinking.*
* A Culbone Visitor's note: Hence, one reads on p. 140 of
Satyananda's translation of the Katha
Upanishad: “The firm control of the senses is
called yoga. One must be ever watchful, for yoga is hard to acquire,
and easy to lose.” And, in The
Upanishads (p.42), Swami
Prabhavananda advises: “Distinguish between knowledge and wisdom.
Knowledge is of things, acts and relations, but wisdom is of Brahman
alone - and, beyond all things, acts and relations, He abides for
ever. To become one with Him is the only wisdom.” This is confirmed
by the words of the Mundaka
Upanishad (Satyananda's translation, p. 76):
“The all-knowing Self, knowing all intimately… resides in the shining
sky of the heart… Life, mind and body are ruled by Him. Within the
whole body is His Presence… the heart is His residence… Within the
innermost sheath He resides, Indivisible… the Pure One, and Light of
all that shines… When He shines, the whole universe is radiant with
His reflected light… The entire universe is Brahman alone.”
Even if a person is aware of his own vulnerability, and
his contentment is based upon some degree of acceptance of himself
and his life, there are times when life seems to become stale, or he
feels dry and empty, and this can lead to restlessness, or
dissatisfaction. Everyone experiences this state at times. Everyone,
who inhabits a physical body, comes to a time, when the vision of
spiritual reality grows dim, and the physical mind seeks distraction.
This is a time for great awareness, and care. These intimations of
discontent, or dissatisfaction, belong, naturally, to the physical
life, and, if a person can see and accept them as such, they are more
amenable to the reason of that person's own understanding.
Whatever the cause of dissatisfaction, whether it lies in
the nature of physical life, or in the person's own wrong thinking,
it must be taken seriously, before it gains hold of the mind,
insinuating itself into every aspect of the person's life, and
infecting other people. If the cause lies in the nature of physical
life, and not in some form of wrong thinking, the dissatisfaction can
usually be overcome by physical effort, sometimes in the form of
starting something new; a new activity, a new thought, a new approach
to an old activity, or a new sensual awareness of the physical world
by looking, or listening, or smelling, or touching, with childlike
simplicity.† Through the making of some kind of physical effort, a
person's physical being can often be drawn back into harmonious
relationship with his inner being.
† A Culbone Visitor's note: For some detailed
illustrations in this regard, cfr. The Mystery Of Everyday Experience
- Encounter Groups And Related Papers: “Encounter Groups” by Colin
James Hamer (Shivananda), Chapter 2, “Aspects”.
Discontents of this kind, although natural to human life
on Earth, are not the only or most serious forms of dissatisfaction.
They are sometimes expressions of a latent or half-hidden state of
deep dissatisfaction in the person, of which he is only at times
aware. This state may be fundamental to the person's being, or even
an integral part of it, having been brought with him into his
physical life on Earth. If this is so, it will affect, in some
degree, every aspect of his relationship to himself, and his
relationships with other people. Nothing in life can ever satisfy
someone who is imbued with this kind of deep discontent, so long as
he remains in ignorance of the spiritual laws, and purpose, out of
which his own physical life - and all physical life - was
created.
4. The fourth
Yama concerns
Balance and
Immoderation.
This yama has to
do with discovering the kind of balance or imbalance which exists in
a person's life, between his activity and his passivity, and between
his various forms of expression.
Immoderation is part of the
structure of complex, highly industrialized societies, and is
expressed in every aspect of human life, often through
over-specialization in work or profession. The sportsman is
immoderate in his over-emphasis on physical activity. The
administrator and technocrat may have no relationship to manual work,
and little contact with the rhythms that obtain in the world of
nature. Even the artist or musician may be living an unbalanced life,
in sole concentration on his art.
A more essential form of imbalance can exist between the
different aspects of a person's being, referred to as
chakras or centres in the
Yoga teaching, and their expression. A similar kind of imbalance can
exist in the way in which a person uses the different aspects of his
mind, where the formatory or word-mind tends to predominate over the
child or intuitive minds.
The most serious form of imbalance, which is
characteristic of men in western societies, exists as an
over-emphasis on activity and striving. A person who grows up in
these societies finds that the pattern of attitude and expectation
inclines him to focus his attention and energy on outward striving
and action, rather than on states of passivity or receptiveness. It
is usually only through some form of failure, at a later stage in his
life, that he may begin to recognize the shape of this imbalance, and
seek to redress it.*
* A Culbone Visitor's note: Cfr. Colin James Hamer
(Shivanananda), The Mystery Of Everyday
Experience - Encounter Groups And Related
Papers: “Exploring The Mystery Of Everyday
Experience”, Sections 11-14. Joan D'Arcy Cooper also left among her
unpublished papers one in five parts entitled: “Imbalance In
Society”, copies of which have already been made available to a small
number of her friends and students; she now publishes it here
electronically for the first time:
Part One:
Observe an imbalance in your
society, in people around you, in that which comes from the need for
activity, the need to be doing - moving - expressing. Observe the
restlessness of everyone around you. Observe how they have to prove
their existence in some way by this constant movement, activity. Rest
or inactivity are not part of the normal pattern of life; for the
most part, people cannot conceive of their lives incorporating
inactivity or rest - unless it is forced upon them. They are not
“that kind of person”! To “have a rest” involves another kind of
activity, such as knitting, or reading, or watching a TV programme.
Only illness or accident can stop this restless movement in most
people. When it is stopped outwardly, observe… if you can… how it
continues on the inward plane of the mind. Observe whether or not
people are able to let their attention rest gently on any one thing
or object for a period of time, without that attention darting
restlessly on from object to object. Can they “stand and stare”,
allowing the mind - as well as the body - to rest and
absorb?
Now observe yourself. First of
all, look at your own life. Are you always active and doing
something? Do you feel that you “must keep busy”? When you sit down
to “rest”, do you pick up the newspaper, or your knitting - or pop
out into the garden to pull a few weeds? Do you feel awkward, or ill
at ease, if you sit down, and “do nothing”? Can you see how your
feeling of yourself - your identity - is based on this life of
continuous activity? Can you see that to do nothing, even to rest or
relax, makes you feel as if you were nothing, nobody? Can you see how
it is this image or attitude in your mind which drives you,
throughout your whole life, into restless activity, as a kind of
justification for your existence?
Now sit in as relaxed a position as possible, and observe
your mind. Observe its reaction to your “doing nothing”. What does it
do? Does it try to make you move? Does it suggest what you should be
doing? Does it become, itself, a substitute for your physical
activity by developing its own form of restlessness, wandering in a
desultory way, planning, recalling, imagining - all of its activity
being undirected by you? Are you able to focus your mind gently, to
rest it on some object, and let yourself absorb?
