"In actual fact," the master explained, "a yogi, or yoginī, is just one type of religious ascetic who is searching for an end to suffering. Speaking metaphorically, the goal of all religions is to reach the summit of a glorious mountain. Yoga is just one path among many. Though yoga is not a religion in itself, it has always been adopted, adapted, and applied by all religions [Note 1].
Broadly speaking, the Vedic term yoga pertains to any form of asceticism or meditative technique, including prayer [2]. Though methods and philosophies differ greatly, the various paths approach the same goal. To embrace all religions is to fully comprehend that we are not alone in our need to surmount human suffering; it is universal.
"But don't be misled," he warns. "A practitioner of yoga is by no means required to retire from the secular world, sever all relations with human society, and dwell in the seclusion of a comfortless cave. [One] can go on leading a fully active mundane existence..."
As early as 1900, the French savant Emile Senart concluded that: It was on the terrain of yoga that the Buddha arose; whatever innovations he was able to introduce into it, the mold of yoga was that in which his thought was formed [5].
With the Buddhist doctrine, yoga was connected from the beginning, because it was the way by which the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, [searched before he] found deliverance [8].
Conventionally, yogis have approached the goal of emancipation by two principal paths. One is the path of metaphysical knowledge [jnana or nyana, not to be mistaken with jhana, "absorption"]. The other is the path of ascetic practice. The first of these approaches is often called viveka [withdrawal], or "the razor's edge path of sage discrimination."
The second approach is usually distinguished by its penchant for exploring the myriad states of human consciousness through yogic practices. Now, as for yoga and the majority of the Buddhist schools, greater underscoring is normally given to the ascetic path of yoga practice.
Gautama's path was very similar to this. But "during his period of yoga training he experienced such powerful feelings of happiness and joy [sukha and piti] that he began to regard them as dangerous and something to be avoided. He overcame this unfounded fear and began to strengthen his weakened body -- to prepare the ground for his re-discovered remedy which was joy (ānanda).
"He had previously believed that the heightened agony of self-mortification was the only valid means to liberation. Yet now in contrast, he understood that the peaceful joy of a concentrated mind was the finer path for him to follow" (Lama Anāgārika Govinda) [9].
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| Yogic chakras, and kundalini (yogapranayama.com) |
One cannot be blind to the obvious fact the Buddhist religion was born in India, that epochal land of world renunciation where philosophers, ascetics, and a vast array of religious visionaries have long set their sights on a pristine spontaneity called
moksha (liberation) or
nirvāna.
- [Neither Afghanistan nor Nepal would have been "India." There was no united India at that time, just 16 independent and warring states or provinces called maha-janapadas, "the great footholds of the clans," extended family conquests groups tried to hold. The Buddha came from the frontiers of this collection of independent states.]
Nor can one forget that in its primacy, the Buddha's Doctrine [Dharma] was not conceived as a new religion. What is widely regarded today as "Buddhism," should actually be viewed as the natural outgrowth of a great cenobitical heritage dating back roughly 3,000 years.
- [There was no "religion" in India. That concept was introduced by the British, who insisted on calling the many and disparate views of the Indus River civilization "Indu-ism," taking unrelated spiritual practices and calling them a religion.]
It is also apparent that the Buddha himself foresaw and feared the eventual error of his yogic movement transforming itself into a full-blown religious cult. Attempting to forestall this inevitable distortion, Gautama strongly forbade his followers to fashion images of his human form. We know from history that for many generations following the Buddha's physical demise [
parinirvana, final liberation, which was a death nor a rebirth] a tremendous reverence was maintained among his devotees to observe this important prohibition.
Yet slowly and steadily as adherents grew, they began to commemorate him -- not directly, but implicitly, first through memorial burial mounds for the enlightened (
stupas) or for small portions of the Buddha's ashes, later by cut stone bas-reliefs of the figurative Bo tree.
