Chapter 14
But earlier paradise blue penetrate in utter visions,
Because the main sense of this malicious chapter is the warning.
Daniel Andreev
In «Tattva Vaisharadi», one of the early comments on «Yoga Sutras», Vachaspati Mishra explains: «Samyama is a set of operating procedures with consciousness, including dharana (focusing), dhyana (contemplation), and samadhi (concentration). These three are the essence of means for realization of paranormal abilities» («Classical Yoga», p. 231).
Samyama (sometimes «sanyama»), the joint name of the three last stages of Raja Yoga, called internal means (antaranga) of the comprehension of truth (samyama is translated as «joint movement», the «vehicle», consisting from parts, composed in certain order and co-functioning).
In the «Dao De Jing» there is the image of a clay jug, whose main value is emptiness; it can be filled by everything. The given metaphor is applicable also to samyama: only silence of the mind activates subconsciousness and enables infiltration of its material in the (empty) mental space, deprived of the usual content.
So, the sixth stage of yoga of Patanjali, the first step of samyama, is called dharana or focusing.
Definitions: «Focusing is fixing the consciousness on the certain place» («Classical Yoga», p. 147, 1). «When the body is hardened by asanas, and the mind is cleared by fire of pranayama, feelings are bridled by pratyahara, sadhaka (disciple) reaches the sixth stage. Here, he focuses entirely on an object or problem in which he is completely immersed. To reach this state the mind should be calmed» («Enlightenment on Yoga», p. 41).
«Dharana is fixing the mind (chitta) on the certain point» («Indian Philosophy», vol. 2, p. 315).
Here are words by Asanga (the founder of Mahayana school of Jogacara or Vijnyanavada, it is literally the «doctrine of yoga», one of the schools of the late Buddhism, IV century A.D.): «What is attention or concentration? It is an ability of retention of consciousness on the certain object so that it did not deviate aside».
«Contemplation (dhyana) is a focusedness of homogeneous consciousness states on this place» («Classical Yoga», p. 147, 2).
«Author (Patanjali) defines dhyana as what should be realized with the help of concentration. Homogeneousness of stream (of consciousness) defines the unilaterality» (ibid, p. 232).
«Dhyana is a final state of a steady flow which is not prevented by others. It is contemplation» («Indian Philosophy», vol. 2, p. 315).
«Both water accepts outlines of a vessel and the mind, contemplating an object, takes the form of this object. Pouring oil from one vessel in another, one can observe a continuously flowing stream. When the stream of concentration is continuous, there is a state of dhyana» («Enlightenment of Yoga», p. 44).
«Dhyana is such state of consciousness, when all spiritual forces are in equilibrium, so no idea, no inclination can dominate over others. It can be compared with how one pours out oil on the raging sea: waves do not roar any more, foam does not boil, splashes do not fly — there is only a smooth brilliant mirror. And myriads of reflections appear and disappear just in this perfect mirror of consciousness, troubling its calmness in no way» («Chan Buddhism and Culture of Mental Activity in Medieval China», p. 85).
«The final stage of Raja Yoga is samadhi. «Samadhi is a state which precedes achievement of liberation. As yoga insists on achievement of liberation through samadhi, it is defined as samadhi. This is a state of ecstasy in which communication with the external world is broken. It is the purpose of yoga discipline. The stages of concentration or samadhi are: Samprajnyata or consciousness, and Asamprajnyata or superconsciousness. In the first one, consciousness remains contemplation of an object. In it there is a unity achievement between cognizing and cognizable in which a cognizing cognizes the object because he is it himself. The idea and the object of idea make the same. Various names are attributed to various nuances which accept forms of samprajnyata samadhi such as savitarka, savichara, sananda, and sasmita» («Indian Philosophy», vol. 2, p. 316-317).
«Samadhi is the end of searches of sadhaka (disciple). At top of meditation sadhaka goes into a state of samadhi» («Enlightenment of Yoga», p. 45).
«Samadhi while it is kept represents not a simple perceived constancy. On the contrary, it is a sequence of internal states which become simpler and simpler until are completed in unconsciousness. Asamprajnyata samadhi is a concentration not having the forms of idea though the latent impressions can remain.
Samadhi is a state which can be reached only by the few and in which almost nobody can stay long time as temptations of life destroy it. Therefore one says «that … the final liberation is impossible until the body lives» («Indian Philosophy», vol. 2, p. 318-319).
«When prana and manas (mind) are absorbed and balance is reached, it is samadhi» («Shiva’s Way», p. 62, ХП: 4.6).
Samprajnyata samadhi is subdivided into the following stages:
— A speculative — savitarka;
— Not speculative — nirvitarka (according to Radhakrishnan — sananda);
— A reflective — savichara;
— An Irreflexive – nirvichara (sasmita, 148).
All listed kinds are collectively called bija or salamba samadhi (with «grain» or encouragement, support).
Savitarka is an immediate, direct perception of real objects or for example visualization of God.
Nirvitarka — when consciousness, having left its own form, gets the form of object.
Savichara – here is the direct cognition of thin aspect of matter.
Nirvichara — when the idea identifies itself with essence of object, «not making feelings» at the same time.
Asamprajnyata samadhi is interpreted by commentators not so intelligibly as two phases of change of consciousness:
— Anandanugata — experience of pleasure;
— Asmitanugata – a mirror reflection of intellect of one only own essence. Sometimes this phase is called dharmamegha samadhi; Vyasa in his «Bhashya» says that yogin realizes in this state of absolute liberation — kayvalya- a full intuitive understanding of being. Madhava considers that it is not a temporary obliteration of the person, but ecstasy of experience of total emptiness, without sensory content. In this experience there is no what is usually named experience, but there is «revelation». At the same time yogin becomes jivanmukta, liberated even while he is still alive, «dead in the middle of alive», it is a fusion with all things in existence when the desire and opportunity of any action disappears.
So, the conscious concentration always has an object, the unconscious has not such. As texts assert, yoga of consciousness is prolonged or supplemented with yoga of the unconscious that is by automatic concentration which keeps process afloat on the basis of intention, generated before. The unfolding of consciousness in Asamprajnyata samadhi stops, and its further transformation, if it is possible, is not the subject of human experience.
«The stopping or termination – nirodho is not a broken distinctness (clearness) of the knowledge and a maximum impassivity» («Classical Yoga», p. 234, 9.4).
«The termination of consciousness functioning is an unconsciousness state of mentality. Samadhi, satori or similar «states of enlightenment» can represent a result of switching on domination of the right-brain. Thus, meditative practice represents the method of temporary restriction of the sinistrocerebral cognitive modus (elimination of the current prevalence of activity of the left hemisphere)» («Physiological Aspects of Yoga», p. 117).
«The word “samadhi” has also the general and special meaning. It can mean either a usual ability of the concentrated attention or an advanced concentration. Then it becomes the mystical force which can bring a contemplator to the upper worlds and change life entirely. Yoga is usually used in this meaning» («Selected Works on Buddhism», p. 206).
If Hatha Yoga fine-tunes the functioning of an organism, so the problem of samyama (how one sees it today) is adaptation of the person to «the rest of» the psyche and making an optimum contact with the systematic mind. The contact of ego with matter of his carrier, the body, realized in practice of asanas, is the preliminary initial stage of yoga having, nevertheless, the most important effects and consequences.
When during the daily life the primary goals are successfully solved or proved to be excessive, some people get compulsion to search of meaning of life, peculiar «vexation of spirit». K.G. Jung asserts that the reason of it is unconscious aspiration for the integrity, being preparation for death, not less important than birth. Within the scope of existential psychotherapy it even has led to the appearance of such direction as logotherapy of V. Frankl. Existentialism tries to reconcile us with being, logotherapy goes further — it tries to find the sense in it.
