The Nervous System in Yoga and Tantra (Study)
by Ashok Majumdar | 1981 | 72,079 words
This study deals with the presentation of the Nervous System in Yoga, Tantra and Ayurveda. Yoga and Ayurveda are allied sciences dealing with science of man in depth. Whereas Yoga and Tantra are the rich sources for the knowledge of nervous system and its biological and metaphysical aspects. This study has revealed a number of hither to unknown fac...
The concept of Conciousness
(Vivekananda, pp. p.82-83) There are two planes in which the human mind works. First is the conscious plane, in which all work is always accompanied with the feeling of egoism. Next comes the unconscious plane, where all work is unaccompanied by the feeling of egoism. In the lower animals this unconscious work is called instinct. In higher animals, and in the highest of all animals, man, what is called conscious work prevails. There is a still higher plane upon which the mind
67 can work. It can go beyond consciousness. Just as, unconsciousness work is beneath consciousness, so there is another work which is above consciousness and which is not accompanied with the feeling of egoism. The feeling of egoism is only on the middle plane. When the mind is above or below the line, there is no feeling of "I", and yet the mind works. When the mind goes beyond this line of self-consciousness, it is called Samadhi or superconsciousness. When a man goes into deep sleep, he enters a plane beneath consciousness. He works the body all the time, he breathes, he moves the body all the time, perhaps, in his sleep, without any accompanying feeling of ego; he is unconscious, and when he returns from his sleep, he is the same man who went into it. The sum total of the knowledge which he had before he went into the sleep remains the same; it does not increase at all. No enlightenment comes. But when a man goes into Samadhi, if he goes into it a foal, he comes out a sage. By vairagya (dispassion), and keeping the mind in its unmodified state, yoga is attained. This knowledge, Aham Brahmasmi ( I am the Brahman) does not produce liberation (Moksa), but is liberation itself. Whether yoga is spoken of as the union of Kulakundalini with Paramasive, or the union of the individual soul (Jivatma) with the Supreme Soul (paramatma), or as the state of mind in which all outward
68 thought is suppressed, or as the controlling or suppression of the thinking faculty (cittavriti) or as the union of the moon and the sun (Ida and Pingala). Prana and Apana or Nada and Bindu, the meaning and the end are in each case the same.