At Sañchi, for example, to handle the Buddha's ineffable being, carved expanses of sea and sky were suggested, around which adoring devotees were shown with their palms pressed together or prostrate. Sometime later at places like Bhārhut and Amarāvatī, as well as at Sañchi, a significant thematic advance was achieved, as the patrons of the arts dared to go a step further and begin to hint at the Buddha's presence through an empty chair or throne.
Other typical representations were a lotus flower, a single pillar, or a juggernaut wheel (
dharma-chakra). Now, the final stage of this circumscribing urge to fashion an image of the great teacher expressed itself through his hallowed footprints as impressed upon a lotus-shaped pedestal.
* * *
In 326 BCE Alexander of Macedonia entered the region of Northwest Pakistan [until 1948's Partition a part of India, which the British annexed to divide Hindus from Muslims and keep them at war with one another], known in those times as Gāndhāra. Gāndhāra's chief city, Taxila (also spelled Takshashila), was wealthy. It had already been a prosperous and well-governed cultural center and an important meeting place of Indian and Mediterranean cultures from the 5th century BCE.
Taxila (not far from present-day Islamabad) was also ancient India's most prestigious seat of learning and a place for rich families to send their [Brahmin] children to be taught by famous teachers. The Greek philosopher Anaxarchus, together with his protégé Pyrrho of Elis, traveled to this region in the train of Alexander's overland invasion.
There they mixed with the odd appearing gymnosophists, or "naked philosophers," plus a whole menagerie of other ascetics [15]. It is curious, however, that returning to Greece, they founded not a school of meditative mysticism, as one might readily expect, but the first Greek school of Scepticism [16].
From the time of this early Mediterranean influence, Indian monarchs and patrons of the arts acquired a passion for Greek sculptural genius. But it still took centuries before Buddha-statuary received large-scale commissions.
- [By then Buddhism had spread to and strongly influenced Bactria and the Indo-Greco world. It is assumed that Greek sculptors Westernized the Buddha's image as seen in Gandhara art. But it seems more likely that that is how the Buddha really looked -- light skinned (golden), blue eyed, tall, and wearing a simple toga like robe covering. His features would have been more Central Asian (Afghan, Iranian, Northwest Indian) than East Asian as he so frequently came to be depicted.]
It was here at Gāndhāra that the world's first anthropomorphic representations of the
Buddha appeared, strongly redolent of Apollo the Orator. This Gāndhāran school of Buddhist sculpture evolved its own artistic style by infusing the prevailing Indian Naturalism with the spirit of Greco-Roman Realism.
Immediately following this Gāndhāran breakthrough, the older
Mathurā school of Indian sculpture, whose centre was located on the banks of the Yamunā River at Mathurā, also succumbed to the irresistible urge to fashion the corporal form of Gautama as the embodiment of nirvāna [17].
In summary, it is crucial to grasp the chronological fact that "the representation of the historical Buddha in human form first took place about the 2nd century of the Christian era" -- that is, about 600 years after Gautama's [final nirvana] parinirvana [18]. It took six long centuries for Buddhists to finally transgress their founder's prohibition and make images of him.
Yet at long last the sentiment of devotion (bhakti) prevailed as the Bauddha-bhaktas or "devotees of the Buddha" surrendered en masse to that huge pan-Indian religious urge to enshrine the mortal form of the immortal -- the embodiment of enlightenment, the supreme personification of holiness (Sanskrit, purushottama).
Buddha and BrahmanNirvāna is the goal, indeed, the summum bonum of all ancient Indian spiritual systems.
