by annie besant / part 2

Annie Besant was a British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer, orator, educationist, and philanthropist. Regarded as a champion of human freedom, she was an ardent supporter of both Irish and Indian self-rule. She was a prolific author with over three hundred books and pamphlets to her credit. She became a member of the Theosophical Society and a prominent lecturer on the subject.

As part of her theosophy-related work, she travelled to India. In 1898 she helped establish the Central Hindu School, and in 1922 she helped establish the Hyderabad (Sind) National Collegiate Board in Mumbai, India.  In 1902, she established the first overseas Lodge of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry, Le Droit Humain.

Over the next few years she established lodges in many parts of the British Empire. In 1907 she became president of the Theosophical Society, whose international headquarters were, by then, located in Adyar, Madras, (Chennai). She also became involved in politics in India, joining the Indian National Congress.

When World War I broke out in 1914, she helped launch the Home Rule League to campaign for democracy in India, and dominion status within the British Empire. This led to her election as president of the Indian National Congress, in late 1917.

In the late 1920s, Besant travelled to the United States with her protégé and adopted son Jiddu Krishnamurti, who she claimed was the new Messiah and incarnation of Buddha. Krishnamurti rejected these claims in 1929. 

Besant met fellow theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater in London in April 1894. They became close co-workers in the theosophical movement and would remain so for the rest of their lives. After the war, she continued to campaign for Indian independence and for the causes of theosophy, until her death in 1933.

"The universe exists for the sake of the Self."

Not for what the outer world can give, not for control over the objects of desire, not for the sake even of beauty or pleasure, does the Great Architect plan and build His worlds. He has filled them with objects, beautiful and pleasure-giving. The great arch of the sky above, the mountains with snow-clad peaks, the valleys soft with verdure and fragrant with blossoms, the oceans with their vast depths, their surface now calm as a lake, now tossing in fury they all exist, not for the objects themselves, but for their value to the Self.

Not for themselves because they are anything in themselves but that the purpose of the Self may be served, and His manifestations made possible. The world, with all its beauty, its happiness and suffering, its joys and pains" is planned with the utmost ingenuity, in order that the powers of the Self may be shown forth in manifestation. From the fire-mist to the LOGOS, all exist for the sake of the Self. The lowest grain of dust, the mightiest deva in his heavenly regions, the plant that grows out of sight in the nook of a mountain, the star that shines aloft over us-all these exist in order that the fragments of the one Self, embodied in countless forms, may realize their own identity, and manifest the powers of the Self through the matter that envelops them.

- Annie Besant

“These lectures [Delivered at the 32nd Anniversary of the Theosophical Society held at Benares, on Dec. 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th, 1907.] are intended to give an outline of Yoga, in order to prepare the student to take up, for practical purposes, the Yoga sutras of Patanjali, the chief treatise on Yoga. To prepare the student for the mastering of that more difficult task, these lectures were designed; hence the many references to Patanjali. They may, however, also serve to give to the ordinary lay reader some idea of the Science of sciences, and perhaps to allure a few towards its study.” 

In this article I cover main points in Annie Besant’s book, “An Introduction to Yoga.”

PART 2 / Contents

MIND / ANTAH-KARANA, THE MENTAL BODY, MIND AND SELF, METHODS OF YOGA, TO THE SELF BY THE SELF, TO THE SELF THROUGH THE NOT-SELF, YOGA AND MORALITY, COMPOSITION OF STATES OF THE MIND, PLEASURE AND PAIN, INHIBITION OF STATES OF MIND

MIND / ANTAH-KARANA

Mind has 3 properties and qualities.

1 - Cognition

2 - Desire or Will

3 - Activity

The Chiita is not a fourth, but the sum of the three: Manas, Buddha and Ahamkara. Trinity in Unity.

Cognition - where there is cognition the other 2 are present, though subordinate to it. Cognition turned on itself, reflected in itself, and we have Buddhi, the pure reason, the very essence of cognition; this in the universe is represented by Vishnu, the sustaining wisdom of the Universe.

Cognition looking outwards - as reflecting itself in activity, its brother quality, and we have a mixture of cognition and activity which is called Manas, the active mind; Cognition reflected in activity is Manas in man or Brahma, the creative mind, in the Universe.

When cognition similarly reflects itself in will, then it becomes Ahamkara, the “I AM I” in man, represented by Mahadeva in the Universe.

Thus we have found within the limits of this cognition a triple division, making up the internal organ or Antahkarana-Manas, plus Buddha, plus Ahamkara - and we can find no fourth.

