﻿﻿« ILKMfmW o﻿﻿﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH
and the
PHILOSOPHY OF THE TATTVAS
»
ranslated from the sanskrit, with introductory and explanatory essays on
Nature's Finer Forces.
reprinted from "the theosophist," with modifications and additions.
by
RAMA PRASAD, M.A., F.T.S.
Its one absolute attribute, which is itself, eternal, ceaseless Motion, is called i esoteric parlance the "Great Breath," which is the perpetual motion of the uiverse, in the sense of limitless, ever-present Space.
—H. P. Blavatsky: The Secret Doctrine.
SECOND AND REVISED EDITION.
LONDON:
Theosophical Publishing Society, 7, Duke Street, Adelphi, W.C. NEW YORK: The Path, 144, Madison Avenue. MADRAS: Theosophical Society, Adyar.
1894-﻿The H. P.B. Press, 42, Henry Street, Regent's Park, London, N.W. (Printers to the Theosophical Society.)	'
(Electrotyping by B. Dellagana & Co., 48, Fetter Lane, E.C.)
KaJG A
8 ®>Oy.b﻿CONTENTS.
PAGE
The Tattvas ........ i
Evolution ........ xi
The Mutual Relation of the Tattvas and of the Principles . 19 Prana	. . . . . . . .30
The Mind : . . . .	. -89
The Cosmic Picture-Gallery ..... 122
The Manifestations of Psychic 'Force .... 140
Yoga—The Soul . . . .	.	145
The Spirit . . .	. . .	175
The Science of Breath .	.	. .185
Glossary ........ 237﻿﻿PREFACE.
A WORD of explanation is necessary with regard to the book now offered to the public. In the ninth and tenth volumes of The Theosophist I wrote certain essays 011 "Nature's Finer Forces." The subject of these essays interested the readers of The Theosophist so much, that I was asked to issue the series of essays in book form. On reading the essays for this purpose I found that in order to make a book they must be almost entirely rearranged and perhaps re-written. However, not being equal to the task of re-writing what I had once written, I determined to publish a translation of the book in Sanskrit on the Science of Breath and the Philosophy of the Tattvas. As, moreover, without these essays the book would have been quite unintelligible, I decided to add them to the book by way of an illustrative introduction. This accordingly has been done. The essays in The Theosophist have been reprinted with certain additions, modifications and corrections. Besides, I have written several more essays in order to make the explanations more complete and authoritative.
I was confirmed in this course by one more con-﻿vi
preface.
sideration. The book contains a good deal more than the essays touched upon, and I thought it better to lay all of it before the public.
The book is sure to throw a good deal of light upon the scientific researches of the ancient Aryans of India, and it will leave no doubt in a candid mind that the religion of ancient India had a scientific basis, It is chiefly for this reason that I have drawn my illustrations of the Tattvic Law from the Upanishads.
There is a good deal in the book which can only be shown to be true by long and diligent experiment Those who are devoted to the pursuit of truth without prejudice will no doubt be ready to wait before they form any opinion about such portions of the book. Others it is useless to reason with.
To the former class of students I have to say one word more. From my own experience I can tell then that the more they study the book, the more wisdon they are sure to find in it, and let me hope that er< long I shall have a goodly number of colleagues, whe will with me try their best to explain and illustrate the book still better and more thoroughly.
Meerut, India,	Rama Prasad.
November 1889.﻿PREFACE TO THE SECOND AND REVISED EDITION.
The points on which revision has been attempted are: (i) the style of printing has been made uniform with the rest of the books printed 011 the "H. P. B." Press; (2) consistency in transliteration of Sanskrit terms has been studied, and a number of errors corrected; (3) the English of some phrases has been improved; and (4) a few passages have been omitted from the text. R. H. is responsible for some small portion of the work of revision, and for the rest the undersigned, who has a high appreciation of Mr. Rama Prasad's essays—an appreciation, however, which is lot extended to certain portions of the Tantrik work le has so ably translated.
G. R. S. M.
London, 1894.﻿﻿Nature's Finer Forces,
and their influence upon
Human Life and Destiny.
i.
THE TATTVAS.
The Tattvas are the five modifications of the Great Breath. Acting upon Prakriti this Great Breath throws it into five states, having distinctive vibratory motions, and performing different functions. The first outcome of the evolutionary state of Parabrah-man is the Akasha Tattva. After this come in order the Vayu, the Tejas, the Apas and the Prithivi. They are variously known as Mahabhutas. The word Akasha is generally translated into English by the word ether. Unfortunately, however, to modern English science sound is not known to be the distinguishing quality of ether. Some few might also have the idea that the modern medium of light is the same as Akasha. This, I believe, is a mistake. The luinini-ferous ether is the subtle Tejas Tattva, and not the Ak&sha. All the five subtle Tattvas might no doubt be called ethers, but to use the term ether for Akasha,﻿2
nature's finer forces.
without any distinguishing epithet, is misleading. We might call Akasha the sonoriferous ether, the Vayu the tangiferous ether, Apas the gustiferous ether, and Prithivi the odoriferous ether. Just as there exists in the universe the luminiferous ether, an element of refined matter without which it has been found that the phenomena of light find no adequate explanation, so do there exist the four remaining ethers, elements of refined matter, without which it will be found that the phenomena of sound, touch, taste and smell find no adequate explanation.
The luminiferous ether is supposed by modern science to be matter in a most refined state. It is the vibrations of this element that are said to constitute light. The vibrations are said to take place at right angles to the direction of the wave. Nearly the same is the description of the Tejas Tattva given in the book. It makes this Tattva move in an upward direction, and the centre of the direction is, of course, the direction of the wave. Besides, it says that one whole vibration of this element makes the figure of a triangle.
Suppose in this figure A B is the direction of the wave; B C the direction of the vibration. C A is the line along which, seeing that in expansion the symmetrical arrangements of the atoms of a body are not changed, the vibrating atom must re- A turn to its symmetrical position in the line A B.
The Tejas Tattva of the ancients is then exactly the;﻿THE TATTVAS.
3
luminiferous ether of the moderns, so far as the nature of the vibration is concerned. There is no conception, however, of the four remaining ethers, at all events in a direct manner, in modern science. The vibrations of Akasha, the sonoriferous ether, constitute sound; and it is quite necessary to recognize the distinctive character of this form of motion.
The experiment of the bell in a vacuum goes to prove that the vibrations of the atmosphere propagate sound. Any other media, however, such as the earth and the metals, are known to transmit sound in various degrees. There must, therefore, be some one thing in all these media which gives birth to sound— the vibration which constitutes sound. That something is the Indian Akasha.*
But Akasha is all-pervading, just as is the luminiferous ether. Why, then, is not sound transmitted to our ears when a vacuum is produced in the bell-jar? The real fact is that we must make a difference between the vibrations of the elements which constitute sound and light, etc., and the vibrations of the media which transmit these impressions to our senses. It is not the vibrations of the ethers—the subtle Tattvas—that cause our perceptions, but the ethereal vibrations
* The reader might be put in mind of the phenomena of the telephone, and still better those of the photophone. It is clear that the rays which transmit sound in the latter are not the visual rays of the sun. They are surely audible rays. The former are the vibrations of the luminiferous ether. What are the latter? The vibrations, of course, of the sonoriferous ether, the constituent of the Indian Prana, which is called Akasha.﻿4
nature's finer forces.
transferred to different media, which are so many modifications of gross matter—the Sthula Maha-bhutas. The luminiferous ether is present just as much in a darkened room as in the space without. The minutest space within the dimensions of the surrounding walls themselves is not void of it. For all this the luminosity of the exterior is not present in the interior. Why? The reason is that our ordinary vision does not see the vibrations of the luminiferous ether. It only sees the vibrations of the media which the ether pervades. The capability of being set into ethereal vibrations varies with different media. In the space without the darkened room the ether brings the atoms of the atmosphere into the necessary state, of visual vibration, and one wide expanse of light is presented to our view. The same is the case with every other object that we see. The ether which pervades the object brings the atoms of that object into the necessary state of visual vibration. The strength of the ethereal vibrations which the presence of the sun imparts to the ether pervading our planet is not sufficient to evoke the same state in the dead matter of the darkening walls. The internal ether, divided from the external one by this dead mass, is itself cut off from such vibrations. The darkness of the room is thus the consequence, notwithstanding the presence therein of the luminiferous ether. An electric spark in the vacuum of a bell-jar must needs be transmitted to our eyes, because the glass of the jar which stands in contact with the internal luminiferous ether has a﻿THE TA'TTVAS.
5
certain degree of the capability of being put into the state of visual vibration, which from thence is transmitted to the external ether and thence to the eye. The same would never be the case if we were to use a porcelain or an earthen jar. It is this capability of being put into the state of visual vibration which in glass and similar objects we call transparency.
To return to the sonoriferous ether (Akasha). Every form of gross matter has, to a certain extent, which varies with varying forms, what we may call auditory transparency.
I have now to say something about the nature- of the vibrations. Two things must be understood in this connection. In the first place the ex-
Oternal form of the vibration is something like the hole of the ear.
It throws matter which is subject to it, into the form of a dotted sheet.
These dots are little "points, rising above the common surface so as to produce microscopic pits in the sheet. It is said to move by fits and starts (Sankrama), and to move
in all directions (Sarvatogama). That means to say that the impulse falls /^/'/-v'^W back upon itself along the line of its
' i */,'»/V.»111 former path, which lies on all sides of »\\\ 11, i r W	'''! the direction of the wave.
It will be understood that these ethers produce in gross media vibrations similar to their own. The form, therefore, into﻿6
nature's finer forces.
which the auditory vibrations throw the atmospheric air is a true clue to the form of the ethereal vibration. And the vibrations of atmospheric air discovered by modern science are similar.
I come now to the tangiferous ether (Vayu). The vibrations of this ether are described as being spherical in form, and the motion is said O0®®.®®q°o to be at acute angles to the wave J&^jft (Tiryak). Such is the representation o°QOCf^QQo0 °f these vibrations on the plane of «>e paper.
°OooOQ°	The remarks about the transmis-
sion of sound in the case of Akasha apply here, too, mutatis mutandis.
The gustiferous ether (Apas Tattva) is said to resemble in shape the half moon. It is, moreover, said to move downward. This direction is opposite to that of the luminiferous ether. This force, therefore, causes contraction. Here is the representation of the Apas vibrations on the plane of paper.
The process of contraction will be considered when I come to the qualities of the Tattvas.
The odoriferous ether (Prithivi) is said to be quadrangular in shape. Thus:﻿THE TATTY AS.
7
□ □□□□□□ □□□□□□□ □□□□□□□
This is said to move in the middle. It neither moves at right angles, nor at acute angles, nor upwards, nor downwards, but it moves along the line of the wave. The line and the quadrangle are in the same plane.
These are the forms, and the modes of motion, of the five ethers. Of the five sensations of men, each of these ethers gives birth to one, thus:
1.	Akasha, sonoriferous ether, sound.
2.	Vayu, tangiferous ether, touch.
3.	Tejas, luminiferous ether, colour.
4.	Apas, gustiferous ether, taste.
5.	Prithivi, odoriferous ether, smell.
In the process of evolution these coexisting ethers, while retaining their general relative forms and primary qualities, contract the qualities of the other Tattvas. This is known as the process of Panchi-karana or division into five.
If we take, as our book does, H, P, R, V and 1, to be the algebraical symbols for (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), respectively, the ethers after Panchikarana assume the following forms:﻿8
nature's finer forces.
(1) H	_ H ~~ 2	+	P 8	+	R 8	+	V 8	+	1/ 8
(2) P	_ P — 2	+	H 8	+	R 8	+	V 8	+	L 8
(3) r	_ R 2	+	H 8	+	P 8	+	V 8	+	L 8
(4) V	_ V 2	+	R 8	+	H 8	+	P 8	+	L 8
(5) Iv	= h 2	+	V 8	+	R 8	+	H 8	+	P 8
One molecule of each ether, consisting of eight atoms, has four of the original principal ethers, and one each of the remaining four.
The following table will show the five qualities of each of the Tattvas after Panchikarana.
	sound.	touch.	taste.	colour.	smku,.
(1.) H.	Ordinary..				
					
(2.) P.	Very light.	Rather cool.	Acid.......	The blue of	
				the cloud..	
(3-) R-	Light.....	Very hot____	Hot.......	Red.......	Hot.......
(4.) v.	Heavy....	Cool........	Astringent.	White.....	Astringent.
(5-) i*	Deep......	Slightly hot.	Sweet.....	Yellow____	
It might be remarked here that the subtle Tattvas exist now in the universe on four planes. The higher of these planes differs from the lower in having a greater number of vibrations per second. The four planes are:
1.	Physiological....................Pr&na.
2.	Mental........................ .Manas.
3.	Psychic.......................Vijn&na*
4.	Spiritual......................Ananda.﻿the tattvas.
9
I shall now, however, discuss some of the secondary qualities of these Tattvas.
1.	Space.—This is a quality of the Akasha Tattva. It has been asserted that the vibration of this etlier is shaped like the hole of the ear, and that in the body thereof are microscopic points (Vindus). It follows, evidently, that the interstices between the points serve to give space to ethereal minima, and offer them room for locomotion (Avakasha).
2.	Locomotion.—This is the quality of the Vayu Tattva. Vayu is a form of motion itself, for motion in all directions is motion in a circle, large or small. The Vayu Tattva has itself the form of spherical motion. When to the motion which keeps up the form of the* different ethers is added the stereotyped motion of the V&yu, locomotion is the result.
3.	Expansion.—This is the quality of the Tejas Tattva. This follows evidently from the shape and form of motion which is given to this ethereal vibration. Suppose A B C is a lump of metal:	a. ^
If we apply to it a brand of fire, the luminiferous ether in it is set in motion, and that drives the gross atoms of the lump into similar motion. Suppose a is an atom. This being impelled to assume the shape of the Tejas, vibration goes towards a'} and then takes the symmetrical position of a . Similarly does every point change its place round the centre of the piece of metal. Ultimately the whole﻿io	nature's finer forces.
piece assumes the shape of A' B' C'. Expansion is thus the result.
4.	Contraction.—This is the quality of the Apas Tattva. As has been remarked before, the direction of this ether is the reverse of the Agni, and it is therefore easy to understand that contraction is the result of the play of this Tattva.
5.	Cohesive Resistance.—This is the quality of the Prithivi Tattva. This, it will be seen, is the reverse of Akasha. Akasha gives room for locomotion, while Prithivi resists it. This is the natural result of the direction and shape of this vibration. It covers up the spaces of the Akasha.
6.	Smoothness.—This is a quality of the Apas Tattva. As the atoms of any body in contraction come near each other and assume the semi-lunar shape of the Apas, they must easily glide over each other. The very shape secures for the atoms easy motion.
This, I believe, is sufficient to explain the general nature of the Tattvas. The different phases of their manifestation on all the planes of life will be taken up in their proper places.﻿II.
EVOLUTION.
It will be very interesting to trace, according to the theory of the Tattvas, the development of man, and the formation of the world.
The Tattvas, as we have already seen, are the modifications of Svara. Regarding Svara, we find in our book:
"In the Svara are the Vedas and the Shastras, and in the Svara is music. All the world is in the Svara; Svara is the spirit itself."
The proper translation of the word Svara is the current of the life-wave. It is that wavy motion which is the cause of the evolution of cosmic undifferentiated matter into the differentiated universe, and the involution of this into the primary state of non-differentiation, and so on, in and out, for ever and ever. Whence does this motion come? This motion is the spirit itself. The word Atma used in the book, itself carries the idea of eternal motion, coming as it does from the root at, eternal motion; and it may be significantly remarked, that the root at is connected with, is, in fact, simply another form of, the roots ah, breath, a^d as, being. All these roots﻿NATURE'S'FINER FORCES.
have for their original the sound produced by the breath of animals. In the Science of Breath the technical symbol for inspiration is sa, and for expiration ha. It is easy to see how these symbols are connected with the roots as and ah. The current of the life-wave spoken of above is technically called Hansa-chasa, i.e., the motion of ha and sa. The word Hansa, which is taken to mean God, and is made so much of in many Sanskrit works, is only a symbolic representation of the two eternal processes of life—ha and sa.
The primeval current of the life-wave is, then, the same which in man assumes the form of inspiratory and expiratory motion of the lungs, and this is the all-pervading source of the evolution and the involution of the universe.
The book goes on:
"It is the Svara that has given form to the first accumulations of the divisions of the universe; the Svara causes involution and evolution; the Svara is God Himself, or more properly the Great Power (Ma-heshvara)."
The Svara is the manifestation of the impression on matter of that power which in man is known to us as the power which knows itself. It is to be understood that the action of this power never ceases. It is ever at work, and evolution and involution are the very necessity of its unchangeable existence.
The Svara has two different states. The one is known on the physical plane of life as the sun-breath, the other as the moon-breath. I shall, however, at﻿EVOLUTION.

the present stage of evolution designate them as positive and negative respectively. The period during which this current comes back to the point whence it started is known as the day and night of Parabrahman. The positive or evolutionary period is known as the day of Parabrahman; the negative or involutionary portion is known as the night of Parabrahman. These nights and days follow each other without break. The sub-divisions of this period comprehend all the phases of existence, and it is therefore necessary to give here the scale of time according to the Hindi! Shastras.
I shall begin with a Truti as the least division of time.
The Divisions of Time. 26% Trutis=i Nimesha = ^g second. 18 Nimeshas=i Kashtha=3i seconds = 8 Vipalas. 30 Kashtha=i Kala=i|. minutes=4 Palas. 30 Kala=i Mahurta=48 minutes=2 Gharis. 30 Mahurtas = i day and night = 24 hours=60 Gharis. 30 days and nights and odd hours = 1 Pitrya day and night = 1
month and odd hours. 12 months=i Daiva day and night=i year=365 days, 5!"", 30', 31". 365 Daiva days and nights=i Daiva year. 4,800 Daiva years = 1 Satya Yuga. 3,600 Daiva years = 1 Treta Yuga. 2,400 Daiva years = 1 Dvapara Yuga. 1,200 Daiva years = 1 Kali Yuga. 12,000 Daiva years=1 Chatur Yuga (four Yugas). 12,000 Chatur Yugas = 1 Daiva Yuga. 2,000 Daiva Yugas = 1 day and night of Brahma. 365 Brahmic days and nights=1 year of Brahmd. 71 Daiva Yugas=1 Manvantara.
12,000 Brahmic years = 1 Chatur Yuga of Brahma and so on. 200 Yugas of Brahma=1 day and night of Parabrahman.﻿14
NATURE'S FINER FORCES.
These days and nights follow each other in eternal succession, and hence eternal evolution and involution.
We have thus five sets of days and nights, i, Para-brahmic; 2, Brahmic; 3, Daiva; 4, Pitrya; 5, Manusha. A sixth is the Manvantaric day, and the Manvantaric night (Pralaya).
The days and nights of Parabrahman follow each other without beginning or. end. The night (the negative period) and the day (the positive period) both merge into the Sushumna (the conjunctive period) and emerge into the -other. And so do the other days and nights. The days all through this division are sacred to the positive, the hotter .current, and the nights to the negative, the cooler current. The impressions of names and forms, and the power of producing an impression, lie in the positive phase of existence. Receptivity is given birth to by the negative current.
After being subjected to the negative phase of Parabrahman, Prakriti, which follows Parabrahman like a shadow, has been saturated with evolutionary receptivity; as the hotter current sets in, changes are imprinted upon it, and it appears in changed forms. The first imprint which the evolutionary positive current leaves upon Prakriti is known as Akasha. Then, by and by, come into existence the remaining ethers. These modifications of Prakriti are the ethers of the first stage.
Into these five ethers, as now constituting the objective plane, works on the current of the Great﻿EVOLUTION.
15
Breath. A further development takes place. Different centres come into existence. The Akasha throws them into a form which gives room for locomotion. With the beginning of the Vayu Tattva these elementary ethers are thrown into the form of spheres. This was the beginning of formation, or what may also be called solidification.
These spheres are our Brahmandas. In them the ethers assume a secondary development. The so-called division into five takes place. Well, but in this Brah-mic sphere in which the new ethers have good room for locomotion, the Tejas Tattva now comes into play, and then the Apas Tattva. Every tattvic quality is generated into, and preserved in, these spheres by these currents. With the Apas the formation is complete. In process of time we have a centre and an atmosphere. This sphere is the self-conscious universe.
In this sphere, according to the same process, a third ethereal state comes into existence. In the cooler atmosphere removed from the centre another class of centres comes into existence. These divide the Brah-mic state of matter into two different states. After this comes into existence another state of matter whose centres bear the name of Devas or suns.
We have thus four states of subtle matter in the universe.
1.	Pr&na, life matter, with the Sun for centre.
2.	Manas, mental matter, with the Manu for centre.
3.	Vijnana, psychic matter, with Brahma for centre.﻿16	nature's finer .forces.
4. Ananda, spiritual matter, with Parabrahman as the infinite substratum.
Every higher state is positive with regard to the lower one, and every lower one is given birth to by a composition of the positive and negative phase of the higher.
1. Prana has to do with three sets of days and nights in the above division of time. (a) Our ordinary days and nights. {b) The bright and dark half of the month which are called the Pitrya day and night.
(c) The northern and southern halves of the year, the day and night of the Devas.
These three nights acting upon earth-matter impart to it the receptivity of the cool, negative shady phase of life-matter. The respective days coming in after, these nights imprint themselves upon it. The earth herself thus becomes a living being, having a north pole, in which a central force draws the needle towards itself, and a south pole in which is centred a force which is, so to say, the shade of the north polar centre. It has also always the solar force centred in the eastern half, and the lunar—the shade of the former—centred in the western half.
These centres come, in fact, into existence even before the earth is manifested on the gross plane. So also do the centres of other planets come into existence. As the sun presents himself to the Manu there come into existence two states of the matter in which the sun lives and moves—the positive and the nega,-﻿EVOLUTION.
IT
tive. As the solar Prana, after having been for some time subjected to the negative shady state, is subjected in its revolutionary course to the source of its positive phase, Manu, the figure of Manu is imprinted upon it. This Manu is, in fact, the universal mind, and all the planets with their inhabitants are the phases of his existence. Of this, however, more hereafter. At present we see that earth-life or Terrestrial Pr&na has four centres of force.
The positive phase acting upon it when it has been cooled by the negative current imprints itself upon it, and earth-life in various forms comes into existence. The essays on Prana will explain this more clearly.
2. Manas has to do with Manu. The suns revolve round these centres with the whole of their atmospheres of Prana. This system gives birth to the Lokas or spheres of life, of which the planets are one class.
These Iyokas have been: enumerated by Vyasa in his commentary on the Yogashdstra (Pada iii. Sutra 26).
The aphorism runs thus:
"By meditation upon the sun is obtained a knowledge of the physical creation."
On this says the revered commentator:
"There are seven Lokas (spheres of existence)."
1.	Bhurloka extends to the Meru.
2.	Antarikshaloka extends from the surface of the Meru to the Dhruva, the pole-star, and contains the planets, the Nakshatras, and the stars.
3.	Svarloka lies beyond, is fivefold and sacred to Mahendra.﻿18	nature'S FINER FORCES.
4.	Maharloka, sacred to Praj&patL
5.	Janaloka, sacred to Brahma.
GL Taparloka, sacred to Brahma.
7. Satyaloka, sacred to Brahma-
It is not my purpose to try at present to explain the meaning of these Lokas. It is sufficient for my present purpose to say that the planets, the stars, the lunar mansions are all impressions of Manu, just as the organisms of the earth are impressions of the sun. The solar Pr&na is prepared for this impression during the Manvantaric night.
Similarly Vijnana has to do with the nights and days of Brahmet, and Ananda with those of Para-brahman.
It will thus be seen that the whole process of creation, on whatever plane of life, is performed most naturally by the five Tattvas in their double modifications, the positive and negative. There is nothing in the universe which the Universal Tattvic I*aw of Breath does not comprehend.
After this very brief exposition of the theory of tattvic evolution comes a series of Essays, taking up all the subtle states of matter one by one, and describing more in detail the working of the tattvic law in those planes, and also the manifestations of these planes of life in humanity.﻿III.
THE MUTUAL RELATION OF THE TATTVAS AND OF THE PRINCIPLES.
The Akasha is the most important of all the Tattvas. It must, as a matter of course, precede and follow every change of state on every plane of life. Without this there can be no manifestation or cessation of forms. It is out of Akasha that every form comest and it is in Akasha that every form lives. The Ak&sha is full of forms in their potential state. It intervenes between every two of the five Tattvas, and between every two of the five principles.
The evolution of the Tattvas is always part of the evolution of a certain definite form. Thus the manifestation of the primary Tattvas is with the definite aim of giving what we may call a body, a prakritic form, to the Ishvara. In the bosom of the Infinite Parabrahman there are hidden innumerable such centres. One centre takes under its influence a certain portion of the Infinite, and there we find first of all coming into existence the Akasha Tattva. The extent of this Akasha limits the extent of the universe, and out of it the Ishvara is to come. To this end out of this Ak&sha comes the Vayu Tattva. This﻿20
nature's finer forces.
pervades the whole universe and has a certain centre which serves to keep the whole expanse together, and as one whole separate from other universes (Brah-mandas).
It has been mentioned, and further on will be more clearly explained, that every Tattva has a positive and a negative phase. It is also evident on the analogy of the sun that places more distant from .the centre are always negative to those which are nearer. We might say that they are cooler than these, as it will be seen further on that heat is not peculiar to the sun only, but that all the higher centres have a greater amount of heat than even the sun itself.
Well, then, in this Brahmic sphere of Vayu, except for some space near the Parabrahmic Akasha, every atom of the Vayu is reacted upon by an opposite force. The more distant and therefore the cooler one reacts upon the nearer and therefore the hotter. The equal and opposite vibrations of the same force cancel each other, and both together pass into the akashic state. Thus, while some of this space remains filled up by the Brahmic Vayu on account of the constant outflow of this Tattva from the Parabrahmic Akasha, the remainder is rapidly turned into Akasha. This Ak&sha is the mother of the Brahmic Agni Tattva. The Agni Tattva working similarly gives birth through another Akasha to the Apas, and this similarly to the Prithivi. This Brahmic Prithivi thus contains the qualities of all the preceding Tattvas besides a fifth one of its own.﻿RELATION OF TATTVAS AND PRINCIPLES. 21
The first stage of the universe, the ocean of psychic matter, has how come into existence in its entirety. This matter is, of course, very, very fine, and there is absolutely no grossness in it as compared with the matter of the fifth plane. In this ocean shines the intelligence of ishvara, and this ocean, with everything that might be manifest in it, is the self-conscious universe.
In this psychic ocean, as before, the more distant atoms are negative to the nearer ones. Hence, except a certain space which remains filled with the psychic Prithivi on account of the constant supply of this element from above, the rest begins to change into an Akasha. This second Akasha is full of what are called Manus in their potential state. The Manus are so many groups of certain mental forms, the ideas of the various genera and species of life to appear further on. We have to do with one of these.
Impelled by the evolutionary current of the Great Breath, Manu comes out of this Akasha, in the same way as Brahma did out of the Parabrahmic Akasha. First and uppermost in the mental sphere is the Vayu, and then in regular order the Tejas, the Apas, and the Prithivi. This mental matter follows the same laws, and similarly begins to pass into the third akashic state, which is full of innumerable suns. They come out in the same way, and begin to work on a similar plan, which will be better understood here than higher up.
Everybody can here test for himself that the more distant portions of the solar system are cooler than﻿22
nature's finer forces.
the nearer ones. Every little atom of Prana is comparatively cooler than the next one towards the sun from itself. Hence equal and opposite vibrations cancel each other. Leaving, therefore, a certain space near the sun as always filled up with the Tattvas of Prana, which are there being constantly supplied from the sun, the rest of the Prana passes into the akashic state.
It might be noted down here that the whole of this Prana is made up of innumerable little points. Of these points I shall in future speak as Trutis, and might say here that it is these Trutis which appear on the terrestrial plane as atoms (Anu or Paramanu). They might be spoken of as solar atoms. These solar atoms are of various classes according to the prevalence of one or more of the constituent Tattvas.
Every point of Prana is a perfect picture of the whole ocean. Every other point is represented in every point. Every atom has, therefore, for its constituents, all the four Tattvas, in varying proportions according to its position in respect of others. The different classes of these solar atoms appear on the terrestrial plane as the various elements of chemistry.
The spectrum of every terrestrial element reveals the colour or colours of the prevalent Tattva or Tattvas of a solar atom of that substance. The greater the heat to which any substance is subjected the nearer does the element approach its solar state. Heat destroys for the time being the terrestrial coatings of the solar atoms.﻿RELATION OF TATTVAS AND PRINCIPLES. 23
The spectrum of sodium thus shows the presence of the yellow Prithivi, that of . lithium, the red Agni, and the yellow Prithivi, that of csesium, the red Agni, the green admixture, the yellow Prithivi, and the blue Vayu. Rubidium shows red, orange, yellow, green and blue, i.e., the Agni, Prithivi and Agni, Prithivi, Vayu arid Prithivi, and Vayu. These classes of solar atoms which all together make up the wide expanse of the solar Prana, pass into the akashic state. While the sun keeps up a constant supply of these atoms, those that are passing into the akashic state pass on the other side into the planetary Vayu. Certain measured portions of the solar Akasha naturally separate themselves from others, according to .the differing creation which is to appear in those portions. These portions of Akasha are called Lokas. The earth itself is a Loka called the Bhurloka. I shall take up the earth for further illustration of the law.
That portion of the solar Akasha which is the immediate mother of the earth, first gives birth to the terrestrial Vayu. Every element is now in the state of the Vayu Tattva, which may now be called gaseous. The Vayu Tattva is spherical in shape, and thus the gaseous planet bears similar outlines. The centre of this gaseous sphere keeps together round itself the whole expanse of gas. As soon as this gaseous sphere comes into existence, it is subjected to the following influences among others.
1. The superposed influence of the solar heat.﻿24
nature's finer forces.
2. The internal influence of the more distant atoms on the nearer ones and vice versa.
The first influence has a double effect upon the gaseous sphere. It imparts more heat to the nearer hemisphere than to the more distant one. The superficial air of the nearer hemisphere having contracted a certain amount of solar energy, rises towards the sun. Cooler air from below takes its place. But where does the superficial air go? It cannot pass beyond the limit of the terrestrial sphere, which is surrounded by the solar Akasha, through which comes a supply from the solar Prana. It, therefore, begins to move in a circle, and thus a rotatory motion ' is established in the sphere. This is the origin of the earth's rotation upon its axis.
Again, as a certain amount of the solar energy is imparted to the gaseous terrestrial sphere, the impulse of the upward motion reaches the centre itself. That centre itself, therefore, and along with it the whole sphere, moves towards the sun. It cannot, however, go on in this direction, for a nearer approach would destroy that balance of forces which gives the earth its peculiarities. A L,oka which is nearer to the sun than our planet cannot have the same conditions of life. Hence, while the sun draws the earth towards himself, those laws of life which have given it a constitution, by which for ages it must roll on, keep it in the sphere they have assigned to it. Two forces thus come into existence. Drawn by one the earth would go towards the sun; checked by the other it must﻿RELATION OF TATTVAS AND PRINCIPLES. 25
remain where it is. These are tlie centrifugal and the centripetal forces, and their action results in giving the earth its annual revolution.
Secondly, the internal action of the gaseous atoms upon each other ends in the change of the whole gaseous sphere, except the upper portion, into the akashic state. This akashic state gives birth to the igneous (pertaining to the Agni Tattva) state of terrestrial matter. This changes similarly into the Apas, and this again into the Prithivi.
The same process obtains in the changes of matter with which we are now familiar. An example will better illustrate the whole law.
Take ice. This is solid, or what the Science of Breath would call in the state of Prithivi. One quality of the Prithivi Tattva, the reader will remember, is cohesive resistance. Let us apply heat to this ice. This heat as it passes into the ice is indicated by the thermometer. When the temperature rises to 78° the ice changes its state. But the thermometer no longer indicates the same amount of heat; 78° of heat have become latent.
Let us now apply 536° of heat to a pound of boiling water. As is generally known, this great quantity of heat becomes latent while the water passes into the gaseous state.
Now, let us follow the reverse process. To gaseous water let us apply a certain amount of cold. When this cold becomes sufficient to entirely counteract the heat which keeps it in the gaseous state, the vapour﻿26
nature's finer forces.
passes into the akashic state, and from thence into the Tejas state. It is not necessary that the whole of the vapour should at once pass into the next state. The change is gradual. As the cold is gradually passing into the vapour, the Tejas modification is gradually appearing out of, and through the intervention of, the Akasha, into which it had passed during latency. This is being indicated on the thermometer. When the whole has passed into the igneous state, and the thermometer has indicated 536°, the second Akasha comes into existence. Out of this second Ak&sha comes the liquid state at the same temperature, the whole heat having again passed into the akashic state, and therefore is no longer indicated by the thermometer.
When cold is applied to this liquid, heat again begins to come out, -and when it reaches 78°, this heat having come out of and through the Akasha into which it had passed, the whole liquid has passed into the igneous state. Here it again begins to pass into the akashic state. The thermometer begins to fall down, and out of this Akasha begins to come the Prithivi state of water—ice.
Thus we see that the heat which is given out by the influence of cold passes into the akashic state, which becomes the substratum of a higher phase, and the heat which is absorbed passes into another akashic state, which becomes the substratum of a lower phase.
It is in this way that the terrestrial gaseous sphere changes into its present state. The experiment de-﻿RELATION OF TATTVAS AND PRINCIPLES. 27
scribed above points out many important truths about the relation of these Tattvas to each other.
First of all it explains that very important assertion of the Science of Breath which says that every succeeding tattvic state has the qualities of all the foregoing tattvic states. Thus we see that as the gaseous state of water is being acted upon by cold, the latent heat of steam is being cancelled and passing into the akashic state. This cannot but be the case, since equal and opposite vibrations of the same force always cancel each other, and the result is the Akasha. Out of this comes the Tejas state of matter. This is that state in which the latent heat of steam becomes patent. It will be observed this state has no permanence. The Tejas form of water, as indeed of any other substance, cannot exist for any length of time, because the major part of terrestrial matter is in the •lower and therefore more negative states of Apas and Prithivi, and whenever for any cause any substance passes into the Tejas state, the surrounding objects begin at once to react upon it with such strength as at once to force it into the next akashic state. Those things which now live in the normal state of the Apas or the Prithivi find it quite against the laws of their existence to remain, except under external influence, in the Tejas (igneous) state. Thus an atom of gaseous water before passing into the liquid state has already remained in the three states, the akashic, the gaseous, and the Tejas. It must, therefore, have all the qualities of the three Tattvas, and so it no﻿28
nature's finer forces.
doubt has. Cohesive resistance is only wanted, and that is the quality of the Prithivi Tattva.
Now when this atom of liquid water passes into the icy state, what do we see? All the states which have preceded must again show themselves. Cold will cancel the latent heat of the liquid state, and the akashic state will come out. Out of this akashic state is sure to come the gaseous state. This gaseous (Vayava) state is evidenced by the gyrations and other motions which are set up in the body of the liquid by the mere application of the cold. The motion, however, is not of very long duration, and as they are ceasing (passing into the akashic state) the Tejas state is coming out. This, too, however, is not of long duration, and as this is passing into the akashic state, the ice is coming into existence.
It will be easy to see that all the four states of terrestrial matter exist in our sphere. The gaseous (Vayava) is there in what we now call the atmosphere; the igneous (Tejas) is the normal temperature of earth life; the liquid (Apas) is the ocean; the solid (Par-thiva) is the terra firma. None of these states, however, exists quite isolated from the other. Bach is constantly invading the domain of the other, and thus it is difficult to find any portion of space filled up only with matter in one state. The two adjacent Tattvas are found intermixed with each other to a greater extent than those that are removed from each other by an intermediate state. Thus Prithivi will be found mixed up to a greater extent with water than with﻿relation of tattvas and principles. 29
Agni and Vayu, Apas with Agni than with Vayu, and Vayu with Agni more than with any other. It would thus appear from the above, according to the science of Tattvas, that the flame and other luminous bodies on earth are not in the terrestrial Tejas (igneous) state. They are in or near the solar state of matter.﻿IV. PRANA.
The Centres of Prana; the Nadis; the Tattvic Centres of L,ife; the Ordinary Change of Breath.
Prana, as already expressed, is that state of tattvic matter which surrounds the sun, and in which move the earth and other planets. It is the next state above terrestrial matter. The terrestrial sphere is separated from the solar Prana by an Akasha. This Akasha is the immediate mother of the terrestrial Vayu whose native colour is blue. It is on this account that the sky looks blue.
Although at this point in the heavens, the Prana changes into the Akasha, which gives birth to the terrestrial Vayu, the rays of the sun which fall on the sphere from, without are not stopped on their inward journey. They are refracted, but move onwards into the terrestrial sphere all the same. Through these rays the ocean of Prana, which surrounds our sphere, exerts upon it an organizing influence.
The terrestrial Prana—the earth-life which appears in the shape of all the living organisms of our planet —is, as a whole, nothing more than a modification of the solar Prana.﻿PRANA.
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As the earth, moves round her own axis and round the sun, twofold centres are developed in the terrestrial Prana. During the diurnal rotation every place, as it is subjected to the direct influence of the sun, sends forth the positive life-current from the east to the west. During the night the same place sends forth the negative current.
