LETTERS FROM A BAUL written by SRI ANIRVAN in English. Copyright.
LIFE WITHIN LIFE
PART 1 - THE PRINCIPLES
CHAPTER 1
A STATE OF SAHAJA
The Katha Upanishad says: “The aim is to attain pure Existence (sat).” He who has realised this has a clear understanding of what reality is. Pure Existence is the Truth beyond life and death. That you exist is a fact! And your existence is nothing but a manifestation of that which is universal and transcendental. So your existence becomes oneness (kaivalya) in which there exist the two principles of Samkhya: Purusha, which is the spirit, and Prakriti, which is “that which is manifested.” Spiritually cannot be acquired; it can only be derived from these two principles.
Open yourself up to the sun of pure Existence (sat) as the bud of a flower opens to the light. Then the Truth will flow into you. Impatience spoils everything! There is a Baul song, which says: “The stars, the suns, and the moons are never impatient. Silently, they follow the stream of pure Existence, as the true Guru does.”
Now, this pure Existence, lived with a wide-open heart amid all the circumstances of life, is in itself the state of sahaja- a state in which the mind is freed from all duality. The motionless mind knows “That” which has neither beginning nor end, which is free in its very essence.
Sahaja is yoga for the same reason as all other yogas. It is a path that leads to the discovery of “That with which one is born,” the pure being living in the temple of the heart.
Sahaja can be defined as follows: “That which is born in you, that which is born with you,” a state of pure essence. The body, the spirit, the impulse of life and intelligence are all there. Nothing must be rejected or mutilated, so that “one and the same thing” can be consciously established.
That is why Samkhya, which is the path by which the state of Sahaja is attained, speaks a great deal of the waking state that is the normal level of all activity. It also speaks of the state of consciousness interiorised in dreams, which later becomes the state of deep sleep. The fourth state, that of inner awakening, is the mark of deep sleep. Shankaracharya, instructs us about these four different states in his philosophy.
In sahaja, there is a fifth state, that of a totally awakened consciousness; it contains in itself the four states of wakefulness, dreaming, deep sleep, and the state in which deep sleep exists along with the other four states. There is no longer any differentiation between the various states, all of them being unified at a single point.
From that moment on, everything becomes your food. Everything is one and the same thing in you. Then you are faced with a new task in the realm of sensation and relaxation. It becomes a question of forgetting oneself, of voluntarily obliterating oneself, which is a letting go in a region that is very subtle and hard to discover. Voluntary forgetting is a task that is just as difficult as accustoming one’s mental faculty to remembering the details of self-observation. It is only approached much later, when memory has become submissive and fulfils its true role.
This is slow work and a true discipline in itself. The effort to forget ceases when the contraction that determines the field of work disappears. Without construction there can be no directed effort. When this effort is recognised, the contraction disappears and is at once replaced by a very special kind of attention coming from very far away. This attention is different to what is going on and yet it watches closely. It gives no orders and does not know impatience. It simply watches how Great Nature (prakriti) operates, for even in the subtle domain of voluntary forgetfulness prakriti has still to be reckoned with.
To wish to forget is, in fact, impossible. Forgetting proceeds from a principle without any form. When your being is invaded by a movement coming from the heart and the mind, you are just like an empty vibrating bell filled by the echo of a sound coming from elsewhere.
Accept within yourself the idea that you have only twenty-four hours to live. Let those hours be full of clarity to help you to accomplish your task. Do not allow them to be tarnished. They have been entrusted to you. Those twenty-four hours are your eternity. In the face of his three-dimensional day, it is impossible to imagine the future. Do not attempt to stretch the time, nor to divide it, nor to lengthen or shorten it. Everything is so full and at the same time so empty!
The discipline of sahaja begins with the acceptance of the whole of life just as it is. The heat opens up to receive it and to live it. As for intelligence and logic, they will seek in Samkkhya the necessary strength to finding the key to the enigma of existence. Sahaja then appears like a path illumined by the experience of inner being.
