The Serpent Power — Arthur Avalon (Sir John Woodroffe) (1924)

be cleared away. Yoga therefore is the method whereby mental intellection and feeling (Chittavritti) and Prāna are first controlled and then stayed.¹ When the Chitta, Vritti, and Prāna, are stilled, then Chit or Paramātmā stands revealed. It supervenes without further effort on the absorption of matter and mind into the primordial Power (Shakti) whence they sprang, of whom they are manifested forms, and who is Herself as Shivā one with Him who is Shiva or Consciousness. Yoga thus works towards a positive state of pure consciousness by the negation of the operation of the principle of unconsciousness which stands in the way of its uprising. This pruning action is well illustrated by the names of a Shakti which in this work is variously described as Nibodikā and Nirodhikā. The first means the Giver of Knowledge, and the second That which obstructs—that is, obstructs the affectation of the mind by the objective world through the senses. It is by the prohibition of such impressions that the state of pure consciousness arises. The arising of such state is called Samādhi—that is, the ecstatic condition in which the “equality” that is identity of Jīvātmā and Paramātmā is realised. The experience is achieved after the absorption (Laya) of Prāna and Manas and the cessation of all ideation (Sangkalpa). An unmodified state (Samarasatvam) is thus produced which is the natural state (Sahajāvasthā) of the Ātmā. Until then there is that fluctuation and modification (Vritti) which is the mark of the conditioned consciousness, with its self-diremption of “I” and “Thou”. The state of Samādhi is “like that of a grain of salt, which mingled in water becomes one with it”.² It is, in 3the words of the Kulārnava Tantra, “that form of contemplation (Dhyāna) in which there is neither ‘here’ nor ‘not here,’ in which there is illumination and stillness as of some great ocean, and which is the Void Itself.”¹

The all-knowing and venerable Teacher has said, “One who has attained complete knowledge of the Ātmā reposes like the still waters of the deep” (v. 31). The Māyā Tantra defines Yoga as the unity of Jīva and Paramātmā (v. 51); that by which oneness is attained with the Supreme (Paramātmā), and Samādhi, or ecstasy, is this unity of Jīva and Ātmā (ib.).² Others define it as the knowledge of the identity of Shiva and Ātmā. The Āgamavādīs proclaim that the knowledge of Shakti (Shaktyātmakang jnānam) is Yoga. Other wise men say that the knowledge of the “Eternal Purusha” (Purāna Purusha) is Yoga, and others, again, the Prakritivādīs, declare that the knowledge of the union of Shiva and Shakti is Yoga (ib.). All such definitions refer to one and the same thing—the realisation by the human spirit that it is the Great Spirit, the Brahman, who as the Ruler of the worlds is known as God. As the Hathayogapradīpikā says:³ “Rājayoga, Samādhi, Unmanī,⁴ Manonmanī,⁴ Amaratvam (Immortality), Shūnyāshūnya (void yet non-void),⁵ Paramapada⁶ (the Supreme State), Amanaska (without Manas—suspended operation of mental functioning),⁷ Advaita (non-dual), Nirālamba (without support—i.e., detachment of the Manas from the external world),¹ Niranjana (stainless),² Jivanmukti (liberation in the body), Sahajāvasthā (natural state of the Ātmā), and Turīya (Fourth State), all mean one and the same thing—that is, the cessation of both mental functioning (Chitta) and action (Karma), on which there arises freedom from joy and sorrow and a changeless (Nirvikāra) state. This on the dissolution of the body is followed by bodiless (Videhakaivalya) or supreme liberation (Paramamukti), which is the permanent existence of the real state (Svarūpāvasthānam). Whilst the aim and the end of all Yoga is the same, the methods by which it is attained vary.