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Jnanakrishna (Mikhail Coffman)
"Man, Destiny, Eternity or Philosophy of the Grand Unity"
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Path and Aim. Philosophical essay
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You cannot overcome the ignorance
by arguing and silly chatting.
Only serious meditation, unselfishness,
Study and love can help you.
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To gather a harvest, you have to plough up the field, sow it, wait for the young crops, take care of them, etc. So plow your mind with a strong will and determination in Truth, and sow it with seeds of knowledge. Don’t forget to clean it from the weeds of arrogance and self-conceit, anger, lies, hypocrisy, sanctimony, incontinence and greed. Warm the sprouts of your awakened spirit, growing self-confidence, and belief in your abilities with all-embracing love and unselfishness and you will reap the offspring of wisdom, Higher Knowledge. You will be free from suffering, free from ignorance of your true immortal nature and free from the inexorable Karma chains.
When I was young, I became seriously ill. Suddenly a thought came to my mind: this happened because I worked too hard for the preparation of entrance exams so as to get admission in the Institute. I was a child at the time of the Second World War and my life was not at all smooth during these years – this definitely affected my health too. My father died at the very beginning of the war and my family fully suffered the severities of war and the hardships of post-war period.
So when I was a first year student, I became seriously ill and found myself in the hospital. I had to leave my studies for a year and my great spiritual purification through suffering had commenced, which continued for more then fifteen years. We’ll talk about essence and nature of suffering later on. Now, I just want to cite a part of Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem “Flour and Torment”:
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People, believe me: our life is a melancholy!
Only with melancholy can we overcome the boredom.
Everything will be milled? And become flour?
No, let it be torment!
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I tried everything to cure my illness during these years, but again and again everything I had achieved collapsed and I had to return to the hospital and lie there alone face to face with despair and hopeless situation.
However, I am convinced from my life experience that if you don’t lose courage and do everything to achieve your goal, something will definitely happen unexpectedly to rescue you. It can be absolutely unnoticeable and easy to miss if your mind is not ready for it.
With my wife, we jokingly call such things “cosmic trifles.” “Cosmic”, because such “trifles” change our lives once and for all.
Running a few steps forward, I can say with confidence that my vital and philosophical quest confirm: nothing happens accidentally in this world, all things are somehow mutually connected and mutually dependant. The only problem is that it is not always possible to reveal these superfine ties by our mind.
I’ll tell you about it later. Here’s the story about my first meeting with yoga. When I had suffered a new “knock-down”, I heard my fellow sufferers talk about yoga exercises, about the therapeutic action of yoga respiratory and physical training.
I had heard about yoga before, but at that time I did not think about it seriously. Apparently I had to suffer enough to discover this grace. I was 33 when I heard this talk. Certainly, this age may be a turning-point in a person’s life. I got really interested in this theme and asked to bring to me press-cuttings from the 1969 year issue of a magazine called “Village youth”, in which an interview with Anatoly Zubkov was published. He had just returned from his long trip to India. I read and grasp entire information in this article, rewrote the yoga exercises, and began to practice them right in the hospital. Actually hospital is not a suitable place for Yoga exercise, but it was a question of life and death for me and hence I did not care about such small things at that moment.
Henceforth my life passed smoothly without any significant problem. Yoga immediately and unconditionally became my vital credo, my lifestyle, not just a number of respiratory and physical exercises. It became integral part of my life.
India! A fairy-land of thinkers and philosophers, a country of a wonderful Eternal people with Wisdom and an Unselfish Love. Ancient Aryavarta! The native land of the everlasting wisdom, a country whose philosophical genius gave an innumerable galaxy of famous thinkers, perfect sages and great Yogis, geniuses of spirit and senses. Eternal Teachers of the Humanity, Elite of the Humanity!
Right away, even when I just began the yoga exercises, it already seemed to me that I was filled with energy, vivacity, self-confidence, and the will to live and continue my affairs, for the sake of which I born and should accomplish them with maximum diligence.
Some people think that yoga takes people away from reality to some ghostly world of dreams and illusions. It is an utter fallacy. Meditative existence is superior in our world as it allows access to the innermost deep sense of things and events. However, it doesn’t mean at all that meditation takes you away from reality.
“You have to look for the pearl of Truth in the market-places, amongst people, in the heart of life, not in the forest or desert”, this is very appropriate thought expressed by the first patriarch of the southern school Chan, the Chinese thinker Choi-Nen /637-713/.
Of course solitude sometimes can be very useful and necessary for a person, but only at the right time and under proper conditions. This should not become an end in itself as it can be harmful.
Here I remember a line from another poem of Marina Tsvetaeva: “…Because I stand on the earth only on my one foot…” You cannot live on Earth and be unearthly, even a half. You have to stand firm on your two feet: this means that you should have your own firm principles, you should know perfectly what do you want to achieve in the life and you should have determination to materialize your principles. And if it is so, it is necessary to learn constantly and work hard for self-improvement and moral perfection. It is great if you have a wise teacher, who can help you to avoid difficulties on your Path.
No one takes such a sober view of life as yogis do, whose thoughts are deeper than that of ordinary person. That’s why the yogi belongs to Earth more than others. Indeed! The one who understands reality deeper than other people cannot be away from this reality. If a person is abstracted, it doesn’t mean they are flying somewhere in the clouds and alienated from the real life on Earth. Indeed, opposite is true. You can find a real revelation under such conditions, an insight that can become a guiding thread in your life.
Baudelaire wrote in his poem “Lighthouses”:
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These Titan’s screams, their pain, their efforts,
Blasphemy, curses, delights and supplications,
Wonderful opium of the spirit, that gives us wings,
The roll-call of hearts in the destiny labyrinths.
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“… Lighthouses for the persons caught in the storm!” This is what Baudelaire correctly says about geniuses. They are people with a superior ability for deep concentration.
Concentration is a goal and a course of the yogi’s life. Deep concentration, samadhi, real contemplation of truth, is the highest eighth grade of Yogi.
As far as I am concerned, only yoga, the union with the bright life-asserting Indian philosophy, and nothing else, could help me to find my own place in this life and to stand firm on my two feet
I lost my interest in economics (even though I had obtained the degree from institute of economics.) My new passion was philosophy with its deeper problems. I was hungry for information and yoga exercises alone could not satisfy me without a philosophical explanation. So I decided to go to the library without particular hope of success. However, unexpectedly I found a huge amount of literature which I was looking for. I was getting interested in more questions and my need for new literature was also growing.
First of all, I decided to read the two volumes of S.Radhakrishnan “Indian philosophy.” I think it is the best book about Indian philosophy ever translated into Russian. I was determined to read it and understand in a short period of time, but could not do that. It was a painful defeat; I understood that without reading this book I could not go further but there were lot of other hurdles which I should overcome first. By this time I was absolutely sure that philosophy, i.e. the science of Eternity, Truth and Human being, is my real vocation.
Truth is unified and widespread amongst all living beings. That’s why dividing philosophy into eastern and western is very relative. The problems may be presented somewhat differently, but their sense, I mean origins, essence, laws of being, life and death, environment and time, ultimately leads to the one and the same basic question for all thinkers and people at all times viz. correlation between eternal and transient, the Grand Unity of Being.
Indian thinkers were anxious for unity; hence they paid relatively less attention to details, while western philosophy is more exact in the formulation of particular questions but they were somewhat vague when the time of final generalizations came.
Returning to my failure with S.Radhakrishna’s book, I must say that it has always been a very unpleasant thing for me to begin something and then leave it unfinished. It happened because at that time I did not have sufficient strength to complete this task. There is an eastern phrase: “to lose one’s face”. I think it means to lose self-esteem, self-confidence, and belief in your abilities. Human being, like god, has inexhaustible and unlimited capabilities and losing self-respect and undermining one’s capabilities means going astray from Truth.
Hence in my aphorisms “For the going,” which contains twelve yogi commandments, I’d written this one first: “Don’t begin if you are not sure, don’t give up what you have already begun”.
Everyone sometimes needs self-expression through some extraordinary action, like big and small “Hercules’ exploits”. I think that the most important Hercules’ feat is the everyday heroism, the ability to keep up principles, to work at self-improvement and moral self-improvement. It’s not easy to work if you are not interested in it. But it can be interesting as a self-affirmation, a developing unselfishness in you. It is interesting because you are unattached to the results.
When the right time came, I decided to examine myself. One of the most difficult works in western philosophy are those of Immanuel Kant. I decided to read the original text and not to read critical literature. “If I can handle it, I am ready to understand everything else,” I thought. I had to spend six months to read all the six volumes of Kant’s works, at the same time I made notes in the lot of copybooks and when I had finally finished, my feelings were different. I was satisfied and disappointed at the same time.
Kant is often called as “Buddha born after two thousand years”, which is true. I think Buddhism as a philosophy is a road to nowhere, a majestic building of sand. It has no base, only perfect ethics. I’ve read the main books of the three world religions. The Koran was most difficult for me to understand, while the Dhammapada was closest to my spirit; in Dhammapada Buddha’s teaching is written in apothegms (witty sayings). It’s impossible to read it without a devout delight as it is full of deep wisdom and love for Humanity.
S.Radhakrishnan brilliantly described Buddha: “Everyone who has imagination surely will be surprised to know that six centuries before the birth of Christ, a king lived in India, and he was perfect in spiritual unselfishness, lofty ideals, nobility in living, and love for people, no one else had such great qualities before and after him”. He further wrote: “Lucidity and gentleness of his face, beauty and dignity of his life, seriousness and enthusiasm of his love, wisdom and eloquence of his sermons conquered the hearts of men and women”. (S.Radhakrishnan. Indian philosophy. M. Foreign literature, 1956. P.295; 297-298).
However, studying the Buddhism, I still felt discomfort and dissatisfaction. Something was definitely missing in his theory. Later, when I went deep into Indian philosophy, it became clear to me: ethics alone cannot be enough to realize the Path. Along with other things, knowledge, grasping of Truth of the Grand Unity are also necessary, which are not mentioned in Buddhism. I would like to emphasize that grasping of Truth does not mean an empty metaphysical controversy about the Inexpressible, Inconceivable, Incomprehensible. Indeed, it means achieving the state of deep concentration, yogi intuition, direct contemplation of Truth, samadhi.
Hinduism considers that God created Buddha and his false teaching to destroy asurs, demons and this thought is not some sort of coincidence. Buddhism could not settle down in India, despite that being his birth place. Some people say that Hinduism smothered Buddhism in its brotherly embrace. Whatever it may be, Buddhism is not a very important part of contemporary Indian life.
It’s interesting to note that when Buddha was asked the questions, for which ultimate rational answer could not be by obtained by human mind, he kept silence. Further, continuing this tradition, Immanuel Kant convincingly proved that when the human mind attempts to answer the questions, which are beyond its reach, it enters into irresolvable conflict with itself. In his famous four antinomies, with clear logic, Kant gave diametrically opposite answers to the same questions. According to his teaching, everything lying outside our mind is absolutely unattainable. It is called by Kant as “Thing-in-itself” This is the main drawback of Kant’s critical philosophy. He sees only sensible perception. However, there is intuition, which is very important and is not mentioned by Kant. It is a controllable process as a result of a philosopher’s powerful will. There is a direct contemplation of Truth in deep concentration, samadhi.
Once, a Buddhist sage came to a king and was asked to explain what God is…
By the way, in India, sages were respected as much as Gods were; that’s why he could come to the king and talk to him about Truth, and the king gave him gifts with gratitude. This is one of many facts verifying the greatness of the Indian nation since antiquity: it’s eternal wisdom.
