Hackers Underworld 2: Forbidden Knowledge/Hackers Underworld 2: Forbidden Knowledge.iso/OCCULT/YOGA4.TXT

Text File | 1989-01-27 | 31KB | 488 lines

(Part 4 of 8)

     ************************************************************
                          YOGA FOR YAHOOS.

               FOURTH LECTURE.    ASANA AND PRANAYAMA.

                  The Technical Practices of Yoga.
     ************************************************************

     Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

     1.  Last week we were able to go away feeling that the back of
the job had been broken.  We had got rid of bad ways, bad wives, and
bad weather.  We are comfortably installed in the sunshine, with no
one to bother us.  We have nothing to do but our work.
     Such being our fortunate state, we may usefully put in an hour
considering our next step.  Let us recall, in the first place, what
we decided to be the quintessence of our task.  It was to annihilate
dividuality.  'Make room for me,' cries the Persian poet whose name I
have forgotten, the fellow Fitzgerald translated, not Omar Khayyam,
'Make room for me on that divan which has no room for twain' -- a
remarkable prophetic anticipation of the luxury flatlet.
     We are to unite the subject and object of consciousness in the
ecstasy which soon turns, as we shall find later on, into the more
sublime state of indifference, and then annihilate both the party of
the first part aforesaid and the party of the second part aforesaid.
This evidently results in further parties -- one might almost say
cocktail parties -- constantly increasing until we reach infinity,
and annihilate that, thereby recovering our original Nothing.  Yet is
that identical with the original Nothing?  Yes -- and No!  No!  No!
A thousand times no!  For, having fulfilled all the possibilities of
that original Nothing to manifest in positive terms, we have thereby
killed for ever all its possibilities of mischief.
     Our task being thus perfectly simple, we shall not require the
assistance of a lot of lousy rishis and sanyasis.  We shall not apply
to a crowd of moth-eaten Arahats, of betel-chewing Bodhisattvas, for
instruction.  As we said in the first volume of 'The Equinox', in the
first number:
                    'We place no reliance
                     On Virgin or Pigeon;
                     Our method is science,
                     Our aim is religion.'

     Our common sense, guided by experience based on observation,
will be sufficient.
     2.  We have seen that the Yogic process is implicit in every
phenomenon of existence.  All that we have to do is to extend it
consciously to the process of thought.  We have seen that thought
cannot exist without continual change; all that we have to do is to
prevent change occurring.  All change is conditioned by time and
space and other categories; any existing object must be susceptible
of description by means of a system of co-ordinate axes.
     On the 'terrasse' of the Cafe des Deux Magots it was once
necessary to proclaim the entire doctrine of Yoga in the fewest
possible words 'with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel,
and with the trump of God.'  St. Paul's First Epistle to the Thessa-
lonians, the Fourth Chapter and the Sixteenth Verse.  I did so.
     'Sit still.  Stop thinking.  Shut up.  Get out!'
     The first two of these instructions comprise the whole of the
technique of Yoga.  The last two are of a sublimity which it would be
improper to expound in this present elementary stage.
     The injunction 'Sit still' is intended to include the inhibition
of all bodily stimuli capable of creating movement in consciousness.
The injunction 'Stop thinking' is the extension of this to all mental
stimuli.  It is unnecessary to discuss here whether the latter can
exist apart from the former.  It is at least evident that many mental
processes arise from physical processes; and so we shall at least be
getting a certain distance along the road if we have checked the
body.
     3.  Let me digress for a moment, and brush away one misunder-
standing which is certain to occur to every Anglo-Saxon mind.  About
the worst inheritance of the emasculate school of mystics is the
abominable confusion of thought which arises from the idea that
bodily functions and appetites have some moral implications.  This is
a confusion of the planes.  There is no true discrimination between
good and evil.  The only question that arises is that of convenience
in respect of any proposed operation.  The whole of the moral and
religious lumber of the ages must be discarded for ever before
attempting Yoga.  You will find out only too soon what it means to do
wrong; by our very thesis itself all action is wrong.  Any action is
only relatively right in so far as it may help us to put an end to
the entire process of action.
     These relatively useful actions are therefore those which make
for control, or 'virtue.'  They have been classified, entirely
regardless of trouble and expense, in enormous volume, and with the
utmost complexity; to such a point, in fact, that merely to permit
oneself to study the nomenclature of the various systems can have but
one result:  to fuddle your brain for the rest of your incarnation.
     4.  I am going to try to simplify.  The main headings are:
         (a)  Asana, usually translated 'posture,' and
         (b)  Pranayama, usually translated 'control of breath.'
These translations, as usual, are perfectly wrong and inadequate.
The real object of Asana is control of the muscular system, conscious
and unconscious, so that no messages from the body can reach the
mind.  Asana is concerned with the static aspect of the body.
Pranayama is really the control of the dynamic aspect of the body.
     There is something a little paradoxical in the situation.  The
object of the process of Yoga is to stop all processes, including
itself.  But it is not sufficient for the Yogi to shoot himself,
because to do so would be to destroy the control, and so to release
the pain-producing energies.  We cannot enter into a metaphysical
discussion as to what it is that controls, or before we know where we
are we shall be moonstruck by hypotheses about the soul.
     5.  Let us forget all this rubbish, and decide what is to be
done.  We have seen that to stop existing processes by an act of
violence is merely to release the undesirable elements.  If we want
peace on Dartmoor, we do not open the doors of the prison.  What we
do is to establish routine.  What is routine?  Routine is rhythm.  If
you want to go to sleep, you get rid of irregular, unexpected noises.
What is wanted is a lullaby.  You watch sheep going through a gate,
or voters at a polling station.  When you have got used to it, the
regularity of the engines of a train or steamship is soothing.  What
we have to do with the existing functions of the body is to make them
so regular, with gradually increasing slowness, that we become
unconscious of their operation.
     6.  Let us deal first with the question of Asana.  It might be
thought that nothing would be more soothing than swinging or gentle
massage.  In a sense, and up to a certain point, this is so.  But the
activity cannot be continued because fatigue supervenes, and sooner
or later the body protests by going to sleep.  We must, therefore,
make up our minds from the start to reduce bodily rhythm to its
minimum.
     7.  I am not quite sure whether it is philosophically defensi-
ble, whether it is logically justifiable, to assert the principles of
Asana as they occur in our practice.  We must break away from our
sorites, turn to the empiricism of experiment, and trust that one day
we may be able to work back from observed fact to a coherent
metaphysic.
     The point is that by sitting still, in the plain literal sense
of the words, the body does ultimately respond to the adjuration of
that great Mahatma, Harry Lauder, 'Stop your ticklin', Jock!'
     8.  When we approach the details of Asana, we are immediately
confronted with the refuse-heap of Hindu pedantry.  We constantly
approach the traditional spiritual attitude of the late Queen
Victoria.  The only types of As