In the phenomenal world the person is presented in a threefold manner, and posthumous returning of matter of his body in the nature is only disintegration on constituent substances. The network section which «has been occupied» by the given person (subject), in this or that form comes back in exorbitant integrity which presence can only be guessed. In the implicative order as David Bom would tell, in another, more fundamental level of reality from which as a result of coupling of some factors, is explicited (comes into existence) everything what will again break up sooner or later. And this universal game, «folding» — «unfolding» is infinite and boundless; mankind, as well as any separate individual is only one of the nonrepresentable set of its participants.
Maslow thinks: «The belonging to the kin… gives the right (but not the duty) to become a fully man that is to actualize all possible … potentialities. Humaneness as a belonging to mankind should be defined not only in terms of being, but also in terms of becoming. It is not enough to be born as a person, it is necessary to become him» («Motivation and Personality», p. 22).
Why does yoga attract absolutely different people? «Many psychologists of humanistic and existential directions hold the opinion that the full satisfaction of base needs cannot automatically resolve problems of identity, construction of valuable system, life predestination, meaning of life» (ibid, p. 123).
To strive for something greater rather than he is already is human; he needs some uniting, even not necessarily concrete goal what refers to meaning of life. For example, it is image of cathedral in «Citadel» by Exupéry, but everyone has (or has not) his idea representation about it. Here is a cite of an unknown author, aspiring to find the final, completed meaning:
«Is (whether can it be in principle) consciousness product of activity of the brain? Whether can it be so that the neural net of unthinkable complexity and circulation of nervous pulses in it regulates not only relations of an organism with surrounding reality, but also realizes itself and everything, what happens in it? Whence does consciousness appear in it? For example, here is traffic on streets of Moscow, the daily city traffic. Every participant of movement has no idea about transport streams in city as a whole. He cooperates only with those who goes ahead, behind, on the left, on the right, reacts to traffic lights and has no idea where the stream of machines is strong, where is weak, where are jams and where it is free. Nobody of the millions participants of movement has the full information. To receive such complete picture, it is necessary to rise above the city. In the neural net there are no visible candidates for the role taking place above, the center where the whole information is flown down.
Or analogy with the telephone system of a big city — hundreds automatic telephone systems, wire and radio telecommunications, millions phones, hundreds thousand modems which are connected with computers. Through all these lines, billions bits of information circulate. And all this unthinkably complex facilities are involved in city survival. But what will happen, if to take away people from all it? Here is the net — system of communication lines, but you can’t get any sense out of it. There is nobody to communicate, as phones will not talk among themselves; perhaps computers exchange spam, but there is nobody even to delete it. It turns out that from the net the main thing — its «animating» (realizing) part is removed, and the net will simply cease to function. However, the system failure will take place in the same way, if to put out of action communication lines – it is answer to the question « Where does consciousness vanish if to strike on the head with a brick?». Consequently, the neural net of the brain is not more than the most complicated regulator, communicator, and nothing more than that. But the main question remains — who is «always on the telephones» there? Clearly, that it is awareness. If not to assume its primary existence whence has it appeared there? Well, pulses run from axons on synapses, these billions of neurons go into in various states, give out afferent pulses on muscles and organs, digestion and intestinal peristalsis are carried out (by the way, without any awareness all works wonderfully!) . But where is the notorious part, «being aware of processing»? Or is it the brain in whole? Let us suppose. But what is the mechanism integrating perception? Using other analogy, the question can be paraphrased so – where could the electric current appear from, if there would be no particles bearing an electric charge (electrons, protons). In fact, how many generators and electrical appliances not to construct, all the same nothing will take place. So here it is — awareness should be primary as an immanent (emergent — V.B.) property of a set of «details» from which the realizing being is formed. The general level of awareness depends on their quantity and quality; well, and most likely else on energy, which feed them. But what the hell does have ambition on the role of these components?!»
«In psyche of the modern person the conscious sphere is hypertrophied; accordingly, suppressed, as if blocked from different directions by dams the area of the unconscious threatens to break at any moment through the obstacle and to flood the conscious mind. That is why the need for integrating the unconscious into the holistic mental substance became a specifically western and modern problem having the key value not only for individuals, but also for whole peoples. As to people of the East, and, probably, Africans, so we notice by them a completely other parity between consciousness and the unconscious» («Spirit and Life», p. 469).
The longer is kept the continuous and compelled concentration of consciousness and efforts of the person (on any object, process, and event) in the mode of continuous goal-setting the more the dissociation of ego and the cumulative mind amplifies. The psyche of the civilized person had for a long time ceased to be autoregulated system. Dante had told not without reason: «Having passed the Terrestrial life to the first half, I came to be in a gloomy wood… ».
«The gloomy wood» is a symbol of deadlock, loss of meaning: «Yes, I still live. But what have I from it, when I have not any more power over connecting in my consciousness isolated parts of the beautiful?».
«All the world is brightly illuminated, I am plunged into darkness alone» (Lao-tse).
The person knows, as a rule, only two modes of life — sleep and wakefulness but even if it is possible to resolve successfully all problems and to reach set goals, it is not a guarantee of happiness.
In «Aphorisms of Old China» (p. 116) we find: « When ideas are scattered, it is necessary to know how to collect them together. When ideas met in one point, it is necessary to know, how to disperse them. If you are not able to do it so even if to overcome the darkenedness, the anxiety will lodge in the heart».
In other words, constant prevalence of logic, by means of which the mind continuously orders the stream of external impressions, is similar to flight with one wing.
«Mokshadharma» characterizes method of yoga so: «A strong animal tears nets and goes away, a weak one gets tangled in them and loses its life». Here it is born in mind that a person, longing for spiritual values, should be extremely persistent in his intention, have good brains, common sense, and a normal level of criticality. In addition: «Weakness of character is just one deficiency which cannot be corrected», — (La Rochefoucauld), in other words, yoga is not for weak-willed! Before to expect for success in it, it is necessary to take place in socium. The one, who has failed, never will reach the necessary result at the spiritual «front». But nevertheless even the best adaptation to the world does not mean automatic success in yoga.
Yashomitra (the legendary wise man and the philosopher of ancient India) had told: «All mental content is contact». Interaction with milieu is possible also through intermediaries (electronic — Stephen Hawking), but the communications with the unconscious happens only personally.
«The deepening and expansion of consciousness through its enrichment by the content of the sphere of the unconscious is «enlightenment» («Spirit and Life», p. 518). But simultaneously such expansion means loss — for some time – of the current stability and contains elements of a system crisis what precisely must be known by practicers.
When the process declines, so «The equilibrium is called yoga» («Bhagavad Gita», p. 170, II, 48). It is more truly not yoga, but the result of its long-term practice.
The self-knowledge, individuation (according to Jung), achievement of non-duality, samadhi, satori — all this are metaphors of the same phenomenon, with that only difference that finding of integrity is a condition of the further profound self-knowledge for which sadhaka needs a teacher fulfilled himself or a very qualitative information.
Restoration always begins with clearing (unload) the subconscious. This process is delicate enough; a wrong approach or relief rate cannot restore the natural status, but in addition deform the personality. A competent instructor should search for such ways of relief which minimally involve consciousness. Hatha Yoga is an ideal tool for this purpose. Before to address to topology of samyama, let us define the concept of meditation. For most people (and not only in Russia) this term is as vague as «the reserves of the nation». There are concrete psychotechnics, in tantra these are chidakasha dharana, ajapa japa, tattva shuddhi, yoga nidra, nada yoga, etc. In Buddhism it is vipassana on breathing or movement, in classical yoga — samyama on external or internal objects.
As far back as Goleman in his work «The Varieties of Meditative Experience» has described more than hundreds meditative technics, relying only on one Buddhist source («Vishuddhimaga», V century AD).