Chitta: the summation of the 3, the 3 taken together, the totality of the three. 

Because of the old way of counting these things, you get this division of Antahkarana into four.

THE MENTAL BODY

The first thing for a man to do in practical Yoga is to separate himself from the mental body, to draw away from that into the sheath next above it. The Self is always the consciousness plus the vehicle from which the consciousness is unable to separate itself. Manas must be identified with the Self, and the spiritual Triad, the Atma-Buddhi-Manas, is to be realized as separate from the mental body.

That is the first step.

You must be able to take up and lay down your mind as you do a tool, before it is of any use to consider the further progress of the Self in getting rid of its envelopes.

Mental body is taken as the focal point.  Suppress thought.  Quiet it.  Still it.

As you look upon that body from a higher plane, you see constant changes of colors playing it it. You find that they are sometimes initiated from within, sometimes from without. Sometimes a vibration from without has caused a change in consciousness, and a corresponding change in the colors in the mental body.

The mental body is a bod of ever-changing hues and colors, never still, changing color with swift rapidity throughout the whole of it. Yoga is the string of all these, the inhibition of vibrations and changes alike. Inhibition of the change of consciousness stops the vibration of the mental body; the checking of the vibration of the mental body checks the change in consciousness.

In the mental body of a Master there is no change of color save as initiated from within; no outward stimulus can produce any answer, any vibration, in that perfectly controlled mental body.

The color of the mental body of a Master is as moonlight on the rippling ocean.

Within that whiteness of moon-like refulgence lie all possibilities of color, but nothing in the outer world can make the faintest change of hue sweep over its steady radiance. If a change of consciousness occurs within, then the change will send a wave of delicate hues over the mental body which responds only in color to changes initiated from within. The mental body is an outer sheath that He uses when He needs to communicate with the lower world.

You have to learn how to stop the whole of those vibrations, how to make the mental body colorless, still and quiet, responsive only to the impulses that you choose to put upon it. By the action of your control of the will, you can check the current of thought and hold the mind in perfect stillness. Sheath after sheath has to be transcended, and the proof of transcending is that it can no longer affect you. You can affect it, but it cannot affect you.

The moment that nothing outside you can harass you, can stir the mind, the moment that the mind does not respond to the outer, save under your own impulse, thence you say of it;

THIS IS NOT MY SELF.

From this you pass on to the conquest of the causal body. When the conquering of the causal body is complete then you go to the conquering of the Buddhic body. When mastery over the Buddhic body is complete, you pass on to the conquest of the Atmic body.

MIND AND SELF

What becomes of mind itself? The Monad remains.

It is the end of the human pilgrimage.

That is the highest point to which humanity may climb; to suppress all the reflections in the fivefold universe through which the Monad has manifested his powers, and then for the Monad to realize himself, enriched by the experiences through which has manifested aspects have passed.

For when you have the spectator left, when it ceases, the spectator himself almost vanishes. His only function was to look on at the play of mind. When the play of mind is gone, what is left?

The duality has transcended and so the Spirit sinks back into latency, no longer capable of manifestation. When all these functions have been suppressed, then the Monad is ruler over matter and is prepared for a new cycle of activity, no longer slave but master.

The Self withdraws from sheath after sheath, he does not lose but gains in Self-realization which becomes more vivid with each successive withdrawal.

As the Self puts aside one veil of matter after another, recognizes in regular succession that each body in turn is not himself, by that process of withdrawal his sense of Self-reality becomes Keener, not less.  The state of the early undeveloped man was identity completely with the body.  No abstract thought.

Our consciousness is astral rather than physical and increased in vividness. The center grows more powerful as the circumference becomes more permeable, and at last a state is reached when the centre knows itself at every point of the circumference. When that is accomplished the circumference vanishes, but not so the centre.  It remains.

We climb up the stairway of life and cast away garment after garment. We become more conscious of existence, knowledge and Self-determined Power. The faculties of the Self shine out more strongly, as veil after veil falls away. When we touch the Monad, our consciousness should be mightier, more vivid, and more perfect. As you learn to truly live, your powers and feelings grow in strength.

You control the Not-Self, the sheaths. The Inner Ruler is Immortal.

METHODS OF YOGA

The scientific method following the old Indian conception. This is the Science of Yoga not the other means of attaining union with the Divine - Bhakti and Karma.

The Yoga is the Marga of Jnanam or knowledge, and within that way, within that Marga or path of knowledge, we find that three subdivisions occur, as everywhere in nature.

