Chapter 4
Antoine de Saint Exupery
Homo sapiens is an omnivorous mammal of average sizes who on a strange whim of the nature had received the ability to reflection (self-awareness). What is the life? It is a constant effort to remain alive. The main objective of life is to save and reproduce conditions of its persistence. The person interacts with surroundings contacting with it (as old Indian philosophers considered) by idea, speech, and the body. The term «communications» means an information exchange. «Any knowledge can be passed by sign and logic means having designed and having informed a thought in a corresponding language structure assuming that any person in the point of the transmitted knowledge can recreate the subject to which it concerns, and make sure by experience of the sense of the transmitted knowledge» (M.Mamardashvili, «Psychological topology of the way», p. 170). That is an information, which is passed from the subject to the subject changing the condition and expanding opportunities of the person apprehended it. R. Tagore interpreted the truth as «An open dialogue which ideal does not consist in the achievement of an independent reality, but in the achievement of the consent between «universal human mind» and «individual» mind expressing this or that concrete point of view» («Time, Chaos, Quantum», p. 47). The verbal communications is an interaction by means of speech; and not without reason ancient Greeks considered that the barbarian is a person without language.
Usually by means of dialogue, people want to understand each other, passing the other side the essence of their ideas and intentions. However, at the same time by means of language, as if on purpose and unconsciously, it is possible to hide successfully the truth («the spoken thoughtis a lie»); therefore simultaneously with speech there was a problem of the information reliability. As both the true and the false message consist of the same words, it is clearly that the sense (truth) is not contained in words. The one who perceives the information should have a certain property allowing to separate the essence from «hundreds tons of verbal ore» for example the life experience (the collected information) or knowledge of laws.
To avoid fatal mistakes, the person irrespective of the form and language of the message should understand in a greater degree than not understand the essence of the perceived information; it is a problem, which continuously should be solved by everyone. What one names the destiny depends on the degree of efficiency of the communications (intercourse) with the external world and accepted decisions (and also from the case).
The quality of interpersonal contacts is defined by:
— The emotional tone adequate to the best mutual susceptibility;
— A repeated rewording of the explained material;
— A minimum of special terms;
— A maximum of metaphoricalness.
The traditional Indian yoga is a technology of bridging I, or ego, with your own body and the unconscious; it is a practice which knowledge cannot be received directly, it is not reportable, words are only an equivalent filled with the real sense when in use. When during any activity the preliminary information proves to be true and is been specifying, we begin to comprehend the full truth (concerningonly this kind of activity). The truth is always single and indivisible, but the way to it is unique, as the person had always to receive and accumulate experience independently.
The large-scale involvement, which the interest to yoga has recently gained, forces closely to look at the quality of services offered in this sphere. Visiting lessons demands costs of time, forces, and means, but whether the received result is useful, harmful, or neutral, is far from being clearly at once. And even if a person sees – something is here not so — someone had already had time to earn on him. Veritable, helpful information saves from senseless actions and damage, opening laws and restrictions incorporated in the nature of things while the false one gives unreasonable hopes.
Basis of the civilization had become another than by animals way of accumulation and storage of the information, and the timeless access to it. The part of mentality called the personality, manages an especially human way of the communications – the speech.
From the moment when a humanoid had said about himself «I», the mentality, as Jung had noted, was divided into consciousness and the unconscious. Today the quality of interaction between these two parts of the single mental space leaves much to be desired. The total mind concealed in the unconscious part of mentality cannot «evoke a response from» the person involved in a stream of continuous actions, imposed by the society and desires.
The consciousness is a rigid structure, but the rigidity limiting degrees of the freedom saves at the same time stability. For securing a psychosomatic balance, the conscious behaviour should be replaced according to the situation by the instinctive one. It is obvious that just this function realized in the past by mysteries and pagan rites carry today out alcohol and drugs. The unsound mind either generates the irrationality itself (affective behaviour, mental illnesses, boundary conditions), or scoops it from the outside (fairy tales, fantasy, esoterics).
If the body is a cover hiding the device of life-support and its job, so the consciousness is a «surface» of mentality. When the body is overloaded, it signals that by displays, which cannot be ignored for a long time. The unconscious has an absolute completeness of the information, but has no access to the behaviour; consciousness commands the body and its behaviour, not possessing completeness of the information. Without an optimum contact between them, the reflection of the reality by the subject cannot be adequate. The more we are involved in the process of the infinite satisfaction of desires the more destructive its consequences are for us and the surroundings. A fragment is not capable to understand and take into account interests of the whole. Behaviour of ego forces to recollect a cancerous growth when the «enraged» cell loses structural orientation and starts uncontrollablely to share perishing then together with the organism. That the life of the subject has found harmony, it is necessary to create conditions under which the unconscious can most productively contact with consciousness.
