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Page 1 of 11939 · PDF PAGE 30
…al processes arise from physical processes; and so we shall at least be getting a certain distance along the road if we have checked the body. 3. Let me digress for a moment, and brush away one misunderstanding which is certain to occur to every Anglo-Saxon mind. About the worst inheritance of the emasculate school of mystics is the abominable confusion of thought which arises from the idea that bodily functions and appetites have some moral implications. This is a confusion of the planes. There is no true discrimination between good and evil. …
1939 · PDF PAGE 49
…can also introduce the idea of an angle. 10. A fourth point, provided that it is not in the original plane, gives us the idea of a solid body. But, as before, it tells us nothing about the solid body as such, because there is no other solid body with which to compare it. We find also that it is not really a solid body at all as it stands, because it is merely an instantaneous kind of illusion. We cannot observe, or even imagine, anything, unless we have time for the purpose. 11. What, then is time? It is a phantasm, exactly as tenuous as space,…
1939 · PDF PAGE 35
…f constant flitting from one to another. He is at ease; because, for the first time in his life, he has become really unconscious of the body. Life has been one endless suffering; and now, so far as this particular Asana is concerned, the plague is abated. I feel that I have failed to convey the full meaning of this. The fact is that words are entirely unsuitable. The complete and joyous awakening from the lifelong and unbroken nightmare of physical discomfort is impossible to describe. 21. The results and mastery of Asana are of use not only i…
1939 · PDF PAGE 33
… 15. Now it is necessary, in order to hold a position, to pay attention to it. That is to say: you are going to become conscious of your body in ways of which you are not conscious if you are engaged in some absorbing mental pursuit, or even in some purely physical activity, such as running. It sounds paradoxical at first sight, but violent exercise, so far from concentrating attention on the body, takes it away. That is because exercise has its own rhythm; and, as I said, rhythm is half-way up the ridge to Silence. Very good, then; in the comp…
1939 · PDF PAGE 31
…got used to it, the regularity of the engines of a train or steamship is soothing. What we have to do with the existing functions of the body is to make them so regular, with gradually increasing slowness, that we become unconscious of their operation. 6. Let us deal first with the question of Asana. It might be thought that nothing would be more soothing than swinging or gentle massage. In a sense, and up to a certain point, this is so. But the activity cannot be continued because fatigue supervenes, and sooner or later the body protests by go…
1939 · PDF PAGE 61
… mind has gone so deeply into itself that it is unconscious of itself and its surroundings, one of the most ordinary results is that the body becomes invisible to other people. I do not think that it would make any difference for a photograph, though I have no evidence for saying this; but it has happened to me on innumerable occasions. It was an almost daily occurrence when I was in Sicily. 13. A party of us used to go down to a very beautiful bay of sand, whence jutted fantastically-shaped islets of rock; it is rimmed by cliffs encrusted with…
1939 · PDF PAGE 59
…of the machinery of the Order. In the General of the Society is concentrated the power of all those separate wills, just as in the human body every cell should be completely devoted in its particular quality to the concentrated will of the organism. 5. In other words, the Society of Jesus has created a perfect imitation of the skeleton of the original creation, living man. It has complied with the divinely instituted order of things, and that is why we see that the body, which was never numerically important, has yet been one of the greatest in…
1939 · PDF PAGE 62
…rself with the physical, your results will only be on that plane; and the principal effect of these concentrations on small parts of the body is the understanding, or rather the appreciation, of sensuous pleasure. This, however, is infinitely refined, exquisitely intense. It is often possible to acquire a technique by which the skilled artist can produce this pleasure in another person. Map out, say, three square inches of skin anywhere, and it is possible by extreme gentle touches to excite in the patient all the possible sensations of pleasur…
1939 · PDF PAGE 34
… maintain the awkward position. You become aware sooner than you otherwise would of any relaxation; and you thereby show the rest of the body that it is no use trying to disturb you by its irritability. But there are no rules. I said there weren't, and there aren't. Only the human mind is so lazy and worthless that it is a positive instinct to try to find some dodge to escape hard work. These tricks may help or they may hinder; it is up to you to find out which are good and which are bad, the why and the what and all the other questions. It all…
