Intimately woven into the theory and philosophy of tantra is the science of mantra, yantra and mandala. Tantra is both a philosophy and a practical science, and its sublime theories become efficacious through the use of mantra, yantra and mandala. Here we shall examine the mandala from which arose the rich art of tantric iconography, temples, art, architecture and music.

Principle of mandala: primal form

Any form which is pictorially or visually created within the consciousness of man, forms a mandala. In order to create a mandala, you have to be able to see within yourself, not in the form of thought but of vision, as clearly as you see the world with open eyes. The clearer your inner vision, the more accurate and powerful the mandala you create.

The principle of a mandala is that it lives within a circle. Thus any mandala that is visualized, has to be represented within the symmetry of a circle. This is due to the fact that the circle is considered as a primal form. Even the earth on which we live is not flat but round or elliptical. The formation of a mandala follows the same principle as that of light as expounded by science. Light waves move in a curve thus bending space and forming an arc or curvature. The circular aura is an essential factor of the mandala and this is clearly evident in all the ancient tantric mandalas existing today.

Anything can form a mandala; a tree, a house, a car, an animal, a human being- even your body is a mandala. When you are able to visualize through the ‘inner eye’, the form you see of any object is very precise, even more precise than you can see with your eyes open. You may be visualizing the same object both inside and out, but the difference is that, when you visualize an object through the higher mind you momentarily glimpse what lies behind the form. Thus you are able to perceive more than the average eye. We can see a tree, a house, an animal or a beautiful landscape and then reproduce it on canvas or paper. However, that is an insufficient mandala because we have not been able to see beyond the object We have not perceived the object on a linear dimension, or in the form of colour or sound. Therefore it cannot convey to us any meaning beyond the fact that it is what it is meant to be.

Creating a mandala: mystic vision

In order to create a mandala that has both power and force, both inner clarity and the ability to replicate the inner vision are important. Some people can clearly see inside but cannot re-create externally what they have seen. This is often what distinguishes a good artist from a bad one. Both may have the same inner vision but it differs in clarity of reproduction. A mandala is the essence of an object perceived by one who has refined his inner vision; an inner cosmic picture which is reproduced for all to see.

The mandala you create is dependent on your level of consciousness. The more evolved your consciousness, the more universal will be the mandala you create. A universal mandala is that which is created through a mind in tune with cosmic consciousness. It is therefore applicable and relevant to all mankind, whereas mandalas created by minds which are still on the individual plane, have less universal appeal and ability to invoke higher levels of consciousness in others. Moreover, certain mandalas are created by those who have transcended the material plane and have become enraptured by supra-conscious ecstasy. It is these mandalas which can evoke spiritual experience in others and it is primarily these which tantra has employed.

Every culture and civilization has its mandalas to offer us, and the quality of their creations gives us a clear idea of the level of consciousness of that society. All forms of art, sculpture and architecture are mandala creations which have been envisaged in the abyss of the mind, and then been re-created. That is why the work is so profound, and can influence so many generations so many centuries later, who stand in awe.

The difference between a mandala created by an artist and that created by a mystic is significant. An artist communicates his inner experience by translating it into a concept that is bound by time and space, because his insight is not as profound as that of a mystic. It usually conveys only his emotions and not a metaphysical truth. A mystic on the other hand, goes far beyond the limitations of the finite mind, emotions and intellect, and therefore these experiences relate more profoundly to the universal concepts of the cosmos.

Both artist and mystic explore and depict inner truths. However, an artist expels his experiences through his work of art, whereas the mystic continues to develop one experience into another, A mystic is not aiming to discover inner visions, but that which lies beyond. If an artist were to do the same he would be transformed into a mystic Therefore, all art based on divine inner experience has been able to withstand the test of time, and exist as an immortal and eternal idea.

In India, all forms of art, music and architecture are deeply influenced by the spiritual insight of its ancestral past. Classical Indian music, through its blend of melody, beat and rhythm, creates a mandala that can evoke a response in the deepest layers of consciousness. The artwork of the Ajanta and Ellora caves, the famed Khajuraho temples, the Konarak sun temple in Orissa, and millions of other such works, are in actual fact mandalas that deeply influence the consciousness of those who see them.

This influence is always very subtle yet precise. One cannot know the levels of mind that the mandala explores and influences. It is the subconscious and unconscious mind with which the mandalas converse, and thereby are able to awaken inner visions. It is through this process that the deeper layers of mind begin to manifest.

Devi and Devata: divine forces

In tantra, mandalas have also been depicted as pictorial representations of divine forces, symbolised as theriomorphic and anthropomorphic forms. Tantra asserts that these forms of divinity do not exist as objective entities any where in any part of the stratospheres, presiding over our destiny. However, it does feel the necessity of developing the idea of divinity in human form in order to make it comprehensible to the gross awareness of man.

Tantra asks how a man who is incapable of seeing within himself, can visualize or experience the formless reality. We cannot even experience or witness our own thoughts, let alone the higher reality. So the mandala forms of devis and devas developed into elaborate and visually arresting symbols, However, the grosser imagination of divinity is ultimately to be transcended and developed into the experience of formless reality.

The mandala symbology of devis and devas covers an infinite array of forms, colours and depictions. Some are ravishingly beautiful, others provocative, some kind and compassionate, others grotesque and fear-provoking; some suggest divine powers and others material gain. In each case the structure is elaborately detailed and designed to evoke a corresponding response within the consciousness of the aspirant. This symbology is based on the eternal archetypal structure of man’s collective unconscious and these mandalas draw out those archetypes as a magnet draws out iron filings from a heap of diamonds.

Concentration on a mandala awakens the deep-seated samskaras within and reveals the unknown mysteries in. the form of dreams, visions and mental action. You are not compelled to face the samskaras directly and so they do not affect your action in daily life. They are dispensed with during meditation and dream. It is a way of bypassing a terrible and fearsome enemy against which you have no defence. These mandalas which are always very aesthetic and visually arresting, and able to capture and direct the imagination, which is the subtle link to the higher mind.

Shiva-Shakti : field of power

Perhaps the most controversial mandala which tantra has defined to date is the kriya of maithuna. The kriya of maithuna forms a mandala that has corresponding yantras and mantras. The erotic sculptures of the Khajuraho temples, and other temples in Orissa, are based entirely on the tantric belief that maithuna is an act through which the divine powers can be invoked. Man represents Shiva or the positive polarity and woman represents Shakti or the negative polarity. Through their esoteric and esoteric union, they create a field of or an energy circuit which is the mandala. These works do not denote carnal passion but union on the highest esoteric level. It is parallel to the union of energy and consciousness, Shiva and Shakti.

The linga and yoni mandala is also symbolic of this higher union, and that is why this symbol has been venerated in India for centuries. The linga signifies that which is effulgent, while the yoni signifies the source. Therefore the linga should be understood as the symbol of pure consciousness and the yoni as the source of energy, which together are the twin forces behind creation. Man and woman unite on the physical plane to relive the experience of unity from which they have evolved. This unity is an internal experience, just as a spiritual experience is an internal experience, and there is nothing sinful about it. Today, however, the practice of maithuna has mostly degenerated into a mere exoteric act due to the admonitions imposed by religion.

Tantra is perhaps the only philosophy that has been bold enough to say this. Others have remained quiet about it, or exploited the idea by branding it a sin, thereby inducing a sense of guilt and depravity in man for doing it. However, guilt and shame are very hard to expel from the consciousness. They stay with a man a long time, controlling his actions, mind, personality and life. Unless man is able to break through these barriers, he cannot attain the higher experience. For that experience he will have to eradicate his guilt and shame.

Tantra holds that maithuna is not a sin but an act of worship which can help the individual transcend his lower consciousness, a concept which most people disbelieve due to their complex of guilt and shame. Thus, this knowledge was kept secret and only handed down from guru to disciple, establishing the tradition of an eternal mandala, because the guru and disciple tradition begins and ends at the same point, which signifies that it continues forever.

