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

By Bhikshu

Karma Yoga: Lesson V

Students must doubtless have studied and understood the significance and power of Thought, and that they may do it thoroughly is our object in this lesson. In dealing with conscious thought that is with thought arising from, or coincidentally with Perception or contact (sparsa), we have to remember the sevenfold nature of any Perception, e. g. the vision of a table. There is primarily the vision of the table with the sense of sight; secondly seeing it still with the eyes closed by retinal impression; thirdly the image of it conserved in the brain; fourthly it can be recalled by the memory; fifthly it can be seen in a dream; sixthly, or as an aggregate of its atoms or components, and seventhly as disintegrate. There are thus seven ways in which a sensation or bundle of sensations can contact the mind and deal with the constant emanation of thoughts that is taking place; and by contact (sparsa) is meant not merely the surface contact which alone we know out here in our world of superficiality. Sparsa or contact is the power of self-identification, the attempt at self- identification of conscious pervasion whereby the self contacts its bodies or whatever it feels itself inclined to be pro tem. A conscious thought is not only the resultant of many thought forms as we have said in a previous lesson, but it is also the addition of one more combatant to the world-war, of Kurukshetra. The moment a perception in its sevenfoldness is launched into being, a thought or series of thought-forms begins to attack, associate, affect, commingle, resolve, integrate, disintegrate, overpower and make up a result, an event.

Do not fear at all contact with people or with ideas, is the slogan of this lesson. Very true we have asked you not to worry yourself with thoughts that apparently come on to worry you, to cause you fear or make you abandon what you have taken up to do. But the danger here is that students do often avoid the circumstances that give rise to such thoughts, and at the same time do not replace these by other circumstances or surroundings. What we have to understand is to make use (Yoga) of everything of every idea as it comes on to us, at whatever time such idea may come on, provided the idea is not actually repugnant or repulsive. The latter require the treatment mentioned in the last lesson; just now we take up ideas born of contact (sparsa-ja thoughts).

Let there (atra) not (ma) be (astu) non-contact (asparsa) with the thoughts arising from perceptions or percepts. Enjoy everything. These ideas last only their little moment and then pass off; but argue not so to yourself. Do not tell yourself "these ideas, these contacts, their suffering or pain is only momentary, I shall suffer them therefore bravely." That is not the attitude of the Hero or of the Karma Yogi. On the other hand let the attitude be: "These contacts, the suffering and gladness that they are bringing to me, endure mayhap only for the moment; but I shall enjoy them; it is quite possible that another such experience may not at all come in my way in such a fullness, in such a mode, giving such joy, aye such a joy in the suffering. Therefore shall I endure, enjoy, cultivate, intensely conscious, actively and acutely, this experience." Remember herein the self-flagellation of the mystics of the Roman Catholic Church, how intensely they enjoyed pain. You must read Havelock Ellis' book "Psychology of Sex" in six volumes, and if possible the Bibliography referred to therein, especially on Sadermasoch. Self-flagellation and pain has its reflex in the disturbance it creates in the sexual sphere; pleasure is but a waste of many useful thoughtforms; pain on the other hand provokes many thought- forms into activity that could not otherwise have had any opportunity to manifest itself.

"One's attitude to the necessaries which the traditions of earthly life involve, must of course be to rule them neither by mortification nor by indulgence." Such is the wise rule of Karma Yoga; it is not necessary to discard pain just because it is painful, nor is it necessary to revel in pleasant associations. These pleasant associations can only be for their time and it would be only creating a fresh chain of cause-act, (Karmika), of event-behaviour were one to attempt to continue the enjoyment. As said already, there happens a separation from the enjoyment, in practice, the separation provokes thought, anger, diversion, and one befogs himself in the attempt. So that when painful thoughts arise in the contacting with objects, all that one has to do is to eliminate mental spines and burrs, to reject or avoid all that one considers inimical to oneself any attempt to lay down general rules hereunder as to how to do it only leads to confusion, for to each it will be quite different as to what all Ideas are harmful to him. All that one can do at the start to watch, observe, note down (if necessary) consider, study and then reject or eliminate or accept the thought. Probably it sounds all empty literature without definite meaning or precision of message. Wait a bit, however, and listen to us when we tell you to keep a note-book.