Before the beginning of attempts to meditate, the subject should to perfection master deep relaxation; only on its basis the spontaneous concentration of attention can be carried out. It is known that ASC (altered states of consciousness) arise under any extraordinary conditions: during ascent on heights, diving under water, physical overloads, stresses, traumas, acute poisonings, etc. Meditation of yoga differs from other ASC that it is not a casual, but intentional and carefully organized process of interaction of the unconscious with the person, allowing not to lose at the same time the current equation of psyche. The essence is not what actually «is seen» and emotionally experienced in meditation, but as far as the mind has managed «to digest» and acquire its experience.
At all variety, meditation technics are divided into two basic groups, distinguished by the way of influence on psyche — concentration or insight, the way of «the One» or «nothing».
Samadhi, achievable in Raja Yoga, it is a full inhibition of cortical activity. «Nothing» is an achievement of nirvana through insight, at the same time the mind traces its modifications up to their full fading.
The third method, uniting, is vipassana, it begins with concentration, but passes into insight, one strengthens another, and as a result nirvana is reached.
Meditation is defined yet as a simple presence (simple attention), impersonal registration of what occurs before the extrinsic or inside view. By the way, the term «simple» in this case has no attitude to simplicity (in its usual sense)! Behind it a heap of complexity lies hidden about what those do not suspect who had nothing to do with it.
Once, in search of sense and rescue from the unshared love, Petrarch had gone on search of the legendary country Thule. Having returned, he told that one could not go, as comprehension of truth is not connected with movement in the real world. «The Divine Comedy» by Dante precisely shows symbolics of conditions of introspection, and M. Mamardashvili excellent interprets them («Psychological Topology of the Path», 1997), at the same time everything told by him is fair in respect of yoga too. The path to truth can begin from all over the shop; the terminal point does not depend on the beginning and the way of movement. One of the enlightened had told once not without reason: «It is not necessary to go to India, create sanctity around yourself».
In the middle of 60thies of XX century one of my friends visited school of yoga at the Center of Gerontology in Sofia (at that time Bulgarians contacted very densely with India). When in our Simferopol community of yogical dilettantes there were disagreements, he has told unobtrusively: «One should not hasten with meditation. It is fraught alone and without a teacher, a great number of sad precedents is known, we were specially warned there …»
As everyone is well aware, on doors of Dante’s Hell there was an inscription «Abandon hope, all ye who enter here», and before entering, Vergil had told: «The fear should not give advice». The sense of this phrase is clear to those who have true meditative experience (there is a good etude about deep fear in the film «Where do dreams bring»). The majority of people are panic at their unconscious, since ancient times it is the area of instinctive taboo. Initial conditions of self-knowledge are those: the fear is forbidden, the instinct of self-preservation, no less than hope for success are rejected.
The self-knowledge is always blocked by two powerful psychological mechanisms — laziness and hope. Laziness is shown in aspiration to postpone all for tomorrow and in refusal of personal participation what is incompatible with yoga which is realized only personally, every day anew, each time «completely». If someone thinks that after a magnificent yesterday’s practice, it is possible today not to push oneself to the limit, one has not understood the situation: yoga is now and here, «yesterday» already is not present, and «tomorrow» has not come yet: «The past is not present already, the future — still, and on them on the boundary there is nothing at all … ».
The second obstacle is hope; the person expects to receive result already at the very beginning of practice. As in this world nobody ever owes anything to anybody, one should everything do oneself; and results in yoga come slowly – it is its unique «shortcoming». Refusal of hope generates the fear to learn about oneself such thing after what it is necessary to leave image of oneself the loved, and namely it, as MM (Merab Mamardashvili) had marked, is by the person avoided chronically. Everyone who successfully masters meditation, sooner or later will see oneself unvarnished, and it is one of the most unpleasant things in life.
Enticing from a chasm monster Heriona (a symbol of lie), Vergilius says: «We should the truth similar to the lie keep by closed lips». Here it is a matter of a primary incompleteness of the information which has the ego. On each current situation all events in the world have already happened, there is already the truth. But the person does not see it by virtue of limitation (locality), emotionality and darkenedness, dealing only with a fragmentary picture of life, its rough approach, a nasty copy. Each of us contains truth, for «who sits in me» (the full or system reason) «knows» everything, and the ego has only a little bit of this information which is false exactly by virtue of this incompleteness. The model of behavior, based on this incompleteness, is inadequate and defective, gives to actions of the subject small efficiency, but the absolutely positive image of oneself and erroneous sensation of correctness of state of affairs is built in this model.
After intrapsychic redistribution of the information there is a gradual turn of «the eyes of the soul» in samyama. The old model of the world collapses («the mountains cease to be mountains, the rivers — rivers») and lie (the inadequate system of self and world concept) is slowly and is painfully transformed to truth.
As Freud had already noted, the perception and understanding of the information dangerous to mental well-being is blocked by the unconscious part of psyche which operates mechanisms of censorship, suppression, and replacement. It became clear from studying tabooness experiences — censorship filters subsensitive stimuli which cannot be perceived by the subject.
Information contact between two parts of psyche is possible only in the field of consciousness, which should in due order be prepared: to fill with something a vessel, in the beginning it should be devastated.
When the content of the unconscious starts «to filter» into mental space, the subject collides first of all with a wrong side of the ego. It becomes clear that all positive of the person has its continuation in darkness of the «wrong side»; that you and your relatives are not absolutely such as you seem that any aspirations and thoughts including your own are not faultless. The rebirth is painful, it is a powerful mental crisis accompanied by change of the world outlook: «That the tree crown has grown up to paradise, its roots should sprout up to hell». « The shadow represents the moral problem challenging the personal ego as a whole… Its comprehension assumes recognition of real presence of dark aspects of the person. The self-knowledge as a therapeutic procedure demands a large, heavy work which has been delayed for a rather long time» («Spirit and Life», p. 18).
«In the latent part of the person as experience shows, there are those or other features showing an extremely persistent resistance to the moral control. Such resistance is usually connected with projections which are not recognized as those and their recognition is a certain unusual moral accomplishment» (ibid, p. 19).
Jung asserts that within the frame of base culture the person can up to some degree recognize only some negative parties (qualities). Those from them in which the reason refuses to believe are projected on milieu. The fact of recognition by each person of the most personal evil latent in himself is a problem of our days, but, in general, it was always. We ascribe advantages and perfection to our realized, «light», and controllable part and always find evil from the outside: in enemies, envious persons, the bad social structure, etc. Indeed we project frequently our own evil on milieu.
As projections are rather emotional, they cause the same response of social surroundings. Exporting unconsciously outside some part of his internal problems, the subject continuously «draws fire on himself».
As a result of the pointless war with the world, exhaustion comes; many destroy life of themselves, family and friends, not guessing that the true source of all this horror consists in them.
Now we shall examine Chidakashadharana, one of Tantra’s meditations (hereinafter referred to as — CHD). It is intended only for people, whose leading representative system is eyesight — at closed eyes they see freely, precisely, and without tension images on the screen of the mind (sometimes it is accessible in one’s waking hours).
For subjects with prevalence of other systems of perception, for example, kinaesthetic (sensations), this psychotechnics is unsuitable, they should apply Antara mouna or Ajapa japa.
The formula of Upanishad is the following: «Tat tvam asi» — «That you are» (the Atman is identical with Brahman), the individual soul is identical with the Absolute. Akasha in the Sanskrit means ether, space; chid (chit) — consciousness, hence, chidakasha — space of consciousness. The authors of Upanishad and Tantra were sure of the biunique conformity (similarity) of the Big Space (Mahakasha is an infinite number of matter modifications) to the individual mentality containing the equipotent space infinity of probable events. Purpose of CHD is a visual experience of the unloading process of subconsciousness and the further (if the system mind considers it as necessary) communications of consciousness with the unconscious. According to results, CHD is similar to other psychotechnics, but, I repeat, it is intended only for those who clearly see images. Dharana is a concentration or comprehension. Thus, CHD is comprehension (supervision) of the field of internal space (ajna kshetra).
