A metaphysical & scientific study of the evolutionary prospects of the human body in the light of Sri Aurobindo's vision & assurance of the body's divine destiny.
Chapter IV
In her own depths she heard the unuttered thought
That made unreal the world and all life meant.
"Who art thou who claim'st thy crown or separate birth,
The illusion of thy soul's reality
And personal godhead on an ignorant globe
In the animal body of imperfect man ?
...Only the blank Eternal can be true.
All else is shadow and flash in Mind's bright glass,
...........
O soul, inventor of man's thoughts and hopes,
Thyself the invention of the moments' stream,
Illusion's centre or subtle apex point,
At last know thyself, from vain existence cease."
(Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book VII, Canto VI, p. 535)
Beyond the realm of thought, transcending the domain of duality, leaving Maya with all her changes and modifications far behind, ... shines the glory of the Eternal Brahman in the Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Knowledge, knower and known dissolve in the menstruum of One Eternal Consciousness; birth, growth and death vanish in that infinite Existence; and love, lover and beloved merge in that unbounded ocean of Supreme Felicity.... Breaking down the ridge-poles of that tabernacle in which the soul has made its abode for untold ages — stilling the body, calming the mind and drowning the ego, comes the sweet joy of Brahman in that superconscious state. Space disappears in nothingness, time is swallowed up in Eternity ... [and] it is all stillness indefinable.... The Nirvikalpa Samadhi is the highest flight of Advaita Philosophy.
(Life of Sri Ramakrishna, Advaita Ashram, Almora, p. 181)
The acquisition of the highest spiritual consciousness, at least statically if not dynamically, is the goal of all spiritual endeavour. But, as we have noted before, the spiritual reaches of consciousness lie far behind and above our normal waking mentality. Now
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the question is: is it possible to possess the spiritual consciousness while still remaining embedded in the ordinary mental functionings? In other words, can the normal unregenerate surface consciousness and the spiritual one be concomitant and simultaneously operative? Seekers in all ages and climes, who have the necessary credentials to pronounce on this point, are universally agreed to deny this possibility.
So, broadly speaking, four alternatives may open out before those who aspire after spirituality:
(i)To create a division, a separation, a dissociation of consciousness and to be spiritual within or above while the outer consciousness and its ignorant movements are indifferently watched and felt to be something intrinsically foreign and disparate. This is the solution of the 'Witness Consciousness'.
(ii)To be satisfied with the indirect glories of the spiritual consciousness as reflected and refracted in the bosom of our normal mentality. This is what has been termed 'spiritual mental realisation'.
(iii)To still and withdraw from the mental consciousness and retire to the supra-mental reaches. This is what can be called the 'trance-solution.'
(iv)To transform the nature of the normal waking consciousness, to divinise it as we would say, by bringing down there the fullest wealth and splendour of the spiritual heights, so that its present opacity and refractoriness may be altogether rectified. This is the solution of 'divine transfiguration' as envisaged by our Yoga.
Evidently the 'Witness Consciousness' and 'spiritual-mental realisation' fall far short of our goal; for, be it once again stated, this goal is no less than the establishment of Life Divine upon earth, a dynamic waking existence embodying Sachchidananda in his fully manifested glories.
But since the yogic trance or Samadhi is so often held up not only as a supreme means of access to the higher possible spiritual consciousness but "as the very condition and status of that highest consciousness itself, in which alone it can be completely possessed and enjoyed while we are in the body,"1 we must digress here for a while to examine the nature of Samadhi and find out its utility or otherwise in the pursuit of the Integral Yoga.
1 The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 506.
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Samadhi or Yogic Trance; Since mind-consciousness is normally found to be incompatible with the highest state of spiritual realisation, a veritable yoga or union must almost by definition connote the cessation of all mental functions (yogaścittavṛtti-nirodhaḥ1) or even of the mind itself (manonāśo mahodayaḥ2).
Now, to follow the terminology as used by Vyasa, the great commentator on the 'Yoga Aphorisms' of Patanjali, our mind-stuff may function in five different levels or conditions (cittabhū-mayaḥ). These, from down upwards or from out inward, are
(i)Kṣipta or restless, the dissipated condition in which the mind is active and externalised and runs after objects of various sorts;
(ii)mūḍha or torpid, the stupefied condition in which the mind under the influence of an excessive tamas gravitates downwards and wallows in the obscure depths of ignorance; (iii) vikṣipta or distracted, a condition in which the mind becomes relatively pacified and at times somewhat concentrated but thrown out again outwards because of the distracting movements; (iv) ekāgra or concentrated, a condition dominated by sattva in which the mind is able to concentrate for a prolonged stretch of time to the exclusion of all other thoughts, upon some particular chosen object or subject of concentration; and lastly (v) niruddha or stilled, a condition in which even the act or function of contemplation ceases and, all modifications of the mind being stopped, nothing whatsoever is known or conceived by the latter.
The first three conditions of the mind enumerated above are of course not at all conducive to the practice of spirituality (yoga-pakṣe na vartate); it is only the last two that make possible any spiritual illumination. As a matter of fact, in the parlance of the Patanjali System, "ekāgra or the state of concentration, when permanently established, is called samprajñāta Yoga or the trance of meditation, in which there is a clear and distinct consciousness of the object of contemplation. It is known also as samāpatti or samprajñāta samādhi in as much as citta or the mind is, in this state, entirely put into the object and assumes the form of the object itself. So also the state of niruddha is called asamprajñāta Yoga or asam-prajñāta samādhi,...because this is the trance of absorption in which all psychoses and appearances of objects are stopped...."3
1 Pātanjala Sūtra, 1.2.
2 Yoga-Vāsistha, IV. 5.18.
3 Chatterjee and Dutta, An Introduction to Indian Philosophy, p. 305.
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In more general terms we may say that Samadhi or yogic trance is that state of superconsciousness in which the aspirant, diving deep or soaring high in the search of the soul or the self, enters, when his consciousness, through an inward concentration, withdraws from the surface world as perceived by the senses and retires to progressively deeper interior realms of supersensuous experiences. In this process of inward withdrawal or upward ascension, the consciousness first enters the 'dream-state' and then proceeds to the 'sleep-state'. While in the dream-state, the outer mind of the Sadhaka becomes quiescent and his inner mind, separated from the outer and no longer covered up by it, ranges through a wonderful world of rich and variegated inner experiences.
To obviate any possible misunderstanding that the nomenclature 'dream-state' or 'sleep-state' may engender in an unwary spirit, we may forthwith state here that the yogic dream- or sleep-states have nothing to do with the physical states of dream and sleep. "In the Yogic dream-state...the mind is in clear possession of itself, though not of the physical world, works coherently, ... [is perfectly] awake...not with the out-going, but with an in-gathered wakefulness in which, though immersed in itself, it exercises all its powers."1
In the dream-state itself there is an infinite series of depths, starting with that for which the world of physical senses is almost at the doors though momentarily shut out, and reaching to depths not likely to be broken in upon by the impact or call of the sensuous physical world. As a matter of fact, "beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost quite impossible to awaken or call back the soul that has receded into them; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the system owing to the abrupt upheaval of return."2
With the increasing depths or heights of the degrees of consciousness attained by the soul, the experiences obtained become progressively remote and less and less communicable to the waking mind, until the trance becomes complete in an utter self-gathering of the being when the central consciousness separates from the last vestige of mentality. Then it becomes an absolute
1 The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 500-01.
2 Ibid., pp. 499-500.
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impossibility for any records or transcripts of the experiences therein to reach the portals of the normal waking consciousness. This is the state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi claimed to be the highest status of spiritual attainment and assiduously sought after by every seeker after trance.
In this ultimate trance-state of pure superconscient existence, in this supra-mental immersion in the infinite being and the unconditioned bliss, time and space and hence the world of names and forms vanish into nothing, all action of mental awareness whether of outward or of inward things is altogether abolished and everything is drawn up into the supercosmic Beyond.