In the annual course the positive current travels from the north to the south during the six months of summer—the day of the Devas, and the negative during the remaining six months—the night of the Devas.
The north and east are thus sacred to the positive current; the opposite quarters to the negative current. The sun is the lord of the positive current, the moon that of the negative, because the negative solar Prana comes during the night to the earth from the moon.
The terrestrial Prana is thus an ethereal being with double centres of work. The first is the northern, the second the southern. The two halves of these centres are the eastern and western centres. During the six months of summer the current of life runs from the north to the south, and during the months of winter the negative current goes the other way.
With every month, with every day, with every Nimesha, this current completes a minor course, and while the current continues in its course the diurnal rotation gives it an eastern or a western direction. The northern current runs during the day of man from east to west, during the night from west to﻿32
nature's finer forces.
east. The directions of the other current are respectively opposite to the above. So practically there are only two directions—the eastern and western. The difference of the northern and southern currents is not practically felt in terrestrial life. These two currents produce in the terrestrial Prana two distinguishable modifications of the composing ethers. The rays of either of these ethereal modifications, proceeding from their different centres, run into each other—the one giving life, strength, form, and various qualities to the other. Along the rays emerging from the northern centre, run the currents of the positive Prana;. along those emerging from the southern, the currents of the negative Prana. The eastern and western channels of these currents are respectively called PingalS. and Ida, two of the celebrated Nadis of the Tantrists. It will be better to discuss the other bearings of Prana when we have localized it in the human body.
The influence of this terrestrial Prana develops two centres of action in the gross matter which is to form a human body. Part of the matter gathers round the northern, and part round the southern centre. The northern centre develops into the brain; the southern into the heart. The general shape of the terrestrial Prana is something like an ellipse. In this the northern focus is the brain; the southern the heart. The column along which the positive matter gathers runs between these foci.
The line in the middle is the place where the eastern﻿PRANA.
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and western—right and left—divisions of the column join. The column is the medulla oblongata. The central line is also Sushumna, the right and left divisions being the Pingala and Ida. The rays of Prana which diverge either way from these Nadis are only their ramifications, and constitute together with them the nervous system-
The negative Prana gathers round the southern centre. This, too, takes a form similar to the former. The right and left divisions of this column are the right and left divisions of the heart.
Each division has two principal branches, each of which subdivides into minor ramifications. The two openings either way are one a vein, and one an artery, the four opening into four chambers—the four petals of the lotus of the heart. The right part of the heart again, with all its ramifications, is called Pingala, the left Ida, and the middle part Sushumn^.
There is reason to think, however, that the heart only is spoken of as the lotus, while the three foregoing names are set apart for the nervous system. The current of Pr&na works forward and backward, in and out. The cause of this lies in the momentary changes of the being of Prana. As the year advances, every moment a change of state takes place in the terrestrial Prana, on account of the varying strengths of the solar and lunar currents. Thus, every moment is, strictly speaking, a new being of Prana. As Buddha says, all life is momentary. The moment which, is the first to throw into matter the germ which will develop﻿34	nature's finer forces.
the two centres, is the first cause of organized life. If the succeeding moments are in their tattvic effect friendly to the first cause, the organism gains strength and develops; if not, the impulse is rendered fruitless. The general effect of these succeeding moments keeps up general life; but the impulse of any one moment tends to pass off as the others come in. A system of forward and backward motion is thus established. One moment of Pr&na proceeding from the centre of action goes to the farthest ends of the gross vessels— vascular and neural—of the organism. The succeeding moment gives it, however, the backward impulse. A few moments are taken in the completion of the forward impulse, and the determination of the backward one. This period differs in different organisms. As the Prana runs forward, the lungs inspire; as it recedes, the process of expiration sets in.
The Prana moves in the Pingala when it moves from the northern centre towards the east, and from the southern towards the west; it moves in Ida when it moves from the northern centre towards the west, and from the southern centre towards the east. This means that in the former case the Prana moves from the brain, towards the right, through the heart, to the left and back to the brain;, and from the heart to the left through the brain to the right back to the heart. In the latter the case is the reverse. To use other terms, in the former case the Prana moves from the nervous system to the right through the system of blood-vessels, to the left, and back again to the ner-﻿PRANA.
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vous system; or, from the system of blood-vessels, to the left, through the nervous system, to the right, and back again to the system of blood-vessels. These two currents coincide. In the latter the case is the reverse. The left part of the body containing both the nerves and the blood-vessels may be called Ida, the right, Pingala. The right and left bronchi form as well the parts respectively of Pingala and Idst, as any other parts of the right and left divisions of the body. But what is Sushumna? One of the names of Sushumna is Sandhi, the place where the two—Ida and Pingala—join. It is really that place from which the Prana may move either way—right or left—or, under certain conditions, both ways. It is that place which the Prana must pass when -it changes from the right to the left and from the left to the right. It is, therefore, both the spinal canal and the cardiac canal. The spinal canal extends from the Brahmarandhra, the northern centre of Prana through the whole vertebral column (Brahmadanda). The cardiac canal extends from the southern centre midway between the two lobes of the heart. As the Prana moves from the spinal canal to the right hand towards the heart, the right lung works; the breath coming in and going out at the right nostril. When it reaches the southern canal, one cannot feel the breath from either nostril. As, however, it goes out of the cardiac canal to the left, the breath begins to come from the left nostril, and flows through that until the Prana again reaches the spinal canal. There, again, one ceases to feel the﻿36
nature's finer forces.
breath from either nostril. The effect of. these two positions of Prana is identical upon the flow of breath, and, therefore, both the northern and southern canals are designated by Sushumna. If we may speak in this way, let us imagine that a plane passes midway between the spinal and cardiac canals. This plane will pass through the hollow of the Sushumna. But let it be understood that there is no such plane in reality. It will perhaps be more correct to say that as the rays of the positive Ida and Pingala spread both ways as nerves, and those of the negative similarly as blood-vessels, the rays of the Sushumna spread all over the body midway between the nerves and bloodvessels—the positive and negative Nadis. The following is the description of Sushumni in the Science of Breath:
"When the breath goes in and out, one moment by the left and the other by the right nostril, that too is Sushumna. When Prana is in that Nadi, the fires of death burn; this is called Vishuna. When it moves one moment in the right, and the other in the left, let it be called the unequal state (Vishunabhava); when it moves through both at once, the wise have called it Vishuna."
Again:
" [It is Sushumna] at the time of the passing of the Prana from the Ida into the Pingala, or vice versa; and also of the change of one Tattva into another."
Then the Sushumna has two other functions. It is called Vedo-Veda in one of its manifestations, and﻿prAna.
37
Sandhyasandhi in the other. As, however, the right and left directions of the cardiac Prana coincide with the left and right of the spinal current, there are some writers who dispense with the double Sushumna. According to them the spinal canal alone is the Sushumna. The Uttaragita and the Shatachakra Niruftana are works which favour this view. This method of explanation takes away a good deal of difficulty. The highest recommendation of this view is its comparative simplicity. The right side current from the heart, and the left side current from the spine, may both, without any difficulty, be taken as the left side spinal currents, as may the remaining two currents be deemed spinal currents of the right side.
One more consideration is in favour of this view. The nervous system represents the sun, the system of blood-vessels the moon. Hence the real force of life dwells in the nerves. The positive and negative—the solar and lunar—phases of life matter are only different phases of Prana, the solar matter. The more distant, and, for that reason, the cooler matter is negative to that which is nearer and hotter. It is solar life which manifests itself in the various phases of the moon. To pass out of technicalities, it is nervous force which manifests itself in various forms, in the system of blood-vessels. The blood-vessels are only . the receptacles of nervous force. Hence, in the nervous system, the real life of the gross body are the true IdH, Pingala, and Sushumna. These are, in such a case, the spinal column, and the right and left sym-﻿33
NATURE'S ElNEk FORCES.
pathetics, with all their ramifications throughout the body.
The development of the two centres is thus the first stage in the development of the foetus. The matter which gathers up under the influence of the northern centre is the spinal column; the matter which gathers up round the southern centre is the heart. The diurnal rotation divides these columns or canals into the right and left divisions. Then the correlative influence of these two centres upon each other develops an upper and lower division in each of these centres. This happens somewhat in the same way, and on the same principle, as a L,eyden jar is charged with positive electricity by a negative rod. Each of these centres is thus divided into four parts: i, the right side positive; 2, the left side positive; 3, the right side negative; 4, the left side negative. In the heart these four divisions are called the right and left auricles and ventricles. The Tantras style these four divisions the four petals of the cardiac lotus, and indicate them by various letters. The positive petals of the heart form the centre from which proceed the positive blood-vessels—the arteries; the negative petals are the starting points of the negative blood-vessels—the veins. This negative Prana is pregnant with ten forces: 1, Prana; 2, Apana; 3, Samana; 4, Vyana; 5, Udana; 6, Krikila; 7, N&ga; 8, Devadatta; 9, Dhananjaya; 10, Kftrma. These ten forces are called Vayus. The word Vayu is derived from the root va, to move, and means nothing﻿PRANA.
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more than a motive power. The Tantrists must not be understood to define it as a gas. Hence I shall speak in future of these Vayus as the forces or motive powers of Prana. These ten manifestations of Prana are by some reduced to the first five alone, holding that the remaining ones are only modifications of the former, which are, the all-important of the functions of Prana. This, however, is only a question of division. From the left side positive petal the Prana gathers up into a Nadi, which ramifies within the chest into the lungs, and again gathers up into a Nadi which opens into the right side negative petal. This entire course forms something like a circle (Chakra). This Nadi is called in modern science the pulmonary artery and vein. Two lungs come into existence by the alternate workings of the positive and negative Pranas of the eastern and western powers. . Similarly from the right side positive petal branch several Nadis, which go both upwards and downwards in two directions—the former under the influence of the -northern, the latter- under the influence of the southern powers. Both these Nadis open after a circular march throughout the upper and lower portions of the body into the left side negative petal.
Between the left side positive and the right side negative petal is one Chakra (disc). This Chakra comprises the pulmonary artery, the lungs and the pulmonary vein. The chest gives room to this Chakra, which is positive with respect to the lower portions of the body, where run the ramifications of﻿40	nature's finer forces.
the lower Chakra, which latter joins the right side positive and the left side negative petals.
In the above-mentioned Chakra (in the cavity of the chest) is the seat of Prana, the first and most important of the ten manifestations. Inspiration and expiration being a true index to the changes of Prana, the pulmonary manifestations thereof have the same name. With the changes of Prana we have a corresponding change in the other functions of life. The lower negative Chakra contains the principal seats of some of the other manifestations of life. This Apana is located in the long intestine; Samana in the navel; and so on. Udana is located in the throat; Vyana all over the body. Udana causes belching; Kurma causes the eyes to shut and open; Krikila in the stomach causes hunger. In short, proceeding from the four petals of the heart we have an entire network of these blood-vessels. There are two sets of these bloodvessels lying side by side in every part of the body, connected by innumerable little channels—the capillaries.
We read in the Prashnopanishad:
"From the heart [ramify the] Nadis. Of these there are 101 principal ones [Pradhana Nadis]. Each of these branches into 100; each of these again into 72,000."
Thus, there are 10,100 branch Nadis and 727,200,000 still smaller ones, or what are called Twig-Nadis. The terminology is imitated from a tree. The root is in the heart. From this proceeds various stems. These ramify into branch-vessels and these again into twig-vessels; all these Nadis put together are 727,210,201.﻿PRANA.
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Now, of these the SushumnS. is the one; the rest are divided half and half over the two halves of the body. So we read in the Kathopcinishad (6th Valli, 16th Mantra):
"A hundred and one Nadis are connected with the heart. Of these one passes out into the head. Going out by that one becomes immortal. The others become the cause in sending the life principle out of various other states."
This one that goes to the head, remarks the commentator, is the Sushumna. The Sushumna then is that Nadi, whose nervous substratum or reservoir of force is the spine. Of the remaining principal N&dis, the Ida is the reservoir of the life force which works in the left part of the body, having fifty principal N&dis. So also has the right part of the body fifty principal Nadis. These go on dividing as above. The Nadis of the third degree become so minute as to be only visible by a microscope. The ramifications of the Sushumna all over the body serve during life to carry the Prana from the positive to the negative portions of the body, and vice versa. In the case of the blood these are the modern capillaries.
The Vedantins, of course, take the heart to be the starting point of this ramification. The Yogis, however, proceed from the navel. Thus in the book on the Science of Breath we read:
"From the root in the navel proceed 72,000 Nadis spreading all over the body. There sleeps the goddess Kundalini like a serpent. From this centre [the﻿42
nature's finer forces.
navel] ten Nadis go upwards, ten downwards, and two and two crookedly."
The number 72,000 is the result of their own peculiar reckoning. It matters little which division we adopt if we understand the truth of the case.
Along these Nadis run the various forces which form and keep up the physiological man. These channels gather up into various parts of the body as centres of the various manifestations of Prana. It is like water falling from a hill, gathering into various lakes, each lake letting out several streams. These centres are:
1, hand power centres; 2, foot power centres; 3, speech power centres; 4, excretive power centres; 5, generative power centres; 6, digestive and absorbing power centres; 7, breathing power centres; 8, the five sense power centres.
Those of these Nadis which proceed to the outlets of the body perform the most important functions of the body, and they are hence said to be the ten principal ones in the whole system. These are:
1.	Gandhari goes to the left eye.
2.	Hastijihva goes to the right eye.
3.	Ptisha goes to the right ear.
4.	Yashasvini goes to the left ear.
5.	Alambusha, or Alammukha (as it is variously spelt in one MS.), goes to the mouth. This evidently is the alimentary canal.
6.	Kuhft goes to the generative organs.
7.	Shankhini goes to the excretive organs.
8.	Id§. leads to the left nostril of the nose;﻿PRANA.
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9.	Pingala leads to the right nostril. It appears that these names are given to these local Nadis, for the same reason that the pulmonary manifestation of Pr&na is known by the same name.
10.	Sushumna has already been explained in its various phases and manifestations.
There are two more outlets of the body, which receive their natural development in the female—the breasts. It is quite possible that the Nadi Damim, of which no specific mention has been made, might go to one of these. Whatever it be, the principle of the division and classification is clear, and this is something actually gained.
Centres of moral and intellectual powers also exist in the system. Thus we read in the Vishramofianishad (the above figure will serve to illustrate the translation):
Right Side.﻿44
nature's finer forces.
1.	"While the minds rests in the eastern portion [or petal], which is white in colour, then it is inclined towards patience, generosity, and reverence.
2.	"While the mind rests in the south-eastern portion, which is red in colour, then it is inclined towards sleep, torpor, and evil inclination.
3.	"While the inind rests in the southern portion, which is black in colour, then it is inclined towards anger, melancholy, and bad tendencies.
4.	"While the mind rests in the south-western portion, which is blue in colour, then it is inclined towards jealousy and cunning.
5.	"While the mind rests in the western portion, which is brown in colour, then it is inclined towards smiles, amorousness, and jocoseness.
6.	"While the mind rests in the north-western portion, which is indigo in colour, then it is inclined towards anxiety, restless dissatisfaction, and apathy.
7.	"While the mind rests in the northern portion, which is yellow in colour, then it is inclined towards love and enjoyment and adornment.
8.	"While the mind rests in the north-eastern portion, which is white in colour, then it is inclined towards pity, forgiveness, reflection and religion.
9.	"While the mind rests in the Sandhis [conjunctions] of these portions, then arise disease and confusion in body and home, and the mind inclines towards the three humours.
10.	"While the mind rests in the middle portion, which is violet in colour, then consciousness goes﻿PRANA.
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beyond the qualities [the three qualities of Maya], and it inclines towards intelligence."
When any one of these centres is in action, the mind is conscious of the same kind of feeling, and inclines towards it. Mesmeric passes serve only to excite these centres.
These centres are located in the head as well as in the chest, and also in the abdominal region and the loins, etc.
It is these centres, together with the heart itself, that bear the name of Padmas, or Kamalas (lotuses). Some of these are large, some small, very small. A tantrik lotus is of the type of a vegetable organism, a root with various branches. These centres are the reservoirs of various powers, and hence the roots of the Padmas; the Nadis ramifying from these centres are their various branches.
The nervous plexuses of the modern anatomists coincide with these centres. From what has been said above it will appear that the centres are constituted by blood-vessels. But the only difference between the nerves and the blood-vessels is the difference between the vehicles of the positive and negative Pranas. The nerves are the positive, the blood-vessels the negative system of the body. Wherever there are nerves there are corresponding blood-vessels. Both of them are indiscriminately called Nadis. One set has for its centre the lotus of the heart, the other the thousand-petalled lotus of the brain. The system of bloodvessels is an exact picture of the nervous system, is,﻿46
nature's finer forces.
in fact, only its shadow. Like the heart the brain has its upper and lower divisions—the cerebrum and the cerebellum—and, as well, its right and left divisions. The nerves going to both sides of the body and coming back from thence, together with those going to the upper and lower portions, correspond to the four petals of the heart. This system too, then, has as many centres of energy as the former. Both these centres coincide in position. They are, in fact, the same—the nervous plexuses and ganglia of modern anatomy. Thus, in my opinion, the tantrik Padmas are not only the centres of nervous power of the positive northern Prana, but as well and necessarily of the negative Prana.
The translation of the Science of Breath which is now presented to the reader has two sections enumerating the various actions which are to be done during the flow of the positive or the negative breath. They show nothing more than what can in some cases be very easily verified, that certain actions are better done by positive energy, and others by negative energy. The taking in of chemicals and their changes are actions, as well as any others. Some of the chemicals are better assimilated by the negative,* others by the positive t Prana. Some of our sensations produce more lasting effects upon the negative, others upon the positive Prana.
Pr&na has now arranged the gross matter in the womb into the nervous and blood-vessel systems. The
* For example, milk and other fatty substances.
t Such food as is digested in the stomach.﻿PR AN A.
47
Prana, as has been seen, is made of the five Tattvas, and the Nadis serve only as lines for tattvic currents to run on. The centres of power noticed above are centres of tattvic power. The tattvic centres in the right part of the body are solar, those in the left, lunar. Both these solar and lunar centres are of five descriptions. Their kind is determined by what are called the nervous ganglia. The semi-lunar ganglia are the reservoirs of the Apas Tattva. Similarly we have the reservoirs of the other forces. From these central reservoirs the tattvic currents run over the same lines, and do the various actions allotted to them in physiological economy.
Everything in the human body which has more or less of cohesive resistance is made up of the Prithivi Tattva. But in this the various Tattvas work imprinting differing qualities upon the various parts of the body.
The Vayu Tattva, among others, performs the functions of giving birth to, and nourishing the skin; the positive gives us the positive, and the negative the negative skin. Each of these has five layers :
i, Pure Vayu; 2, Vayu-Agni; 3, Vayu-Prithivi; 4, Vayu-Apas; 5, Vayu-Akasha. These five classes of cells have the following figures: GQ|0G0G0
1.	Pure Vayu. This is the complete sphere of the Vayu.
2.	Vayu-Agni. The triangle is superposed over the sphere, and the cells have something like the following shape.﻿48
nature's finer forces.
