Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s39: XV Karma
Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s39
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XV Karma
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So long as avidyā is not overcome, there will be life in saṃsāra. The law of karma is assumed as valid, and our life, its character and length, are all determined by it.³ Though we do not remember our past lives, we can infer particulars about them from the tendencies of the present⁴; and these tendencies will cease to exist on the disappearance of their cause (hetu), motive (phala), substratum (āśraya), and object (ālambana). The root cause is adviyā, though we may have other proximate causes; the motive refers to the purpose with reference to which any conation becomes operative in the present; citta is the substratum of the residual potencies, and the object is that which excites the potencies.¹
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³ ii. 12-14.
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⁴ iv. 9.
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¹ iv. 11.
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SUPERNORMAL POWERS
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The popular cult of magic is mixed up with the religious scheme of salvation in the Yoga. That certain magical powers are acquired during the course of the yogic sādhana is recognised in early Buddhistic works, though Buddha himself set aside the pursuit of those powers as unfavourable to perfection. The Hindu scriptures speak to us of men who, through dint of hard tapas, acquired marvellous powers. The acquisition of these powers is subordinated to the chief end of samādhi in the Yoga system. Though the highest goal may not be attained, the lower stages are not without their value. Each stage brings its own reward. Control of the body through postures results in an indifference to the extremes of heat and cold.² We obtain a full intuitive knowledge of whatever we concentrate on. Saṃyama, or concentration, is the means by which we acquire a knowledge of supersensuous objects. Through it we know the inmost core of things and reach the great light of wisdom (prajñāloka). By means of constraint on friendliness, compassion and joy, these qualities increase.³ If we concentrate on muscular powers, we will have a giant's strength.⁴ Heightened powers of the senses (hyperæsthesia), by which the yogin can see and hear at a distance, follow as a result of concentration.⁵ We can also acquire a direct knowledge of subliminal impressions, and, through them, of our past lives.⁶ As the result of saṃyama on a presented idea, knowledge of another's mind (paracittajñānam) arises.⁷ Transmission of thought from one individual to another without the intervention of the normal communicating mechanisms is quite possible. Through concentration on the threefold modifications which all objects constantly undergo, we acquire the power to know the past, present and the future.⁸ The yogi can make his body invisible.¹ By means of saṃyama on the twofold karma, on the potencies which will soon be exhausted and those which will take a long time, he knows when he will die. He can know the fine, the concealed and the obscure, the cosmic spaces, the starry system, the pole star, the bodily constitution, by practising the relevant saṃyamas. According to Patañjali, he who discerns the distinction between the self and objective existence gains authority over all states of existence and omniscience.² Before we gain full knowledge we sometimes have a kind of prior intuition of the truth, and this is called pratibhā.³
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² ii. 48.
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³ iii. 23.
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⁴ iii. 24.
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⁵ iii. 35.
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⁶ iii. 18.
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⁷ iii. 19.
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⁸ iii. 13.
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¹ “The great work of Gorres, in five volumes, is divided into Divine, Natural and Diabolical mysticism. The first contains stories of the miraculous enhancement of sight, hearing, smell and so forth, which results from extreme holiness, and tells us how one saint had the power of becoming invisible, another of walking through closed doors, and a third of flying through the air” (Dean Inge : *Christian Mysticism*, pp. 264-5).
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² iii. 49.
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³ iii. 37.
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The supernormal powers are really obstacles to samādhi, though they are regarded as perfections when one acquires them.⁴ They are by-products of the higher life. They are the flowers which we chance to pick on the road, though the true seeker does not set out on his travels to gather them. Only through the disregard of these perfections can freedom be gained.⁵ In Bunyan’s allegory the pilgrims to the celestial city find, even at the very gateway of heaven, a little wicket that admits to a path leading down to hell. He who falls a victim to the magical powers rapidly goes downward.
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⁴ iii. 37.
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⁵ iii. 50-51.
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These supernormal powers are not considered by the Yoga philosophy to be miraculous interferences with the laws of nature. The world open to the senses is not the whole world of nature. What appears to be a contravention of the principles of the physical world is only a supplementing of it by the principles of another part of the cosmic order. The world beyond the physical has its own science and laws. The attractions of unlimited physical and intellectual power were perhaps employed to induce the worldly to take to the higher life. The foolish always seek after signs.
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“The perfections (siddhis) are attained through birth, drugs (oṣadhi), spells (mantras), austerity (tapas), or concentration (samādhi).”⁶ Some are born with the powers, since they had practised yoga in their past lives. These born psychics turn into developed yogis with a little training. Sometimes psychic powers are also attained by the use of drugs and anæsthetics. Narcotic intoxication and ecstatic state are confused by the popular mind. The use of drugs is not recommended in Patañjali's Yoga, though it is mentioned as one of the ways of obtaining perfections.¹ Thus, the habit of drug intoxication prevalent in primitive tribes was mixed up with the higher mysticism of the Yoga. Spells² and austerities also help us in acquiring these powers. The insistence, however, is on concentration and not on the others. The visions due to drugs or disordered nerves are condemned. The system did not feel prepared to cut off all connection with its surroundings, and so incorporated elements which did not belong to its inmost being. This spirit of accommodation is responsible for the miscellaneous character of the Yoga system, which exhibits a medley of low naturalism and high idealism. There is such a thing as unconscious suggestion from the environment, and so the Yoga exhibits features determined by the conditions of the age in which it arose. But it is easy for us to separate these secondary accidental characteristics from the primary and the integral. The Yoga Sūtra does not take any further notice of drugs and spells, thus suggesting its considered conviction that the signs and wonders which the uncultured seek after, even if well authenticated, possess no spiritual value.