It is of course a very small, but it is a very useful hint to keep a note- book beside you as you sit in meditation; after meditation note down any idea or thought that strikes you as strange or curious or out of the ordinary; any idea that you cannot understand; flashes of intuition for which your ordinary thought has not been responsible. Jot down in it all the experiences (thought-forms) that you have had as you sat down to meditation Write them out in their fullness, especially when they are unique, and keep the book by while you continue your meditations. Not that there is any need to refer to the past pages of the book; rather do not refer back, but just note down your experience and leave it there. The use of the book belongs to another lesson in Karma Yoga; what is here taught is that all experiences should be noted especially if they are novel, and dispassionately noted. You can, however, in your leisure hours read over these notes, compare the experience with others in the books in your library if you are an ardent student and can spare time thereto; you can in time understand how much more you learned by suffering them otherwise.

Our point is here that it is by suffering pain, aye, even by courting it, that you can obtain some exquisite sensations of Karma Yoga. The Greek philosopher Zeno refers in one of his works to the wise man who having conquered all passions feels happiness in the midst of torture. That is his definition, his ideal of the wise man; the Sanskrit equivalent for which is Dhira which also means the Hero. Etymologically it is this way: "Nature, as we know it, is stupid, brutal, cruel, beautiful, extravagant and above all the vehicle of illimitable energy." How do we know it ? Only by experience; we realise that the apparent injustice of all differences of well-being can be explained by the fact that we have known prior existences. It is the suffering in this life that has remained and trace back the chain of causes till we got not at a solace but at the only possible conclusion. All suffering then has a meaning and whether the meaning be searched for or not, the suffering should be keenly and intensely enjoyed. The Yogi Philosophy advises the Karma Yogi to "work and not to complain for gradually the state is attained by the Karma Yogin where he himself determines the manner in which the impressions of the external world shall affect him."

In most books on Yoga, there is far too much emotionalism, not only as part of the language but also as a result of pedantry; the craze for classification has obviously dulled them and they are not able to catalogue experiences, not having had any worth the name. They do give you a long list of the virtues and vices, of the principles and Tatvas of the qualifications and Siddhis (powers), but as to a correct catalogue of mental experiences on the Path of any Yoga you have very few records in plain non-symbolical language. This much remains, that there is apparently no practical attempt to aid suffering, as in the attempt to aid suffering the consciousness of that suffering is lost. They tell you that Ahimsa, non-injury, is the greatest of all virtues, but that greater virtue the cure of those who have undergone Himsa is beyond the exoteric schools of Eastern metaphysics. "In order to divide state of thought into 84 classes which is to their fatuity! an object in itself because 84 is 7 times 12, they do not hesitate to invent new names for quite imaginary states of the mind and to put down the same state of mind several times." This is what leads to extreme difficulty in the study of their works on Psychology and the like, by the Westerners.

"What we have to remember is that most of the pleasures in life and that of the most education in life are given by superable obstacles. Sport including love, depends on the oncoming of artificial or imaginary resistances. Golf has been defined as trying to knock a little ball into a hole with a set of instruments very ill-adapted for the purpose. In chess, one is bound by purely arbitrary rules." Suffering, I refer to the suffering inflicted by the passing thought as much as to the suffering provoked by contact, is a superable obstacle as is the teaching of the Yogi Philosophy, and the first treatment of suffering is to let it pass. The student is here advised to practice indifference, indifference to any but his own progress. This teaching does not mean the indifference of the Man to the things around him, as it has been often so unworthily and wickedly interpreted. The indifference is a kind of inner indifference; everything is to be enjoyed to the full, everything is to be suffered to the utmost, but always with a reservation that neither shall the absence of the thing enjoyed cause regret nor shall the continuity of the suffering disturb the serenity and patience of the sufferer. May be that this is too hard for the beginner but it is necessary and in many instances it has been found necessary for the beginner to abandon pleasures in order to prove to himself that he is indifferent to them; (An American Brother thinks that it may occasionally be advisable even for the Adept to do this now and again). In the Secret Rules of Kadambini Diksha, a very superior kind of Yogic Initiation, it has been ordained on the Yogi that "to succeed he must be fearless, he has to brave danger, death and dishonour, to be forgiving and silent on that which cannot be given; for it is not lawful for an Occultist to thirst or even to seek for revenge." Nay he shall not even say, "Vengeance is Mine, hath said the Lord," to himself.