We will list now the basic kinds of the communications:
I. The subject — the nature.
For the preservation of health and mental well-being, the person needs a constant contact with the nature, which part he is. Teachers of the junior school in Japan cancel in the spring lessons that children could admire the blossoming Oriental cherry. « … The activity based on paradigms produced by a civilization leads to the irreversible degradation of biosphere and is not capable to guarantee preservation of the person in its structure. That is why the human race can survive only at the change of main principles and the beginnings of the civilization. And that is possible only under conditions of the most severe self-restriction and the collective discipline» («The Destiny of the Civilization», p. 24). Interaction of the civilization with the nature is a sad chronicle of the continuous destruction of the last called «alteration in human interests». In response to that, the nature generates destructive kinds of indemnification: «If to use the language of modern synergetics, the biosphere and the society had entered into the mode of process with an aggravation. After that, as a theory asserts, the disaster will follow with an unpredictable outcome» (ibidem). Admiring the scenery changes nothing in the fact that the Japanese looking touchingly after his personal garden receives dividends from the dirty manufactures located outside his country. He, as well as hundred millions others, does not wish to know that all is interconnected in the world and that is why «Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for you» (John Donn).
II. The consciousness — society. The communications of the individual with relatives is carried out by means of the speech and the text.
III. The consciousness — the consciousness (reflection, thinking).
It is an interaction of the person with his last experience, a mental scrolling of situations, analysis, estimations, conclusions, planning, prognostics, and imagination. The reflection can be combined to some extent with the physical activity, but productive reflections are not compatible with it. It is in part the opposite communications, the reference to the data of memory.
IV. The consciousness — the body.
There are some kinds of experience here.
1). Imprinted in the unconscious the information on changes of the body during growth, at traumas and operations. The integrity is the main condition of the survival; therefore, the physical memory is absolute;
2) Perception of the own organism during satisfaction of needs of the nature;
3) Specific experience — sports, circus, choreography, ballet, medical researches and operations;
4) The pathological communications of consciousness with an internal «kitchen» of psychosomatics concealed usually from perception (neuroses, borderline state);
5) Hatha-Yoga, which temporarily blocks movements at three levels:
— The physical one — fixation of the body’s form in asana;
— The functional one (Pranayama reducing considerably the frequency of breathing);
— The mental one – inhibition of the usual activity of mind.
There is no samadhiaccompanied by an unconditioned movement. The immersing of ego-consciousness in depth of psyche demands the exception of any physical activity for this time. And if it is combined with it then only in the initial stage of the concentration. For example, the perception of racing yogis(lung-gom-pa) is inhibited in all aspects, except for keeping the direction and taking into account the relief.
For meditation, only those asanas are suitable in which one can save the physiological immovability for a long time (absence of jolting in the body as Sutras say).
The strategic purpose of yoga is a creation of conditions for spontaneous contact of the unconscious with consciousness during what the last comes to the state of systemness, becomes enlightened. Except for that, asanas practicingin silence of the mind (without which it turns to usual physical culture) provides:
— The recovery of the body’s and soul’s health;
— The dissolution of sensations releasing channels (ports) of perception for a free entry of the information from the unconscious into the space of consciousness, at the same time the body is saved from traumas;
— The unloading of the destructive energy of displaced mental «material» from subconsciousness.
Releasing of the spontaneous mental activity and leaving the obvious physical sensations — these are two main problems, which should be solved in practicing of asanas. The condition of the spontaneous infiltration displaced from subconsciousness (and then from the deeper layers of mentality) in the mental space is silence (emptiness) of the last. «Only after mind will be released from contact with the body, it will be ready for the meditation» (from an interview with B.К.S. Iyengar: «The Psychological Review», №1, 1998, p. 113).
Ego detached in the defective little space of own ideas is an absolute weapon waging a total war against all, until by means of yoga or somehow else a precise comprehension will come that you are a part of the whole, which cannot be infringed, not having caused at the same time harm to himself. The understanding of such reality is an initial stage of the enlightenment, an individual becomes a useful element of the society.
Yogic fakirism (see «Six Columns», p. 317 — 320) is a limiting development of the communications «consciousness — body» when the subject receives an opportunity without visible negative consequences to interfere intentionally in work of the vegetative automatics.
V. The unconscious — consciousness (feedback, meditation).
Phase A – release of the superseded, realized by various methods:
1). NLP (neurolinguistic psychology) – here the interaction as though answers the requirement of spontaneity, the intermediary only «presses buttons» of modalities. However, he personally defines tempo and activity of transformation what is dangerous, as only Milton Ericson himself owned the method with an absolute guarantee.
