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Chapter VI BRAHMACHARYA AND PANCHAGNI VIDYA Cycle of Procreation It has been said above that creation is a cycle of involution and evolution of the Dynamic self or the creative aspect of Atman Thqre are again cycles within cycles of such involutions and evolutions at different planes. The first is the cosmological cycle of cosmic manifestation from the Shiva principle to the last physical plane and back; then there is a second cycle of psychogenesis, i.e., the involution of psychic Prana to the vegetable kingdom and back through evolution from vegetable kingdom to the animal till human life is reached. Again, there is a third cycle, the cycle of transmigration of souls of individual beings, the bodies of different planes serving like vehicles. The fourth is the cycle of procreation of individual species of all bodies from the whole body organism into the seed form and then the evolution of the body from the seed. Every seed possesses potentiality of evolving out a corresponding living body in all its details and every tree involves its whole self into innumerable seeds of its species over again. Similarly; in the case of animals and mankind there are male and female bodies which work out in their respective bodies male and female seeds, the two combined give birth to fresh forms of their species. But every microcosm is cosmos in miniature, and therefore the cosmic involutionary process can be individually given the evolu-tionary turn in the top most perfect microcosm of human form. The Hindu sages have pointed out that it can be accomplished through living a life of celibacy named by them as brahmacharya, which is conducive to God realization, because it leads the individual male or female to Brahman. Shukra or semen in the seed form, is the last stage of involution having been worked out in the course of the cosmic half of the cycle. According to the Hindu thinkers it is said that in the womb a young one takes six months to develop from embryo to its completeness of physical body, and during the seventh month soul enters it to inhabit; that is, the body evolves out of the spermatozoa and the full course of evolution takes six months when it becomes fit f or soul to reside in. Thus evolution on the physical plane is independent of soul for six' months and is sustained with life by mother like other limbs of her body and during the seventh month it becomes a separate soul. The evolution of the psychic component then commences and continues even after birth for the whole of life. Therefore spiritual evolution can be set in motion on both the planes. Hat ha Yogine give start from the lowest physical plane, whereas Raja Yogins ignore the physical side and take up the psychic one from the very beginning. But evolution on the physical plane is no less valuable. It prepares ground for higher developments and makes the whole foundation solid for full development. Therefore even the latter class of aspirants have to observe Brahmacharya, though they neglect Hatha yoga. At death the psychic body involves back to the seed form and migrates with soul to take up a fresh body which has been built and kept ready in the womb of some other mother. This physical supplement is built through evolution of the impregnating fluids supplied by the parental bodies, which have involved into them the seed for fresh form of their own species. The course of spiritual evolution breaks through both the physical and psychic cycles and puts a stop to further tranamigration. The individual soul loses Its individuality and becomes one with Brahman. The involutionary course of Prana to vegetable and animal kingdoms is described in the Chhandogya Upanishad by a simile of five fold sacrifice known as Panchagni Vidya, the science of five fires. There it is said that Gods offer oblations of Shraddha to the heavens as the first sacrificial fire and soma is produced. They again offer oblations of soma into Parjanya, the electric zone of atmosphere as the second sacrificial fire and rains are the result. Again, they offer oblations of rains on to the earth as the third sacrificial fire producing vegetable food for animals. Next, they offer oblations of vegetable food to the animal body, the fourth sacrificial fire and the result is spermatozoa of the male genital fluid, i.e., semen. Lastly, they offer oblations of semen into the ovum of a female, which is compared with the fifth sacrificial fire, giving birth to an offspring. Heavens the divine plane, Parjanya - the electric zone of clouds, earth, male body and the female womb are the five fold successive sacrificial fires and shraddhti, soma, rains, food, semen, and the child, are the successive stages of involution in which the original Prdna emanating from the Adhyatmabhava gets involved. Shraddhd is that favourable disposition of heart combined with happiness of mind which, when directed towards superiors inspires faith and when directed towards juniors, inspires beneficence. It is the first product of Prana. See Prashnopanishada (6, 4) "From Prana comes Shraddha." Soma is a life giving fluid supposed to be showered by the moon with her light and descends on vege-tables to form vitamins and is also present in the cerebrum. When a man reverses the involutionary cycle in his own body he makes a start with the control of his sex energy. A Hatha yogin through the practice of what is known as Bajrolimudra learns the art of sucking up his semen through his genital organ during sexual intercourse and thus gives it an evolutionary turn through its assimilation in his own body, but an ordinary person tried to do the same through control of sexual impulse and refraining from conjugality. Semen is called the gross vindu. The internal five fires, the subtle vindu and soma is known as the finest vindu. These three vindus are to the Yogin three forms of his own self. Semen, the male impregnating fluid, is called Shukra and also vindu in the sanskrit