[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

these difficulties the number of those in whom the awakening,
whether present from birth or resulting from practice, was
successful in different parts of the world is surprisingly large. With
the knowledge now available and the rapid rate of progress in
almost all directions, the proportion of success is now likely to be a
hundred times greater, if this divine quest is earnestly taken up by
the luminaries of this age.
It hardly needs to be explained that for any system of Yoga or
any spiritual effort to be successful, it is necessary that there should
be a responsive agency in the body which the exercises can
stimulate or influence in order to attain those states of con-
sciousness in which mystical or any other spiritual experiences
become possible. Without an agency of this kind and without some
objective proof, establishing the existence of a superior
176 THE SECRET OF YOGA
mental state, beyond the normal capacity of the brain, as has
been demonstrated by almost every genuine prophet, mystic, and
saint, the validity of the experience in the case of those whose
minds exhibit no other extraordinary development can be open to
serious doubt. It is obvious that for any marked enhancement of the
efficiency of the mind, beyond the normal limit, and for the
exhibition of a more concentrated form of consciousness a
biological readjustment of the brain would be absolutely necces-
sary. Therefore every successful product of Yoga, religious effort,
or occult practice must succeed in stimulating the device de-
signed by nature to bring about the transformation, provided
all the other factors combine to elicit a favourable response to such
endeavour. This means that every effort which found access to
supersensory states of consciousness must have, wittingly or
unwittingly, made use of the evolutionary mechanism through its
master key, kundalini.
The reason why so many conflicts and controversies arise be-
tween the adherents of different creeds, different systems of Yoga,
or different schools of the occult is that the law underlying the
manifestations has not been correctly understood. Can it be
possible that the transcendent realm is so devoid of law that there is
no uniform procedure to regulate the entry to it? Even such an idea
is unthinkable. The prevailing belief that religious striving or Yoga
in any form is undertaken to procure union with the divine,
resulting in liberation from the bonds of flesh, is at the root of this
misconception. The very concept of liberation connotes the idea of
escape from the clutches of a painful world into the shielding arms
of a merciful Deity waiting to receive the afflicted soul. This in
turn implies that this desire in the heart of man to seek freedom
from the world with its sorrows and burdens in the quest of the one
Reality is inherent in the scheme of creation or, in other words, is
in accordance with the will of the Creator. If this is conceded it
would logically lead to the preposterous conclusion that all this
stupendous universe has been brought into existence to place
embodied souls deliberately
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF YOGA 177
in such a tormenting environment that, as soon as they possess the
intelligence to understand their plight, they would fervently wish to
be rid of it. Such a conception is entirely incompatible with the
idea of a merciful Creator. The argument that bondage and
emancipation are the fruits of karma and that the soul itself and not
the Creator is responsible for it, does not provide a satisfactory
answer to the problem. Conceding that karmic laws exist, do we
know from which point they started? If not, how can we say where
they will end? For all we know man might have to evolve to the
stature of a god-like being in the millenniums he has still to live on
this earth, and our efforts to interrupt this march of evolution by a
premature withdrawal from the world might not be in accordance
with the cosmic plan about the future destiny of mankind.
Just as every form of study stimulates the centre of intelligence
in the brain, and every form of artistic activity trains the muscles of
the hand, the fingers, or the throat, leading to a better coordination
between the organ and the mind, or as regular exercise tends to
develop a particular group of muscles to which it is directed, so
every form of religious exercise, Yoga, or occult practice tends to
stir up kundalini which, in turn, by using a more potent prana and
the precious substances, present in the reproductive secretions,
starts an amazing process of remodelling designed to form a
supersensory compartment in the brain the ultimate object of the
evolutionary impulse still active in man. The generally expressed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]