In practice, Samkhya is a technique to realize the expansion of sahaja. Neither the one nor the other takes into account god, demons, paradises, hells, or formalisms of any kind, in the course of inner effort. The point where Samkhya and Sahaja converge is tin the whole of life, which becomes in itself the object of meditation. Therefore serenity within oneself and a right relationship with life and one’s fellow beings becomes a way of being.
He who practices a spiritual discipline (sadhana) will use Samkhya to learn how to look at the movements of Great Nature in all its manifestations without interfering with its movements, to recognize its imprint on everything and to observe the ability of prakriti to pass imperceptibly from one plane of consciousness to another. Not to react to any of its movements would, in fact, mean to live in the very heart of life without being affected by it. But at the beginning, this state cannot be taken for granted, for it is not merely by observing the movements of prakriti that one becomes its master.
The disciple will turn his gaze upon himself and will discover, although he had never before seen it, the countless inner disturbances created by everything in him that says, “I like and I do not like; I want and I do not want; it’s right and it’s wrong,” and so forth, which prevent him from noticing that in himself there is a stormy prakriti identical to the one that exists around him.
How can he dissociate himself from that prakriti which until he dies will be for him his life, his mind and his body with all their functions? At this time traditional Rajayoga comes to help. This yoga through its graduated disciplines brings the body to a state of conscious joy, one’s life to a state of equanimity comparable to complete rest and one’s mind to ecstasy (samadhi). In this state of equanimity, all the automatic movements of prakriti and its unconscious play can be perceived. Always, in following this inner discipline, the ideal of Samkhya is to learn how to stand back, and the ideal of yoga is vairagya, which means to learn how to observe oneself dispassionately and without judgement.
Long and meticulous work is indispensible in order to discover that emotion of any kind creates a passionate movement which takes man out of himself. In this case yoga teaches how to check any impetuous movement by emptying the mind of all images. The superabundant energy is thus brought back to the self. But the purpose of Samkhya is that this energy, having returned to the self, should also be directed consciously towards the outer life, that it should become openly active without disturbing the inner or outer prakriti. In this way life-energy is purified. It becomes creative. Of course this state can only last for a few minutes, and the ordinary man immediately reappears with his train of habitual reactions within the play of manifestation.
This play of illumination (sattva) and this word is right even if the moment be brief, is a look into oneself and at the same time is a look outside oneself (sivadrsti). Symbolically it can be compared to the piercing look of Purusha into himself and upon the active Prakriti around him. To accept Prakriti in its totality is pure sahaja. In a subtle manner, beyond “I like and I don’t like,” it brings a possibility of modification in the densities of intrinsic qualities (gunas) of the lower prakriti and shows the path by which a higher Prakriti can be reached.
Learn to return voluntarily to what is fundamentally primitive in you, carefully hidden and disguised in the realm of instinct, intuition and sex. This conscious return will produce unsuspected reactions and induce outbursts of all your dormant impatience. If you were a tree, they would all of them be branches issuing from the same trunk. One cannot cut off one branch without damaging the whole; cutting several of them would cause the death of the tree. All the branches together form the canopy of foliage.
In the wind, the foliage is in harmony with the whole forest. It is in the foliage that the birds nest and sing. May this picture help you in your spiritual discipline even if it is very hard. If something obscure lingers in you, it means that there must still be an attachment somewhere, just as in the tree there are knots which hinder the rising of the sap.
You can observe ideas and make them your own. You can freely create ways to express them. That is what the force in you can do. Perhaps I can help you to discover your own power but only by suggestion. If you open yourselves up and discover who you are, I shall be pleased.
A great tapasya awaits you. This word means personal austerity and voluntary discipline.
These are clearly the creative energy and the wisdom so often described in the Upanishads as being together the first manifestation of the creative urge. One of the Upanishads even goes so far as to say that it is a radiation devoid of any characteristic, that is, without form (alingam).
