Speech delivered at Allahabad on 9th April 1968.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking to you
on the important aspect of Sri Ramchandra's
Rajayoga, which, in my opinion, is paramount as
a significant contribution made by Shri Ram
Chandraji Maharaj, namely the spiritual
transformation of man. That I call Pranahuti or
Transmission, a method adopted for igniting the
minds and souls of men to finer and greater
achievement of the ultimate reality.
Today I wish to dilate on the supreme
possibilities open to the seeker after the
ultimate by this means, the attainments that he
is likely to meet with on the path to total
transformation. A prayer is always to the
ultimate Being to take you to His ultimate
status. It assumes that the Divine ultimate can
descend and does so, not only in the large
historical periods in the form of avatars, but
also in the little incidents of a human life, an
awakening in the heart of the antaryamin within
each one of us.
A prayer uttered to the Infinite makes it
possible for Him to enter into you, and this is
done by the Guru or teacher who does the
transmission on behalf of the Ultimate, or as
the Ultimate itself. Therefore, prayer is a
necessary preliminary to any spiritual puja or
worship. It is an opening of the mind and the
heart for the entry of God into you, an entry of
the driving force of God into you, till finally
it becomes a continuous stream or flow
sustaining every activity of yours; when you are
awake or asleep; when you are liberated or
unliberated; when you have transcended the body
or entered into the great and brighter heavens.
But the most important and significant feature
about it is in the technique. That not only
should you say the prayer once, or only twice,
but afterwards wait for the Divine to do His
task. I remember the great story where it was
stated that an excellent devotee of God, who was
rather addicted to the practice of chanting the
names of God a thousand times, had begun his
chant. God came at the first call; but the
devotee would not recognize it, and insisted
upon repeating and reciting the whole number of
1008! God said he can afford to wait, and so
left. So it is necessary for you to wait for
God, rather than make God wait for you, even
when you are very devoted and loving. This
happens in every case when you think the ritual
of number is more important than the practice
and realization of the presence of God before
you even before you call Him.
Now if this prayer is properly performed, then
with the deep sincerity and openness of heart, a
transmission begins to enter into you almost at
once. The most important thing according to our
own practice, and even according to the real
works on the subject of spiritual upliftment,
show that, by and large, when the Divine force
enters into you, whenever it is Divine, the
senses come to a halt; and the mind almost loses
interest in the objects which the senses bring
to it. That is why this calmness settles in the
mind, and gently settles in the whole body. This
means, according to the technical definition
given by the Upanishad-Mandukya-that we have
passed from the state of Jagrat to a state of
Swapna.
And from that state, in a deeper meditation, and
waiting for the flow of Divine force within you,
flowing throughout your system from top to toe,
even as the blood that circulates in your
organism, you will find that a deeper calm,
almost an obliviousness to surroundings, occurs.
You are not aware even that you are where you
are, or that you are practising meditation at
all. It so much simulates your deep sleep that
it is called sushupti. The mind also has come to
a halt then. What remains? It is stated that
what remains is Prajna. What remains is just
Prajna. This deep-sleep state is also
comparable, as I mentioned yesterday, to the
Samprajnata Samadhi of yoga. Because it is not
sleep at all. It is a sleep in the infinite or
Divine consciousness, where you have lost your
way of being and your mind has ceased to
function as an instrument of your needs,
physical, motor, or sensory. It has turned
inward. The senses that are usually turned
outside, they come to a halt. The mind turns
inward. Introspection, they say, begins, but
there is no inspection. What do you inspect when
everything has come to a halt? It is at that
point in this system, by this transmission, that
you begin to feel the presence of the flame in
the heart, or the Jyoti-Antarjyotir ameyameyam-this
inward light, the light that is Divine, that
comes into you. The earlier two stages are, if
you might just call them in that way, cleansing
processes, which reveal the light that is
within. A flame that has to grow vaster and
spread through your entire organism.
Now this is a condition where, when our abhyasis
sit for meditation and are lost in that
condition, even at a slightest utterance from
the Preceptor they come back to the normal
state. They are aware, they are not asleep! This
peculiar experience of the Prajna is easily had
in a normal way almost within a few weeks of the
beginning of this method. And then, what do you
discover of experiences? Well, you have, as you
pass through these experiences of the inner
light, what you call the sense of travelling to
higher planes of consciousness. And this, again,
has been charted out in a novel way by Sri Ram
Chandraji Maharaj. It is not something that you
find in any work so far published. All that you
get from the other works is an arousing of the
Kundalini and passing it through the so-called
Sushumna that is said to be in the spinal cord,
the vertebral column, and taking it through the
six chakras till it goes to the sahasrara at the
crown of the head. This is the Tantrik version.
The Upanishadic version, on the other hand,
tells you that there is the sushumna rising from
the heart or that particular nadi that takes you
to the Brahma-randhra and far beyond.
Our Master Sri Ram Chandraji puts it very
clearly then that it is from the heart that we
shall have to go to the crown of the head, not
from the sacral plexus to the crown of the head.
