A Textbook of Yoga

by Swami Krishnananda

There was a king called Janaka, of hallowed memory. He dreamt one day that he was a butterfly, and the intensity of the feeling that he was a butterfly was such that when he woke up, he did not know whether he was King Janaka or the butterfly dreaming that it is king. So he asked Yajnavalkya. King Janaka said, “Is Janaka dreaming that he is a butterfly, or is the butterfly dreaming that he is Janaka?” “Either way it can be,” was Yajnavalkya’s reply. Now, what do you say about this?

Humorously, someone said: If a poor person can dream for twelve hours that he is a king, and if a king can dream for twelve hours that he is a beggar, what is the difference between these two persons? If for twelve hours the king is a beggar, and for twelve hours the beggar is a king, who is the king and who is the beggar? Tell me! What do you understand from this analogy? This is a mystery of psychic phenomena. We call it a jugglery; we have to call it so. If God has really become this world, there is no use of asking for God-realisation, because He has ceased to be. But that cannot be. We ourselves are standing witnesses of the refutation of the doctrine of God having died into the form of this modified world.

Our attachments, our aversions, our loves and hatreds, our habit of grabbing property, even our love for life and fear of death can be bundled up into a single phenomenon of utter confusion in the mind. There has been a muddle of our psychic operation, making us believe that it is absolutely real. Do we not sometimes weep when we see a movie that is projected on a screen? Sometimes we cannot sleep after having seen certain movies. We will be elated, we will be jumping in joy, or we will cry.

What have we seen? There was nothing there, actually speaking. It was a shadow dance. The shadow dance was three-dimensionally projected into the structure of the mind with such vehemence that we take it for reality, and then we weep or jump in joy. For us to be happy or unhappy, objects need not necessarily be really there. Even non-existent things can make us happy and unhappy, provided our mind is connected to it.

Suppose a lady’s son is serving in the army in a foreign country, and for years he has not come back. He is perfectly well, but false news reaches her that he has been killed in battle. The mother can collapse and die of heart attack, even though nothing has really taken place. An unreal phenomenon can kill her. But suppose he is really dead, and for ten years no news about it reaches her; she is perfectly all right.

Therefore, what is the cause of our sorrow? Is the cause something really happening, or is it our mental operation? This is the reason why yoga psychology tells us to be careful in our emotions, perceptions, loves, hatreds, and in taking things so seriously that we die for them. Things are not to be taken so seriously in terms of emotion.

Yoga psychology also distinguishes between ordinary psychic perception and what is called abnormal psychic perception. This is incidental to our studies, but it is important. When we look at a thing, we may look at it in two ways: as just an object which is there, or as an object that is connected with us. Do we not see a tree there in front of us? What concern do we have with that tree? We pass by it a hundred times every day and do not even recognise its existence. Suppose there are trees in our own garden, around our house. We will go on seeing every leaf. “How beautiful is this flower! How tender is this leaf! This is the tree that my grandfather planted here in the orchard.” But there are so many trees in the forest, and nobody bothers about them. Some fall down, some wither away, some are cut. Suppose somebody cuts the tree in our garden?

Raga and dvesha, like and dislike, are connected with one kind of mental operation, whereas in others it is a general consciousness of something being there in front. If our emotions are disturbed or stimulated in any way, that is something quite different from ordinary perception. We sit in a railway compartment and see hundreds of people sitting there, but we do not bother to know who they are. They are like things, not like human beings. We are not concerned about them. But suppose it is a marriage party of our own group. Everyone is known to us and anything happening to anyone is happening to us also. What is the difference? Are the other passengers not human beings? Can we say that only those in our group are human beings? See the wonder of the working of the mind!

Inasmuch as all experience in this world is mental, finally, yoga students should be very cautious and not get involved in objects of perception to such an extent that it may ruin their health, spoil their career, and disturb their normal relationship with things. In order that our relationship, internally as well as externally, may always be normal, and we do not land in any kind of abnormal situation, yoga psychology prescribes the disciplines known as yamas: ahimsa satya asteya brahmacarya aparigrahah yamah. They are disciplines connected with internal alignment as well as external relation of a harmonious nature. It is an imposition upon us by a moral or ethical mandate. Are we to become disciplined and good only because there is a policeman outside? Or can we be good and disciplined even if there is no government? Should somebody hit us on the head so that we may become good?

The yamas and niyamas are like policemen. They compel us: You must be like this. But that kind of morality is not going to help us much. The thief who does not carry on his profession because of policemen around does not cease to be a thief. He is a thief, nevertheless. If gold is heaped in front of us and nobody sees us, and if our mind is not disturbed by its presence, we are not thieves. So our morality, ethics, goodness of behaviour, or detachment should be there—not because the scripture says or the institution penalises, or because we are afraid that God Himself will put us in hell. We must realise that it is always good to be good. Why is it good to be good? What is the harm if we are not good? We cannot immediately have a real answer to this question.

Children in school who are given lessons in morality may put a question. “Sir, that man is so bad, and he is thriving very well. Why are you telling me to be good?” The teacher sometimes cannot immediately give an answer to this question: “The evil man thrives and the good man goes to hell. What is this? And you tell me to be good?” Children in kindergarten can put a question like this; and we ourselves may also feel upset, irritated, by seeing these things. Our behaviour seems to be conditioned by certain disciplines imposed upon us. But yoga discipline is not imposition. Meditation is not an exercise like physical games. It is a demand of our inner nature itself. We have to find an answer ourselves as to why it is good to be good, why it is not good to be attached to things. Do we not feel happy if we are attached to loveable objects? Certainly! But yet, we are told that we should not get attached to anything, even if it looks loveable and attractive. Why? You answer the question yourself.

