Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation

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Recapitulation: Some Questions and Answers

What has been stated so far is only a glimpse of the varieties of yogic experience, and what is stated is far too inadequate even to serve as a preface to the descriptions of yogic experiences available in the history of relevant literature. A few broad rough strokes have been cast, and many important systems of yoga such as those of the Veda and the Upanishads, and many traditions of the East and the West have been either just mentioned or altogether unpardonably ignored.

(a) From what has been indicated here and what can be gathered, — if we make a studious and critical study of the important literature on yogic experiences, we can formulate some important general statements, and formulate also some questions which would necessitate further research, and which would also involve discussions of important issues in science, philosophy, ethics, religion and even occultism. For yoga aims at knowledge and claims validity for the knowledge acquired through yogic methods, and if this claim is sustained, it will have far-reaching consequences not only for the domains that aim at the knowledge of the truth, but also for a possible change in the climate of the contemporary civilisation which suffers from various forms of crisis, some of which are related to conflicts of culture, conflicts of religions and conflicts relating to claims regarding truth. It is in this context that the subject of varieties of yogic

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experiences deserves to be brought forth as one of the central subjects that must be pursued by all sincere seekers of truth and of the highest welfare of civilisation.

1. One general statement that can be made is that yogic experience runs everywhere on the same lines, even though it should be admitted that there are, not one line, but many. Still the broad lines are the same everywhere and the intuitions, revelations, inspirations, and mystic phenomena are the same in ages and countries far apart from each other and even though systems were practised quite independently from each other. The experiences of Saint Teresa, those of Andal or of Mirabai are precisely the same in substance, however, differing in names, forms, or cultural colouring. It is a fact that they were not corresponding with one another or aware of each other's experiences and results as are modern scientists in different parts of the world. This would seem to show that there is something there identical, universal, and presumably truth — however, the colour of the translation may differ because of the differences of mental language.

2. As in science, so here in this field, we are required to accumulate experience on experience, following faithfully the methods laid down by the teacher or by the systems of the past. As in science, so here, we are required to develop intuitive discrimination which compares the experiences, see what they mean, how far and in what field each is valid, what is the place of each in. the whole, how it can be reconciled or related with each other, even though at the first sight might seem to contradict each other. As in science, so here, we need to continue to conduct many related inquiries until we can

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move with some secure knowledge in the vast field of yogic phenomena, — and to permit even further development of fresh knowledge.

3. It is extremely important to underline the fact that yoga does not admit dogma, either in its own method of inquiry or even in the philosophical systems which can be built up on the basis of the data of yogic experiences. Yoga may not combat dogmatic assertions when they are put forward as dogmatic assertions which cannot be questioned, but if the contents of dogmatic assertions are to be admitted in the field of yoga, yoga has to test them on the anvil of the criteria of repeatable and verifiable experiences.

4. It is also to be noted that yoga has developed a number of methods which have been tested, and which have been found justified on the ground of the knowledge gained of the truths, principles, powers and processes that govern the realisation. These methods have something of the same relation to the cognitive, affective and conative and other psychological workings of the human apparatus as has the scientific handling of the natural force of electricity or of steam to the normal operations of steam and of electricity. These methods have been developed over thousands of years and have been formulated by regular experiments, practical analyses and constant results.

5. It is true that yogic experiences have so far remained accessible to a small minority of human race, but still there has been a host of independent witnesses to them in all times, climes and conditions, and many of them are the greatest intelligences of the past, and some of them

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world's most remarkable figures. These experiences must therefore, be taken into account seriously and honestly and must not be immediately dismissed simply because they are not only beyond the average man in the street but also not easily seizable even by many cultivated intellects or because their methods are more difficult than those of ordinary sense or reason.

6. It is true that the field of yogic experience, if it is seized on by unripened minds, it lends itself to the most perilous distortions and misleading imaginations. In the past these distortions and misleading imaginations have encrusted a real nucleus of truth with such an accretion of perverting superstitions and irrationalising dogmas, that they thwarted all advance in true knowledge.

7. It is also true that during serious debates, arguments have been advanced which rely only on sporadic intuitions or revelations or inspirations, instead of those which have been tested on the anvil of scrupulous methods of verification which are available in the vast body of knowledge that yoga possesses. Arguments based upon yogic experiences have great relevance to the search for the truth, but all seekers must examine all aspects of evidence impartially and in the pure spirit of the search of truth and truth alone.