The commander Timur once said that when sages leave their people, military leaders take their place. In other words, such people become victims of aggressor or they themselves become aggressor. Both of these routes lead to fatal consequences.
If a country does not have room for the prosperity of wisdom and sages, if the respected are not esteemed, and people don’t think of Truth at all, such a nation will be definitely overtaken by a serious moral crisis. Such spiritual marasmus is followed by a catastrophic fall of morality and abrupt increase in crime, in short disharmony and disorder rule all around. However, somewhere deep inside there are hidden seeds of kindness and spiritual rebirth, which surfaces in aspirations of the people for the intelligent, kind, and eternal. I would call it the inclination for the Inconceivable and melancholy for Truth.
There are many examples. Let’s go back to the ancient times and recall one of the greatest books of humanity – the Bible. In one of Israel’s generations, in Veniamin’s, if I am not mistaken, father’s precepts were forgotten. Drunkenness and debauchery flourished, and moral principles of society were undermined. Finally the sacred rule of hospitality was broken. Veniamin’s sons outraged their guest. The precepts of fathers were very important at that time. Ancient Jews, in a burst of sacred anger, killed Veniamin’s family, even though that they felt sad about that later.
The similar situation had been described in Mahabharata, the Indian epic, when the Gandhari’s curse came true for the Krishna’s clan. Morality was forgotten in the Yadava’s tribe, sacred traditions were broken, and wisdom and sages were not respected. As a result, Yadavas scoffed at three sages who had visited them. One damned their family and soon all of them died in a civil strife.
Now let’s return to the Buddhist sage and the king. The king asked about God, but the sage kept silent. The king repeated his question, but still there was no answer. Finally he lost patience and asked the sage about God for the third time. And the sage said: “I’m answering you, but you don’t understand”.
Here the idea is clear. It is impossible to describe the Inconceivable by using words, to understand the Unthinkable, or to explain the Inexpressible. However, it doesn’t mean we should not think of the Truth and stop trying to achieve it. A person’s mind cannot understand things that are beyond our insight, but we still have to use our mind to find the Truth. Here we clash with one of the greatest paradoxes in the world. Only when your mind is absolutely exhausted in course of thinking, you will grasp the Truth and contemplate it.
Later we’ll discuss this problem in detail. Here I just want to say that posing the problem of Truth in Kant’s critical philosophy and Buddhism cannot be satisfactory and will surely lead to the objections from thinking person.
In reality we can’t do impossible things and explain the Ineffable, but we can and should speak of its highest manifestation in our world and we’ll be closer to the Marvelous. However, we’ll never achieve it anyway, at least in the process of thinking. Humanity has been solving this problem for ages by trying to express the Inexpressible with the help of thinkers.
I mean “thinkers” in its full meaning. It’s not just a person, who is occupied with philosophy. I am talking about the genius and inspired singers of Eternity, poets, artists, musicians, who achieve the summits of Wisdom through a difficult creative search. This “roll-call of hearts in the labyrinths of destiny” creates cultural wealth, the greatest property of the people. The spoken words are important in the unspoken…
If I would ask to explain what God is, I would explain the essence of God in the same manner as Indians would have explained: God is Sat – Chit – Ananda, an Eternal Rational Bliss; Power, Mind, Love.
And if it is so and everything is ruled by an Eternal Rational Bliss and Power – Mind – Love, it looks like evil does not exist in reality, but there is just a lesser kindness.
There is no weakness, just a decreasing power, which reverses later and becomes an infinite might, a divine force. There is no absolute ignorance and darkness, but there is lesser knowledge, decreasing light of Truth, decreasing mind, which sooner or later inverts and becomes wisdom, yogi intuition, omniscience and revelation.
There is no absolute evil. It’s just a decreasing love, which finally begins to increase again, and turns to what is founded on the knowledge, contemplation of the truth of Grand Unity of overwhelming love, bliss and divine bliss.
By the way, I would like to note that if I state that there is no absolute evil, and yet we talk of it, it doesn’t mean that I contradict myself. Kindness may decrease to the extent that we begin to call it evil. However, let’s leave it there. Evil is a lesser kindness, and that's that.
And now it’s high time to tell you about suffering, about its deep essence. A power is obtained by knowledge and it should be inevitably followed by purity. It demands a higher level of moral perfection. Otherwise, spiritual power, a power of Truth, can be followed by heavy suffering. When spirituality and the achieved level of moral purification do not match, I call it deficiency of purity. It can be overcome by a purifying suffering.
Evil is self-destructive. By the inexorable Karma, evil always returns to itself and burns in the purifying flame of suffering. That’s why one may define suffering as a Great Purifier, a purifying flame, a guardian of morality. It is an everlasting process of burning evil of ignorance, more precisely: it is a process of self-burning when evil returns to us. In simple words one can say that suffering is the process of burning the evil, through sufferings we burn the evil committed by us earlier. It is true that suffering refines people. If we feel tired of bliss sooner or later, suffering cleans us.
Think of it, thoughtful souls! The quickest horse, which can take you to perfection, is suffering.
Suffering is bitter as bile. Nothing can be bitterer than suffering; while nothing can be sweeter than passed suffering. It is sweeter than honey.
(Meister Eckhart. Spiritual sermons and admonitions)
Not accidentally, the first two levels of the eight-leveled Raja Yoga Patanjali consist of ethic preparation.. The first level of the Yoga – Yama, which consists of five great moral vows, which must be in common practice by all people, irrespective of whether you are Yogi or not. It is said in Yoga Sutra:
“Don’t make harm, be truthful, don’t appropriate others’, don’t take gifts – it is called Yama”.
“These great universal vows will never be disturbed by time, place, intention and caste”. (Patanjali. Yoga Sutra, II, 30,31).
Here are five vows of the second level of Yogi – Niyama. They are: internal and external purification, satisfaction, self-control, learning, and worshiping the Truth.
We usually talk about the power of the spirit, about spirituality. But what is spirituality? According to the aforesaid, we can try to explain it as a harmonious combination of three things: power, wisdom, and love. Surely a spiritual person is someone who can attract the hearts of other people like the sun. From this point of view, more a person is powerful, more he is spiritual. People are always attracted towards strong person, even when a power is not always directed towards kindness. More you are clever, i.e. obviously more you are wise, more you are spiritual. A clever person inevitably attracts other people. And finally, more you are kind, more you are spiritual. Here no more comment is required. A kind person not only attracts hearts of others, but as Yoga Sutra says he is the person :
“whose presence will never cause any harm and any feeling of enmity towards others simply vanishes”. (Patanjali. Yoga Sutra, II, 35).
Thus, more we are strong, more we are spiritual. More we are clever, more we are spiritual. More we are kind, more we are spiritual. Here you have harmonious combination of these three components of spiritual power, which turns into a super power, into a super will. We thus attain a mind that becomes a super mind, and transcends into revelation, wisdom, yogi intuition, yogi omniscience. Finally, we attain a love that becomes everlasting. A harmonious combination of these components creates a sage, a thinker, a Yogi.
It’s very difficult to talk and write about such things. One has to balance on the verge of reality, I would say at the turn of mind and intuition. From this point, at any moment, you can slip off like “razor blade”, as said by Ivan Efremov felicitously. From this point you may either Slip off to the milk and water, or to another extreme – to esoteric mazes where you won’t be followed at all.
In first case, Truth drowns in endless paragraphs, definitions, divisions, and difficult terms. To cut a long story short, it becomes a senseless scholasticism, words about words. In second case, Truth gradually melts in metaphysics. It escapes our attention, and becomes unreachable for those who express it in this way, and for those who follow them.
Subtle questions require subtle answers. It is important to observe the measure of subtleties, measure of simplicity. Only training in concentration can help to solve the difficult problem of crossing this “razor blade” smoothly and observing proper measures of subtleties and simplicity, explaining difficult things easily. Such training exists in Yoga. As Vivekananda said, Yoga is a scientifically created eight-leveled Path to a deep concentration.
When you explain subtlety roughly, it becomes “profanation”. It seems right and correct, but in reality it is so primitive that it will surely cause protest and irritation.
If you exceed the degree of subtlety, and try to be subtle when it is not necessary, it will become pretentious and affected. Such things are encountered very often in the culture of the Far East. It is not as destructive as the first case, but it prevents the perception of ideas.
I was always put on guard when someone “utters” instead of speaking. They utter something mysterious, fanciful, and intricate, so it is absolutely impossible to understand them. If someone speaks unintelligibly, there is no order and conception in his mind. Simplicity is a shadow of wisdom… It is injudicious to fall into ecstasy, into excessive delights and start preaching everywhere and to everyone when you’ve just found the light of Truth. Another aim should be to proceed in it. Surely everyone falls into such extremes, and it is necessary to stop in time.
People in India say: “When a pupil is ready, a Teacher comes to him”. I think the same is true about the Teacher. When the Teacher is ready, good pupils come to him. You shouldn’t try to make this world better right away and impose your ideas on all and everyone. Nobody likes when the sun shines into their faces while they are sleeping. The same happens when we try to teach someone, and forcedly introduce them to the Truth when he or she is not ready for it. Of course, a great hue and cry will be raised against this.
One should move further along the path of self-cognition and self-perfection. Then you’ll surely shine brighter than the sun. You just need a light in yourself to shine.
A new yogi can be compared with a small spring that can provide drink for several people, but mustn’t become a watering place, because then it won’t be a spring any more. For example, Lev Tolstoy wrote about Father Sergey. There are lot of examples in real life, when people dissipate themselves and their abilities, and irrationally uses their strength, and finally finds it impossible to achieve the main goals.
It is very difficult to grasp the Truth. Even more difficult is to give your knowledge to people, and it’s absolutely impossible not to give. In his symbolical poem “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “I am fed up with my wisdom like a bee that has gathered too much honey; I need hands reaching out for me”. And another one: “Months and years of loneliness passed, but his wisdom grew up and pained him with its fullness”.
Talking about the Truth of Grand Unity of Being, Swami Vivekananda said that even if a man locks himself in a deep basement and creates some clever thoughts, they would immediately become the common property of the people. In the way that tiny brooks purl under the thin crust of ice over snow and finally force their way through it, such ideas always exist and wander somewhere near, and finally people find them. We make a sigh of relief when these thoughts become invested in flesh and blood, and primeval. Never mind how they look in the result, whether it is speech, or a poem, or a musical composition, or maybe a philosophical book. Even if it is all the aforesaid taken together, the most important is the essence.
Hegel expressed this idea in a better manner as follows: “We must be imbued with the persuasion that truth always opens the way for itself when the time is appropriate, and appears when the time is appropriate. That’s why it cannot be early, and never comes to the immature ones”. (Hegel, vol. – M.: AN USSR, in-t. philosophy, 1959.-Vol. IV.-S.39). It’s impossible to describe it better!
Talking about mind and its main role in understanding the Truth, I’ll try to put the cart before the horse and tell you about the result of my seventeen years of philosophical researches and life experience. From all of my conclusions, I’ve written four Philosophical Rules and three Great Secrets of Being. I don’t want to make this difficult because of deep philosophical reasoning, but still, here are these rules:
1.Ontological formula of Being – A rule of the hierarchy of reasons.
2.Gnoseological formula of Being – A rule of internal antagonism of mind.
3.Formula of the Great Unity of Being – A rule of eternal reflex.
4.The single philosophical formula of Being – A rule of a great self-absorption.