- [The Buddha called the Buddhist goal nirvana (complete freedom) to distinguish it from what other teachers and teachings were calling "liberation." The great goal in India is moksha, "liberation," "emancipation," "deliverance," "freedom" from rebirth (samsara). The Vedas, the Brahmin priests, and later Hindus came to confuse their highest goal with Buddhism's highest goal. But the Hindu goal is rebirth in a heaven or plane with Brahma, "God" as a personal being. More sophisticated persons might say with Brahman, "GOD" as an impersonal reality. The Buddha taught that this is in no way an end to rebirth. Any such existence will not be eternal. Only freedom from ALL forms of rebirth can be considered the end of dukkha (disappointment, unsatisfactoriness, suffering). So the Buddha used this unusual but not unheard of term nirvana, "going out." Nowadays it is confounded with any religion's ultimate goal, but it has a very specific meaning in Buddhism. Other religions' definition of the term will necessarily differ according to their understanding of what is the highest state one can attain. The historical Buddha was not the first teacher of nirvana nor will he be the last. All buddhas teach the path to enlightenment and the goal of nirvana as the complete end of rebirth. But Mahayana Buddhism, so thoroughly influenced by modern Hinduism and Vedic Brahmanism, will insist on clothing the historical Buddha's teaching in Vedic Sanskrit terms as if the Buddha only came to validate and disclose the Vedas like Jesus is said to have come to make known the Bible and change not an iota of it. The Buddha radically changed, rejected, added, and explained old views and Vedic traditions. While Hinduism co-opts the Buddha, Buddhism maintains the distinction between what the Buddha came to teach about actual final "liberation" from what all other Indian and Indus Valley Civilization teachers had ever said.]
From the post-Vedic period to our present day, it is important to grasp that throughout this long 3,000 year history, all sincere Indian seekers of the truth, whatever their sectarian persuasions may have been, pursued one thing and one thing alone: a consummate reality beyond human pain. [The ancient Indians found it in heaven.]
What is more, they sought this by means of yoga [union with the divine]. Ernest Wood, an Englishman who spent 38 years studying yoga in India, has explained that the Sanskrit term nirvāna is NOT at all confined to Buddhist scriptures or Buddhist philosophy. [Other traditions use the same word in their own way; therefore, their goals are not the same; they just go by the same name.]
For it was plainly used in pre-Buddhist India and thereby plays a part in all Indian philosophy [19]. [The Buddha did not invent the word. He just gave it a special meaning no one had any idea about, with the exception of the extraordinarily rare pacceka buddhas, who are nonteaching, independently enlightened ascetics.]
Gautama never denied the existence of an unconditioned reality or naked truth, the knowledge of which could usher the boon of emancipation to ignorant man. [The Buddha was, in fact, the first to posit the existence of an "unconditioned reality," which he called nirvana in a unique sense of the word.]
It was just that he showed extreme discretion by declining to openly speak on this in fear that discussion would only obstruct a person's passage to the goal itself. This is why the Buddha categorically denied the possibility of either discussing or experiencing Absolute Truth so long as man was not yet awakened.
Now, if we were allowed to unquestionably assume the veracity of the ancient Pāli scriptures and bar the possibility that the Buddha may have said things unrecorded therein, we could also infer that the Buddha denounced neither doctrines of
ātman (self) nor
brahman (ultimate reality).
- [The Buddha did almost nothing but denounce all doctrines of self. For it is exactly these wrong views that obstruct one from awakening and perceiving the ultimate reality of nirvana, which is the liberating end of all formations and all suffering. We wish for their to be a self above all wishes and that this self carry on for eternity. But the reality is that there is no such self. Buddhas uniquely teach a Dharma unheard of in the world among all its diverse doctrines -- and this is the doctrine of anātman or, in Pali, anatta, "not-self." Hindus like Christians and Muslims believe a "soul" returns to a creator of the universe "God." They call this supreme being Brahma when it is personalized, Brahman when it is not. The ātman is the soul that returns to the "source." The Buddha rejected these notions, but he did not do so as a skeptic, atheist, or materialist. He rejected these common views as a mystic, who saw that reality is so much more of a puzzle than our logic can handle. There is no reasoning our way to ultimate freedom. That liberating vision comes from purification through the systematic development of concentration and liberation through the development of insight.]
Rather, the Buddha only aimed to reproach such professors for their unrestrained loquacity as regards to themes that he felt ought rather be treated as ineffable. Maintaining that
ātman "exists, is real and permanent," was for the Buddha a false assertion.