Part Two:
The “doing of one's own thing” becomes a mark of one's
identity. This is, of course, once again, a
doing, an activity… not
being. But it is more than
an activity or busy-ness, it is an activity that is special to
oneself, through which one feels not an “anybody”, but a “somebody”.
One cannot feel a special person without this identifying activity.
It is an attitude of one's mind that makes it so. Once one has
identified oneself mentally with a particular activity, no other
activity will provide one with the same feeling of “I”, with the same
sense of oneself - just as no state of repose can justify one's
existence to the restless mind. A related problem is the tendency of
this attitude, which stresses “doing one's own thing”, for it tends
to work against traditional structures and rôles, in particular
with regard to women.
Take yourself: What activity do you particularly associate
yourself with? Do you feel that your principal occupation expresses
you? If you are a woman, do you feel there are some activities - or
one activity - that expresses the real you? If you are a mother, do
you seek “your own thing” apart from the family? If so, what
precisely does this activity give you, that your family relationships
do not? Another and separate aspect of this over-emphasis on activity
and doing, is the attitude which encourages the doing of what one is
good at, and of avoiding what one cannot do well.
Over-specialization and competitiveness in society
generally encourage this attitude. At school, children are pushed in
the direction of their abilities or talents. The old image of the
well-informed amateur, the philosopher, the liberal arts student -
the image of the old countryman, who was skilled at every job, and
knew the land and seasons, because he had listened to them - just as
the graduate had listened to the experience of many kinds of poets -
has disappeared. If a high premium is placed on success, and one's
feeling of oneself depends upon not failing - upon being in and not
out, then one will stick to doing the things that one can already do,
and eschew those activities which are risky, or where one might fail.
One, therefore, tends to make efforts where it is easy, and to avoid
the challenges where greater effort is required.
This attitude does not encourage one to put oneself to the
test, as it was once expressed; it does not encourage one to grow
from the weak or under-developed place in oneself - which are one's
real growing points. This attitude channels one's efforts narrowly,
and encourages further imbalance.
Observe this attitude in yourself, and in the children you
know. Observe your own preference for doing what you can do well -
for choosing the path that requires the lesser effort. Observe how
you tend to avoid things you cannot do - or think you cannot do. Why
do you use a computer of any kind, when you could use your mind for
the mental arithmetic required by the ordinary life? Do you give
yourself mental tasks to perform, to keep your mind working and
flexible, or do you tend to take the easy way - whatever that may
mean - using a machine to calculate or think for you?
What do you hear yourself say? - “I can't do that!” “I am
not good at that!” “I never do that!” Do your encourage your children
to do what they are not good at? To develop patience with themselves,
as they fumble where they are weak? Or do you push them to exploit
their talents still more, because you want to feel proud of them, and
through them?… And, therefore, lose those precious opportunities that
present themselves, through childhood inabilities, to teach them how
to accept challenges, make real effort, and enjoy these mental and
spiritual adventures? Have you thought that the talents, the strong
places, even the advantages in a person, may represent lessons
already learned, whereas the weaknesses are the points through which
learning can take place, and new growth commence? This is a reversed
perspective, that makes it possible to see meaning in disadvantages,
and to redress an imbalance.
Part Three:
The most important aspect of this imbalance is the
underlying attitude that life is about activity, striving,
expressing, without relatedness to passivity / stillness /
receptivity. The preceding manifestations of the emphasis, which all
cultures now place on activity / movement, come back to the
underlying attitude that gives priority to activity for its own sake,
and does not comprehend the importance of the state of inactivity, or
stillness, as a quality in its own right. At its most basic and
physical, this attitude assumes that life must be based on tension;
it does not admit the need for letting go, or that relaxation is of
equal importance.
Observe this attitude at work in your own life, as an
attitude underlying the restlessness of body and mind, underlying the
feelings of guilt, which occur if you are inactive. Observe the
difficulty you find in relaxing your body tensions, in letting your
mind cease its restless busy-ness. Observe the effort which you need
to make, in order to let your vibrations slow down, to achieve any
state of approaching stillness. Observe the effort required, to stop
the mechanical process in which you are involved - whatever form it
may be taking at any one time. To say “stop” requires effort, to let
that “stop” permeate the whole of your physical and mental being is
nearly impossible. Try it. If you achieve it, even momentarily, can
you let the stillness grow, until it permeates the whole of your
being, and you exist, in yourself, and as yourself, without any form
of justification through activity, or expression, or
performance?
If you carry out this inquiry honestly, you will discover
the principal seat of the imbalance within yourself. You will find
that you have no sense of being yourself, without some kind of
activity. The activity makes you a person. Without the activity you
are no one - nothing! The activity may not relate you directly to
other people; it may be something you do on your own, without
observers. Nevertheless, it provides an expression, by which you can
be seen, and without which you are invisible. You make be reading a
book on your own, but the book is a doing “something”, which can be
explained to another person. Even more, the activity proves to you,
yourself, that you exist. The activity of your mind gives you a sense
of your own aliveness. Your meditations, even, are purposeful, and
aimed at achieving certain results, and so they also give you an
identity. And in this latter case, it may be a special kind of
identity, that you feel through the
performance of
meditation.
If you can really experience this perpetual activity in
yourself, experience the vibrating that goes on continuously in your
body, in your mind, and, if you can observe it as well as experience
it, you will catch a glimpse of what is lacking in your life. You
will observe that there is no point of stillness, where you can exist
without activity. You will see that you have not experienced yourself
- apart from the expressions, the performances, that come from you;
you have not experienced that you
are, without a need for justification.
There are other forms of imbalance, which relate to, but
yet are not wholely part of this continuous activity. One of these is
the imbalance caused by the emphasis on words and word-knowledge, as
if all experience and all life could be defined and explained by
words. Until you become more aware of the word-domination in your
mind, you will not begin to notice the other kinds of knowledge, or
vibrations which are of a more subtle or different nature, and which
have been registering in you all along. These are the perceptions of
the intuitions, the perceptions of poetry, which, if they are to be
expressed at all, can only be indicated in the language of poetry and
symbols.
The other imbalance, which is becoming increasingly
apparent in all societies today, is of a spiritual nature, and
manifests as a growing absorption in psychic, spiritualistic, and
other expressions of power, which excite people, and distract them
from the natural - and practical - expressions of their daily lives.
They tittilate the senses, and draw people away from anything simple
and childlike, and from direct relationships with the life of nature
around them. These distractions appeal particularly to people who
have not developed a firm emotional centre in their lives, or whose
relationships to the opposite sex are not clearly and normally
expressed, or who are seeking new meaning in their lives, without a
clear sense of direction, or guidance which can protect the person
from dangers.