Tattwa Shuddhi : a glance within

The practice of Tattwa Shuddhi is also skilfully arranged as a mandala. We begin the practice at some point of evolution and travel very far into the self. After having followed the process of evolution and involution of creation, we find ourselves back at the same point, as if it were an endless circle that we had been following from birth to death to birth. When you see the reality behind your birth and existence, the desire for liberation awakens, compelling you to discover the means to free yourself from this endless cycle of cause and event.

This circular form given to the practice of tattwa Shuddhi has a deliberate pattern, a deliberate idea, and a deliberate force. That force is the secret power of the mandala, which you can only know when you pursue it, as a young man pursues his first love. The practice gives you a momentary glance into that secret power; just a flash of the eye and the experience is gone, so that often you may not even know you had it. However the effect can be felt on the subtler dimensions of your consciousness, and it is that part of you that the mandala is trying to reach.

Mantra, yantra, mandala : perfect harmony

Mantra, yantra and mandala are all a product of the profound inner vision of the yogis, rishis and seers who have enquired deeply into the nature of the cosmos. They are a product of high states of spiritual enlightenment, ecstasy and experience. In that state of mind the consciousness transcends all barriers and therefore the experience is called ‘universal’.

As long as you are bound by time and space your experiences are limited and related only to that dimension. However, when you transcend that, there is no religion, no caste, no creed and no sex, so how can the vision be limited? Moreover, in that state of mind, you are one with the whole process of Nature and can commune with Her. Then all the visions become a part of the cosmic truth and these images follow the strict codes and laws which are inherent in every process of Nature. This is evident in the tantric mantra, yantra and mandala which are all in perfect linear and geometrical harmony and balance.

In the tantric system, each mantra, yantra and mandala is calculated right down to the last detail. If it does not fulfil the exact mathematical equation which defines its balance, then it is inefficacious and incomplete. You need on]y to glance at some of these mandalas and yantras to verify their mathematical balance. In fact, that is one of the first aspects which attracts your attention.

In the tantric system, the mandala represents the visual iconographic form of a higher force, the yantra represents the abstract form of that force, and the mantra represents the subtle form. Thus each mandala has a corresponding yantra and mantra and one can be substituted for the other, according to the level of the aspirant, as they evoke the same results. However, different deities represent different levels of consciousness and are to be chosen on that basis. Yantras and mandalas must never be misunderstood as being religious, occult, mystic or mysterious symbols, but as highly charged forces of energy which can invoke the same frequency within us to expand our consciousness.

(Courtesy : Yoga Magazine, Jan,1991)

In the Rig Veda the goddess Usha is consistently associated with and often identified with the dawn. She reveals herself in the daily coming of light to the world. She has been described in the Rig Veda as a young maiden drawn by one hundred horses. She brings forth light and is followed by the sun who urges her onwards. She is praised for driving away, or is petitioned to drive away, the oppressive darkness. She is asked to chase away evil demons. As the dawn she is said to rouse all life, to set all things in motion and to send people off to do their duties. She sends the curled-up sleepers on their way to offer their sacrifices and thus render service to the other gods.

Usha gives strength and fame. She is that which impels life and is associated with the breath and life of all living creatures. She is associated with, or moves with cosmic, social and moral order. As the regularly recurring dawn she reveals and participates in cosmic order and is the foe of chaotic forces that threaten the world. Usha is generally held as an auspicious goddess associated with light and wealth, and is often likened to a cow.

In the Rig Veda she is also called ‘the mother of cows’ and like a cow that yields its udder for the benefit of people, so Usha bares her breasts to bring light for the benefit of human kind. Although she is usually described as a young and beautiful maiden, she is also called ‘the mother of the gods and the ashwins’. Considered as mother by her petitioners she tends to all things like a good matron and goddess of the earth. She is said to be ‘the eye of the gods’ and is referred to as ‘she who sees all’, but is rarely invoked to forgive human transgressions. It is more typical to invoke her in times of need to drive away or punish one’s enemies.

Usha is known as the goddess, reality or presence that bears away youth. She is described as ‘a skilled huntress who wastes away the lives of people’. In accordance with the ways of Rita she wakes all living things but does not disturb the person who sleeps in death. As the recurring dawn, Usha is not only celebrated for bringing light from darkness, she is also petitioned to grant long life, as she is a constant reminder of peoples’ limited time on earth. She is the mistress or marker of time.

The ancient Vedic tradition has viewed Usha as the harbinger of light, awareness, activity. People divided time into the form of day and night. At night all creation rests and in the day the whole of creation is active. The transformation which takes place from night to day is known to be the attribute of Usha, the awareness that stirs up the activity of creation, the light that gives sight to the eyes, that gives power to the senses, that gives power to the mind and intellect, Usha has been regarded as the light, or the dawn of human consciousness.

Another goddess commonly referred to in the Rig Veda is the goddess Prithvi who is nearly always associated with the earth, the terrestrial sphere where human beings live. In the Rig Veda furthermore she is always coupled with Dyaus the male deity associated with the sky. So dependent are these two deities in the Rig Veda that Prithvi is rarely addressed alone but almost always as part of the dual compound Dyaus-Prithvi, Sky-Earth. Together they are said to kiss the centre of the world. They sanctify each other in their complementary relationship. Together they are said to be the universal parents who created the world and the gods. As might be expected, Dyaus is often called ‘father’ and Prithvi ‘mother’.

In addition to her maternal productive characteristics, Prithvi usually, along with Dyaus in the Rig Veda is praised for her supportive nature. She is frequently called ‘firm’, ‘she who upholds and supports all things’. She encompasses all things, is broad and wide, and is motionless. Although elsewhere she is said to move freely, Prithvi with Dyaus is often petitioned for wealth, riches and power. The waters they produce together are described as ‘fat, full, nourishing and fertile’. They are also petitioned to protect people from danger, to expiate sin and to bring happiness. Together they represent a wide, firm realm of abundance and safety, a realm pervaded by the order of Rita, which they strengthen and nourish. They are un-wasting, inexhaustible and rich in gems.

In a funeral hymn the dead one is asked to go now to the lap of his mother earth, Prithvi who is described as gracious and kind. She is asked not to press down too heavily upon the dead person but to cover him gently as a mother covers her child with her skirt. The most extended hymn in praise of Prithvi in vedic literature is found in the Atharva Veda. The hymn is dedicated to Prithvi alone and no mention is made of Dyaus.

The mighty god Indra is her consort and prefects her from all dangers. Vishnu strides over her, and Parjanya. Prajapati and Vishwakarma all either protect her, provide for her or are her consorts. Agni is said to pervade her. Despite this association with male deities, the hymn makes it clear that Prithvi is a great deity in her own right. The hymn repeatedly emphasises Prithvi’s fertility. She is the source of all plants, crops, and nourishes all creatures that live upon her. She is described as patient and strong, supporting the wicked and the good, the demons and the gods, She is frequently addressed as ‘Mother’ and is called to nurse all living things.

Prithvi is also said to manifest herself in the scent of women and men, to be the luck and light in men and to be the splendid energy of maids. In brief, Prithvi is a stable, fertile and benign presence in Vedic literature-It is clear that those who praise her see her as a warm, nursing goddess who provides sustenance to all those who’ move upon her firm, broad expanse. The Rig Veda nearly always links her with the male god Dyaus but in the Atharva Veda and later vedic literature she emerges as an independent being.

(Courtesy : Yoga Magazine, Jan, 1991)

Everyone tells everyone else to obey. The parent tells the child to obey. The teacher tells the school-boy to obey. The traffic cop tells the motorist to obey. Even the State tells the citizen to obey.

