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under control, until it will just beat at will, slowly, or 61 62 RAJA YOGA quickly, or almost stop. Nearly every part of the body can be brought under control. What does this show? That these things which are beneath consciousness are also worked by us, only we are doing it unconsciously. We have, then, two planes in which the human mind is working. First is the conscious plane; that is to say that sort of work which is always accompanied with the feeling of egoism. That part of mind-work which is unaccompanied with feeling of egoism is unconscious work, and that part which is accompanied with the feeling of egoism is conscious work. In the lower animals this unconscious work is called instinct. In higher animals, and in the highest of animals, man, the second part, that which is accompanied with the feeling of egoism, prevails, and is called conscious work. But it does not end here. There is a still higher plane upon which the mind can work. It can go beyond consciousness. Just as unconscious work is beneath consciousness, so there is another work which is above consciousness, and which, also, is not accompanied with the feeling of egoism. The feeling of egoism is only on the middle plane. When the mind is above or below that line there is no feeling of I, and yet the mind works. When the mind goes beyond this line of self-consciousness it is called Samadhi, or super-consciousness. It is above consciousness. How, for instance, do we know that a man in Samadhi has not gone below his consciousness, has not degenerated, instead of going higher? In both cases the works are unaccompanied by egoism? The answer is, by the effects, by the results of the work, we know that which is below, and that which is above. When a man goes into deep sleep he enters a plane beneath consciousness. He works the body all the time, he breathes, he moves the body, perhaps, in his sleep, without any accompanying feeling of ego; he is 63 DHYANA AND SAMADHI unconscious, and when he returns from his sleep he is the same man who went into it. The sum-total of the knowledge which he hap before he went into the sleep remains the same; it has not increased at all. No enlightenment has come. But if a man goes into Samadhi, if he goes into it a fool, he comes out a sage. What makes the difference? From one state a man comes out the very same man that went in, and out of another state the man becomes enlightened, a sage, a prophet, a saint, his whole character changed, his life changed, illumined. These are the two effects. Now the effects being different, the causes must be different. As this illumination, with which a man comes back from Samadhi, is much higher than can be got from unconsciousness, or much higher than can be got by reasoning in a conscious state, it must therefore be super- consciousness, and Samadhi is called the super-conscious state. This, in short, is the idea of Samadhi. What is its application? The application is here. The field of reason, or of the conscious workings of the mind, is narrow and limited. There is a little circle within which human reason will have to move. It cannot go beyond it. Every attempt to go beyond is impossible, yet it is beyond this circle of reason that lies all that humanity holds most dear. All these questions, whether there is an immortal soul, whether there is a God, whether there is any supreme intelligence guiding this universe, are beyond the field of reason. Reason can never answer these questions. What does reason say? It says, I am agnostic; I do not know either yea or nay. Yet these questions are important to us. Without a proper answer to them, human life will be impossible. All our ethical theories, all our moral attitudes, all that is good and great in human nature, has been moulded upon answers that have 64 RAJA YOGA come from beyond that circle. It is very important, therefore, that we should have answers to these questions; without such answers human life will be impossible. If life is only a little five minutes thing, if the universe is only a fortuitous combination of atoms, then why should I do good to another? Why should there be mercy, justice, or fellow feeling? The best thing for this world would be to make hay while the sun shines, each man for himself. If there is no hope, why should I love my brother, and not cut his throat? If there is nothing beyond, if there is no freedom, but only rigorous dead laws, I should only try to make myself happy here. You will find people saying, now-a- days, that they have utilitarian grounds as the basis of all morality. What is this basis? Procuring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number. Why should I do this? Why should I not produce the greatest unhappiness to the greatest number, if that serves my purpose? How will utilitarians answer this question? How do you know what is right, or what is wrong? I am impelled by my desire for happiness and I fulfil it, and it is in my nature; I know nothing beyond. I have these desires, and must fulfil them; why should you complain? Whence come all these truths about human life, about morality, about the immortal soul, about God, about love and sympathy, about being good, and, above all, about being unselfish? All ethics, all human action, and all human thought, hang upon this one idea of unselfishness; the whole idea of human life can be put in that one word, unselfishness. Why should we be unselfish? Where is the necessity, the force, the power, of my being unselfish? Why should I be? You call yourself a rational man, a utilitarian, but, if you do not show me a reason, I say you are irrational. Show me the reason why I should not be selfish, why I should not be like a brute, 65 DHYANA AND SAMADHI acting without reason? It may be good as poetry, but poetry is not reason. Show me a reason. Why shall I be unselfish, and why be good? Because Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so says so does not weigh with me. Where is the utility of my being unselfish? My utility is to be selfish, if utility means the greatest amount of happiness. I may get the greatest amount of happiness by cheating and robbing others. What is the answer? The utilitarian can never give it. The answer is that this world is only one drop in an infinite ocean, one link in an infinite chain. Where did those that preached unselfishness, and taught it to the human race, get this idea? We know it is not instinctive; the animals, which have instinct, do not know it. Neither is it reason; reason does not know anything about these ideas? Whence did they come? We find, in studying history, one fact held in common by all the great teachers of religion the world ever had; they all claim to have got these truths from beyond, only many of them did not know what they were getting. For instance, one would say that an angel came down in the form of a human being, with wings, and said to him, Hear, oh man, this is the message. Another says that a Deva, a bright being, appeared to him. Another says he dreamed that his ancestor [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |