PSYCHOLOGY OF YOGA- VIII (2) VIII. CAUSE OF GRADATION IN CONSCIOUSNESS - II Rising above the physical, we now come to the botanical and biological. That there is some sort of consciousness in the botanical kingdom has been demonstrated scientifically by Jagdish Chandra Bose leaving no scope for any doubt about its verity. Next stratum of consciousness is the biological. Its area ranges from the lowliest creature up to man in certain respects. Coming up to the biological, consciousness ceases to be just a blind energy of the physical. Here the physical energy gets transformed into the vital force and the latter into consciousness proper imbued with self-consciousness also it comes to itself fully equipped with self-consciousness and the capacity to react to stimuli from the external world discreetly in alternative ways. Free will, instead of mechanical repeat, is mostly the order of the day prevailing here. The autonomy of consciousness comes to be restored to it at this stage bringing immense variety in its manifestation. In most of the creatures of the biological stage, consciousness is only reflexive. Coming up to the developed animals and birds, it goes on getting increased in its emotional and thought content. Man forms the apex of this evolving series, imbued with the highest possible degree of consciousness embodied in him. In man, consciousness has the possibility of getting restored to its original status of perfect self-consciousness, universality and transcendence. This is brought out in the Aitareya Upanishad’s allegory of the Atman choosing man as the medium of its direct entry into the creation. According to the Upanishad, Atman, as the absolute concentricity of consciousness, essence and agent of creation, when willing to create the world, brought out of itself the creative stuff in the form of a set of four basic elements called ambas, marici, maram and apas. Next, it evolved out of these a personal figure having the potentiality of giving birth to gods from His different organs. Being born of respective organs of the Person, the gods wanted to have an abode suitable for themselves where they could live and enjoy. In response to it, a bull was brought to them and subsequently a horse. Both were rejected by them on being found to be inadequate for the purpose. Then was fetched a human figure which was readily welcomed by them as their suitable abode. Gods represent supramental forces of consciousness involved in the running of various facets of Nature including expansion of space, continuation of time, dynamics of energy, velocity of light, movement of heavenly bodies, flow of liquids and solidity of matter. With the entrance of the gods in the human body through different openings in it and the conduction of its behaviour, the Creator, seeing no other way to enter into it Himself, decided to enter through the sagittal suture at the top of the head. Having done so, He, in the form of Indra, is said to keep on moving from the point of entry up to the heart in different states of the human consciousness or rather create those states of consciousness in him through His movement from one point to another in that area (Aitareya Upanishad, I.1-3). The entrance of the Creator Himself in the human body in the capacity of the absolute concentricity of consciousness has opened the vista of infinite possibilities by use of which man is capable of knowing anything and everything in the world as well as within himself. In fact, by knowing himself fully, he can know everything in the world outside. This is made possible owing to direct entrance of the absolute concentricity of consciousness in him. Here consciousness has come to its original status. This does not mean to deny the presence of lower grades of consciousness in man. He, indeed, is an embodiment of all grades of consciousness beginning from the vital to the supramental. This has very well been noted in the Katha Upanishad. While taking note of different grades of consciousness operative in the human personality, the Upanishad begins with the sensory. Senses are the crucial points in our body involved in the impingement of the external world on us. In this impingement, sensory and motor nerves in our bodies numbering some seventy-two thousand in the estimation of the Upanishadic sage, serve as carriers of consciousness in the form of sensation and motor reaction. The senses receive only the stimuli which are of physical nature. By virtue of the sensory consciousness involved in their function, transform the stimulus into sensation and feed the mind with it through the sensory nerves. The Upanishad considers the sensation fed to the mind as of higher degree of consciousness than the same as received by the sense organs in the form of the stimulus. But a still higher degree of consciousness, according to it, is represented by manas, the mind working as a coordinator of sensations and supplier of the processed sensation to the intellect. The intellect, in its turn, is taken to represent a still higher grade of consciousness, as it brings discretion to the otherwise indiscrete stuff of mentation submitted by manas. To the modern intelligentsia, intellect represents the highest grade of consciousness, as it has at its disposal the same grade of consciousness which is involved in the discovery of scientist and the disquisition of the philosopher. The Upanishadic sage disagrees with this proposition and looks ahead at Atman, self, as embodying a still higher grade of consciousness in it. Though higher than intellect, this Self is by no means the highest in its cadre. It is an intermediate concentration of consciousness serving as the source of what came subsequently to be taken as various aspects of the inner sense, namely, manas, buddhi, citta and ahankara (Katha Upanishad, III.10). The Upanishad proceeds further to discover a still higher grade of consciousness, which it terms as avyakta, unmanifest. The unmanifest is that state of consciousness in which individuality evaporates into a colossal universality where self-consciousness on the individual scale gets merged into consciousness as such serving as the source of creation in its ontological sense. According to the Upanishad avyakta and Purusha are not two divergent principles but two poises of one and the same reality, namely, consciousness. The difference in the poises lies in the universality of avyakta and transcendence of the purusha (Katha Up., III.11). To be continued.... Source of synopses Yoga From Confusion To Clarity, Psychology of Yoga, Vol. 2 (published 2010) by Professor Satya Prakash Singh and Yogi Mukesh.
Posted on: Sat, 14 Sep 2013 16:29:56 +0000
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