1939 · PDF PAGE 46
…that the very foundations of your mind are being knocked from under you. The real lesson is that, just as you learn in Asana, the normal body is in itself nothing but a vehicle of pain, so is the normal itself insane; by its own standards it is insane. You have only got to read a quite simple and elementary work like Professor Joad's Guide to Philosophy to find that any argument carried far enough
1939 · PDF PAGE 23
…the best, and go on! 8. The planet Saturn, which represents anatomy, is the skeleton: it is a rigid structure upon which the rest of the body is built. To what moral qualities does this correspond? The first point of virtue in a bone is its rigidity, its resistance to pressure. And so in Niyama we find that we need the qualities of absolute simplicity in our regimen; we need insensibility; we need endurance; we need patience. It is simply impossible for anyone who has not practised Yoga to understand what boredom means. I have known Yogis, men …
1939 · PDF PAGE 18
…e (in general terms expressed with the greatest caution) the 'sort' of thing that is likely to be bad for you. Anything that weakens the body, that exhausts, disturbs or inflames the mind is deprecable. You are pretty sure to find as you progress that there are some conditions that cannot be eliminated at all in your particular circumstances; and then you have to find a way of dealing with these so that they make a minimum of trouble. And you will find that you cannot conquer the obstacle of Yama, and dismiss it from your mind once and for all.…
1939 · PDF PAGE 32
…natomy for their value, and upon mystic theories concerning the therapeutic and thaumaturgic properties ascribed to various parts of the body. If, for instance, you can conquer the nerve Udana, you can walk on water. But who the devil wants to talk on water? Swimming is much better fun. (I bar sharks, sting-rays, cuttle- fish, electric eels and piranhas. Also trippers, bathing belles and Mr. Lansbury.) Alternatively, freeze the water and dance on it! A great deal of Hindu endeavour seems to consist in discovering the most difficult possible way…
1939 · PDF PAGE 36
… know that you have got the right thing, whereas if I were to tell you now, you would very likely imagine it. 2. Automatic rigidity: the body becomes still, as the result of a spasm. This is perfectly normal and predictable. It is customary to do it with a dog. You stick him in a bell-jar, pump in oxygen or carbonic acid or something, and the dog goes stiff. You can take him out and wave him around by a leg as if he were frozen. This is not quite the same thing, but near it. 25. Men of science are terribly handicapped in every investigation by …
1939 · PDF PAGE 67
… have been the isolation and the physical hardship itself that helped, that more and more my magical operation became implicit in my own body and mind, when a few months later I found myself performing in full operations involving the Formula of the Neophyte (for which see my treatise Magick) without any external apparatus at all. 10. A pox on all these formalistic Aryan sages! Unless one wants to be very pedantic, it is rather absurd to contend that this form of ritual forced upon me, first by external and next by internal circumstances, was a…
1939 · PDF PAGE 68
…. I am quite certain that the blurred surface will become clear when I do so. Of course, I may be wrong. I may have picked up some other body's glasses by mistake. I might go blind before I could get them into position. Even such confidence has limits; but it is a real confidence, and this is the explanation of why we go ahead with the business of life. When we think it over, we know that there are all sorts of snags, that it is impossible to formulate any proposition which is philosophically unassailable, or even one which is so from a practic…
1939 · PDF PAGE 70
…ddenly dashed down the steep little path like a mountain goat, threw off his cloak and plunged into the sea. When he came back, his very body had become luminous. I saw that he needed to be alone for a week to complete his experience, so I fixed him up in an Alpine tent in a quiet dell under broad-spreading trees at the edge of a stream. From time to time he sent me his magical record, vision after vision of amazing depth and splendour. I was so gratified with his attainment that I showed these records to a distinguished literary critic who was…
1939 · PDF PAGE 16
…gen. It is not virtuous of a hydra to be hermaphrodite, or contumacious on the part of an elbow not to move freely in all directions. Anybody who knows what his job is has only one duty, which is to get that job done. Anyone who possesses a function has only one duty to that function, to arrange for its free fulfilment. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 8. We shall not be surprised therefore if we find that the perfectly simple term Yama (or Control) has been bedevilled out of all sense by the mistaken and malignant ingenuity of …