II. YOGA AND NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
10:34 AM Posted In Introduction to Yoga Edit ThisThe importance of yoga is in its amenability to rendering the entire content of the human psychology in terms of consciousness. No doubt scriptures produced world over have contributed to the moderation of human psychology so as to check his inherent violent nature throughout the ages. If there had not been check of this nature in the form of scriptural prescriptions, man would have left the world in havoc. Today man is faced with the practical utilities of science which has negated the utility, appeal, value of these scriptures. In this process of evaluation, modern psychology has played an important role. Physical science abstained itself from entering into the domain of spirituality had not psychology attacked the inherent consciousness and sided with physical sciences exclusively to explain the phenomenon of consciousness as a by-product of the physical like the Carvakas. Man finding himself defenceless took resort to faith and declared it as inviolable but this inviolability has also been shaken and sooner or later it, too, has to give way to thorough analysis for its tenability. In this exercise, faith does not seem to have any bright future on account of its sheer non-rationality.
Herein lies the advantage of Vedic yoga since its entire structure is based on consciousness as the basic stuff of creation in all its forms and varieties. Vedic seers by means of deep meditation were able to see through everything, howsoever gross and mightily tangible it may be, as a formation of consciousness. This has been finding of not one or two seers, but of many seers, living over a million square kilometre of the Indian soil for thousands of years in isolated groups sequestered from one another by considerable distance hurdled with rivers, forests and wild animals, etc. Despite of all these points of distraction, their common concurrence on consciousness as the essential stuff of creation is astounding and much more than the modern physicist’s discovery regarding convertibility of matter into energy. While the physicist’s discovery boosted the effort of the psychologist to create a psychology with matter as its basic stuff, the Vedic seers left the entire legacy of consciousness as the same sort of stuff to think of the possibility of formulating a psychology of the psyche.
When we study the present situation, we find that the modern psychology reigning between the tension of opposites, namely the real and the ideal. The real is our past animal nature, pulling us back to itself in the form of instinctive drives while the ideal is our effort to make adjustment in the mode of fulfilment of our instinctive drives so as to conform to the social norms of the day. The animal nature is self-seeking while the ideal conforms to the social norms, requiring moving beyond sheer self-interest so as to concede to the requirements of others involved in the given situation, be they members of family, neighbours, classmates, colleagues, or any sort of people who have an interest to be shared with. It is only around this point that the modern psychology is moving under different denominations, behavioural, transactional, industrial, educational, marital, psychoanalytical, to name just a few. The interaction of the opposites creates tension while the psychologist is seeking to remove the same through adjustments and readjustments. The adjustments and readjustments are tried upon under the presumption that both the real and the ideal have a common origin the physical. Thus, a modern psychologist removes, sets and resets psychological factors as per requirements of given situations and he has nothing to think about beyond this adjustments and readjustments. On account of having adopted the norm of physical sciences, the modern psychology envisages the human life as a machine to be kept on working properly unmindful of any aim or objective before it in any sense. If a living being, particularly a human begins to be treated as a machine, how can it be expected to have an objective of its own apart from its amenability to exploitation by its owner?
This absolute power of consciousness though non-distinct from the Consciousness goes on presenting the entire cycle of manifestation and withdrawal on its own background like the reflection of a city in a mirror and this power is of nature of consciousness is known creative pulsation of consciousness. This pulsation or throb holds in her womb endless cycles of creation and dissolution, which is of the nature of the entire world of the pure and the impure and exhibits limitation and expansion of subjects and objects which is simultaneously of the nature of emanation and absorption. This creative power of consciousness is simultaneously of the nature of display and suppression even while she displays perception like colour, form, or internal perception like pleasure, pain, etc. she suppresses the real nature of her identity with the perceiver by bringing about suppression of the previously perceived. In concentricity of consciousness, the rise of the empirical thought-constructs obstructs the nature of consciousness and thus the empirical being loses his independence. This rise of empirical thought-constructs only brings the experience of sound, form, colour, taste, smell and touch.
Ksemaraja explains differently this concept of concentricity in his commentary on Pratyabhijnahrdayam. He states, “Concentricity of consciousness is an exalted power of absolute consciousness by concealing its real nature it accepts contraction or limitation.”
As the individual consciousness is identical with the entire cosmos and as all entities arise from him, and because of the knowledge of all the subjects, he has the feeling of identity with them all, hence whether in word, object or thought, there is no state which is not Consciousness. In fact, the experient himself is always and everywhere abides in the form of the experienced i.e. Consciousness, which is the essential Experient and abides in the form of the cosmos as Its field of experience. This is so because the experient constitutes the entire cosmos, therefore, there is no state whether it is the beginning or the middle or the end and whether it is word, or object or ideation which is not Consciousness.
States of consciousness is not the discovery of the Upanishadic period but goes back to the Vedic Samhitas.
Consciousness as a principle makes an appearance in the Samhita in a mantra seen by Dirghatamas who states (RV.I.164.4):
Who could have seen the event when the boneless gave birth to the bony. No doubt, the vital and the physical are born of the earth but wherefrom the Atman. Who may approach the knowledgeable to inquire?
The Vedic view of consciousness finds detailed exposition in Mandukya Upanisad (1-12.), proposing identity between Brahman, the Absolute and consciousness of the world, and Atman, the source of all. The Upanisad conceives of consciousness as fourfold, namely, wakefulness, dream, deep sleep and the fourth – turiya.
This turiya consciousness is not merely a non-doer witnessing consciousness (saksi caitanya) of Sankara Vedanta or Kaivalya of Patanjali wherein the consciousness remains in its aloneness or isolation but it is full of turiyabhoga i.e. rapturous experience of the pure consciousness of Brahman. Spandakarika expresses the experience as follows:
Even during the occurrence of different states of consciousness like waking, etc., the consciousness of the fourth state continue to be the same, one never departs from one’s natural state of being – the knower or the experient in all the states. (Spandakarika, verse 3.)
Acarya Abhinavagupta describes varieties of waking state and other states of consciousness with reference to a yogi (Tantraloka, Ahinika, X.217-300).
Lankavatara Sutra, in the dialogue between Buddha and Mahamati, states that everything is Mind only. When Mahamati asks about the nature of existence, Buddha says again and again to his disciple Mahamati, “Mahamati, this is only Mind. Hell is Mind. Heaven is Mind. The world is Mind. Enlightenment is Mind.”
Mahamati asks again and again, “Just Mind? Just Mind? Even nirvana or enlightenment is just Mind?”
And Buddha says, “Just Mind, Mahamati.”
Here mind stands for that state of consciousness, which is beyond all opposites and is the cause of the entire manifestation. This could only be the fourth state of consciousness. In it there is no desire and the whole world that was seen earlier in pair of opposites is like a magical world, a city of
The methods of Yoga can be pursued without recourse to any dogma, and they require the same rigour as science insists, namely, observation, experimentation, and verification by repeatable experience. Yoga can be looked upon as the experiential basis for philosophical speculations and conclusions, and if rightly used, Yoga can be a bridge between philosophy and science.
Yoga claims that it has developed methods, which can deal with the supra-physical as rigorously and as objectively as modern science deals with physical phenomena. Yoga claims that its methods can deal both with the physical and supra-physical, and, if needed and encouraged it could develop an integral science of both the physical and supra-physical and their interrelationship.
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