It is a fundamental difference in approach. So,
what is opened up in this is the pathway to
liberation. A thousand nadis set out from the
heart but there is only one nadi that takes you
to the crown of the head, the Brahma-randhra.
And some of us who have had the experience of
the Brahma-randhra know that it is not only a
way of exit for the individual soul to infinity,
but it is the way of entry of the Divine into
the very heart of Being into the heart.
Now this is a confirmation of the Chandogya and
the Brihadaranyaka Upanishads. This experience,
then, takes us almost to the Cosmic
Consciousness, what you may call the Brahmanda
consciousness. You are made almost to feel that
you are a citizen of a vaster world; not only
this physical world but the astral worlds are
opened up, and of course these are all astral
experiences because they are non-mental and
non-sensory. If you want to say that they are
higher-mental and higher-sensory I might be able
to accept it, but they are certainly not of the
physical order. When we go to that level of
consciousness we are aware of a new dimension to
our personality. There only a sense of the
I-ness persists, and the body-consciousness, or
the identification with the body, almost ceases.
You are no longer interested in working out
things on the plane of the physical because at
the level of the astral you have got all that
you want for inward knowledge to reach up to the
highest point.
It is necessary, at this stage, to point out
that many people think that by going to such a
level they can bring the force and the power of
that consciousness for their own material
purposes in this world. They want to use the
powers of the higher, inner life for outer
manifestation and aggrandizement. And that is
exactly where the yogis have warned us that once
you take the inward path it is dangerous to come
down. It is almost tantamount to a fall, and the
result is yoga-bhrashtata. But some of us need
not be afraid of it, perhaps! But if you look at
it from the point of view of our ultimate
aspiration to know reality in its truth-ness,
then we have got to make a still higher approach
to Reality. And that approach to Reality is a
dimension beyond the Cosmos. And to this level
most of the abhyasis in our system are led in
the course of a few years. When they reach that
level or arrive at that level, you find that
they are quite a different type of men, with a
different purposiveness of being devoted
ultimately to the Divine work. A love of God
comes more freely to them than a love of
themselves or a love of the world. Now, at that
level, when one becomes really a 'Prapanna' as
Master would put it, one who has totally given
up himself to the work of the Divine, there open
up new frontiers of spirituality.
It has been stated that much of that experience
cannot be described at all. Firstly because they
are not natural to us, but they are natural to
the Divine consciousness. It is something that
you have yourself to experience if you want to
know the full meaning and significance of that
experience. Now this is the level you are taken
to. Up to this level many people have taken us,
perhaps, but beyond that Shri Ram Chandraji
speaks about a level of consciousness which,
perhaps, is not consciousness in the normal
sense of the term, when it is confronting a
prospect or an object. There is no longer a
subject-object-knowledge relationship. It goes
far beyond that, where the subject, the object
and knowledge are all one. But I think it is a
meaningless statement for most of us
metaphysicians who are yet thinking in terms of
our ordinary knowledge. But it has been promised
to most that such an experience is a possibility
and the culmination of our experience.
At this point I could only remember the
Upanishadic verse.
"Saparyagat Shukram Akayam Avrunam, Asnaviram,
Shuddham apapaviddham, Kavihi manishi paribhu
svayambhu,
Yathatathyato arthan vyadadat
Sasvatibhyssamabhyaha."
In this language in which the Upanishadic seer
of the 'Isa' has pointed out that the subject
can be transposed to be the object, a subtle
play of the cases reveals the magnificent unity
that is arrived at. When a person reaches that
particular state he becomes pure. He is the
essence of whiteness, or clarity or
transparency. And what does he achieve? A level
of seeing far beyond "Kranta-darshih'Kavih,
paribhuh, svayambhu," self-creating that being,
all-widened being that he is. And what is more,
he sees everything in their true, eternal
nature. And if we want, and if every philosopher
does really require the experience of Reality as
it is in itself, well this particular
consciousness which is transcendent, in the real
sense of the term, to the cosmos must be
experienced. It has been a statement, a vision.
The practicalisation of that had not been
possible for most, if not almost impossible,
for, the path-way to that was somehow barred.
Therefore, in the simplicity of his perception
and vision, Shri Ram Chandraji shows that to
that point only the transmission of the Highest
Personality can take you. It is a gift of God.
It is the Grace of God. It is an opening up of
the body of God-'Vivrunute Tanum Svam'! It is an
opening up of the very body of God. We enter
into the splendours that are of God.
Now such an experience is within reach of every
one of us with the help of the supreme
transmission of the Ultimate Master. All this,
it may appear, will demand only one thing from
you - constancy of remembrance of your goal.
Constancy of the guide, or the constancy of the
remembrance of the guide who is with you.
Constancy of the sensitivity of the transmission
that is being poured into you.
A constancy that requires a fidelity of
experimentation and knowledge of the Ultimate!