Having mastered this practice, one can become the witness and the participant of amazing mental events. CHD is more effective than many psychotechnics, but also it is more dangerous, as here the process of «evaporation» of the superseded material has chances to be realized and understood.
Having started the regular practice of CHD, contemplator for months can observe a routine stream of mental visual trash (discharge of superficial «layers» of subconsciousness — the current superseded negative emotions), but when the embrasure opens, the original deep «production» cannot be confused with anything. The hell will pour into the opened sluices; its main attribute is an extreme emotionality and a powerful negative charge of the stream of images, it is better to experience it at presence of a skilled instructor. The main thing is not to be frightened; what you see was a very long time ago «inside», but remained unknown. And when subconsciousness is cleared, paradise can for some time appear as an indemnification — tremendous plots, the color mosaic of unprecedented beauty, accompanied by smell and taste. But it is also only a pass-through stage on the way to silence and rest.
The first stage of CHD is kaya stharyam (consciousness of the body): to direct attention at the closed eyes to the body and continuously to keep it on the whole body. The more full the body is apprehended, the more the mind calms down, approximately as well as in practice of asanas, with that only difference that physical activity is completely removed and you are in a motionless and convenient pose.
Then one should, keeping consciousness on the body, feel its immovability. CHD is carried out daily, until these initial stages of CHD (the linkage of attention to the body and immovability) are not completely mastered. Their duration are five — seven minutes, actually it is the initial pratyahara.
The following moment is singing of mantra AUM. Remaining in a convenient pose, one should sevenfold, slowly, and distinctly pronounce in a singing voice this mantra, feeling at the same time the reverberation penetrating you from the nasopharynx up to heels. It is necessary to plunge completely into sounding of mantra, in consciousness there should not be anything except for AUM.
Then it is necessary to execute prana shuddhi or anuloma viloma, observing motion of air in nostrils as at vipassana. Breathe so about five minutes. Feel then that air as though enters separately into each nostril, and these two air streams, moving to the nose upwards and under a sharp corner, at ending an inhalation momentarily as though contact in the point of «the third eye» (bhrumadhya). The specific sensation of this contact can appear there. With the beginning of an exhalation it disappears; streams of exhaled air as though are split again «to contact» at the ending of the next inhalation. Duration of this stage is about five minutes, with the lapse of time this contact becomes habitual and convenient.
When everything what was listed above is mastered (switching of perception on internal space of consciousness has taken place), actually practice of CHD begins.
So, the guaranteed silence, eyes are closed, the back is straight, the body and consciousness are completely weakened, the spontaneous visual «trash» flashes on the screen of consciousness. The point is that one should simply look at this screen, keeping eyeballs weakened (released). But there is a question: How to look? If at mastering initial stages of CHD eyes have relaxed and are immobilized not up to the end, the meditative condition does not arise. But in the process of meditation itself involuntary movements of eyes can quite appear!
Here are many thin moments. Usually wakefulness is accompanied by the high dynamics of the attention, having the tendency to be compressed in a point and to saunter on observable space. As well as in asanas, it is not necessary precisely «to stare» attention to sensations, it should also in CHD be released so that it «has spread» up to borders of the «screen» of the mind, covering it entirely. At the same time the habitual focusing is lost and there is an inhibition, it will actually be the beginning of dhyana — contemplation.
As well as in any meditation, it is necessary to remain in CHD a suspended observer, but by no means the participant. One should not at all react on the content of the screen and events developed there, all the more emotionally! Meditator is a witness, an indifferent registrar, like a device which does not worry, does not experience, and only fixes parameters of a situation.
Safety precautions. The following rules are firm; their observance gives an acceptable probability of success of meditation and guarantees preservation of mental well-being.
1. Do not identify yourself with what you happen see, hear, and feel (experience) in process. You are not identical with what is «shown», but it is yours too – let it be muddy, inconvenient, or terrible. To clear the Augean stables of subconsciousness, it should be seen, endured, gone through.
2. Do not react in any way, when a «parade of ugly creatures» rushes on the screen (and the body responds by unpleasant sensations). One should contemplate this parade in full impassivity, keeping calmness and instantly forgetting about your experience after going out of the process.
3. Do not be frightened, it is the third and most important rule. As Tolstoy said: «He frightens, but I am not afraid!» One must simply look («Not faces — dregs hung about as doctor Moro’s terrible creatures, in noctule linkage, and the tiny mind, their only guide, bitingly and artfully smouldered at the bottom of pupils») with unshakable calmness and estrangement, remembering: I am only an observer.
The instinctive fear arising at dumping of superseded is not dangerous, if one only does not give in to it! It arises as a consequence of the loss of intrapsychic stability; any meditation has a standard development, described in «The Divine Comedy»: hell, purgatory, paradise.
There are no ways by means of which it is possible to avoid even partly hell and purgatory, except for Hatha Yoga. At the minimum of consciousness, the negative is gradually slacked away in practice of asanas through the body.
If the narrow tracks of self-knowledge unavoidably pass through hell, so for those who do not own technology and shows the silly obstinacy they come to an end in hell. The idea of meditation as an inspired and joyful experience of the condescending grace is a chatter of dilettanti.
«Expand consciousness!» — and it will be good for you!» Perhaps it will be, but it is far from being at once. And not always. And not for everyone. And at the beginning, it becomes bad, and perhaps very bad. And not all are capable to bear it. Any attempts of meditation are contra-indicated for «borderliners» and neurotics whose superseded without that was longing to be outside, striving to blow the «roof» off. And if to play similar games, not knowing their essence…
Here is a fragment of the letter received by me on 6.11.2002: «It had happened with me something unforeseen. Actually I was not engaged in meditation. To tell the truth, I have a little learned to sit motionlessly and limply. It was as far back as in the spring. And then I for the first time have seen something rather strange after what I have stopped my attempts before yesterday. Impressions have settled rather quickly, but the characteristic of event (given without delay) nevertheless kept me from experiments. And yesterday I all the same had sat… Something turned, perhaps some sketches, but — not that. And at night, I have run into a required condition completely without any desire. Directly from dream. There were the most terrifying sensations. I have left almost at once, but a few minutes I was still afraid – whether it will return and now, while being awake. I truly felt on the verge of madness, thought that I cannot after that get into bed.
Beginners, I address to you, do not joke with it, do not pry into there. It would be desirable to learn what the pros think on the following questions:
а) And was it meditation? (hundred-per-cent effect of presence, a sound, very unpleasant sensations, the disordered breathing).
b) If yes, what to think about its unbidden appearance and what to wait now.
c) Is it possible to talk to somebody in Petersburg?
d) Any comments would be interesting. I shall be very grateful to all responded persons!»
Dumping of the pathological material superseded in subconsciousness is a necessary condition of equilibration and further development. At the same time, the unpleasant sensations accompanied by the strongest emotional «jolting» can arise (even outside of practice of asanas) in people of kinesthetic make-up.
One has not to expect appearance of something familiar on the mind’s screen. Not at all necessarily the problem «is evaporated» in that kind in which it had once got in system; psyche mixes everything. You observe, for instance, the image of a banal stool, but this is accompanied with an extreme disgust and horror. At times tremendous plots are unfolded on the mind’s screen: «There is source of the false light, the fallen angel Lucifer, who destroys singing of spheres in the center of the world of impossible».
In short, you can see anything, but you cannot react to it! If on the «screen» something which has driven consciousness and the body to shock has appeared, and you have twitched, having been frightened, consequences can be deplorable. You will be simply knocked out from the process and can be held up in the negative endured condition for a long time. Texts assert — and it is the naked truth! — if a contemplator has reacted, «was linked» with a stream of proceeding affects, he can get into the psychosomatic hell. It is the main danger of meditative practice at stage of practicing of superseded. One of the few real and accessible ways out of the given situation is physical loading, down to an extreme. For example, fast run uphill with weighting, immersion in ice water, its pouring out from a bucket on himself, some tens (hundreds) squatting with jumping out upwards. If also it works not completely, one should add mild neuroleptics such as alcohol or hyperventilation — and to sleep. Roughly, but effectively, at least it will be purgatory instead of hell.
