Advaita Vedanta

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 psycho-physical point of equilibrium, attained at various level 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 correc  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 of the Bhagavad Gita 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 Ajña, 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.

 

For an example of the conventional (emphatically NOT conforming to Advaita Vedanta) view of the Chakras, click here.

 

Also click here.

 

VERSE 36

 

AJNA CHAKRA

 

(MEANS: COMMAND OR POWERS OF ABSTRACTION OR WILL)
THE SUMMIT OF MEDITATION
INTENSE INTELLECTUAL CANCELLATION
AN UPWARD TENDENCY

 

तवाज्ञचक्रस्थंतपन-शशिकोटि-द्युतिधरं
परंशम्भुवन्देपरिमिलित-पार्श्वंपरचिता।
यमाराध्यन्भक्त्यारविशशिशुचीना-मविषये
निरालोके ‌உलोकेनिवसतिहिभालोक-भुवने

 

tavajna chakrastham tapanasasikoti dyutidharam
param sambhum vande parimilita parsvam paracita
yam aradhyan bhaktya raivisasi sucinam avisaye
niraloke'loke nivasati hi bhaloka bhuvane

 

I adore that Shiva ultimate, placed in your willing centre (Ajna), shining with the brilliance
Of millions of suns and moons, whose flanks are illumined by the light of the intelligibles beyond
Whom, worshiping with devotion, lifted beyond the reach of sun, moon or fire;
In that shining domain above all need, one lives indeed in that bright world of light.

 

Hardly any tangible item or aspect of beauty, whether in term of line, light or colour, is suggested in this verse, which refers to the first and foremost of Chakras (basic wheels), to be placed at the positive limit of the vertical parameter. Boundless light seems to be the only factor that is specially underlined here. Reference to sun, moon and fire, as also to transcending worldly necessities or evils seem to be emphatically emphasized in this verse.

 

Transcendence has unmistakeable primacy over immanence here. A fluorescent form of brilliance is referred to, which seems to adorn both sides of the vague and almost mathematically pure figure that is intended to emerge into view after one has read each verse as a whole. The Absolute can be viewed both in its immanent and transcendent glory, at one and the same time.

 

Between immanence and transcendence we could imagine degrees of reciprocity, complementarity or compensation. Even when numerator factors predominate over denominator factors, or vice-versa, it is still possible to perform that final operation proper to the highest intuitive faculty of the mind, in which the full cancellation of counterparts could take place. Even the distinction between higher and lower Brahman becomes abolished in the light of such a cancellation. Although incidentally examined here under the aegis of the willing centre (Ajña), the content, at whatever centre it might be, has to remain the same. It is always a foregone conclusion in Advaita Vedanta that there should not be any internal or external difference in a finalized notion of the Absolute, when considered by itself, in itself, for itself and through itself. The lowest Chakra, Muladhara, and the highest, Ajna or Sahasrara, indicate only incidental attributes of the absolute substance which remains the same, whatever else might be subject to change. This is an epistemological presupposition fundamental to Advaita Vedanta which the reader should keep in mind as applicable to this or any other Chakra to be described hereafter.

 

1. "Shiva ultimate" (param sambhum)
Param means "ultimate". Sambhum is Shiva. Shiva represents an auspicious value when he is not thought of as a mythological divinity of the Hindu pantheon. When the notion is pushed in the direction of the Omega Point of the vertical parameter, as high as the mind of the votary can reach according to his mental capacities, we attain to the status of a notion of the Absolute which could be said to mark the thinnest mathematical point of absolute or general possibility to the mind of any man. Such a possibility exists in the human mind. Mathematics as a science could not have been developed without such a faculty being normal to human beings.

 

2. "Ajna chakra"
As a convention in Yogic literature, a "willing centre" is generally referred to as being placed between the two eyebrows. The physical need not correspond strictly to the psychological monomark. We have to keep in mind only the overall structural implications here. Some texts might attempt to clarify the contents of this centre by using comparisons taken from a biological context, as when we refer to the petals of a lotus flower. Sometimes they use the language of polygons, which could refer to crystals, stars or even snowflakes. The points of the compass, whether 4, 8 or 16, could be referred to as rays or tips of petals, pointing upward or downward. The symbols of the Lingam (phallus) and the Yoni (womb) could also be seen conventionally to be used to indicate proto-linguistically the content of each centre. The reader is asked to scrutinize the legend and chart in the appendix to verify for himself the component elements that are meant to be included within each of these conventional centres. In doing so he should note there that the "Saubhagya Lakshmi Upanishad" and the "Yogaraja Upanishad" have to be viewed complementarily in their description of the Chakras, in an ascending or a descending order respectively. Whatever the order might be, the result of the cancellation, as we have said, is meant to be the same non-dual Absolute represented by the Sri Chakra, at least in static terms. It is meant to be merely a frame of reference. Dynamism could be introduced into this static relational pattern according to the intuitive imagination of gifted men of wisdom, whether philosophers (manisin) or poets (kavi).

 

3. "Millions of suns and moons" (tapana sasi koti)The reference to innumerable suns and moons is to show that quantity does not count when higher generalities, in terms of points on a parameter, are involved. Zeros added to either side of a unit number, when they exceed six, tend to have a qualitative rather than a quantitative significance. When the sun is placed at the Omega Point and fire at the Alpha Point, it is easy to locate the moon between them on the same parameter. The moon also figures below, in the third line. It has to occupy a real position between what is conceptual and what is perceptual, which could be no other than the O Point. Multiplication past the O Point is qualitative, beyond the perceptual grasp. It is lifted to the conceptual side. When children play, they are very intrigued with this. A child will call another by a degrading name and then say : "I take it back", which cancels the original harm, His two statements are not of the same order. The first is actual, but the second lifts the conversation to a conceptual status.

 

4. "Whose flanks are illumined" (paramilita parsvam)
At sunset sometimes one can see a cloud that is illumined from the opposite side. This silver lining of a cloud suggests the same kind of bilateral fluorescent light. Buildings like the Pentagon are suggestive of the same kind of glorification intended here. Ida and Pingala, which are the left and right nerve strands running from the lowest to the highest point on the left or right side, represent this aspect of the light of consciousness in conventional yogic literature. Sankara avoids such technicalities, because structuralism itself could become a fetish in the hands of persons who are not adepts in using such language.

 

5. "Beyond the reach of sun, moon and fire" (ravi sasi sucinam avisaye)
The Ajña Chakra under consideration here is evidently meant to refer to the positive or non-self side of the Absolute. Pure mathematical concepts cannot be tainted by factors which belong to the necessary side of life. Fire, as we have said, marks here the O Point of the scheme. Being raised above the O Point is a sure guarantee that all items of necessity, suffering or sin have been left behind negatively and thus transcended. The reference to the "world of light" in which the votary lives is thus justified.     

 

 

 

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.

 

 

A GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE CHAKRAS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ADHARAS:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDITORIAL NOTE: The following lists of Chakras and related diagrams is only provided as an example of traditional lore relating to the Chakras - it in no way represents the views of Nataraja Guru.

The diagrams below are reproduced exactly from the original text of the Saubhagya Lakshmi Upanishad and Yogaraja Upanishad, as found in the "Saundarya Lahari Notes" file and, likewise, are not the work of Nataraja Guru nor do they represent his interpretation of the Chakras.