Wide knowledge and intellectual development are a helpful
ballast, but it is the natural, balanced, and simple life which gives
the best protection, and enables the person to discriminate. Personal
imbalance of any kind attracts further imbalance and dangers in this
direction, and unfulfilled sexuality, at whatever age, is especially
susceptible to curiosity about psychic and spiritualistic
matters.
Part Four:
The fifth and last attitude, upon which the habitual mind
of man is structured, is called
Greed in the ancient
spiritual teaching. Greed is based on the desire to
have or to
possess, rather than to
use. The having or
possessing is an end in itself, and is a support for the individual
person's feelings of identity, as are the other four attitudes. The
having of a certain kind of
power gives a person his identity; the
possessing of a particular
rôle in relation to other people gives another person his
feeling of “I”. The power and the rôle are useful as parts of a
structure of a person's being at a certain stage; they are not
desired as a means to another end. (At a later stage, power will be
desired in order to achieve something; and the rôle will be
used for a purpose beyond the satisfaction of the individual
identity.) But they cannot be used in another way, until they are
clearly seen as manifestations of Greed at this lower stage of
evolution. Anything may become an object of Greed. A person may need
to possess any object as a support to his own feeling of self; he may
need to possess any kind of knowledge, or all kinds of experience,
for the same reason. It is the
motive (for possession)
which determines the relationship between the possessor and the
object.
The motive may be one of Greed, as defined here, or the
object may be acquired from a different motive altogether. Try an
experiment. Make a list of some of your possessions, of different
kinds, both visible and invisible. Take the material objects that you
value most, one at a time, and try to visualize yourself without
them. How would you feel, if they were stolen, or taken away, or
destroyed, or vanished? Observe, if you can, to what extent they form
part of your image of yourself. Then take groups of possessions, such
as the kind of house you have, the kind of
décor you have
fasioned about you, the kind of clothes you wear. Imagine yourself in
an entirely different kind of house - with a very different
décor - wearing a
different set of clothes and fashion to your own. Observe your
discomfort in these different kinds of situations, with different
sorts of possessions. Observe how they make you feel a different kind
of person, how they challenge you.
Greed is the fastening on to
visible and invisible possessions, which keep one where one is, and
prevent growth in one's being. Greed can absorb most of a person's
energy. This person will tend to make efforts primarily in the
direction of acquiring what gives him or her a sense of power, or
security, or well-being. This is the primary question - does all the
energy of a person go into these efforts to acquire or
possess?
This is the question to ask yourself. How much of your
energy goes into the effort
to acquire or possess those things that give you a sense of identity,
or security? How much of your attention is taken up with Greed, which
justifies you, but is not useful beyond yourself? Energy can be used
for different kinds of effort. The energy used to maintain and defend
the self as it is, through different kinds of possessions, can be
used in another direction. This other direction is taught - although
seldom followed - in the
Gospels. “Take no thought
for the morrow”, and “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on Earth”
are invitations to another kind of thinking and life, where a person
stands free of all that can bind him to where he is, and release his
efforts into a new direction. In this new direction, he will find,
not only a wider, more responsible life of Caring, but also all he
needs.
Part Five:
The need to make effort is implicit in the nature of
physical life on Earth. In order to stay alive, at whatever level of
primitiveness or sophistication, a person has to make effort. The
natural efforts required at one time for the daily-life existence -
of constructing shelters, making clothes, growing food - are not so
apparent or direct today. Muscular effort in the twentieth century is
connected with the will more than with the body. The desires and will
of a person can lead him or her to make many kinds of effort, in
order to achieve his or her goals or aims. But spiritual growth or
evolution - unlike physical growth at plant or animal level, which is
mechanical - requires a different kind of effort, which always
involves the consciousness of the individual, and has to do with
being passive, or patient, or persevering - rather than with an
activity of “getting”.
Work in relation to the
Yamas is an illustration of
this. (The word “work” is used purposely, for the
Yamas are not a subject for
leisure reading or casual discussion, but call forth a certain kind
of effort on the part of everyone who approaches them with a serious
mind.) They call forth the efforts of self-observation, or
self-awareness, which must be pursued without introspection (as it is
commonly understood) or self-criticism. Self-observation or
self-awareness requires different kinds of effort. It requires a
certain kind of mental focus, which involves a particular activity,
or attention within a framework of sustained awareness. The word
“sustained” is important, for all efforts of this kind must be
sustained, in order to be effective. Nothing of lasting significance
can accrue from the occasional attempt to observe the
Yamas which operate in one's
own mind.
It is better not to begin this study at all, than to treat
it casually. But a consistent effort to test these truths, in the
light of his own experience, will quickly bring results for a person,
in the form of insight into the nature of his own mind, and these
insights create a kind of interior light. As light increases, so many
habits of mind which can only operate in darkness, dissolve, or
slowly fade away.
Another form of spiritual effort consists in creating some
structure of daily disciplines, to which a person can refer or return
to, from time to time, whatever the external pattern of happenings or
activities in his daily life. These efforts, by which a person breaks
his outer routine for a short period of time, may take the form of
physical movements, deep breathing, stretching / relaxing exercises,
or some form of mental or spiritual exercise. It may even be a brief
stop - to remember that he
exists. It is important to repeat this stop at regular times
throughout the day - i.e., three or more times, at fairly regular
intervals. This repetition of certain practices, whichever they may
be, at regular times, creates an interior framework in relation to
which a new relationship to daily life - indeed, new life - can begin
to grow.‡
‡ A Culbone visitor's note: The quintessential heart of
all Joan Cooper's teaching is that only unique Individuals, truly
living and growing as Individuals, can access that Knowledge and
nurture that Flame of Caring without which no true community life is
possible for human beings. Hence, only rarely does she quote from, or
refer to any other teachers or their writings. Nevertheless, having
felt it was appropriate to incorporate into the main text of this
Chapter her related meditation-paper, she will not, I hope, mind my
mentioning here our friend, Helen Mary Luke's
Kaleidoscope - “The Way of Woman” and other
essays (New York: Parabola Books 1992), and my
own mentor, Father Terence O'Brien SDB's Living
in Personal Relationship with God Father Son and Holy Spirit - the
understanding of it and a way of achieving it
(2nd edition revised, 49 Surrey Lane, London SW11 3PN: Guild
Publications 1993).
The Yoga pupil who is studying this
yama needs to become aware
of the extent to which his or her own life is
essentially in a state of
imbalance with regard to this relationship between his inner and
outer life. Before any real growth can take place on the spiritual
plane, he must become aware of the efforts - and
kind of effort - needed to
redress this imbalance, and allow the non-literal, passive, innately
receptive side of his being to express, and - eventually - to grow.