It is only the wise guru who says ‘Surrender’. For, in the act of surrendering, is the act of both disobeying and obeying. It is like creation. Unless you destroy something, you cannot create anything. When you make ice from water, what are you actually doing? You are destroying this ‘state’ of water and are creating or making ice. The carpenter first destroys the wood to make the chair. Even the guru first destroys all the negativity in the disciple, so that the disciple can be led on the path of spirituality. Thus, obedience and disobedience are actually two sides of the same coin.

Disobedience – every step of the way!

In Patanjali’s Yoga, the eight milestones on the yogic path, maybe we don’t realize it, but we disobey in order to obey, at every stage. Let’s take asanas. If we try to sit still for some time, the chances are, unless we have been practising yoga, we will find it difficult. After a few moments, we will start fidgeting. We will begin to scratch our nose, drive away an imaginary fly, or even shake our ears! That’s because our limbs are obeying their natural instincts to keep moving. So asanas teach us to disobey our natural ‘way of being’ and to control our natural tendencies.

Now, the actual asanas too have disobedience inherent in them. When we sit padmasana, our ankles begin to ache. Our ankles are not used to being folded up. So what do we do? Gradually, stage by stage, we begin to sit longer and longer until we reach a stage where we have totally disobeyed the natural inclinations of our ankles, as we go on obeying our teacher.

Then we find that the very act of ‘obedience’ disappears, and we sit comfortably for a long time. What has actually happened is, while starting to disobey our inclinations, we have begun to obey the instructions of the teacher and gone on to a stage where we are no longer obeying anything at all. We are simply sitting in padmasana. We have surrendered our self to the asana.

As you are learning or rather ‘obeying’ the instructions about the other asanas, you find that your spine, your shoulder blades, your hip joints, your stomach, in fact, different parts of your body in different asanas grumble. But you ‘disobey’ what they don’t want you to do. Instead you go on with your practice. And, as in the case of padmasana earlier, you surrender yourself totally to the asanas, one by one.

Of course, all this does not happen overnight, but in a gradual, continuous process and as days go by, you cease even to notice that your limbs have totally surrendered to the asanas. The same process takes place with pranayama. You or that part in you disobeys what your breathing pattern used to be. You now bring in a certain regularity and soon, you begin to master the different pranayamas. From this, you can now understand that in order to achieve even sthiram, that unique stillness and steadiness you find in a yogic body, one has to disobey many ‘natural’ inclinations.

Neti, neti, neti

However it is not so easy, when you come to pratyahara or the withdrawal of the senses. Since birth, your mind has been ‘obeying’ the messages of the sense organs and acting blindly according to the sensations. In fact, like a disciple surrendering to the guru, the brain has surrendered to your sense organs.

In order to achieve pratyahara, you must teach the brain to ‘disobey’ the sense organs, which were originally created to warn the brain of things happening around. This disobedience of a habit from birth, pratyahara, takes a long time to achieve. In other words, in order to obey the fifth limb or stage in ashtanga yoga, you disobey habits or ‘practices’ from birth. It is a hard task to convince yourself. ‘Not this, not this’.

This sense of ‘disobedience’ is inherent in all the other steps of ashtanga yoga.

Disobedience in evolution

We all know that man and other living beings are continuously evolving. While other living things evolve physically only, it is only man who is evolving both physically and mentally. In fact, more than the mere physical evolution, it is the evolution of the mind or consciousness that sets man apart from other beings, though there is the same atman or soul in every being.

In the tree of evolution, man is sitting right at the top. And he has to evolve his consciousness into that of a divine consciousness. That is the ‘raison d’etre’ of being born a human being. If as apemen we had all been ‘obedient’ in our activities, not straying from the trodden path, we would never have evolved to the present state of consciousness. We would still be lumbering along, eating roots and berries, living in packs instead of in societies, and our bodies would still be covered with long hair.

Somebody at different times had the conviction to question ‘Why?’ ‘Why not this way?’ and so on.

And with each question came an answer in practical terms. No matter if the answer was not really an answer. But the very act rocketed man’s consciousness to the next higher stage of evolution.

Obedience as an act of surrender

Now, disobedience is one aspect of obedience, but implicit obedience is more militaristic. The sense of implicity, obeying without questioning, stresses only on the obedience part of the act. Thus, while one implicitly obeys, the consciousness may be independent of such obedience. Given a chance, one could question.

It’s like shrugging your shoulders and saying, ‘Well, these are orders’, as you might find in a business environment, a state or a political set-up or even in some theoretical religions which go by the book. To quote a book is to quote a rule and your obedience to the rule is limited to a particular time, a particular place or a particular environment. It’s like ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’. What happens when you get out of Rome? What happens when you get out of that age or environment to which the book was relevant? Logically, you are no longer bound by the rule.

You are Free

Yoga, as the path to spirituality, is truth for all times, for all climes, in whatever language you speak. Therefore, implicit obedience cannot be part of spirituality or yoga, unless it represents surrender to the living ideal or path of truth.

So, blind or implicit obedience without awareness is not the answer. Nor is surrender in bits and pieces, grass-hopping to different stages. Instead, we need a steady, maybe even slow, but continuous surrender with total awareness of the act of surrendering. We must go beyond the sense of mere obedience. We must learn to temper obedience with a sense of surrender.

(Courtesy : Yoga Magazine, Sep, 1990)

Nayatma balhinena labhyaya – This atman cannot be attained by the weak- is the upanishadic pronouncement. Obedience is born of strength, faith and devotion. I am an instrument and you are its manipulator. I move as you make me move. I speak as you direct. My doings are all your doings. In ananyaya bhakti, that is the state of unswerving devotion, the sadhaka submits to the spiritualised nature of an illumined one. He recognises nothing but his Lord, and his activities are ever directed towards the divine. He has no individuality apart from the Lord. Obedience is an intrinsic part of him. obedience without ‘self’ consciousness.

Hanuman, the most perfect example of devotion, strength and obedience, was able to leap across the ocean to Lanka on the strength of Ram’s name, while Ram had to build a bridge! Another example of a great yogi who epitomises this sublime state of obedience is Gorakhnath. Guru Matsyendranath, wanting to test his disciples, commanded them to jump from a spot which would have meant certain death. All the disciples took to their heels except Gorakhnath, who unhesitatingly followed his master’s command. He was, of course, saved by Matsyendranath’s yogic powers.

Like guru and disciple, mother and child are also psychically linked. The mother is the slave, and the baby is the divine master. When the babe calls, the mother acts without ‘self’ consciousness. As soon as the babe grows and begins to assert itself, the mother becomes ‘self’ conscious; duality creeps into the relationship.

Likewise, when a ‘self’ conscious state exists in the disciple, there are bound to be fluctuating states of obedience, according to the mental and physical imbalances of the sadhaka. It is this egoistic feeling that ‘I am the doer’ which leads to delusions of grandeur, imagining oneself to be indispensable. This retrogressive state leads the sadhaka downhill.

Before we can realise the role of obedience in relation to spiritual evolution, a stable base has to be created for the mind. Just as when we receive a mantra from the guru, and start practising japa, the mind oscillates from one thought to another. With persistent yoga abhyasa, the mind becomes calm and the trinity begins to take shape. You, your mantra and your guru all merge into oneness. In the same way, one enters the state of spontaneous obedience, where there is no awareness of being obedient. It is a state where the awareness of being obedient is not experienced, because of dis-identification between the thinker and the process of obedience.

This transcendental state of obedience becomes a way of life. No more conflicting thoughts plague the sadhaka. Obedience occurs spontaneously just as one leg moves forward and the other leg follows. No questions are asked; there is no analysing, no doubts or fears, and most of all, no making excuses and justifying one’s act of disobedience. In this sublime state, obedience becomes a role which the less one identifies with, the better one can play it.

