Trust you will place before the Congress the goal of the truth of Indian philosophy, the attainment of the happiness of all beings, as enshrined in the great Sanskrit sayings: “Sarve Janah Sukhino Bhavantu” (May all humanity be happy) and “Sarve Satwa Sukho Hitah” (Which brings about the welfare of all that exists).
—Telegraphic message from His Highness the late Maharaja of Mysore to the Indian Delegate to the International Philosophical Congress, Paris, 1937.
“SIT NOT WITH A DISPUTER about fate nor begin a conversation with him,” was the wise admonishment of the practically minded Prophet Muhammad who thus dismissed the question at a single stroke and doubtless saved much time and endless speech for his trusting followers. Certainly someone like Fate, who had not seldom befriended me in the past when I invited her attention by determined effort, now appeared and took a sudden hand in this celestial game.
I grope on the darkening shelves of memory for the book of this incident. I had gone high up into jungle-covered hills to escape from the society of my kind for a time and to work at shaping a medley of research notes which had accumulated around me. The needs of a hypersensitive temperament rendered imperative such a withdrawal from society at recurring intervals. Formerly I had cherished the hope that in the supposedly spiritual society of a certain ashram, the Indian equivalent of a fraternal hermitage or monastic institution, I might find the harmony of lofty thought and peaceful conduct, which would suit those periods of escape from worldly activity. The hope finally turned out to be a laughable illusion, while the ashram turned out to be a miniature fragment of the imperfect world I had deserted. To those who feel the same inner need I would therefore strongly recommend through experiment and experience the only perfect environment which will fit their case. It is to return to Mother Earth’s friendly scenic solitudes and to make her enchanting beauty their mistress. In shady silent forests or on lofty rugged heights, beside quiet-flowing streams or unpeopled wave-beaten shores, in the earth’s stillness, the sky’s colour, and the mountain’s purity, they will always find healing balm for the wounds caused by contacts with a harsh unlovely world.
The new perch which I had established through the generous hospitality of His Late Highness the Maharaja of Mysore was one such blessed spot. As one’s eyes travelled the whole circle of this inviting and inspiring Southwest Indian horizon no village came into view, no city stretched out its cruel tentacles like a giant octopus to seize the green countryside. Nature was my companion, her wild solitary grandeur was my joy. In her beautiful presence, under expectant peach-bloom dawns and hushed coppery-red sunsets, I knew that I would soon recover what I had lost among petty-minded men as well as accomplish a modicum of pressing work.
Three inspired weeks passed by when there suddenly befell an unlooked-for event. My servant appeared one afternoon and handed me a letter, which had been given him by a stranger. It was nothing more than a simple request for a few minutes’ chat from an Indian gentleman who wrote that he was familiar with my books, and having come into the neighbourhood on a vacation had discovered that I was there: yet, had I but known it, on this slip of greyish-white paper was inscribed the next phase of my tortuous destiny. I could not help being amused at this unexpected visit, for I thought that I had well and truly secured solitude in this obscure place. I savoured something of the surprise which filled the mind of a famous missionary-explorer long lost in the jungles of Central Africa, who was suddenly confronted by the figure of a white man appearing as if from nowhere. The latter politely raised his hat and said, “Mr. Livingstone, I presume!”
Presently the writer appeared—a white-turbaned, bespectacled old Brahmin gentleman of placid countenance and short stature, with three small books tucked under his arm. It is a fact that within ten minutes I was listening eagerly to him, the while he talked vigorously of the very problem which had so troubled my mind! Thus the serpentine coil of fate began to unfold again in a curious but momentous manner.