Once attaining this supreme state of Nirvikalpa trance, the soul finds it difficult, well-nigh impossible, to return again to the active life-consciousness, for "it loses the hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had inhabited it."1
We have so far analysed in abstract terms the physiognomy of the Yogic trance. To complete the account we would now like to reproduce in brief the concrete cases of the sages Uddalaka and Ramakrishna to show how in fact the consciousness withdrawing inward passes through progressively deepening states of being to repose finally in the absolute state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
First the scriptural account of the trance of Uddalaka as depicted in the great work Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana:2
The Trance of Uddalaka: "One day the sage deliberated: 'When will you attain to eternal peace by reaching the status of mindlessness, for such is indeed the condition for getting freed from the bondage of repeated births?'...Then the Brahmin Uddalaka sat down to concentrate and withdraw his mind. But he could not succeed at once in attaining the Samadhi state, for his mind, in the fashion of a restless baboon, began to fleet from object to object.... At a later stage, the mind-monkey would at times leave outside contacts and felt eager for the enjoyment of the inner Sattwic bliss; but this was indeed an intermittent mood, for most often the mind would rush towards outward objects again, as if it was stung by a
1 The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 500.
2 Vide Yoga-Vasishtha (Upashama Prakarana), Sargas 51-54.
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venomous snake. At times, his inner state was being cleared of the obscurity of ignorance and Uddalaka visioned the glory of a sun; but in no time his Chitta became restless again and flew outward in the manner of a startled bird. Again, he withdrew inward and experienced at times a vacant space or the Zero of an impenetrable darkness....As a warrior in battle kills his enemies with a sword, Uddalaka started destroying one by one all the vikalpas that were appearing in his consciousness. The vikalpas gone, he saw in the inner space a green-black Sun but proceeded immediately to eradicate this inky darkness. Then the softness of a massed lustre greeted the sage Uddalaka. But that too he eliminated in no time following the way of an elephant calf that gets into a lotus-pond and tears away and devastates the lotuses all around. Once this massed splendour was gone, Uddalaka's mind succumbed to a spell of deep sleep just as a man highly intoxicated loses his sobriety and then gets into torpor; but the sage was prompt enough to annul this state of sleep. Then his mind was filled with the consciousness of vyoma; but just as the wind sweeps away the dew-drops, he too swept away from his mind this clear and stainless consciousness of vyoma. But, following that, some sort of dazed dullness overtook him as if he was a heavily drunk man who had just come out of his torpid state. Even this too he vanquished.
"Then, at long last, the sage Uddalaka reached the status of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, where there was neither any obscurity nor any ephemeral lustre." 1
That, in the state of Nirvikalpa trance, the body becomes immobile like a painted image (citrārpita ivācalaḥ2) and even a violent sense-appeal fails to bring back the soul to the waking consciousness has been equally forcefully brought out by the Yoga-Vasishtha in the following account of the Samadhi of Shikhidhvaja:
"The queen Chudala went to the forest and found there the king Shikhidhvaja seated, like a sculptured tree, in the state of Nirvikalpa trance. She deliberated: 'I' must now seek to re-awaken the king, otherwise he will leave his body very soon.' Then the queen Chudala approached the king's body and shouted at the top of her voice. This loud sound and then the sound of the trumpet
1Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha, IV. 51-54.
2Ibid., IV. 37.2.
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frightened and startled the sylvan creatures, but the queen's repeated attempts failed to evoke any response from the king whose body remained tranced and immobile like a granite mass.1 Chudala then laid her hands on the body of Shikhidhvaja and started violently agitating it. Thus shaken, the king's body fell down and rolled on the ground, but even then he did not recover his waking consciousness. Then the queen wondered and thought, 'It does not seem to be an easy proposition to awaken my King! Only if he still possesses the grain of a desire somewhere hidden in seed-form, that will help him to come back again to the waking state, in no other wise can he be aroused.' "2
The Trance-Experience of Sri Ramakrishna: Now we come to the very authentic historical case of the Sage of Dakshinesvara whose trance-experiences as depicted in his authoritative biography published by the Ramakrishna Order itself we reproduce below:
"Sri Ramakrishna's Samadhi covered a wide range of experiences from his perception of various visions to the annihilation of his mind in the infinite consciousness of Brahman. It had also many forms....Thus he entered into a 'world of power', or 'a world of beauty', or 'a world of spiritual grandeur'....He would commune with invisible beings — forms of the Divinity or Divine Incarnations of the past.
"Such visions however belong to the domain of Personality, which is not the last word in spiritual experiences. So long as a sadhaka is satisfied with this kind of samadhi, his attainments cannot be said to be complete. He has not reached unfathomable depths of the ocean, though undoubtedly he has gone far behind the surface, encountering the forms of life abounding there, but he has not yet ransacked the priceless treasures of the deep, which reveal themselves only to those who have the courage to dive on and on till they have touched bottom.
