SAUNDARYA LAHARI
INTRODUCTION TO VERSES 36 THROUGH 41
Verses 36 through 41 refer to stable psychophysical states of consciousness, conventionally named Chakras in the discipline of Yoga. Chakra means “wheel”. Sometimes, instead of being called a wheel, we find the same states of synergetic equilibrium called Adharas, which would suggest a foundation or basement. Fixing the psycho-physical self attentively on a certain type of syndrome or synergism, based on the cancellation of reciprocal functions, is also sometimes called a Bandha, which would suggest a knot or binding force. There are Bandhas of this kind known to Yogic practice, such as Mula Bandha and Udyana Bandha. Vital tendencies could be controlled and cancelled out through the regulation of breathing exercises, where again two opposing tendencies are intended to be cancelled out or neutralized. Each Chakra or Adhara represents a psychophysical point of equilibrium, attained at various levels of the dynamism between the self and the non-self.
The most characteristic description of Yoga would be the word nirodha, which , in this context, means “restraint of the outgoing mental processes”, which, through chains of natural associations, keep the mind distracted and wandering from one item of interest to another Patanjali's definition of Yoga is based on this concept of restraint (nirodha) (Yoga Sutras; I; 2)
Each Chakra or Adhara represents a point of psycho-physical equilibrium attained at various levels of the dynamism as between the self and the non-self.
According to Patanjali, there are eight stages (astanga) by which a Yogi practices the discipline of meditation (II; 29). This begins with the lowest physical limit, where control is indicated by the word yama, meaning “withdrawing inward of tendencies”. After yama comes niyama which applies to a slightly higher level of the personality, and which means “restraint or control conditioned by rules”. Then comes asana, which refers to the correct posture for restraining the mind. Pranayama, the fourth stage in the process, refers to the regulation of the outgoing and ingoing breaths, in order to subdue or make less obtrusive the vital tendencies which are at the basis of the function of breathing so that they do not obstruct the process of meditation (dhyana) which is one of the stages to follow. The next stage of Patanjali's Astanga Yoga is pratyahara, which is a negative process of withdrawal - from the side of the non-self to the self – of the outgoing tendencies. The next stage, the sixth, is dhyana or meditation, where a first-degree participation is established between the self and the non-self. Dharana, which is given as the sixth stage in the Yoga Sutras, underlines a sustained state of dhyana. Finally, the eighth stage is called samadhi. The word sama suggests equality and -dhi suggests intellect. The intellect is thus expected to attain to a certain equality or equilibrium with itself. The cancellability of the self and the non-self is implied here.
When we think of the subject of Yoga in the context of Indian spirituality, the most canonical or authoritative textbook, which all correct scholars or practitioners have to keep in mind, is Patanjali's series of aphorisms called the Yoga Sutras. Although Patanjali is thus an authority, his Yoga, which is also sometimes called Raja Yoga, is considered defective in the full context of Advaita Vedanta. Patanjali's Yoga is not countenanced with favour in the Brahma Sutras of Badarayana, nor in the Yoga Vasishta, which is perhaps the latest authoritative textbook on Yoga, as its name itself seems to claim . In it there is an explicit disavowal of the Astanga Yoga of Patanjali, when Sri Rama is asked by his Guru, Vasishta, to treat his own teaching as the final authority, Vasishta speaks in terms of sapta bhumikas, or seven grounds in consciousness, which he names and defines elaborately in more than one place. The main objection to the Patanjali system of Yoga by Vedantic texts such as the Bhagavad Gita, is that its epistemology and methodology are necessarily vitiated by their being based on the Samkhya dualism of Kapila. As between Kapila and Patanjali and their respective schools of Samkhya and Yoga, there still persists a vestige of duality between prakrti (nature) and purusha (spirit), which is essentially the same as between matter and mind. Advaita, on the other hand, cannot tolerate even the slightest taint of duality between these two factors. The avowed purpose of Advaita is to abolish all duality, whether between causes and effects, means and ends or between disciplines and their results. The fourth and fifth chapters of the Bhagavad Gita are specifically directed to the purpose of cancelling the duality between Samkhya and Yoga.
Verse 4 of Chapter 5 goes to the extent of saying that only children think they are distinct disciplines. Patanjali's Yoga itself has been commented upon by Vyasa in what is known as the Vyasa Bhasya, which is an attempt to abolish the taint of duality implied in Patanjali's original approach and which persisted within its core as a genetic element of error. The well-known Bhojavartika of Bhojaraja and the Tattva Vaisaradi of Vacaspati Misra pushed this revaluation still further and Advaitic notions of Yoga have also been revised and updated in the writings of Sankara and Narayana Guru.
