Yoga and the Perennial Philosophy – Dr. Vamberto Morais
(Dr. Morais (Vamji as he was called), was one of the consultants of the Centre, and a regular speaker on our functions. The following talk was recorded on our Open Day in 1986).
In Yoga you go from peace and silence to the level of thought and words. But you should always return to that stillness, for it is there that you get your spiritual food. If you speak on these subjects, your inspiration must come from the depth, not from the surface mind (the level of chatter and distraction) which has no creative power by itself. (The Christian theologian Paul Tillich said that “God is depth”). A speaker should be like a musician – trying to tune up his instrument through study, meditation ad contemplation. The peace and silence we are trying to get in touch with is beyond all speech and thought, and all images: more than that-it is beyond all pleasures and desire. If you are genuinely in touch with it, all that seems attractive in this world-the false glitter of wealth, the false greatness, name and fame-all this loses its attraction and power: we are simply hypnotized by these things.
It is very significant that many people who have not gone through any special training-like regular prayer and meditation-can experience the power of this peace and stillness in the daily rhythm of their lives (if they give themselves the chance). Why is it that when confronted with a problem or crucial decision, we may be told by a friend-“Sleep on it”? If you go to bed and manage to get some refreshing sleep, you may get up in a cheerful mood, and perhaps with the solution you have sought. The Romans used to say “In nocte consilium” (the motto of London’s Birkbeck College), which is in fact a translation of lines from the Greek poet Phocylides: “Seek advice at night; quiet is good for those in pursuit of virtue” (Frag.8). The Upanishads give the explanation: just as people may walk again and again over a field where there is hidden treasure ( compare Jesus’ well known simile) and do not find it, all creatures go into the “world of Brahma”” (Brahmaloka) during sleep but are not aware of it (Chand. Up.VIII, 3, 2). In other words, in deep sleep we are in touch with Brahman-Atman, and this contact not only renews our energies but may provide inspiration through the unconscious.
The great Yogi Ramana Maharishi described the supreme state of Samadhi as “sleep in the waking state”. And isn’t genuine artistic inspiration comparable to this? People are curious about all sorts of things, but they show little curiosity about the phenomenon of inspiration. And yet it is really an amazing miracle. When poets or great composers try to describe artistic creation, they admit that it takes place in a different state of consciousness-at a high level of concentration. Charles Lamb said that “the poet dreams while being awake”., and W.B.Yeats (who incidentally, helped to translate the Upanishads) described the state as a “waking trance”-which is amazingly close to Ramana’s phrase.
There are no divisions or frontiers between art on the one hand and religion or spirituality on the other. The giants of the religious world have often been poets or musicians. The Bhagvad Gita is both a wonderful guide to spiritual life and a great work of poetry. The parables of Jesus are supreme masterpieces of art as well as wonderful instruction for all of us. The artist is a contemplative in so far as he is an artist, and what is more-“every man is a special kind of artist”.
I have talked about the day and the night vision. Our modern society is terribly unbalanced because its surface or day vision predominates too heavily, and there is an appalling lack of the “night vision”: this accounts for is turmoil and agitation; its lack of real peace. Another consequence is the lack of a sense of order and proportion. If you are in touch with the deep stillness and peace that lie at your very centre, not only do you get inspiration to solve your problems, but the world around you gets into focus: its chaotic aspect disappears, and you can see what is essential or important, and what is secondary.
The practice of Yoga is indissolubly linked to a very ancient wisdom and philosophy which emerged slowly in India, perhaps about 3,000 years ago (nobody can date its beginnings with any precision). This wisdom is similar in its essence to all the great spiritual traditions of the world, and Dr. Prasad Shastri is right in saying that “in a sense, the literature of Yoga may be said to include all that has been written anywhere at a high level of inspiration touching the nature of man and reality”.
What are these spiritual traditions? The main ones are: the ancient Chinese wisdom, known as the way of Tao: Buddhism, which is also a school of Yoga and originated in India over 2,500 years ago: ancient Greek philosophy, which came to maturity with the great philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle; the great Jewish-Christian tradition, represented by the Jewish prophets, Jesus Christ, St. Paul and the great saints of the Church, like St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Teresa of Avila and others; finally, the Muslim Sufis, who have given us not only wisdom but great poetry.
All these paths give us basically the same message, teach the same ethics and training, with some differences of emphasis. In the west this message has been called the Perennial Philosophy (the title of a very useful anthology by Aldous Hexley), while in India the traditional name is the Sanatana Dharma- the eternal law or religion (the Gita talks about the Yoga Puratana- the ancient Yoga (IV,3).
This perennial philosophy gives a definite answer to the basic question we are faced with every day of our lives: what is the meaning of life? People will say- get a job, earn your living (in fact, showing little understanding of the spiritual aspects of work). Fine, but what do I do at the end of the day, or when I retire? What should I do- watch TV, read novels or play cards until I die? Is that what we are here for? Schumacher- the economist and philosopher who gave us the motto “small is beautiful” (against the idolatry of material bigness)- said that our schools and universities give us wonderfully detailed maps and diagrams about the world, but they don’t show our destination: they are utterly (or nearly so) silent when it comes to the supreme question of life. In fact, our modern society is based on the systematic avoidance of this question, and has developed cunning ways of doing that. The consumer society is trying all the time to distract us from our basic need and hunger- from our heartbreak: the crying child is taken to the Vanity Fair and cajoled with toys and sweets, but this gigantic fraud will not appease it’s hunger and pain. There are so many people having nervous breakdowns and depressions, or all sorts of addictions and vices, because they cannot find a practical answer to the enigma of life. The merchants of the consumer society are desperately trying to avoid the truth: that in the midst of this apparent plenty, this technological progress without precedent, we are dreadfully empty, poor and naked- in a state of inner desolation.
What is the answer of the Perennial Philosophy? Let me try and summarise it:
There is a divine ground- Brahman or God- which is both immanent and transcendent in the universe (i. e., in itand also beyond it). This divine ground is also inside each one of us, as the Atman, the spirit or hidden essence of our souls. Man is a microcosm: he epitomizes and recapitulates the whole of cosmic evolution. That is why we are so often divided in ourselves; in conflict or prey to great suffering. Man is the riddle of the universe and has to find the answer to it. We can find it, because we have all knowledge inside ourselves, and have to work through the superficial layers.
There is a path, a way of liberation or Moksha. It is possible to love and unite with this divine source which is both in the universe and in our souls. In fact, this is the supreme aim of our life, compared with which everything else becomes trivial and small. It is an integral part of our being: man is a praying animal, a contemplative animal (Aleister Hardy’s research at Oxford has shown that a high proportion of the population- between 30 and 50%- have had spontaneous religious experiences). To us contemplation is as natural as flight to birds, with this important difference: birds learn to fly with hardly an effort, while most of us have to go through a process of training in order to become fit for contemplation. In contemplation we are in touch with the infinite, and as the Chandogya Upanishad says, “the infinite is happiness- there is no happiness in anything small”(VII,23). And in the spiritual sense small means great wealth, great empires, multinational companies, VIP’s- in short, all that is admired by the ignorant and untrained, and in order to fit ourselves for contemplation, there is a system of training that must be followed with great care and devotion. Its basis is, of course, the DHARMA- the essential code of morality. In the Indian tradition Dharma is the preparation for Moksha (Liberation), just as in Christianity ethics is the basis for contemplation. But if you reduce religion or spirituality to a code of rules you are debasing and distorting it: in fact, this is one of the ways in which religions decay.