language and the fluid discharged by ovaries of females which when combined with spermatozoa of the male semen develops instantly into an ovum of the embryo, is called Raja and is also regarded as vindu. Ovaries of female are glands similar to testies of the male genital glands. The science of yoga informs us that Raja ia also present in the males but in an undeveloped coiidltion and is situated in the perinium muscle known to the yagins as yontsthan. Similarly Shukra in undeveloped condition is present in the females. Thus Shukra and Raja both exist in the bodies of both males and females. A yogi combines the two oppositely charged fluids in one's own system and starts the evolutionary action. Translation Gita ch 15 verses 13 and 14 where the lord as omsa is shown nourishing vegetable life and as Vaishwanara digesting the food taken in by animals: That vindu is of two kinds, white and red, white is called Shukm and. the red is called Maharaja. Red like the Vindrura tree, raja is situated in the yonisthan and in the seat of the moon resides the vindu. Vindu is Shiva, Raja is shakti; Vindu is the moon and Raja is the sun; the combination of both is very difficult; through their union only the highest stage namely of soma is achieved. Union of Shukra and Raja outside one's self within the womb of a female produces an offspring; but within one's own. system starts evolution of the involved Prana shakti which evolves through the internal five fires to soma, the highest vindu in the cerebellum. Soma in turn brings samadhi through merging of mind and prana into the Self. Soma has been described above as the life giving fluid that descends from heavens, with the moonlight and takes the form of parjanya and showers down with rain, builds up vegetation and enters the body with the vegetable food and is ultimately transformed into semen. One, whose semen, instead of getting out, rises up back into the system reverts it again to soma. Thus a life of celibacy affects the loosening of the utilise their juices, they are assimilated by the system for health building purpose or some better one. Such persons are called Urdhvaretas, because their creative energy goes up instead of flowing out. Through the control of sex impulse, the creative energy of a person is raised to higher planes. Napolean Hill, an American writer, in his work 'Think and grow rich,' says that sex energy can be transmuted to higher creative energies of science, art, poetry, etc. We quote below his own words: "If it is not transmuted into some creative effort, it will find a less worthy outlet." Therefore he suggests that through sex transmutation, i.e. switching the mind off the thoughts of physical expression to thoughts of some other nature, great geniuses are produced. He at at another place in the same connection also admits a very close relationship between sex desires and spiritual urges. "It is a fact very well known to the Psychologists," he continues. Therefore he desires his readers to control and direct their creative energy to its best use, which is inborn with every person and on its plane of physical expression surpasses every other impulse in the shape of sex energy. This energy which finds outlet in the form of sexual indulgence in ordinary cases, is not to be curbed and annihilated; that will mean emasculation, but should be made to flow through higher and nobler spiritual channels. He also adds that transmutation of sex energy can easily make a man or woman develop in him or her the 'sixth ,sense' of what he calls the creative imagination, otherwise known as the inner voice of inspiration, Ilham or Divya adesha, the divine communications. A yogi does not stop there, but with full determination proceeds on to reach the top of complete evolution of self. To him secular achievements are merely of secondary significance. *Astral Fluid The Hindu philosophers believe that all bodies are products of a very fine substance which is a form of water and hence is called ......in sanskrit....., it is not steam or vapour but is a super sensible substance pervading all bodies, and perhaps on account of its starry nebulous nature, it has been called by the the theosphists as astral fluid. On account of its being a diffused gaseous matter, it is perhaps somehow connected with water. According to the nebular theory it is supposed that all stars and planets in their earliest stage of formation appear in the form of nebula, and are formed of some substance perhaps the same as astral fluid, it is also said that the bodies of ghosts and spirits are also formed of the same substance. Shri Shankarcharya commenting on Brahmasutra, chapter 3, 1, named Tadantarpratipatti adhikaran, aphorisms, 1 to 7, commencing from the aphorism, (3, 1, 1) says that on death a soul having cast off old body departs to enter a new one clothed in a substance formed of Bhootasukshma of which the astral bodies are formed and that substance is a form of water*. Naked souls with psychic faculties cannot move without the support of some medium serving them as vehicle and water in the form of a fine substance form their astral covering. This substance pervades all space and is fire proof; therefore after cremation of physical body the astral body rises up to the moon, the sun or other heavenly stars. In the first oblation gods, viz., the virtuous persons or priests are described to offer to heavens as the first sacrificial fire shraddba and soma isthe first production, they then offer soma to the clouds or the electic atmosphere producing rain and so forth. Shankacharya, discussing the subject at great length proceeds to say that the word shraddha, a word for faith, stands for waters in the form of some astral fluid; because every thing consumed in the sacrificial fire is reduced to that fluid and is projected towards heaven with the mental force of the devotee's faith. All our noble and virtuous deeds, our prayers and oblations offered with faith project that astral fluid from