"So we find Sri Ramakrishna taking up another course of
1 Cf. Savitri, Book VII, Canto II, p. 474:
"...her body became a stark
And rigid golden statue of motionless trance,
A stone of God lit by an amethyst soul.
Around her body's stillness all grew still."
2 Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha (Nirvāṇa Prakaraṇa), 103.
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sadhana altogether different from his previous ones."1
Then, a few pages further on, the biographer gives a vivid description of the first Nirvikalpa Samadhi-state of Sri Ramakrishna:
"Sri Ramakrishna passed into the ineffable glory of the Nirvikalpa Samadhi. In that rapturous ecstasy the senses and mind stopped their functions. The body became motionless as a corpse. The universe rolled away from his vision — even space itself melted away. Everything was reduced to ideas which floated like shadows in the dim backgrond of the mind. Only the faint consciousness of 'I' repeated itself in dull monotony. Presently that too stopped, and what remained was Existence alone. The soul lost itself in the Self, and all idea of duality, of subject and object, was effaced. Limitations were gone, and finite space was one with infinite space. Beyond speèch, beyond experience and beyond thought, Sri Ramakrishna had realised the Brahman — had become the Brahman.
"Totapuri [Sri Ramakrishna's Guru or the spiritual preceptor] sat for a long time, silently watching his disciple. Finding him perfectly motionless, he stole out of the room and locked the door lest anybody should intrude without his knowledge. Then he awaited the call from Sri Ramakrishna to open the door. The day passed on, the night came. Another day and still another — three days passed and there was no call. Totapuri was astonished and went to see what was wrong.
"He opened the door and entered the room. There sat Sri Ramakrishna in the very same position in which he had left him. There was no manifestation of life in the body, but the countenance was calm, serene and radiant. He saw that the disciple was still dead to the objective world, his mind absorbed in the Self, without a flicker — absolutely steady! ...
"With the utmost care he [Totapuri] determined if the heart was beating, or if there was the slightest trace of respiration. Again and again he touched the disciple's corpse-like body. There was no sign either of life or of consciousness.... It was undoubtedly a case of the Nirviklapa Samadhi — the culmination of Advaita practice!
"Totapuri immediately took steps to bring the mind of Sri Ramakrishna down to the world of phenomena."2
After Totapuri left Dakshineswar, Sri Ramakrishna decided to
1Life of Sri Ramakrishna (Advaita Ashram, Almora), p. 183.
2Ibid., pp. 190-92.
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withdraw from the world of 'I' and 'Mine' and live constantly in unity with the Supreme. What followed then is very much revealing from our point of view and worth reproducing in the saint's own inimitable words:
"I stayed in that ineffable state for six months at a stretch, a state from which an ordinary soul knows no return, his body dropping off like a withered leaf from a tree! There was no sense of the passage of time, of how the days and the nights went by! Flies and insects used to get into the mouth and nostrils of my body as if in those of a corpse, but they evoked no response from me. Oftentimes I would ease nature involuntarily without being in the least aware of it! My body would not have remained viable for long, it would have surely dropped down dead, but for the circumstance of the arrival at this time of a Sannyasin with a heavy stick in his hand. He realised my state at the very first glance and felt that if this body could somehow be preserved, much good would be done to the world through its agency. It thus so happened that during meal-times he used to beat my body with the stick and no sooner did he find that a faint glimmer of awareness had come, he would push some morcels of food into the mouth. In this way, on some days, a little bit of food could reach my stomach while on other days even that much failed.
"Six months rolled by in this wise. Then I heard the Mother's Voice: 'Come down a bit and stay in Bhāva-Samādhi, do stay in Bhāva-Samādhi for the welfare of the world!' Then a serious disease assailed my bodily frame — blood-dysentry it was! I had then frequent bouts of griping pains and unbearable cramps and wrenches in the stomach! After I had suffered from such intense agony for long six months, my consciousness could come down little by little into my body and finally I regained the waking state of ordinary men."1
So we have seen what Samadhi means and how the state of Nir-vikalpa Samadhi is eulogised as the spiritual status par excellence. Now we proceed to show that trance-experiences, however lofty or however deep, fail to meet the demands of our Yoga, and at the same time indicate how our goal of dynamic divinisation of the waking physical existence can be realised.
1 Swami Saradananda, Sri Sri Ramakrishna Lila-Prasanga (Guru-Bhava Purvardha), pp. 56-57.
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