True tapasya means to be one with the creative power of prakriti. It brings us close to Great Nature as she really is. One voluntarily drops all accumulations, all that has been acquired, and returns to what is simple and innate. Austerities, both mental and physical, to which many a seeker subjects himself, are only the fumbling means adopted by ignorant souls wishing to attain that entirely natural end.
Allow your power to radiate, and may this radiation be your discipline. Hear the resonance of this call in you and, without tension of any sort, have the courage to plunge into the depths of your soul. Do not listen to the sophisticated sayings of t he wiseacres who teach with pomp and ostentation.
U: nderstood in this manner, tapasya is the progressive development of limitless intuition. There are two kinds of tapasya. One in which I always say “Yes” -tantras – and one in which I always say “No” – Vedanta. The true seeker who says “yes” is a born poet, for he finds himself obliged to translate everything into exalted thoughts and language. His poetry plays the role of a science of transmutation.
In sahaja there is a close correspondence between the Baul and the Sufi, provided that the “underground current” of spiritual life brings the mind of each one to grasp the secret and to live it in his own light.
As soon as one attempts to describe Hinduism in terms of circles and cycles, and Sufism in terms of four degrees, one is lost. Immediately one enters the world of division and quarrels.
How is it that the Sufis have discovered the content of the Upanishads that freedom of which they sing, when, in fact, the Upanishads are unknown to most of them? Each one, at his appointed time, must break the shell in which he is enclosed, so as to penetrate into knowledge; just as a fully formed chick must break out of the eggshell if it wishes to live its life.
In the final stage there is no longer any discipline but only an uninterrupted consciousness of being. If the entire being is immersed in a (the Sufi calls it Fanaa) I “know” how in myself without efforts the current of a right relationship is established, which dissolves everything false or halting in my relationship with myself and with my fellow men.
The Bauls and the Sufis tread the same path in life and drink from the same eternal source; they are above every kind of sectarianism. They do not practise any formal initiation; they speak however of two kinds of initiation.
One is compared to the sun touching the bud of a flower, inviting it to open. A power is transfused from the Master to his disciple simply by radiation without ritual or words. That is all. The bud of the flower still retains all its individuality.
The other initiation, at a still higher level, is compared to the sun which absorbs the dew into itself. At a glance the Master recognises the real disciple, whether he be a Baul or a Sufi. His look captures the reflection of the disciple’s being as in a mirror; then the eyes of the Master and the eyes of the disciple close. But the current between them will continue to flow eternally. This is called the process of saturation.
But the time comes when the Master becomes an obstacle to the flowering of the disciple. The cult of the person falls away, and also the cult of devotion to ideas. The question arises, “Why do I obey?” And the answer is “The Guru of the Guru of my Guru is walking ahead on the same path as I. Can I reach the source by myself alone, making do without any intermediaries?”
That is the beginning of a long and declared war with many painful stages with the Guru. The true Guru will be aware of this struggle. He watches closely the disordered movements of the disciple. His kindness is such that he speaks with his disciple about the one who walks ahead, about the laws of working on oneself; yet he does nothing to attenuate the struggle which has begun.
At the end of this stage there is a sahaja when the disciple finally opens the eyes of his heart and understands that he has gone astray. On this subject Keshab Das has said,”I discover that I am what I was, but between the two there are only complications. Now, I see…” The aim is the Truth, through which the unity of all things can be perceived. This truth is sahaja.
The Master of a Baul or a Sufi teaches nothing directly; he merely stimulates his disciple by suggestions. Once initiated, the disciple feels that a force drives him forward, but he will always have to struggle alone in the world around him, in the very heart of all life’s complications.