6 & & £ & & & & & &
3.	Vayu-Prithivi. This is the result of the superposition of the quadrangular Prit-
hivi over the spherical Vayu.	(j^j (j^
4.	Vayu-Apas. Something like
an ellipse, the semi-moon placed above the sphere.
OOOOOO OOOOOO
5.	Vayu-Akasha. The sphere flattened by the super-
^	position of the circle and dotted.
A microscopic examination of the skin will show that its cells have this appearance. Similarly are bone, muscle and fat given birth to by the Prithivi, the Agni and the Apas. Akasha appears in various positions. Wherever there is any room for any substance there is Akasha. The blood is a mixture of nutritive substances kept in the fluidic state by the Apas Tattva of Prana.
It is thus seen that while terrestrial Prana is an exact manifestation of the solar Prana, the human manifestation is an exact expression of either. The microcosm is an exact picture of the macrocosm. The four petals of the lotus of the heart branch really into twelve Nadis (k, kh, g, gh, n-, ch, chh, j, jh, h, t, th). Similarly the brain has twelve pairs of nerves. These﻿, /Sy^	PRANA.	49
are the twelve signs of the Zodiac, both in their positive and negative phases. In every sign the sun rises thirty-one times. We have, therefore, thirty-one pairs of nerves. Instead of pairs we speak in the language of the Tantras of Chakras (discs or circles). Wherever the thirty-one spinal Chakras .connected with the twelve pairs of nerves in the brain, pass throughout the body, we have running side by side the blood-vessels proceeding from the twelve Nadis of the heart. The only difference between the spinal and cardiac Chakras is that the former lie crosswise, while the latter lie lengthwise in the body. The sympathetic chords consist of lines of tattvic centres —the Padmas or Kamalas. These centres lie in all the thirty-one Chakras noticed above. Thus from the two centres of action—the brain and the heart—the signs of the Zodiac in their positive and negative aspects—a system of Nadis branches off. The Nadis from either centre run into one another so much that one set is found always side by side with the other. The thirty-one Chakras of the spine are brought into existence, and correspond with the thirty-one sunrises, and those of the heart with the thirty-one sunsets of the zodiacal signs. In these Chakras are various tattvic centres; one set is positive, the other is negative. The former owe allegiance to the brain, with which they are connected by the sympathetic chords; the latter owe allegiance to the heart, with which they have a various connection. This double system is on the right side called Pingala, on the left Ida. The ganglia of the Apas﻿50
nature's finer forces.
centres are semi-lunar, those of the Tejas, the V&yu, the Prithivi, and the Akaslia respectively triangular, spherical, quadrangular, and circular. Those of the composite Tattvas have composite figures. Each tattvic centre has ganglia of all the Tattvas surrounding it.
In this - system of Nadis moves the Prana. As the sun passes into the sign of Aries in the macrocosm, the Prana passes into the corresponding Nadis (nerves) of the brain. Thence it descends every day towards the spine. With the rise of the sun it descends into the first spinal Chakra towards the right. It thus passes into the Pingala. Along the nerves of the right side it moves, passing at the same time little by little into the blood-vessels. Up to the noon of every day the strength of this Prana is greater in the nervous than in the venous Chakras. At noon they become of equal strength. In the evening (with sunset), the Prana with its entire strength has passed into-the blood-vessels. Thence it gathers up into the heart, the negative southern centre.. It then spreads into the left side blood-vessels, passing gradually into the nerves. At midnight the strength is equalized; in the morning (Pratahsandhya) the Prana is just in the spine; from thence it begins to travel along the second Chakra (disc, circle). This is the course of the solar current of Pr&na. The moon gives birth to other and minor currents. The moon moves some twelve times more than the sun. Therefore while the sun passes over one Chakra (i.e., during sixty Gharis—day and night), the moon passes over twelve odd Chakras.﻿PRANA.
51
Therefore we have twelve odd changes of Pr&na during twenty-four hours. Suppose the moon too begins in Aries, she begins like the sun in the first Chakra, and takes 58m. 4s. in reaching from the spine to the heart, and as many minutes from the heart back to the spine.
Both these Pranas move in their respective courses along the tattvic centres above spoken of. Either of them is present at any one time all over the same class of tattvic centres, in any one part of the body. It manifests itself first in the Vayu centres, then in the Tejas, thirdly in the Prithivi, and fourthly in the Apas centres. Akasha. comes after each, and immediately precedes the Sushumna. As the lunar current passes from the spine towards the right, the breath comes out of the right nostril, and as long as the current of Prana remains in the back part of the body, the Tattvas change from the Vayu to the Apas. As the current passes into the front part of the right half, the Tattvas change back from the Apas to the Vayu. As the Prana passes into the heart, the breath is not felt at all passing out at the nose. As it proceeds from the heart to the left, the breath begins to flow out at the left nostril, and as long as it is in the front part of the body, the Tattvas change from the Vayu to the Apas. They change back again as before, until the Prana reaches the spine, when we have the Akasha of Sushumna. Such is the even change of Prana which we have in the state of perfect health. The impulse that has been given to the localized Prana by the sun and moon forces which give active power and﻿52
NATURE'S' FINER FORCES.
existence to Prana its prototype, makes it work in the same way for ever and. ever. The working of the human free will and certain other forces change the nature of the local Prana, and individualize it in such a way as to render it distinguishable from the universal terrestrial or ecliptical Pranas. With the varying nature of Prana, the order of the tattvic and the positive and negative currents may in various degrees be affected. Disease is the result of this variation. In fact, the flow of breath is the truest indication of the tattvic changes of the body. The balance of the positive and negative tattvic currents results in health, while the disturbance of their harmony produces disease. The science of the flow of breath is therefore of the highest importance to every man who values his own health, and that of his fellow creatures. It is at the same time the most important, the most useful and comprehensive, the easiest, and the most interesting branch of Yoga. It teaches us how to guide our will so as to effect desired changes iii the order and nature of our positive and negative tattvic currents. This it does in the following way. All physical action is Prana in a certain state. Without Prana there is no action, and every action is the result of the differing harmonies of tattvic currents. Thus, motion in any one part of the body is the result of the activity of the Vayu centres in that part of the body. In the same way, whenever there is activity in the Prithivi centres, we have a feeling of enjoyment and satisfaction. Similar are the causes.of other sensations.﻿PRANA.
53
We find that while lying down we change sides when the breath passes out at that nostril. We therefore conclude that if we lie on either side the breath will flow out at the opposite nostril. Whenever, therefore, we see that it is desirable to change the negative conditions of our body to the positive, we resort to this expedient. An investigation into the physiological effects of Prana on the gross coil, and the counter effects of gross action upon Prana, will next be dealt with.
The Pranamaya Kosha (coil of life) changes into three general states during day and night—the waking, the dreaming, the sleeping (Jagrat, Svapna, Su-shupti). These three changes produce corresponding changes in the Manomaya Kosha (the mental coil), and thence arises the consciousness of the changes of life. The mind, in fact, lies behind the Prana. The strings (tattvic lines) of the former instrument are finer than those of the latter; that is, in the former we have a greater number of vibrations than in the latter during the same space of time. Their tensions stand to each other, however, in such a relation that with the vibrations of the one, the other of itself begins to vibrate. The changes give to the mind, therefore, a similar appearance, and consciousness of the phenomenon is caused. Of this, however, I will not treat at present. My present object is to describe all those changes of Prana—natural or induced—which make up the sum-total of our worldly experience, and which, during ages of evolution, have called the mind itself out of the state of latency. These changes, as﻿54
nature's finer forces.
I have said, divide themselves into three general states—the waking, the dreaming, and the sleeping. Waking is the positive, sleeping the negative state of Prana; "dreaming is the conjunction of the two (Su-shumna Sandhi). As has been stated, the solar current travels in a positive direction during the day, while we are awake. As night approaches the positive current has made itself lord of the body. It gains so much strength that the sensuous and active organs lose sympathy with the external world. Perception and action cease, and the waking state passes off. The excess of the positive current slackens, as it were, the tattvic chords of the different centres of work, and they accordingly cease to answer to. the ordinary ethereal changes of external nature. If at this point the strength of the positive current passed beyond ordinary limits, death would ensue, and Prana would cease to have any connection with the gross body, the ordinary vehicle of the external tattvic changes. But just at the moment the Prana passes out of the heart, the negative current sets in, and it begins to counteract the effects of the former. As the Prana reaches the spine, the effects of the positive current have entirely passed off, and we awake. If at this moment the strength of the negative. current passes the ordinary limit by some cause or other, death would ensue, but. just at this moment the positive current sets in with midnight, and begins to counteract the effect of the former. A balance of the positive and negative currents thus keeps body and soul together. With excess﻿PRANA.
55
in the strength of either current, death makes its appearance. We thus see that there are two kinds of death—the positive or spinal, the negative or cardiac. In the former the four higher principles pass out of the body through the head, the Brahmarandhra, along the spine; in the latter they pass out of the mouth through the lungs and the trachea. Besides these there are generally speaking about six tattvic deaths. All these deaths mark out different paths for the higher principles. Of these, however, more hereafter. Let us at this stage investigate more thoroughly the changes of Prana.
There are certain manifestations of Prana which we find equally at work in all the three states. These manifestations have been, as I said before, classified by some writers under five heads. They have different centres of work in different parts of the body, from whence they assert their dominion over every part of the physical coil. Thus:
Positive.	Negative.
1.	Prana, right lung.	i. Prana, left lung.
2.	Apana, the apparatus which 2. Apana, the urinary apparatus, passes off faeces—long intestine, etc.
3.	Samana, stomach.	3. Samana, duodenum.
4.	Vyana, all over the body, ap- 4. Vyana, all over the body (on pearing in varying states with the left side)
different organs (on the right side).
5.	Udana, at the spinal and car- 5. Udana, the spinal and cardiac diac centres (right side), and centres (left side), etc. (ibout the region of the throat.﻿56
nature's finer forces.
1.	Prana is that manifestation of the life-coil which draws atmospheric air from without into the system.
2.	Apana is that manifestation which throws, from inside, out of the system, things which are not wanted there.
3.	Samana is that manifestation which draws in and carries the juice of food to every part of the body.
4.	Vyana is that manifestation which causes every part of the body to keep its shape, and to consequently resist those putrefying forces which assert themselves in a dead body.
5.	Udana is that manifestation which inclines the currents of life back to the centres—the heart and the brain. It is, therefore, this manifestation which causes death—local or general.
If Prana recedes from any part of the body (for some reason or other) that part loses its powers of action. This is local death. It is in this way that we become deaf, dumb, blind, etc. It is in this way that our digestive powers suffer, and so on. General death is similar in its operations. With the excess of the strength of either of the two currents, the Prana remains in the Sushumna, and does not pass out. The acquired power of work of the body then begins to pass off. The farther from the centres—the heart and the brain—the sooner the parts die. It is thus that the pulse first ceases to be felt in the extremities, and then nearer and nearer the heart, until we find it nowhere.
Again, it is this upward impulse which, under﻿PRANA.
57
favourable conditions, causes growth, lightness, and agility.
Besides the organs of the body already mentioned
or indicated, the manifestation of Vyana serves to
keep in form the five organs of sense, and the five
organs of action. The organs of the gross body and
the powers of Prana which manifest themselves in
work have both the same names. Thus we have:
Active Organs and	Sensuous Organs and
Powers.	Powers.
1.	Vak, the vocal organs and the	I. Chaksuh, eye and ocular power of speech.	power.
2.	Pani, the hands and the man-	2. Tvak, skin and tangeriferous ual power.	power.
3.	Pada, the feet and the walk-	3. Shrotra, ear and sonoriferous ing power.	power.
4.	Payu, anus.	4. Rasana, tongue and gustatory
power.
5.	Upastha, the generative or- 5. Gandha, nose and odoriferous gans and the powers which power.
draw these together.
The real fact is that the different powers are the corresponding organs of the principle of life. It will now be instructive to trace the tattvic changes and influences of these various manifestations of life.
Prana during health works all over the system in one class of tattvic centres at the same time. We thus see that both during the course of the positive and negative current we have five tattvic changes. The colour of Prana during the reign of the negative current is pure white; during that of the positive,﻿58
nature's finer forces.
reddish white. The former is calmer and smoother than the latter.
The tattvic changes give to each of these five new phases of colour. Thus:
Positive—Reddish White.
1.	The Vayu Tattva, green.
2.	The Agni Tattva, red.
3.	The Prithivi Tattva, yellow.
4.	The Apas Tattva, white.
5.	The Ak&sha Tattva, dark.
Negative—Pure White.
1.	The Vayu Tattva, green.
2.	The Agni Tattva, red.
3.	The Prithivi Tattva, yellow.
4.	The Apas Tattva, white.
5.	The Akasha Tattva, dark.
It is evident that there is a difference between the positive and negative tattvic phases of colour. There are thus ten general phases of colour.
The positive current—the reddish white—is hotter than the negative—the pure white. It may, therefore, be generally said that the positive current is hot, the negative cool. Each of these, then undergoes five tattvic changes of temperature. The Agni is the hottest, the yellow next to it; the Vayu becomes cool, and the Apas is the coolest. The Akasha has a state which neither cools nor heats. This state is, therefore, the most dangerous of all, and, if prolonged, causes death, disease, and debility. It is evident that if the cooling Tattvas do not in due time set in after the heating Tattvas, to counteract the accumulated effect of the latter, the functions of life will be impaired. The just colour and the just temperature at which these functions work in their vigour will be disturbed, and disease, death, and debility are nothing more than this disturbance in various degrees. Similar is the﻿PRANA.
59
case if the heating Tattvas do not set in in due time after the cooling ones.
It will be easy to understand that these changes of tattvic colours and temperatures are not abrupt. The one passes off easily and smoothly into the other, and the tattvic mixtures produce innumerable colours —as many, in fact, as the solar Prana has been shown to possess. Each of these colours tends to keep the body healthy if it remains in action just as long as it ought, but no sooner does the duration change than disease results. There is a possibility, therefore, of as many diseases as there are colours in the sun.
If any one colour is prolonged, there must be some one or more which has given the period of its duration to it; similarly if one colour takes less time than it ought, there must be some one or more which takes its place. This suggests two methods of the treatment of diseases. But before speaking of these, it will be necessary to investigate as fully as possible the causes which lengthen and shorten the ideal periods of the Tattvas.
To return for the present to Prana. This pulmonary manifestation of the principle of life is the most important of all, because its working furnishes us with a most faithful measure of the tattvic state of the body. It is on this account that the name Pr&na has been given by preeminence to this manifestation.
Now, as the Prana works in the pulmonary Tejas centres (i.e., the centres of the luminiferous ether),﻿6o
nature's finer forces.
the lungs are thrown into a triangular form of expansion, atmospheric air runs in, and the process of inspiration is complete. With every Truti, a backward impulse is given to the currents of Prana. The lungs are thrown with this returning current into their stationary state, and the excess of air is expelled. This is the process of expiration. The air that is thus thrown out of the lungs bears a triangular form. The water-vapour which this air contains, to some extent furnishes us with a method of testing this truth by experiment. If we take a smooth, shining looking-glass, and, placing it under the nose, steadily breathe upon its cool surface, the water-vapour of the air will be condensed, and it will be seen that this bears a particular figure. In the case of the pure Agni, the figure on the looking-glass will be a triangle. Iyet another person look steadily upon the mirror, because the impression passes off rapidly, and may escape the person who is breathing upon it.
With the course of the other Tattvas the lungs are thrown into their respective shapes, and the looking-glass gives us the same figures. Thus in Apas we have the semi-moon, in Vayu the sphere, in Prithivi the quadrangle. With the composition of these Tattvas we may have other figures—oblongs, squares, spheroids, and so on.
It may also be mentioned that the luminiferous ether carries the materials drawn from the atmospheric air to the centres of the luminiferous ether, and thence to every part of the body. So also do the other ethers﻿prAna.
61
carry these materials to their respective centres. It is not necessary to trace the workings of the other manifestations- one by one. It may, however, be said that although all the five Tattvas work in all the five manifestations, each of these manifestations is sacred to one of these Tattvas. Thus in Prana the Vayu Tattva prevails, in Samana the Agni, in Apana the Prithivi, in Vyana the Apas, in Udana the Akasha. I may remind the reader that the general colour of Pr&na is white, and this will show how the Apas Tattva prevails in Vyana. The .darkness of Akasha is the darkness of death, etc., caused by the manifestation of Udana.
' During life these ten changes are always taking place in Prana at the intervals of about twenty-six minutes each. In waking, in sleep, or in dream, these changes never cease. It is only in the two Sushumnas or the Akasha that these changes become for a moment potential, because it is from these that these tattvic manifestations show themselves on the plane of the body. If this moment is prolonged, the forces of Pr&na remain potential, and in death the Prana is thus in the potential state. When those causes which tended to lengthen the period of Sushumni., and thus cause death, are removed, this individual Prana passes out of the potential into the actual, positive, or negative state as the case may be. It will energize matter, and will develop it into the shape towards which its accumulated potentialities tend.
Something may now be said about the work of﻿62
nature's finer forces.
THE SENSUOUS AND ACTIVE ORGANS. All work, it may generally be said, is tattvic motion. This work is capable of being carried on during the waking state, and not in sleep or dream. These ten organs have ten general colours, thus:
Sensuous Organs.	Active Organs.
1.	Eye, Agni, red.	i. Hand, Vayu, blue.
2.	Ear, Akasha, dark.	2. Foot, Pritliivi, yellow.
3.	Nose, Pritliivi, yellow.	3. Tongue (speech), Apas, white.
4.	Toiigue (taste), Apas, white.	4. Anus, Akasha, dark.
5.	Skin, Vayu, blue.	5. Pudendum, Agni, red.
Although these are the generally prevalent Tattvas in these various centres, all the other Tattvas exist in a subordinate position. Thus in the eye we have a reddish yellow, reddish white, reddish dark, reddish blue, and similarly in the other organs. This division into five of each of these colours is only general; in reality there is an almost innumerable variation of colours in each of these.
With every act of every one of these ten organs, the organ specially, and the whole body generally, assumes a different colour, the colour of that particular tattvic motion which constitutes that act.
All these changes of Prana constitute the sum total of our worldly experience. Furnished with this apparatus, Prana begins its human pilgrimage, in company with a mind, which is evolved only to the extent of connecting the "I am" of the Ahankara or Vijnana, the fourth principle from below, with these manifestations of Prana. Time imprints upon< it all the in-﻿PRANA.