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⁶ iv. 1.
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¹ Nitrous oxide stimulates ecstatic consciousness. According to William James, alcohol "brings its votary from the chill periphery of things to the radiant core. It makes him for the moment one with truth" (*Varieties of Religious Experience*, p. 387).
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² American New Thought recommends concentration on a carefully selected word or rhythmical formula, and this method answers to the recitation of mantras.
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GOD
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Patañjali makes devotion to God one of the aids to Yoga.³ God is not only the object of meditation, but is also said to help the realisation of the goal by the removal of obstacles. Theism is not, however, an integral part of Patañjali’s creed. A personal God serves the practical purposes of Patañjali, who does not concern himself much with the speculative interests of theism. An argument which reminds us of the classical ontological argument is given by Vyāsa.¹ God has a perfect nature (prakṛṣṭasattva). “His pre-eminence is altogether without anything equal to it or excelling it. For, to begin with, it cannot be excelled by any other pre-eminence, since whatever might seem to excel it would itself prove to be that very pre-eminence. Therefore, that is the Īśvara wherein we reach this uttermost limit of pre-eminence.” Nor, again, is there any pre-eminence equal to his. “Because, when one thing is simultaneously desired by two equals, the one saying, ‘Let this be new,’ and the other saying, ‘Let this be old,’ if the one wins his way, the other fails in his wish and becomes inferior. And two equals cannot obtain the same desired thing simultaneously, since that would be a contradiction in terms. Therefore we maintain that in whomsoever there is a pre-eminence that is neither equalled nor excelled, he is the Īśvara.”² Patañjali proves the omniscience of God by means of the law of continuity, which must have an upper limit. Where there are a great and a greater, there must be a greatest. Whatever admits of degrees of excellence is capable of reaching the highest limit. Omniscience admits of degrees of excellence. It gradually increases in proportion to the degree to which the matter-stuff (tamas) which covers the pure essence (sattva) is removed. When the germ of omniscience reaches its height of perfection we get the omniscient God. “In him becomes perfect the germ of all-knowingness.”³ The blind tendency of non-intelligent prakṛti cannot bring forth the order and the harmony of the universe where men suffer according to their karmas. God is the guide of the evolution of prakṛti. He is ever solicitous that the development of prakṛti may serve the interests of puruṣas. God is not, however, the creator of the world, since a world full of pain could not have been created by a being of boundless mercy. Scripture seeks to prove the existence of God. But this proof is a case of circular reasoning, since the Vedas are said to be authoritative on the ground that Īśvara composed them. They are said to be valid, since their declarations correspond to facts.¹ While the Sāṃkhya assumes the validity of the Vedas, it does not justify it. The Yoga offers some justification in making Īśvara the source of the Vedas.
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³ i. 23.
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¹ Y.B., i. 24.
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² Y.B., i. 24.
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³ Tatra niratiśayaṃ sarvajñatvabījam (i. 25). See also Y.B. and Yogavārttika on it.
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¹ Tattvavaiśāradī, i. 24.
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The God of Patañjali is not easy to describe. He is said to be a special kind of self, untouched by the taint of imperfection and above the law of karma.² Being free from all entanglement in worldly existence, God lives in eternal bliss, without merit or demerit, unaffected by the weight of suffering with which living beings are burdened. He is omniscient, the teacher of the ancient ṛṣis. If God is to help toiling souls on the upward way to freedom and light, he must in some degree subject himself to the experience of saṃsāra. So Patañjali is inclined to regard him as the teacher of truth. God as the teacher has found an echo in the heart of every great thinker from Plato downwards. He is unlimited by time,³ all-merciful, and though he has no desires to satisfy, yet, for the sake of those in saṃsāra, he dictates the scriptures at each world-epoch. His sattva nature of perfect quality, which is devoid of any imperfection due to rajas or tamas, is the means of his self-expression and it is completely under his control.⁴ God is ever free, and so cannot be confused with freed souls who were once bound, or those absorbed in prakṛti (prakṛtilayas), who may incur bondage in the future. Unlike the liberated souls, who have no further relation with the world, God is everlastingly in connection with it. It is assumed that God stands in an eternal and indissoluble connection with the purest side of matter, sattva, and so God is for ever endowed with supreme power, wisdom and goodness. He in his mercy enters into the scene of change by assuming the quality of sattva. Since he does so voluntarily for the sake of the struggling puruṣas, he is not bound by the law of karma. At the great dissolution, when prakṛti relapses into its unmanifested state, this assumed form is set aside, though it is taken up again at the next development. As an individual resolves overnight to wake up at a certain hour next morning and does so through the force of the impression left behind by his determination, even so Īśvara resolves to resume the character of the great teacher when prakṛti begins a fresh evolution and the puruṣas emerge. The mystic syllable " Aum " represents God, and by meditating on it the mind rests in the true vision of God.¹
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² i. 24.