If process of CHD was broken, one should go out from it: to inhale slowly and deeply, to exhale, to strain and then to relax the body, keeping the immovability, to open slowly eyes. One of my friends (a patient in the past) mastered yoga slowly, sorting numerous problems out. The mode of his life and work was so dense that he had been compelled to get up at four o’clock mornings, carried out asanas up till six, and further everywhere: road, the native scientific research institute, people and meetings until night. Everything went perfectly; he was restored, dumping his overfatigue of many years, and let somehow drop that he was going to master separate breathing. I have not agreed with him as at the similar schedule and rather small experience of practice there’s no reason to add something else. The daily sum of influences is such one as it is that any makeweight can cause destabilization. Half a year later we have met, and he has told a funny (in some way) thing. In the beginning of practice of separate breathing everything went perfectly, but then his sleep was affected. One night, having woken up once again approximately at about three o’clock, he has decided to stand up, but he to his dismay has failed even to move. If he knew that in a certain phase of awakening the body proves to be immobilized! But my friend did not own the necessary information and that is why he was strongly frightened.
«And now already the third month it drags, if you will excuse the expression, my face on the table», — he has finished his story. «As if keys of the piano are pressed by themselves, it makes me so sick — that it is impossible to tell. I am afraid to go to bed: what if everything repeats again? Doctors have told it is simply ANS, which is out of order, it is not dangerous …»
Certainly, we have made a necessary adjustment, and the problem fell spontaneously away. But in half a year! And it was only an elementary fright caused by a simple disorganization of conditions of the body and consciousness. It is possible to imagine what effects can be caught in illiterate meditation!
There is a probability (although it is small) that after superseded something more dangerous can «emerge» if suddenly images get a symbolical character; it is necessary to refuse completely any attempts of meditation, to keep only asanas.
If suddenly in consciousness there was a voice, and you have answered it, it can freely become an ineradicable acoustical hallucination.
An intrapsychic alteration which begins at a dump can be accompanied by anything, for example, a physical pain. In general the basic «evaporation» of system deformations goes on kinaesthetic «diocese»; the pain can be local, migrating, and total, there can be convulsions, tremor, etc. Though the full muscular relaxation is an indispensable condition of a competent entrance in the meditative process, at occurrence of nervous-emotional «dump» it gets inevitably broken, there is muscular contracture, and it is normal. When superseded is after all its grimaces dissolved as Terminator in the boiling metal, it comes the internal balancing — the first stage of integration of the ego with the full mind. During the whole practice of CHD one should contemplate the mental screen entirely, not being fixed on its separate sites or images. Whatever the subject can personally undertake for «improvement» of process, will be a mistake; any mental action, voluntary movement, effort of will restores automatically the tone of vigilant consciousness and meditation stops.
At observance of safety measures, no focuses of discharge in CHD and other meditative practices are dangerous, but if the fear is irresistible, consequently meditation is premature; one should concentrate on asanas and a deep relaxation.
When meditation «has gone», character of dreams and the general emotional state changes; the things described below in chapter «Unusual Abilities» start to occur.
In 1992 a middle-aged lady (we name her Т.) has arrived at Chernogolovka at one of the seminars of the Center. According to a number of circumstances of the childhood and youth her neuropsychic state was nasty; therefore the accent in practice has been put on work with the body. The effect was good, but she, unfortunately, had got between two our seminars into some «yogic» party in Tula where one learned «to meditate» each and all. When there were voices in consciousness of Т., the Tula «teacher» has named it as an attribute of «advancedness». Having seen her half a year later, I was shocked: not reacting to questions, she only smiled faintly: «Now I speak all the time with them …» Soon this woman in unexplained circumstances fell out the window of the eighth floor of her flat, and three children have remained without mother.
The law is an exact knowledge of what is impossible to do, including meditation. The Church Fathers knew it for a long time. Saint Theophan had rather understandably explained incorrect kinds of attention and a pray of Jesus: «In the natural order of our forces on transition from outside to inside, there is our imagination. It is necessary to pass safely it in order to get on the true place inside. Through inattentiveness one can get stuck on imagination and think through ignorance that you have come inside whereas this is threshold, and a sticking is always accompanied by spiritual deception…
The most simple law for a pray is to imagine nothing! Until our mind about God is imperfectly, it is connected with some form (on bas-reliefs of the early Buddhism the place of Tathagata remained always empty — V.B.). One should in every possible way try to pray without Divine images. Stand in heart with faith that there is God there, but how is — do not consider!»
«In action of Jesus’ Pray there should be no image, coming in between the mind and the Lord… Consciousness of God’s eye, looking inside of you, should not have an image too, but … consist in one simple belief or feeling» (St. Theophan).
The Fathers were in general opposed to contemplation of images; experience showed that without corresponding knowledge it is too dangerous.
«Some praying people raise eyes to the skies and the mind and imagine in their mind God’s providence, heavenly blessings, hierarchy, heavenly angels and abodes of Saints — everything, what is spoken in Scripture about these subjects, they arise them from memory and go over by imagination during the pray, trying to shake by it their feelings in what they are sometimes successful. It is … considered as a display of the true religious mood» (Simeon the New Theologian).
«To imagine Divine subjects under those images as they are represented in Scripture, there is nothing bad and dangerous. We cannot think about them in a different way as presenting ideas in images. But one should never think that it is in practice so as these images appear and what is more to stop on these images while praying. It is appropriately during pious reflections or at godly thinking, but during Jesus’ pray — it is not! Images keep attention outside, no matter how much sacred they could be, and during a pray the attention should be inside, in the heart. If who beholds images in the beginning of Jesus’ practice — he is wrong! But in this wrongness there is only the beginning of a misfortune what directs at something worse and dangerous. Contemplation of these images happens to be rather pleasant and makes the soul to get too much used to comfort; it seems to it that it is what is necessary, the person starts to invoke God, he wants to be left by Him in this state, — and it is charm! The way of such person is stopped at the very beginning, as the target state is considered achieved, though the achievement has not been started» (St. Theophan).
«Further the self-conceit even more excites imagination and draws new pictures, inserting in his dreams the personality of a dreamer and representing him always in an attractive kind, nearby to God, angels, and the Saints; and the more he dreams so, the more the belief takes roots in him that he is exactly already the friend of Heaven and celestial beings, worthy of sensible convergence with them and special revelations. On this stage it begins mystical propensities (apparitions — V.B.) as a natural mental disease.
Thus, many were tempted, seeing light and radiance by the corporal eyes, smelling a fragrance by their sense of smell, hearing voices by their ears, etc. Others of them were mentally deranged and passed from one place to another as madmen. Others, having accepted a demon, appearing in image of angel of light, became firmly convinced of deception in such a way that up to the end they were incorrigible, others according to demonic suggestion, murdered themselves, crashed down in rapids, hung themselves. And who can estimate deceptions into what the Fiend plunged those.
There are true visions – experienced persons are able to distinguish them from generations of their imagination and demonic ghosts. But as in practice there are more inexperienced people than skilled, it is put in general by the law of the spiritual life – do not accept any apparitions and do not confide in them!»
Gregory of Sinai: « If you see light or fire outside of yourself or inside, or an image, Christ, for example, or an angel, or somebody other, do not accept it in order not to suffer harm. And do not permit your mind to build in yourself such images, it leads to deception. If you notice, as if somebody pulls your mind by such external imagination, do not give in, keep inside, and make the pursuit of attention to God without any images» (Simeon the New Theologian).