63
numerable colours of the universe. The visual, the tangible, the gustatory, the auditory, and the olfactory appearances in all their variety gather into Prana just as our daily experience teaches us that one current of electricity carries many messages at one and the same time. In the same way do the appearances of the active organs, and the five remaining general functions of the body, gather up in this Prana to manifest themselves in due time.
A few illustrations will render all this clear. First to speak of our
SEX RELATIONS.
The generative Agni Tattva of the male is positive, that of the female negative. The former is hotter, harsher, and more restless than the latter; the latter is cooler, smoother, and calmer than the former. Here I shall only speak of the colouration of Prana by the action or non-action of this power. The positive Agni tends to run into the negative, and vice versa. If it is not allowed to do so, the repeated impulses of this Tattva turn upon themselves, the centre gains greater strength, and the whole Prana is every day coloured deeper and deeper red. The centres of the Agni Tattva all over the body become stronger in their action, while all the others contract a general tinge of the red. The eyes and the stomach become stronger. If, however, man indulges his sexual instincts, the male Prana gets coloured by the female Agni, and vice versa. This tends to weaken all the centres of this Tattva, and gives to the whole Prana﻿64
nature's finer forces.
a feminine colour. The stomach also becomes cool, the eyes grow weak, and virile manly power departs. If more than one individual female Agni takes possession of the male Prana, and vice versa, the general antagonistic Tattva becomes deeper and stronger. The whole Prana is vitiated to a greater extent, greater debility is the result, spermatorrhoea, impotence, and such other antagonistic colours take possession of the Prana. Besides, the separate individualities of the male or female Agnis, which have taken possession of any one Prana, will tend to repel each other.
Suppose now that a man is given to
walking.
The Prithivi TatU^i of the feet gains strength, the yellow colour pervades the whole Prana. The centres of the Prithivi all over the body begin to work more briskly; Agni receives a mild and wholesome addition to its power, the whole system tends towards healthy equilibrium—neither too hot, nor yet too cold—and a general feeling of satisfaction accompanied with vigour, playfulness and a relish of enjoyment is the result.
L,et me take one more illustration from the operations of
vak (speech),
and then I shall have done with the organs of action. The power (Shakti) of speech (Vak, Sarasvati) is one of the most important goddesses of the Hindu pantheon. The chief ingredient of Prana which goes﻿PRANA.
65

\

towards the formation of this organ is the Apas Tattva. The colour of the goddess is, therefore, said to be white. The vocal chords with the larynx in front form the Vina (musical instrument) of the goddess.
In this section of the vocal apparatus A A B is the thyroid, a broad cartilage forming the projection of the throat, and much more prominent in men than in women. Below this is the annular cartilage, C, the cricoid. Behind this—or we may say on this—are stretched the chords a and b.
Atmospheric air passing over these chords in the act of breathing sets them in vibration, and sound is the result. Ordinarily these chords are too loose to give any sound. The Apas Tattva, the milk-white goddess of speech, performs the all-important function of making them tense. As the semi-lunar current of the Apas Tattva passes along the muscles of these chords, they are, as it were, shrivelled up, and curves are formed in the chords, which are thus rendered tighter.
The depth of these curves depends upon the strength of the Apas current. The deeper these curves, the tenser are the chords. The thyroid serves to vary the intensity of the voice thus produced. This will suffice for the purpose of showing that the real motive power in the production of voice is the Apas Tattva or Prana. There are certain ethereal condi-﻿66
nature's finer forces.
tions of the external world, as will be easily understood, which excite the centres of the Apas Tattva; the current' passes along the vocal chords, they are made tense, and sound is produced. But the excitement of these centres comes also from the soul through the mind. The use of this sound in the course of evolution as the vehicle of thought is the marriage of Brahma (the Vijnanamaya Kosha, the soul) with Sarasvati, the power of speech as located in man.
The Apas Tattva of the vocal apparatus, although the chief motive power in the production of sound, is modified according to circumstances by the composition of the other Tattvas in various degrees. As far as human ken reaches, about forty-nine of these variations have been recorded under the name of Svara. First, there are seven general notes. These may be positive and negative (Tivra and Komala), and then each of these may have three subdivisions. These notes are then composed into eight Ragas, and each Raga has several Raginis. The simple Raginis may be then compounded into others, and each Ragini may have a good many arrangements of notes. The variations of sound thus become almost innumerable. All these variations are caused by the varying tensions of the vocal chords, the Vina of Sarasvati, and the tensions vary by the varying strength of the Apas current, caused by the superposition of the other Tattvas.
Each variation of sound has, then, a colour of its own, which affects the whole Prana in its own way.﻿PRANA.
67
The tattvic effect of all these sounds is noted down in books of music; and various diseases may be cured, and good or bad tendencies imprinted on the Prana by the power of sound. Sarasvati is an all-powerful goddess, and controls our Pranas for good or evil as the case may be. If a song or note is coloured by the Agni Tattva, the sound colours the Prana red, similarly the Vayu, the Apas, the Akasha, and the Prithivi, blue, white, dark and yellow. The red-coloured song causes heat; it may cause anger, sleep, digestion, and redness of colour. The Akasha-coloured song causes fear, forgetfulness, etc. Songs may similarly give to our Pr&na the colour of love, enmity, adoration, morality, or immorality, as the case may be.
Let us turn another key. If the words we utter bear the colour of the Agni Tattva—anger, love, lust —our Prana is coloured red, and this redness turns upon ourselves. It may burn up our substance, we may look lean and lank, we may have ten thousand other diseases. Terrible retribution of angry words! If our words are full of divine love and adoration, kindness and morality, words which give pleasure and satisfaction to whosoever hears them—the colours of the Prithivi and the Apas—we become loving and beloved, adoring and adored, kind and moral, pleasing and pleased, satisfying and ever satisfied. The discipline of speech itself—the Satya of Patanjali—is thus one of the highest practices of Yoga.
Sensuous impressions colour the Prana in a similar way. If we be given to too much sight-seeing, to the﻿68
NATURE'S FINER FORCES.
hearing of pleasant sounds, to the smelling of dainty smells, etc., the colours of these Tattvas will be overmuch strengthened, and gain a mastery over our Prana. If we are fond of seeing beautiful women, hearing the music of their voices, heaven help us, for the least and the most general effect will be that our Pranas will receive the feminine colouration.
These illustrations are sufficient to explain how the tattvic colours of external nature gather up in Prana. It may be necessary to say that no new colours enter into the formation of Prana. All the colours of the universe are already present there, just as they are in the sun, the prototype of Prana. The colouration which I have spoken of is only the strengthening of the particular colour to an extent which throws the others in shade. It is this disturbance of balance which in the first place causes the variety of human Prsina, and in the second those innumerable diseases which flesh is heir to.
From this it is evident that every action of man gives his Prana a separate colour, and the colour affects the gross body in its turn. But when, at what time, does the particular tattvic colour affect the body? Ordinarily under similar tattvic conditions of the external universe. This means that if the Agni Tattva has gained strength in any Prana at any one particular division of time, the strength will show itself when that particular division of time recurs again. Before attempting a solution of this problem, it is necessary to understand the following truths:﻿PRANA.
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The sun is the chief life-giver of every organism in the system. The moment that a new organism has come into existence, the sun changes his capacity in relation to that organism. He now becomes the sustainer in that organism of positive life. Along with this the moon begins to influence the organism in her own way. She becomes the sustainer of negative life. The planets each of them establish their own currents in the organism. For the sake of simplicity I have as yet only spoken of the sun and the moon, the lords respectively of the positive and negative currents of the right and left halves of the body, of the brain and the heart, of the nerves and the bloodvessels. These are the two chief sources of life, but the planets, it must be remembered, exercise a modifying influence over these currents. So the real tattvic condition of any moment is determined by all the seven planets, as also by the sun and the moon. Each planet, after determining the general tattvic condition of the moment, proceeds to introduce changes in the organism which is the birth of the moment. These changes correspond with the manifestation of that colour of Prana which took its rise at that time. Thus, suppose the red colour has entered Pr&na when the moon is in the second degree of the sign of Libra. If there is no disturbing influence of any other luminary, the red colour will manifest itself whenever the moon is in the same position^ if there be a disturbing influence the red colour will manifest itself when that influence is removed. It may show itself in a month,﻿70
nature's finer forces.
or it may be postponed for ages. It is very difficult to. determine the time when an act will have its effect. It depends a good deal upon the strength of the impression. The strength of the impression may be divided into ten degrees, although some writers have gone further.
1.	Momentary. This degree of strength has its effect there and then.
2.	300 strength. In this case the effect will show itself when each planet is in the same sign as at the time of the impression.
3.	150 strength. (Hora.)
4.	io° strength. (Dreshkana.)
5.	200' strength. (Navansha.)
6.	150' strength. (Dvadashansha.)
7.	60 or i° strength. (Trinshansha.)
8.	1" strength. (Kate.)
9.	1" strength. (Vipala.)
10.	1"" strength. (Truti.)
Suppose in any Prana, on account of any' action, the Agni Tattva obtains the strongest possible prevalence consistent with the preservation of the body, the Tattva will begin to have its effect then and there, until it has exhausted itself to a certain extent. It will then become latent and show itself when at any time the same planets sit in the same mansions. Examples will illustrate better. Suppose the following position of the planets at any moment denotes the tattvic condition when any given colour has entered the Prana, say Tuesday, the 3rd of April,﻿PRANA.	yj
at a time when the positions of the stars are as follows:
sign. deg. m. s.
Sun...................II	22	52	55
Mars.................. 5	28	1	40
Mercury...............10	25	42	27
Saturn................ 3	9	33	30
Venus.................11	26	35	17
Moon................. 8	16	5	9
Jupiter................ 7	15	41	53
It is at this time, we suppose, that the act above referred to is committed. The present effect will pass off with the two hours' lunar current which may be passing at that time. It will then become latent, and remain so till the time when these planets are in the same position again. These positions might, as has been seen, be nine and more in number.
As soon as the exact time passes off when a colour has obtained predominance in Prana, the effect thereof on the gross body becomes latent. It shows itself again in a general way when the stars sit in the same mansions. Some of the strength is worn off at this time, and the force again becomes latent to show itself in greater minuteness when at any time the half-mansions coincide, and so on with the remaining parts noticed above. There may be any number of times when there is only an approach to coincidence, and then the effect will tend to show itself though it will at that time only remain a tendency.
These observations, - although necessarily very meagre, tend to show that the impression produced﻿72	NATURES FINER FORCES.
upon Prana by any act, however insignificant, really takes ages to pass off, when the stars coincide in position to a degree with that when the act was committed. A knowledge of astronomy is thus highly essential in occult Vedic religion. The following observations may, however, render the above a little more intelligible.
The Pranamaya Kosha, as often remarked, is an exact picture of the terrestrial Prana. The periodical currents of the finer forces of nature which are in the earth operate according to the same laws in the principle of life; just as is the Zodiac, so is the Pranamaya Kosha divided into mansions, etc. The northern and southern inclinations of the axis give us a heart and a brain. Each of these has branching off from it twelve ramifications, which are the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The daily rotation then gives us the thirty-one Chakras spoken of previously. These Chakras have all the divisions of the signs of the Zodiac. The division into semi-mansions has already been spoken of. There is the positive semi-mansion, and the negative semi-mansion. Then we have the one-third, the one-ninth, the one-twelfth, and so on to a degree, or the divisions or subdivisions thereof. Each of these Chakras, both diurnal and annual, is in fact a circle of 360° like the great circles of the heavenly spheres. Through these Chakras is established a course of seven descriptions of life-currents.
(1) Solar; (2) L,unar; (3) Mars, Agni; (4) Mercury,﻿PRANA.
73
Prithivi; (5) Jupiter, Vayu; (6) Venus, Apas; (7) Saturn, Akasha.
It is quite possible that along the same Chakras there may be passing all or any one or more of these differing currents at one and the same time. The reader is reminded of the telegraph currents of modern electricity. It is evident that the real state of Prana is determined by the position of these various localized currents. Now, if any one or more of these tattvic currents is strengthened by any act of ours, under any position of the currents, it is only when we have to a degree the same position of the currents that the tattvic effect will make its appearance in full strength. There may also be appearances of slight power at various times, but the full strength will never be exhausted until we have the same position of these currents to the minutest division of a degree. This takes ages upon ages, and it is quite impossible that the effect should pass off in the present life. Hence arises the necessity of Reincarnation upon this earth. •
The accumulated tattvic effects of a life's work give to each life a general tinge of its own. This tinge wears off gradually, as the component colours pass off or weaken in strength, one by one. When each of the component colours is one by one sufficiently worn out, the general colour of a life passes off. The gross body which was given birth to by this particular colour ceases to respond to the now generally different coloured Pr&na. The Prana does not pass out of the Sushumna, Death is the result.﻿74
nature's finer forces.
death.
As already said, the two ordinary forms of death are the positive through the brain, and the negative through the heart. This is death through the Su-shumna. In this the Tattvas are all potential. Death may also take place through the other Nadis. In this case there must always be the prevalence of one or more of the Tattvas.
Towards different regions does the Prana go after death, according to the paths through which it passes out of the'body. Thus:
1.	The negative Sushumna takes it to the moon.
2.	The positive SushumnS. takes it to the sun.
3.	The Agni of the other Nadis takes it to the hill known as Raurava (fire).
4.	The Apas of the other Nadis takes it to the hill known as Ambarisha, and so on; the Akasha, the Vayu and the Prithivi take it to Andhatamisra, Kala-sutra, and Mahakala respectively (see Yoga Sutra, Pada hi, Aphorism 26, commentary).
The negative path is that generally taken by the Prana. This path takes it to the moon (the Chandra-loka) because the moon is the lord of the negative system, the negative currents, and the negative Sushumnlt —the heart, which therefore is a continuation of the lunar Prana. The Prana which has the general negative colour can only move along this path, and it is transferred naturally to the reservoirs, the centres of the negative Prana. Those men in whom the two hours' lunar current is passing more or less regularly take this path.﻿prAna.
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The Prana which has lost the intensity of its terrestrial colour, energizes lunar matter according to its own strength, and thus establishes there for itself a sort of passive life. The mind is here in a state of dream. The tattvic impressions of gathered-up forces pass before it in the same way as they do in our earthly dreams. The only difference is that in that state there is not the superposed force of indigestion to render the tattvic impressions so strong and sudden as to be terrible. That dreamy state is characterized by extreme calmness. Whatever our mind has in it of the interesting experiences of this world; whatever we have thought, or heard, or seen, or enjoyed; the sense of satisfaction and enjoyment, the bliss and playfulness of. the Apas and the Prithivi Tattvas, the languid sense of love of the Agni, the agreeable forgetfulness of the Akasha, all make their appearance one after the other in perfect calm. The painful impressions make no appearance, because the painful arises when any impression forces itself upon the mind which is out of harmony with its surroundings. It is in this state that the mind lives in the Cliandraloka, as will be better understood when I come to speak of the tattvic causes of dreams.
Ages roll on in this Loka, during which the mind, according to the same general laws which obtain for Prana, wears out the impressions of a former life. The intense tattvic colours which the ceaseless activity of Prana had called into existence therein gradually fade, until at last the mind comes upon a permanent level﻿76
nature's finer forces.
with the Prana. Both of them have now lost the tinge of a former life. Of Prana it might be said that it has a new appearance; of the mind, that it has a new consciousness. When they are both in this state, both very weak, the accumulated tattvic effects of Prana begin to show themselves with the return of the same positions of the stars. These draw us back from the lunar to the terrestrial Pr&na. The mind at this stage has no individuality worth taking account of, so that it is drawn by Prana to wherever its affinities carry it. Thus it joins with those solar-rays which wear a similar colour, all those mighty potentialities which show themselves in the future man being as yet quite latent. With the rays of the sun it passes according to the ordinary laws of vegetation into grain bearing similar colours. Each grain has a separate individuality, which accounts for its separate existence, and there may be in many a grain human potentialities, giving it an individuality of its own.
Similarly do human individualities come back from the five states which are known as hells. These are the states of posthumous existence fixed for those men who enjoy to an excessive and violent degree the various impressions of each of the Tattvas. As the tattvic intensity, which disturbs the balance and therefore causes pain, wears off in time, the individual Prana passes off to the lunar sphere, and thence undergoes the same states which have been above described.
Along the positive path through the Brahmarandhra pass those Pranas which transcend the general effects﻿PRANA.
77
of- time, and therefore do not return to earth under ordinary laws. It is time that brings back the Pranas from the moon, and the least strong tattvic condition comes into play with the return of identical astral positions; but the sun being the keeper of time himself, and the strongest factor in the determination of his tattvic condition, it would be impossible for solar time to affect solar Prana. Therefore, only those Pranas travel towards the sun in which there is almost no preponderance of any tattvic colour. This is the state of the Prana of Yogis alone. By the constant practice of the eight branches of Yoga, the Prana is purified of any very strongly personifying colours, and since it is evident that on such a Prana time can have no effect under ordinary circumstances, they pass off to the sun. . These Pranas have no distinct personifying colours; all of them that go to the sun have almost the same general tinge. But their minds are different. They can be distinguished from each other, according to the particular branch of science which they have cultivated, or according to the particular and varying methods of mental improvement which they have followed on earth. In this state the mind is not dependent, as in the moon, upon the impressions of Prana. Constant practice of Yoga has rendered it an independent worker, depending only upon the soul, and moulding the Pr&na to its own shapes, and giving it its own colours. This is a kind of Moksha.
Although the sun is the most potent lord of life,﻿78
nature's finer forces.
and the tattvic condition of Prana has now no effect upon the Prana which has passed to the sun, it is still affected by the planetary currents, and there are times when this effect is very strong, so that the earthly conditions in which minds have previously existed are again present with them. A desire to do the same sort of good they did in the world in their previous life takes possession of them, and impelled by this desire they sometimes come back to the earth. Shan-karacliarya has noticed in his commentary on the Brahmasutra that Apantartamah, one of the Vedic Rishis, thus appeared on earth as Krishna Dvaipa-yana, about the end of the Dvapara and the beginning of the Kali Yuga.
As it is desirable that as much should be known about Prana as possible, I give below some quotations on the subject from the Prashnopanishad. They will give additional interest to the subject, and present it in a more comprehensive and far more attractive garb.
"He who knows the birth, the coming in, the places of manifestation, the rule, and the microcosmic appearance of Prana becomes immortal by that knowledge."
Practical knowledge of the laws of life and a subordination of the lower nature to the behests of such laws, must naturally end in the passing of the soul out of the shadowy side of life into the original light of the sun. This means immortality, that is, passing beyond the power of terrestrial death.
But to go on with what the Upanishad has to say of the things to be known about Prsina.﻿PRANA.
79
-THE BIRTH OF PRANA.
The Prana is born from the Atma; it arises in the Atma, like the shadow in the body.