“Something beautiful, attractive and loveable—you said do not get attached to it. Is there any sense in your instruction?” There will be a revolt from inside. The scriptural instructions and the Guru’s orders, whatever they be, will create a revolt inside the student’s mind when he is told something contrary to what he feels. Now, why does he feel totally different from what is said to be good?

Spiritual practice is an inner demand, not an external imposition. It is not that somebody is sitting in meditation, so let me also sit. You feel a need for it for some reason of your own. You are a good man because you know what the meaning of a good man is. You are a gentleman; you know what the meaning of it is. Are you a gentleman because it is good to be a gentleman in the eyes of people? Is it a social psychology? Is goodness a social characteristic, or is it a personal requirement?

These students and teachers of moral science tell us that goodness is good—not because it brings some benefit to us, but because goodness itself is a benefit. It is difficult to understand this. “What is the benefit if I am just good?” The answer to this cannot come immediately, because our relationship to the whole universal structure is not clear to the mind.

You must first of all know what is the meaning of being good. Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj always said, “Be good. Do good.” But tell me, what did he mean by being good? Have some idea in your mind. It is a gradational adjustment of your own existence with the structure of reality outside. It is a very pithy, sutra-like statement that I have made: an adjustment of your total being with the various degrees of reality manifest before you, including all the environment, up to the cosmos.

Thus, from the study of the process of creation which seems to be involving a peculiar split of the subjective side and the objective side in an otherwise-total cosmic existence, what we learn is that empirical perception, sensory perception, or the affirmation of the ordinary psychic operations and the egoistic nature are not normal, finally, in the real sense. None of us is ultimately normal from a purely spiritual and philosophical sense, if normalcy is to be defined as perfect harmony with the structure of things. Who is in such harmony with the structure of things? We are always dissonant. There is repulsion, fear, agony, anxiety, and the expectation of anything arising, on account of the continuous non-alignment of the inner operation of the mind with external manifestation. The mind in dream that sees the dream world is not set in tune with the object of dream. That is why, in dream also, we can have joy and sorrow. But if the dream mind was to know that it is itself appearing as the object outside, there would be neither joy nor sorrow.

Why are we told that saints and sages have neither sorrow nor joy in their minds? They are not dead people. They are fully aware of all things, but their awareness is so tuned up to the nature of things that nothing affects them either positively as love or negatively as hatred.

In the structure of this creational process, we are all now placed in the position of a percipient, a seer of this world, and we behold a vast phenomenon of space-time and objects. Yet, there is an invisible content pervading this process of perception. Between me and you there is an intermediary intelligence pervading everywhere, which we cannot see because it is the seer. If the dream percipient were to also perceive the intelligence between itself and the object, there would be no dream. The dream would vanish in one second.

It is necessary not to know certain things in order that we may enjoy a false performance—like in a cinema, for instance. If we go on thinking that, after all, it is a shadow and a screen, we will not enjoy the movie. Perception of objects will cease in one second. The world perception will vanish.

In our studies of this cosmic process of creation, we come across certain words such as adhyatma, adhibhauta and adhidaiva. The subjective side is called adhyatma, the objective side is called adhibhauta, and that invisible content between the subject and object is called adhidaiva, which is the divine principle superintending over all kinds of perception by the subject of the object. They are called gods. In India we worship many gods. Are there many gods, really speaking? Yes and no.

There is only one God, perfectly correct, because we have concluded that the Ultimate Being should be universal undividedness of consciousness. Therefore, there cannot be more than one God. But, why are we worshipping so many gods? This series of many gods is nothing but the intermediary link of consciousness between various stages of the connection between the subject and the object in the process of coming and going.

There are various stages of the descent of the Absolute into this perception of the world of physicality. These stages are sometimes called the realms of being or, in Sanskrit, bhuvan or loka—Bhuloka, Bhuvarloka, Svarloka, Maharloka, Janaloka, Tapoloka and Satyaloka. What is meant by all these? They are inner contents of the perceived world.

I will give an example as to what this inner content of a thing can be. Inside an object, such as a stone, there are molecules. Inside the molecules there are atoms, and inside the atoms there are finer contents, electrons. Inside them, there is something mysterious. Like that, there are seven stages of inwardisation of the structure of a particular thing. This inwardisation of the content of the whole world in seven stages—call them inwardisation in the ascending order or externalisation in the descending order—are these worlds cosmically. In Sanskrit they are called Bhuloka, Bhuvarloka, Svarloka, Maharloka, Janaloka, Tapoloka and Satyaloka.

In every loka, in every world, in every realm of this internalisation of the cosmos, there is subject-object relation; and in every subject-object relation, there is an intermediary intelligence. That is what is called the god. And as there are countless relationships of subject and objects, we can say millions of gods also are there. Therefore, it is not that Hinduism has many gods. It is a way of perceiving things, an interpretation of the various processes of the coming and going of things.

So is the meaning of adhyatma, adhibhauta, adhidaiva. Adhyatma is the perceiver in any realm, in any stage of ascent or descent. Adhibhauta is the object in any stage of ascent or descent. Adhidaiva is the god in this ascent or descent. Thus, there are three things: the very clear existence of the percipient like you, me; the existence of an object like a wall, a building or a mountain, which is also very clear; and the imperceptible divinity which is superintending over both the subject and the object—a very, very important thing that we always miss in our observation, and which is the cause of our trouble in this world.

If we can transfer our perceiving consciousness to the intermediary transcendent element between the seer and the seen, we would become supermen in one instant.