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³ i. 25-26.
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⁴ Y.B., i. 25.
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¹ i. 27-28.
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The personal God of Yoga philosophy is very loosely connected with the rest of the system. The goal of human aspiration is not union with God, but the absolute separation of puruṣa from prakṛti. Devotion to God is one of several other ways of reaching ultimate freedom. God is only a particular self (puruṣaviśeṣa), and not the creator and preserver of the universe. He does not reward or punish the actions of men. But some work had to be devised for him when once he was on the scene. He is said to aid those who are devoted to him in removing the obstacles to their upward progress. By praṇidhāna, or disinterested devotion or bhakti, we become eligible for the grace of God. Īśvara facilitates the attainment of liberation, but does not directly grant it. Such a conception of Īśvara is, of course, unsatisfactory,² and we cannot help saying that the Yoga philosophy introduced the conception of God just to be in the fashion and catch the mind of the public.³ Those who were anxious to propagate the Sāṃkhya theory of the universe and the Yoga method of discipline perhaps found it difficult to spread their ideas without satisfying the theistic instincts of man. In the later Yoga, the universal needs of the human heart prove stronger, and God begins to occupy a more central place. The reality of God is seen in the purified life of man. The witness of God is the religious experience of man. The over-soul speaks to the soul, and those who seek for truth find the answer in their hearts. The severe discipline of the Yoga, with its strenuous physical hardships and grave moral perils, demands a guide and help, a deliverer from darkness and pain, the teacher of truth and the inspirer of strength. Soon, union with God becomes the goal of human endeavour. In the *Bhagavadgītā*, for example, the deistic Yoga is replaced by theistic bhakti. In samādhi the soul sees and possesses God. By the separation of the self from every object of sense and thought, by the suppression of all desire and passion and the elimination of all personal sense, we become reunited with God. The end may be gained as the result of intense contemplation of God. Vijñānabhikṣu says: "Of all kinds of conscious meditation, the meditation of the supreme Godhead is the highest."¹
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² See S.B., ii. 2. 38 and 41.
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³ Cp. Garbe: " The insertion of the personal God, which subsequently decisively determined the character of the Yoga system, was, to judge from the Y.S., the textbook of Patañjali, at first accomplished in a very loose and superficial manner, so that the contents and purpose of the system were not at all affected by it. We can even say that the Y.S., i. 23-27; ii. 1. 45, which treat of the person of God, are unconnected with the other parts of the textbook—nay, even contradict the foundations of the system " (The Philosophy of Ancient India, p. 15).
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¹ *Yogasārasaṃgraha*, i.
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To the modern mind, in East or West, the whole Yoga scheme of attaining perfection appears to be only an elaborate process of self-hypnotisation. Intense and solitary meditations, accompanied by physical exercises and postures, help to make our minds run into particular moulds. Such a view gains some support from the popular confusion of the Yoga system with some of the repulsive practices of the Tantra cult and later adaptations of Patañjali’s Yoga by fanatical mendicants. It is, however, necessary to bear in mind the fact that Patañjali’s Yoga, in its original form, is free from these vagaries. It assumes that we have all reservoirs of life to draw upon of which we do not dream. It formulates the methods of getting at our deeper functional levels. The Yoga discipline is nothing more than the purification of the body, mind and soul, and preparing them for the beatific vision.² Since the life of man depends on the nature of the citta, it is always within our reach to transform our nature by controlling our citta. With faith and concentration, we can even rid ourselves of our ills.¹ The normal limits of the human vision are not the limits of the universe. There are other worlds than that which our senses reveal to us, other senses than those which we share with the lower animals, other forces than those of material nature. If we have faith in the soul, then the supernatural is also a part of the natural. Most of us go through life with eyes half shut and with dull minds and heavy hearts, and even the few who have had those rare moments of vision and awakening fall back quickly into somnolence. It is good to know that the ancient thinkers required us to realise the possibilities of the soul in solitude and silence and transform the flashing and fading moments of vision into a steady light which could illumine the long years of life.
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² "Prepare thyself as a bride to receive her bridegroom," says Markos the Gnostic (Irenæus, i. 13. 3).
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¹ As M. Coué says in his little work on *Self-Mastery*: "Be sure you will obtain what you want, and you will obtain it so long as it is within reason." Only when there is doubt is there no result.
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DĀS GUPTA : Yoga as Philosophy and Religion. Patañjali's Yoga Sūtra with the commentary of Vyāsa and the gloss of Vācaspati. S.B.H. RĀJENDRA LĀL MITRA : Yoga Aphorisms with the commentary of Bhoja. Asiatic Society of Bengal. WOODS : The Yoga System of Patañjali. Harvard Oriental Series, xvii.
Cites (2)
- Yogasūtra — Patañjali (author of the Yogasūtra), Sanskrit
- Yogasārasaṅgraha — Vijñānabhikṣu 1550, Sanskrit