The Path of Knowledge

Buddha - Pure Reason

Manas - the Concrete Mind

Will breaks its way upwards by sheer unflinching determination, keeping its eyes fixed on the end, and using either buddha or manas indifferently as a means to that end.

Strength is needed, determination is needed, perseverance is needed and you must have in every successful Yogi, that intense determination which is the very essence of individuality.

What are the two great methods?

Seeking the Self by the Self - Faculty of Buddha - they turn ever inwards and turn away from the outer world.

Seeking the Self by the Not Self - active working Manas; they are outward-turned, and by study of the Not-Self, they learn to realize the Self.

The one is the path of the metaphysician; the other is the path of the scientist.

TO THE SELF BY THE SELF

BUDDHI - METAPHYSICIAN / PHILOSOPHER

MANAS - SCIENTIST

Knowing that the Self is within him, he tries to strip away vesture after vesture, envelope after envelope, and by a process of rejecting them he reaches the glory of the unveiled Self.

You must give up concrete thinking and dwell amidst abstractions.  Strenuous, long-sustained, patient mediation.

By which rises away from the concrete mind into the abstract regions of the mind; strenuous, hard thinking, further continued, by which he reaches from the abstract region of the mind unto the region of the Buddha, where unity is sensed; still be strenuous thinking, climbing yet further, until Buddha as it were opens out into Atma, until the Self is seen in his splendor, with only a film of Atmic matter, the envelope of Ata in the manifested fivefold world.

It is along that difficult and strenuous path that the Self must be found by way of the Self.

He must utterly disregard the Not-Self and shut his senses against the outside world. Seclusion will help him, until he is strong enough to close himself against the outer stimuli or allurements. To the man who would find the self by the Self, every sense is a hindrance and an obstacle, and there is no logic, no reason, in denouncing the subtler senses only, while forgetting the temptations of the physical senses, impediments as much as the other.

The Subtle worlds of matter is the Astral and Mental.

Faith - the intense profound conviction, that nothing can shake, of the reality of the Self within you.

It is beyond reason, for not by reason may the Self be known as real.

It is the witness of the Self within you to his own supreme reality, and that unshakable conviction, which is shraddha, is necessary for the treading of this path.

TO THE SELF THROUGH THE NOT-SELF

Turn from him to the seeker for the Self through the Not-Self.

We have to find the real among the unreal, the eternal among the changing, the Self amid the diversity of forms. We do this by a close and rigorous study of every changing form in which the Self has veiled hlmself.

By studying the Not-Self around him and in him, by understanding his own nature, by analyzing in order to understand, by studying nature in others as well as in himself, by learning to know himself and to gain knowledge of others; slowly, gradually, step by step, plane after plane, he has to climb upwards, rejecting one form of matter after another, finding not in these the Self he seeks.

As he learns to conquer the physical plane, he uses the keenest senses in order to understand, and finally to reject.

“This is not myself.” and rejects them.

He climbs on the astral plane and using there the finer astral senses, he studies the astral world, only to find that also is changing and manifests not the changelessnes of the Self. After the astral world is conquered and rejected, he climbs into the mental plane, and there still studies the ever-changing forms of that Manasic world, only once more to reject them;

Climbing higher, he goes from the mental to the Buddhic plane, where the Self begins to show his radiance and beauty in manifested union. Thus by studying diversity he reaches the conception of unity, and is led into the understanding of the One. The realization of the Self comes from the study of the Not-Self, by the separation of the Not-Self from the Self.

Just as you cannot study the physical world without the physical senses, so you cannot study the astral world without the astral senses, nor the mental world without the mental senses.

There are 2 methods, and these must be kept separate in your thought.

The Pure Thinking - Metaphysical line - you may reach the self.

So along the line of scientific observation and experiment - the physical line, in the widest sense of the term physical - you may reach the Self.

Both are ways of Yoga.

YOGA AND MORALITY

Yoga is a science of psychology, the study of the mind. Ethic is the study of conduct. Ethic is a science of life, and not an investigation into the nature of mind and the methods by which the powers of the mind may be developed and evolved.

The harvest is according to the sowing. For this is a universe of law. By law we conquer, by law we succeed.

The white magician must be patient. The black magician may quite well be harsh.

The white magician must be compassionate; compassion widens out his nature, and he is trying to make his consciousness include the whole of humanity. But not so the black magician.  He can afford to ignore compassion.

The end of one is Nirvana, where all separation has ceased.

The end of the other is Avichi-the uttermost isolation - the Kaivalya of the black magician.

One of the kaivalya of Nirvana, the other Kaivalya of Avichi.