I would like to tell you more about the rule of internal antagonism of mind. Why do I call it “gnoseological formula of Being”? As you know, gnoseology is a theory of knowledge. This rule is a logical end of cognition processes. It sounds like the final word in philosophy, or at least in the theory of knowledge. It’s not right. You can never state that the last word in philosophy has been said. It will never happen as it is totally impossible. Philosophy is an eternal process of thinking, an endless will to express the Inexpressible, doomed to failure as efforts to express the absolute through the relative. That’s why every perfect philosophical system will be changed by another, more perfect one.
In my opinion, the most complete philosophical system is in the great and sacred sound OM (pronounced like A U M), which is worshiped in India as a name of God. It is logically correct. This great sound consists of all the possible sounds that we can say. It is the potential of all sounds, words and ideas. In other words, it involves the whole of speech, conception and the whole of Being. If the idea is a bundle of thoughts (whose weight grows along with deeper concentration), this sacred sound is a unity of all possible thoughts up to the foundation of Being, the idea of isolation, self awareness. The result of uttering this sacred sound is to connect the finite to the endless.
It is said that the pronunciation of this sound leads to some subtle vibrations in our organism and has a beneficial effect on it. I can prove it from my own experience. When I need to calm down and handle some agitation or sudden emotion, or just to relax, I sing the sound of A U M when breathing. You mustn’t artificially try to fit this sound to your breath. Just breathe like you always do, and say A U M in your mind at every intake and every exhalation. Your breathing becomes more uniform, more rhythmic, and even slower, but I insist it must be natural. When your breathing becomes measured, your thoughts surely settle down. There is another exercise of saying this sound aloud, but I do not want to talk about the technical side of yoga, and so let’s leave it alone for time-being. There are a lot of yoga exercises and you can always get acquainted, but I must warn you to not try to begin making all of them at the very beginning of your yoga practice. You have to be very careful with these exercises, especially respiratory ones, as in case of any strongly acting medicinal agent.
Let’s return to philosophy. The total confluence of the finite and the endless, when the finite is being swallowed by the endless, transitory-by eternal, when nature returns to its origins, occurs beyond the range of our mind. It happens somewhere higher, in yoga intuition, in samadhi – the highest eighth level of yoga.
By rising above your mind with the help of mind, stopping its activities, one comes to Liberation from suffering through suffering. One comes to Liberation from egoistic wishes. One comes to Absolute Liberation from the web of ignorance of your immortal nature, your absolute essence. We have to dwell especially on the conception of Liberation and Karma teaching, i.e. the indissoluble ties between everything that happens to us in the present and in the past (I mean the past in its full sense). It is the main basis of the whole of Indian philosophy, Indian world outlook. For our western minds, these ideas are strange and unusual, and we conceive them with great difficulty.
A famous Indian thinker, Swami Vivekananda, who was also a public figure and enlightener of the XIX-XX centuries, and whose ideas we’ll recall in further pages, tells in one of his speeches about mind; he said it is like an electric current flowing along the route of lesser resistance. Our mind prefers to work with the common things and always tries to keep along the known track. When it meets something new and unknown, our mind begins to oppose these things, at least at the beginning. You need strong willpower to pacify your mind and turn it to the Endless-Invariable-Eternal so as to direct it along the path of Power-Knowledge-Love-Unselfishness.
I would also like to note that this prejudiced protest against everything new may sometimes be expressed in the ugly and unacceptable forms. The nature of such protest depends upon the level of spirituality. Lesser the spirituality in a society, sharper the forms this protest can take, like deadly sarcasm, angry irony, harsh and tactless attacks, and sometimes even simply rude obscenity. Everybody is not capable of independent thinking!..
I think this is the main idea of the Romans’ winged expression: “Jupiter, you are angry, therefore you are wrong”. Of course I don’t know who said this phrase, and when, and maybe I’ve cited it somewhat incorrectly. Nevertheless its essence seems quite clear for me: the lack of spirituality, tolerance, restraint and simply kindness.
If our mind cannot understand or our heart could not grasp something at the moment, it doesn’t mean these things are absurd, nonsense, wildness, and schizophrenic delirium. The wise boa Kaa in Kipling’s tale says: “It is so difficult to change your skin”. It’s difficult to understand new things and their essence with your heart and mind, the things about which you had never thought, particularly when our reality is not accustomed to these new things, they are not accepted by authorities and public opinion.
It is true in every field of human knowledge. For example, let us consider the brilliant ninth symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. It was creation with very high spiritual power for his time and hence his contemporaries described it as a “nonsensical collection of Cyclopean icons” (that is how Roman Rolland wrote in his book dedicated specially to this great Beethoven composition). Only after great attempts and sufferings of Wagner and Goethe, the ninth symphony was accepted by the public. Years after, Sergey Rachmaninov expressed the universal opinion that nothing better will ever be created. I fully agree with this opinion.
In general, Beethoven’s music is so unusual that it’s easy to understand the words of a famous contemporary, who said that something superhuman and even inhuman characterizes his music. Indeed, if you concentrate on listening it, especially the ninth symphony, even against your will, it will take you to such heights and take your breath away, so that you are scared enough to understand that you are not ready for such spiritual heights at the moment. It makes you feel like you are standing face to face with non-existence, and you become deadly timid!..
As you know, in his ninth symphony Beethoven expressed word for word of Shiller’s “Ode To Joy” in musical form. Of course, I am not a musician but the ninth symphony has inspired me in my writing. I feel that only by listening this music, I could write first two chapters of Poem-Upanishad Jnanagita (later another six chapters were written) in a better manner. I think Jnanagita is ninth symphony expressed in words. Of course, it does not have much in common with Shiller’s poem.
If at particular moment we are not able to understand or grasp something due to any reason, at this moment we will not go into the details of reasons, but this does not mean that such things are absurd, odd, nonsense or even schizophrenic delusion.
I must say that extremes are alike. For instance, sages in India are called “muni”, which means “silent”. However, the same characteristic describes ignorant and stupid people who, like a stump, are always silent. While in the first occasion we can see a wise silence of wisdom and everything having been said already, in the second we see the silly silence of ignorance, because there’s simply nothing to say. Indeed, the apparent similarity is a great difference inside: something like the difference between a synthetic and a natural product. For example, an ecstatic condition, which is achieved by some people through excitement and a contemplative philosopher’s condition, a thinker’s or Yogi’s deep concentration; apathy of weakness and indestructible impassivity of power. All these things are like a copy or reflection of an original.
As far as tolerance and free thinking are concerned, I would like to compare Hinduism with a spiritual ocean, which patiently absorbs brooks, small and big rivers, streams, and even little drops of spirituality - everything that has a common sense carries at least a small charge of spirituality and reflects any side and shade of Truth.
According to the Karma teaching and its laws, death is just a transition from one body to another, from one incarnation to another. Our future incarnation depends upon our deeds in this very life, which depends in turn upon our previous life. This continuous succession of births and deaths is called sansara, a wheel of reincarnations. The Karma teaching gives me the right to state that nothing in this world happens accidentally and every chance occurrence is a blind necessity. I use the word ‘blind’ because it’s impossible for our mind to see all these thin uncountable ties of Karma. The law of Karma, on which the ties of time are founded, is all-embracing. It seizes all existing things and not only people. All famous Western thinkers, including Russians, anyhow found these indissoluble ties. For instance, Losskiy talked about the idea of the Grand Unity, stating that “everything is immanent to everything”, which means everything is interconnected in our world. Everything is included in everything. When we discuss Karma Laws, the continuous chains of births and deaths replacing one another and wheel of recreations always revolving in Eternity, we have to remember lines from the great Bhagavad-Gita (a Divine Song), one of the best philosophical texts from Mahabharata, an Indian epos:
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We always were – you and me
And like all the people we’ll for ever and henceforth be.
Like childhood, maturity and old age
In our body, given in this vale, change.
Our bodies change and no confusion
A wise man feels in another incarnation.
There’s no stop and destruction,
Where endless exists without interruption.
Our bodies are transient; they are dead
Without an immortal Spirit’s breath.
We throw away the ramshackle dress
And a new one we wear after that.
Like the spirit leaves its old body
And dresses in a new one.
(BVL. Mahabharata. Ramayana.
M.: Belles-Lettres Publishing House,
p.174-175).
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As a matter of fact, the eternal secret of death is not so cryptic. A Great Transition from one life into another, from one incarnation to the next one, a change of bodies depend on our deeds, will and wishes in our current incarnation. Yogis see Great Transition as a move from one life to another. People who ignore their divine nature see it as a move from death to death. This Great Transition, ancient sphinx’s riddle – death, can be specified as a FIRST GREAT SACRAMENT OF BEING.
There is no God as people imagine it in the clouds high in the sky. God is Man, Man is God, playing his divine game, creator and master of the universe: an almighty omniscient benevolent lord who rules our world of inexorable and fair Karma. There is nothing more absurd than a statement about Man’s insignificance before God, a slave-like submission to an inexorable fate, the same as a blind rebel railing against their fate.
Actually, what is “fate” or “destiny”? It is our past that has returned to us, the consequences of our past deeds. As I have already said, the Karma law is all-embracing. This universality of Karma is based on the Great Truth of Being, which consists of the Grand Unity of Being in Human being. Unity creates plurality, became plurality, but it remains true to itself – this is the SECOND GREAT SACRAMENT OF BEING. It is manifested in the Grand Unity of Being, the unity of all-embracing Truth, in the ocean of Truth, in the unity of all reality in Human being. That’s why we can describe Eternity as an eternity of the finite, the infinity of the transient, the unity of plurality, being of non-existence.
Death is just a tiger stuffed of straw. Fear of death, the greatest fear of being, is just a deficit of knowledge that still can be obtained, a vague consciousness of unrealized goal of life, i.e. Liberation. Fear of death is glimpse of one’s potential abilities, Truth in the Grand Unity of Being which has not yet been overtaken It is hidden Truth of the unlimited greatness of Human being as a Highest Essence of Being, as a Highest Reality of Being, as a focus of the Grand Unity of Being.
The present arises from the past, while the future is based on the present. An individual is a god playing with a Great Illusion of Isolation; a god playing with ignorance of its divine nature, its true immortal absolute essence. Immortality – that’s the answer to seeming secret of death. This is the resolution of the great secret of turns of births and deaths, re-creations and dependent existences.
Death should not be considered neither as kind nor as evil; it’s just an obligatory condition of existence, the rule of Eternal and transient, an obligatory condition of being. It is a Great Transition on which the Karma law is based, the Higher law of Being, which in its turn is based on causal effects of events and a stream of formation, running in Eternity.
Through their wishes, will, and deeds, people bind themselves with the Inexorable Karma chains, and feel bound, imperfect and mortal. However, actually we still stay absolutely free. Our nature is immortal, our abilities are boundless, we are divine, and our essence is absolute.
This is the THIRD GREAT SACRAMENT OF BEING – the Great Illusion, Maya, ignorance, which is carried out by people through the ignorance of their absolute essence. They identify their true “self” with their implements – their body, feelings, mind and show ignorance driven by egoistic wishes, like unquenchable thirst in sleep.
People feel bound, weak, even though actually they are always absolutely free, almighty, omniscient Gods, never losing their immeasurable greatness and their immortal nature.
This game of reasons and consequences, which seems to be chaotic, is controlled by an Eternal Karma Law, inexorable in its logic and mercilessly consistent, which can be called the Eternal Law of Being.
This Law of Higher Justice is based on egoistic wishes, egoism itself, isolation of our “self” and our imaginary individuality in combination with our absolute freedom and our true absolute essence.