My one ambition has been to learn to speak without words. That is, to be the smoke of a fire that others do not see, or the sound of music that others do not hear. It has taken me fifty years. Two ideas have always been in my mind. The first of these was to be the traveller who follows the trail with a precise goal: to touch God and to serve him. The second was the idea of expansion: to know how to flow out like a gas without any destination for the rshis have said,”Those who have attained pure Existence (sat) become the One.”
So many people come to see me who only want words! If I do not speak, they are upset. So I speak in a poetic way, and that keeps them occupied for a while.
But where are those to whom I can entrust a task in life, one single task that would be the expression of their spiritual fervour? If you are not a ploughman, what do you know about ploughing? If you are not a man of action, what do you know about a task to be fulfilled? In the seed-bed of thought, action, prayer, and meditation coexist in the sensation of being and action is not what men have made of it – something subjective and hypocritical, far removed from the centre of being.
You do not know that all creation is born of an action? To live is also an action. To live could be the fact of acknowledging the “Man in the temple of the heart” and serving him perfectly.
CHAPTER II
SAMKHYA
Samkhya is, above all, the practical philosophy transmitted by Kapila, who lived in the far distant past.
Samkhya give s a clear idea of the “Purusha-Spirit” and of “Prakriti-manifestation” represented by “Great Nature.” The latter is manifested essentially in a mechanical manner, like all the cosmic Laws which govern us.
I know how difficult it is to explain deep spiritual values. That is why I think the best link between the things of the beyond with the things of this world is that of practical psychology.
Psychology speaks a universally known language.
Samkhya is the only religious philosophy that speaks a psychological language, hence a scientific language. Everything can be explained from the point of view of Samkhya. It is the basis of the Buddhist pitakas, as well as of the Sufi precepts. It is no more concerned with rites than are the Upanishads.
Nothing exists, in any realm, that by deduction does not proceed from a higher Law. There comes a time when one must submit to such a deductive process. This process is pure Samkhya, it is the inexorable descent into Prakriti, under pressure from above of the great Will. From that moment onwards everything functions in a mechanical way: the higher intelligence (Buddhi), the soul, the ego, all the centres of the human being, each one with its natural intelligence. The automatic progression functions from the moment when connections start between the different levels of the being: its inner organs of perception (indriyas) or senses, its constituent elements (bhutas) and densities.
When “He who knows” effects the descent voluntarily and reaches the lowest point, that is to say, the nadir, his being becomes radiant. At that moment he enters consciously into the discipline of a clearly conscious upward movement.
Man s by nature inductive; he gropes his way forward and goes blindly along. Woman, on the other hand, is by nature actively passive, for her function is to create the child. From her are born husband and father. All manifestations, mind, soul, life, matter, have come from her. In that respect she is the “Divine Mother,” the foundation from which the slow ascent towards the source begins.
It is said in the Bhagavatam that, at the time when Samkhya arrived on the earth, a woman was the first to benefit by it. This woman was called Devahuti. She represents the higher Prakriti. Devahuti realised this knowledge to its ultimate limit. Having rejected everything that was not the pure and luminous “I,” she is said to have wandered in Nature, completely naked, radiating light. At the moment of death, she transformed herself voluntarily into an inexhaustible river in order to water the whole earth and allow hundreds and thousands of beings to quench their thirst for knowledge.
The spiritual science of Samkhya can make a saint out of a man who has no longer any faith in God or in himself.
In the beginning Samkhya sappers to be appallingly dry and lacking in love, for imagination and any kind of emotion are strictly set aside. But when the inner being has recovered his lost equilibrium and discovered the equilibrium which he has thus far never felt, he is nourished by a pure love which no longer has any root in human love.