ourbodies to the higher regions. The moon being the nearest heavenly body and a satellite of the earth attracts the astral fluid thus projected up and converts it into soma which in turn falls on the electric atmosphere of the earth and showers with rains, it descends with rain water and takes the form of sap in vegetables, and lastly takes the form of semen when vegetables are consumed as food. Therefore astral fluid plays a very significant part in our system. Ovum in the womb and the embryo in its full development is thus the creation of astral fluid; and when a departed soul embodied in astral fluid enters the womb, the astral fluid composing the astral body links it with the physical component of the young. That is how the fourth cycle gets into co operation with the third. Thus a person on death casts off the old physical body, transmigrates in an astral body, enters a womb and gets into the already built fresh physical body perhaps predesignated for that particular soul. The astral fluid serves the purpose of linking the astral body with the still loose and free astral part of the physical body. A yogi through Brahmacharya acquires control over the astral fluid in his body. But the fact that the astral fluid is also an involute form of Prana should not be lost sight of. Ths treatises of yoga have named the body formed of astral fluid as Pranamaya Kosha and the physical body as Annamaya Kosha, coverings formed of Prana and food respectively, the third sheath consisting of mental powers is called the psychic or Manomaya Kosha. Shraddha a mental disposition makes a person confer beneficence on juniors and receive benedictions from superiors through the medium of Pranamaya Kosha astral fluid serving as via media, whose flowing currents are felt by a yogi. A yogi inverts the outflow of his semen and converts it into soma and thus acquires control over the astral body. Such a yogi can at will connect and disconnect the link connecting the astral and the physical bodies. The reversed course of five fold internal evolutionary turn of semen to aoma is as given below. In the first stage semen is sacrificed into the fire of the opposite sexual fluid situated in the muscle between the anus and the genital organ, when the two charges unite, heat is produced which converts semen into a finer substance, which is perhaps absorbed by the various glands in the body, which in turn generates a kind of electric power and is by analogy called personal electricity, which then concentrates at mooladhar and rises up the spinal. Spinal passage corresponds to the outer atmosphere is regarded as a passage to the sun. See Vichaspati's commentary on Yoga Darshan sutra (3, 26) .........where Suryadwar is explained as sushumna. Seat of the sun is supposed in the navel region with face downwards emitting poison, which is thereby turned upwards and begins to give up soma, i.e. the spinal electricity makes it discharge soma. Soma rises up the cerebellum where lies the seat of the moon and corresponds to the heavenly region where soma is converted into the astral fluid. Seat of soma is therefore at the midpoint of eyebrows "The atmospheric electricity is the fire corresponding to the internal, i.e., the personal electricity, the fire in the skies, viz, the sun corresponds to fire in the navel region, here the sun pours poison, but when his face is turned upwards it begins to discharge nectar, at the root of palate is situated the moon with face downwards raining nectar." Thus raja in the Yonisthan, bodily glands, mooladhar, spinal cord and cerebellum are the five internal sacrificial fires corresponding to the outer five sacrificial fires in the reversed order. With the completion of this evolutionary course a yogi acquires control over his astral body having reverted the fourth cycle of involution. But this is possible only after first mastering the Bajroli and Khechari mudra, or his Kundalini Power having been awakened, because it is the awakened kundalini only that starts the uncoiling of the involved forces and sets them into action. Having thus acquired control over the procreative phase of involution, the third cycle of transmigration is also brought under control and emancipation from the cycle of births and deaths is made possible. Mind, astral fluid and Soma are lunar products, therefore Soma and astral fluid impart strength to mind, make it stable and give it the evolutionary turn towards Prana, the primary cause of all creation. Soma is the highest form of vindu and semen the lowest. Science of yoga prescribes practices which make a yogi taste of the Soma fluid. In the case of ordinary persons, it flows down the spinal cord in the ordinary course of nature and is burnt in the fire of the Sun; but a yogi through the practice of khechari makes it drop down the nasal roof and by raising his tongue into the palatial cavity above the soft palate begins to taste it. The fluid so tasted rejuvenates his whole system; perhaps all glands of his body become charged afresh with vitality bringing in youth-like age even to old bodies. Such a yogi can digest even poisons with no harm to his system. In conclusion we may say that a
seed is the last product of creation and every seed
possesses two lobes, serving the function of a female and a
male, both combined have the power of germinating, so is the
case with the animal kingdom. In the case of human beings
when the two are made to combine internally they instead of
procreating for the continuation of their species, evolve
out a force which makes. the potentially residual Kundalini
Power kinetic and gives it the evolutionary turn. As in the
case of sex enjoyment both the parties experience a kind of
sensual pleasure, in the same way the union of all dual
forces, viz., Prana and Apana, Ida and Pingal, and Shukra
and Raja make the forces of mind and Prana discharge
themselves into the Absolute, yielding a higher sense of
spiritual bliss.
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