Karma and the Karma Law is a necessity conditioned by freedom. It is a necessity to reap the fruits of our egoistic wishes conditioned by absolute freedom of Human being’s will because Human being is a focus and bearer of the Truth of the Grand Unity of Being. Human being is free to wish what he wants, but he must reap – this is the essence of Karma Law. People have the absolute freedom of will because they are the carriers of the idea of the Grand Unity. The absolute freedom of will, exclusive position of human being in this world as compared to all existing things, his immeasurable greatness, omnipotence and omniscience, are manifested through his invaluable self-cognition ability. Through direct contemplation of Truth in himself, Human being can contemplate himself as a Higher Truth of Being.
This ability to contemplate ourselves, the Higher Intuition, deep concentration and samadhi makes us the center of the Grand Unity of Being. It makes us Almighty Omniscient God-Men playing with ignorance of our true absolute nature, our true immortal essence, our veritable greatness.
Thus, People, using their absolute will and wishes, tie themselves in indestructible chains of Karma, the chains of consequences of their wishes, chains conditioned by necessity of freedom. As a consequence of his own free will, Human being is caught in a snare of egoism, isolation, duality. We make ourselves reap the fruits of our own wishes, the fruits of ignorance of our veritable essence, the fruits of egoism and our imaginary isolation from a single whole in the sequence of birth and deaths spilling over into each other.
The Highest Aim of Life, the Main Sense of Life, appears before us as a Liberation from this Great Illusion of Isolation, imaginary in it’s reality but real in its delusiveness. The Highest Aim is the overcoming of this illusion and ignorance and realization of Higher Truth of Being in ourselves, the Unity of all existing things. Humanity realizes itself as a bearer of this Higher Idea of Grand Unity, and comprehends its true immortal nature, its immeasurable greatness, its omniscience and omnipotence, comprehends itself as a Highest Reality. Then we renounce imaginary individuality, and we achieve a Liberation from suffering and egoistic wishes, Liberation from the Karma chains, Liberation from the shackles of egoism, Liberation from the Maya’s spell, Liberation from duality, Liberation from imaginary weakness and feebleness, Liberation from the unquenchable thirst for glory, authority, wealth, Liberation from the unquenchable thirst for being, Liberation from attachment, Liberation from the plurality of transient, Liberation from the infinity of the finite, Full Liberation from the web of ignorance.
I want to tell you in detail about the law of internal antagonism of mind because we talk about concentration and its internal content, its philosophical essence, and the role that mind plays in achieving concentration. Yoga itself is a concentration. In the first two aphorisms of Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali, we can find the definition of concentration as a definition of Yoga:
1.Here is the description of concentration.
2.Yoga is keeping the matter of thoughts (Chitta) from involvement in different images (Vritti).
(Patanjali. Yoga-Sutra, I, 1, 2)
Better to say that Yoga means curbing of mind, submission to its will. To curb mind, pacify its activity, and keep it from turning into different mental images, doesn’t mean creating in your mind emptiness of nonsense; it means moving to another level, the highest level – Yoga intuition, to a direct contemplation of truth, samadhi.
The main goal of Yoga-Sutra is to explain the eight-leveled path for achieving deep concentration, samadhi, which implies from the above mentioned definition of concentration. However, Yoga-Sutra is also one of the six orthodox (recognizing Veda authority) philosophical systems in India.
In my work, I am trying to strengthen the philosophical side of Yoga-Sutra, to explain the philosophical comprehension of concentration, and to show how mind changes itself into Higher Intuition, into direct contemplation of Truth (it finally happens with mind in the continuous search of Truth). In this sense, the main part of the Philosophy of the Grand Unity, Vijnanapada becomes a continuation of Yoga-Sutra, strengthening of its philosophical side. However, that was not my overall aim at the beginning; I was just writing as it was, and the final result is just what it is.
Here is the definition of mind. What is mind, thinking? Mind, thinking, is disintegration of the Unity into duality of subject and plurality of objects, and final return of plurality to Unity by dissolution of the plurality in the Unity through deep concentration.
Mind, due to its nature of activities, inevitably supposes duality of subjects and objects. There is always an object created by our mind, to which our thoughts are directed, and there is always a subject, who thinks. In other words, process of thinking contains our isolation from something outside of us, something opposite to our individual “Self”.
What is the final goal of mind, the final aim of thinking? The final goal of mind is direct contemplation of Truth in the object of thinking through deep concentration, samadhi, through merger with the object, joining with it. Mind is ultimately directed towards grasping of the Truth, whose essence is the Unity of all existing things, and Human being is a center of this Grand Unity of Being.
Thus, in the nature of mind lies an irresolvable contradiction, an internal antagonism, which must be taken away. Thinking is carried out through opposition of the subject and object of thinking. Its final goal is to remove this duality, take off isolation, egoism, smugness by destruction of Human being’s ignorance of his true absolute nature, his true greatness. As you can see, this internal antagonism of mind involves countless efforts to achieve the absolute through relative, to reach the eternal through the transient, to catch the endless in the web of the finite. Unsuccessfully mind tries to attain the Truth of Unity introducing unity into the plurality of transient through transient itself.
Resolution of this internal conflict of mind with itself, a conflict which lies in the working of mind itself, a contradiction of aim and means of achieving it, a conflict between thinking and its final goal, is nothing more than taking away thinking in process of thinking with the help of mind in deep concentration and direct contemplation of Truth.
We can state now that the final aim of mind is the taking away of itself by itself in direct contemplation, in deep concentration, the merger of subject with the object of thinking.
This process of taking away thinking during thinking, the gradual merger of subject and object of thinking in contemplation, the direct feeling of deep essence of things and events, their secret nature can’t be achieved in the thinking itself because our mind fixes the limits of its work. A potential ability of this direct contemplation is just founded in our mind. Nevertheless, irrespective of everything, our mind plays an all-embracing role in achieving Eternal Truth of Grand Unity.
Hence, final goal of mind cannot be achieved by mind. This is the aim, which will never be achieved, but still it remains unchanged; unattainable goal. In eternal pursuit of this inaccessible-in-its-reality aim, in these doomed-to-failure-beforehand efforts to express the Inexpressible, to think of the Unthinkable, achieve the Unattainable, in the futile efforts to find the Elusive, Unspeakable, Unthinkable, Unattainable in the web of concepts and words, our mind exhausts its ability and soars beyond its own limits in the process of deep concentration, in merger with the object of thinking, in samadhi.
Thus, our mind is always searching for things that lie outside its circle and are absolutely unattainable. “…Free common sense catches with its love embrace and cognizes the truth, always try to achieve it, looking for it all over the world…” (Nikolay Kuzanskiy. Soch.-M.: In-t. phil. AN USSR, p-h “Mysl’”, 1979.V.1.P.50) – this is how Nikolay Kuzanskiy tells us about this eternal and unsuccessful pursuit of mind for Truth, the unquenchable thirst for understanding the Incognizable, mind’s endless will to comprehend the Permanent, Infinite, Eternal.
The final aim of mind, i.e. the direct contemplation of Truth in deep concentration, samadhi, can be characterized as ascension above our mind, but with the help of our mind, and through its work, taking our thinking away by thinking and only through thinking.
On the one hand, mind is directed towards the finite, transient, changeable, to the plurality of the transient. On the other hand mind is always directed to the Permanent, Infinite, Eternal, to the Truth of Unity. It always tries to introduce unity into plurality, to bind together the plurality of the finite and unity, to put it more precisely - this is where we can see the confirmation of the aforesaid.
That’s why our mind, thinking are like a bridge between transient and intransient, between internal and external, absolute and relative, true and false. And the length of this bridge is inversely proportional to the depth of concentration. Lesser the ability to concentrate, longer is the bridge and vice versa: deeper the concentration, shorter is the bridge. As we proceed deeper and deeper into concentration, more and more our mind is dissolved in contemplation, relative unites with absolute (flows into absolute, to put it more precisely), and little by little disappears the boundary between eternal and temporary, finite and infinite, transient and intransient.
It is like the atmosphere becomes more rarefied until it merges with infinite space. There’s no exact boundary between airspace and vacuum. One of them turns into another gradually. The same is true for the Unity that turns into variety of things and events, but remains as a Unity, while variety dissolves in it. However, the Unity always contains the potential ability to turn into such variety.
Similarly no boundary exists between mind and intuition, between thinking and contemplation and ultimately between tie-up and Liberation.
Only Human being can direct his thoughts towards himself and consequently take the thinking away by thinking because looking inside you is a direct contemplation and nothing more than contemplation. Human being cannot think about himself because thinking needs the opposition of subject to the object. This opposition in contemplation would look like man’s opposition to himself, which is impossible. If it seems possible, it can be achieved only indirectly, I mean during thinking about the things which lie somewhere outside us, outside our “self”. When our “self” opposes itself to the “non-self” during thinking, and through thinking, it finally comes to negation of this opposition in deep concentration, in direct contemplating of Truth, in more- and more-deep self-cognition.
Thinking is the opposition of the absolute to the relative. To put it more precisely, it is negation of the absolute by the relative, and even more precisely, creation of its antipode by the absolute, negation of the absolute in the form of relative and transient, negation of this negation and confluence of the relative with the absolute. This means to turn our mind into intuition, merger of thinking with contemplation in course a deep concentration.
So, what is concentration?
Concentration is a conversion of mind into contemplation, dissolution of mind in intuition, a merger of the subject and the object of thinking. It is a taking away of our mind through thinking, through concentration on the object under consideration, and then meditation on this object of thinking, in the subsequent direct contemplation.
In this sense Being is a continuous creation of thinking by contemplation and the ensuing development of thinking into contemplation through deeper and deeper concentration. This eternal process of creation (transition of intuition to mind, contemplation-to thinking through duality of subject and object emerging through isolation of "Self"), preservation (thinking itself, opposition of subject to object, knowledge, acquiring and accumulation of knowledge) and destruction (merger of subject with object, dissolution of mind in intuition, thinking – in contemplation through deep concentration) does not stop even for a while and transforms through our insatiable egoistic wishes into infinite rows of reasons and consequences, into cause-effect streams of development. This light stream of mind has its source from the ocean of contemplation, and then flows again into this eternal ocean of endless silence of deep concentration.
Mind and thinking are based on the sense of our “Self”. Indispensable attributes of “Self” are self-consciousness and our wishes. As concentration becomes deeper in course of thinking, as our mind expands in direct contemplation, the subject of cognition somehow disappears. It is dissolved in the object of knowledge and merged with Truth widespread everywhere leading to more and more realization of the Truth of the Grand Unity of Being by a Human being inside himself.
The boundaries of our “Self”, which define our individuality, gradually disappear in more- and more-deep self-cognition. Human being feels his unity with all existing more and more, understands the unity of all existing by heart, and comprehends himself as a center of all that exists. Knowledge gets closer to self-cognition, i.e. direct contemplation of Truth. Understanding everything, I understand myself, my true nature. That’s why contemplating the Truth in myself, I understand Being, because Truth is widespread in all existing. Isolation, subjectivity and egoism – the main barriers on your path to Liberation - gradually disappear.
I exist in everyone and everyone exists in me – this formulation of Liberation turns into realization of the final aim of mind, taking mind away by mind. Mind exhausts its abilities and dissolves itself in direct perception of Truth, in contemplation of deep essence of being: Man’s direct contemplation of his true absolute nature, his true immortal nature. As concentration becomes deeper, all your knowledge merges with the Higher Knowledge, and becomes an act of self-cognition, widely spread among all existing things in this direct contemplation of himself by Man as a Highest Truth of Being.