The adept of Samkhya finds his point of support in his own inner attitude, in his conscious effort to understand “what there is.” To reach this attitude, he makes use of everything that he has discovered, everything that he has experienced up to the time when he begins his search. His material consists of events in his life which enlarge his plane of consciousness, harmonise the microcosm that he is, and reveal the relationship existing between the known universe and the unknown universe around him. Even if he has neither a prayer nor a petition, he has, on the other hand, an attitude of openness. He questions and he observes. He searches within himself for a familiar sensation so as to face the perfect and absolute cosmic Law which unfolds. He knows that it is through overcoming obstacles that the inner being will make a fresh effort to attain a wider level of consciousness. To hold to this openness entails attentive vigilance and an immense work of amassing details upon details, until the first of them are clearly perceived. To lead such a life is to live a prayer.
The following example, taken from a Tantric text, formulates it like this: “Let your body become hard like dry wood. Then your inner felicity (rasa) will be like sugar syrup. Let the fire of your spiritual discipline (sadhana) purify this syrup until it becomes like candied sugar; this candied sugar will at first be brown, but finally it will become as transparent as rock crystal. May your inner felicity resemble rock crystal; then your love will be as pure as Krishna’s.”
In order to taste this experience, there are two methods on opposite levels. In one case, stimulants and drugs are utilized by the physical body. In the other case, the spiritual body becomes consciously more and more refined and in full awareness reaches a strictly graduated interiorisation. This conscious lucidity will then be continuous like the tracks of a caterpillar on the earth.
Then a stage of knowledge will be reached, that is, a knowledge that is searching for itself and gradually discovers itself. At its highest point after a very delicate attunement, this knowledge becomes true compassion or pure objective love.
In Vedanta and for the Vedantist, if felicity is not reached in the complete passivity of all the centres of the being, the upward path is nothing but renunciation and frustration.
Vedanta denies all reality, while the Samkhya discipline affirms that everything is reality (sat). In prakriti, which by nature is mechanical, three densities have to be acknowledged and gone beyond matter, energy and spirit, and to reach finally the cosmic force that contains them all. Higher reality, or pure Existence (sat) beyond manifestation, is expressed by the unity of these three densities. Behind it stands Purusha.
The essential condition of this condition is the possibility of absorption which continually increases until it becomes total. To start with, everything appears heavy and opaque, like a clod of earth that, little by little, as understanding broadens, appears like pure rock crystal.
The soul’s felicity is the state (vilasa-vivarta) in which the unreal becomes real and vice versa.
In attempting this a Christian risks himself with difficulty, for he has to take into account a “sinful body” which weighs very heavily. The Christian places his point of support ahead of him in God, which gives him strength and consolation, He prays, invokes and gives thanks. He is a worshipper (bhakta) before his Lord (istadevata). The great majority of Hindus are also worshippers.
In Samkhya, several themes for meditation are taught which date from the time of the Vedas.
For example, the idea of the opposite pairs of the zenith-nadir (what is above and what is below), or Purusha-Prakriti, is graphically pictured by two points inked by an ideal line going vertically from the zenith to the nadir. But in living experience one perceives in meditation that it is quite different. Actually, these two poles of zenith and nadir are not opposites, but joined in a continuous movement that starts from the zenith, describes a vast semicircle to the right and reaches the nadir at the bottom of the curve. After having penetrated the nadir, this same movement re-ascends to the left towards the zenith, forming the same semicircle as on the right. It gives the picture of a large round vessel, with the nadir at the bottom.
The energy that descends from the zenith is fully conscious of its movement. In full force it condenses, breaks down any resistance on the way, and penetrates the inner being which, having seen it coming, has hidden itself coiled three and a half times, in the nadir. This coil is what the energy has to break up.
A Guru of Samkhya explains this state as follows: energy penetrates the dark night until the energy itself becomes inert and without reaction. At that very moment it becomes entirely one with the heavy matter.
In the nadir of prakriti, the three-fold coil represents the three distinct and complementary qualities (gunas) of prakriti itself. In the descending movement white (spirit), black (energy) and red (matter) follow one another in the order of the colours at sunset. In the re-ascending movement towards the zenith, the colours follow one another as at dawn: black (energy), red (matter) and white (spirit).