Soon he was turning the pages of one of his books, the famous classic Bhagavad Gita, and expounding quotation after quotation in ardent advocacy of his unconventional theses, which were: that the orthodox view of yoga was generally inaccurate and certainly insufficient, that the practice of meditation was an excellent mental preparation for the quest of truth but by itself could never yield truth; that ninety-nine percent of Indian yogis practised preparatory disciplines under the widespread but mistaken notion that all of them led directly to the same highest goal; and that hardly any contemporary yogi knew or followed the only path which could bring a man to the realization of ultimate truth, which was called the yoga of “philosophical discernment”1 and whose culminating stage was the “yoga of the uncontradictable.”2
He picked up from the table the second of the volumes which he had brought and said, “Permit me to introduce a book which is scarcely known, much neglected, and rarely read because its contents are either beyond the comprehension of ordinary students or obnoxious to the preconceived notions of ordinary pundits. It is called Ashtavakra Samhita.3 It is not less than three thousand years old and may even be many thousand years older, for our remote forefathers did not burden themselves with keeping dates. This is the mysterious book which Bengal’s much-revered sage and yogi of more than a half century ago, Sri Ramakrishna, used to hide under his pillow and produce only when he was alone with his most developed and favourite disciple, the famous Swami Vivekananda. None of his other followers was ever instructed in its lofty doctrines, for it would have upset their most cherished beliefs. From this you will perceive that this is not a book for beginners. It describes the highly advanced teaching given by the sage Ashtavakra, who had personally realized the ultimate goal of Indian wisdom, to King Janaka, who was an ardent seeker after truth, yet remained faithful to his practical duties as the ruler of a nation. Its later chapters emphasized the fact that the true sage does not flee to caves or sit idly in ashrams but is constantly engaged in work for the welfare of others. It points out that he will even outwardly pretend to be just like ordinary people in order not to be put on a pedestal by them. But the tenet to which I particularly wish to draw your attention is condensed in verse fifteen of the first chapter: ‘This is your bondage, that you practise meditation!’ The meaning here is that meditation constitutes a practice for developing calmness, abstract subtlety, and concentrative sharpness of the mind, and that the earnest seeker must not be so captivated by its resultant peace as to tarry at this disciplinary stage, but should complement it by seeking the higher truth. Ashtavakra warns his royal disciple not to rest content with mysticism, ordinary yoga, or religion alone, but also to take the further step necessary to acquire a knowledge of the philosophy of truth. That step is contained in a higher system, called “philosophical discernment,” for which such power to tranquillize and concentrate thought as is given by ordinary yoga is certainly an essential but nevertheless only an attendant move. You will now understand why such revolutionary doctrines are not palatable to popular taste.”
The visitor put the book down, paused in his speech, and looked at me through his large round spectacles. I felt a deepening interest in him. Assuring him of my warm interest, I begged him to proceed.
He now tenderly handled the third book in his little collection, the while he produced and praised it so highly and then showed it to me. The volume consisted of a very brief text entitled Mandukya Upanishad,4 containing only twelve terse paragraphs, together with a long supplement entitled Gaudapada’s Karika,5 containing two hundred and fifteen short paragraphs, and finally a lengthier commentary written by the renowned Shankara on both text and treatise. “He who intellectually masters both texts and commentary thoroughly has mastered the highest statement of truth of which India has remained the unique custodian through thousands of years and fragments of which have been borrowed by the rest of Asia,” remarked my visitor. “This work contains the master key to those higher mysteries beyond yoga, of which you have heard and which you have sought, known as ‘the yoga of philosophical discernment,’ which in its turn culminates in the ultimate approach called the ‘yoga of the uncontradictable.’ These methods begin where meditation leaves off, for they are really philosophical disciplines using the intense concentration generated by yoga practice, and they are directed toward freeing the mind of its innate ignorance and habitual error. Hard indeed are they to comprehend for us of the East, but harder still for you of the West. These advanced yogas are ignored by almost all our own Indian yogis and usually misunderstood by almost all our pundits. Yet knowing these neglected systems you will need to know no others. If in India, the land of its birth, this text is so little cared for and less understood, how hopeless it is to look for correct penetration of its meaning among your Western Orientalists!”
Now among all the mainsprings of my variegated Indian travels that which primarily drew me to visit Mysore in response to its ruler’s generous call was the unique reputation enjoyed throughout India by His Highness the late Maharaja. His irreproachable character, sincere devotion to culture, and untiring effort for improving the welfare of his people during a long reign of more than forty years had made him the most universally respected and widely beloved of all the native rulers. Gandhi had admiringly acclaimed him with the unique title of Rajarishi, i.e., king-sage. When I came to know His Highness more intimately I discovered that the secret source of all his greatness lay in the philosophy with which he had identified himself, and which I shall endeavour to explain in this book.
From sea-splashed Cape Comorin to the venerated Himalayas he had travelled to meet the most renowned scholars and holy men of his land; from Kashmir to Benares he had conversed with the leading pundits and yogis; and he had even crossed the snowy ranges into cold Tibet on a mystical quest. He sounded the depth of all these men. He was therefore better entitled than most Indians to judge what was of most worth in his country’s culture. And this he finally found in the hidden philosophy, whose true interpretation he embodied not only in personal but also in public life.