2). Yoga-Nidra, here conditions are formed by a voice from the outside; however it is impersonal and does not define the content of contact.
3). Practice of asanasand accompanying it a fine-tuning of some share of dumping through the body.
4). Transpersonal techniques providing the temporal relaxation of the pathological «stuffing» of subconsciousness.
Phase B: the communications «the forgotten — consciousness». After dumping of the superseded the subliminal material begins to come into consciousness what usually looks as the return of contents of the memory.
When the integrity of mentality is restored, the further contact of ego with its deep layers can be continued in the meditation demanding a predisposition, the belief, a competent management and huge expenses of time. At this stage of the inverse communications, the subjective material is exhausted. Everything, with what ego has further to deal, is perceived and fixed not by the person, but by the systemic mind.
Classical experiments of Delgadohave shown that at the stimulation of separate sites of the cerebral cortex, the subject experiences anew and one for one episodes of the bygone reality. Hence, engrams (record of the whole information having passed through organs of perception) exist. The first question: Is it possible «to pull them out»? The second question is: what for? The subcortex fixes the whole stream of influences from the outside at a rather limited participation of consciousness; this process is realized by the most ancient structures of the brain. It is not improbable that this array of the registered information is a binding bridge between the archetypical and the personal unconscious, something like the ether in cosmology. Impulses of instincts, promptings, inherently fixed reactions “come to the surface” through these surroundings from the primitive biological darkness. In process of the advancement «from below upwards», in each layer of the mentality, there is their transformation with the final subsequent refraction «on the output» into the greatest human values and cultural behaviour.
VI. The archetypical — consciousness (the Single — the subject).
Eventually consciousness can contact the basis (matrix) of mentality, which is not perceived at all by the individual; perhaps it is the final enlightenment. «The ways of immortals’ art training assume aspiration for calmness and pacification, pure and feeble, for cleansing and deliverance from passions, for the internal vision and the inverse hearing…» («Baopu-zi», p. 38-39)
The brain of an individual is a fragment of a timeless substance of his/her genus, which is, on the one hand, presented by the unique ego (neocortex), on the other hand, by subcortex and autonomic nervoussystem (ANS), biological «devices». A «chip» of the web of weak interactions, at which activation siddhas arise, has been hidden perhaps just in structures of the brain. Such activation happens at accidents of the body and consciousness, and as well in samyama, at the inhibition of the cerebral cortex the wakefulness potential of which usually «chokes up» signals of the subcortex. The mentioned «chip» produces the symbolical material showed to consciousness in inspiration, dreams, hallucinations, presentiments, intuition. «On steel, a marble and a tree with hand attentive sliding, I passed — and the flesh did not believe that it is impossible their depths to comprehend. I heard clearly radiations – sometimes more hidden, sometimes more hot – by a passionate as a creation of the genius, nude surface of things. I knew: that was a vague echo of living, boiling myriads, whose minute touch’s hands the subjects are carefully storing. But I have penetrated with my wise touch still immensely more deeply: to the bottom, in the abysses alien to names and rubrics «good» and «evil». That layer binds humankind to the primary bosom of being; perhaps, in ancient temples the hieratic priesthood whispered about it concealing sense. However, the name that gaseous how I can squeeze in a firm crunch of speeches? Words are for that in order to mean the various. They are not for the general darkness of things» (Daniel Andreev).
Archetypical images and ideas generated by the unconscious form the basis of all world religions, but everyone interprets them in his own way.
The basic function of consciousness is an adequate contact with the environment (perception) and personal experience (memory), but not less important is a qualitative interaction of the subject with own unconscious! In mentality of the person, two multidirectional informational flows circulate constantly (and perhaps simultaneously!):
1. The part of the information perceived from the outside by sense organs is realized, leaves deep into, and «settles» in various kinds (layers) of memory. The rest of it (and perhaps everything at all, with duplication) is fixed in the unconscious by the systemic mind.
2. The results of extraconscious processing of this information and signals actual for subjective well-being from soma emerge in ego-consciousness being summarized with its mental «product». As far as «advancing» of system to the state of the integrity (non-duality), the quantity of the superseded decreases or reaches an optimum «size», but it does not mean the abolition of the given part of the mental mechanism at all.
«The spatial configuration of a complex evolutionary structure is informative. The time in this structure is as though removed. It means that various time stages of the evolution are present in it in a transformed kind (are simultaneously overcome and kept): «impressed» into its architecture» («The Foundations of Synergetics», p. 138).