This yama assumes particular importance at the time in a person's
life when he or she is at the beginning of the spiritual journey,
when awareness of this spiritual journey as such is commencing, and
when the balance between activity and receptivity has been
tentatively reformed. At such a time, when the person is withdrawing
from certain manifestations of his physically-oriented life, in order
to give energy and time to the development of new perceptions and
awareness, the balance of his life is especially precarious. It is to
such times that the admonition to “watch and pray” applies in
particular; for it is at the commencement of new stages in his life
that a person needs to be “watchful” against immoderate desires, and
especially sensitive to the spiritual protection and guidance which
are, uniquely, his own.
5. The fifth and last
Yama concerns
Right Effort and
Wrong Effort.
This yama is
essentially about learning to distinguish right
effort from wrong
effort according to the motive or aim of the
person. It is sometimes concentrated on awareness of
greed as a particular
manifestation of wrong effort. Greed epitomises wrong effort, for it
is any effort that goes into seeking to acquire something, merely as
a possession, without the desire to use it, or to enjoy it. Greed is
the desire to have, and may
attach itself to anything.
A person may have Greed about any form of material
possession, whether it is paintings, or furniture, or antique cars.
(But, equally, the relationship to the object can be functional, or
it can give sensual or aesthetic pleasure.) A person may acquire
books, or even knowledge, from Greed, when he is motivated
solely by the desire for
possession, or the feeling of power which possession gives him.
People can seek to acquire power or “powers”, or even to acquire
qualities of being, or spiritual qualities, from a kind of Greed.
Wherever the aim is to possess, the efforts which go into the
acquisition of such possessions are wrong efforts. A person may even
have Greed for experience, and seek experiences -without
discrimination or judgment.
Greed is the particular form of wrong effort being made by
people in the latter half of the twentieth century; it is partly a
manifestation that accompanies the breakdown of social and cultural
cohesion, for Greed is a reaction to personal insecurity and
confusion. But whatever the
person seeks to acquire as his own form of security, it is the
efforts made to acquire it that are wrong, not the thing in itself.
And the efforts are wrong, because the aim is to insulate or isolate
the person from the very conditions of his own life which make his
spiritual growth possible.
There are different kinds and levels of “right” effort.
Right effort for everyone consists, first of all, in efforts made to
acquire what is necessary or useful in a person's life. This includes
also what the person needs to nourish him aesthetically, mentally,
spiritually. The second kind of right effort goes beyond what is
necessary or useful for the individual, and may consist in efforts on
behalf of another person, or it may be psychological effort, made in
order to overcome some personal weakness. The third kind of right
effort is effort made in response to inner direction, which effort
far surpasses in intensity and quality every other kind of effort.
This is the highest kind of effort possible for man, and it produces
real change of being. It is this kind of effort which the Yoga pupil
can begin to make during his study of the
yamas, as he attempts to
apply all he learns to his own being and life.
Having begun to distinguish “right” judging from “wrong”
judging, “right” action from “wrong” action, “right” thinking from
“wrong” thinking, “right” balance from imbalance or immoderation, and
“right” effort from “wrong” effort, the student of Yoga begins to
find that he has a little control over the activities of both his
mind and body; he begins to have a certain amount of choice. As his
discernment deepens, and his choices become clearer, so new desires
begin to awaken in him, which, in time, become principles around
which a new conception of life - in fact, a new life - grows. These
desires may always have existed in him in some form - if only in
embryo; at a certain point, they begin to clarify, and come into
focus, as expressions of his etheric being. They become increasingly
significant to him, as a new structure, in and through which he
wishes his life to be lived. These expressions of a person's etheric
being constitute the
niyamas: Purity of Mind and
Body, Sensitivity, Devotion to a Higher Being, Contentment, and
Study.
The niyamas form
the interior structure for the growth of a “new man” or a “new
woman”. They comprise all the efforts that a person makes, from his
own innermost desire, in
order to grow spiritually, and it is within this structure that his
new being takes shape, and is formed.
Niyama is, literally, a
double negative meaning “not-commandment”. In the original Sanskrit
it meant essentially “free expression from a person's innermost
discernment”; it is a formulation of how a person, at the deepest
level of his being, wishes his life to be lived.
1. The first
Niyama concerns the desire
for Purity of Mind and
Body.
The first niyama
is fundamentally the expression of a desire to cleanse the body and
mind of all impurities - of everything that could distort or corrupt
- and to cast out anything which is superfluous, and not relevant, or
necessary to the current stage of growth. Every detail of this
niyama flows from the basic
desire for purity; its manifestations will vary from person to
person, and, for each person, they will alter from time to time, and
in accordance with his own pattern of growth.
Purification or
cleansing is an
essential desire, which
originates in a person's etheric being, and, once formed, continues
with that person forever. It seeks no particular “end” or result, but
is rather a continuing process, whereby, stage by stage, whatever has
become useless, or superfluous, is cast off. Whatever has ceased to
nourish or contribute to the growth of his being may be seen, in
time, to be irrelevant. As a person's being changes and evolves, so
what was once useful is discarded by this process of
purification.4
4 Purity does not mean chastity - by definition: “pure,
cut off, separated”. No action in Yoga, mental or physical, is ever
designed to separate or cut a person off from himself or from others.
Progress is always by way of seeing, awareness, understanding, and
acceptance; and change comes naturally, as a process of falling away,
of transformation, or en-lightenment.
Exclusion, in whatever form:
physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual, is anti-thetical to the
Yoga teaching, where
wholeness is the aim at
every stage. At each stage there is a new form of wholeness, or a
re-defining of it.
One aspect of this
niyama is the desire for
purification of the body in the form of diet, and body-care, and
body-cleansing. In this context, considerable teaching was given in
the earliest form of Yoga in the way of principles with regard to the
taking of food. These principles were not taught as commandments, but
rather in the form of knowledge about the body's needs and the kinds
of food which would best nourish and maintain it. There were no rigid
principles, and strict eating habits were never enforced in the early
Yoga communities, or among followers of this oral Yoga teaching.
Knowledge was given in such a way as to enable each person to achieve
the understanding of which he was personally capable at a given time,
and from which new understanding could grow, as his own being
developed. No pattern of diet was ever imposed from
without, either literally -
within Yoga communities, or in the form of specific injunctions. The
initiative was always left to the individual person to work out a
diet appropriate to his own needs at any given time.
The knowledge given to the Yoga student had to do, first
of all, with the reasons for taking in food. These were presented as
threefold: energy to run the
body, the maintenance of the
body through cell restoration and repair, and the
cleansing of the body of
different kinds of toxins.5 The general principle relating to these
three reasons for taking in food states that everything taken into
the body as food should
serve at least one of these categories. It should be productive of
energy, or of use either to maintain, or cleanse the body. Ideally,
all food taken into the body should serve the three
functions.