His Late Highness summed up the practical value of what he had learnt in the message to the International Philosophic Congress quoted at the head of this chapter, the message that all humanity should be treated as one family. No loftier message nor a more valuable one could have been given to the world at such a bewildering time. No institutional religion or exoteric philosophy has yet really given it because all religions and philosophies have by the mere act of labelling themselves hitherto excluded the followers of other faiths or other teachings from their folds. Europe did not heed this warning, not knowing that the concepts of genuine philosophy, far from being futile, contained actual implications for ethical guidance, and the worst war of its history broke out within two years.
The two Sanskrit passages mentioned in this message were chanted daily in the Mysore Palace. His Highness proved in his own State that philosophy could be practically applied with outstanding benefit to the common people. Mysore well earned its familiar description of a model State as well as its frequent mention of being the most progressive one in all India. His fame had spread far and wide, and at his death The Times, the leading London newspaper, eulogized him as having “set the standard” for the rest of India. Such was the practical fruit of true philosophy.
It might also be permissible to mention here that the late Maharaja took a close personal interest in my philosophical and literary progress, and said to me some years before his death: “You have studied and carried yoga to the Western people; now study and carry the best that India has to give—our higher philosophy!” The hour of fulfiling the second part of the duty which was then laid upon me has at last arrived. His Highness was so anxious for the vindication of Truth that he warmly encouraged my labours on the present book, and it is my grief that he did not survive to witness its publication.
The vanished sages declared from their tower of sapience the existence of an ultimate path which alone brought the questioning mind of man to rest in the perfect wisdom and hidden power, the ethical beauty and universal beneficence of ultimate realization. In that sublime consciousness even amid the terrific tempo of modern life everything and everyone was known to be non-different in essence from oneself. THAT indeed was to be sought for.
I came to understand yoga better after such a long period of research; I came to separate the preliminary and intermediate from the advanced and little-known stages for which that research had been really a preparation.
A brief bird’s-eye survey may now be made of the relation between this hidden doctrine, which claims to be the crown and fulfilment of yoga, and the more popular inferior yogas. This will necessitate the inclusion of a few anticipatory glimpses of material properly belonging to more advanced studies.
This relation will come out more clearly if we divide the yoga praxis into three progressive degrees through which we rise into wider awareness. The most elementary group is devoted entirely to physical exercises in concentration because these appeal more readily to those—always most numerous—whose intellects are uncultivated. The beginner in mathematics is likely to be much bewildered if he is started on his course of study by a presentation of the Binomial Theorem, which is therefore reserved for a later phase of his studies. Similarly the novice in yoga who is temperamentally and educationally fit for nothing better is put on one or other of these physical exercises. But some of them possess a further aim than the cultivation of concentration, being intended to improve the health, increase the strength, and help to heal the maladies of the aspirant. It is recognized that a sickly body disturbs the mind and chains thought to the ailment itself. Therefore these exercises are not infrequently prescribed as a preliminary step even to those who are cultured enough to start in a higher degree. The methods employed sound strange to Western ears, but they are not without remarkable efficacy for their special purposes. The first method consists in placing the body in a specific unusual posture and keeping it fixed and unmoving therein for some time. The second method involves various peculiar exercises in rhythmically disciplining for set periods of time the inhalation, retention, and expulsion of the breath. The third method is the practice of looking with unwinking eyes at some particular point for the same period of time every day. The fourth method is to mutter a thousand and one times daily a scriptural name of God. The fifth method is to chant specified sacred syllables in rhythmic conjunction with the ingoing and outgoing breaths.
The second or intermediate group of yoga practices rises beyond the gross body to the higher level of educating the feelings in devotion and training the thoughts in concentration. It includes various mystical exercises in meditation whose ultimate aim is the attainment of emotional and mental peace; it may also embrace the inculcation of constant yearning for the presence of God. The generic character of this group will be outlined in the next chapter. His meditative reveries and ecstatic trances give the aspirant glimpses of the world’s basic nonmateriality and of its underlying harmonious unity, but these glimpses are nothing more in the end than transient if exalted feelings. He has next to learn how to convert them into permanent understanding, which can be done only by interpreting them in the higher light of reason, an activity which belongs to another stage. Successful attainment in this second degree is marked by the power to attain and remain in prolonged reverie with perfect concentration, and with attention withdrawn from outward surroundings. With the profits in self-preparation gained from the business of these earlier methods he climbs to the third step, the yoga of philosophical discernment.