(b) In this context, it is necessary to distinguish between occultism and yoga. It is true that occultism is concerned with occult phenomena and the laws governing those phenomena; occultism is the science of secrets that govern the phenomena that we normally experience but the underlying roots of which we do not normally experience. In a sense, even physical sciences can be regarded as occult

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sciences and can be grouped under occultism, considering that these sciences have also revealed and demonstrated the secrets which lie behind the truths of quantities and qualities, of the speeds and measures, of the real nature of elements, compounds and various kinds of combinations which are found in nature or which can be found by laborious effort which can even be fabricated by the operations of the human intelligence. But what is distinctly called occultism, in the present stage of development of knowledge, is related to the phenomena and realities of supra-physical ranges of the subtle-physical, subliminal vital and subliminal mental, as they are found in human psychology or in worlds that are supra— physical but which have their own organisations and complex formations of existence and movement. These supra— physical domains are distinct from the domains of the psychic consciousness, spiritual consciousness and of supramental consciousness, — all of which are above the physical, subtle-physical, vital and mental domains of existence. In strict terms, the field which makes yoga distinctive is its field of psychic consciousness, spiritual consciousness and supramental consciousness. It is true, however, that yogic quest is often prefaced by an entry into the fields of subtle-physical, inner vital and inner mental, — even as, yogic quest is often prefaced by a serious quest in philosophy, science, religion, ethics or aesthetics. But even if this prefatory quest in these fields happens to be necessary in most cases, it has to be underlined that the central field, — the distinctive field, — of yogic experiences is that of the psychic, spiritual and supramental. It is for this reason that many yogins, in order to keep their quest absolutely direct and unmixed, discourage occultism and even aṣṭa siddhis, many aspects of which are limited to attainments of

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occultism. At the same time, there are yogins, and even accomplished yogins who in a more comprehensive search of knowledge do not lay down any limitations in regard to the field of their quest, but with due discrimination, and without diluting their rigour of quest of their own specialised field, they explore occultism, even as they do explore many fields of inquiry such as those of science, philosophy, art and others. Nonetheless,, many of the adverse judgements against yoga issue from indiscriminate clubbing of the occult and yogic experiences, and many of the infirmities which are found in the claims of occultists tend to be held also against the claims of yogic experiences.

There is, however, one argument which is advanced against both occult tism and yoga, and that argument is levelled against all that is supra-physical. This argument makes, first of all, a demand for physical valid proof of all that is claimed to be supra-physical. But an impartial inquiry, even at the first sight , will show that the demand for physical proof of a supra-physical fact is irrational and illogical. One may concede that what is spoken of as supra-physical may be adjudged to be unintelligible, but that does not constitute the disproof of wheat is unintelligible. It is only a proof of incommunicability but, if it is considered useful and important to concentrate on what is sought to be communicated through what is unintelligible, there is a good ground to investigate, and to enter into the field which is sought to be referred to in what seems to be unintelligible. A purely scientific attitude will concede this need and move forward instituting the required inquiry.

On the other hand, it may be suggested that a supraphysical fact may impinge on the physical world and produce physical results; it may even produce an effect on our

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physical senses and become manifest to them, but that cannot be its invariable action and character and process. Ordinarily supra-physical in fact must produce a direct effect on what is supra-physical in our consciousness, — on our mind, our life-being, our spiritual being, or other parts of us that are of the same order as itself, and can only indirectly and through them, if at all, influence the physical world and physical life.

Even if the concerned supra-physical object objectivises itself, it must be to a subtler sense in us and only derivatively to the outward physical senses. It is true that sometimes, this derivative objectivisation happens to occur, and if there is an association of action of the material body and its physical organs, then the supra-physical can become outwardly sensible to us. This is what happens, for example, in regard to the phenomena which have been studied in regard to the workings of faculties such as those of second sight. In certain occult phenomena, we seem to see and hear by the outer senses but which are not sensed inwardly through representation or interpretation of symbolical images which bear the stamp of an inner experience or an evident character of formations in a subtle substance. In the field of yoga and in the field of occultism, there are various kinds of evidences of the existence of other planes of being and communication with them. These include objectivisation to the outer sense, subtle-sense contacts, mind-contacts, life-contacts, and contacts through the subliminal in special states of consciousness existing in our ordinary range.

It is argued that the entire field of the supra-physical experience is a field of subjective experience or of subtle- sense images, and these can be easily deceptive. In regard to this argument, it may be admitted that there is a too great a tendency to grant credibility to the extraordinary and

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miraculous or supernatural at its face-value. Hence, it is necessary to apply greater rigour in scrutinising these phenomena and finding out strict standards and characteristic appropriate and valid means of verification. But mere liability to error cannot be a reason for shutting out a large and important domain of experience, since error is not a prerogative of the subjective experience alone; error is also an appanage of ordinary instruments of sense-organs and of the mind which relies on the evidence of the sense-organs. Error is also to be found in the domain where objective methods and standards have been erected. It may, therefore, be reasonably acknowledged that there can be and there are in the yogic field standards of judgement and criteria of verification which are appropriate to the supra-physical fields. The basic point that we need to underline is that the physical or supra-physical truths must be founded not on mental belief alone but on experience, — but in each case, experience must be of the kind, physical, subliminal or spiritual, which is appropriate to the order of the truths into which we are empowered to enter. Their validity and significance, as Sri Aurobindo points out, "must be scrutinised, but according to their own law and by a consciousness which can enter into them and not according to the law of another domain or by a consciousness which is capable only of truths of another order; so alone can we be sure of our steps and enlarge firmly our sphere of knowledge."18

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