5 Toxic matter is either produced naturally by the body,
or contained in the food as something un-natural to the body, or
enters the body from the atmosphere, or from the vibrations of other
people. A Culbone Visitor's note: Other increasingly prevalent
sources of toxic matter are polluted waters, synthetic and
environmentally unfriendly cosmetics, drugs, fragrances,
hair-conditioners, medicines, smoking mixtures, and - not to be
forgotten - a wide range of artificially generated and thoughtlessly
exploited, hazardous, electromagnetic radiations.
Food should never contribute to toxicity in the body. Four
guide-lines are deducible from this principle regarding the reasons
for taking in food, and indicate the
kind of food most suitable
for human consumption.
(a) Whole food is preferable to
refined food. The whole food is of far greater
use for man than a refined or partial version of it. This may be seen
to be true in the case of whole grains, whole fruits, whole
vegetables, compared, in most cases, with the partial grain, or
fruit, or vegetable. The whole is more than merely the collection of
its parts, and, as a whole,
contains something which usually serves all three purposes: energy,
body-maintenance, and body-cleansing.
(b) Natural food is preferable to any
form of preserved food. No preserved food of any
kind is equal to the natural form; natural drying is the only
adequate way of preserving food without destroying some valuable, or
adding toxic matter. Preservatives, which are often chemicals, and
even salting and smoking, add some toxins to the food.
(c) Simple food is preferable to
complex or
concocted food. This
principle has to do mainly with man's mind, rather than his body, for
it is concerned with teaching him not to focus undue attention upon
food. The purpose is a mental re-education on the subject of food, so
that it becomes simply what it is: a means of providing for bodily
needs. The aim is to break the pattern of food-expectation as a
psychological focal point in the pattern of daily life. It should
help women to become aware that there is no need to spend long
periods of time in food preparation, or to experience the tensions
that accompany the setting out of complex meals.
(d) Less is preferable to
more. This refers to both body and mental
attitude, and has to do with the quantity of food consumed. It is
based on the knowledge that the human body is better served with
smaller quantities of food: that there is more energy from less food,
that body-maintenance is better when it is not over-loaded, and that
cleansing can only take place where there is moderation in
eating.
The third aspect of the teaching about food states that,
while food should serve all three aims, each food is predominantly of
importance for one purpose only: energy, body-maintenance, or
body-cleansing. For example, energy derives primarily from natural
sugars (in the form of honey, or dried fruit, and some fresh fruit),
fats,6 and cereals. The conversion of cereals and grains contributes
to man's energy, but grain is also important for body-maintenance.
(If the whole grain is eaten, the outer part is of use for
body-cleansing as well.) Proteins are the particular contributor to
body-maintenance. 7 Raw vegetables and fruit are the principal food
contributors to body-cleansing, but water is considered by the Yoga
teaching to be of primary importance for cleansing the body. Cold
water is important, because it is oxygenated, and oxygen contributes
to the proper combustion of toxic matter; no other liquid is a
substitute for water. Four pints of water daily are considered to be
the minimum amount necessary for adequate body-cleansing. It should
be consumed on waking, between meals, and before sleeping; but it
should not be drunk with meals.*
6. Pupils were taught that vegetable fats were most
digestible, butter next, and the heavier animal fats least digestible
of all.
7. The forms of protein, listed in order of value to man,
are dairy products, beans and soya, and meat. A Culbone Visitor's
note: In our contemporary environment spirulina and Klamath Lake
algae (aphanizomenon
flos-aquae) have also been identified as
naturally available sources of protein of primary value to
man.
* A Culbone Visitor's note: Although the natural stream of
soft water running down through the Culbone valley to the Bristol
Channel is not ideal for drinking, Culbone also enjoys the natural
benefit of three bubbling springs of healthily delicious hard water,
coming, underneath the Bristol Channel, from the Brecon Hills of
Wales. If wine accompanies a meal, considerable evidence indicates
that red organic wine, drunk in genuine moderation, is generally
beneficial to one's health. Cfr. 1 Tm
5: 23.
The earliest students of Yoga were not necessarily
vegetarian. The principle, upon which meat-eating was based, is that
only those species were created to be eaten by man which do not
individuate in separate etheric bodies.8 This includes all fish, and
most fowls or birds. Some students of this earliest teaching of Yoga
were none-the-less eaters of red meat, for there was no direct
prohibition on meat-eating. The observance depended upon the
individual person recognizing the principle involved, and having a
need in himself to follow this principle, because he had reached the
stage in his own spiritual evolution to which such understanding
belonged. Before a person reaches this stage of understanding,
abstinence from meat-eating serves no useful purpose.
8. The primary distinction is between mammals and
flock-creatures. The principal reason why mammals should not be eaten
is that they experience individually man's intention to kill them,
and this causes real suffering. A Culbone Visitor's note: Because, as
is now known, even plants are, in some degree, sensitively responsive
to hostile or otherwise negative vibrations within their environment,
whenever living beings are subordinated to man's requirement of food,
clothing, medicine, solace or simple pleasure, it is also
particularly important that the student of Yoga nurtures the
appropriate right attitude, and eschews any inappropriate and,
therefore, wrong attitude.
Alcohol was drunk on special occasions in small quantity,
but people were otherwise not encouraged to drink. It was never
prohibited by the oral Yoga teaching.
Purification and
cleansing are concerned with
the mind, as well as the body. The original Yoga taught that man must
learn to become aware of what goes into the mind, in the same way he
is aware of what he takes into his body, and that he has to learn to
disciminate or select what he looks at, listens to, and absorbs with
his other senses. The student was never taught specifically what to
take into his mind. The principle was that selectivity with regard to
mental “good” is as important as the discrimination a person
exercises over the diet for his body. And the principle, upon which
this selectivity should be exercised, is based on the fact that
everything in the universe tends either to nourish or poison the mind
of the man who absorbs its impressions. Nothing is neutral in the
universe. A person can, through developing his own sensitivity,
become aware of this, and discriminate accordingly. He can eventually
develop a degree of continuing awareness of what he is about to take
into his mind, and know whether it has the tendency to nourish him,
or to distort - or even destroy - his mind. It means also that a
person has to become increasingly sensitive to his total
environment,* and not merely let his mind “drift”, semi-consciously.
Such sensitivity and awareness are the starting-point for all
subsequent yoga practices.