This is the highest group of the yoga family; it is finally supermystical but initially purely intellectual and rational. It is the hidden doctrine. Part of it is outlined in this book, but before the threshold of the advanced portion with its final astonishing revelation, the yoga of the uncontradictable, these pages must perforce stop for the present. In this third stage the student strives, along with concentrated and disciplined feeling and thought, to sharpen his reason and to apply that sharpened intelligence to a guided philosophical consideration of the meaning and nature of the whole world and of all life. Hitherto he has been preoccupied entirely with himself, with his own little ego; now he expands the entire horizon of his outlook and makes the world-problem his own problem. He must train himself thoroughly to impress these new ideas upon every atom of his being. He must think deeply and think hard about these subtle truths he learns until thought becomes established as insight. When these efforts finally and successfully mature he practises the ultramystic contemplation exercises and seeks by the sheer power of his now-illumined intelligence to fathom the final mystery of all—the relation between the grand ultimate reality of the world and himself. He has reached the climax of an adventure where his whole mind and body must now travel and strive and toil in unison. This peak-path is the yoga of the uncontradictable. It first proves its own ultimate tenet of the secret identity of man with the universal reality, and then shows him how to realize this amid practical life.
Higher than this his mind cannot go; and his remaining years will be engaged in unremittingly establishing the truth in his own consciousness, in living with it every moment and every day, in expressing it practically with sustained and uncompromising thoroughness, in repeatedly dwelling in its spirit and atmosphere until it loses every vestige of unfamiliarity and becomes firsthand, ascertained, and verified knowledge. Knowledge must become dynamic by getting itself practised until the practice itself is lost in its complete fulfilment. He has then finished with the formalities of religion, with the visions of meditation, with the reasonings of philosophy. Just as a scaffolding is carefully erected and remains throughout the building of a house, only to be ruthlessly torn down at the end, so first religion, then yoga, and finally philosophy, are now seen to be but scaffoldings which enabled him to build up the structure of truth. In the end and when climbed they too are all rejected. But this rejection applies only to their claims to give realization of the truth through their individual channel alone, and not to their lesser uses. Once permanently established the master may dwell in all these different worlds, if he wishes, and be equally at home in each. He may still study philosophy for the sake of guiding the mental currents of his time, he may conform to the rites and requirements of orthodox religion for the sake of encouraging others who cannot rise beyond it, he may even enter into meditative trances for the sake of personal relaxation, but he will never again be deluded into regarding any of them as sole and final avenues to truth. At best they may yield its reflection in thought; he himself must become conscious of its substance, and no wizardry will do this. The reader will misunderstand these explanations if he does not grasp the important point that those who have not mastered the yoga of the second degree will therefore not be able to master the yoga of the highest degree. For the practice of reverie is needed to render successful the pursuit of philosophy. Inquiry into truth is the content which should fill the meditative trance. Ascetic discipline of the will, the body, and the ego must run side by side with their study, and implement in action the theoretical findings of philosophy. Yoga as it is ordinarily understood is therefore not to be given up, albeit it no longer becomes an end in itself but only a means to the end. The capacity to practise yoga is not only essential at the very beginning of the ultimate path but also at its terminus. It is the perfect combination of keen rational inquiry merged into profound meditative reverie and revealing its logical consequences in practical daily living that yields the fruit of ultimate realization in the end. The mere intellectual grasp of the hidden teaching without the parallel yogic capacity to sustain that grasp unbrokenly is as partial, as incomplete, and as unsatisfactory as the mere yogic power to withdraw attention from externals and hold it in abstracted moods unfilled by philosophic effort. Neither a dry academic intellectualism nor an unenlightened yoga practice can lead to truth, nor both if unvivified by action.
Thus the novice graduates from one degree to another, from the bodily discipline, to emotional discipline, and thence to the intellectual. The three groups combine to constitute a progressive unfoldment of his capacities and understanding. It is important to note that they are steps, not stops. The truth that he learns is always proportionately relative to his level of understanding.
The confusion between the second and third yogas is somewhat general throughout the religious and learned world of India today. Patanjali is often quoted, but he speaks only of the goal of controlling the mind and the senses, not of union of the soul with the Ultimate.