Such is the ethic of suffering. "The Hindu Yogi has to swear the most solemn oaths never to either desire or seek retaliation or revenge ; he has to be always ready to help a brother in danger, even to the risk of his own life; to bury every dead body left unburied; to honor his parents above all; to respect old age and protect those weaker than himself; and finally to ever bear in mind the hour of death and the Purpose that made this body for him." All philosophy is built round suffering; the contemplation of the universe is at first one of pure anguish! The Hindu sees the evil of the environment; the Parsi the dnij the permanent enemy of God; in Islam there are jinn and devils whom Allah pulls down; in Christianity is the doctrine of original sin to which all are slaves from birth. All these have a moral and the moral is that the suffering and the sin should be borne, understood, fought against. Rest for the Karma Yogi would be unthinkable for it would reduce existence to nothingness. Yes, it is in the travail with the problems of evil that all the great religions of the world have been born.

When the Karma Yogi has started on the programme of life he has sketched for himself, and has a sense of unrest with regard to the environments around him that has deeply entered into his soul there will be no faltering. There will be on the other hand carelessness as to what it may cost the worker himself; he may be crucified or, as it happens in modern days, at the worst, ignored. That is the attitude of the Karma Yogi towards suffering. As says M. Therion: "For to him that is in any wise advanced upon the way of meditation it appears that all objects save one object are distasteful (blamable) even as appeared formerly in respect of his chance wishes to the will." The suffering comes on to him in many ways; distaste, pain, disgust, non-attachment infliction, etc. In such cases the most obvious way and a thorough treatment would be to practise a love of the suffering, so that "the object is grasped by the mind and heated in the sevenfold furnace of love until with explosion of ecstasy they unite and disappear, for they being imperfect are destroyed utterly in the creation of the perfection of union." Therion's language is rather hard to follow but what he says is that the Karma Yogi should suggest to himself that the suffering he undergoes is really to be enjoyed, actually to be longed for, nay to be regretted, if not continued. The acme of the suffering is to be found only in the fantastic pain of Bhakti Yoga, Rapture, and in Samadhi where the soul is torn temporarily off from the body with a sensation as tingling as that when one's skin is peeled off by oneself.

The test of self-confidence, courage, fortitude, augmented by bearing sorrow, and disappointments from the failure of prior undertakings, with greatness of mind and especially with quiet and unbroken strength is called the Agneyi Dharana, or Dhyana Agni, Fire Trial in the Hindu Yogi Philosophy. "All thoughts as they arise whether on perception or otherwise are subjected to analysis to an ordeal of their usefulness" to the practitioner irrespective of whatever they are "good or bad." Usefulness is the only test, not whether the Thought is "good" or "bad." We are not concerned with moral judgment at all; rather we would, with Nietsche demand of all philosophers that they have the delusion of the moral Judgment beneath them as there are no such things as moral facts. The danger in moral judgment is that in common with exoteric religion it believes in realities which are not real. Read McSwiney again: "War must be faced, and blood must be shed out gleefully but as a terrible necessity; because there are horrors, moral horrors worse than any physical horror, because freedom must be had at any cost of suffering. The soul is greater than the body. This is the justification for war." Herein do we find the justification for suffering and its use, in this vast untilled field of moral conduct.

Western readers may read H. P. Blavatsky's "Voice of the Silence," the pseudo-Tibetan book, Part II, the Two Paths, verse 23; "If thou art taught that sin is born of action and bliss of absolute inaction then tell them that they err. Now permanence of human action, deliverance of mind from thralldom by the cessation of sin and fault are not for Deva-Egos . . . (What does H P.B. mean by Deva-Egos?) . . . Thus saith the doctrine of the Heart . . ." What she says is that one should not be afraid to act; action should be fought by reaction, tyranny will never be overthrown by slavish submission to it; cowardice is conquered by a course of exposing oneself unnecessarily to danger. Suffering has to be enjoyed till it has no effect. "The way to conquer any thought, to overcome any suffering is to understand it and the work of the Karma Yogi herein consists in the ability to decide whether or not he will perform any given action. The Karma Yogi should ever be ready to abide by the toss of a coin and remain perfectly indifferent as to whether it falls head or tail. That is the test of the Karma Yogi, that is the nature of his indifference. Be indifferent then to any but thine own work. Thus shall you not be bound."

"Suffer, enjoy every experience as it come on."

SUFFER, ENJOY, EVERYTHING

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