This Liberation, the Highest Aim of Life, and Highest Sense of Life, is nothing but going deeper and reaching more amplification of self-cognition in the process of deep concentration and understanding the Truth of the Unity. This self-cognition appears in the form of a self-contemplation, which is like a Man’s direct contemplation of his true absolute nature, like Man’s contemplation of the Grand Unity of Being, Truth in himself, the Highest Reality in himself. Man contemplates himself as a center of the Grand Unity of all existing things, as a bearer of the Absolute Idea of the Grand Unity of Being.
The deeper is concentration, the more fully comes out the secret essence of things and events, as our mind gets deeper into secret depths of the ocean of knowledge, dissolving itself at the same time in the direct intuitive contemplation of Truth existing everywhere, turning itself into wisdom, revelation, into the highest state of mind, i.e. that of self-cognition and self-contemplation. Thinking merges with intuitive contemplation. A rupture appears in the indissoluble logic of cause-effect rows of conclusions. As concentration goes deeper, we understand Truth directly. It comes to us, somehow by-passing thinking. This merger of mind and intuition, the process of taking away thinking through thinking, becomes an act of philosopher’s will, engendered by persistent concentration and thinking.
This paradox of taking away thinking in the process of thinking through deep concentration forms the gnoseological formulation of being and could be expressed in the law of internal antagonism of mind, in eternal ascension of mind above mind with the help of mind.
In its activity of thinking, our mind aspires to deeper and deeper concentration, especially when it deals with thinking of the highest philosophical truths. Intensification of concentration means more and more dissolution of mind in intuition, when mind in the act of deep concentration gradually takes itself away and naturally becomes a revelation or a direct contemplation of widespread existing Truth in samadhi.
Here we can formulate the dialectical law of thinking, which is a gnoseological formulation of Being and is called The law of internal antagonism of mind. Its essence is as follows: the deeper is concentration, the more our mind gives way to direct contemplation, merges with intuition, becomes revelation, flows into the shoreless ocean of Truth, the ocean of knowledge, the ocean of non-existence, the ocean of the Highest existence, into samadhi.
The act of thinking itself necessarily demands concentration, concentration of mind on the object under consideration. This leads more and more to a merger of a subject, i.e. thinker, with the object of thinking, to the complete dissolution of subject in the object. It is neither more nor less than taking thinking away in the process of thinking, taking mind away through thinking activities, through deeper concentration.
It is this unswerving aspiration for ascension over the mind, with the help of mind, in the act of deep concentration, which is the essence of the internal antipathy of mind, its internal antagonism. The act of deep concentration is the direct contemplation of Truth in samadhi, Man’s direct contemplation of Truth in him, self-cognition and self-contemplation, intuition, the Higher Knowledge.
In other words, thinking involves ultimately taking away the thinking itself. Thinking is based on the concentration, while concentration assumes ultimately taking away thinking through merger of subject with object in course the act of self-cognition, which goes deeper inside and spreads wider outside.
Human being’s distinctive feature is the gradual dissolution in direct contemplation of truth, conversion into intuition with deepening concentration, merger with higher Intuition of deep concentration. Only human being is capable of thinking abstractly, reaching self-cognition through contemplation of Truth in himself, in deep concentration, in samadhi. It is this ability that distinguishes Human being from all other existing things, and makes him the Almighty Omniscient Kind Lord of the Universe, the Lord who rules the world of Inexorable and Equitable Karma.
I am sorry for such a tiresome excursion into purely philosophical problems, but we discuss Yoga, its secret essence, its depth, about content that may even be sequestered from the uninitiated. It’s impossible to talk about these things without describing in detail the philosophical aspect of concentration, without explanation of what happens to mind when we try to achieve deep concentration. Why does mind, when concentration becomes deeper and deeper, inevitably use its faculties to go beyond itself in direct contemplation, in Yoga intuition?
I used to read one after another useful and not very useful books, sometimes even absolutely useless books. There is no escape from useless books; as Nietzsche said, to find out that nut is empty you have to crack it first. You never know where you’ll find a full kernel. Absorbing it into sub-consciousness depths, the new understanding will come to the surface at the right moment, in the appropriate form.
At the beginning there were books about Hatha-Yoga, which attracted rapt attention in the West. In the eight levels of Paja-Yoga Patanjali, Hatha-Yoga is segregated into two parts: asana and pranayama. In other words, it includes all of the physical positions, exercises and respiratory training. I am not going to tell you a lot about Hatha-Yoga as everything has already been said by others. All these books helped me to find the set of exercises best for me. I must say that many of Yoga Asanas, i.e. positions and static body postures, are very difficult to carry out. You need long time for training to master them and then develop these positions. For instance, it took me almost half a year to master the lotus position (Padmasana), and more than three months to master the peacock position (Mayurasana).
I’ve mastered the technique of Asanas’ queen - standing on head (Sirshasana) - at a moment's notice, but I’ve found out in the school of hard knocks that mastering just the execution technique is not at all enough. I have already told you and now repeat it again that you must be very careful with Yoga exercises, especially with difficult Asanas and respiratory training. Not to mention the precautions that must be taken while dealing with the accuracy of exercise technique. It goes without saying. There is a set of important factors here. Some Asanas don’t suite to a particular person at all. It can happen so that some positions and exercises, I know from my own experience, currently don’t suite to a person, but he’ll need them in future. That’s why it’s optimal to have an experienced mentor and if you don’t have such mentor due to any reason, you have to rely only on your own intuition. Learn to listen to your inner voice… As far as I am concerned, it happened with me earlier and still it happens with me. However, it is better to have a mentor. The method of trial and error may lead to serious and undesirable consequences, to put it mildly. I was so ill that I had nothing to lose “except chains”, that’s why I’ve dived into this grace fully without any hesitation with my entire strength.
However, the so-called “upturned positions”, i.e. standing on head, “birch” (Sarvangasana), “half-birch” (Viparita-Karani) was found to be very difficult for me for a long time. I don’t mean the technical side – it is uncomplicated. My temperament is so hot and frantic (I still can’t get rid of it) that I tried these positions at breakneck speed and stood in every position for several minutes already at the very beginning. Not to mention the neuralgia, which appeared in my neck immediately, so I couldn’t turn my head because of excruciating pain, some wild and uncontrollable energy came to me. I felt an excessive tension, neurosis and even irritability. Irritability and Yoga are absolutely incompatible and even diametrically opposite. Yoga, first of all, is balance, restraint and self-control. It’s a “firm composure and full comprehension” in ideal as it is said in mantra (magic formulation, spell) dedicated to a Great Mother.
By the way, to get rid of neuralgia I had to invent my own asana – I’ve called it “cat position”. Lying on your back with your arms along your body raise your head slowly without turning shoulders off the floor so that your chin could touch the chest.
Keep steady in this position for a while and then return to the initial position. Repeat this exercise several times. You can vary this exercise and turn your shoulders off the floor. As a matter of fact this position reminds the cat a little when it “cleans” its stomach. This exercise in a short period of time takes neck neuralgia away, especially at the initial stage. It is not harmful at all provided that you do not overdo it. Obviously, due to excessive stress and subsequent relaxation, the blood washes the affected segment intensively and it leads to a quicker convalescence.
As far as upturned positions are concerned, I had to give up “birch”(standing on shoulders) posture. Now I practice “half-birch” (Viparita-Karani) with great pleasure especially because these two positions are equal. At any rate they work in the same direction. Standing on head position (Sirshasana) was a horse of a different color. I tried this exercise many times and had to give it up because of bad consequences, I’ve already told you about this. Later I understood what to do. After a long break I began doing it for five seconds and adjusted it for five more seconds every week. In such way I finally used to carry out this queen of Asanas, as we call this position, for five minutes. It took years but it was worthy of it.
Now I have a fixed complex of exercises, which I vary a little sometimes. I still practice some of the first exercises from Anatoly Nikolaevich Zubkov’s complex. I do my exercises regularly; at least when I have such possibility, but now Hatha-Yoga training is not so important for me as it was in the very beginning. When a plant is young you must fence it but it won’t need this fence in future. However, talking about physical and respiratory exercises, gymnastics is always important in every period of life. Illness is a barrier on the Yoga Path in the wide sense and you have to be always careful to your health. Talking about the Truth of Grand Unity as a Highest Truth of Being from the philosophical point of view, taking care of your physical and moral health is not our business only, it’s our duty towards society and all people. It sounds banal, but it’s true…
From all this primary information, I especially would like to draw your attention to Ramacharaki’s books (later I’ve found out that he is a gentleman from USA, Pennsylvania, who’s real name is William Atkinson). In India they don’t like Ramacharaki’s works and even describe them with irritation, they say his books have nothing common with Yoga traditions. However, I had found some rational ideas in his works. There are two books: “The science of breath of Indian Yogis” and “Raja-Yoga”. I’ve derived benefit from the second one – a practical benefit as I had learned how to use my mind in the right direction. Our mind and body are our instruments so to speak, that’s why first of all we must keep them in order and secondly we must learn to use all of their abilities. We can divide our mind into three parts, viz. sub-consciousness, brighter part of mind, and the up-consciousness (higher mind). The most of the work occurs in the lower level of mind, in sub-consciousness. For instance you all know a situation when we try to remember something but we can’t. You don’t need to take trouble over this, just try to remember everything connected with this, put it down into sub-consciousness and then give a firm command to it. Leave this problem alone for a while and then your sub-consciousness will give you an answer. I’ve tried this method many times and my industrious and conscientious servant sub-consciousness duly completed my tasks, when it was possible of course. The most part of our thinking is carried out by sub-consciousness, that’s why thinking person must learn to use its benefits.
And what is more, some fundamental problems can be taken to the sub-consciousness and give a command to work with them constantly in future in its full sense. For example, I have some problems, which are not solved yet and I think about them all the time, but I can’t find the desired answers to these questions, at least at my current level of development. These problems recur to my memory from time to time in more clear appearance and then this latent thinking process goes on.
It is time to describe the third area of mind – a higher mind. It is intuition, which gives us answers to our questions without thinking. We have already talked a lot about intuition; I just want to mention here that intuition can be different. It can be an ecstatic flash, like a lightning, that lights up all around and then darkness returns. Another thing is intuition as a controllable act, a consequence of the powerful will of philosopher, intuition that is lighted up by a light of knowledge and controlled by a mighty will of a thinker, Yogi.
Such intuition is wisdom in its highest sense and comes out of the state of deep concentration, which we call samadhi – this is the highest eighth level of Yoga. The depth of concentration, first of all, is a consequence of systematical collection of knowledge in combination with pertinacious training in concentration, unselfishness, all-embracing love, regular work for self-improvement, which means cleaning your mind and body by affirming the eternal ethical standards: not to make harm, being kind; never fall into anger; being truthful; never appropriate other's, being honest, respectable; being abstinent, moderate, dispassionate; never take gifts, being generous, not money-grubbing, disavowal; external and internal cleanness; satisfaction; self-control; learning and repeating sages’ apophthegms; loyalty to the Truth.
Of course, entire Hatha-Yoga literature was very important for me, but now I am much more interested in the philosophical side of Yoga, its World outlook, as a lifestyle finally! Ultimately, if Yoga is meant not only a complex of physical and respiratory exercises, which are also very important, as I’ve already told, but also a thinking process in the state of deep concentration, constant work for self-improvement, lighting the Truth of the Grand Unity in yourself, we can firmly state that life is Yoga itself, regular Yoga exercises is life, advancement along the path to Yoga, the path to the Truth.