In the quoted fragments there is showed danger of independent work of imagination which has nothing in common either with meditation or with the valid indulgence of grace (See lower chapter «Yoga and Christian Mysticism»). The mystical propensities, named the mental illness, are a fantastic delirium whose hero becomes frequently the one who prays too much or «meditates». Sometimes thoughtlessly the person starts to believe firmly in reliability of his apparitions, what has taken place, for example, with Maria Devi from the notorious «White Brotherhood».
Not being in the state to distinguish play of fancy from discharge of subconsciousness («true apparitions»), the Fathers fairly conclude, that one cannot in contemplation trust in anything!
With regard to CHD it means – not to identify with the One pink elephants appearing on the screen of consciousnesses and produced by imagination — «When you wait for friend’s visit, do not accept your heart beats for clatter of hooves of his horse».
The second wrong image of Jesus’ pray is mental. If in Buddhism it is ordered to consciousness to observe the own dynamics down to its full attenuation, so in «clever making» it involves the worshipper in a contradiction: he tries to block his intellectual activity and is eventually confused in his movements, not understanding what occurs. Nevertheless, the Holy Fathers asserted that it is not so dangerous, as interaction with images.
At performance of CHD such mistake will consist in acceptance of the self-unfolding mental dynamics for the information «from there».
In the third, correct image of a pray: «Having non-care about any thing, benedictive and non-benedictive, conscience pure in everything that it did not convict you, and impartiality to all mundane — sit down in some silent place, alone, in a corner, shut the door, collect your mind, distract it from every temporal and vain thing, press the beard to the chest (Jalandhar bandha! — V.B.), restrain a little breathing, bring the mind down in your heart, turn there also sensual eyes, and, attending unto it, keep there your mind and try to find by the mind, where is your heart that your mind was perfectly there.
In the beginning you will meet there darkness and rigidity, but then if you round the clock continue this pursuit of attention, you will find there an incessant merriment».
Saint John Lestvichnik assimilates the affair of salvation to a ladder with four rungs: some people tame and weaken passions (analogy to karma yoga), others pray by their lips and sing (mantra yoga), and others practice in a clever pray (something average between mantra and karma yoga), others ascend to apparition (dhyana or samadhi yoga).
Saint Theophan: « When this grace of the Holy Spirit gets on somebody it shows not anything usual from things of this sensual world, but something what he who never saw and did not imagine».
It is appropriate to present A. Maslow’s statement about opposite types of perception: «One can speak about attention either as about a fresh… reaction of an individual to unique properties of an object or as about attempt to subordinate an external (or internal) reality to some classification pre-established in consciousness of the individual. In the second case we deal not with knowledge of the world, but with recognition in it of those features which we ourselves have given it. Such kind of «knowledge» is blind to dynamics and novelty, it is more like rationalization of the last experience, attempt to keep the status quo… The classifying perception does not leave any opportunity for correction of mistakes. What once has got under a rubric, remains as a rule there forever» («Motivation and Personality», p. 287, 292).
Saint Ignatius portrays an ideal Christian so: «Because of an incessant pray the ascetic comes in spiritual poverty (from here: «Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven»). Being accustomed incessantly to ask for the help of God, he gradually loses his hope upon himself. This sensation can little by little intensify up to such degree that eye of the mind will clearer see God in His Providence, rather than the eye sees subjects of the world. The incessant pray brings in holy simplicity, making the mind drop the habit of various thinking (i.e. inhibition of intellectual activity becomes constant), keeps it always in poverty and humility of ideas… At last, the worshipper can arrive infancy, commanded by the Gospel, become bum (madman) for Christ’s sake, that is lose the pseudo-personalized mind of the world and receive from God the spiritual mind». It is clear that such prospective looks for the modern person unattractive.
The purpose (today absolutely not actual) of medieval yoga is practically the same as Christian mystics have: the final merge of private soul with integrity of the universe. With that only difference that symbolics and image of deity were not ordered by yogic tradition. Isvara was the abstract god who in ecstasy could appear somehow and in any form (or without this).
What will be, if one continues meditation after initial balance? What will be its results? If to agree with a hypothesis that at self-realization «volume» of consciousness grows, so the following question is logical: till what limits?
Here is necessary a deviation. Stanislav Lem in a futurological work («Sum of Technology», 1968) characterized samadhi as a zero information state, as in it there is ostensibly no gain of the information. Today it is clear that this statement is erroneous. Whence is surprising knowledge of yogins, reached self-realization? What are their extraordinary abilities based on?
Experiences of Delgado have shown: the brain fixes everything what has been perceived from the birth and till now. A huge volume of data comes to it «through eyes and ears, it is practically poorly dependent on desire of the person. His brain, whether the person wants it or not, reacts to this stream» («The Healthy and Sick Brain of the Person», p. 7).
Neurophysiologist Penfield has found out that the irritation of separate sites of the cerebral cortex enables the subject to go anew through the past. Operating epileptics, Penfield influenced by current different sites of the brain and has found out that stimulation of temporal lobes, as a rule, results in that the patient starts to recollect old events in the smallest details.
The repeated stimulation of the same areas of the cortex causes almost identical experiences, but distinguished in detail, as if the information, block embodied in the long-term memory, is read every time a little at another «angle». The most famous physiologist, the founder of the theory of functional systems P.K. Anokhin asserted: «Carefully studying reactions of the brain, we overlook that outside the limits of focus of consciousness there is a huge luggage which can be named memory of the brain; this luggage accumulates within the lifespan and happens, as some hypnotic experiences show, amazingly enduring» («Philosophical Problems of Physiology of the Higher Nervous Activity», p. 453).
The neurophysiology subdivides human memory into a number of «kinds» distinguished according to character, though closely connected: organic, physiological, motor, figurative, verbal — and all this except for operative (voluntary). Today it is considered that memory is distributed on all volume of the brain and consciousness in samyama contacts spontaneously with all its modifications.
The perception and awareness of the wakeful subject is discrete; the general flow of information is perceived (by means of sense organs and perhaps not only by them) continuously. Consciousness has time to snatch out from it only the most actual, moreover — the system mind blocks what it considers necessary.
The contents of memory can be divided conditionally into the conscious information (accessible to voluntary recollection), forgotten and superseded. «All of us had studied a little at a time in something and somehow»; from enormous quantity of the knowledge received in life, the person acquires and can use only a little bit. Acquired accumulates in memory; some part of it being chronically unclaimed, in due course loses energy and leaves under threshold of perception. The essence of samyama (samadhi) contradicts Lem’s statements. At reorganization of psyche, the information really does not come in from outside, it penetrates into consciousness from «terminals» of the unconscious where, as Attila József said, «all our past is in us heaped up». It begins a restoration of old traces; it is formed contact of consciousness with memory of the internal environment.
As even at regular practice of samyama, this process is slow enough, all this time the subject should be outside of society. If to meditate «without discontinuing work», safety of the mind is not guaranteed. One my acquaintance got trained in yoga directly in India, in one of the branches of Bihar school and has during three years reached major triumph. Shortly before the termination of business trip the teacher has given him dhyana diksha (personal meditation), and the guy has told that he will go for it, having returned in Russia. The guru has advised not to tempt providence as practice of the higher stages of yoga absorbs the person without residue. And only after the full end of internal reorganization it will be enough an hour of meditation per day to keep skill, it is already combined with everyday life. During mastering skill attempts of overlapping of the process with an active life in society is a direct way to the madhouse. That the system mind safely integrated into itself consciousness, it should not participate in any parallel processes.
If in the meditative plan everything goes successfully, the person gradually assimilates the most part of the information, perceived consciously during life. Intellectual «calibre» of the subject at the same time varies essentially, there are surprising abilities, for example monks in the Tibetan monasteries remember by heart hundreds volumes of the Canon. The capacity of memory is huge, J. von Neumann has counted up that during average lifetime the brain accumulates about 2,8∙1020 bits of information.