It is true that he makes a reference to Ishvara (God), but this is done only to indicate a method of practice. Those who would make the yoga of mental concentration a final path are utterly mistaken. The Bhagavad Gita plainly declares in the fifteenth chapter that there is nothing equal to the yoga of knowledge, and in the thirteenth chapter that it is the highest means of realization. Therefore we must not confuse matters. We must keep religion clear from mysticism in our minds, and mysticism clear from philosophy. If through sentiment, habit, or error we mistake one for the other, we shall lose our path and end in bewilderment. It will be seen that the various yoga methods successively lead from one to another and are emphatically not paths leading to a common central goal, as is popularly but erroneously taught nowadays in India. Did not Svatmarama Swami himself, the author of the standard classic manual on the yoga of body control entitled Hatha Yoga Pradipika confess that he had composed it to help those people who found it impossible to practise the yoga of mental concentration? “It is only for the attainment of concentration-yoga that body-control yoga has been prescribed,” he wrote. The popular yogas are quite inadequate to the high purpose of supreme realization; at best they yield mediate or indirect knowledge of truth, but never truth itself. They are but units in a progressive series, preliminary rungs in a ladder, and we must step from one to the other in order to rise higher; no single round will bring us to the top except the culminating one. Similarly, no single yoga is self-sufficient and none will bring final realization except the culminating yoga of the uncontradictable. The term yoga is a wide umbrella, which shelters many diverse ideas and practices. It covers the ascetic squatting in self-torture on a bed of spikes as well as the thoughtful philosopher who applies his wisdom to practical life. That is why those who would limit yoga to meditation practice while excluding philosophical inquiry adopt an unwarranted attitude.
The practical value of each step nevertheless remains in its own place as much as ever. But to the few who originally take up yoga in the hope that it will lead them to truth above all else, who practise the elementary and intermediate methods with some degree of satisfying result, there is always the unspoken invitation to explore the higher method. If they entertain this invitation to supplement the yoga of experience with the yoga of knowledge they will not be deserting the yoga scheme but will rather be fulfiling it. For the work of complete yoga does not end with meditation nor does devotion exhaust its possibilities. The change can be made by the wise without any damage to their intellectual integrity, whereas the foolish will see only danger and disruption in the higher method. The danger is illusory and consists only in giving second place to the blissful experience of meditation which old habit has made them regard as primary, while the disruption they fear is only the yielding of intuitive feeling to the higher check of rational insight. They may keep their meditations and intuitions, nothing need be lost or given up, but the excessive claims of meditation and the stubborn extravagances of intuition to sole supremacy must be given up whenever they collide with philosophically trained reason. Indeed, the inability to practise meditation successfully, and incapacity to enter at will into sustained reverie, would render quite impossible the grand ultimate realization. They are asked to choose, therefore, between the winning of momentary peace and the winning of durable peace. The work of yoga does not end with meditation, does not end with devotion, does not end with postures or breathings; it ends only with established realization which alone yields a peace that is ever present whether the man practises his meditation or not.
Thus reality may be conceived from four different standpoints, which are set along a path to be travelled by progressive stages. It may be first worshipped religiously as apart and separate from oneself. It may next be meditated on mystically as being within oneself. It may thirdly be studied philosophically by dropping all false conceptions of it. It may finally be realized consciously as what it is in itself and by ultramystical processes.
Without the power to enter the mystical trance and without the emotional reorientation it brings about, philosophy can only end in sterile disappointing intellectualism. Life is a product of the whole man, and when philosophical thought has run its full course and yielded the truth which comes from making thought go as far as it can reach, yoga must again step in to implement the philosophical conclusions by its own unique power to absorb the world-idea into the self. It is not through any arrogant estimation of my own insight that this book is offered to others, but rather through a desire to pass on to them an attitude of mind which has been of immense help in answering clamant questions. This is the best service I can render them.
Let there be no misunderstanding about my present position in relation to these matters. I now follow a lone path. It is quite true to say that I have ceased to search for yogis and teachers in the conventional sense, and do not identify myself with their ashrams any longer. This is partly because I have personally exhausted the serviceableness of such a search, and partly because long experience of certain ashrams and ascetics has fatally disenchanted me. Formerly I confused yogis and others with sages—as most of us do—but I know better now. I still regard my past mystic experiences as having been quite indispensable in their own place, and similar experiences will always be so to others. The change which has come over me lies in the direction not of denial but of interpretation of those experiences. Profounder research and better guidance have helped me to estimate their precise value and put them in their proper place. Nevertheless they are essential phases of mystic experience which must be passed through by all seekers. Moreover, I would not dream of passing a single day without some interlude, however brief, of mental withdrawal from personal affairs and worldly activity into that serene beatific tranquillity of profound meditation which long habit and constant practice have enabled me to attain at will at any moment and in any place. I have not given up meditation, but still keep it as a brief, attractive, and essential part of the daily programme. However, I refuse to confuse the issues any longer. Visions, ecstasies, and intuitions are now the mere accidents of meditation and constitute its nonessential by-product. There is no universal standard by which their validity may be gauged, consequently I know that it is better to keep the essential purpose of meditation solely in view.