I am often asked what to do if Yoga prescribes one thing while life with all its problems and complications frequently forces us to do other, not to say the opposite things. First of all, the right direction of thinking is important, then constant work and unswerving at self-improvement in Yoga direction, of course within reasonable limits, are also important factors. You must proceed with your optimal tempo, you shouldn’t hurry up and dash about in a flap, urge yourself along the selected path, but you also shouldn’t stop… “Road is not a destination” – as Indian Yogi Ramakrishna said, who was respected as a teacher by Vivekananda and definitely he was the most authoritative Yogi of the XIX century.
Nothing has to be considered as a dogma, like something stark, invariable, and absolutely obligatory under any circumstances. Common sense must exist and even reign in everything, which is also applicable to the Yoga’s way of life. It means ability to consider time and place, to observe the degree and always be versatile and sensitive towards people.
For example, if your close friend gives you a birthday present, while one of the five most important Yoga vows is aparigrakha, non-acceptance of any gifts and presents, you must choose the lesser of two evils. As far as I am concerned, I would break this important moral rule without hesitation, but will tell to my friend that my vivid principles are also important and he should reckon them in future. You must agree that it’s not very polite to make an ass of your friends and even humble them only because they do not know the Yoga rules or don’t share them with you. Another thing is that you shouldn’t desire these presents if you accept the Yoga moral principles.
Talking about the essence of non-acceptance of the gifts, it is a question of independence of human being. As far as I am concerned, I value freedom most of all in my life. Philosophically speaking, freedom is the essence of Man, his deep content. Man is a God, playing with illusion, playing with ignorance of his godlike immortal nature. Absolute freedom of will is peculiar to Human being, and if this absolute becomes relative and providential, becomes karma, then this relativity emerged by the absolute and based on the absolute is nothing but Maya, or the Great Illusion of Isolation, the essence of being itself. I would like to mention that I mean absolute freedom of Man’s will in highest philosophical sense. You shouldn’t understand my words literally, as if the Man is absolutely free to do anything as per his discretion neglecting the moral principles. It’s quite the opposite. Absolute freedom of Man’s will in philosophical sense first of all mean deep moral purity.
Let’s return to prose and non-acceptance of gifts from philosophical truths. When a man takes a present or any other gifts even if he is not going to give anything in return, he somehow loses his independence, becomes indebted. As far as I am concerned, I think it is even humiliating to feel yourself obliged to someone when you can avoid this situation by non-acceptance of the presents or by rewarding your grantor. To continue talking about moral precepts of Yoga, let me tell you about the rest of them. For the first three of them: not making any harm, never appropriate things of others and being honest, I think everything is clear. It goes without saying that in relations with people we must be kind, honest and respectable. It can not be otherwise. If you don’t want something to happen with you don’t do it with others! On the fourth precept of abstention I would like to draw your attention specifically. I think that in the wide sense this perception means impassivity, which is one of the highest goals, basis and achievements along the Yoga Path as it has been already said. In the narrow sense it means temperance and moderation in everything. And finally, if you understand this precept literally, it means continence.
I must tell you that in ancient India man’s life was conditionally separated into four periods – Ashrama. The first one – Brakhmacharya – lasted up to 24 years and was a period of obedient apprenticeship. Then Grihasta stage came, when man became a householder and gave all his abilities and power to society. Then, when his children began to grow up came the reclusive period – Vanaprastha, when a man left the world with its fuss in order to think deeply and continue self-perfection. And finally the last phase, the fourth one is Sanyasa, when man became Sanyasi, a wandering ascetic, who kept away from the world and had no attachment to belongings or anything else.
During the first period of life man lives in the house of his teacher, guru, makes all the unskilled labor with joy and gratitude, while his teacher gives him knowledge, takes care of his spirituality, serve as his spiritual director. During these 24 years celibacy and continence were absolutely obligatory.
This question is especially delicate and needs tactful approach. The fact is that as it was said in Yoga-Sutra, continence sets free a huge amount of energy and gives spiritual power. Only a pure man can get this energy with benefit to himself and those around, a man with knowledge and deep-rooted high moral principles. Otherwise this energy can only cause harm, a lot of harm to you and to other people too… In Indian mythology gods send Apsaras - celestial maidens to the eremitical ascetic to tempt the hermit and weaken his spiritual power, otherwise this sage can “burn the world with the fire of his mind”. Indra, the king of gods, asked one celestial maiden to tempt the mythic sage Vishvamitra, who was accomplishing an unprecedented ascetic feat, ascesa. When Apsara sent a daughter to Vishvamitra he had cursed her in a burst of anger and she had turned to stone for ten thousand years. This curse shows the imperfection of this sage, the vast difference between his spiritual power and level of moral perfection.
That’s why you should be very careful with continence. Another thing is lust, concupiscence and indefatigable passion. These things must be extirpated hip and thigh, without any regrets. However, again you shouldn’t hurry up and force yourself; you should solve this problem with full comprehension.
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Who wants to soothe the flame of passion,
Who endeavors to extinguish a fire with a gas mixture,
Who wants to exhaust his feelings with wishes,
In his own shadow tries to hide from heat.
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Indeed, if we let our wishes push us around, indulge them and if we try to meet them again and again, we are just like a man, who tries to extinguish a fire with brushwood or the one who tries to hide from heat in his own shadow. In first occasion fire disappears for a while and then becomes an all-absorbing blaze; in the second occasion you will always chase to your own shadow without any success.
One Indian thinker terrifically said about it. What’s the use if man eats tasty food and sleeps well, what’s the use of all earthly blessings and other facilities if soul is dead? However, Ramakrishna absolutely evenly admitted, that “religion is not for empty stomachs”. I can also say that Truth is also not for empty stomachs, but you must agree that carnal is not the most important thing. Man can not be replete with bread only. Of course it is necessary to take an all possible care to satisfy the daily needs. You can eternally create and satisfy new “daily” needs, but it would be a vanity of vanities and other fuss, until you put spiritual health of the society in the center of attention, until society creates the most optimal conditions to satisfy the spiritual needs of a man. I especially want to note that spirituality is often mixed with aesthetic needs. It’s not entirely right. Spirituality is a much deeper notion than aesthetics, than simply art. It contains ethics, knowledge, understanding the Truth, unselfishness, purity and other things, some of them can not be explained by words. Indians call it Ojas, i.e. something inside man that attracts other people’s hearts. I call this something a Yoga power.
I would like to repeat that you can build the powerful building of economy, but if it is not based on the ever growing spirituality and if we don’t care of spiritual health of society, improvement of its spiritual climate, spiritual perfection of every man and woman in this society, even if this building is grandiose, but it is built on sand without an appropriate foundation, without basis.
When a man can not work with a book without assistance he needs a mentor, spiritual pastor, who can always help him with an advice and wise directions, support him, strengthen his spirit, direct it to the good and the light of Truth. Religion always has played this role for people of all nations.
The great son of Indian nation, national hero of India Mahatma Gandhi (mahatma means “great soul”) fairly said about religion that its essence is morality, while morality’s essence is Truth. That’s why religion’s essence is Truth through morality and morals in its wide sense.
Belief is the base of religion. But what is belief? Belief is a manifestation of eternal innate craving for Truth, conditioned by man’s imperishable nature itself, his absolute divine essence. Man is God, playing with ignorance of his godlike nature with himself! It is does not matter what role we define for ourselves in our Divine Game with the help of Inexorable Karma; deep inside us there is always the light of Highest Secret Knowledge of our true immortal nature. The question is how this secret knowledge reveals itself: maybe as a belief, that often can be characterized as a blind belief, or maybe as wisdom of deep concentration, which is supposed to be a voice of God, or maybe as a morality and its apogee – love, which is a demonstration of the Grand Unity of being.
As it fades away secret knowledge acquires the character of more and more blind belief and as it returns back to itself this Highest Knowledge appearing in deep belief, which turns into wisdom of revelation. More is the degree of apparent decrease of knowledge, more the secret knowledge turns to blind belief, to say it more correctly, it appears as a blind belief. The depth of belief depends upon the degree of the decrease of knowledge. More the secret knowledge turns itself into ignorance (there is no absolute ignorance, only a decreasing knowledge), the less is the depth of belief. To put it otherwise, belief should be considered as a damping secret knowledge, or decreasing knowledge and could be called as blind belief. More the man drowns in a pursuit of sensitive bliss, in vanity, aspiration for wealth, power – in all we call thirst of being in short, more the man’s inborn Highest Knowledge of his true absolute nature turns to ignorance of his immortal divine nature, ignorance, which appears in Great Illusion of Isolation, in more oblivion of Highest Truth of Grand Unity of being in Man. Gradually knowledge turns to blind belief and hence finally becomes a seeming absence of any faith and morality.
On the other hand, past secret knowledge of the true religious man appears as a more and more deep belief, which turns into sanctity as knowledge increases. Intensification of faith is followed by a growing aspiration for the strict observance of moral principles. But what is morality? Morality, ethic standards is as if Truth of Grand Unity, which appears on the surface, visible secrecy, Truth in the most accessible form. As morality (the same as the law) is a form of appearance of Truth, the high morality of sanctity assumes increasing need of deep thinking. And on its turn, it means gradual transformation of the blind belief into the light of knowledge.
Morality is a form of appearance of the Truth of Grand Unity of being; belief is a form of appearance of the inviolable aspiration for Truth, which lies in secret absolute nature of Man. Religion is based on more and deeper faith, faith is a form of appearance of the inviolable aspiration for Truth, which lies in secret absolute nature of Man. Religion is based on more and deeper faith, faith becomes more profound through morality. Morality strengthens ability to concentrate and somehow more and more restores the knowledge. Highest Secret Knowledge revives itself during intensification of faith, which, on its turn, is realized through morality.
As faith ceases to be blind belief, it gradually becomes wisdom of revelation. But what is revelation? Revelation is a secret knowledge of man, which returns to him during intensification of belief. This is a secret knowledge of his true divine essence. Intensification of faith is carried out by the increase in morality, by more and more moral perfection.
As it has already been mentioned, Truth, which is expressed in morality, is more understandable to public. Morality reaches its apogee in love, which is also available to all. Love and morality are merged in wisdom of the revelation in all-embracing love. Morality’s apogee is love; love’s apogee is All-embracing Love of the Highest Wisdom of understanding of Truth of the Grand Unity of being in Man during the act of deep concentration. Wisdom of the revelation, belief, love and morality are the highest manifestations of divinity of Human being, his deep secret essence.
If people loose religion with its spiritual pastors and nothing substitutes it, except empty chatting, nonsensical slogans and outstanding sanctimony and hypocrisy, it is easy to imagine what can happen. A deep spiritual crisis and serious spiritual illness strike society. Exit from this crisis doesn’t lie in economics only, despite the importance of satisfying the barest necessities; it lies in spiritual sphere, in sphere of maximal satisfying those who need mental pabulum, in sphere of quickest recovery of the spiritual climate in society and cessation of spiritual hunger of Human being.
Moreover, the existence of basement for institute for spiritual tutors, philosophers in the most wide and high sense of this word, thinkers, sages – for this eternal community of good and light, brotherhood of acolytes of Truth are very important for society. Like the stars, these spiritual pastors of mankind shine for people in night of ignorance and serve for them as lighthouses, a guiding thread along their Path. They set the pattern of their selfless service to Humanity, service to the Truth. These spiritual titans inspire people and bring them greatest spiritual values, which are needed badly by the indigent ones.
In this important process of spiritual revival of society, in satisfying spiritual needs of every member of this society press and publication institutions play a sizable role. Every thinking man must have an unlimited ability to have any book he needs at his disposal. It is the duty of publishers to up bring people spiritually, in every possible way extend and improve their spiritual needs.