So, we have discussed two stages of internal integration: deliverance from superseded (result of what is balance and acquisition of integrity) and expansion of the memory size (but not consciousnesses!). In samyama power inputs of consciousness are minimal, the most part of combined energy is delegated to the unconscious, its information collections «punch» anamnestic barrier and enter into mental space. In process of successful interaction of both parts of psyche, the perception is optimized, darkenedness disappears, relations with world around are turning to normal, and the person realizes the dark beginning as a component of his nature. In religions of the Old World, Satan quite often was considered as brother of Christ, the reality is impossible without change of oppositions.
It is possible that on certain conditions the deep concentration makes active the leading information structure – the «quasi-crystalline center» of epiphysis («Natural Minerals and Causal Medicine of the Future», p. 79). Simultaneously it is a fragment of the Network of weak interactions, uniting at the field level all simultaneous human beings.
The ancient metaphor shows God as a circle, which center is everywhere, and periphery nowhere. It is unimportant, whence to start and in what way to move to self-realization if actions correspond with nature, we always, everywhere, and from everywhere shall come to the One. The basis of material and spiritual is the same, therefore typical images, sensations, and emotions appear also in samyama. Exorbitant experience has one essence; the difference is only in the description interpreted as a rule within the framework of intellectual and cultural luggage of the person and his denominational background.
Exupéry said: «The human, being beyond his powers in order to comprehend variety of the world, acquires a number of small, one-sided truths and then fights with all his strength against the others, with their exactly the same small one-sided truths».
Physics comprehended laws of structure of matter in an abstract experimental way, with the help of devices. Mystics and yogins went in an experimental way, using for this purpose themselves.
Both those and others have faced the challenge of influence of the observer on the researched process (object) and had differently overcome it: the first opened dissipative structures and Gödel’s theorem, the second created yoga, having transformed vigil consciousness in the detector receiver with a minimum level of interference. Results of physicists and «lyricists» proved in whole to be identical; the first formulated laws theoretically, with the following verification, mystics experienced them directly in experiment.
Physics have had to face dynamic vacuum, basis of substance turned out emptiness, intra-atomic distances are monstrously huge in comparison with the sizes of nucleus and electrons. But what level of unity do yogins and mysticism handle with? Even if it was possible to receive contact – what do we encounter?
Texts and evidences prove that one should not stay in samadhi for a long time. «… The person is not capable to prolong this completeness — lightnings of truths cannot be stretched in the long and flat sun which would be of itself suspended in the sky… and it would guaranteedly, long enough time… show us the truth» («Psychological Topology of Way», p. 394).
In the morning everyone wakes up himself only because in the unconscious there is a mechanism «activating» consciousness, it works also after a faint and a deep inhibition in yoga.
After clinical death (especially repeated) the structure of psychosomatics changes, there is specific skin pallor and extrasensory perception. Researcher people connect it with the once-only destruction of a big number of the brain cells, first of all – of cortex, whose constant information «noise» muffles the «whisper» of the unconscious. Samadhi also borders on death; in its «vicinities» there are hardly probable intrapsychic events. Just at the moment of contact with the One the «rest» of consciousness feels itself as an absolute reference system what makes an indelible impression upon an unripe intellect, generating complex of selectedness.
Having passed the backtracking point, one can get in Маhаsamadhi, «short circuit» on infinity. In flash of dissolution the subject instantly realizes all world communications, but the ego at such load breaks irreversibly up. The person does not come any more in consciousness, having remained in «sacred madness»; sometimes the body together with the mind perishes too. A qualitative practice of Hatha Yoga is the original anchor, providing to psyche the necessary stability.
Contact with the One was always accessible to a rather limited number of people. The state of enlightenment is liberation from mental restrictions: «Desires of a self-actualized person do not come into conflict with the mind» («Motivation and the Person», p. 258).
«Thus, if the problem is set to unite structures of subconsciousness, consciousness, and superconsciousness (of Network or the One – V. B.) to a united structure, so it means aspiration to integration of structures of different ages: the slowed tempo-world of subconsciousness, usually current world of consciousness, and dying tempo-world of superconsciousness. Structures appear in one tempo-world instead of simply «to come to the surface» or «to sink». United tempo instead of united level — that can unite them. (It is clear from here, why the mental space should be empty. First, consciousness is inhibited, i.e. its «speed» is lowered and equalized with intensity of processes of the unconscious. Second – for the information «coming to the surface» from depths there should be a place where to go out, be located. Thirdly – combined energy of psyche starts also — at deactivation of consciousness — process of diffusion from the unconscious into the empty space of consciousness — V.B.).
We know that at some stage the wave of synchronization and harmonization of processes (in system — V.B.) appears and starts to move on. Communications with the past, with the weak and thin world, with subconsciousness are restored. The realized consciousness is in fact only a «spotlight» which highlights, controls, holds in clearness only a small share of a huge cargo of the past, only «the top of an iceberg», an insignificant part of an enormous information collection of all information perceived by the brain.
The contact of tempo-worlds can take place, when weak and slow processes start to flame up, and intensively developing structures, on the contrary, to spread. Quickly developing structures of superconsciousness can «feed» the slow and by that to promote maturing of a spontaneous impulse of subconsciousness for its going out on the surface of consciousness.
Let’s note one more paradoxical feature of meditation experience. As a result of calming the mind and synchronization of processes, a supercomplex structure reflecting complexity of the world is created on the brain field. But it is extremely difficult to verbalize and to share this experience with another. In fact to transmit this structure, one should reflect it on the same supercomplex basis, the basis of language, education, culture, which (basis) still is not present. And therefore experience of mediation and enlightenment remains purely individual, basically incommunicable, perhaps, even socially useless (as Meister Eckhart said — the grace has not any effect — V.B.). «Only a general sensation remains by an enlightened being, it occurs recrystallization of his personality» («Foundations of Synergetics», p. 232).
There is known a sad result of attempt of the Pentagon to use a feedback for training of pilots of the Air Force. One had created a computer simulator simulating air fights with absolute reliability. During its operation there were a number of cases, when after switching-off of the equipment testees lapsed into a coma, to help them out from which was not possible. What can influence so shatteringly on the healthy guy who, outside of doubt, any American pilot is? Apparently the cumulative mind considers instant change of the reality a catastrophe, disconnecting consciousness in the background of a full somatic well-being. One of the participants of the project realyoga.ru: « I can share experience: I and my friend had in the beginning of 1990, in Moscow, got it in the neck as influence of one of the first models of the virtual world. The stay of half an hour’s duration in it was enough in order at least else two hours to bow and scrape and to keep closer to walls since the sensation of unreality «pressed», first of all, on motor coordination. Though if to remember closely also other systems were on the verge of …».
There are known experiments when the testees put on eyeglasses overturning the world head over heels. In the beginning there was the strongest dizziness and loss of orientation, but after a while the visual analyzer changed its ways, and the person again started to see the world as usually. When eyeglasses were removed, there again came destabilization, and then visual function was restored. In other words, a deep reorganization of perception demands time and physical immovability.
Castaneda asserted that Toltec can «receive» perception of any living creature, but it is stuff and nonsense, as perception mechanisms of different animal species have various physical characteristics. Besides, parameters of the human sensory perception are constant. The idea of human brain transplantation in the body of an elephant has remained a fantasy just because the center is incompatible with foreign periphery (A. Belyaev’s story «Hoyti-toyti»). M. Erikson disordered perception of testees under hypnosis and has found out that « … the Induction of disorders in any chosen modality of behavior should most likely be accompanied by disorders in other modalities» («Strategy of psychotherapy», p.198). Suggested deafness resulted in memory disorder, sight, and spatial perception, sometimes to nausea, dizziness, and local anesthesia that is to disorders of tactile perception. Ericson’s conclusion: « … the Induction of hypnotic deafness of a normal subject can lead to appearance of other various disorders in behavior. These additional displays make apparently a part of the induction process of disorder of sound perception or are expression of disbalance of psychophysiological functions of the organism, generated by such disorder» (ibid, p. 194).
