FREE online courses on Concepts of Ayurveda - Yoga
Further progress made in psychology and in
particular, experimental psychology, abnormal psychology and para-psychology
during recent years due to the labours of Freud, Jung, Adler, McDougall, Tyrell,
and latterly Rhine and others, have yielded a harvest of new and more facts, so
fat not known, or if known, not recognised in the West. The sum-total of their
contributions is the growing recognition of the fact that, "There is a faculty
in man, which when sternly disciplined and assiduously trained is capable of
apprehending knowledge directly and not through the special senses and the
working of the intellect. The West has no name for this instrument of direct
cognition and to make matters worse, many recent writers have applied to a
faculty which functions only in a state of heightened consciousness, the utterly
misleading term "the sub-conscious." So observers Dr. Kenneth Walker in his
famous book ‘Meaning and Purpose.' He further notes that "In Sanskrit there are
many words with which to describe both the instrument and the psychic experience
associated with its functioning. Amongst those terms which describe this
instrument of direct cognition is the terms "bodh" from the root "bodhi" meaning
"awakening," thus rightly implying that it functions only in states of
heightened awareness. It is therefore, very different from that submerged area
in our being which becomes active in our sleep, and is the creator of our
dreams, the Sub-conscious." Furze Morrish in his well known work "Outlines of
Metaphysics" discussing the state of heightened consciousness observes that,
"The technique of applying these laws of mind is called Yoga and the famous Yoga
school of Samkhya order is that of Patanjali. The Yogasutras (rules) of
Patanjali are well known. They are an exposition of an exact science of Mind and
do not comprise religious or any other sort of canons which demand veneration or
obedience from formal necessity. The goal of Yoga is to reach a state of intense
concentration and detachment from material surroundings in which Purusha alone
is experienced. This produces a state of bliss in glimpsing that which is
eternal."
In Charaka's words the phenomenon of Yoga is
described as follows:-
"The apparatus of sensation is the mind and
the body together with senseorgans, with the exception of hair of the head and
the body, the tips of the nails, the indigested food, faeces, excretory fluids
an sense-objects."
"Both in Yoga and final liberation, there
is no existence of sensation; in final liberation there is absolute cessation,
while Yoga leads to that liberation."
"From the contact of the self, the senses,
the mind and the sense objects arise pleasure and pain; these two cease to be,
as the result of inaction of the mind which is firmly fixed in the Self. Then
while embodied, it acquires the psychic powers; and such a state, the Rishis who
are conversant with Yoga know to be Yoga."
"The entry into other bodies, telepathy,
the doing things according to one's will, clairvoyance, clairaudience
omniscience, effulgence, vanishing from sight at will - these eight are said to
be the sovereign powers of the Yogis. All these accrue from the concentration of
the pure mind."
Summing up what has been stated above, it
will be seen that apart from the fact that the mind possesses dual properties
viz., (i) it functions through the five senses under normal circumstances of
life and the scope of such operations being limited by Time and Space factors;
and (ii) when freed from the senses in special states cultivated by stern
discipline and assiduous practice, it transcends all limitations and is able to
perceive the true nature of things which are stated to be ‘revelations'. It may
incidentally be noted here that the basic concepts of Ayurveda, the Doctrine of
Panchabhutas, are claimed to be the outcome of such revelations.
