Hips, shoulders, and head must be held straight, leaving the spine free. Fourth — pranayama, restraining the breath in order to get control of the Prana or vital force. Fifth — Pratyahara, turning the mind inward and restraining it from going outward, revolving the matter in the mind in order to understand it. Yama and Niyama are for lifelong practice. As for the others, we do as the leech does, not leave one blade of grass before firmly grasping another.
In other words, we have thoroughly to understand and practise one step before taking another. The subject of this lesson is Pranayama, or controlling the Prana. In Raja — Yoga breathing enters the psychic plane and brings us to the spiritual. It is the fly — wheel of the whole bodily system.
It acts first upon the lungs, the lungs act on the heart, the heart acts upon the circulation, this in turn upon the brain, and the brain upon the mind. The will can produce an outside sensation, and the outside sensation can arouse the will. Our wills are weak; we do not realise their power, we are so much bound up in matter.
Most of our action is from outside in. Outside nature throws us off our balance, and we cannot as we ought throw nature off her balance. This is all wrong; the stronger power is really within. The great saints and teachers were those who had conquered this world of thought within themselves and so spake with power.
The story [2] of the minister confined in a high tower, who was released through the efforts of his wife who brought him a beetle, honey, a silken thread, a cord, and a rope, illustrates the way we gain control of our mind by using first the physical regulation of the breath as the silken thread. That enables us to lay hold on one power after another until the rope of concentration delivers us from the prison of the body and we are free.
Reaching freedom, we can discard the means used to bring us there. There are two currents passing through the brain and circulating down the sides of the spine, crossing at the base and returning to the brain. Of course, the lower part is much longer than the upper. By concentration we can learn to feel them and trace them over all parts of the body.
In the Katha Upanishad the body is described as the chariot, the mind is the reins, the intellect is the charioteer, the senses are the horses, and the objects of the senses their road. The self is the rider, seated in the chariot. Unless the rider has understanding and can make the charioteer control his horses, he can never attain the goal; but the senses, like vicious steeds, will drag him where they please and may even destroy him.
We have to get the power to become moral; until we do that, we cannot control our actions. Yoga alone enables us to carry into practice the teachings of morality. To become moral is the object of Yoga. All great teachers were Yogis and controlled every current. The Yogis arrest these currents at the base of the spine and force them through the centre of the spinal column.
They then become the current of knowledge, which only exists in the Yogi. Second Lesson in Breathing: One method is not for all. As you close the exhalation, draw in the abdomen forcibly to expel all the air from the lungs.
Repeat this whole operation twice at each sitting, that is, making four Pranayamas, two for each nostril. Before taking your seat it is well to begin with prayer. These exercises will make us more spiritual, more pure, more holy. Do not be led aside into any byways or seek after power. Love is the only power that stays by us and increases.
He who seeks to come to God through Raja — yoga must be strong mentally, physically, morally, and spiritually. Take every step in that light. We are thinking of the soul as body, but we must separate it from sense and thought. Then alone can we know we are immortal. Change implies the duality of cause and effect, and all that changes must be mortal. This proves that the body cannot be immortal, nor can the mind, because both are constantly changing.
Only the unchangeable can be immortal, because there is nothing to act upon it. We do not become it, we are it; but we have to clear away the veil of ignorance that hides the truth from us.
The body is objectified thought. The surplus energy is stored at certain points plexuses along the spinal column commonly known as nerve centres. The Yogi has an advantage; for he is able not only to feel them, but actually to see them. They are luminous in his life, and so are the great nerve centres. There is conscious as well as unconscious action. The Yogis possess a third kind, the superconscious, which in all countries and in all ages has been the source of all religious knowledge.
The superconscious state makes no mistakes, but whereas the action of the instinct would be purely mechanical, the former is beyond consciousness. The nerve centre at the base of the spine near the sacrum is most important. It is the seat of the generative substance of the sexual energy and is symbolised by the Yogi as a triangle containing a tiny serpent coiled up in it.
This sleeping serpent is called Kundalini, and to raise this Kundalini is the whole object of Raja — yoga. The great sexual force, raised from animal action and sent upward to the great dynamo of the human system, the brain, and there stored up, becomes Ojas or spiritual force. All good thought, all prayer, resolves a part of that animal energy into Ojas and helps to give us spiritual power.
This Ojas is the real man and in human beings alone is it possible for this storage of Ojas to be accomplished. One in whom the whole animal sex force has been transformed into Ojas is a god. He speaks with power, and his words regenerate the world. The Yogi pictures this serpent as being slowly lifted from stage to stage until the highest, the pineal gland, is reached.
No man or woman can be really spiritual until the sexual energy, the highest power possessed by man, has been converted into Ojas. No force can be created; it can only be directed. Therefore we must learn to control the grand powers that are already in our hands and by will power make them spiritual instead of merely animal. Thus it is clearly seen that chastity is the corner — stone of all morality and of all religion.
In Raja — yoga especially, absolute chastity in thought, word, and deed is a sine qua non. The same laws apply to the married and the single. All history teaches us that the great seers of all ages were either monks and ascetics or those who had given up married life; only the pure in life can see God. Just before making the Pranayama, endeavour to visualise the triangle. Close your eyes and picture it vividly in your imagination. See it surrounded by flames and with the serpent coiled in the middle.