* A Culbone Visitor's note: This includes, as well as new
and second-hand bookshops, public and private libraries. Increased
social mobility, cultural pluralism and the multi-ethnic character of
many communities today are valid reasons for sometimes using books as
instrumental aids towards the acquisition of this much needed sense
of discrimination. Cfr. Max Lake, Scents and
Sensuality - The Essence of Excitement (London:
John Murray 1989); Annick Le Guérer, Scent
- They Mysterious and Essential Powers of Smell
(Chatto & Windus 1993); Richard Alan &
Iona Miller, The Magical and Ritual Use of
Perfumes (Rochester, Vermont: Destiny Books
1990); Gabriel Cousens, Spiritual Nutrition and
the Rainbow Diet (Boulder: Cassandra Press
1986); A. L. Sadler, Cha-No-Yu - The Japanese Tea
Ceremony (Charles E. Tuttle Co. 1977); A.
Walker, The Definitive Book of Colour Healing
(London: HPC 1991).
Fasting relates to both the mind
and the body, but it has nothing to do with purification and
cleansing in the Yoga sense, which stem from a spiritual desire for
wholeness. The desire for purification is a desire for the mind and
body to become increasingly sensitive and responsive instruments,
under the control of the individual man or woman. Fasting derives in
part from a desire to abstain from something temporarily - not to
discard what is seen to be useless. The desire to fast does not
usually derive from a person's understanding, but from an attitude of
mind which is related to greed. In a certain sense, fasting is a
“greed” to deprive the mind or body. Abstinence cannot exist without
greed, nor greed without abstinence. Together they constitute a form
of polarity, which is opposite to
purification. For
purification does not lie in the middle between these opposites, but
is the alternative to the extremes. It is the only spiritual way or
path which leaders to both
wholeness, and to what is
holy.
Fasting never belonged to the oral teaching of Yoga. Food
was taken for the three reasons given, and pupils were always taught
that spiritual growth is based on normal healthy bodies, not on weak,
degenerate, or fasted ones. This is not to say that fasts may not be
of practical physical use at certain times, especially in societies
where over-eating and gluttony are commonplace, and this becomes a
way of ridding the body of poisons. However, fasting did not
originate in such a context, nor was it evolved to perform a
practical physiological function. It originated in the earliest
organized religious institutions of the fourth millennium B.C., and
has been used by every religion in subsequent human history, as part
of its ritual of self-denigration, or to promote “visions” in its
followers. The physiological uses of fasting are of minor importance
in this religious context.
The desire for
healing and
wholeness of body and mind
is part of the desire for cleansing; it is only the whole body, or
the whole mind, which can be cleansed and refined of all that is
superfluous to the current stage or aim of the person, whatever that
might be. One of the tasks of the earliest form of Yoga teaching was
to give the individual person sufficient knowledge to heal himself,
when either his body or mind was in a state of temporary disorder,
and the confidence to be responsible for the care of both. The
techniques of asana - which will be discussed in more detail later -
were devised to increase the person's awareness of his own
body-structure and functions, so that he would immediately have
knowledge of a tendency to physiological imbalance of any kind. Other
“steps” in the Yoga teaching, such as
pranayama and
pratyahara, also had the aim
of increasing a man's knowledge of himself and the etheric world in
which he lived. Such knowledge enabled him, not only to care for his
mind, as an instrument of perception, but to heal it, strengthen it,
and extend the range and quality of its ability to
experience.
The Yoga student was taught that, for every ailment known
to man, a herb exists which can effect a cure, and restore a state of
health. He was taught which part of the herb to use, and how to make
a simple infusion from the flowers, leaves, stem, bark, or roots.
Detailed knowledge gave people the means by which they could help
their bodies to heal themselves.*
* A Culbone Visitor's note: My father and first teacher of
yoga, Levi Hamer, greatly esteemed Reddy Mallett's
Nature's Way. Cfr. Nogah
Hareuveni in association with Helen Freknley,
Ecology in the Bible
(Israel: Neot Kedumia Ltd 1974); Margaret Pickston,
The Language of Flowers - To Mother from Father,
August 8th 1913 (facsimile reprint, London:
Michael Joseph 1968); S. Cunningham, Encyclopedia
of Magical Herbs and Magical
Herbalism (St. Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn 1986,
1987); J. Lust, The Herb
Book (New York: Bantam Books 1974); L. Manniche,
An Ancient Egyptian Herbal
(British Museum Publications 1989); R. A. Miller,
The Magical & Ritual Use of
Herbs (New York: Destiny Books 1983); W.
Strehlow & G. Hertzka, Hildegard of Bingen's
Medicine (Santa Fe: Bear & Co. 1988); C. L.
Zalewski, Herbs in Magic and
Alchemy (Bridport: Prism Press 1990);
César Calvo, The Three Halves of Ino Moxo
- Teachings of the Wizard of the Upper Amazon
(Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions
International 1995); R. Evans Schultes & A. Hofmann,
Plants of the Gods
(Rochester, Vermont: Healing Arts Press 1992); Christopher Joyce,
Earthly Goods - Medicine in the Rain
Forest (Little, Brown & Co. 1994); D. M.
Turner, Salvinorin - The Psychedelic Essence of
Salvia Divinorum (Panther Press, 1032 Irving,
#514, San Francisco, CA 94122).
Specialist medicine grew up in the course of human history
in the same way as did specialist religion, encouraged by man's
apathy or laziness; it had the same effect of making him dependent
upon the arcane practices of a professional body of intermediaries,
rather than be responsible for himself, whether for the state of his
body, the state of his mind, or the state of his spiritual
being.
The desire for purification in a person is the root of
much that comes later in the practice of Yoga. It provides a focus
for the development of a new sense of responsibility for himself,
which he must express, if he is to cleanse and make whole his own
body and mind.
2. The second
Niyama concerns what is
called Tapas.
Tapas is a proto-Sanskrit word,
which has often been translated wrongly as “austerity”, or
“mortification”, or “discipline”, implying limitation, or
restriction. The word is a verb, which refers to a certain kind of
activity of mind, that can
best be defined as
discriminating. But even
this word, “disciminating”, does not entirely describe what is meant
by tapas, for it is an
activity of mind based upon an inner sensitivity to what is “higher”
or “lower” in each situation. This point of sensitivity lies within a
person's own etheric being, and has nothing whatsoever to do with
externally derived criteria, or judgments. By “sensitivity” is meant
an awareness of the factors, both inner and outer, in an event, or
experience, or relationship, which lead “upwards” into wholeness,
consciousness, or growth, and those which lead “downwards” into
increased restriction, lesser consciousness, or even darkness. After
the person has reached a certain stage, his desire and will are
linked with this point of sensitivity - although, even before that
time, it may express as a kind of vague touchstone, to which the
person sometimes refers. At a certain stage in his spiritual
evolution, the desire to use this sensitivity become an imperative,
and the person needs to
discriminate on the basis of his own
sensitivity, instead of from external judgments, or internalized
social values.
The word tapas
implies also the principles, upon which discrimination is based, but
these are never absolute
principles. The principles of discrimination are never commandments,
for the act of discriminating can only exist in the NOW, from moment
to moment, and in relation to each particular set of circumstances.