So, on the one hand, the person is negligibly small and instant, on the other hand, has a potential opportunity for contact of his mind with a timeless and extra spatial essence (according to D. Bom it is a folded, implicative level), essence of all, the One. The main aspect of this contact is the brightest, shattering experience of a banal true: each living being (as well as the nonliving matter) is a part of the boundless unity. The whole visible and perceived by us material world is nothing more than «waves» of different size and the degrees of a hierarchical nesting arising spontaneously on the «surface» of underlying cause of the Universe. The character of interaction with this underlying cause defines the size and the importance of its consequences for the subject. The developed form — each concrete person — saves a specific communication with «matrix» (continuum, Web, the One). Such communication becomes active under special conditions, which can arise both casually and be created intentionally (yoga). Nevertheless, the developed functions under its laws, levels of the reality do not cross, already Meister Ekhart had known that the grace can be experienced and understood, but it does not act in the physical world. Nevertheless, all is divided and detached only at the visible level. Actually, each of us and all around are only temporal «flashes» of being in the concrete form (design). Any such form – a local object of the living or inanimate world — falls to pieces in some time, the substance of uncountable quantity of such disintegrations mixes stochastically up. Then the underlying cause gives a new impulse to this «mix» generating new forms. And this process is infinite. Between the generating and generated forms of one kind, which were in a long direct contact, the nonlocal interrelation is saved for all their life. Sometimes the contact of ego with the world underlying cause gives a powerful incentive to the displaying the latent abilities, but in any case the world outlook and actions of the person vary in comparison with what they had been earlier, getting a systemic (ecological) character. It is impossible to say this about those, who having prayed to their pocket God, throw out plastic rubbish into ocean, or beat the undesirables with cruise missiles.
The person, which survived contact, but not possessing the creative potential loses as a rule interest to the world and is obsessed with an infinite recurrence of that sort of experience. Such behaviour is similar to reaction of experimental rats, which get implanted electrodes in «the centers of pleasure».
Perhaps therefore, India did not become a cradle of technical progress, while yogis and rishi comprehended the One exclusively in aspect of inhibition of guna rajas, their enlightenments were not realized in operation. The unbreakable rest of the full enlightenment is a version of the death, which has outstripped the natural one. Not without reason, Vedantaasserts that the state of jivanmukta(liberated even when alive, see Dictionary ofterms) is reached only after death of the body. On the other hand, if the western mentality does not acquire the systemic character, expenses of the civilization’s development will become irreversible.
One of the steps on the way to nirvana is characterized by the termination of experience of beatitude after which the feeling of suffering disappears too. If the worlds of the first levels of the contemplation are connected in yoga of Hinayana with the reality so the followings are chaotic fluctuations of mentality. The Buddha had rejected this phantasmagoria and left into nirvana from the fourth level of the world of forms. He ignored the game of phantoms because of its applied barrenness, despite of the fact that a higher metaphysical status was attributed to it. Tathagatawas a pragmatist, and first he was interested in the balanced state and the emotional invulnerability allowing the person to live through sansara effectively.
The Buddha knew well two deadlock kinds of samyama: dissolution of ego in mental phantoms and «infection» by the Absolute. The existential indifference of the Enlighteneds often leads to loss of all kinds of activity by them except for one — involving of associates on the way of enlightenment.
In the most general sense, samadhiis treated as non-duality, the unity with all things in existence. Maha-samadhi is a full stopping of personal time, physical death. Other forms of life utilize the material cover, and the Web utilizes the thin substratum of consciousness. During the lifetime of the body, consciousness of the individual is an element of the field of strong interactions.
VII. Religious belief — consciousness, imitation of contact with the One. Whence do we learn about God in whom one should believe? Certainly from surrounding people and subjects of culture. The belief is a conviction of existence of the unprovable. Its roots are trustworthy; the object is illusory. The images recognized as divine are not a reflection of the reality, but exclusively a mental «production». The miracles, which do not concede to the fakir ones, are shown to us by hysteria and manic-depressive psychosis. Researches have shown that in the stage of an aggravation, schizophrenics possess a very high level of the prognostic abilities, which in process of recovery (if any) is reduced up to the usual one.
So, we have considered seven versions of the communications:
1) Consciousness — nature — the direct communications with the world of the surrounding nature;
2) Consciousness — society — the same with society and its artefacts;
3) Consciousness — consciousness — reflection, consciousness uses memory and stays in itself;
4) Consciousness — body — the communications between consciousness and organism;
5) The return communications — infiltration in the space of consciousness of information blocks from the superseded one;
6) Contact of the subject with the Web — emission of the archetypical material into consciousness;
7) Ideal communications – the communications of consciousness with the phantoms generated by mentality at regular «warming up» (expected result programming) by belief.
Today everyone has an opportunity to receive the moment of true using yoga for reunion of the person with its basis (soul) and the world essence.