Conversely, to assert that
ātman "does not exist, is unreal and unlasting," was equally regarded as a false assertion.
- [This in no way is equal! It is ultimately true that there is no self. But conventionally speaking, of course, one speaks of a self as if it were real. Talking in both ways does not nullify either. It may be compared to Newtonian and quantum physics. Each has its place. Both are true. But quantum trumps Newtonian. But quantum equations will not hold on the larger scale of our common experience. In a sense, our "common" experience is not real. There is no use in saying that to those who are not in training to see reality as it really is.]
Yet trying to determine what the Buddha did hold as the ultimate goal of the spiritual seeker, it could only be "freedom" in this very life.
- [Nonsense! Freedom in one life is no freedom at all. What the Buddha calls freedom is freedom from rebirth, freedom in all lives. The ultimate goal of nirvana applies to the life in which one realizes it, which happens during life not after death the way heaven or rebirth are only personally verified after death. Nirvana is experienced now, yet the freedom one gains by realizing it applies both now and in the future.]
Such
a [person] is known as a
jīvan-mukta, a "liberated being" who in the scriptural words of the Buddha himself, "[is] even in this life cut off, nirvān-ized, aware of happiness within himself and living with his soul identified with
brahman or godhead
[20].
- What nonsense! And the quote is not closed. First, there is no soul, no self. This is the teaching of the Buddha. The supreme reality, and we might follow the Vedic system and call it impersonal Brahman, is not identified with. There is nothing enduring to identify with, AND there is no enduring "being" to do any such identifying. This is what is unique about the Buddha's Dharma. This is why it so radically veers from the Vedic Brahmanism and Jainism of the Buddha's day and the Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and scientific Materialism of today.]
The Cosmic Axis
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| Buddhist cosmology of "world-systems" |
Buddhist India was a very different world a millennium after Gautama's passing. A baroque revolution of vast dimension was in full cultural swing. Yogis preached a new alchemical philosophy that was based on the notion of a "cosmic body." Their philosophy also laid tremendous importance on the mystical implications of
prāna as "energy" or "life-force."
This tantric philosophical advancement is seen to have exerted a profound influence on every aspect of Indian cultural life. The varied Buddhist schools were by no means aloof from this amazing pan-Indian revolution.
In the [dubious, apocryphal, non-standard] esoteric text of
Hevajra-Tantra, the Buddha, called
Bhagavān [a title applying to any respected spiritual teacher], is made to extol the virtues of physical fitness. He says, "Without a perfectly healthy body, one cannot know bliss."
- [Jhana is difficult to gain with a perfect body, how much more difficult with an ailing body? But this assertion does not make sense. It seems to imply that "yoga" is physical, when in fact it is spiritual with a 1/8th physical component.]
Furthermore, in the compelling symbolism of Buddhist Tantra [which was incredibly influenced by ancient views derived from the Vedas and the personal visions of many seers and Brahmin philosophers], the body of the Buddha is identified with the cosmic universe.
His spinal column, called the
merudanda, is said to be a single bone that represents a reality beyond time and space, "a withdrawn, autonomous zone of nondifferential Void" called
śūnya.
- [One of the great problems with Mahayana Buddhism is that it does not seem to recognize how much of its philosophy and how many of its "innovations" are simply Vedic Brahmanism reasserting itself over the teachings of the historical Buddha. Rather than realizing it, the historical Buddha is displaced by a pantheon of new buddhas, bodhisattvas, deities, and revered "saints."]
This mystical backbone is further described as a secret cavern within Mount Kailas. Here esoteric truth is revealed to the yogin while absorbed in the unexcelled state of meditation. This also explains why, according to a legend, the Buddha was unable to turn his head, but had to turn the whole of his body because his spinal column was fixed motionless, like the Cosmic Pillar [21].
- [Indeed, while walking, one of the qualities of the Buddha was that, like a noble elephant, he did not look about or turn his head if addressed but instead turned his entire body. It would surprise us, for it is certainly not reported as a spinal problem, if he were unable to turn. It could be possible given that his back hurt increasingly, the result of karma from a previous life.]