The point of sensitivity in each person can provide the basis for
this activity of discriminating from moment to moment; it is only the
formatory mind which seeks a set pattern of behaviour, and absolute
principles.
It is difficult to appreciate the degree of mental
activity implicit in the practice of discrimination, and the kind of
inner sensitivity necessary, because such activity of mind is seldom
met. It is easier for people to live in relation to a firm structure
of attitude, or a pattern which defines behaviour in terms of
explicit categories - or else to drift from one situation to the
next, than to remain open, and alert to each new situation. It is
also difficult in more complex societies to resist the often subtle
external pressures they create, and have the strength of will - as
well as the inner sensitivity - to take in what is useful and
positive in each situation, and reject what is harmful, or useless
for the individual's own particular pattern of growth.
Tapas has as little to do with
austerity, self-denial, or total abstinence, as purification and
cleansing have to do with fasting. The discrimination of
tapas, and the sensitivity
from which it comes, is freeing and joyous, and is the expression of
a deep spiritual desire to be aware of, and exercise control over
everything that could enter into a person's being. Through the
principles of tapas the Yoga
teaching gives every beginner upon the way the knowledge that he is
able to select what he takes into his being, and to reject or deny
entrance to anything which would distort or divert him: anything
which could needlessly use up, or absorb his energies, and so waste
the time and opportunities which belong to his physical life on
Earth.
3. The third
Niyama concerns the capacity
for Devotion to a Higher
Being.
At every stage in the long course of man's evolution, from
the moment when he first enters upon the path (which means, in fact,
becoming aware of the possibility of, and his own personal need for,
spiritual growth), there is the capacity for
devotion in himself. This capacity for devotion
is part of the etheric being of man; it arises in him after he has
passed through the more primitive stages of existence. At every
stage, its direction is different, and its form of expression varies,
but it is always directed towards Someone Who embodies the essence of
what a person feels is Good. The feeling of devotion is never
directed towards an impersonal “power”, but is always the highest
form of “vertical” personal
relationship of which a person is capable at any
given time. The desire to serve is an integral part of this capacity
for devotion.
A man can be devoted to G-d, as the expression of the
highest Good, Who is a Person, and yet not directly accessible on
intimate personal scale; the same man may also be devoted to another
expression of G-d, whom he would call his “guardian angel”. This one
expresses G-d's guidance and protection in day-to-day living
experience; it is a practical relationship with Good, which is
intimate and personally challenging, in a way that the first
relationship to G-d is not. These two kinds of relationship form the
two aspects of this one
niyama, devotion to a Higher
Being. The first expresses an outline of the individual's highest
conception of Good; the second relationship expresses the degree to
which he is willing to act from this Good, and be guided by this Good
- not in theory, but in daily life, and from moment to moment. The
relationship to the guardian angel is an expression of the extent to
which the person takes seriously, and practically, his devotion to
G-d.
Such devotion grows through personal experience, because
it springs from a spiritual
reality, which has developed
within the person's own etheric nature, and does not exist through
social convention, or an inherited faith. Both aspects of the
experience of G-d are an experience of Beauty, Good, Love, Meaning,
Protection, and Truth; they constitute an experience, in which all
that is positive and growing prevails over what is negative, or
self-diminishing, or dark. From experience comes an increase in the
knowledge that the ultimate Reality IS G-D, however much
things-transient may appear to the contrary; from experience alone
comes also an increase in trust, from which alone the person's
capacity for devotion to G-d can grow.
This is the essential “ground” in man's being, from which
he knows G-d to be, not only
the ultimate Reality, but
has experience daily - can have experience daily - of the existence
of that Reality now, and of
its positive working in himself. From this ground in a man's being,
and from experience, he knows that G-d will always overcome all
darkness, drawing everyone, and all Creation, into the light. It is
this ground which grows, and, radiating out, transforms the attitudes
in his mind, and re-structures his relationships with other men,
animals, and with nature. Upon this ground are founded the patience
and courage necessary for the continuation of his spiritual
journey.
4. The third
Niyama concerns the desire
for Contentment.
Contentment, like the preceding
niyamas, is based on a point
of reality in the etheric nature of a person. This point of reality
is the essential understanding that
who he is, and
where he is, in an external,
physical, or social sense, is, in some way, a reflection of the
spiritual state of his own being. From this understanding comes every
desire to use the external form of his life - its conditions or
circumstances, and all events which occur on the outer plane - as a
means of acquiring self-knowledge, and of growing
spiritually.
The initial understanding, from which contentment
eventually grows, only begins to form in the etheric being of a
person at a certain stage in his evolution, and this may occur during
the* physical life, or at
some point in the course of
an* etheric existence. It
only begins to form, when the person has moved away from the level of
being where life consists solely in acquiring, having, or possessing.
When he has exhausted all the possibilities which life offers him at
this stage, and has begun to move onto the level where life consists
in various forms of
self-expression, then the
desire for self-knowledge can begin to form in him. Again, after long
periods of time, the desire to accept himself and his life begins to
develop in a person; from that time on, he has intimations of the
contentment expressed by this
niyama. As a man continues
along the path of his spiritual evolution, the desire for contentment
grows - in direct relation to the increasing acceptance of what he
discovers about himself, and about the form and circumstances of his
life; it grows also out of the more
active desire to take
responsibility for himself, and his life.
* A Culbone Visitor's note:
Bold emphasis
added.
But this alone is not enough to give contentment. A person
may have some knowledge, and a certain degree of experience, of the
reality which underlies various physical manifestations of his life,
and still not know contentment. There may still be a certain unease,
and tensions - relating to his life, and the movement of his life
towards its future. For contentment rests, not only upon
self-knowledge, and the experiences connected with it, but, equally,
upon the knowledge and experience which derive from the specific
spiritual relationship referred to in the preceding
niyama, devotion to a Higher
Being. This is the relationship, possible for every person on Earth,
with the spiritual companion who accompanies him throughout the whole
of his life, and is called by some the “guardian angel”. It is the
experience of guidance and protection, and the experience of never
being completely alone, which makes possible a quality of acceptance,
at the deepest level, in a person's being, upon which contentment
ultimately rests. Contentment is ultimately the expression of a
person's knowledge that he is spiritually secure or safe.
This niyama is
the perfect expression of the activity involved in
Karma Yoga. Karma Yoga may
be defined as the practice of using the exernal circumstances of the
life for purposes of spiritual growth.
Contentment is an expression of the knowledge that a
person is, as he is, because of the stage of spiritual development to
which he has attained. He knows it is not due primarily to external
material factors, social environment, or psychological traumas. He is
where he is psychologically and spiritually, because of what he has
learned - or failed to learn - before entering into physical life. He
is where he is, in a social, historical, or material sense, because
of the nature of his own being.