This transcendental state of obedience can be compared with humility. Conscious humility in a sadhaka is a form of ego manifesting. A saint is cot aware of his humility; he is humility personified. In other words, awareness of obedience is a transitory stage which has to be transcended in order to obtain the higher experience. This can only be experienced when the ego is erased. There are no shortcuts. In Swami Satyananda’s words, ‘The aim of a sannyasin should be to merge his thoughts and actions with the cosmic will. One must try to follow the gentle voice of intuition, for it is this that whispers the instructions of the cosmic will.’

How do sadhakas, while living in a state of self-complacency, become aware of the cosmic will? When the mind is like a railway station, and precious moments are wasted in useless pursuits and controversial conversations? Self-complacency is spiritual suicide, cancer of the soul! Self-awareness is what distinguishes a man of spiritual calibre from a man of the world. The self-complacent sadhaka lives a life of lies, a spiritually diseased state, and on the road to obedience, self-complacency points in the opposite direction. Sometimes a sadhaka may obey through fear of the preceptor. The guru is then regarded as a rewarder or a punisher. In this diverse state, the sadhaka is unable to experience complete identification with the preceptor. A sadhaka may also be obedient in an ostentatious way, for show, for advertisement, or for self-glorification. These attitudes are detrimental for spiritual progress. In Swami Sivananda’s words, ‘Simply looking at the face of the guru is not devotion. Disobedience even in little things is not devotion. Indiscipline is not devotion. Self-justification is not devotion. Self-assertion is not devotion.’

A true devotee does not deviate from the path of obedience for any reason whatsoever. While being independent in thought and action, he is willing to follow the instructions of the guru and adhere to them. The sublime state of obedience is a stepping stone towards the path of samadhi. Sannyasins as ‘divine soldiers’ should be ever ready to march into hell for a heavenly cause.

(Courtesy : Yoga Magazine, Sep, 1990)

Obedience is a quality which must be cultivated by every sadhaka and disciple, if he wishes to advance to a higher level in spiritual life. Unfortunately, however, it is a quality which most people nowadays think that they can live without, and Sadhakas are no exception. In fact, I have asked many of the Sadhakas and sannyasins here in this ashram what they think about obedience and its role in spiritual life and almost all replied, ‘Look, I cannot say anything about it, because I am a most disobedient person.’

Much of our ignorance, apathy and even disdain of this important aspect of spiritual life is due to our early training in life, and also to the era in which we are living. In this kali yuga where man has already lost three quarters of his spiritual faith and moral principles and is in the process of losing the remaining quarter, the prevailing values can hardly give rise to any form of moral or spiritual obedience. Man is no longer able to follow the dharma, for at all levels he is living for himself. Then whom should he obey and for what?

In the previous eras when man was more spiritual minded, he was also more inclined towards obedience. It came naturally for him to obey his parents, his elders, his gurus and his superiors. That was the way of the dharma, and also in those days the elders were disciplined and worthy of being obeyed. Today, however, the situation is very different. Even a small child refuses to obey. The first word he learns to say is ‘No!’ The child establishes his own individual identity at an early age and this remains with him for life. This is his personality or ego.

Passive and dynamic obedience

We are living in an age of anarchy where the material has sway over the spiritual. Obedience has been lost, because there is nobody to obey. It is each man for himself. Of course, one must obey the social rules and laws of the land to some extent, in order to avoid being ostracised, incarcerated or heavily fined. However, this type of passive obedience is of no value to us spiritually. It is only for maintaining the social order. What is necessary in the life of a sadhaka, of a disciple and of a sannyasin, is a dynamic form of obedience. That is what is essential for maintaining a spiritual order.

Passive obedience is developed by following the rules and restrictions which are externally enforced for the promotion of social order and welfare. Whereas dynamic obedience comes from within. One obeys certain rules or precepts and follows a particular discipline, because he wishes to do so for the purpose of spiritual development. In the early stages the guru or preceptor is instrumental in helping the disciple to develop this form of obedience by giving him a particular sadhana or discipline to follow. But in later stages this form of obedience must be internalised as the disciple learns to obey the commands of the internal guru or the Self.

Dynamic obedience is the basis of discipleship. Without this type of inner obedience, the disciple’s spiritual progress is constantly hindered by the dictates of the lower mind, which lead him away from the path of sadhana and self-discipline again and again. Obedience is the sign of a disciple who is prepared to loosen the bonds of ego and to unite the lower self with the higher Self, in whatever form it may take, be it guru, elder, ishta or inner guide.

Obedience is the crux of spiritual life. It is the submission of the lower will to the higher will. It is only through the higher will that the disciple is able to transcend the instinctive drives and persevere with a regular sadhana and discipline. By wilful obedience the blockages imposed by intellect and ego are removed and the disciple’s mind becomes receptive to the higher teachings. For the disciple who has attuned his mind to the guru through obedience, spiritual transmission takes place spontaneously, at all times, whether waking or sleeping.

The three attributes

Once the disciple has understood the role of obedience in spiritual life, be can cultivate this quality as he might other qualities such as charity, compassion, abstinence etc. Obedience is an inherent part of our nature, which we are all born with but few develop, because in our life there is no one whom we feel to obey. That obedience which comes from one’s own volition must be based on three important attributes: respect, faith and devotion. In order to practise dynamic obedience, there must be someone in our life who can inspire these three within us. Then obedience comes naturally and it is highly expedient to our spiritual growth.

This is why, at a certain stage of our evolution, we need a guru, a person before us who has risen above the ignominies of life, and can therefore inspire these three attributes within us. To obey such a person is a privilege and an honour. When the ego and intellect are stilled by respect, faith and devotion, submission becomes an intoxicating and thrilling experience. It is not oppressive but expressive of the divine will which manifests through you during the act of obedience.

To obey the guru or teacher who is able to inspire respect, faith and devotion, is never difficult, no matter what you are asked to do. Through obedience the realisation dawns that you are not the doer, but guru is doing everything through you. Therefore, nothing is impossible. His knowledge, power and capacity will come through you and the deed will be done. When the disciple experiences this, his respect, faith and devotion for the guru become deep and unwavering within him. All doubts and uncertainties are dissolved, and he becomes established on the path. From this point there can be no turning back for him.

Guru is God

Through obedience the disciple forms an immutable link with the guru and nothing can be withheld from either. The very life of both flows one into the other, and the two merge at the cosmic level where the guru is established. The disciple who is absolutely devoted and obedient is easily raised to the level of his guru, because there is no blockage, no restraint and no duality in their relationship. Through obedience the disciple removes all the barriers, so that the guru can raise him.

The true disciple is, therefore, one who loses his mind in the guru. As the disciple develops a deep, internal communion with the guru, he becomes less and less argumentative and more and more intuitive. He sacrifices himself, his desires, his ego and loses himself totally in the guru. The guru’s desire becomes his desire. He understands the guru’s command whether spoken or unspoken. Such a disciple obeys the guru with an internal urgency which brooks no intellectual speculation, rather the entire awareness of the disciple is focused on the doing.

This is something which the disciple must experience for himself in order to understand. And this experience in itself will be enough to transport him into unimagined heights of bliss which are not attainable even through years of contemplation and meditation. Therefore, it is said that the guru is god, and the true disciple ever approaches him with an attitude of humility and obedience. In obeying the guru, the disciple obeys god.

Sunshine and shadow

For the disciple who practises obedience, the guru’s word is final. There can be no question, no alternative and no compromise. The attitude of ‘Thy will be done’ begins to develop at this stage through the contact and link with the external guru. Later on, when the practice of obedience becomes internalised, the disciple becomes a guru in his own right, as be is able to express the divine will through his own Self, and he is disciplined and strong enough to follow it through. Such a disciple has fulfilled his commitments.