The last half-coil remaining besides the three coils of the gunas was, during the entire process of the descent, the hiding-place of the active consciousness of Purusha. It represents the last redoubt of the individuality-spirit through which the re-ascent can take place.
In this picture the conqueror, conscious of the road he must follow, resolutely penetrates into the darkness of matter and its heavy densities to reach the very heart of prakriti. To complete his course he has to break down the last half-coil of prakriti which is holding him back. Only then will he emerge from the struggle a hero.
Throughout the conscious and voluntary descent into the heaviness of the human body down to the nadir, a clear vision makes it possible to perceive what will be the ascending path starting from the nadir, for the stages and steps of the descent are analogous to those of the re-ascent.
There is also a theme of deep meditation which consists in seeing the three gunas as if they were concentric surfaces, one within the other. Thus, we have the picture of four concentric barriers which delimit them, one within the other, the one delimiting matter is outside, those delimiting energy are inside, as well as the one in the centre which delimits the spirit. The space in the centre represents the zone of perfect calm, the Void.
Diagram
As soon as the perfect calmness of the inner space is perceived, the image of concentric surfaces is obliterated and the fact of existing is now experienced but very subtly, as if a state of active consciousness could be compared to a thin steak of light which at the same time is filling the sky. The result is an all-encompassing sensation of fluidity along the spinal column. The sensation is that of a very fine vibrating matter ascending from below.
This sensation is like the radiation of light which fills space. The three gunas constitute the equilibrium of purusha. Whatever takes place, the constant balance between the qualities and the substances that compose the gunas remains. They move always in the same order, that is, from matter (tamas) to energy (rajas), then to spirit (sattva), or in the reverse order, from spirit (sattva) to energy (rajas), down to matter (tamas). At the moment of sunrise and sunset, one can feel in oneself the very delicate transition from one density to the other, from one quality to the other, and see the change from one colour to another. That is why traditionally these are the moments in which the gunas form the background and the theme of all meditation.
There are two Samkhyas: the first is philosophical, the second mystical.
Philosophical Samkhya, formulated by Ishvara Krishna is recognised in India as being the system of basic thought that indicates to the yogi, as well as to the anchorite, the ascending path of spiritual search. It is a profoundly negative philosophy which had an influence on the whole of life in India in the Middle Ages. This is all that is known of samkhya in the west.
But this Samkhya is also a mystical path, enshrined in the Vedas and the Upanishads, which, in the course of centuries, has found its free and clear expression in the Puranas and the Tantras, especially in the later sacred scriptures. It can be said that the whole Tantric way of life is none other than a Samkhya whose sources can be discovered in the most ancient Vedic verses.
In this, the world is not denied. The principle of supreme bliss (ananda) is recognised, but it is called by another name, samprasada, which in the Upanishads is the state of dreamless sleep, a sleep in which the spirit is awakened within. Nothing is present to experience anything at all. There exists only a calm joy which can carry over into the waking state. There is no question of fleeing from pain, but rather of experiencing it as the embrace in which Kali enfolds Shiva prostrate beneath her. This is technically described in the Tantras by the word Viparitarati (or the inverted coitus) in which the Purusha is passively accepting even death and destruction from the active Prakriti. Evil and pain, from which the world-negating Vedanta assiduously turns away are transformed here into Bliss (Ananda)
But the mystics have added something further to their experience. They have felt that, for a realized soul, suffering itself is no more than a ripple in the current of bliss. It was its reference to this that Sri Ramakrishna was able to say, ”Everything is sat-chit-ananda.” Even my suffering is only a part of the experience of existing and it has very little space in the total experience of “being,” in the consciousness of bliss.”
From this profound experience,,, Samkhya, integrated into life as it is in the Bhagawad girta, looks upon Prakriti as being threefold: the lower prakriti (apara), the higher prakriti (para), and the highest Prakriti that is our very own (pram or sviya).