These external circumstances are, at least in part: (a) a
reflection of his spiritual condition or nature - however unformed or
rudimentary it may be, (b) essential to his spiritual development
now, and (c) represent a
task to be performed. This is a spiritual task in relation to the
person's own immediate environment, which he alone can perform. This
task, however limited, has to do with the spiritualizing of some
small part of the universe, which that person inhabits, and of his
relationships in it.
Contentment with the life a man has, and with himself,
never means blind acceptance, or passivity, to either. It is an
underlying attitude, which enables the person to find meaning in all
he does, and gives him a sense of joy in performing the life-tasks,
whatever they may be. It never means drifting, living without
awareness, allowing his being, or his life, to move sluggishly, or
lazily. It implies conscious selectivity and discrimination in his
daily life, and a continuing awareness of who he is, and where he is
- and why he is.
5. The fifth and last
Niyama concerns the desire
to study and learn.
This niyama
derives from the desire in man's etheric being for knowledge. Like
the other desires of an etheric nature, it is without limitation or
end. The desire to receive instruction, to learn about the nature of
himself and the universe in which he lives, grows, with the growth of
the individual person, throughout the whole of his spiritual
evolution, which is, itself, without end. Thus, the desire for
knowledge is an eternal desire; it becomes, in time, the desire for
Truth.
Study is the expression of man's
desire for knowledge. It means, in the first place, an attitude of
mind, which may be defined as active
awareness. It does not mean reading.*
* A Culbone Visitor's note: Cfr. Saint Thomas Aquinas,
How to Study (London: Aquin
Press 1960); Thomas agrees completely - and so does Saint
Bonaventure.
Active awareness has to do with
the directed use of all a person's faculties of sensing, which give
direct knowledge of the world around him. “Directed use” of the
senses means, not merely seeing or hearing, but
looking, and
listening. It is the
niyama requiring most
activity.*
* A Culbone Visitor's note: For an excellent introduction
cfr. the anonymously and only posthumously published
Meditations on the Tarot - A Journey into
Christian Hermeticism (New York: Amity House /
Element Books 1985). Taking a cue from Carlos Castaneda's teacher,
Don Juan Matus, instead of the left-brain expressions “looking” and
“listening” we do well to use the right-brain attentive but
not-too-rigidly-focussed
seeing as distinct from
‘seeing’ and hearing as
distinct from ‘hearing’. Jesus Christ's words about spiritual
blindness and spiritual
deafness also seem
apposite.
The primary aim of study for the student of Yoga, at this
stage, is that of combatting ignorance, which is the greatest
stumbling-block or obstacle on the spiritual journey of a person. The
purpose of study is to increase his knowledge of human life on Earth,
and of the laws which govern it, through direct personal observation,
also to develop his understanding, by giving attention to the
experiences of his own life and in the lives of other people, and to
develop, and extend generally, his powers of receptivity and
awareness.
Study does not mean “study of the
Scriptures” - or of any texts, or of religious or philosophical
writings. In the days when the
niyamas were first
formulated in this oral teaching, there were no written scriptures of
any kind; there was no organized religion to direct and circumscribe
how men thought. Even in later times, when religious treatises, or
sets of instruction and belief, had been written down, the primary
aim of this niyama, in the
oral teaching, was to encourage a man to develop his
own powers of perception,
observation, and awareness. Its intent was to enable a man, through
that learning process, by which he arrives at his own conclusions, to
develop personal contact with the source of teaching within
himself.†
† A Culbone Visitor's note: Here, too, Aquinas and
Bonaventure both entirely agree with Joan Cooper, and, in
his Explanation of the Letter to the
Galatians, Saint Augustine of Hippo clarifies
that: “The purpose of the apostle's letter to the Galatians was to
make them realize that G-d's grace, once implanted in them, had
effectively freed them from subjection to the Law.” For, as Paul
himself wrote: “The law was our tutor, to bring us to Christ, to find
in faith our justification. When faith comes, then we are no longer
under the rule of a tutor.” (Ga 3:24-25.) And again: “When I came to
you, brothers, it was not with any show of oratory or philosophy, but
simply to tell you what G-d had guaranteed. During my stay with you,
the only knowledge I claimed to have was about Jesus, and only about
him as the crucified Christ. Far from relying on any power of my own,
I came among you in great ‘fear and trembling’, and in my speeches
and the sermons that I gave, there were none of the arguments that
belong to philosopy; only a demonstration of the power of the Spirit.
And I did this so that your faith should not depend on human
philosophy but on the power of G-d.” (1 Co 2: 1-5.) Indeed, “the good
man is a light in the darkness for the upright.” (Ps 111:4.)
The aim of Study
within the context of the Yoga teaching, apart from the extension of
a man's understanding and awareness, is to develop his etheric being
and make him independent of outside influences (for example, the
social or cultural influences of his time), and confident in the
instruction and guidance of his inner teacher. To study scriptures or
texts would have the reverse effect of making a man dependent upon an
outside authority. It would weaken his ability to make decisions, and
to act responsibly and with awareness from
himself; it would fill his mind with other
people's conclusions - derived often from theory, and not from
experience - but do nothing to extend his own powers of perception
and observation, and his ability, ultimately, to
listen to the inspiration,
which alone can guide a man's life in the right direction.*
* A Culbone Visitor's note: And in that sense, perhaps
without ‘hearing’, intuitively
hear - even in
silence.
This last niyama
exemplifies the central core of the oral Yoga teaching, which
originated in the “schools” of fourth millennium B.C. Sumeria. This
is, that the purpose of all instruction and all knowledge is: to
enable the individual to become knowledgeable, confident in the use
of his own faculties, and independent of those influences for
darkness and evil, which have always sought to limit man's spiritual
growth. As well as imparting the knowledge necessary to achieve this
aim, and exercises to develop his powers of awareness, the purpose of
this teaching is: to encourage each individual to seek within himself
- that is, through his particular etheric nature - to make personal
contact with his own inner teacher. This is not any abstract “self”
or source of knowledge within himself; the term “inner” is used to
distinguish this teacher from any teacher who exists, outside the
person, physically. “Inner teacher” refers to the spiritual guardian
or so called “guardian angel”, who is with every individual person
from the moment of his physical birth, and whose task is: to protect,
and guide, and instruct that person throughout his physical life, as
far as he is able and willing to listen.
Once he is in touch with his inner teacher or guardian
angel, a person is truly on the path of his own spiritual growth;
once he is in touch with his guardian angel, he is also protected
from outside influences, which seek his conformity with their own
ends, or which desire to coerce, or even destroy him. In this way the
primary aim of the Yoga teaching finds fulfilment.
© The Neith Network Library 2003
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