The guru also puts such disciples to very severe tests. One test is that he asks the disciple to remain physically afar. The guru knows that a fruit must have both sunshine and shadow in order to ripen. So, the disciple must have the experience of both fellowship and separation. In separation too, there is union. Spiritual obedience to the guru’s will, not physical nearness to the guru, is the mark of true discipleship.

(Courtesy : Yoga Magazine, Sep, 1990)

As the master grew old and infirm, the disciples begged him not to die. Said the master, ‘if I did not go, how would you see?

‘What is it we fail to see when you are with us?’ the disciples asked. But the Master would not say.
‘When the moment of his death was near, they said, ‘What is it that we will see when you are gone?’
With a twinkle in his eye, the Master said, ‘All I did was sit on the river bank handing out river water. After I am gone, I trust you will notice the river.’

There is a beauty in the desert, in the wilderness, stark and still, a vibration of centuries of powerful silence. It is not the verdant blossoming of green, the overflowing of the palette of nature – with crimson, gold and purple flowers spilling over in their fullness, over stone and moss. It is not the spell binding brilliance of youth. It is the cool radiance of tapasya. No flowering here, no languid breeze to caress a delicate blossom seared by the heat of the relentless sun, no footstep, no whisper. All nature seems to wait with hushed breath, holding in its womb the birth of the unknown.

Here, on this dry and arid ground, called by the local Bihar is ‘Smashan Bhoomi’, sitting alone before a fire, was the man I had travelled for six days to be with for a few minutes. I had not planned to visit. I had not calculated the time to come to Munger. As always I had followed a deep inner urge, the pull of my inner self in this direction. I was simply obeying a call. And during my journey I had constantly thought of Him- my Guru, the Gardener, of how he had given up his personal freedom for the sake of a Mission.

For there was a mission to be accomplished, taking yoga from door to door, across oceans, into scientific laboratories, into temples of learning, places of healing and homes, the cradles of world cultures. Meticulously, the soul was planting seeds, nurturing young plants, toiling in silence until they grew into tall, sturdy trees, yielding shade and fruit to seekers of light the world over. There was a purpose to every weed he pulled out, every plant he pruned, every flower that blossomed. And yet, as he worked, it was as if he was working amidst shadows. The shrubs flowered, the grass grew, the trees were laden with fruit. But deep within him, it was not the garden that held him captive. It was the vision of the Beloved whom he was serving.

The quality of a disciple

Many years ago I had asked him, ‘If a disciple had to have one quality, which should it be? And he had said. ‘Obedience, It will help you to get the bhavana. ‘Na Ham Karta, Gum Karta, Guru Karta Hi Kevalam.’ At that time I had taken it to be an instruction to me. Today I feel that I, the questioner, was a movement in the periphery of a larger consciousness, seeking and being answered, a little pattern in the vast waters.

Have you seen a river flowing? Somewhere along the way is a stone. The flow is disturbed. The questioning waters form a ripple which is answered by another ripple, which in turn forms a wave until the stone is passed and it finds its own inner harmony and is agitated no more. It exists then, not as many ripples, but as one river.

I kept that one word ‘Obedience’ in the sacred recesses of my heart. It was like a Zen koan. It disturbed me in difficult moments. It turned my life upside down a few times. It played joyous tunes in my moments of clarity. But always it was present, a seed planted in a thirsty soil. It was like a constant breath my restless mind butted against as if it were a rock. ‘Obedience’ to Whom? What is the Guru? What is the stuff gurutwam or guru consciousness is made of? Is there someone who commands and someone who surrenders? What is this command and surrender made of?

Over the years the patterns changed and changed. They swirled and eddied around me. The splashing dissolved. Colours and lights flowed into the patterns as if that one word, ‘Obedience’ were a bindu around which yantras of life unfolded, making glorious music. All life now became an orchestra, all interactions seen from the centre as vibrations of a symphony, millions of musical instruments trying to tune into a harmony.

Obeying an order

As I sat before Swamiji at Deoghar, all the patterns dissolved. He was a mandala, a symbol of humanity at its peak. He was an unfolding of true manhood, all that is best and beautiful in spiritual consciousness. As I watched him, smeared with holy ash, ebony coloured by the overhead sun and the fire in front of him, the question rose in my mind, ‘Why is this necessary?’ As this surfaced to my mind, unvoiced because of reverence, the answer came, ‘I am not doing this for name or fame, not even for spiritual benefit. I am simply obeying an order.’

As he said this, everything became still. He was not there. I was not there. There was something permeating, pervading, overwhelming and uplifting. It was a glimpse, a second perhaps of being one. In that instant I understood the meaning of ‘Obedience’. The years between his utterance of the word and my understanding of it rolled into oblivion. The hair on my body stood on end as I realised how blessed I was to be in the presence of this magnificent phenomenon, to witness the flow of the divine in the empty bamboo of his physical frame. The guru was there. The shishya was there. And then both were stilled.

I renounced everything

When he said later, ‘At Tryambakeshwar, I placed my clothes before the deity and with that I renounced everything, even my identity as guru, and I said, ‘I have fulfilled the mission. What should I do now?’ he was talking like a child. I was reminded of one of the steps in formal worship where the devotee offers apiece of cloth saying, ‘Vastram Samarpayami’. This cloth is symbolic of the avarna shakti of divinity, the quality of covering its limitlessness by seeming limited- Maya, so that, in the words of Sri Aurobindo, ‘God plays hide and seek with himself’. In offering the geru to the divine beloved, Swamiji had in one blow cut asunder all individual identity to merge into a vaster consciousness.

Masters always talk of the inner. Our confusions arise because we are preoccupied with the outer. When he continued, ‘I will not even be able to guide you any more,’ I smiled at his Grace, for he was stilling my mental needs, my search for guru and my receptivity as disciple. He was pointing to my innermost core which was neither this nor that, but which simply is – the Truth, Satyam.

As I left, I felt a tangible presence, as if I were wrapped in love. This feeling persisted. I remembered him saying years ago, ‘After the first diksha, each initiation becomes subtler and subtler’.

(Courtesy : Yoga Magazine, Sep, 1990)

Obedience to guru is better than reverence. Obedience is a precious virtue, because if you try to develop obedience, the ego which is the arch enemy on the path to self-realisation, is rooted out. Only the disciple who obeys his guru can have command over his lower self. Obedience should he very practical, whole hearted and actively persevering. True obedience to guru neither procrastinates nor questions. A hypocritical disciple obeys his guru from fear. The true disciple obeys his guru with pure love, for love’s sake.

Learn how to obey, then only can you command. Learn to be a disciple, then only can you become a guru. Give up the delusive notion that to submit to the preceptor, to obey him, and to carry out his instructions is slavish mentality. The ignorant man thinks that it is beneath his dignity and against his freedom to submit to another man’s command. This is a grave blunder. If you reflect carefully, you will see that your individual freedom is, in reality, an absolutely abject slavery to your own ego and vanity. It is the vagaries of the sensual mind.

He who attains victory over the mind and the ego is the truly free man. He is the hero. It is to attain this victory that man submits to the higher spiritualized personality of the guru. By his submission, he vanquishes his lower ego and realises the bliss of infinite consciousness. The disciple who has faith in the guru argues not, thinks not, reasons not and cognates not. He simply obeys and obeys and obeys. This is the path of the disciple.

Happy-go-lucky disciples

The spiritual path is not like writing a thesis for the Master of Arts degree. It is quite a different line altogether. The help of a teacher is necessary at every moment. Young aspirants become self-sufficient, arrogant, and self-assertive these days. They do not want to carry out the orders of the guru. They do not wish to have a guru. They want to be independent from the very beginning. They think they are in the turiya avastha when they don’t even know the ABC of spirituality or truth.