COMPOSITION OF STATES OF THE MIND

Vrittis means the “being” of the mind; the ways in which mind can exist

The modes of the mind; the modes of mental existence; the ways of existing.

In Yoga you have to stop every mode of existing in which the mind manifests itself. In order to guide you towards the power of stopping them - for you cannot stop them till you understand them - you are told that these modes of mind are fivefold in their nature.

They are Pentads.

The PENTAD recalls to you the way in which the chemist speaks of a modal, triad, heptad, when he deals with elements. The elements with which the chemist is dealing are related to the unit-element in different ways. Some elements are related to it in one way only, and are called monads; others are related in two ways, and are called dauds, and so on.

We have 5 Senses, ways of knowing / five jnanendriyas or organs of knowing.  

Only be these 5 senses can you know the outer world. West says that nothing exists in thought that does not exist in sensation. But that is not true of the abstract mind, nor wholly of the concrete.

Every idea is a PENTAD. It is made up of 5 ELEMENTS.

Each element making up the idea comes from one of the senses, and of these there are at present 5. Later on every idea will be a heptad, made up of 7 elements. For the present, each has 5 qualities, which build up the idea.

The mind unites the whole together into a single thought, synthesizes the give sensations. If you think of an orange and analyze your thought of an orange, you will find in it; 

COLOR through the eye

FRAGRANCE through the nose

TASTE which comes through the tongue

ROUGHNESS OR SMOOTHNESS from the senses of touch

HEAR musical notes made by the vibrations of the molecules, coming through the sense of hearing, were it keener.

It takes the 5 sensations that enter through the senses, and combines them into a single precept.

As at the present stage of evolution the senses are 5 only, it unites the 5 sensations into one idea. What the white rays is to the 7-colored light, that a thought or idea is to the fivefold sensation.

So nothing that exists in thought which is not in sensation, is not the whole truth.

Manas, the 6 sense adds to that sensations its own pure elemental nature. It is the establishment of a relation, that is really what the mind adds.

The very first process of the mind is to become aware of an outside world. We become aware of something outside ourselves - a process generally called perception.

When a little baby feels a pin pricking it, it is conscious of pain, but not at first conscious of the pin, nor yet conscious of where exactly the pin is. It does not recognize the part of the body in which the pin is. There is no perception for perception is defined as relating a sensation to the object which causes the sensation.

You only perceive when you make a relation between the object and yourself.

East says the sensation is a mental function also, for the senses are part of the cognitive faculty, but they are unfortunately classed with feelings in Western psychology.

Now having established that relation between yourself and objects outside, what is the next process of the mind?

Reasoning: the establishing of relations between different objects, as perception is the establishment of your relation with a single object. When you have perceived many objects, then you begin to reason in order to establish relations between them.

Reasoning is the establishment of a new relation, which comes out from the comparison of the different objects that by perception you have established in relation with yourself, and the result is a concept.

The whole process of thinking is the establishment of relations, and it is natural that it should be so, because the Supreme Thinker, by establishing a relation, brought matter into existence.

Just as HE, by establishing that primary relation between Himself and the Not-Self, makes a universe possible, so do we reflect His powers in ourselves, thinking by the same method, establishing relations, and thus carrying out every intellectual process.

PLEASURE AND PAIN

PENTADS are of 2 kinds, painful and non-painful.

A third is indifference.

The Self, being by nature unlimited, is ever pressing, so to say, against any boundaries which seek to limit him. When these limitations give way a little before the constant pressure of the Self, we feel “pleasure” and when they resist or contract, we feel “pain.”

They are not states of the Self so much as states of the vehicles, and states of certain changes in consciousness.

Pleasure and pain belong to the Self so much as states of the vehicles, and states of certain changes in consiousness. Pleasure belongs to the Self as a whole, the vehicles yield themselves to the Self, and permit it to ‘expand’ as is its eternal nature, then what is called pleasure is felt.”

Pleasure is moreness while pain is lessness.

Understanding the attractiveness of anything outside of us is the increase of life. This is how you end put the finger on the point of temptation and meet that in your argument with him. This sort of mental analysis is not only interesting, but practically useful to every helper of mankind.

The more you know the greater is your power to help.

The object of all philosophy is to put an end to pain. WE need not go about seeking happiness. It is already ours, for it is the essence of our own nature.

The Self is bliss.

Happiness exists eternally within us. It is your natural state. You have not to seek it. You will necessarily be happy if you get rid of the obstacles called pain, which are in the modes of mind. Happiness is not the secondary thing, but pain is, and these painful things are obstacles to be got rid of.