The philosophical Samkhya takes into consideration onl the lower Pakriti which is merely a complex of the qualities of sattva, rajas, and tamas, permanenly intermingled, although one of them must necessarily predominate. But a pure quality (suddha sattva) can also exist, which is neither touched nor soiled by rajas and tamas. This, than, would be the highest Prakriti that is many times mentioned in Puranic and Tantric literature. This idea of pure sattva reigns over all the practical philosophies of the Hindu mystics.
This pure quality is nothing other than eternal bliss (non-existent in rajas) and eternal illumination (non-existent in tamas) co-existing in the spiritual being. This is th entire concept of sat-chcit-ananda common to the mystical philosophies of Samkhya and Vedanta.
Vignana Bhikshu, a great Master of the school of Samkhya in the fifteenth century, has given us the following metaphor in connection with Purusha and Prakriti: “Prakriti is PUrusha’s wife; she is shrewd and peevish. She gives Purusha no respite, until he becomes so harassed that he finally says, ’I am going away, do what you like!’ Then Prakriti runs after her husband in tears, implores him, and clings to him…” These are the two ways of dealing with prakriti, before and after realized what she is. The cosmic Law closest to us tells us,” As soon as you become detached from prakriti, everything follows you.”
Swami Rama Tirtha has given us another picture, “If you turn your back to the sun, your shadow is in front of you. You can try to catch it, but you will never succeed. But the minute you turn to face the sun, your shadow is behind you. If you move, it follows you. You can make it go where you wish. The sun is truth, the shadow is Prakriti.”
It is easy for us to talk about the changes in our consciousness, the broadening of our understanding, but not so easy to speak of the readjustment of our relationship with the world, for the matter of the body is heavy. And the many envelopes of the body (kosas) are no mere illusions, as the envelopes of the mind often are.
Purusha can do nothing for us, since we are the slaves of Prakriti. Purusha is outside of time and beyond our understanding, whereas prakriti exists in time. It is at once the aggregate of the qualities (gunas) that we can evaluate and the aggregate of the movements and impressions (samskaras) of all those qualities that make up our life. Purusha is a flash of perception, while prakriti operates in an integral mechanism.
Between the two there is the sacrifice of Purusha, which in time takes on a form. For example, the efforts of the Buddha can be perceived by us. If we talk about the efforts of the Buddha on our scale, we have a certain perception of something. But of what?
An exact relationship exists between prakriti, which moves spontaneously, always in circles, and Prurusha, outside of time, which merely looks on at what is happening. In spiritual life, this relationship appears at the exact point where voluntary detachment breaks the bonds which have been established by prakriti. In the olifeof the Buddha, the period of detachment is represented by the first half of his asceticism. Later on, while looking from afar at what is happening, he becomes increasingly interested in the game in which he no longer participates and observes the smallest errors of each participant. Then, without hindering their manner of playing, he urges them by his spiritual strength alone to stand aside like himself, so that they, too, can watch the game. In this way, at the proper time, he gives them the chance to see the prakriti from which they are withdrawing, as he himself sees it. The subtle energy that is here described has become the aura of the Buddha; it is simply the lower prakriti transformed and illuminated.
In actual spiritual life one proceeds only by negation. This constant negation, for Christians, has become resignation. We must not forget that whereas in Hinduism, there is no beginning and no end, in Christianity there is no end but a beginning. The way of love (bhakti) has its way in the attitude of negation as well as in the attitude of resignation.
The path to the attainment to the state of “divine soul” is extremely long with precipices on both sides. This state of “divine soul” is limited to a very few and, even so, is always subject to the Laws of the all-powerful and mechanical prakriti. Jesus Christ himself was crucified; nothing was able to prevent the action set in motion by prakriti, which on our human level works exactly like the cosmic Laws and with equal intransigence.
