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founded to support, and thus we see them actually quarrelling with
the Pope, while failing signally to obtain possession of the Papacy.
Being thus thwarted in their endeavours, and confused in their
purpose, they redoubled the ardour of their exercises; and it is one
of the characteristics of all spiritual exercises, if honestly and
efficiently performed, that they constantly lead you on to higher
planes, where all dogmatic considerations, all intellectual conceptsÒ,
are invalid. Hence, we found that it is not altogether surprising
that the General of the Order and his immediate circle have been
supposed to be atheists. If that were true, it would only show that
they have been corrupted by their preoccupation with the practical
politics of the world, which it is impossible to conduct on any but
an atheistic basis; it is brainless hypocrisy to pretend otherwise,
and should be restricted to the exclusive use of the Foreign Office.
It would, perhaps, be more sensible to suppose that the heads of
the Order have really attained the greatest heights of spiritual
knowledge and freedom, and it is quite possible that the best term to
describe their attitude would be either Pantheistic or Gnostic.
7. These considerations should be of the greatest use to us now
that we come to discuss in more detail the results of the Yoga
practices. There is, it is true, a general similarity between the
ecstatic outbursts of the great mystics all over the world. Compari-
sons Ôhave often been drawn by students of the subject. I will only
detain you with one example: 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole
of the Law.' What is this injunction? It is a generalisation of St.
Augustine's 'Love, and do what thou wilt.' But in 'The Book of the
Law', lest the hearer should be deluded into a spasm of antinomi-
anism, there is a further explanation: 'Love is the law, love under
will.'
8. However, the point is that it is no use discussing the
results of Yoga, whether that Yoga be the type recommended by Lao-
Tze, or Patanjali, or St. Ignatius Loyola, because for our first
postulate we have: that these subjects are incapable of discussion.
To argue about them only causes us to fall into the pit of Because,
and there to perish with the dogs of Reason. The only use, there-
fore, of describing our experiences is to enable students to get some
sort of idea of the sort of thing that is going to happen to them
when they attain success in the practices of Yoga. We have DaviÛd
saying in the Psalms: 'I hate thoughts, but Thy law do I love.' We
have St. Paul saying: 'The carnal mind is enmity against God.' One
might almost say that the essence of St. Paul's Epistles is a strug-
gle against mind: 'We war not against flesh and blood' -- you know
the rest -- I can't be bothered to quote it all -- Eph. vi. 12.
9. It is St. Paul, I think, who describes Satan, which is his
name for the enemy, owing to his ignorance of the history of the
world, as the Prince of the Power of the Air; that is, of the Ruach,
of the intellect; and we must never forget that what operated the
conversion of St. Paul was the Vision on the road to Damascus. It is
particularly significant that he disappeared into the Desert of
Arabia for three years before coming forward as the Apostle to the
Gentiles. St. Paul was a learned Rabbi; he was the favourite pupil
of the best expositor of the Hebrew Law, and in the single moment of
his Vision all his arguments were shattered at a single stroke!
10. We are not fltold that St. Paul said anything at the time,
but went quietly on his journey. That is the great lesson: not to
discuss the results. Those of you who possess a copy of 'The Equinox
of the Gods' may have been very much surprised at the extraordinary
injunction in the Comment: the prohibition of all discussion of the
Book. I myself did not fully understand that injunction; I do so
now.
11. Let us now deal with a few of the phenomena which occur
during the practices of Pratyahara.
Very early during my retirement in Kandy, I had been trying to
concentrate by slanting my eyes towards the tip of my nose. This, by
the way, is not a good practice; one is liable to strain the eyes.
But what happened was that I woke up in the night; my hand touched a
nose; I immediately concluded that some one was in the room. Not at
all; I only thought so because my nose had passed away from the
region of my observation by the practice of concentrating upon it.
12. The same sort of thing occuÜrs with adequate concentration
on any object. It is connected, curiously enough, with the phenomena
of invisibility. When your mind has gone so deeply into itself that
it is unconscious of itself and its surroundings, one of the most
ordinary results is that the body becomes invisible to other people.
I do not think that it would make any difference for a photograph,
though I have no evidence for saying this; but it has happened to me
on innumerable occasions. It was an almost daily occurrence when I
was in Sicily.
13. A party of us used to go down to a very beautiful bay of
sand, whence jutted fantastically-shaped islets of rock; it is rimmed
by cliffs encrusted with jewels of marine life. The way was over a
bare hillside; except for a few hundred yards of vineyard there was
no cover -- nay, not for a rabbit. But it often happened that one of
the party would turn to speak to me, and fail to see me. I have
often known this to happen when I was dictating; my chair was
apparently empty.
IncidenÊtally, this faculty, which I think is exercised, as a
rule, unconsciously, may become an actual magical power.
14. It happened to me on one occasion that a very large number
of excited people were looking for me with no friendly intentions;
but I had a feeling of lightness, of ghostliness, as if I were a
shadow moving soundlessly about the street; and in actual fact none
of the people who were looking for me gave the slightest indication
that they were aware of my presence.
There is a curious parallel to this incident in one of the
Gospels where we read that 'they picked up stones to stone him, but
he, passing through the midst of them, went his way.'
15. There is another side to this business of Pratyahara, one
that may be described as completely contradictory against what we
have been talking about.
If you concentrate your attention upon one portion of the body
with the idea of investigating it, that is, I suppose, allowing the
mind to move within very small limits, the whole of Ïyour conscious-
ness becomes concentrated in that small part. I used to practise
this a good deal in my retirement by Lake Pasquaney. I would usually
take a finger or a toe, and identify my whole consciousness with the
small movements which I allowed it to make. It would be futile to go
into much detail about this experience. I can only say that until
you acquire the power you have no idea of the sheer wonder and
delight of that endlessly quivering orgasm.
16. If I remember rightly, this practice and its result were
one of the principal factors which enabled me afterwards to attain
what is called the Trance of Wonder, which pertains to the Grade of a
Master of the Temple, and is a sort of complete understanding of the
organism of the universe, and an ecstatic adoration of its marvel.
This Trance is very much higher than the Beatific Vision, for [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]