When they are stopped, you will be happy.  Pain is a transitory thing.

The Self, who is bliss, being the all-permeating life of the universe, pain has no permanent place in it. It would be impossible to make the Self turn outward, come into manifestation, if only streams of bliss flowed in on him.

He would have remained unconscious of the streams. To the infinity of bliss nothing could be added. Like a stream of water, pour more water on it, it continues to flow.

But you put obstacles in the way, so that the free flow is checked, the stream will struggle and fume against the obstacle and make every endeavor to sweep it away.

That which is contrary to it, that which will check its current’s smooth flow, that alone will cause effort. That is the first function of pain. It is the only thing that can rouse the Self. It is the only thing that can awaken his attention.

When the peaceful, happy, dreaming, interned Self, finds the surge of pain beating against him, he awakens; It arouses him to the fact of a surrounding universe, an outer world. Pain is the most important factor that asserts itself as the most important factor in Self-realization; that which is other than the Self will best spur the Self into activity.

Pain makes us exert ourselves, and by that effort the matter of his vehicles gradually becomes organized. It awakens awareness and organizes the vehicles. Pain also purifies and teaches.

All the best lessons in life comes from pain rather than from joy.

Pain is the teacher of wisdom. Pain gives power. Transmutation. Pain means purification, wisdom and power.

By our past, we may have rendered present pain inevitable, but none the less can he turn it into a golden opportunity by knowing and utilizing its functions.

Pleasure comes illumination and enables the Self too manifest. In pleasure all the vehicles of Self are made harmonious; they vibrate together; the vibrations are rhythmical, not jangled as they are in pain, and those rhythmical vibrations permit that expansion of the Self of which I spoke, and thus leads up to illumination, the knowledge of the Self.

Happiness is the condition of illumination.

A tremendous wave of bliss sweeps over him, it harmonies the whole of his vehicles, subtle and gross alike, and the glory of the Self is made manifest and he sees the face of his God.

Then comes the wonderful illumination, which for the time makes him unconscious of all the lower worlds. It is because for a moment the Self is realizing himself as Divine, that it is possible for him to see that divinity which is cognate to himself.

Do not fear joy any more than you fear pain, as some unwise people do, dwarfed by a mistaken religionism. Every reflection of joy in the world is a reflection of the Divine Life, a manifestation of the Self in the midst of matter. The wise man takes either as it comes, knowing its purpose.

When we understand the places of joy and of pain, then both lose their power to bind or to upset us.

If pain comes, we take it can utilize it. If joy comes we take it and utilize it.

Rise to a higher indifference than that of the stoic; invite both pain and pleasure so you can transcend and the Self remains, who is bliss.

INHIBITION OF STATES OF MIND

2 ways are of inhibiting modes of existence of the mind. The mind was impetuous, strong, difficult to bend, hard to curb as the wind. It can be curbed by constant practice and by dispassion.

These 2 methods by which this restless, storm-tossed mind can be reduced to peace and quietude.

When steadily practiced they inevitably bring about the result.

Dispassion is the clearing away of al passion for, attraction to, the objects of the senses, the bonds which are made by desire between man and the objects around him.

Passion addiction, clinging to things.

Thinking is the establishing of relations, we see that getting rid of relations will impose on the mind the stillness that is Yoga.

All passion must be put aside.

When the bonds of the heart are broken, then the man becomes immortal. By slowly and gradually drawing ourselves away from outer objects through the more potent attraction of the Self.

The Self is ever attracted to the Self.

That attraction alone can turn these vehicles away from the alluring and repulsive objects that surround them; free from all raga/passion, no more establishing relations with objects.

The separated self finds himself liberated and free, and union with the one Self becomes the sole object of desire.

But one supreme effort, one endeavor, can this great quality of dispassion become the characteristic of the man bent on Yoga. The practice must be constant, continual and unbroken. The deliberate, unbroken carrying out of dispassion in the very midst of the objects that attract.

Love is the desire of the separated Self for union with all other separated Selves.

Dispassion is the non-attraction to matter-a very different thing.

You must guard love-for it is the very Self of the Self. Love is the life in everyone of us, separated Selves.

Each one of us is a part of one might whole.

In this great up-climbing, it is far better to suffer from love rather than to reject it, and to harden your hearts against all ties and claims of affection. Suffer for love, even though the suffering be bitter.

Love shall continue to grow, and in the unity of the Self you shall finally discover that love is the greater attracting force which makes all things one.