The Cobra.
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| Kundalini-chakras meditation (enlightenedbeings.com) |
As referred to elsewhere, the spinal cord plays a crucial role in the techniques of yoga. Tremendous emphasis is therefore placed on the 33 bones called vertebrae that make up the human spinal column [22]. In Guru Chod's
Classical Thai Yoga-Tantra, as well, keen attention is placed on developing an elegant posture. Why?
At the bottom of the spine lies the triangular-shaped sacrum. Sacrum comes from the ancient Latin medical term Os sacrum (lit. "holy bone"). This shows that the ancients held special regard for the hand-size base of the vertebral column. Sacrum thus denotes a "sacred place" in the human body, its corporal structure.
Actually, the present writer finds the human backbone a highly attractive structural design. If extracted from the skeleton and carefully examined, its slim configuration from the tip of the coccyx as it gently curves upward through the sacral, lumbar, dorsal, and cervical vertebrae, shows amazing likeness to an up-raised cobra. But this is only if a person's posture is correct. If the posture is slouched, then it doesn't look so elegant. With posture well poised, the linear curve has a striking resemblance to a magnificent up-raised cobra.
Perhaps this is why the symbol of the cobra has always played an important role in the ancient cultures of Egypt, India and other Asian lands. It is the naja of Egypt, the
nāga of India. It is also known as
kundalinī, a "the coiled little she-serpent" sleeping at the base of the spine. With its dilated neck taking the shape of a hood, the cobra has always been a royal emblem, feminine, majestic, and deeply mysterious. The cobra is therefore an archetypal symbol for the transfigurative power of primordial nature.
Though generally unacknowledged in Buddhist traditions, this universal symbolism nonetheless emerges in the well-known legend of the
Mucalinda naga-snake and the Buddha. We relate the episode as follows.
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| Cosmic axis world tree Yggdrasil (esotericonline.com) |
In the sixth week after his Illumination, the Buddha dwelled in resplendent bliss beneath the Mucalinda tree near Gaya as a violent storm broke out. He was so fully absorbed in meditation (
jhana) that he did not realize that the nearby waters of Lake Mucalinda were about to swallow him up.
But the
nāga of the lake, also called Mucalinda, coiled his giant body protectively around the Buddha and shielded him with his seven heads.
An esoteric reading of the ancient legend yields two interesting points. It first of all implies that the Buddha was not finished with his psychic metamorphosis six weeks after his great enlightenment.
- [Indeed, the Buddha's attainment was complete but not his ability to teach the path for others to be able to realize the same attainment. He was to spend the remainder of his 45 years developing the ability to teach effectively and to adjust the message to the temperaments of those he taught.]
Secondly, it shows that the rising serpent is unquestionably related to the yoga technique of arousing the cosmic energy called
kundalinī. One is not alone in this interpretation. The writer Wibke Lobo has also considered how
"Given the great significance that yoga must have had for the initiates, it would be strange if the image of the erect serpent had not been brought into association with the awakening of cosmic energy. In this connection it would also be possible to recognize a system of mystical numbers in the seven heads and three coils [of the nāga], for they can be linked to the set of seven centres of energy (chakras) in the human body and to the three highest of these in the throat and head, where Enlightenment takes place" [23].
Nowhere has the profundity of this
esoteric yoga been more passionately expressed than through this stunning image of the Buddha protected by the
nāga. It may also be referred to as
Kundalinī Buddha.
The [
naga-worshipping] Khmer in particular have shown great passion in expressing the trance-like (
jhana) nature of this motif with extraordinary sculptural genius. Elegantly adorned with diadem, earrings, and necklace, the Buddha sits splendidly with his hands folded calmly in his lap in the posture of
dhyāna-yoga.
Three thick coils of the
nāga's body form the Buddha's throne while the serpent's dilated seven-headed hood rears up behind the Buddha's head in a protective, almost cocooning manner.