In two earlier books I promised to give eventually the complete intellectual statement of those ultimate truths which both fulfil and lie beyond yoga as it is ordinarily known. The work of formulating it in the present volume, which has long been awaited by an international audience, is not complete even now, and does not exhaust the full stock of what has yet to be given to the world. That task demands a second volume. What is here presented constitutes part but not all of the yoga of philosophical discernment alone. The remainder, together with the crowning keystone of the arch of truth which I am endeavouring to construct, has perforce been left untouched. If these pages kindle enough interest, then both the missing doctrines and the yoga of the uncontradictable, which is the last stone, will be built in and the task completed. The undertaking of the final volume will be extremely difficult and its separation from the present one is essential. For the latter not only acts as a bridge thrown across the chasm between my earlier work in mysticism and this newer work in pure philosophy, but it also reorientates the reader’s mind and should effectually prepare him for the highly advanced study with which his rational quest may come to a close.
Common language is defectively constructed as a medium for conveying abstract concepts: hence the need usually felt for inventing a special philosophical terminology. I have tried, however, to remember for whom I am writing—and it is certainly not for cloistered pedants or academic metaphysics, but for men in the street who yet take some thought for the meaning of life—and hence have reluctantly refused to make use of this remote and unfamiliar terminology except where it is necessarily unavoidable or easily understandable. So far as could be, my researches into these complex abstractions have been brought down into the realm of nontechnical language comprehensible to ordinarily intelligent people, without sacrificing their accuracy or depth. The brain-racking truths they contain were once confined to the closed circle of an intellectual elite, yet, although I have not written for morons, they have here been put into words so plain as to be understandable by most who can understand the words of a good-class newspaper. Nevertheless those who have never practised meditation or concentration nor pursued philosophy may find no taste for such thoughts, while those who walk the narrow path of rigid religious orthodoxy will be scared by them. And every reader will find that although these pages are open and accessible to anyone who cares to pick them up, the penetration to their true meaning is closed to all who are unwilling to make a little mental effort. He would therefore do well to read but little at a time and then pause to reflect over the philosophical fruit he has thus plucked.
It might be as well to anticipate in print some criticisms which I have already heard in private and even read in an Indian newspaper of the lowest class, which acts as the mouthpiece of certain pitiful creatures who have taken up the vain labours of personal enmity. These criticisms will certainly be more widely crystallized with the appearance of the present book. First, the charge of serious inconsistency will be laid against me. It will be said that I have iconoclastically shattered previous definitions and doctrines, changed an established viewpoint, altered earlier estimates of men and experience, and thus proved unstable in character and unreliable in judgment. Personal friends will doubtless be highly amused at the injustice of the last ten words, while the general charge betrays a definite misunderstanding of my present outlook. I have not recanted old views but simply enlarged them. Anyway, the integrity of my purpose compels me to confess frankly that consistency is not my hobgoblin. I have concerned myself with it only so far as keeping up the quest of truth was concerned; if the results of that quest alter and differ as I advance, then let them! I shall not flinch from acknowledging the fact. The honesty of my past purpose gives me present courage to do so. For a writer who has established his fame on the basis of his researches into an advocacy of yoga, the open confession of its limitations is no easy matter. It should be obvious that only the weightiest reasons and the lengthiest experience led me to this responsible step. I am constantly engaged in learning and verifying new facts and in maturing my judgment. When this happens it is inevitable that a man may have to modify his earlier conclusions and the earlier interpretations of his experiences—unless he is nothing more than a blind believer in what others tell him or a blind accepter of whatever happens to him.