The hut^an body, or other organism, coming as it does between the sun and the portion of space on the other side, throws a shade in the ocean of Prana. Similarly is the Prana seen as a shade in the macro-cosmic soul (Ishvara) because the macrocosmic mind (Manu) intervenes. Briefly the Prana is the shade of Manu caused by the light of the Logos, the macro-cosmic centre. The suns owe their birth in this shade to the impression upon it of the macrocosmic mental ideas. These suns—the centres of Prana, become in their turn the positive starting-point of further development. The Manus, throwing their shade by the intervention of the suns, give birth in those shades to planets, etc. The suns throwing their shades by the intervention of planets, give birth to moons. Then these different centres begin to act upon the planets, and the sun descends on them in the shape of various organisms, man included.
THE MACROCOSMIC APPEARANCE.
This Prana is found in the macrocosm as the ocean of life with the sun for its centre. It assumes two phases of existence—the Prana, the solar, positive life-matter; the Rayi, the lunar, negative life-matter. The former is the northern phase and the eastern; the latter is the southern phase and the western. In every moment of terrestrial life, we have thus the northern﻿8o
nature's finer forces.
and southern centres of Prana, the centres from which the southern and northern phases of life-matter take their start. The eastern and western halves are there also.
At every moment of time—i.e., in every Truti—there are millions of Trutis—perfect organisms—in space. This may require some explanation. The units of time and space are the same—a Truti. Take any one Truti of time. It is well known that every moment of time the tattvic rays of Prana go in every direction from every point to every other point. Hence it is clear enough that every Truti of space is a perfect picture of the whole apparatus of Prana, with all its centres and sides, and positive and negative relations. To express a good deal in a few words, every Truti of space is a perfect organism. In the ocean of Pr&na which surrounds the sun there are innumerable such Trutis.
While essentially the same, it is easy to understand that the following items will make a difference in the general colour, appearance, and forms of these Trutis.
1.	Distance from the solar centre.
2.	Inclination from the solar axis.
I take the earth for illustration. That zone of solar life, taking into consideration both the distance and the inclination in which the earth moves, gives birth to earth-life. This zone of earth-life is known as the ecliptic. Now every Truti of space in this ecliptic is a separate individual organism. As the earth moves in her annual course, i.e., as the Truti of time changes,﻿PR AN A.
81
these permanent Trutis of space change the phases of their life. But their permanency is never impaired. They retain their individuality all the same.
All the planetary influences reach these Trutis always, wherever the planets may be in their journey. The changing distance and inclination is, of course, always causing a change of life-phase.
This Truti of space, from its permanent position in the ecliptic, while maintaining its connection with all the planets, at the same time sends its tattvic rays to every other quarter of space. They come also to the earth.
It is a condition of earth-life that the positive and negative currents of life—the Prana and the Rayi—be equally balanced. When, therefore, in this ecliptical Truti the two phases of life-matter are equally strong, the tattvic rays which come from it to the earth energize gross matter there. The moment that the balance is disturbed by the tattvic influence of the planets, or by some other cause, terrestrial death ensues. This simply means that the tattvic rays of the Truti which fall on earth cease to energize gross matter, although they do fall there all the same, and although the Truti is unaltered in its permanent ecliptical abode. In this posthumous state, the human Truti will energize gross matter in that quarter of space whose laws of relative, negative, and positive predominance coincide with that state. Thus, when the negative life-matter, the Rayi, becomes over strong, the energization of the Truti is transferred from the earth to the moon. Similarly﻿32
NATURES FINER FORCES.
it may pass to other spheres. When the terrestrial balance is again restored, when this posthumous life has been lived, the energization is again transferred t<2> the earth.
Such is the macrocosmic appearance of Prana, with the pictures of all the organisms of the earth. And now for
THE COMING IN.
How does this Pranamaya Kosha—this Truti of the macrocosm—come into this body? "By actions at whose root lies the mind," says briefly the Upanishad. It has been explained how every action changes the nature of the Pranamaya Kosha, and it will be explained in the essay on the "Cosmic Picture Gallery" how these changes are represented in the cosmical counterpart of our life-principle. It is evident that by these actions is produced the change in the general relative nature of the Prana and the Rayi which has been spoken of in the foregoing part of this essay. It is hardly necessary to say that the mind—the human free will—lies at the root of those actions which disturb the tattvic balance of the life-principle. Hence "the Prana comes into this body by actions, at whose root lies the mind."
THE PLACES OF MANIFESTATION.
"As the paramount power appoints its servants, telling them, 'Rule such and such villages,' so does the Prana. It puts its different manifestations in different places. In the Payu [anus] and Upastha is the﻿PRANA.
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Apana [which discharges faeces and urine]. In the eye and the ear are the manifestations known as sight and hearing [Chakshuh and Shrotra]. The Prana remains itself, going out of mouth and nose. Between [the places of Prana and Apana, about the navel] lives the Samana. It is this that carries equally [all over the body] the food [and drink] that is thrown in the fire. Hence are those seven lights. [By means of Pr&na, light of knowledge is thrown over colour, form, sound, etc.]
" In the heart verily is this Atma [the Pranamaya Kosha], and in it, verily, the other coils. Here there are a hundred and one Nadis, each Nadi containing a hundred coils. In each of these branch Nadis there are 72,000 other Nadis. In these moves the Vyana.
"By one [the Sushumna] going upward, the Udana carries to good worlds by means of goodness, and to evil ones by means of evil; by both to the world of men.
"The sun is, verily, the macrocosmic Prana; he rises, and thereby helps the eyesight. The power that is in the earth keeps up the power of Apana; the Akasha [the ethereal matter] that is between heaven and earth, helps the Sam&na.
"The ethereal life-matter [independent of its being between the earth and heaven] which fills macrocosmic space, is Vy&na.
"The Tejas—the luminiferous ether—is Udana; hence he whose natural fire is cooled down [approaches death].﻿84
nature's finer forces.
"Then the man goes towards second birth; the organs and senses go into the mind; the mind of the man comes to the Prana [its manifestations now ceasing]. The Prana is combined with the Tejas, going with the soul, it carries it to the spheres which are in view."
The different manifestations of Prana in the body, and the places where they manifest themselves have been dwelt upon. But there appear in this extract certain other statements of interest. It is said that this Atma, this Pranamaya Kosha with the other coils, verily, is located in the heart. The heart, as has been seen, represents the negative side of life—the Rayi. When the positive Prana, which is properly located in the brain, impresses itself upon the Rayi —the heart and the Nadis that flow from it—the forms of life with the actions of man come into existence. It is therefore, properly speaking, the reflection in the heart that works in the world, this reflection being the proper lord of the sensuous and active organs of life. If this being in the heart learns not how to live here, the sensuous and active organs both lose their life and the connection with the world ceases. The being of the brain which has no immediate connection with the world, except through the heart, now remains in its unrestrained purity; in short, the soul goes to the Suryloka (the sun).
the external prana.
The next point of interest is the description of the functions of the external Prana, which lie at the root﻿PRANA.
85
of, and help the working of the individualized Prana. It is said that the sun is the Prana. This is evident enough, and has been mentioned many a time before this. The most important function of life, inspiration and expiration, the function which, according to the Science of Breath, is the one law of the existence of the universe on all the planes of life, is brought into existence and kept in activity by the sun himself. It is the solar breath that constitutes his existence, and this reflected in man gives birth to human breath.
The sun then appears in another phase. He rises, and as he does so, he supports the eyes in their natural action.
Similarly the power that is in the earth sustains the Apana manifestation of Prana. It is the power which draws everything towards the earth, says the commentator. In modern language it is gravity.
Something more might here be said about the Udana manifestation of Prana. As everybody knows, there is a phase of microcosmic Prana which carries everything, names, forms, sounds, sights, and all other sensations, from one place to another. This is otherwise known as the universal Agni, or the Tejas of the text. The localized manifestation of this phase of Prslna is called Udana, or that which carries the life-principle from one place to another. The particular destination is determined by past actions, and this universal Agni carries the Prana, with the soul, to different worlds.
This Prana is then a mighty being, and if its local-﻿86
NATURE'S FllSfER FORCES.
ized manifestations were to work in unison, and with temperance, doing their own duty, but not usurping the time and place of others, there would be but little evil in the world.
But each of these manifestations asserts its sole power over the poor bewildered human soul. Each of these claims the whole life of man to be its own proper domain.
"The Akasha, the Vayu, the Agni, the Prithivi, the Apas, speech, sight and hearing—all of them say clearly that they are the sole monarchs of the human body."
The principal Prana—he whose manifestations all these are—tells them:
"Be not forgetful; it is I who sustain the human body, dividing myself into five."
If the five manifestations of Prana with all their minor subdivisions revolt against him, if each begins to assert its own lordship, and ceases to work for the general benefit of the lord paramount, which is the real life, misery makes its sad appearance to harass the poor human soul.
"But the manifestations of Prana, blinded by ignorance," would not "put forth" at the admonitions of their lord.
"He leaves the body, and as he leaves, all the other minor Pranas leave it, too; they stay there as he stays."
Then are their eyes opened.
"As the bees follow the queen bee in every way,﻿PRANA.
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so do the Pranas—namely, speech, the mind, the eye, the ear—follow him with devotion, and thus praise him.
"He is the Agni, the cause of heat; he is the sun [the giver of light]; he is the cloud, he is the Indra, he is the Vayu, he is the Prithivi, he is the Rayi, and the Deva> the Sat, and the Asat,* and he is the immortal.
"Like the spokes in the nave of a wheel, everything is sustained in Prana—the hymns of the Rtg> the Yajur, and the Sama Vedas, the sacrifice, the Kshatriyas and the Brahmans, etc.
^ "Thou art the progenitor; thou movest in the womb; thou art born in the shape of the father or the mother; to thee, O Prana, that dwelleth in the body with thy manifestations, these creatures offer presents.
"Thou art the carrier of offerings to the Devas, thoti art the carrier of oblations to the fathers; thou art the action and the power of the senses and other manifestations of life.
"Thou art, O Prina, the great lord in power, the Rudra (the destroyer) and the preserver; thou movest in the sky as the sun, thou art the preserver of the lights of heaven.
"When thou rainest, these creatures are full of joy because they hope to have plenty of food. _
"Thou art Prana, pure by nature; thou art the
* Rayi and Asat are the negative, Deva and Sat the positive phases of life-matter.﻿88
NATURE'S FINER FORCES.
consumer of all oblations, as the Ekarshi fire [of the Atharvas]; thou art the preserver of all existence; we are to thee the offerers of food; thou art our father as the recorder [or the life-giver of the recorder].
"Make healthy that appearance of thine which is located in the speech, the ear, the eye, and that which is stretched towards the mind; do not fly away.
"Whatever exists in the three heavens, all of it is in the power of Prana. Protect us like a mother her offspring; give us wealth and intellect."
With this I conclude my description of Prana, the second principle of the universe, and the human body. The epithets bestowed upon this mighty being in the above extract will be easy of understanding in the light of all that has gone before. It is now time to trace the working of the universal tattvic L,aw of Breath on the next higher plane of life—the mind (Manomaya Kosha).﻿V.
THE MIND.
INTRODUCTION.
No theory of the life of the universe is at once so simple and so grand as the theory of breath (Svara). It is the one universal motion, which makes its appearance in Maya by virtue of the unseen substratum of the cosmos, the Parabrahman of the Vedan-tins. The most appropriate expression for Svara in English is the "current of life." The Indian Science of Breath investigates and formulates the laws, or rather the one universal law, according to which this current of life, this motive power of universal intelligence, running, as Emerson so beautifully puts it, along the wire of thought, governs evolution and involution and all the phenomena of human life, physiological, mental, and spiritual. In the whole length and breadth of this universe there is no phenomenon, great or small, which does not find its most natural, most intelligible, and most apposite explanation in the theory of the five modes of manifestation of this universal motion—the five elementary Tattvas. In the foregoing essays I have tried to explain generally how every physiological phenomenon was governed﻿9°
nature's finer forces.
by the five Tattvas. The object of the present essay is to run over briefly the various phenomena relating to the third higher body of man—the Manomaya Kosha, the mind—and note how symmetrically and universally the Tattvas bring about the formation and work of this principle.
knowledge.
In general language it is knowledge that distinguishes the mind from physiological life (Pr&na), but it will be seen on a little consideration that different degrees of knowledge might very well be taken as the distinguishing characteristics of the five states of matter, which in man we call the five principles. For what is knowledge but a kind of tattvic motion of breath, elevated into self-consciousness by the presence, in a greater or less degree, of the element of Ahankara (egoism) ? This is no doubt the view taken of knowledge by the Vedantic philosopher when he speaks of intelligence as being the motive power, the first cause of the universe. The word Svara is only a synonym of intelligence, the one manifestation of the One descending into Prakriti.
"I see something," means, according to our view of knowledge, that my Manomaya Kosha has been put into visual vibration.
"I hear," means that my Manomaya Kosha is in a state of auditory vibration.
"I feel," means that my mind is in a state of tangible vibration.
And so on with the other senses.﻿THE MIND.
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" I love," means that my mind is in a state of amatory vibration (a form of attraction).
The first state—that of the Anandamaya—is the state of the highest knowledge. There is then but one centre, the substratum for the whole infinity of Parabrahman, and the ethereal vibrations of his breath are one throughout the whole expanse of infinity. There is but one intelligence, but one knowledge. The whole universe, with all its potentialities and actualities, is a part of that knowledge. This is the highest state of bliss. There is no consciousness of self here, for the I has only a relative existence, and there must be a Thou or a He before there can be an I.
The Ego takes form when, in the second plane of existence, more than one minor centre comes into existence. It is for this reason that the name Ahan-k&ra has been given to this state of matter. The ethereal impulses of those centres are confined to their own particular domain in space, and they differ in-each centre. They can, however, affect each other just in the same way as the individualized ethereal impulses of one man affect those of others. The tattvic motion of one centre of Brahmsl is carried along the same universal lines as the other. Two differing motions are thus found in one centre. The stronger impulse is called the /, the weaker the Thou or the He as the case may be.
Then comes Manas. Viraj is the centre, and Manu the atmosphere of this state. These centres are beyond the ken of ordinary humanity, but they work﻿92
nature's finer forces.
tinder similar laws to those ruling the rest of the cosmos. The suns move round the Virats in the same way as the planets move round the sun.
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE MIND. The composition of the Manu is similar to that of Prana; it is composed of a still finer grade of the five Tattvas, and this increased fineness endows the Tattvas with different functions.
The five functions of Prana have been given. The following are the five functions of Manas, as given by Patanjali and accepted by Vyasa:
i. Means of knowledge (Pramana). 2. False knowledge (Viparyaya). 3. Complex imagination (Vikalpa). 4. Sleep (Nidra). 5. Memory (Smriti).
All the manifestations of the mind fall under one or other of these five heads. Thus, Pramana includes:
a. Perception (Pratyaksha). b. Inference (Anu-m&na). c. Authority (Agama). Viparyaya includes:
a. Ignorance (Avidya, Tamas). b. Egoism (As-mita, Moha). c. Retention (Raga, Mahamoha). d. Repulsion (Tamisra, Dvesha). e. Tenacity of life (Abhinivesha, Andhatamisra).
The remaining three have no definite subdivisions. I shall now show that all the modifications of thought are forms of tattvic motion on the mental plane.
1. Means of Knowledge (Pramana). The word Pramana (means of knowledge) is derived from two roots, the predicative ma, and the derivative﻿THE MIND.
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root ana, with the prefix pra. The original idea of the root ma, is "to go," "to move," and hence "to measure." The prefix pra gives to the root the idea of fulness, connected as it is with the root firi, to fill. That which moves exactly up or down to the same height with any other thing is the Pramana of that thing. In becoming the Pramsina of any other thing, ,the first thing assumes certain qualities which it had not before. This is always brought about by a change of state caused by a certain kind of motion, for it is always motion that causes change of state. This, in fact, is also the exact meaning of the word Pramana, as applied to a particular manifestation of the mind.
Pramana is a particular tattvic motion of the mental body; its effect is to put the mental body into a state similar to that of something else. The mind can undergo as many changes as the external Tattvas are capable of imprinting upon it, and these changes have been classified by Patanjali into three general heads.
a. Perception (Pratyaksha).
This is that change of state which the operations of the five sensuous organs produce in the mind. The word is a compound of prati, back, and aksha, sensuous power, organ of sense. Hence is that sympathetic tattvic vibration which an organ of sense in contact with its object produces in the mind. These changes can be classified under five general heads, according to the number of the senses.
The eye gives birth.to the Tejas vibrations; the﻿94	NATURE'S FINER FORCES.
tongue, the skin, the ear and the nose respectively to the Apas, the Vayu, the Akasha and the Prithivi vibrations. The pure Agni causes the perception of red, the Tejas-Prithivi of yellow, the Tejas-Apas of white, the Tejas-V&yu of blue, and so on. Other colours are produced in the mind by mixed vibrations in a thousand varying degrees. The Apas gives softness, the Vayu roughness, the Agni harshness. We see through the eyes not only colour, but also form. It will be remembered that a particular form has been assigned to every tattvic vibration, and all the forms of gross matter answer to corresponding tattvic vibrations. Thus form can be perceived through every sense. The eyes can see form, the tongue can taste it, the skin can touch it, and so on. This may probably appear to be a novel assertion, but it must be remembered that virtue is not limited to its outward expression or act. The ear would hear form, if the more general use of the eye and the skin for this purpose had not almost stifled it into inaction. The one form is differentiated in at least five modes, and each mode calls the same thing by a different name. This is aptly illustrated by the physiology of the five sense organs.
The pure Apas vibrations cause an astringent taste, the Apas-Prithivi a sweet, the Apas-Agni hot, the Apas-Vayu acid, and so on. Innumerable other variations of taste are caused by intermediate vibrations in various degrees.
The case is similar with the vocal and other changes﻿THE MIND.
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of vibration. It is clear that our perceptive knowledge is nothing more than a veritable tattvic motion of the mental body, caused by the sympathetic communications of the vibrations of Prana, just as a stringed instrument of a certain tension begins to vibrate spontaneously when vibration is set up in another similar instrument.
b. Inference (Anumana).
The word Anumana has the same roots as the word Pramana. The only difference is in the prefix. We have here anu, "after," instead of pra. Inference (Anumana) is therefore after-motion. When the mind is capable of sustaining two vibrations at one and the same time, then, if either of these vibrations is set up and perceived, the second vibration must also manifest itself. Thus, suppose a man pinches me., The complex vibrations that make up the perception of the action of a man pinching me are produced in my mind. I recognize the phenomena. Almost simultaneously with these vibrations another set of vibrations is produced in me. I call this pain. Now here are two kinds of tattvic motion, the one coming after the other. If at any other time I feel similar pain, the image of the man pinching will be recalled to my consciousness. This after-motion is "inference." Induction and deduction are both modifications of this after-motion. For instance the sun always appears to rise in a certain direction. The concept of that direction becomes for ever associated in my mind with the rising of the sun.﻿g6	nature's finer forces.