The same occurred actually at the suggested blindness. Partly it coincides with the characteristic of states at instant change of «point of assembly» (Castaneda), but in Erickson’s experiments there is a moment, obviously contradicting the Toltec one, namely: before the change of perception, the preliminary catalepsy and full physical immovability was always developed in combination with anesthesia. In short, reorganization of perception is incompatible with body movement in space and with involvement into any parallel (simultaneous) external processes (actions).
Let’s describe the most frequently meeting variants of interaction of the subject with the One.
The first — self-realization by karma yoga. Personalities of genius have undoubtedly access to archetypical and also possess abilities for expression of experienced revelations. Lao Tsi, the Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, and others had created masterpieces of spirit. Geniuses, whose names have not been kept by history, had invented bronze, wheel, bow, and the arched dome. Leaders, reformers, and conquerors use archetypical energy for excitation of peoples.
The second – bhakti yoga, contact with deity through religious ecstasy; young Ramakrishna fell into a trance, having seen a flight of white cranes on the background of a black thundercloud. Mystics belong to this group; they add nothing new to the world, but have an influence on the masses. It should be noted that ecstasy of bhakti as well as adoration in the Jesus Prayer is a contact with the known beforehand, ordered Divine deity.
The third variant, which is studied in the given book, is Raja yoga, a universal and unique technology of autotuning.
The fourth — catastrophes of the body and consciousness (including «blunders» at the illiterate use of psychotechnics). In this case, even coming back to a more or less normal state, people are not capable to benefit from their experience.
The fifth — the janyana yoga, creation of thought products with the material embodiment or without it; these are digesters, great writers, philosophers, musicians, painters, and scientists.
The sixth area: «the invention of bicycles». These include an infinite number of «therapies», «systems», «doctrines», and also some crazy ideas of small-minded schizoid conceptuators. Unfortunately, the tendency of positive development of yoga, taken shape at the end of 1980th years in Russia, had failed. It had clearly been said by the first and sole president of Association of yoga of the USSR:
To the president of the Philosophical Society of the USSR, academician I.T. Frolov
« Dear Ivan Timofeevich!
On initiative of the Moscow branch of the Philosophical Society of the USSR, section «Philosophical problems of psyche regulation, self-improvement and human spare capacity», Ministry of Health, and Goskomsport of the USSR, it has been formed the «Association of Yoga of the USSR» (the founder is the FS of the USSR) on October, 21, 1989 in Moscow at the first All-Union theoretical and practical conference «Yoga: problems of health improvement and self-improvement of the person». Over a period of the formal existence (organizational formation) it was found out that:
1) There is no ground for creation of the «Association of Yoga of the USSR», as there are not enough qualified personnel for yoga in the Soviet Union;
2) The majority of members of the created Association have deformed and sometimes false impression of yoga as of a health-improving system;
3) In the majority the Association is made by the persons, seeing in yoga first of all a source of a profit.
Besides, it is known: specificity of yoga is such that its teaching demands not only high qualification; the slightest discrepancies in teaching methods can appear fatal for health of the person.
The population shows mass interest to physical training of yogins and addresses for the help, but the given Association cannot by virtue of the reasons, stated above, provide performance of the first precept of medicine: «Do no harm».
I as the specialist in Indian culture, member of the FS of the USSR, suggest the Philosophical society of the USSR to refuse founding of the «Association of Yoga of the USSR» as appeared unable to performance of the problems, set before it.
Instead of this Association there is a real opportunity to found an Association of the smaller scale, which defines its goal first of all training for the qualified teachers, instructors, the edition of manuals, methodical instructions, etc. The Organizations: «Soyuzgiprovodkhoz», scientific production association «Contact», the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions have expressed the oral consent to become founders. The constituent assembly is planned for leading at the end of February of this year».
Professor V.V. Brodov 5.02.1990
The idea of the Russian enthusiasts about true yoga is substantially profaned by foreign (yoga of Iyengar, Astanga Vinyasa) as well as domestic falsifiers («Academy of Yoga» of Ar Santam, «Institute for Patanjali Yoga» of Reznichenko, etc.), and also by the schizogenic creativity of separate representatives of the fraternal people of Ukraine. Efforts of such outstanding persons as B.L. Smirnov and V.V. Brodov did not make the weather on the information front, and I hope that the given book even a little will serve correction of this sad situation.
And, at last, the seventh area, studying and utilization of processes of the unconscious outside of yoga context — Freud, Adler, Reich, Fromm, and others. Carl Gustav Jung, a nonesuch, whose search has inspired also the author of these lines, stays at a distance from others. He asserted, in my opinion, a disputable idea: the ultimate goal of mental development is self-sufficiency, such degree of counterbalancing, which minimizes activity of the individual.
If to compare the mystical Buddhism and the Christian grace, so the following turns out:
— «I live, now not, but Christ lives in me » (he is me) – St. Paul;
— «You learn that you are the Buddha » (I am he) — «The Treatise about Meditation of Amitabha» (424 A.D.).
In the first case, «the glass is half empty», in the second — half full. Whether is it necessary to break lances, especially, in conditions of freedom of conscience and belief? Everyone receives the result, if it is true, so it is the same. Lying are «teachers», preaching their personal way, so long as each person is unique.
It is considered that self-realization saves from sufferings. It is an illusion, it minimizes them and changes the attitude to them, withdraws from space of the facts in the «world behind the looking-glass», creating a special organ of perception and communications, not coinciding with sense organs, given by nature. Usually the person feels in one world, but thinks in another, this gap is insuperable and generates suffering, yoga is one of the most effective ways of bridge building between these worlds.
Perfection is an abstract concept, everyone puts in it what he knows, wants and of what he is capable. In history of the domestic aircraft there was a test pilot, one of the few who has died a natural death, and — there’s no precedent for this!!! – he flied seventeen years with one eye. It is Sergey Nikolayevich Anokhin. During test flights he repeatedly got in critical situations which left alive and healthy — with the exception of eye. But the most interesting is that at the following analysis of these situations already on the ground there was not even theoretical opportunities of rescue. And the person over and over again got out of such situations. The question: «How?» — could not be answered by him. It is probably an example of the exclusive communications of that base with the body.
And in conclusion of the essay about samyama there are three sketches. The first is the prosaic one, from L.V. Shaposhnikova’s book («Years and Days of Madras», p. 334):
«So, you are here (in Pondicherry — V.B.) quite happy?»
«Yes, yes!» — confirmed Ambu. «I feel happy and rich already because I can do others happy and bring them joy». «How do you bring them joy?»
«You know», — said Ambu, taking me confidentially by the hand, «yoga gymnastics brings to people joy. It makes your body healthy, mobile, and enduring. And it is always cheerfully for understanding. The person, practicing such gymnastics, always keeps an equal, good mood, does not get irritated, and treats others, even insignificant people, as his friends».
The second is the poetic one:
«The moon has risen above a Gothic fir grove; and with a wise man and Dutch eremite, the truth sings and dances in a ring over freezing waters. I shall look into its face, but hold out, and shall try to rescue you, clamping precious resinous needle in hollow of the hot hand».
The third is the philosophical: «Yoga of Patanjali formulates the methods of achievement of deeper functional levels. Many of us pass through life with half-closed eyes, with an obscured mind and heavy heart; and even those few which once had had rare moments of enlightenment and awakening, fall quickly again into a dormant state. It is pleasant to learn that ancient thinkers called us to remain alone with themselves, to realize in silence opportunities of the soul and to transform that flashing, that dying away moments of enlightenment into steady light which could illuminate long years of our life» («The Indian Philosophy», vol. 2, p. 329).