It is true that the Saundarya Lahari refers in these six verses to what might seem at first sight to be six conventional Chakras, Adharas or Mudras, each implying a stable attitude of the psycho-physical self. Ontological aspects, when implied, would justify the term Adhara, while a more teleological state of equilibrium would be more properly referred to as a Chakra. The term bandha might apply to a discipline conceived under Hatha Yoga, which refers to a very wilful form of physical control and is only indirectly important to Yoga, which should be properly understood from a more neutral standpoint. Some textbooks refer to four kinds of Yoga: Mantra, Laya, Raja and Hatha. Mantra evidently refers to the muttering of magic syllables, while visualizing ideograms that belong to them. Laya does not depend upon the nominalistic aspects of Yoga, but refers to an intimate form of merging the mind so as to dissolve the duality between object and subject. The term Raja is used in the Bhagavad Gita to underline a discipline in Yoga which is public and experimentally valid, as when we say “the royal road”. Raja Yoga thus corresponds to a normalized discipline of Yoga, neither too esoteric nor too exoteric. We have already indicated the peculiarity of Hatha Yoga. Whatever the type of Yoga one might be interested in, there is always a subtle cancellation of counterparts implied, when Yoga is treated as a discipline in the most general terms, as we have already indicated at the end of our comments on Verse 33.
THE FRAME OF REFERENCE IMPLICIT IN THE CHAKRAS
If Yoga is a discipline to be practiced at all, it must necessarily have a frame of reference, which itself must have a status that is both physical and psychic at once. Space, whether subjective “inner space” or objective “outer space”, is necessarily made up of various elements which must have a relational togetherness between them. If we try to think mathematically, this idea of the togetherness of the inter-related elements would suggest to us a pattern which could be formally visualized as a “mathematical object”, as Hilbert would call it, whether that object is visualized in geometrical terms or merely conceived in terms of algebraic signs. The same thing could be viewed conceptually or perceptually. At the negative levels perceptual forms are natural to the mind. At positive levels conceptual relational togetherness or unity is also equally possible to think of as an idea. Letters of the Greek alphabet can be used to indicate points of intersection between lines. Just as a graph can verify a formula, so geometry can verify algebra. Modern cybernetics is based on this possibility. Machine language could be codified and decodified. Thus we arrive at the possibility of a relational frame of reference for all yogic meditations, however varied. This is, according to us, what Sankara suggests in his Sri Chakra in Verse 11, though it is true that there the Sri Chakra is presented in its statically conceived mathematical form as a ready-made cliché, so repugnant to the philosophy of Bergson. This does not mean, however that Sankara is not aware of its dynamic version, as revealed in Verse 7. Chakras, Adharas, Bandhas or Mudras are thus to be understood as stable points of an equilibrium that could be established within the amplitude of a parameter that we could postulate as existing between the lower or Alpha limit and the higher Omega limit of a total situation proper to the world of yogic discipline. What is true of yogic discipline could be equally true of Tantric or semantic discipline by extrapolation or interpolation, permissible by mathematical convention. The six Chakras, having the names Ajna, Visuddhi, Anahata (not mentioned by name), Svadhisthana, Manipura and Muladhara, conform to the conventionally understood stable centres (synergisms or syndromes) within the total psychological makeup of the individual.
Various textbooks on Yoga define and describe these Chakras or Adharas with an endless variety of subtleties. To enter into these would be to court disaster through “confusion of tongues” in a verbose forest of words, otherwise known as “Babelization” in biblical language. In order to avoid falling into such a dire predicament, it is recommended that we steer our own speculation clear of the Scylla and Charybdis involved here.
We have already indicated that, as an Advaitin, Sankara could not countenance any dualistically tainted school of Yoga theory. Various questionable textbooks on Tantra esoterics refer to Chakras and Adharas, and describe them in terms of fires or phalluses or petals of different colours and numbers too numerous to examine cursorily, or even enumerate. The voluminous writings of Sir John Woodroffe give us an example of such material, to which could be added many others derived from schools of Tantrism, whether Bengali, Tibetan or of the monsoon west coast of India, extending from Ujjain down to Kanya Kumari. For a complete list of the available works one is referred to the publication of Harvard University by Professor W. Norman Brown (PP. 99 ff.), under what he calls “critical apparatus”.
We have carefully avoided entering into the deeper polemical controversies in the present study, in order to salvage this wonderful work from being lost in the ocean of verbosity whose volume is increasing as days pass by. In order to settle any controversy on such matters, it has once and for all been recommended in the Bhagavad Gita, in the words of Krishna himself, that it is the canonical texts (Sastras) that are to be treated as authorities (pramanas), (XVI; 24). Guru Vak (the word of the Guru) and Sastra Pramana (the authority of the canonical scriptures) are the two final touchstones for doctrinal validity or acceptability. For our own part, we have avoided getting lost in the bypaths of Tantrism or textbooks of Yoga, however much each might claim to be more secret or profound than another. Our enquiry would never come to an end were we to follow them.
We have used for reference two Upanishads which we have come across, one of which is called the Saubhagya Lakshmi and the other the Yogaraja. The first is included in a translation of the Shakta Upanishads by Dr. A.G. Krishna Warrier, published by the Adyar Library. The second appears in the Upanishad Samgraha, published by Motilal Banarsidas, New Delhi. The very fact that these two texts claim to be Upanishads must be sufficient guarantee that they are fully acceptable to Vedantins. What is more, both of them use the word “Brahma Chakra” or “Brahma Randhra”, thus bringing into the picture the notion of the Absolute, which is a sure indication that the context is that of the Absolute and not any other lesser discipline, such as that of Kapila, Kanada or Gautama. Tantrism, which gives primacy to the Goddess, would not normally speak of the Brahma Randhra either.