Whenever I think of the phenomenon of sunrise, the concept of that direction presents itself. I therefore say that the sun rises as a rule in that direction. Inference is, therefore, nothing more than a tattvic motion coming after another related one.
c. Authority (Agama).
The third modification of what is called the means of knowledge (Pramana) is authority (Agama). What is this? I read in my geography, or hear from the lips of my teacher that Britain is surrounded by the ocean. Now what has connected these words in my mind with the picture of Britain, the ocean, and their mutual relations? Certainly it is not perception, and therefore not inference, which must by nature work through sensuous knowledge. What then? There must be some third modification.
The fact that words possess the power to raise a certain picture in our minds is one of very deep interest. Every Indian philosopher recognizes it as a third modification of the mind, but it receives no recognition at the hands of modern European philosophy.
There is, however, little doubt that the colour corresponding to this mental modification differs from that corresponding to either perception or inference. The colour belonging to the perceptive modifications of the mind is always single in its nature. A certain phase of the Tejas vibration must always prevail in the visual modification, and similarly the vibrations﻿THE -MIND.
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of other Tattvas correspond to our different sensuous modifications. Each of these manifestations has its own distinctive colour. The red will appear as well in the visual as in the auditory or any other vibration, but the red of the visual vibration will be bright and pure; that of the organ of smell will be tinged with yellow; that of the organ of touch with blue; and the sonoriferous ether will be somewhat dark. There is, therefore, not the least likelihood that the vocal vibration will coincide with the pure perceptive vibration. The vocal vibrations are double in their nature, and they can only, in any case, coincide with the inferential vibrations; and here, too, they can only coincide with the auditory vibrations. A little consideration will, however, show that there is some difference between the vocal and inferential vibrations. In inference a certain modification of sound in our mind is followed by a certain visual picture, and both these vibrations retain in our mind an equally important position. We place two percepts together, compare them, and then say that one follows the other. In the verbal modification there is no comparison, no simultaneous consciousness, no placing together of the two percepts. The one causes the other, no doubt, but we are not at all conscious of the fact. In inference the simultaneous presence for some time of both the cause and the effect brings about a change in the colour of the effect. The difference is less great in the vocal as compared with the inferential vibration. Axiomatic knowledge is not
inferential in the present, though it has no doubt been
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so in the past; in tlie present it has become native to the mind.
2. faivse knowledge (viparyaya).
This is the second mental modification. This word also is derived from a root meaning motion—i or ay, "to go," "to move." The prefix pari is connected with the root pra, and gives the same idea to the root. Paryaya has the same radical meaning as Pramana. The word Viparyaya therefore means "a motion removed from the motion which coincides with the object." The vibrations of Pramana coincide in nature with the vibrations of the object of perception; not so the vibrations of Viparyaya. Certain acquired conditions of the mind imprint on the percepts a new colour of their own, and thus distinguish them from the percepts of Pramana. There are five modifications of this manifestation.
a. Ignorance (Avidya,).
This is the general field for the manifestation of all the modifications of Viparyaya (false knowledge). The word comes from the root vidy "to know," the prefix a, and the suffix ya. The original meaning of the root is "to be," "to exist." The original meaning of Vidya is, therefore, "the state of a thing as it is," or expressed in terms of the mental plane in one word, "knowledge." As long as in the face of a human being I see a face and nothing else, my mental vibration is said to be Vidy&. But as soon as I see a moon, or something else not a face, when it is a face I am looking at, my mental﻿THE MIND.
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vibration is no longer said to be Vidya, but Avidya. Avidya (ignorance) is therefore not a negative conception, it is just as positive as Vidya itself. It is a great mistake to suppose that words having the privative prefixes always imply abstractions and never realities. This, however, is a digression. The state of Avidya is that state in which the mental vibration is disturbed by that of Akasha, and some other Tattvas, which thus produce false appearances. The general appearance of Avidya is Akasha—darkness, and this is why Tamas is a synonym of this word.
This general prevalence of darkness is caused by some defect in individual minds, because, as we find from daily experience, a given object does not excite the same set of vibrations in all minds. What, then, is the mental defect? It is to be found in the nature of the stored-up potential energy of the mind. This storing up of potential energy is a problem of the deepest importance in philosophy, and one in which the doctrine of transmigration of souls finds its most intelligible explanation. This so-called law of Vasana may be enunciated as follows.
If anything be set in any particular kind of tattvic motion—internal or external—it acquires the capability, for a second" time, of being easily set into the same kind of motion and of consequently resisting a different kind. • If the thing be subjected to the same motion for some time, the motion becomes a necessary attribute of the thing. That motion becomes then, so to speak, "second nature."﻿ioo
nature's finer forces.
Thus, if a man accustoms his body to a particular form of exercise, certain muscles in his body are very easily set in motion. Any other form of exercise that requires the use of other muscles will be found fatiguing on account of the resistance set up by muscular habits. Similar is the case with the mind. If I have a deep-rooted conviction, as some have to this day, that the earth is flat and that the sun moves round it, it may require ages to alter my belief. A thousand examples might be cited of such phenomena. It is* however, only necessary in this place to state that the capacity of turning easily to one mental state and offering resistance to another is what I mean by this stored-up energy. It is called Vasana or Sanskara in Sanskrit.
The word Vasana comes from the root vas, "to dwell." It means the dwelling or fixing of some form of vibratory motion in the mind. It is by Vasana that certain truths become native to the mind, and, not only certain so-called truths, but all the so-called natural tendencies —moral, physical and spiritual—become in this way native to the mind. The only difference in different Vasanas is in their respective stability. Those Vasanas which are imprinted upon the mind as the result of the ordinary evolutionary course of nature never change. The products of independent human actions are of two kinds. If action result in tendencies that check the evolutionary progressive tide of nature, the effect of the action exhausts itself in time by the repellent force of the under-current of evolution. If, however,﻿The mind.
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the two coincide in direction, increased strength is the result. The latter kind of actions we call virtuous, the former vicious.
It is this Vasana, this temporary dominion of the opposite current, that causes false knowledge. Suppose the positive current has in any man the strength a; if it has presented to it a negative current of the same degree of strength the two will try to unite. An attraction will then be set up. If these two currents are not allowed to unite, they increase in strength, and react on the body itself to its injury; if allowed to unite, they exhaUst themselves. This exhaustion causes a relief to the mind, the progressive evolutionary current asserts itself with greater force, and thus a feeling of satisfaction is the result. This tattvic disturbance of the mind will, as long as it has sufficient strength, give its own colour to all percepts and concepts. They will not appear in their true light, but as causes of satisfaction. These causes of satisfaction we call by different names. Sometimes we call it a flower, at others we call it a moon. Such are the manifestations of Avidya. As Patanjali says, Avidya consists in the perception of the eternal, the pure, the pleasing and the spiritual in the non-eternal, the impure, the painful, and the non-spiritual. Such is the genesis of Avidya, which, as has been remarked, is a substantial reality, and not a mere negative conception.
This mental phenomenon causes the four following modifications.﻿102
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b.	Egoism (Asmitd).
Asmita (egoism) is. the conviction that real life (Purusha Svara) is one with its various mental and physiological modifications, that the higher self is one with the lower one, that the sum of our percepts and concepts is the real Ego, and that there is nothing beyond. In the present cycle of evolution and in the previous ones, the mind has chiefly been occupied with these percepts and concepts. The real power of life is never seen making any separate appearance, hence the feeling that the Ego must be the same with the mental phenomena. It is plain that Avidya, as defined above, lies at the root of this manifestation.
c.	Retention (Raga).
The misleading feeling of satisfaction above mentioned under Avidya is the cause of this condition. When any object repeatedly produces in our mind this feeling of satisfaction, our mind engenders the habit of falling again and again into the same state of tattvic vibration. The feeling of satisfaction and the picture of the object which seemed to cause that satisfaction tend to appear together, and this is a hankering after the object, a desire not to let it escape us—that is to say, Raga (pleasure).
We may here investigate more thoroughly the nature of this feeling of satisfaction and its opposite— pleasure and pain. The Sanskrit words for these two mental states are respectively Sukha and Duhkha. Both come from the root khan, "to dig"; the prefixes﻿THE MIND.	IO3
us and duh make the difference. The former prefix conveys the idea of "ease," and it derives this idea from the unrestrained easy flow of breath. The radical idea of Sukha is, therefore, unrestrained digging— digging where the soil offers but little resistance'. Transferred to the mind, that act becomes Sukha, that which makes upon it an easy impression. The act must, in the nature of its vibrations, coincide with the then prevailing conditions of the mental vibrations. Before any percepts or concepts had taken root in the mind, there was no desire, no pleasure. The genesis both of desire and what is called pleasure—that is, the sense of satisfaction caused by the impressions produced by external objects—begins with certain percepts and concepts, taking root in the mind. This taking root is really only an overclouding of the original set of impressions arising out of evolutionary mental progress. When contact with the external object for a moment removes that cloud from the clear horizon of the mind, the soul is conscious of a feeling of satisfaction, which, as I have shown, Avidya connects with the external object. This, as shown above, gives birth to desire.
d. Repulsion (Dvesha).
Similar is the genesis of pain and the desire to repel (Dvesha). The radical idea of Duhkha (pain) is the act of digging where a good deal of resistance is experienced. Transferred to the mind, it signifies an act which encounters resistance from the mind.﻿104	nature's finer forces.
The mind does not easily give place to these vibrations ; it tries to repel them with all its might. Thence arises a feeling of privation. It is as if something of its nature were being taken away, and an alien phenomenon introduced. This consciousness of privation, or want, is pain, and the repulsive power which these alien vibrations excite in the mind is known by the name of Dvesha (desire to repel). The word Dvesha comes from the root dvesh, which is a compound of du and ish; ish itself appears to be a compound root, i and s. The final s is connected with the root su, "to breathe," "to be in one's natural state." The root i means "to go," and the root ish, therefore, means "to go towards one's natural state." Transferred to the mind, the word becomes a synonym of Raga. The root du in Dvesha performs the same function as duh in Duhkha. Hence Dvesha comes to mean a "hankering after repulsion." Anger, jealousy, hatred, etc., are all modifications of this, as love, affection, and friendship are those of Raga. It is easy, by what has been said above, to follow up the genesis of the principle of "tenacity of life." I must now try to assign these actions to their prevailing Tattvas.
The general colour of Avidya is, as already said, that of Akasha, darkness. When, however, Avidya is manifested as anger, the Agni Tattva prevails. If this be accompanied by motion of the body Vayu is indicated. Stubbornness shows as Prithivi and tracta-bility as Apas, while the condition of fear and trembling finds expression in Akasha.﻿THE MIND*	105
The Akasha Tattva prevails also in love. Prithivi makes it abiding, Vayu changeable, Agni fretting, Apas lukewarm, Akasha blind and unreasoning.
Akasha tends to produce a hollow in the veins themselves, hence its prevalence in fear. Prithivi roots the timid man to the spot, Vayu lends him craven wings, Apas opens his ears to flattery, and Agni heats the blood for revenge.
3. Complex Imagination (Vikai,pa).
I turn now to Vikalpa. This is that knowledge which, though capable of being embodied in words, has no reality on the physical plane. The sounds of nature connected with its sight have given us names for percepts. With the additions or subtractions of the percepts we have also had additions and subtractions of the sounds connected therewith. The sounds constitute our words.
In Vikalpa two or more percepts are added together in such a way as to give birth to a concept having no corresponding reality on the physical plane. This is a necessary result of the universal law of Vasana. When the mind is habituated to the perception of more phenomena than one, all of them have a tendency to appear again; and whenever two or more such phenomena coincide in time, we have in our mind a picture of a third something. That something may or may not exist in the physical plane. If it does not, the phenomenon is Vikalpa. If, however, it does, we call it Sam&dhi.﻿106	nature's finer forces.
4. sl/eep (nidra).
This also is a phenomenon of the Manomaya Kosha (mind). Indian philosophers speak of three states in this connection—Waking, Dream, Sleep.
a. Waking.
. This is the ordinary state when the principle of life works in connection with the mind. The mind, then, through the action of the senses,' receives impressions of the external objects. The other faculties of the mind are purely mental, and they may work in the waking as in the dreaming state. The only difference is that in dreams the mind does not undergo the perceptive changes. How is this? These changes of state are always passive:, and the soul has no choice in being subjected to them. They come and go as a necessary result of the working of Svara in all its five modifications. As has been explained in the article on Prana, the different sensuous organs cease to respond to external tattvic changes when the positive current gains more than ordinary strength in the body. The positive force appears to us in the shape of heat, the negative in the shape of cold. I may, therefore, in future term these forces heat and cold.
.5. Dream.
The Upanishad says that in dreamless sleep the soul sleeps in the blood-vessels (Nadis), the pericardium (Puritat) and the hollow of the heart. Has the system of blood-vessels—the negative centre of Prana, anything to do with dream also? The state of﻿THE MIND.
dream, according to the Indian sage, is an intermediate one between waking and sleeping, and it is but reasonable to suppose that there must be something in this system which accounts for both these phenomena. What is that something? It is variously spoken of as the Pitta, the Agni, and the Sun. It is needless to say that these words are meant to denote one and the same thing. It is the effect produced on the body by the solar breath in general, and the Agni Tattva in particular. The word Pitta may mislead many, and it is, therefore, necessary to state that the word does not always mean "lull." There is one Pitta which Sanskrit physiology locates specially in the heart. This is called the Sadhaka Pitta. It is nothing more nor less than cardiac temperature, and it is with this that we have to do in sleep or dream.
According to the Indian philosopher, it is the cardiac temperature that causes the three states in varying degrees. This, and nothing more, is the meaning of the Vedic text, which says that the soul sleeps in the pericardium, etc. All the functions of life are carried on properly as long as we have a perfect balance of the positive and negative currents—heat and cold. The mean of the solar and lunar temperatures is the temperature at which the Prana keeps up its connection with the gross body. The mean is struck after an exposure of a whole day and night. Within this period the temperature is subjected to two general variations. The one is the extreme of the positive; the other the extreme of the negative.﻿io8	nature's finer forces.
When the positive reaches its daily extreme the actions of the sense organs are no longer synchronous with the modification of the external Tattvas.
It is a matter of daily experience that the sensuous organs respond to external tattvic vibrations within certain limits. If the limit is exceeded either way, the organs become insensible to these vibrations. There is, therefore, a certain degree of temperature at which the sensuous organs can ordinarily work, but when this limit is exceeded either way the organs become incapable of receiving any impression from without. During day the positive life current gathers strength in the heart. The ordinary physical mood is naturally altered by this gathering up of the force, and, as a result, the senses sleep. They receive no impression from without. This is sufficient to produce the dreaming state. As yet the chords of the gross body (Sthula Sharira) have alone slackened; the soul sees the mind 110 longer affected by external impressions. The mind is, however, habituated to various percepts and concepts, and by the mere force of habit passes into various states. The breath, as it differentiates into the five tattvic states, becomes the cause of the varying impressions coming up. The soul, as already said, plays no part in calling up these visions. It is by the working of a necessary law of life that the mind undergoes the various changes of the waking and the sleeping states. The soul does nothing in conjuring up the phantasms of a dream, otherwise it would be impossible to explain horrible﻿THE MIND.
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dreams. Why, indeed, if the soul is entirely free in dreaming, does it sometimes call into existence the hideous appearances which, with one terrible shock, seem to send our very blood back to our heart? No soul would ever act thus if it could help it.
The fact is that the impressions of a dream change with the Tattvas. As one Tattva easily glides into another, one thought gives place to another. The Akasha causes fear, shame, desire, anger; the Vayu takes us to different places, the Tejas shows us gold and silver, the Prithivi may bring us enjoyment, smiles, dalliance, and so on. And then we may have composite tattvic vibrations. We may see men and women, dances and battles, councils and popular gatherings; we may walk in gardens, smell the choicest flowers, see the most beautiful spots; we may shake hands with our friends, we may deliver speeches, or travel into distant lands. All these impressions are caused by the tattvic state of the mental coil, brought about either by (1) physical derangement, (2) ordinary tattvic changes, or (3) some other natural change of state.
As there are three different causes, there are three different kinds of dreams. The first cause is physical derangement. When the natural currents of Prana are disturbed so that disease results, or are about to be so disturbed, the mind in the ordinary way undergoes these tattvic changes. The sympathetic chords of the mind are excited, and we dream of all the disagreeable accompaniments of whatever disease may be in store for﻿iio	nature's finer forces.
us within our physical atmosphere. Such dreams are akin in their nature to the ravings of delirium; the only difference lying in strength and violence. When ill, we may in a similar way dream of health and its surroundings.
The second kind of dream is caused by ordinary tattvic changes. When the past, the present, and the future tattvic conditions of our surroundings are uniform in their nature, when there is no change, and when no change is in store for us, the stream of dreams is most calm and equable in its easy flow. As the atmospheric and the healthful physiological Tattvas glide smoothly one into the other, so do the impressions of our minds in this class of dreams. Ordinarily we cannot even remember these dreams, for in them there is nothing of special excitement to keep them in our memory.
The third kind of change is similar to the first, the difference lying only in the nature of the effects.' These we call the effects of disease or health, as the case may be; here we might group the results under the general names of prosperity or calamity.
The process of this sort of mental excitement is, however, the same in both. The currents of life pregnant with all sorts of good and evil, are sufficient in strength, while yet potential and only tending towards the actual, to set the sympathetic chords of the mind in vibration. The purer the mind, and the freer from dust of the world, the more- sensitive is it to the slightest and remotest tendency of Prltna towards some change. We consequently become conscious of coming events﻿the Mind.
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in dreams. This explains the nature of prophetic dreams. To weigh, however, the force of these dreams, to find out exactly what each dream means, is a most difficult, and, under ordinary circumstances, I may say, a quite impossible task. We may make ten thousand mistakes at every step, and we need nothing less than a perfect Yogi for the right understanding of even our own dreams, to say nothing of those of others. L,et us explain and illustrate the difficulties which surround us in the right understanding of our dreams. A man in the same quarter of the city in which I live, but unknown to me, is about to die. Pregnant with death, the tattvic currents of his body disturb the atmospheric Tattvas, and are through their instrumentality spread in various degrees of strength all over the world. They reach me too, and when I am sleeping excite the sympathetic chords of the mind. Now as there is no special room in my mind for that man, my impression will only be general. A human being, fair or ugly, thin or fat, male or female, lamented or not, and having other like qualities, will come into the mind as on his death-bed. But what man? The power of complex imagination, unless kept in check by the most rigorous exercise of Yoga, will have its play, and it is almost certain that a man who has previously been connected in my mind with all these tattvic qualities, will make his appearance in my consciousness. It is evident I shall be on the wrong track. That someone is dead or dying, we may be sure, but who or where it is impossible for ordinary men to discover. And not﻿112
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only does the manifestation of Vikalpa put us on the wrong track, all the manifestations of the mind do that. The state of Samadhi, which is nothing more than putting one's self into a state of the most perfect amenability to tattvic surroundings, is therefore impossible unless all the other manifestations are held in perfect check. "Yoga," says Patanjali, "is keeping in check the manifestations of the mind." But to resume.
c. Deep Sleep (Sushupti).
