Karma Yoga: Karma Yoga - Lesson IV (of XI )

By Bhikshu

Karma Yoga: Lesson IV

What finally in the utmost analysis is the Act or Karma? The Gita has a peculiar answer. Karma, says the Gita, is the emanation (Visarga) that is the generator (udbhava kava) of Images (Bhava) which become Beings (Bhootas). It would be insufficient to translate Karma by the word "Action"; we can see that the word is in the ultimate meaningless, for being the product of many-actors, "action" can only be a "result" or an "event." Traced to the "individual" behind the Act we recognise the "motive" of the Act, the thought behind the Act, the thoughts which make up the Act, the thought, which, the Gita in its excellent analysis, calls an "emanation that is the generator of images." That is what Flammarion also tells us, in his great work on "Death and After" in three volumes. We would refer our readers to that book for the scientific proof of the theory that Thought is the generator of Images.

In the Yogi Philosophy, Thought is an emanation of the Mind (Brahma), mind being used in the sense of an universal principle which creates and sustains the world of sensations and through which alone the world Can be interpreted. Mind as the power of sentience is no wise synonymous with brain, disposition, instinct, intellect, intelligence, reason, sense, soul, spirit, thought or understanding. Mind is conscious cognition; it itself is neither one of the vehicles nor a set faculty of mental consciousness but is a movable factor between the "Ego" and Ego here is taken as the threshold of the Act (of consciousness) each or any one of the Ego's vehicles. Mind is only coincident with the mental nature in an ideal situation. Mind is Being when and where Being is attentive and may be focused so low as in an infant's moron prejudices. That is how westerners have defined the Mind; but in the Hindu Yogi Philosophy, Mind is only one of the aspects or factors of Manas, the other being Budhi, Reason or the power of Judgment, both Insight and Intuition; Chitta, the thought- emanating center, Antahkarana the thought-absorbing faculty.

We are here concerned with the Manas, in its aspects of reception, selection and emanation of Thoughts. We have many facts to learn yet about the Mind beyond the western analysis of the Mind which divides the Mind into the Subjective Mind (subconscious) and the Objective Mind. We have to be very careful not to confound these two minds with the Manas of Hindu phraseology. They would rather correspond, the subjective with Prana and the objective with Manah (one of the four factors of Manas). In the province of Karma Yoga, our chief factor is the Power of Thought, of conscious Thought; we have naught to do with unconscious cerebration nor with ideomotor action Avasah Kamna, for it is obvious that unconscious cerebration cannot form the subject of Yoga or be used at all. All the same we have to know that Thought is a constant function irrespective of the Ego. The Bhagavad Gita says that not for an instant can anyone remain without emanating Thought, consciously or unconsciously. Like respiration, or oxidation, thought is a constant process but unlike the former, irrespective of the subject. For ideas are essentially motor and if one occupies the field of consciousness to the exclusion of incompatibles it is bound to issue in action the self does not play consciously any part in such acts is the dictum of modern western psychology, too.

Indeed man is continually peopling space, the thought-world, with emanated thoughts, consciously and unconsciously. And by man we do not mean a puny Being whose only consciousness is a little flicker of waking consciousness itself comprising at any moment but an insignificant fraction of his total memory, but a Being with a consciousness extending and working over the whole range of his personality whether instinctively or deliberately. That Being does not like the former go out of existence every time man goes to sleep but simply turns his attention to vital processes founded at a time of life when he could not speak and before words or other symbols could be used to bring these processes under the purview of the ordinary waking memory. This is the real man, a Being endowed with a stupendous memory and activity and an almost unlimited command over vital processes, and even over physical processes, a man such as only rare illumined geniuses are ever aware of Being but which we all are, though we know it not.

Of this Great (Brahma) Being, Thought is a constant function as has already been said; thoughts are being constantly emanated irrespective of the "Self" or Ego. Each moment, groups of thoughts are being formed made up of "likes," Sadrisa, from out of thoughts already in space and those just being emanated. And these thoughts cannot be killed nor restrained at all even by the cleverest man; following the laws of group psychology, provisional beings (Bhootas) are being constantly formed out of the heterogeneous elements (thoughts) which for a moment become combined exactly as the cells which constitute a living body form by their re-union a new Being which displays characteristics very different from those possessed by each of the cells singly. That is why there arises difficulty in many practices of concentration. Half- knowledge, such as of many teachers suggests hetero-suggestive bases, which do not at all lead to success, they being opposed not only to the conscious tastes and desires of the subject but also because the Thought-Being created by ideomotor action has no consideration for any but its own purpose. The Bhagavad Gita explains this out fully in verses XVIII, 59 and 60, and also in verse III, 33.