This quest is like climbing an unfamiliar mountain, a journey which entails successive changes of landscape. You see what appears to be the summit high above. After much arduous effort and many arduous years you reach the top of the ridge. Alas! At the fateful moment of success you discover that the real summit lies still higher and that you will have to struggle upward again for more arduous years before it greets your gaze. Mystical visions, yogic experiences, religious beliefs, and scientific theories are ridges which you pass on the way up its steep sides and mistake time and again for the final peak. You get different and hitherto unsuspected views of the truth as the old landmarks disappear behind and you succeed in struggling higher. The ultimate exists, let us not doubt that, but if historic records read aright it can be found only by those who have the courage to be inconsistent! Even the Buddha, when he glimpsed a loftier path, did not hesitate to reject elementary forms of yoga which he had practised for six years.
The second charge which has issued from ignorant lips is that I am a renegade. This is absurd nonsense, because I have never espoused any other cause than that of truth, to which I am still wedded. If uninquiring superficial minds have hitherto regarded me, as I am well aware they have, as a convert to Hinduism, or as a propagandist for some particular Indian ashram, that is their vain self-created presumption and was never my personal attitude. But if, however, a sincere passage from a lower to a higher point of view makes me a renegade, then I gladly plead guilty.
The third charge, that I have disavowed yoga, is equally nonsensical. I have not lapsed from my own formulary. I do not oppose but continue to esteem it highly in its own place, as before, but I refuse any longer to concentrate my whole gaze upon it; rather do I try to appreciate, criticize, and understand it more fairly against the larger background of ultimate truth. Moreover, I no longer accept every grossly exaggerated claim on behalf of the inferior yoga paths, which uncritical irresponsible yogis care to make, and I now regard these paths as directing us eventually to a region beyond themselves. I do not disown yoga, but develop it. As a partner of philosophy, yoga will admittedly yield truth; standing alone it can only yield peace. The cultivation of mystical intuition, the practice of mental quiet and meditation exercises are absolutely indispensable to all those who are still in the stage of seeking.
Every truth-seeker, every man who has dared to think honestly and to accept the results of his thought—whether they be as bitter as wormwood or as sweet as honey—has been a wanderer. His views have never been cast in iron finality. He knows that wisdom is the last residue left over from life’s agitating process of distillation, and not the first. The quest on which he is engaged is dynamic and not a static one. He cannot lower himself into an intellectual grave and put up the tombstone of a stubborn viewpoint to tell of his death. Therefore I want as readers only those who are ready to go into the forbidding wilderness with me. The effort to discover truth is a grand adventure, an age-long move forward into increasing experience of the unknown and not a petty stay-at-home rut. The pioneer must labour and suffer to learn as a new truth that which his successors will enjoy as an old one. Consistency is to be worn like a welcome new suit of clothes when it helps the pursuit of truth, but it is to be discarded like a shrivelled old one when it hinders it. Most questions are expansive; they have more sides than one. If the sails of a man’s ship have veered in the past to this side and now veer to another—well, so much the better for a truer view!
Time has certainly made me a little wiser in these matters, a little more critical of myself and my experiences, as well as of the renowned ashrams and belauded mystics personally known to me. I have dug more deeply into their foundations to get clearer understanding of them. In this effort I have drawn on the findings of the most competent modern Western and ancient Indian psychologists. It would have been more flattering to my vanity to have followed the long company of fellow mystics—whether of dim antiquity or bright modernity, whether of the young West or the old East—in unquestioning acceptance of these extraordinary visions and ineffable experiences which I had previously viewed in the rosiest light and let the matter rest there. But Fate was kinder and by hurting my self-esteem led me into a higher atmosphere of truth. Both delightful successes and dreadful disappointments were minor teachers which prepared the way. Most invaluable was philosophy’s favour in showing me how to evaluate mystic visions by the light of that Supreme Truth, which few care to seek because it crushes egoistic desire and shames every personal motive.
Those, therefore, who will view this book as a symbol of the defect of inconsistency will view it wrongly. I have no need to apologize weakly before the bar of reason. Some of the new teachings here presented are not altogether inconsistent with my earlier statements. They were already known to me as long ago as the time of writing The Quest of the Overself, where it was plainly stated as follows in the first chapter that the last word was still unwritten:
Every writer or teacher must perforce take up a different position according to the grade of development of the mind with which he is dealing.… the purpose of these pages should not be misconstrued. They are designed to show a yoga path suited to Western people … they show how to achieve certain satisfactions, but they do not attempt at this stage to solve the mystery of the universe.… When peace of mind and concentration of thought have been gained, then only will one be fit and ready to embark on the quest of Ultimate Truth. We are still in the process of unveiling a subtle and startling wisdom which not one person in a million has yet grasped.