Such disciples mistake licentiousness or having their own sweet way for freedom. This is a serious, lamentable mistake. That is the reason why they do not grow. They lose their faith in the efficacy of sadhana and in the existence of God. They wander about in a happy-go-lucky manner, without any aim, from Kashmir to Gangotri, and from Gangotri to Rameswaram, talking some nonsense on the way, something from Vichara Sagara, something from Panchadasi, and posing as jivanmuktas.

If you want to drink water at the tap, you will have to bend yourself. Even so, if you want to drink the spiritual nectar of immortality which flows from the holy lips of the guru, you will have to be an embodiment of humility and obedience. Before desiring the grace of the master, the disciple should deserve it. Divine grace comes only when the disciple is fit to receive it.

Guru tests

The disciple can imbibe spiritual knowledge and power from his guru only in proportion to his faith and obedience. The guru communicates the secret knowledge to his disciples only after repeated testing. In the days of yore, the tests were very severe.

Once Guru Govind Singh tested his students. He said, ‘My dear disciples, if you have real devotion for me, let six of you come forward and give me your heads. Then we can have success in our attempt’. Two faithful disciples offered their heads. Guru Govind Singh took them inside the camp and cut off the heads of two goats instead. The guru tests the disciples in various ways. So one misunderstand him and lose faith, hence they are not benefited.

Surrender and grace

The grace of the guru descends upon those who are utterly faithful and obedient to him. Faith is confidence and trust in the guru. Faith is firm conviction of the truth declared by the guru either by way of testimony or authority, without any other evidence or proof. The disciple who has faith in the guru is able to surrender himself totally. The disciple’s self-surrender to the guru and the guru’s grace are both interrelated. Surrender draws down the grace and the grace of the guru makes the surrender complete and perfect.

The grace of the guru works in the form of spiritual practice in the disciple. If the disciple sticks to the path with tenacity, this is the grace of the guru. If he resists temptation when it assails him, this is the grace of the guru. If people receive him with love and reverence, this is the grace of the guru. If he gets all bodily wants, this is the grace of the guru. If he gets encouragement and strength when he is in despair, this is the grace of the guru. If he transcends body consciousness and rests in his own Self, this is the grace of the guru. The disciple must feel his grace at every step and be sincere and obedient to him.

(Courtesy : Yoga Magazine, Sep, 1990)

I was motivated to write this message after reading a passage from a newsletter written by some disciples who had recently had the darshan of Pujya Swamiji. The passage read as follows : ‘And Swamiji said, ‘I do remember you all. but I don’t want to, because it disturbs my sadhana’, and then Swamiji wiped his eyes.” This made me think that we, as disciples, know very little about Swamiji. How little have we been able to grasp in all these years of discipleship, if we still think that a person who has reached such a high stage of awareness is bound by attachment or emotion. While Swamiji was physically present, he was constantly teaching us, but how much did we, with our narrow minds, understand of it?

Swamiji has said that pain and pleasure are only manifestations of nature, and that pain is higher than pleasure. Bat are we ready to accept pain, are we ready to suffer for others even once? No, we only think of Our own comforts and facilities, of our own ego. And how much of Swamiji’s teachings do we practise? How much of the sadhana given to us by him do we do regularly? Very few people have actually kept up with it sincerely, and they are the ones who are not craving for Swamiji’s personal and physical darshan. Those few are the ones who have established an inner link with Swamiji and they are the ones who understand him better.

We all come to this world with our own purpose, and we do not need to envy others in order to fulfil our own desires. We must analyse our own attachments, our own passions and emotions, and our own samskaras in order to live a peaceful life. In order to do this, we must practise yoga as per Swamiji’s instructions. Practices like kriya yoga, raja yoga, bhakti yoga, karma yoga etc., are all very powerful, and we have had many experiences from these practices, although we may not be aware of it.

However if you really want to follow the path, it is very simple – just try to do what Swamiji has already told you to do. If you go through the Teachings books of Swamiji, I am sure that you will be able to mid the answers to all your queries. Start your mind working on a higher level through the means of yoga practices. Then you will be able to understand the world, and if you understand the world you can live with inner peace.

Swamiji received Paramahamsa diksha long ago. To fulfil his guru’s orders, he could have done something more simple, and it would have been sufficient. However, all that he has accomplished was for us only, to help mankind evolve spiritually. Now, it is our duty in return to see that the mission of yoga continues to grow all over the world. After analysing Pujya Gurudev’s teachings, we come to understand that he has given us everything. He has with great patience shown us the path, however, we prefer to remain blind. Why do we want his darshan? Oh, because we want to discuss a stomach problem we have been having for the last few months, or we want to know if our daughter is old enough to get married. Or, no, it is nothing like that, we want to ask him why it is that we cannot meditate; whenever we sit for meditation all these thoughts come into our mind. How many times has Swamiji explained to us the real cause of our disease? So why don’t we look into that and try to resolve it for ourselves?

Swamiji himself has said, if we were to get the darshan of God in our present state, we would still be asking, ‘Oh God, please help me to get my daughter married.’ Of course, you can always say, ‘Is it not natural that, as a disciple, I would like to have the darshan of my guru?’ But wait a minute, do you know if you are a true disciple yet? And if you are a true disciple, then why do you worry about his darshan? I am sure that if you are a true disciple, he will give you darshan without your craving or asking for it, and not only that, he will guide you, not just for now, but until the end of your life. It all depends on you.

These are things for all of us to think about. We still have time for spiritual development, and we should never give up our aspiration. United, we must try more than ever to continue with our spiritual life in the best possible manner and to have faith. We must remember that Swamiji is now at a higher level of yoga consciousness, and he does not want to come down again and again to repeat what he has been saying to us for so many years. This disturbs him and constantly breaks his inner awareness and sadhana.

If you think that Swamiji is unhappy because he is sleeping in the open air, on the bare ground, or because he is not going to see you again, you are completely wrong. Swamiji has always been a man of strong resolutions. Once he takes a resolution, he will never break it. Swamiji has resolved to become a jivanmukta in this life, and he will achieve it. We should all be proud of being devotees and disciples of such a great soul, especially in this era, when people like him have become very rare, and pray that he will continue to guide us from his higher abode.

(Courtesy : Yoga Magazine, Sep, 1990)

(An impromptu seminar at Ganga Darshan, January 1990)

Opening game

Stand up in two’s and we shall play a game. One person is the blackboard and the other person will write on their back. The blackboard should be very clean for writing on, so rub it well before commencing. Now write a number from 0 to 9 and see if your partner (the blackboard) can guess what you have written on their back. If they guess correctly they are very attentive. You can go on to write a letter and even experiment with other shapes depending on how attentive your partner is. Keep on changing round so both of you can try. In order to ascertain the letter, number or shape which has been drawn, you have to prepare your tactile attention because every sense has got its own attention. This game does not allow for absent-mindedness. You have to be constantly vigilant, constantly aware.

Constant

I shall give you one small instance in relation to Swami Satyananda Saraswati regarding awareness in simple everyday living. Some years ago Swamiji visited France for a seminar on transmission. It was held near Paris in a beautiful park in whose grounds stood a castle. Close to this park was a railway line. One afternoon, as we were on our way to lunch with a group of swamis around Swamiji, a train suddenly whooshed by. Swamiji turned to watch it as it sped past and when it was out of sight he turned back and said smiling but very pointedly, ‘It was a goods train with fourteen carriages.’

We were completely taken aback because we had only seen n train flash past. He explained that being attentive to the outside world is the best training for watching the inside world. Being attentive with the five senses teaches us how to prepare for ekagrata, one-pointedness, the finest aspect of dharana, and conversely, attention to the world within helps us to live more fully and attentively in the world outside. We should never be vague or uncertain to any of our interactions with life. We should even, as Swamiji once said, count the stars when we are out at night to keep our mind sharp and alert, keen and acutely perceptive.