Yes, all thoughts whether created from or passing into the depths of being go to the make-up of one's own character, one's self. And in the finale, it is the character that governs the function of Thought. A fundamental teaching of the Eastern Hindu-Yogi Philosophy as it is of the philosophy of the West, is that every conscious thought passes down to the lower stratum and then and there becomes an element of our Being partaking of our conscious energy and playing its part in determining our mental and bodily states. If it is a helpful thought, all the better. Such is how Coue and his school define the Power of Thought. According to Flammarion, "Every thought considered as an emanation of the thinker, a thread spun out by the soul (silkworm) is a Guna (Behaviour) and acts with more or less intensity virtually as an agent called material acts, as a projectile or stone and may project itself afar. If a man thinks of murder he emits into the atmosphere (of thought) a murder-element, that remains and returns to him." Imagine thought as it exists in man raised out of him and as an active and energetic Being endowed with an inner life of its own and you have but a feeble illustration of that which fills a whole region, a whole universe beyond Time.

How near we are to this grand Truth, that we are actually denizens of a universe of Thoughtforms, that we are all each complex thought-forms compounded entirely of Thought, we have scarcely recognised, even amongst those of us that have been devoting attention to practices of meditation and Yoga. It has been the experience of many when meditating that they have been interfered with by particular kinds of Thought, apparently coming from nowhere. And against this interference there has, alas, been wasted a good deal of pious gassing by most Acharyas. They have found it easier to say "Be good and you will be happy"; they have continued to make many generalisations, to tell you that the mind is the bugbear of all philosophers, that every time it wanders it should be brought back by force (?) and reapplied to the object, generally the object is Miss Kundalini with the tail in her mouth, to modern Hindu practitioners. They continue to analyze Nirvana, Moksha, Dhyana, and to explore Hindu metaphysics utterly. The poor practitioner continues to have pious platitudes trumpeted forth to him, continues to be fobbed off with inane remarks on virtue and Raja Yoga, Gnana Yoga, and such other Rogas (diseases) in his hour of need.

Be it well understood of you that it is not necessary nor right to shut off natural activity of any kind, (Sahaja). Thoughts (Karma) do as one sits to meditation come easily on before the threshold of consciousness, often times they are mean, clouded, inchoate, harmful; for in life there is much meanness (dosha); man is often called on to acknowledge some degrading standard or fight for the very recognition of manhood. And what is the remedy? How shall we get rid of these thoughts? The answer of the Bhagavad Gita is that you should not effort to take the trouble even of attempting to reject, much less to accept any of these thoughts; presently the thought atmosphere will clear, the smoke will disappear for the flame to burn brighter. Yes, if a man gets into a serious worry, it is doubtless well to face it and see what it means and to get expert advice such as the Latent Light Culture literature can give gladly, if the trouble does not smooth out. But in ordinary life it is probably better to leave the roots of the unconscious to look after themselves; it is better to try to grow some flowers or fruit including health of body and mind. When difficulties apparently insurmountable confront thee, all that thou has to do is not to fight it out without knowing what you fight against, but to wait and see, to calmly observe what it is. Perchance it may pass off; certainly it will clear, it will begin to work itself out and become less Powerful.

A Russian confrere in translating the term Parjanya (the Rain God of the Occidental-Oriental) says that all that is seething in war, in the "struggle for existence," of passion, pain and the joy of victory is not only perceptible in its effects as revealed to the physical senses; it may be seen as an atmospheric process in the spirit world, a sort of thunderstorm. For each thought has a form, is a sort of cloud or mist and makes up in its electrical and magnetic potency a perfect analogue to a rain cloud. The simile is further expanded by Fournier D'Albe in his "New Lights on Immortality": "On the earth nearly a hundred thousand persons die every day, the great majority of them being unconscious purposeless monads. The atmosphere is full of them. They remain for some time in the atmosphere and form a cosmic environment of diffused consciousness which mingles with the subconscious at time and manifests in mediumistic and spiritistic phenomena." These "monads" are of course the multiplicities of thoughts that were not expended with the body that had been shed, and they are only aggregations not certainly with any power of persisting as such but mere aggregations of thought-forms. Our point is here that the universe is peopled by these thought-forms and that it is quite possible for some of these thought-forms to appear before our consciousness as we sit to meditation or sit to think all that you have to do is to wait, wait till they pass on.