It is also worth noting that during his lifetime Gautama the Buddha was actually not known as "the Buddha" but as Shākyaputra Shrāmana ("the spiritual wanderer, son of the Shakya people").
And while shākyaputra designates the Buddha's ethnic origins (lit. a "man of the Shākya clan"), shrāmana denotes his ascetic vocation, vis-à-vis a primitive pre-Aryan mode of ascetic. We furthermore suggests that the Buddha be regarded not only as history's seminal shaman [24] but as a highly developed Tantrik-yogin.
The Tantric Conception
In those days, however, the conception of "tantra" was certainly different than what it is today. In its very early usage a "tantric practitioner" denoted a "weaver" with the strong connotations of making magic.
Indeed, a basic facet of the tantric conception is that of the cosmos as a boundless fabric of magical filament. What is more, this magic may be spun within the human body, precisely through the mystical techniques of yoga [25]. The tantric conception is therefore based on an alchemical [26] understanding of the human corporal structure as a "continuum of energy." This energy or life-force is essentially pure as it issues from a metaphoric matrix-loom -- a unified-field interwoven, as it were, with the backdrop of infinity. Phenomenologically, existence is perceived as the panoply of thing-events pervaded by a force-field of homogenic resonance.
Tantra means tapping this resonant source and entering the fabric of life altogether; and in this way, every bit of thread and scrap gets turned into a privileged moment [27] and inducement to contribute to this seamless continuity of being. Through giving, which is faith, one is ushered to the fringes where the antipodes eclipse in a paradox of inexplicable bliss.
Stretching the Lute Strings |
| Gentle Tantric Yoga exercises can open the heart for those interested in deeper intimacy, merging, union, having a taste of selflessness and temporary release (WQ) |
As tantra evolved into a historical movement, it assumed the vast proportions of a baroque revolution and achieved far-reaching and sustained effects in the cultural fields of philosophy, science, literature
, and art. It was during the 3rd-century advent of tantra that an explicitly sexual idiom emerged together with an openly erotic iconography.
[Tantric sex] This highly provocative meta-sensual approach has continued to arouse public interest to our day. This is currently reflected in a market driven climate of tabloid spirituality that has managed to recast the basic conception into a celebrated New Age commodity fetish apparently intent on the comprehensive tantrification of the masses.
Actually tantra is very rich in meaning, but it can also be frustratingly vague and elusive, hence compelling. But truthfully, sex plays a very small role. It is just that everyone is so interested in sex! What is more, for some the mere mention of sex makes them blush because religion has taught them that sex is indecent and opposed to the spiritual life.
Tantra sees it differently. Tantra views the action of the libido as the primal human urge. So, sex is the ground base; sex is step one. If you miss step one you miss it all. Where religion has wedged opposition and dichotomy, tantra seeks to cordalize polarities. Tantra is the place where two become one. This is succinctly espoused in the well-known
linga-yoni motif signifying universal unity. More literal themes are, again,
the Buddha protected by the Naga and the candidly erotic
Maithuna icon where man and woman
-- yogin and yoginī -- are depicted as conjoined in mystical-erotic embrace.
Now, it needs to be restated and boldly underscored that in the remotely pre-Tantric time of the Buddha, tantra held a very different set of meanings. In its earliest usage it is interesting to note that tantra signified the gentle pull and stretch of the tendons. A tendon is, of course, a sinewy cord that attaches a muscle to a bone. And while etymologically derived from the Latin
teneo, tendon is also related to Sanskrit
tantra. Poetically
tantra means, "stretching the lute strings," the lyrical subtitle of the present work [28].
After years of experience I have come to the conclusion that it is best to support people through the physical body. Everything is stored there anyway. Sex only represents a small part of tantra, but it still plays and very important role. And presuming, if I may, you are all sexual beings, then sex is something that needs to be affirmed.
Since you can't avoid sex, why not use it valuably; why not use the force of sex as a force for meditation? First learn to harmonize the sexual energy with your broader, eyes-open meditation; for many it's the only way to enter inside. Throughout your day, and even during sex, you can think to yourselves, "...my body...my meditation..."