I know from my own experience how difficult is working, when a required book is not with you and what helplessness and dreary despair you feel when you can not find a required book even in the reading room. To get all required literature I even had to rewrite some of these books by hand, which took my lot of time and energy.
As times went by I’ve got interested in more and more serious philosophical books, first of all books on Indian philosophy. I’ve again returned to the two-volume edition of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s “Indian philosophy”. It took me more than a year to study this work thoroughly, but it was worthy of it. I had found some other sources in the section of rare books in scientific library. Special thanks to the employees of the library, who allowed me to work with some of these books, even though it was against the rules. This is how I discovered Swami Vivekananda.
Titanic personality Vivekananda, his indestructible will, huge mind, boiling energy, his boundless belief in Man, belief in all light and good, - all these things create an indelible impression. Unbelievable spiritual power of Vivekananda, his purity, nobility, unselfishness, and all-embracing love can not leave indifferent even the deep-rooted skeptic. “Frantic Hindu” – that is how Americans call Vivekananda after his declaration of the greatest revelations of Indian sages. Short and bright life of Vivekananda (he died when he was not even forty) is an example of unselfish work for the sake of public good, example of selfless service for people. Numerous speeches by Vivekananda and all his famous works influenced not only his contemporaries, but they are well remembered and followed by people who lived even some centuries later. His ideas and philosophical works were like fire traces in the heaven spread over all the humanity.
Vivekananda considered weakness as the worst drawback of human being. Abhay (Don’t be afraid!), be strong, be brave, - he appealed. Man is God, and God can not be weak. Power, shined by knowledge, inspired by love and cleansed by unselfishness – this is the Quaternary Path of Yoga.
I especially want to stress that when I say “Path of Yoga” it doesn’t mean a special way for the chosen and special ones. This is not correct interpretation. This is the Path of discovering boundless potential abilities of human beings with the help of the complex of physical, respiratory exercises and subsequent mental training. Nothing in human life is stranger to Yogi, nothing “Yoga-like things” are stranger to ordinary people. Here the only problem is the extent of mutual understanding between Yogi and ordinary people.
First of all, Yoga is the Path of moral cleanse and more and more spiritual formation. Highest Truth of Being is the unity of all existing, that’s why by working on self-perfection Man is working for the benefit of all people. Sun can not stop shining. Pure man can’t stop refining people with his purity. In course of spiritual revival the need to create good becomes the same as the need to breathe, and moreover, good becomes the integral part of our life.
Deeper I got involved in the philosophical problems, especially in the solution of these problems from the position of eastern and particularly Indian philosophy, more acutely I felt the urgent need of asceticism and self-curb.
I want to tell you more about asceticism and self-curb, or tapas as it is called in India. Every man, who has once stepped on the Path of Yoga, the Path of grasping of the Truth of Grand Unity, sooner or later inevitably feels the need of ascez and self-curb. Here and nowhere else you should be very cautious and circumspect. In the Indian epos Mahabharata, which contains several useful advices and directions, sages and hermits are often called: “those who own the treasure of tapas”.
Self-curb inevitably gives people spiritual power, which appears along with the rest in acquiring Yoga’s supersensitive abilities. At least I am not going to explain in detail this part of Yoga teaching because I don’t want to provoke the curiosity of unprepared reader in relation to this question. Vivekananda fairly compared these “miraculous” abilities with flowers that grow on the road. You can pick them up while passing to enjoy their aroma, you can even pick up a bunch of flowers, but the real traveler, who firmly goes forward along his chosen Path towards achievement of the worthy aim, will never divert himself from this Path for the sake of wayside flowers, even if these flowers are extremely beautiful and uncommon.
Spiritual power of self-curb turns into “tapas treasure”, into philosopher’s, Yogi’s will, which is directed towards the light of Truth and works for the welfare of humanity only when this power is constantly lighted up by knowledge, inspired by love, cleansed by unselfishness and unselfish service rendered to people.
Otherwise, as already told by me, power inevitably becomes a source of ever increasing intolerable suffering for a man. Man harms not only himself, but he brings much harm and suffering to other people. Burden of power is not so easy to be carried. This burden can squeeze you pretty well and even crush you.
No doubt every man must aspire to become an absolute owner of his body and consciousness, but it doesn’t mean self-torture and self-flagellation. A good horseman uses his horsewhip and spurs only in case of extreme need. Nothing beyond certain extent, as ancients said. Everything excessively done by us will lead to a zero result, sometimes even negative if you did not manage to stop in time and cool your ardor with the help of common sense.
It quite often happens that in the very beginning of Yoga training, understanding its world outlook, people want to see the immediate miracles and even supernatural results. Of course, you’ll see the results very soon and sometimes they are even beyond all your expectations. Everything depends upon personality. You should first of all give your inputs properly and spend your energy correctly so as to get a benefit. In that case Yoga is the most advantageous path to put our efforts, the most real and even more - the only path to reveal our boundless potential abilities.
Entry into the Quaternary Path of Yoga and realization of Path of Power-Knowledge-Love-Unselfishness offer us the unbelievable prospects, let us reach secret depths of the ocean of knowledge, which we even never dreamed. The world around us is wonderful, you only have to see it and understand it. Deep concentrated thinking, continuous persistent training in concentration, constant self-perfection in direction of spiritual and moral revival, in direction of self-cognition, in direction of Truth will help us to reveal an eye of wisdom inside us, the all seeing eye of Shiva, to awake the power and abilities of creating miracles sleeping inside us.
To gather a harvest you have to plough up the field, sow it, wait for the young crops, take care of them etc. So plow your mind with a strong will, determination in Truth, and sow it with seeds of knowledge. Don’t forget to clean it from the weeds of arrogance and self-conceit, anger, lies, hypocrisy, sanctimony, incontinence and greed. Warm the sprouts of your awakened spirit, growing self-confidence, and belief in your abilities with all-embracing love and unselfishness, - and you will reap the offspring of wisdom, Higher Knowledge. You will be free from suffering, from ignorance of your true immortal nature, and free from the inexorable Karma chains.
The results will take care of themselves without your help; you just need to work on self-perfection in the direction of Yogi, in the direction of Truth, but without unnecessary haste. Here, haste as in other cases, will only cause troubles to us. I remember an old Russian proverb: “You can not plow at a gallop”…
Where should we hasten, just imagine?! As the poet said, “…where should we run, why should we run?..” If you accept the Indian Karma teaching by your heart, then you have Eternity ahead, Eternity behind, and we currently live in Eternity – so why should we hasten, gasp and urge ourselves on! Please understand me correctly, I don’t appeal you to be lazy and stagnate, do not call to some dreamy apathy. Man must cross his Path at his own pace carrying out his duty and “creating his dharma”, as people in India usually say.
Our past defines our duty and we should carry it out with absolute diligence. You should settle your account! It is not fatalism and doesn’t mean there is a blind fate above us, and it’s useless to oppose it. Not at all. If something hangs over us it is our past, our past deeds. And again it doesn’t mean the indestructible karma chains are irresistible. Past that hangs over us, one should get rid of karma chains, these voluntary chains we forge for ourselves by our own free will, these indestructible chains, as they seem to be. The sense of our last conclusion is that Release from this weight of past, from Karma chains, and Total Release from web of Man’s ignorance of his immeasurable greatness and his true immortal nature is the Highest Sense of Life, Highest Aim of Life, we can say, it even means the Highest Sense of Being. The Path of Yoga facilitates the achievement of this goal in the highest sense of these words. One can get rid of these indestructible karma chains with the help of Yoga Power. It is written exactly about this problem in Bhagavad-Gita:
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You’ve heard enough of mind’s reasons
So find the Yoga Light and listen.
Be ready to join to its acts
And destroy the karma revenge shackles.
And further:
Don’t aspire to the fruits, you don’t need its delectation
however you should not sit without any action.
Misery and happiness, all the mundane anxiety –
Forget them and enjoy the balance of Yoga.
All deeds are nothing in the face of Yoga, as they are false
And people who search for good fortune are worthless.
Turn down all the sins and services at once:
The one who’s joined Yoga had found the Highest Senses.
Reject the fruits, set yourself free from the shackles of birth,
And you’ll achieve Dispassionateness and Release.
(BVL Mahabharata, Ramayana. M. Publ. belees-lettres.
1974, p. 177-178).
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This citation may be somewhat longer, but you must agree that these words are simply great, absolutely brilliant! It’s impossible to describe this in a better manner!..
Realizing the Path of Yoga, we realize the Truth of the Grand Unity of Being in ourselves, we understand our indissoluble ties with all existing by our hearts. However, what is good and what is evil? Everything that takes us to the Truth is good; everything that takes us away from Truth is evil. It’s quite clear for me. Everything that separates us is evil; everything that unites us is good. I exist in everyone and everyone exists in me – this is the Highest Truth of Being and we can even call it the philosophical formulation of Release, deep sense of life being revealed.
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The Unity of all existing – this is the triumph of light!
The Truth shows us good and evil.
Good is everything that can unite,
Evil is everything that separates people.
The Unity of all existing – this is the essence of our world!
That person is wise who directs life embodying Unity,
Making good he makes himself in others,
Burning evil and extirpating it inside him.
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Another question is how to realize the Truth inside yourself. Self-curb and asceticism play an important role in this difficult act for sure, but no doubt it must be rational asceticism, you must have the right to use asceticism, which is certainly followed by a incessant self-perfection, followed by a growing up moral perfection. It is better if person’s ethic preparation is faster as compared to all remaining things.
Lots of occurrences are well remembered in India and there are lot of such events happening now, when people give the promise of silence and impale their tongues with a trident pin, a symbol of Shiva, the master of Yoga, the lord of ascetics; when people stand for years, never sit or lie down even for a while so their feet become swollen and fall into an awful condition; there are a lot of even more awful examples of injudicious acts of asceticism, which become an act of self-curb and self-torture. In spite of all my respect for ascetics and asceticism such things can’t arouse anything but natural protest and even squeamishness mixed with admiration and respect for these people, who deserve a better fate and a better use of their determination and will.
There is a philosophical school in India – Jainism, which is, like Buddhism, is unorthodox, i.e. it doesn’t accept the authority of Vedas as philosophical system. The most zealous adherents of this teaching, Jaynas, clean the road ahead them with a special broom not to make harm to some living organism; some of them don’t wash their bodies at all for years not to kill parasites. Love to all existing surely is great but it is not necessary to carry the ahimsa vow – making no harm- to absurdity. Limit and balance should be observed by everyone in everything. Again and again I repeat, that first of all Yoga is balance, moderation, dispassionateness, if you would like its interpretation in this manner.
Here I would like to make a reservation that if someone reproach Yoga with its appeal to indifference and non-intervention it will be absolutely wrong. Impassivity and indifference seem similar, but they are diametrically opposite in their essence. On the one hand is an impassive, hard-hearted and unsympathetic man and on the other hand, there is a reticent man who can control himself and never loses his temper. One thing is egoism, self-love, intemperance, sanctimony of ignorance and another thing is dispassionateness of the philosopher based on grasping the deep essence of different things and events, dispassionateness of thinker, Yogi, sage, if you wish.
Dispassionateness traces its roots back to wisdom, indifference is rooted in ignorance; dispassionateness presupposes and proposes renunciation of egoistic wishes, being unattached to the results based on the Higher knowledge and all-embracing love unselfishness; indifference is based on anger, lies and greed. Dispassionateness is a result and entails firm belief in your abilities, indestructible will, self-reliance, fearlessness; indifference is the result of weakness, unbelief in your abilities. Dispassionateness brings bright energy of self-curb and abstinence, indifference is a consequence of apathy, cowardice, inhumanity, simple dishonorableness with regard to people.