When you can clearly see the Kundalini, place it in imagination at the base of the spine, and when restraining the breath in Kumbhaka, throw it forcibly down on the head of the serpent to awaken it. The more powerful the imagination, the more quickly will the real result be attained and the Kundalini be awakened.
Until it does, imagine it does: try to feel the currents and try to force them through the Sushumna. This hastens their action.
We have to seize this unstable mind and drag it from its wanderings and fix it on one idea. Over and over again this must be done. By power of will we must get hold of the mind and make it stop and reflect upon the glory of God.
The easiest way to get hold of the mind is to sit quiet and let it drift where it will for a while. The mind is not I. Identify yourself with God, never with matter or with the mind. Picture the mind as a calm lake stretched before you and the thoughts that come and go as bubbles rising and breaking on its surface. Make no effort to control the thoughts, but watch them and follow them in imagination as they float away. This will gradually lessen the circles.
For the mind ranges over wide circles of thought and those circles widen out into ever — increasing circles, as in a pond when we throw a stone into it. We want to reverse the process and starting with a huge circle make it narrower until at last we can fix the mind on one point and make it stay there. When this is done, the mind is your servant to control as you will. The first stage of being a Yogi is to go beyond the senses. When the mind is conquered, he has reached the highest stage.
Live alone as much as possible. The seat should be of comfortable height; put first a grass mat, then a skin fur , next a silken cover.
It is better that the seat has no back and it must stand firm. Thoughts being pictures, we should not create them. We have to exclude all thought from the mind and make it a blank; as fast as a thought comes we have to banish it.
To be able to accomplish this, we must transcend matter and go beyond our body. The whole life of man is really an effort to do this. Seeing evil, we are creating it. What we are, we see outside, for the world is our mirror. This little body is a little mirror we have created, but the whole universe is our body. We must think this all the time; then we shall know that we cannot die or hurt another, because he is our own.
We are birthless and deathless and we ought only to love. Although we appear as little waves, the whole sea is at our back, and we are one with it. No wave can exist of itself. Imagination properly employed is our greatest friend; it goes beyond reason and is the only light that takes us everywhere.
The first step is to let the mind drift; watch it; see what it thinks; be only the witness. Mind is not soul or spirit. It is only matter in a finer form, and we own it and can learn to manipulate it through the nerve energies. The body is the objective view of what we call mind subjective. The body is crystallised thought. When the breath is flowing through the left nostril, it is the time for rest; when through the right, for work; and when through both, the time to meditate.
When we are calm and breathing equally through both nostrils, we are in the right condition for quiet meditation. It is no use trying to concentrate at first. Control of thought will come of itself. After sufficient practice of closing the nostrils with the thumb and forefinger, we shall be able to do it by the power of will, through thought alone.
Pranayama is now to be slightly changed. Throw the restrained breath forcibly down on the head of the Kundalini at each repetition of the word Hum and imagine that this awakens her. Identify yourself only with God. After a while thoughts will announce their coming, and we shall learn the way they begin and be aware of what we are going to think, just as on this plane we can look out and see a person coming.
This stage is reached when we have learnt to separate ourselves from our minds and see ourselves as one and thought as something apart. Do not let the thoughts grasp you; stand aside, and they will die away. Follow these holy thoughts; go with them; and when they melt away, you will find the feet of the Omnipotent God. This is the superconscious state; when the idea melts, follow it and melt with it.
Haloes are symbols of inner light and can be seen by the Yogi. Sometimes we may see a face as if surrounded by flames and in them read the character and judge without erring. We may have our Ishta come to us as a vision, and this symbol will be the one upon which we can rest easily and fully concentrate our minds.
We can imagine through all the senses, but we do so mostly through the eyes. Even imagination is half material. In other words, we cannot think without a phantasm. But since animals appear to think, yet have no words, it is probable that there is no inseparable connection between thought and images.
Try to keep up the imagination in Yoga, being careful to keep it pure and holy. We all have our peculiarities in the way of imaginative power; follow the way most natural to you; it will be the easiest. Be cheerful, be brave, bathe daily, have patience, purity, and perseverance, then you will become a Yogi in truth.
Never try to hurry, and if the higher powers come, remember that they are but side — paths. Do not let them tempt you from the main road; put them aside and hold fast to your only true aim — god.
Seek only the Eternal, finding which we are at rest for ever; having the all, nothing is left to strive for, and we are for ever in free and perfect existence — existence absolute, Knowledge absolute, Bliss absolute. You may have a vision of it come to you, and this is the best way. Then meditate for a long time on that. It is a very fine, very brilliant thread, this living passage through the spinal cord, this way of salvation through which we have to make the Kundalini rise.
In the language of the Yogi, the Sushumna has its ends in two lotuses, the lower lotus surrounding the triangle of the Kundalini and the top one in the brain surrounding the pineal gland; between these two are four other lotuses, stages on the way:. We must awaken the Kundalini, then slowly raise it from one lotus to another till the brain is reached.
Each stage corresponds to a new layer of the mind. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Sign up Log in. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3.
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Usage Public Domain Mark 1. Published by Ramakrishna Mission Bhubaneswar. Four Yoga books written by him -. In , Government of India has declared the birthday of Swami Vivekananda as National Youth Day as he is one of the inspiring personality for youths.
The purpose is to build the character of Indian youth in the footstep of Swami Vivekananda.
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