As you can see for yourself, ideas are in the air around us; it is ideas that we see spread before us; spread before our consciousness, ideas that govern and move all things; guns, bayonets, men of war, aeroplanes are but outward symbols. These ideas are neither to be bayoneted or battoned down; they are not to be shot down either. You cannot of course disperse or kill ideas in this way they thrive and sprout, aye, even, under the spilling of blood, especially under the spilling of blood. We have to deal with these Ideas or Thoughts in quite other ways. We have to recognise ourselves as not yet fully competent to deal single-handed, I mean with a superficial attention, with these ideas pouring on us. And different modes of treatment are prescribed for different forms of thoughts; it is impossible to frame a general law for dealing with all wrong thoughts, and attempts such as that of the categorical imperative of Kant or the "congenital duty" of the eastern pseudo Yogi can only end in failure to grasp the principles of Karma Yoga.

As says Coue, "A form of particular suggestion (Nirdesa, the Bhagavad Gita, calls it) is the quiet repetition of a single word. If your mind is worried and confused whether by the thoughts that had been oppressing you till you sat to meditation, or that had been pouring on you preventing your practice of mental-gymnastics for that day, sit down, close your eyes, relax yourselves, and murmur slowly and reflectively the single word (AUMN or) calm; say it reverently, drawing it out to its full length and pausing a bit after each repetition." And curiously Coue adds this method has been found most applicable to the attainment of moral qualities! It shows how powerful are some simple means and how independent of the ends actually attained. Each man may use his word, AUMN, Amen, Allah, as he likes all that is necessary is to follow the direction given and to use the Mantra, we suggest the

A U M N

You may wonder how such a simple word can produce a development of the moral qualities! The reason is given by Freud, the psychologist who has specially analyzed for us the workings of the Group Mind. "A group," he says, "is subject to the truly magical power of "names" or words; words can provoke the most formidable tempests in the group-mind and are also capable of stilling them!" And again, he says "Reason and argument are incapable of combating certain words or formulae. These words are uttered in solemnity in the presence of groups and as soon as they have been pronounced all heads are bowed with respect." Note this faculty of the group-mind carefully; realize herewithal that man's mind is after all a group-mind, that it is a collection of thoughts (many milliards of them),that it is a collocation of these thoughts, and you will find reason enough to apply by analogy all the postulates of Group Psychology to the individual Human mentation.

Thus you see the AUMN in the auto-suggestion of Karma-Yoga to still all worries. But in the use of the AUMN do not seek for results, continues the Gita; do not expect any particular effect to follow on the utterance. To do so would first of all be to distract the attention and lessen the efficacy of the AUMN and secondly it would be a diversion away from the AUMN. Do the work of pronunciation or utterance of the AUMN and do nothing else. Avoid extensions of the thought suggested, if any, by AUMN by the very pronunciation itself; centralize entirely on the AUMN. Thus use every mantra, use it as an auto- suggestion, affirming it to yourself by repetition and not by forcing it on your subconscious. Let the AUMN in time form part of your Being replacing the thoughts of worry that had occurred, that may occur, unless superseded by the utterance of the AUMN. This was the word (sound) that was, that has to be, has to prevail and be uttered; in the beginning, it was the word that was with God, i. e. with what is beyond behind phenomena (such is the sense of "God" taken here), the word that is God (as far as our pragmatic experience goes), stilling all worries, solacing all griefs, as "God" the "God" of the cults can and does (still) solace.

This articles is from a series in eleven lesson in Karma Yoga, From "The Yoga Philosophy of Thought Use" and "The Yogin Doctrine of Work"

ÒThe kingdom of Thought is truly yours; you can select values, reject vanities, eliminate dross, live as the uncrowned and crowned Emperors have lived in the utmost independance, ordering for yourself Happiness, distributing the flowing surpluses thereof to all around you.Ó

Chicago, U.S.A., Yogi Publication Society, 1928

See - Yoga Lessons - for the other Yoga Lessons I - XI