That requires the status of a dhira-a dhira is
one who has mastered the technique of dhyana, of
the dhi! And who is courageous enough to follow
the light that is coming from within, the dhi!
One of the most magnificent verses, which has
been recited by us through the centuries, is the
Gayathri. But to whom do you address that? To
the Solar sphere! And to whom are you moving,
according to our own tradition? To the Solar
sphere! And to the beyond! That is why the goal
that has been set before us is the highest that
the human mind could ever conceive of. And the
means that has been given to us is the highest
that the human mind could ever crave for. It may
be a tragedy that we have forgotten all that
knowledge. It may be said that the Sri
Ramchandra's Rajayoga is as ancient as the hills
of this country. But we are getting it in the
most purified form without all those adorations
that have come into it by way of myth, by way of
phantasy, by way of power-politics in
spirituality!
Now I stated that this path of the Sri
Ramchandra's Rajayoga takes up the frontal
position, whereas the Tantrik system, as I also
mentioned, takes up what is called the spinal
levels. Many of you who are interested in
spirituality might have been attracted to what
is called the Shat Chakra Nirupana and the other
ways of such things. Here again we know from
bitter spiritual experience during the last 2500
years, I think from the time tantrik Buddhism
developed vigorously, we know what extraordinary
things have occurred in the name of
shat-chakra-nirupana! And the experience of the
chakras, the rousing of the Kundalini, and the
rest of those things. On these points, Shri Ram
Chandraji points out that if you reach the
higher levels by this path, automatically and
naturally, all the centres in the back get
illuminated. But then it is not by the rousing
of the Kundalini you go up, but by the descent
of the Supreme force from the crown of your head
downwards. It is not shakti that has to move up
to Shiva, it is Shiva that has to come down to
those levels.
That is why in this system you do get the
awakening of the Kundalini and all the centres,
but they are processes of nature or of God, and
not your individual effort or business. His
recent researches, of course they are researches
of nearly fourteen to fifteen years, have
demonstrated clearly that the centres which he
has pointed out are much more important in the
downward movement by which, from the Centre, the
force had moved out to the grossest
portion-Adhimooladhara ! For what? For creation,
and the continuance of creation and procreation
of the world! The force has come to that
individualised point. And as it is known, you
cannot lift it up by just pushing it upwards.
They do not go that way. The easier way, as it
has been found by him and as it was understood
by some of the Vedantins, was to rouse it from
the heart and connect it to the Brahma-randhra.
Then from that it will flow out and downwards
and correct your whole system. You become more
and more moral. As it was stated by an eminent
yogi, Sri Aurobindo, the downward movement of
the mind has created all these disastrous
tendencies which you call kama and krodha. In
fact, our own people constantly recite 'kamoha
karshit, manyural karshit'. They are not ours,
they are Nature's, and I am not responsible for
their working! That is why every type of
exertion to control these two forces only
represses them, and brings them out in worse
shapes. That is why Master has stated that yours
is not to touch those centres but to go upward,
and these things naturally come under control.
Now this is a very great discovery. They are
helpful in evolution but they are not helpful in
involution. And the pathway of descent down the
hill is more easy by jumping down, but the
pathway up the hill is different, and ought to
be different. It must be a type of spiral. Any
man who has constructed a road up a mountain
knows that the twists and turns by which he
ascends to the height is the easiest way to go
up, though the shortest way may be, as in
Tuglak's kingdom, or as in logic, to put a
straight line between the two and go there, as
the funicular railway system tries to do. Now we
don't want to try that job because human nature
is not intended for such experiments. On the
contrary the pathway of knowledge, merely taken,
does not lead you anywhere. Every knowledge
needs a practice - a kriya - and the kriya that
we have to do is the prayer. The second thing is
to meditate, by which we mean to receive the
Ultimate consciousness by way of transmission
into you. And when it begins its work, your goal
is reached in the shortest possible time. And
not only that, all the benefits that are said to
accrue form the Tantrik sadhana of the
Shat-chakra-nirupana are got in an easier, more
natural, and less disastrous way. Human nature
has now the possibility of becoming Divine with
the Divine's help. Human effort, I do feel, is
necessary; but a human effort that resists the
Divine movement is not likely to meet with
success. Let, then, human effort coincides more
and more with the Divine way of ascent. That is
why it has been possible for Shri Ram Chandraji
in the short span of a dozen years to reveal the
central possibility of the method of Sri
Ramchandra's Rajayoga, which is to help every
individual to receive the transmission of the
highest consciousness and, further, to lead him
with his help, (if he wants to have the
appearance of individual effort to go along with
it) to reach the Ultimate. All that the Divine
wants is a co-operation, not a resistance. And
that co-operation is all that you have to offer
when you offer a prayer and sit in meditation
for an hour a day in the morning, and
half-an-hour in the night when you go to bed.
Well, that is the easiest path which anybody can
take, and any one can undertake, and the
simplicity of the method, the sovereign result
that it yields, verily make it a Raja Yoga!
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