In the Mahabharata, when Drona is training Arjuna how to become a fine archer, he trains him how to concentrate on the eye of the bird alone, not on the whole bird, sitting in the tree etc., just the eye to the exclusion of all else. This is one-pointed attention. However, there is another form of attention which has a panoramic view. For instance, in yoga, bhoochari and unmani mudra are practised to obtain such expansive attention. They develop the power of concentration and also of memory, apart from tranquillising the mind in preparation for meditation. You can see everything without seeing anything as it were, while being fully attentive in the process. This is multidirectional attention which is useful in life when you wish to have a very wide view of a situation. Then slowly, slowly it can close up to one point.

Is there some kind of opposition between attention and relaxation?

When a tiger is ready to jump you may think that he is very tensed for the spring but it is not so; he is completely relaxed. This idea that attention is linked to tension is a most false assumption. The best way to be attentive is to simply relax. In our society the reverse prevails; that in order to be attentive you have to be tensed. When your mind is tensed it is difficult for you to absorb anything being taught to you, but if we look at ‘Super Learning’ the process is to completely relax the mind through playing music and yoga nidra like techniques. In this way learning is made easy. However, by the act of tensing, you restrict all your sensory channels. Even when you wish to see from afar you should relax the eyes and not screw them up. So there is no opposition between attention and relaxation. On the contrary, the union of both is one of the great achievements of yoga. Relaxed vigilance is the best formula for learning.

Do you think the mind can be fully attentive to more than one task at a time or can we only concentrate on one thing?

Napoleon Bonaparte used to dictate four letters to four different secretaries simultaneously, and when he had finished dictating the fourth sentence to the fourth secretary who was writing the fourth letter, he would come back to the first letter exactly at the point where he had left off. His mind was so efficient and well-organised that he had quadruple attention. Of course he was an outstanding figure and this ability is very rare but it can be developed through the practices of yoga; and you will find that most yogis and enlightened saints have this ability to a very much higher degree than this great general. When we do kriya yoga we must be attentive to so many things maintaining the asana, movement of breath, visualisation, number of rounds etc., so we are involved in a very complex form of attention.

Is it not better to concentrate on just one thing at a time in order to develop attention?

It is a matter of awareness. When you expand your awareness and do many things at the same time, being attentive to all, that means you have achieved a high state of positive attention. However, when you try to do many things at the same time without being fully aware of any one of them, confusion ensues and instead of building up your attention you are destroying it. For such people it is better to concentrate on just one thing at a time to develop attention. So this is something yoga can teach- how to fix our awareness on just one point and how to expand our attention in all directions.

In France I have a funny little cartoon of an animal reading a book. It is actually an advertisement for a bookshop. This fellow is so engrossed in his book that he is paying not the slightest attention to the fact that his tail is on fire. So, the question is, ‘Is his mind attentive or unbalanced ?’ Certainly he is not a yogi. A yogi is attentive and alert on all sides.

Breath awareness for attention development

We shall close now with ten minutes of breath awareness. Take any comfortable meditation asana and become perfectly quiet and motionless. Be aware only of the breathing process, and unite your awareness with the flow of the natural breath. These two forces, breath and awareness, are moving together up and dawn the frontal psychic passage between navel and throat, between manipura trigger-point or kshetram and vishuddhi trigger-point or kshetram. Awareness is a force, a mental prana, and these two forces of mind and breath constitute our being. They move together within a path of power. Try to feel this movement with ever-increasing attention. Be aware of the energy as the breath moves up and down, up and down, up and down.

Now become aware of a third force moving. The breath is moving and along with it the prana is also moving – breath, prana and awareness. Feel them moving up and down in the psychic passage between manipura and vishuddhi. This movement of prana is neither heavy nor light, neither hot nor cold. It is not a physical sensation. Prana moves in the form of life. Come closer and closer with your attention to the movement of prana.

Then try to visualise the prana as it moves through the psychic passage together with the breath, together with the awareness. You may see it as a tube of golden light, or a tube of transparent glass in which the mercury is rising and falling, or as a beam of red or yellow light. Each practitioner will have his own particular manifestation. There is no set rule for this. The important thing is constant awareness of whatever you can see and/or feel – constant attention to the movement. Get ready to end the practice. Leave your awareness of the psychic passage, of the breath and the prana and become aware of your eyebrow centre – brumadhya, the trigger-point for the command centre, ajna chakra. Fix your attention there and try to see a tiny point of light or a tiny little star. Once you see it try to hold it steady. If you cannot see it you need more practice; it will come eventually. We shall chant Om three times together to end.

Om, Om, Om.

(Courtesy : Yoga Magazine, Nov, 1990)

Swami Sivananda Saraswati

Will

Will, if it is rendered pure and irresistible, can work wonders. There is nothing impossible for a man of strong will to achieve. The vast majority of people have no consciousness of will or mind or intellect. Their will has become impure and weak through desire. When a desire is controlled it is turned into will. Sexual energy, muscular energy, anger etc., are all transmuted into will-force when they are controlled, and the fewer the desires the stronger the will.

You will have to be very careful in the use of the will. It is always advisable to reserve the will force for the achievement of higher spiritual success. Worldly success is nothing. This life is a mere bubble. This world is a long dream. Worldly success will not give you everlasting peace and happiness. Try your will in one or two instances of worldly matters. You will understand and realise its power. Then apply the will in the realisation of the Self. Ignore mundane affairs. They are worthless like straw or dung.

How to develop willpower

Attention, power of endurance, overcoming aversion, dislikes and irritations, fortitude in suffering, austerity, lasting, keeping up a daily diary – all pave the way in developing the will. Patiently hearing the words of others though they are not interesting develops will and wins the hearts of others.

Never complain against bad environments. Create your own mental world wherever you go. There are some difficulties and disadvantage wherever you go. If the mind deludes you at every moment and at every step, try to overcome the obstacles and difficulties by suitable means. Do not try to run away from bad, unfavourable environments. God has placed you there to make you grow quickly. If you get all sorts of comforts in a place you will not grow strong. Try to live happily in any place under any conditions. You will become a strong and dynamic personality.

The practice of concentration is of great help to strengthen the will. You must have an intelligent understanding of the habits of the mind – how it wanders and how it operates. You must know easy and effective methods to control the wandering of the mind. The practice of thought-culture of concentration, of memory-culture are all allied subjects. All these are of immense help in the practice of will-culture. You cannot draw a line of demarcation to denote where the practice of concentration or memory-culture ends and the practice of will-culture begins. There is no hard and fast rule.

Those who want to become magnetic and dynamic personalities or prodigies should utilise every second to the best possible advantage and try to grow mentally, morally and spiritually every second. Idle gossiping should be given up entirely. Everyone of us should realise the value of time. Will is bound to become dynamic if one utilises one’s time very profitably. Application and tenacity, interest and attention, patience and perseverance, faith and self-reliance, can make a man a wonderful world figure.

You will have to apply your will according to your capacity, otherwise your will deteriorates. You will become discouraged. So make a program of work or daily routine according to your capacity and see that it is carried out daily. Keep only a few items. If you keep several items which cannot be executed in a day, which are beyond your capacity, your interest will slowly wane and your enthusiasm will gradually decline. Your energy will be dissipated and scattered. You will get brain-fag. Whatever you wish to do daily must be carried out to the very letter.

Nimbarka Acharya willed that the sun should not pass beyond the neem tree that was in front of his house: it came to pass exactly. Nalayani willed that there would be no daybreak; it came to pass accordingly. These people had strong willpower. If you also ‘will’ like this in the beginning when you are a neophyte, when you have developed your will to a very small extent, you cannot succeed.

