On Himself

Absence of Descent in Old Yogas

Q: In other Yogas does the silence descend or rather the mind goes into silence? It does not seem that there is anything like a process of anything descending in Rajayoga or Vedantic Jnanayoga. Moreover, in Rajayoga there is nowhere mention of silence in the waking consciousness—always it is a question of going into samādhi

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In the Jnanayoga, however, it seems as if the waking state becomes illumined and full of peace and brahmānanda.

A: I never heard of silence descending in other Yogas—the mind goes into silence. Since however I have been writing of ascent and descent, I have been told from several quarters that there is nothing new in this Yoga—so I am wondering whether people were not getting ascents and descents without knowing it! or at least without noticing the process. It is like the rising above the head and taking the station there—which I and others have experienced in this Yoga. When I spoke of it first, people stared and thought I was talking nonsense. Wideness must have been felt in the old Yogas because otherwise one could not feel the universe in oneself or be free from the body consciousness or unite with the Anantam Brahman. But generally as in Tantric Yoga one speaks of the consciousness rising to the brahmarandhra, top of the head, as the summit. Rajayoga of course lays stress on Samadhi as the means of the highest experience. But obviously if one has not the brāhmisthiti in the waking state, there is no completeness in the realisation. The Gita distinctly speaks of being samāhita (which is equivalent to being in Samadhi) and the brāhmisthiti as a waking state in which one lives and does all actions.

9-6-1936

Q: Such a concrete process of ascent and descent cannot escape notice if the other Yogis had it—they do mention a rising of kuṇḍalinī to brahmarandhra. Why do they not then mention a coming down of, say, a current of brahmānanda or of light from the brahmarandhra into kuṇḍalinī to mulādhara? Supposing they did not mention because it was a secret then how could they mention that of kuṇḍalinī risinīg up?

If there is nothing new in this Yoga, they ought to quote something which is similar to descent—either in Patanjali or Hathayoga Pradipika or in Panchadasi and

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other Vedantic books wherein experiences are mentioned.

A: So I have always thought. I explain this absence of the descent experiences myself by the old Yogas having been mainly confined to the psycho-spiritual-occult range of experience—in which the higher experiences come into the still mind or the concentrated heart by a sort of filtration or reflection—the field of this experience being from the brahmarandhra downward. People went above this only in Samadhi or in a condition of static mukti without any dynamic descent. All that was dynamic took place in the region of the spiritualised mental and vital-physical consciousness. In this Yoga the consciousness (after the lower field has been prepared by a certain amount of psycho-spiritual-occult experience) is drawn upward above the brahmarandhra to ranges above belonging to the spiritual consciousness proper and instead of merely receiving from there has to live there and from there change the lower consciousness altogether. For there is a dynamism proper to the spiritual consciousness whose nature is Light, Power, Ananda, Peace, Knowledge, infinite Wideness and that must be possessed and descend into the whole being. Otherwise one can get mukti but not perfection or transformation (except a relative psycho-spiritual change). But if I say that, there will be a general howl against the unpardonable presumption of claiming to have a knowledge not possessed by the ancient saints and sages and pretending to transcend them. In that connection I may say that in the Upanishads (notably the Taittiriya) there are some indications of these higher planes and their nature and the possibility of gathering up the whole consciousness and rising into them. But this was forgotten afterwards and people spoke only of the Buddhi as the highest thing with the Purusha or Self just above, but there was no clear idea of these higher planes. Ergo, ascent possibly to unknown and ineffable heavenly regions in Samadhi, but no descent possible—therefore no resource, no possibility of transformation here, only escape from life and mukti in Goloka, Brahmaloka, Shivaloka or the Absolute.

11-6-1936

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Q: Was there not anything like descents of peace in Ramakrishna or Chaitanya? It seems as if they had intense realisations and visions and depths of samādhi but we do not read of their having descents of peace. Perhaps the realisations etc. themselves brought with them the peace and Light during samādhi or intense emotional moments, so that it was not particularly noted—and for supporting and stabilising all that, there must have been a basis of calm and peace.

A: It happens that people may get the descent without noticing that it is a descent because they feel the result only. The ordinary Yoga does not go beyond the spiritual mind—people feel at the top of the head the joining with the Brahman, but they are not aware of a consciousness above the head. In the same way in the ordinary Yoga one feels the ascent of the awakened lower consciousness (Kundalini) to the brahmarandhra where the Prakriti joins the Brahman-consciousness, but they do not feel the descent. Some may have had these things, but I don't know that they understood their nature, principle or place in a complete Sadhana. At least I never heard of these things from others before I found them out in my own experience. The reason is that the old Yogins when they went above the spiritual mind passed into Samadhi, which means that they made no attempt to be conscious in these higher planes—their aim being to pass away into the Superconscient and not to bring the Superconscient into the waking consciousness, which is that of my Yoga.

26-7-1935