Although my adherence to mysticism so far as it goes remained unshaken, I knew that it was not enough, that it was incomplete and insufficient. I had begun to perceive that truth lay as far beyond mysticism as the latter lay beyond religion. In the succeeding book6 I boldly and frequently admitted that mysticism was not enough and that there was an ultimate path beyond it. But only with the present work has the time arrived for a clear explication of the reasons for my change from a fragmentary to a fuller view.
Every book that I have gathered out of the fluid gloom of ink represents, therefore, a milestone which has been passed, an oasis where I camped for a while on my journey through the desert of this world in search of a valid explanation of life and reality. I may never live to write a last philosophical will and testament or a final credo, but in the present volume readers will assuredly find the Quest carried closer to its final terminus. Let them not think that the former volumes can now be ignored. Such a mistake would be fatal to their growth. The earlier teachings remain, but they are supplemented. Those writings will live and be needed so long as men have to struggle upward from stage to stage for truth, so long as human minds must ripen like the fruit on a tree; that is to say, they picture gates which cannot be avoided and must be entered and passed. There is no sudden miraculous transition into ultimate truth overnight for those who are in a breathless hurry. Therefore those earlier books, in representing as faithfully and as lucidly as my pen could do so what I indubitably thought, felt, and experienced at the time they were written, are factual records which represent also what many others will perforce think and experience as they follow and progress along the same path.
Einstein found that a ray of light curved its way through space. All earlier scientists took it for granted that it proceeded in a straight direction. Were they mistaken or were they liars? The Theory of Relativity dispels both criticisms. It demonstrates that the earlier explanations were quite accurate when regarded from the standpoint where the observer had established himself. I was like a restless scientist working his way through one experiment after another in the laboratory toward a fuller understanding of them all. Even the accepted principles of mathematics have to be taken as possessing a relative character only. The thirst for absolute knowledge kept me from the lethargy of satisfaction with existing discoveries. It is true that I have written with strong conviction and with apparent dogmatism. The justification is that I have been practising meditation for a quarter of a century and having found its benefits naturally sought to pass them on to others. I felt it necessary to play an advocate’s part and forcefully to draw the attention of my fellow human beings in the West to the fact that such a line of experience was also open to them if they would but interest themselves in it.
The present effort is more than a mere excursion into bookmaking. It is a structure of welded East-West thought built for our own age. It is a twentieth-century interpretation of a mellow old wisdom that captured the loyalty of grave, aged sages who lived long before Christ. It is a contribution toward the understanding of life’s most obscure and paradoxically most important theme, written in response to the further pressure of fate and inclination. I shall frankly regard its present achievement and future completion as the highest and holiest task of my career so far. In an age which venerates the authority of science and which rejects anything incapable of intellectual demonstration, it is no small task to attempt to organize thought on behalf of the wordless transcendental reality, and make it march by its own inherent and inexorable logic. We can prove that two and two make four, that the earth is round, and that water is merely a combination of two gases; but how shall we prove the reality of that which is above formulated thought, which is wholly inaudible and forever invisible, and which cannot be known until all argument disappears? There indeed is a provoking paradox, when that which is appears as that which is not! We can arrive at the ineffable dimension of the ultimate by travelling through a series of thoughts and experiences, but the ultimate itself is neither a thought nor an experience. Truth in its absolute nature can never be enmeshed by words nor conveyed by anything else. Hence the mysterious silence of Christ, of Buddha, and of the Sphinx.
But the lonely way toward august truth can be chalked out by human words, the flinty path to its realization can be delineated by them, and men can be led by a process of close reasoning to a position which will indicate how they can make it real to themselves. Once the secret thread of Ariadne is put into their hands, analytic reasoning yoked to yoga can take them to the very gate of reality. It can never enter that gate, however, for then the reasoner himself drops the instrument of thought to the ground as he perceives at long last what he really is. He who stood in his own light by deceiving himself with the notion that he was only a finite person, tied to a few inches of poor earth, is awakened by the inherent force of his own ultramystic insight when it is sufficiently strong to affect and fuse his will and feelings, and lets the ancient illusion lapse for evermore. In that moment he disappears within the gate and his journey is at an end. I would not waste my own and my reader’s time in asking him to strain after unattainable altitudes, but I do ask him to seek out the meaning of all earthly existence on the one hand and to find out the purpose of his fleshly embodiment on the other, until he can live thereafter in harmony with both.