Sex is a cardinal aspect of yoga. Through yoga, sex becomes a current of higher understanding.
Angirasa – the proto-Tantric Buddha |
| Future Buddha, Vajrayana, Diskit monastery, Indian Himalayas (MickeySuman/flickr) |
Now for an even more compelling illustration of the tantrification of the Buddha sect, I turn to the earliest Buddhist scriptures that depict the Buddha as Angirasa, the Master of
kundalinī [29].
Angirasa is a Sanskrit-Pāli epithet applied now and then to Gautama the Buddha. It debuts in a highly intriguing scene from the early passages of the
Vinaya-Pitaka [Disciplinary Code]. The Buddha is wandering alone through the countryside shortly after his celebrated awakening. Without a place to sleep one night, he asks the head of an
ashram for accommodation. The director agrees and gives him the key to the sauna, the only place available. There, says the scripture, Angirasa passes the night in the yoga of psychic heat "with brilliant flames streaming forth from his body" [30]. In fact, the Buddha generates so much heat that smoke starts spewing through the roof of the sauna. Then the resident hermits all rush out and remark to each other, "That shaman must have done himself in." Not so.
"At the end of the night" the text declares, "when the flames of
kundalinī were finally extinguished, the multicoloured flames of Him of psychic power remained ever radiant....Dark green, crimson, yellow, red and the colours of crystal all shone from Angirasa's body" [31].
Here we have proof that the yogic technique of producing psychic heat, or kundalinī tapas, is by no means a mere baroque innovation. I have studied the ancient Majjhima-nikāya with intent. Though expressing itself in an archaic and ill-defining idiom, it describes nonetheless the heat or tapas obtained through the practice prānāyāma
In the scriptural Dhammapada, too, the Buddha is described as "burning" [33].
The Starting PointAs discussed in detail in Guru Chod's
Anuloma Viloma Pranayama (1984)
[34], the important starting point of this yoga of inner-transformation is
prānāyāma [breath and subtle-energy control].
Prānāyāma has its foundations in the control of
prāna [chi,
spiritus, life force, not the literal breath but a subtle energy accompanying it and as invisible as it].
At the beginning stage one attempts to control the physical manifestations of this extraordinary life-force within one's body. At the more advanced stage, the practitioner attempts to gain control over all external nature.
Said the guru, "Let there be no vague idea as concerns the potential of the subject at hand. A person can acquire absolute control over the entirety of nature through the practice of yoga."
NOTES  |
Gilded Buddha, Sukhothai, ancient Thailand
|
[1] Promporn Pramualaratana, "Confronting Life's Problems Through Yoga," Bangkok Post, Sunday supplement (12 July 1987). [2] In fact according to a Sanskrit dictionary, yoga has no less than 17 subsidiary meanings. Theos Bernard in Heaven Lies Within Us (New York, 1940) lists the 17 varied definitions of yoga as follows: (1) Union or methods of union. (2) Any outside thing united to another outside thing. (3) The mixing of one thing with another as with sugar to water. (4) The uniting of cause with effects as with sparks and the fire producing them. (5) A method of keeping things in their proper place. (6) A symbolism with an inner meaning like a code or proverb. (7) To hide one thing and try to show another, as a conjurer would do, or to signify a thing without telling it as in a hint. (8) Different significance of words that vary according to different minds. (9) Physical exercise. (10) Proper composition of language to convey description. (11) Any kind of skill or dexterity. (12) Methods to protect one's possessions, physical, mental, spiritual. (13) To find means of acquiring things by deep contemplation, as the solution of a mathematical problem. (14) Conversion of one substance to another as in chemistry. (15) To unite two souls for any purpose. (16) To produce a current of thought for a specific attainment; to take a specific object or concept and make the mind follow it to the exclusion of all else. (17) To suspend all activity (mental) and to concentrate the heart upon one particular thing.