Prakriti contains everything that exists. It is the divine womb of all manifestation. In prakriti one can observe three different degrees:-
1. Everything of which we are made: soul, intelligence, ego, life, mind, and the animal matter of our body.
2. The very principle of our possible evolution on all planes of our psychic and physical being.
3. The divine energy (sakti) in its most subtle elements.
In one sense all is materiality. In the Vedas the word Tanu means the body as well as everything to do with incarnation, and the word atman means the spirit and everything connected with its energy or life. These words are interchangeable and are constantly being used for one another, since they both express the same materiality. There is no difference between spirit and matter; it is only a question of different densities. When a piece of coal is white hot, it is impossible to say whether it is burning matter a a cluster of flames symbolizing the spirit. Here we have a phenomenon of transubstantiation that is visible in the heart of the spiritual experience.
The essential characteristic of India is that nothing is ever rejected. What was a simple Vedic sacrifice has been transformed in the course of centuries into a ritual of such complexity that it suggests a banyan tree (which is) sheltering at one and the same time a temple, a mosque, a saint, a bandit, devotees, animals, manure and so on. It is a real jungle in which one can easily lose one’s way. In it one finds “this and that and also That.”
Hence the hoarding of objects in the Hindu temples. The minute one accepts the idea of form (rupa), one can throw away nothing. Who is to decide what is true or false? Everything is of equal importance and equally worthy of attention. Each form has a name (nama) and significance. This is so on every level.
The “too much” has a logic of its own, and logic is very far from the divine. In the ceremonies, the forms have become all important, and have driven out the spirit. Man plays with materiality with consummate art, without being aware of the mechanicity of prakriti, and without discovering that he is its slave.
One cannot change the course of prakriti, which goes its way according to a determined plan in the order of universal things and according to immutable Laws that it does not know. It knows only its own law. It does its work excellently and faultlessly. The energies divide and subdivide up to the point of feeding the cells of our body. They penetrate the heart and they penetrate every drop of blood. At this point the body is an expression of “That.”
Men are tossed about and carried along by a wave of which they cannot get free, but they can swim in the direction of the cavern of the heart. The seat of immobile consciousness is there. The movement of the wave has then ceased for these men, because they have put their attention to another order of reality. In the cavern of the heart they touch the Immutable. One has to follow this process with an inward look and feel the pulsation of life. There is a known relation between the pulsation of life and the movement of the outer wave just ads there is a relation between the pulsation of life and the immobile consciousness. This movement is continuous. A sudden stop would mean death.
So long as we are immersed in prakriti, in ourselves and in life, we are governed by it, by its movements, its sudden jumps, and its cosmic rhythms. Without withdrawing into ourselves, we can have no control over our prakriti.
It is impossible from outside to know whether the driver of a vehicle has control over himself or not. If he has, he can stop when he so decides. He knows that the wheels of a vehicle turn because of him. He is in control of his personal prakriti, which n its turn plays its role in a vaster Prakriti. The latter is itself the field of the great cosmic Laws.
There are two ways in which Great Nature constantly reacts toward Purusha: it remains in the centre of the movement, not to be drawn to one side of the other; or it follows the movement all the way. In any case, one must turn to the Void, which is the beginning as well as the end of all things.
Conscious energy (sakti) implies continuous growth which, even if it is not apparent and seems to start from darkness (tamas) is nonetheless real. It passes through the red hot glow of active impulse (rajas) before reaching the whiteness of the rarefied state ( sattva). This whiteness in life is the state of awakened consciousness.
Thus, we have to raise ourselves up step by step from the plane of gross matter to the plane of awakened consciousness , and thus come back to heavy matter, retaining in ourselves as long as possible a continuous and right sensation. We are constantly harassed from outside by multiple shocks which bring forth in us either the desire to see GOd and experience a moment of illumination, or the anguish of death, prowling in the shadows and bringing a state of deep depression. The dawn symbolises the intermediate power of sakti. It is the light that begins to shine in the heart of the dark night.
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