Right thinking

Thinking too much is a hindrance in the execution by the will. It brings confusion, diffidence and procrastination. There is slackening of the force of will. The opportunity will slip away. You may hesitate to put the thing in action. Think for sometime correctly and then decide. As soon as you have resolved you must ‘will’ immediately. There must not be any necessary delay. Sometimes you ‘will’ and do not succeed. This is due to lack of right thinking and right feeling. You must think rightly and at the same time feel rightly. Then the ‘will’ is bound to succeed. Right feeling should invariably accompany right thinking.

Have a cool and balanced mind

He who is attempting to develop the ‘will’ should always try to keep a cool head. He should keep a balanced mind under all conditions. He will have to train or discipline the mind. Balance of mind is one of the vital characteristics of a developed jnani or yogi. That yogi who can keep a balanced mind at all times is really a strong and happy man. He will get success in all his undertakings.

Do not be carried away by undue sentiments and bubbling emotions. Control them. Reflect how a calamity or trouble or catastrophe has come. There is always scope for suitable effective and easy methods to tide over the crisis or trying situation. Develop discrimination and fore-sightedness. Many obstacles and calamities can be obviated quits easily. Do not brood over failures, defects and mistakes. This will weaken your will. Let the defects remain there. They will be removed quickly when the ‘will’ grows and becomes purer and purer, stronger and stronger.

Signs of growing will

Unruffled state of mind, poise, cheerfulness, inner strength, capacity to turn out difficult works, success in all undertakings, power to influence people, a magnetic and dynamic personality, magnetic aura on the face, sparkling eyes, steady gaze, powerful voice, a magnanimous gait, unyielding nature, fearlessness, etc., are some of the signs or symptoms that indicate one’s ‘will’ is growing.

Free Will

Man must learn to separate himself from the vehicles in which he desires, thinks and acts, to know them as part of the ‘not-self’, as material external to life. Thus, the energy that went out to the objects in the lower desires becomes the higher desire, guided by the mind, and is prepared to be transmuted into ‘will’.

As the lower mind emerges into the higher, and the higher into that which is wisdom, the aspect of pure ‘will’ emerges as the power of the spirit, self-determined, self-ruled, in perfect harmony with the supreme will, and therefore free. Then only all bonds are broken and the spirit is unconstrained by anything outside itself. Then and then alone can the ‘will’ be said to be free.

Memory

The subconscious mind

The subconscious mind is termed ‘chitta’ in Vedanta. Much of your sub-consciousness consists of submerged experiences, memories thrown into the background but recoverable. When you show symptoms of losing your memory as you grow old, the first symptom is that you find it difficult to remember the names of people. All the names are arbitrary. They are like labels. There are no associations along with the names. The mind generally remembers through association as the impressions become deep thereby. You can remember well in old age some passages that you had read in school, but you find it difficult to remember in the evening a passage you read in the morning.

The reason is that the mind has lost its dharana-sakti (power of grasping ideas). The brain-cells have degenerated. Those who overwork mentally, who do not observe the rules of brahmacharya and who are afflicted with much care and anxieties, worries, etc., lose their power of memory soon.

Only ten per cent of the mental activities come into the field of consciousness. At least ninety per cent of our mental life is subconscious. We sit and try to solve a problem, and fail. We look around, try again, and again, but fail. Suddenly an idea dawns that leads to the solution of the problem. The subconscious processes were at work. The subconscious mind is your constant companion and sincere friend. When you repeatedly fail at night to get a solution for a problem in arithmetic or geometry, in the morning when you awake you get a clear answer. This answer comes like a flash from the subconscious mind. Even in sleep it works without any rest, incessantly. It arranges, classifies, compares, sorts all facts and figures and works out a proper satisfactory solution.

With the help of the subconscious mind you can change your vicious nature, by cultivating healthy virtuous qualities that are opposed to the undesirable ones. If you want to overcome fear, mentally deny that you have fear and concentrate your attention upon the opposite quality, the ideal of courage. When courage is developed, fear vanishes away by itself. The positive always overpowers the negative. This is an infallible law of nature. You can establish new habits, new ideas, new ideals, new tastes and a new character in the subconscious mind by changing the old ones. All actions, enjoyments and experiences leave an imprint in the subconscious mind in the form of subtle impressions or residual potencies.

The samskaras are the root of causing rebirth and experiences of pleasure and pain. Revival of samskaras induces memory. When you desire to remember a thing you will have to make a psychic exertion, to go down into the depths of the different levels of subconscious and then pick up the right thing from a curious mixture of multifarious irrelevant matter. Just as the mail-sorter takes up the right letter by moving the hand up and down along the different pigeonholes, so the subconscious mind goes up and down along the pigeonholes in the subconscious and brings the right thing to the level of normal consciousness.

Memory-culture

The Sanskrit term for memory is ‘smriti’. Smarana is ‘remembering’. This is the function of the subconscious mind or chitta. The samskaras of thinking and acting are deeply impressed in the chitta which is like a sensitive plate of a camera. All the impressions are indelibly recorded there. If you have a clairvoyant vision or astral eye you can clearly watch all subterranean movements of these images in the subterranean workshop of the mind.

The following are the four characteristics of good memory: (1) If you read a passage and can reproduce the same. This is termed ‘sugamata’, (2) If you can reproduce the same thing without increase or decrease it is called ‘avaikalya’. (3) If you can preserve a fact or passage for a very considerable period it is called retentive memory, ‘dharana’. (4) If you can reproduce a passage at once without any difficulty it is called ‘upaharana’.

Knowledge of the workings of the subconscious mind is very necessary for those who want to develop their memory. It works throughout the twenty-four hours. It is the subconscious mind which wakes you up in the morning when you make the firm resolve “I should catch the train at 3 a.m.”. It is a most faithful-servant, provided you know the technique of manipulating it in a masterly manner. All the prodigies or intellectual giants of the world know the art of handling and tapping this portion of mind. Before you go to bed give orders to the chitta to do any kind of work. It will keep the answer ready for the morning. The chitta analyses, sorts and takes out all old records, from the various pigeonholes of the mind and produces a clear balance-sheet of facts for your perusal and review.

Brahmacharya, dietetic adjustment, and discipline of the indriyas are very essential for developing memory. The seminal energy has a direct, intimate connection with the cells of the chitta and brain. You should try your extreme level best to preserve every drop of your vital fluid. Bad memory is largely due to heavy losses of this life-giving energy. Japa, meditation, prayer, devotion, sirshasana and pranayama develop memory wonderfully. Sirshasana develops the intellect and helps brahmacharya.

Exercises for developing memory

1. Meditate on and assert :

“I have a very strong memory” – Om Om Om

“I can remember things now nicely” – Om Om Om

“My memory has very much improved” – Om Om Om

“I have a wonderful retentive memory” – Om Om Om

2. You can talk to your subconscious mind just as you talk to your friend or servant, ‘Look here, subconscious mind, I have forgotten an important passage in “The Merchant of Venice” and another in “As You Like it”. Bring them now in my memory. I want them very badly tomorrow morning. Do it quickly’. Give the order in very clear terms.

3. Practise self-analysis or self-examination for ten minutes before you go to bed. Sit comfortably on a chair. Close your eyes. Think of all the actions, good and bad, that you did during the course of the day. Think of all the mistakes you committed consciously or unconsciously. By daily, regular and systematic practice you will be able to visualise clearly the actions and mistakes of the day. The mind becomes sharp and subtle by the practice of introspection. It dissects, analyses, groups, classifies and brings the list of actions in the twinkling of an eye. This practice will develop your memory and reduce the number of mistakes.

Conclusion

First create interest in a certain subject and memory will automatically follow. One should be in perfect knowledge of one’s subject and have a general knowledge of all subjects. A versatile and all-round nature is laudable. Try to become a versatile genius. A strong and retentive memory or a powerful will, and the practice of daily concentration and meditation will certainly make you a versatile prodigy.

(Courtesy : Yoga Magazine, Nov, 1990)