It is easy to be indifferent; the Path towards the dispassionateness of wisdom is very difficult. You think it’s easy to pose indifference as dispassionateness, every indifferent man can say that he is not hard-hearted and inconsiderate, but dispassionate. Here one deals with the level of ethic preparation, first of all the level of knowledge. You don’t need a highly sensitive sight to find out the falsification and to distinguish the true wisdom based on deep knowledge and concentrated thinking from its forgery – ignorance; to differ sanctimony and hypocrisy from the all-embracing love to all existing based on understanding the Truth of the Grand Unity.
In Upanishads, I’m going to tell you about it in details later, it is said that “there is no asceticism higher than fast”. For the first time I’ve made a fasting day for every week during a year. Then I’ve made up my mind to go without food for three days in row. Later I’ve starved for two weeks in row in course of year for three years. I want to warn you that protracted starvation is a special complex of procedures and you should be very cautious with it. These three starvations gave me a tangible benefit not only as a tempering of will, but also as a rejuvenation of my organism, improvement of my feeling.
By that period of time I’d paid more attention to my nutrition. Indra Devi in her book “Yoga for everyone” tells that one wanderer in Tibet have once heard Buddhist monks singing sacred hymns and found out he can no longer eat meat. Indra Devi tells about herself that she had felt the same after Krishnamutri’s sermons. I can tell the same about me with the only difference, that I’d felt protest against eating meat after reading Swami Vivekananda’s works. I had stopped eating meat and any other food made of meat, also fish and eggs and I continue feeding in such way up to this point.
It’s very important what food we eat. Its role is very important along with rational asceticism, self-curb and other actions. Like a plant it needs protection when it is young, we need some actions to protect ourselves against baneful influence. Later, when a man has learned good enough to control himself, these things do not play such important role as it was in the beginning.
There is a popular proverb in India: “Man is what he eats”. It’s true because when we eat we somehow taste our thoughts, our mental mood, and even our psychic condition. That’s why we can conditionally divide food into clean and unclean. The great Indian philosopher, a sage and public man Shankara (the word “Shankara” is one of the epithets of the Highest God Shiva and literally means “the one who gives blessing, beneficent one”) had sorted unclean food into three parts. First of all it is simply food unclean due to mechanical impurities; secondly uncleanness of food is due to its nature; in the third place is food taken from the unclean hands. Not accidentally, in ancient India only Brahmans were taken as cooks, i.e. men of a highest caste with high spiritual level and purity of intentions.
I want to point your attention on one important circumstance. You should never literally comprehend what you’ve read even if it is written by outstanding persons or what we call celebrities. You should not follow their advices mechanically and should not try out something without taking into consideration place, time and your individual characteristics. You can harm yourself badly, and it is not easy to liquidate fatal consequences of your hasty conclusions and unreasonable approach to the opinion of celebrities.
I’d read in Swami Vivekananda’s book that when a man aspires to quick success he must eat only milk and grains for several months. At once, I have made up my mind to eat only milk and rice with addition of carrot and apples. It was my only food for ten years. Of course, it had produced some good results, but without one incident that had positively turned my life once more (I’ll tell you more about it later), God knows what could happen with my health after such diet.
It is considered that Yogi’s organs gradually begin to play somehow autonomous role and even live their own life. I can’t agree with it without well-known essential reservations, but when I returned back to normal rational eating I’ve found out that my stomach had became spoilt and lazy and rejected to accept any other food except rice and milk. I required considerable efforts to get it in line and force it to carry out its commitments properly.
I had made some more experiments in ascetic renunciation, but I shall not tell you about them in details. I just want to state once more that you shouldn’t abundantly take a great interest in it. Remember: Yoga is balance first of all.
During this period of time I continued strenuously mastering Indian philosophy. I studied thoroughly lots of interesting works in this sphere; for instance I’ve read all of works related to Mahabharata – an Indian epos in many volumes that were translated into Russian, and so on. However I have always felt some dissatisfaction. I could not find the book about which I could constantly think and meditate. At first, I decided that the famous Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali is the book I need.
Yoga-Sutra consists of four chapters. An ancient Indian tradition prescribes to do Yoga exercises four times a day: in the morning, at noon, in the evening and at midnight. I failed to do Yoga exercises at midnight, for me it was three times a day. Therefore, I decided to meditate every time on one of the Yoga-Sutra chapters. I have learned one chapter by heart and used it for meditation, then I have learned the second one, and when I began to learn the third chapter I understood that it was not the thing I was looking for. Now it’s quite clear for me, but at that time it was just an intuitive vague feeling, or maybe some presentiment.
When I moved to Upanishads I understood that it was the very nut I had to crack (a very hard nut to crack - I would like to remark). Swami Vivekananda, in his speeches and admonitions, always called upon to return to Upanishads, “to their shining, corroborative and bright philosophy”.
As I have already told you, Upanishads are a philosophical part of Vedas, a huge sacred Indian canon, whose content and secret sense is even huger than its volume. “Upanishad” literally means “at Teacher’s feet”. In other words, you cannot understand concealed sense hidden in Upanishads without an experienced teacher. However, there always is an exception to the rule.
Humanity never has achieved the same heights of philosophical thoughts as in Indian Upanishads. Western philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said about Upanishads, “...there is no other scientific work in the world, which is so wholesome and elevating, as Upanishads. They are the fruits of Highest Wisdom. Sooner or later they’ll become a faith for people. Reading Upanishads was a pleasure for me in life and it’ll become consolation for me in death”. (Indian literature library. Discovering India. M. belles-lettres, 1987, p.69).
Despite relatively small volume Upanishads contain huge spiritual potential. They represent a cascade of deep, original ideas, which give abundant food for thinking and need to be further developed.
I had to rewrite by hand all the three books of Upanishads that we had in the reading room in the library. So I always could have them in the hand. Afterwards I used to spend my first half of the day in concentrated thinking over Upanishads. Soon I knew by heart the best of Upanishads – Brihadaranyaka, the mother of Upanishads as I call it, whose content and secret sense is as huge as its volume is. Then I divided this Upanishad into equal parts and during every Yoga training, I kept repeating one of these parts and thinking over it and in such way day by day I finally came to the end of this Upanishad, then repeated it again and again. It took me several years, and finally I felt that I had somehow passed through Upanishads. They no longer inspired me, no longer gave me food for thought.
So I decided to return to Western philosophy, first of all, to the thinkers of classical German philosophy - the creators of giant philosophical systems. Shelling exerted greatest influence on me, then did Fichte, Hegel and Kant. Shelling is especially close to me because of his philosophy of identity. Shelling was expected to say the last word of philosophy, but of course he didn’t say it and he couldn’t. What is more, the latest works of Shelling disadvantageously differs from earliest effervescent works of Shelling. Here is a very good explanation of this disaster by Friedrich Engels: “…a prophet drunk with God, he foretold a new era; carried away by the spirit which came over him, he often did not know himself the meaning of his words. He tore wide open the doors to philosophizing so that the breath of nature wafted freshly through the chambers of abstract thought and the warm rays of spring fell on the seed of the categories and awakened all slumbering forces. However the fire burnt itself out, the courage vanished, the fermenting new wine turned into sour vinegar before it could become clear wine.” (Shelling, AN USSR, philos. Instit., “Mysl” publishing house, M., 1987, V.I, p.5)
Among Western philosophers, I also like Spinoza with his substance and interpretation of nature as God, Nikolay Kuzanskiy with his “erudite ignorance”, Leibniz with his law of sufficient ground, Greek thinkers and especially Plato with his “ideas” and famous dialogues and so on.
More I advanced further, more I became convinced that there is no Eastern and Western philosophy, there is philosophy as a single whole, as science about Truth, science about Eternity, science about Man. Due to some circumstances Indian thinkers went away along the Path of grasping the Truth immeasurably further than their Western counterparts.
I began writing immediately after my third two-week’s starvation and I continue this creation to present day. I wrote my first aphorism and put a date under it, afterwards all my subsequent aphorisms were written in chronological order. It is the illustration of the evolution and formation of mind with intensification of concepts and its advances along the Path of Yoga, along the Path of grasping the Truth.
For more than 12 years of writing, I think I had created a new Upanishad which I call “Philosophy of the Grand Unity". Here are its four basic principles:
1. The Highest Truth of Being is the unity of all existing, and Human being is the center of this Grand Unity of Being, the Highest Reality of Being and the Highest Essence of Being.
2. The Highest law of Being is the Inexorably-Fair Karma Law, the law of unswerving retribution, the law of Great Transition, which is based on Man’s egoistic wishes and absolute freedom of Man’s will; Man is a center of Grand Unity of Being.
3. The Highest Sense of being is self-cognition and self-contemplation, Man’s grasping of his true immortal absolute nature, his immeasurable greatness.
4. The Highest Aim of Life, the Sense of Life is Liberation from suffering, Liberation from Karma chains, and Full Liberation from the web of ignorance, from the Great Illusion of Isolation.
“...This, verily, is That. What is here, the same is there and what is there, the same is here. He goes from death to death who sees any difference here.” (Katha Upanishad, 11,1,9-10). This is the main and the highest idea of Upanishads, an idea of the Grand Unity of Being, which runs all through the Philosophy of the Grand Unity that was inspired by ideas of classical Upanishads. Philosophy of the Grand Unity consists of three parts:
1. Vijananapada, the philosophy of concentration, philosophy of intuition, philosophy of contemplation.
2. Jnanagitha, a poem-Upanishad of eight chapters.
3. Songs-Upanishads, Songs-Meditations.
Vijnanapada, or philosophy of concentration includes two books. Gnomical style of the first book demands intensive work of mind and deep concentrated thinking same from the author and reader, whose aim is to achieve the state of co-authorship and empathy with the author. The second book of Vijnanapada in relation to its style of expounding is closer to the Western style and synthesizes ideas of Indian and Western philosophy.
Our narration is close to its end. I must tell you about one more problem. Along the Path of Yoga you meet people more and more spiritually close to you. Then the main meeting happens even if you don’t expect it. If you are not ready for this meeting you can even pass it by. The same happened to me. I’ve met my girl friend, as it is said intimate soul, mirror image of "Self". This meeting changed my life once more for the better. It seemed that the problems had doubled because we have combined them, but it became much easier to overcome them.
It seemed to both of us that many years and centuries we were searching for each other but couldn’t find each other and at last we finally met. The law of mutual attraction of Plato, the law of attraction of two persons with similar nature, seemed to snap into action. With merely woman’s frankness, she wrote a beautiful poem about it:
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Through the light and darkness of lost times,
Through the haze of descending years,
I hear the unceasing chimes,
Calling me inconceivably far.
Mysterious expanse under the gauze of eternal dreams,
Where my spring comes out and through mirages draws,
Where you extol the people’s sufferings,
My eternal wanderer, carrying peace inside you.
You are my eternal wanderer and my bright spring,
They aspire for you, suffering from thirst,
And among them I’m striving to you,
United with you I’ll interflow in draught.
And pain of others’ meetings and partings,
And a long scream of heart, and sinking,
And whisper of tender hands, which recognize me,
And every new moment is the recognition of the missing.
I’m in you, you are my hearth and shelter,
You are my birth and death,
The silent pain of non thrown off shackles,
Not outspoken invisible crest!
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We can talk about Yoga and Truth, about Aim and the Path infinitely, and it is impossible to say the final word here.
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We’ve said about sense of being a great deal,
But I still want to tell you, my friends:
Life is the main goal of life, and life is Eternal Wheel,
The Path, where you should close the beginning with the end…
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