The dreaming state is maintained as long as the cardiac temperature is not strong enough to affect the mental coil. But with increasing positive strength that too must be affected. The Manas and the Prana are made of the same materials and are subject to the same laws. The more subtle, however, these materials are, the stronger must be the forces that produce similar changes. All the coils are tuned together, and changes in the one affect the other. The vibrations per second of the first one are, however, greater in number than those of the lower one, and this causes its subtlety. The higher are always affected through the immediately lower principles. Thus the external Tattvas will affect Pr&na directly, but the mind can only be affected through the Prana and indirectly. The cardiac temperature is only an indication of the degree of heat in Prana. When sufficient is gathered up there, the Prana having acquired sufficient strength, affects the mental coil. That too now passes out of tune with﻿THE MIND.	113
the soul. Moreover, the mental vibrations are at rest, for the mind can only work at a certain temperature, beyond which it must go to rest. In this state we have no more dreams. The only manifestation of the mind is that of rest. This is the state of dreamless sleep.
I pass on now to the fifth and last mental manifestation.
5. Retention, Memory (Smriti).
As Professor Max Miiller has remarked, the original idea of the root smri (from which Smriti) is "to make soft, to melt." The process of making soft or melting consists in the melting thing assuming a consistency nearer and nearer to the tattvic consistency of the melting force. All change of state is equivalent to the assumption by the thing changing of the state of Tattva which causes the change. Hence the secondary idea of the root, "to love." Love is that state of the mind in which it melts into the state of the object of love. This change is analogous to the chemical change that gives us a photograph on a sensitive plate. As in this phenomenon the materials on the sensitive plate are melted into the state of the reflected light, so the sensitive plate of the mind melts into the state of its percepts. The impression upon the mind is deeper, the greater the force of the imprinting rays and the greater the sympathy between the mind and the object perceived. This sympathy is created by stored-up
potential energy, and the perceptive rays themselves act
9﻿ii4
nature's finer forces. '
with greater force when the mind is in a sympathetic state.
Every percept takes root in the mind, as explained above. It is nothing more than a change of the tattvic state of the mind, and what is left behind is only a capacity for falling into the same state more easily again. The mind falls back into the same state when it is under the influence of the same tattvic surroundings. The presence of the same things calls back the same mental state.
The tattvic surroundings may be of two descriptions —astral and local. The astral influence is the effect upon the individual Prana of the then condition of the terrestrial Prana. . If this effect appears as the Agni. Tattva, those of our concepts which have a prominent connection with this Tattva will make their appearance in the mind. Some of these are a hankering after wealth, a desire of progeny, etc. If we have the Vayu Tattva, a desire to travel may take possession of our minds, and so on. A minute tattvic analysis of all our concepts is of the greatest interest; suffice it, however, to say here that the tattvic condition of Prana often calls up into the mind objects which have been in similar previous conditions the objects of perception. It is this power, as already shown,, that underlies dreams of one class. In the waking state, too, this phase of memory often acts as reminiscence.
Iyocal surroundings are constituted by those objects which the mind has been accustomed to perceive together with the immediate object of memory. This﻿THIS MIND.
"5
is the power of association. Both these phenomena constitute memory proper (Smriti). Here the object comes first into the mind, and afterwards the act and the surroundings of perception. Another very important kind of memory is what is called Buddhi, literary memory. This is the power by which we call to mind what we have learnt of scientific facts. The process of storing up these facts in the mind is the same, but the coming back into consciousness differs in this, that here the act comes into the mind first and then the object. All the five Tattvas and the foregoing mental phenomena may cause the phenomenon of memory. Literary memory has a good deal to do with Yoga, i.e., the exercise of free will to direct the energies of the mind into desirable channels. While those impressions which take root in the mind on account of natural surroundings make the mind the unwilling slave of the external world, Buddhi may lead it to bliss and freedom. But will these tattvic surroundings always bring related phenomena into consciousness? No; this depends upon their correlative strength. It is well known that when the vibrations per second of Akasha (sound) pass beyond a certain limit either way, they do not affect the tympanum. Similar is the case with the other Tattvas. It is, for example, only a certain number of vibrations per second of the Tejas Tattva which affects the eye, and similarly, mutatis mutandis, with the other senses. The same is the case with the mind. It is only when the mental and external tattvic tensions are equal that the mind begins﻿Il6	NATURE^ • ElNER FORCES.
to vibrate as it comes into contact with the external world. Just as the varying states of the external organs make us more or less sensitive to ordinary sensation, so different men might not hear the same sounds, might not see the same sights, the mental Tattvas might not be affected by percepts of different' strength, or might be affected in different degrees by percepts of the same strength. The question is, how is the variation of this mental tattvic strength produced? By exercise, and the absence of exercise. If we accustom the mind, just as we do the body, to any particular percept or concept, the mind turns easily to those percepts and concepts. If, however, we give up the exercise, the mind becomes stiff and ceases by degrees to respond to those percepts and concepts. This is the phenomenon of forgetting. Let a student whose literary exercise is just opening the buds of his mind, which is just gaining strength enough to see into the causes and effects of things, give up his exercise. His mind will begin to lose that nice perception. The stiffer the mind becomes the less will the causal relation affect him, and the less he will know of it, until at last he loses all his power.
Ceaseless influence and activity of one sort being impossible in the ordinary course of nature, every impression tends to pass away as soon as it is made. Its degree of stability depends upon the duration of the exercise.
But although activity of one sort is impracticable, activity of some sort is always present in the mind.﻿THE MIND.
II7
With every action the colour of the mind changes, and one colour may take so deep a root in the mind as to remain there for ages upon ages, to say nothing of minutes, hours, days, and years. Just as time takes ages to demolish the impressions of the physical plane, just as marks of incision upon the skin may not pass away in even two decades, so also it takes ages to demolish the impressions of the mind. Hundreds and thousands of years might thus be spent in Devachan in order to wear away those antagonistic impressions which the mind has contracted in earthly life. By antagonistic impressions, I mean those impressions which are not compatible with the state of Moksha, and have about them a tinge of earthly life.
With every moment the mind changes its colour, whether by increase or by diminution of vibration. These changes are temporary. But there is at the same time a permanent change going on in the colour of the mind. With every little act of our worldly experience, the evolutionary tide of progress is gaining strength, and passing into variety. The colour is constantly changing. But the same general colour is maintained imder ordinary circumstances, during one earthly life. Under extraordinary circumstances we may have men having two memories. Under such circumstances, as in the case of approaching death, the accumulated forces of a whole life combine into a different colour. The tension, so to speak, becomes different from what it was before. Nothing can put the mind into the same state again. This general﻿il8	nature's finer forces.
colour of the mind differing from that of other minds, and yet retaining its general character for a whole life, gives us the consciousness of personal identity. In every act which has been done, or which is, or may be done, the soul sees the same general colour, and hence the feeling of personal identity. In death the general colour changes, and although we have the same mind, we have a different consciousness. Hence 110 continuance of the feeling of personal identity is possible through death.
Such is a brief account of the Manomaya Kosha, the mental coil in the ordinary state. The influence of the higher principle (the Vijnanamaya Kosha) through the exercise of Yoga induces in the mind a number of other manifestations. Psychic manifestations show themselves in the mind and the Prana, in the same way as mental manifestations are seen influencing and regulating the latter.
The universe, as has been seen, has five planes of existence (which may also be divided into seven). The forms of the earth, which are little pictures of the universe, have also the same five planes. In some of these organisms the higher planes of existence are absolutely latent. In man, in the present age, the Vijnanamaya Kosha and the lower principles-make their appearance.
We have now had an insight into the nature of the macrocosmic Prana, and we have seen also that almost every point in this ocean of life represents a separate individual organism,﻿THE MIND.
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Similar is the case with the macrocosmic mind. Every Truti of that centre in the same way takes in the whole of the macrocosmic mind. From every point the tattvic rays of the mental ocean go to every point, and thus every point is a little picture of the universal mind. This is the individual mind.
The universal mind is the original of all the centres of Prana, in the same way as the solar Prana is the original of the species of earth-life. Individual mind, too, is similarly the original of all the individual manifestations of the Pranamaya Kosha. Similarly the soul, and on the highest plane, the individual spirit, is the perfect picture of all that comes below.
With the four higher planes of life there are four different states of consciousness, the waking, the dreaming, the sleeping and the Turiya.
With these remarks the following extract from the Prashnopanishad will be intelligible and instructive.
"Now Saury ayana Gargya.asked him, 'Sir, in this body, what sleeps, and what remains awakened? Which.of these luminous beings sees dreams? Who has this rest? In whom do all these [manifestations] rest in the potential unmanifested state?'
"He answered him, 'O Gargya, as the rays of the setting sun are all collected in the luminous sheath, and then again go out, as he rises again and again, so all that is collected in the luminous sheath of mind beyond. For this reason then, the man does not hear, does not see, does not smell, does not taste, does not touch, . . , does not take, does not cohabit, does﻿120
nature's finer forces.
not excrete, does not go. They say that he sleeps. The fires of the Prana alone remain awakened in this body. The Apana is the Garhapatya fire; the Vyana is the right hand fire. The Prana is the Ahavaniya fire, which is made by the Garhapatya. That which carries equally everywhere the oblations of food and air, is the Samana. The mind (Manas) is the sacri-ficer (Vajamana). The Udana is the fruit of the sacrifice. He carries the sacrificer every day to Brahma. Here this luminous being [the mind] enjoys great things in dreams. Whatever was seen, he sees again as if it were real; whatever was heard, he hears as if it were real; whatever was experienced in different countries, in different directions, he experiences the same again and again—the seen or the unseen, the heard or the unheard, thought or not thought upon. He sees all, appearing as the self of all manifestations.
"'When he is overpQwered by the Tejas, then this luminous being sees no dreams in this state; then there appears in the body this rest [the dreamless sleep].
" 'In this state, my dear pupil, all [that is enumerated below], stays in the ulterior Atma, like birds that resort to a tree for habitation—the Prithivi composite* and the Prithivi non-composite; the Apas composite and the Apas non-composite; the Tejas composite and the Tejas non-composite; the V&yu composite and the
* By composite I mean that Tattva which has come into existence after the division into five, noticed in the first essay. The non-composite means a Tattva before the division into five.﻿THE MIND.
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Vayu non-composite; the Akasha composite and the Akasha non-composite; the sight and the visible, the hearing and the audible, the smell and that which may be smelt, the taste and that which may be tasted, the touch and the tangible, the speech and the utter-able, the hands and whatever may be grasped, the generative organ and the enjoyable, the excretive organ and the excrements, the feet and that which may be gone over, the faculty and the object of doubt, the faculty and the object of ascertainment, the faculty and the object of egoism, the faculty and the object of memory, the light and that which may be enlightened, the Pr&na and that which it keeps together.
" 'The soul is the Vijnana Atmd, the seer, the toucher, the hearer, the smeller, the taster, the doubter, the ascertainer, the agent. This soul [the Vijnana Atma] stays in the ulterior, unchangeable Atma [the Ananda].
" 'So there are four Atmas—the life, the mind, the soul, the spirit. The ultimate force which lies at the root of macrocosmic power of the manifestations of soul, mind, and the life-principle, is the spirit.'"
The principal interest of this quotation lies in presenting in authoritative fashion the views which have already been propounded. The next essay touches upon some important truths and explains one of the most important functions of the macrocosmic power and mind, viz., that of recording human actions.﻿VI.
THE COSMIC PICTURE-GALLERY.
We are directed by our Guru in the philosophy oi the Tattvas to look into vacant space toward the sky when the horizon is perfectly clear, and fix the attention there with the utmost possible strength.
We are told that after sufficient practice we shall see there a variety of pictures—the most beautiful landscapes, the most gorgeous palaces of the world and men, women and children in all the varying aspects of life. How is such a thing possible? What do we learn by this practical lesson in the science of attention?
I think I have described in the essays with sufficient explicitness the ocean of Prana with the sun for its centre, and have given a hint sufficiently suggestive of the nature of the macrocosmic mental and psychic atmospheres. It is of the essential nature of these atmospheres that every point therein forms a centre of action and reaction for the whole ocean. From what has been said already, it will be plain that each of these atmospheres has a limit of its own. The terrestrial atmosphere extends only to a few miles, and the external boundary line of this sphere must, it will﻿THE COSMIC PICTURE-GALLERY.	123
be readily understood, give it the appearance of an orange, just like tliat of the earth. The case is the same with the solar Prana, and the higher atmospheres. To begin with the terrestrial Prana, which has the measured limits of our atmosphere, every little atom of our earth, and of the most perfect organism, as well as the most imperfect, makes a centre of action and reaction for the tattvic currents of terrestrial Prana. The Prana has the capability of being thrown into the shape of every organism, or, to use a different expression, the rays of Prana, as they fall upon every organism are returned from that organism according to the well-known laws of reflection. These rays, as is again well known, carry within themselves the pictures of the objects upon which they may have fallen. Bearing these within them, they go up to the limit of the terrestrial Prana noted above. It will be easy to conceive that within the imaginary sphere which surrounds our terrestrial Prana, we have now a magnified picture of our central organism. Not one organism only, but all the smallest points; the most imperfect beginnings of organized life, as well as the most perfect organisms—all are pictured in this imaginary sphere. It is a magnificent picture-gallery, all that is seen or heard, touched, tasted, or smelt on the face of this earth has a glorious and magnified picture there. At the limit of this terrestrial Prana, the picture-forming tattvic rays exercise a double function.
First they throw the sympathetic tattvic chords of the solar Prana into similar motion. That is to say,﻿124	nature's finer forces.
these pictures are now consigned to the solar Prana, whence in due course they reach step by step to the universal intelligence itself.
Secondly, these rays react upon themselves, and turning from the limiting sphere, are again reflected back to the centre.
It is these pictures which the attentive mind sees in its noonday gaze into vacancy, and it is these pictures, seen in this mysterious way, which give us the finest food for our imagination and intellect, and supply us with a far-reaching clue to the nature and working of the laws which govern the life of the macrocosm and the microcosm. For these pictures tell us that the smallest of our actions, on whatever plane of our existence, actions which may be so insignificant as to pass unnoticed even by ourselves, are destined to receive an everlasting record, as the effect of the past and the cause of the future. These pictures, again, tell us of the existence of the five universal Tattvas, which play so important a part in the universe. It is these pictures which lead us to the discovery of the manifold constitution of man and the universe, and of those powers of the mind which have not yet received recognition at the hands of the official science of the day.
That these truths have found place in the Upani-shads may be seen from the following quotation from the Ishopaiiishad (Mantra 4):
"The Atma does not move; is one; is swifter than the mind; the senses reach it not; as it is the foremost in motion. It goes beyond the others in rapid motion﻿.THE COSMIC PICTURE-GALLERY.	125
while itself at rest, in it the Recorder preserves the actions."
In the above quotation it is the word Matarishva that I translate " Recorder." Ordinarily the word is translated as "air," and so far as I know, the word has never been understood clearly in the sense of the "Recorder." My view, therefore, may be further explained with advantage.
The word is a compound of the words matari and svah. The word matari is the locative case of matri which ordinarily means "mother," but which is here rendered as space, as the substratum of distance, from the root ma, to measure. The second word of the compound means ''the breather," coming as it does from the root svak, to breathe. Hence the compound means "he who breathes in space." In explaining this word the commentator Shankaracharya goes on to say:
"The word 'Matarishva,' which has been derived as above, means the Vayu [the mover] which carries in it all the manifestations of Prana, which is action itself. This Prana is the substratum of all the groups of causes and effects, and in it all the causes and effects are held like beads on a thread, hence it is given the name of Sutra [the thread] inasmuch as it holds in itself the whole of the world."
It is further said that the "actions" which this Matarishva holds in itself, in the above quotation, are all the movements of the individualized Pr&na, as well as are the actions of heating, lighting, burning, etc., of the macrocosmic powers known as Agni, etc.﻿126
nature's finer forces.
Now such a thing can by no means be the atmospheric air. It is evidently that phase of Prana which carries the pictures of all actions and -all motions from every point of space to every other point, and to the limits of the Surya-mandala. This phase of Prana is nothing more nor less than the Recorder. It holds in itself for ever and ever all the causes and effects, the antecedents and consequents of this world of ours.
It is action itself. This means that all action is a change of phase of Prana.
It is said in the above quotation that this Recorder lives in the Atma. Inasmuch as the Atma exists, this power always performs its function. The Prana draws its life itself from the Atma, and we accordingly find a similarity between the qualities of the two. It is said of the Atma in the above extract that it does not move, and yet it moves faster than the mind. These appear to be contradictory qualities at the first sight, and it is such qualities which make the ordinary God of common-place theologians the absurd being he always looks. Let us, however, apply these qualities to Pr&na, and once understood on this plane, they will be quite as clearly understood on the highest plane, the Atma. It has been said more than once that from every point of the ocean of Prana the tattvic rays fly in every direction, to every point within the Surya-mandala. Thus the ocean of Prana is in eternal motion. For all this, however, does one point of this ocean ever change its place? Of course not.﻿THE COSMIC PICTURE-GALLERY.	127
Thus while every point keeps its place, every point at the same time goes and shows itself in every other point.
It is in the same simple way that the all-pervading Atma is in eternal motion and yet always at rest.
Similar is the case with all the planes of life, all our actions, all our thoughts, all our aspirations, receive an everlasting record in the books of Matarisliva.
I must now notice these pictures a little more in detail. The science of photography tells us that under certain conditions the visual pictures can be caught on the plane of the sensitive film. But how can we account for the reading of letters at a distance of thirty miles or more? Such phenomena are to me a matter of personal experience. Very lately, while sitting abstracted, or it may be in a kind of dream, about four o'clock in the morning, I read a post-card written by a friend to a friend about me, the very same night, at a distance of almost thirty miles. One thing more must, I think, be noticed here. Almost half the card spoke about me, the rest referred to other matters which might have "merely a passing interest for me. Now the rest of the card did not come before my mind's eye very clearly, and I felt that with all my effort I could not keep my eye upon those lines for a sufficiently long time to understand them, but was irresistibly drawn towards the paragraph which spoke of me, and which I could read very clearly. Four days after this the addressee of the card showed it to me; it was exactly the same, sentence by sentence (so far as I﻿128
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could remember), as I had seen before. I mention this phenomenon in particular, as in it the various requisites for the production of these phenomena are clearly defined. We adduce from an analysis of this incident the following points:
1.	The writer , of the card meant when he was writing that I should read the card, and especially the paragraph which concerned me.
2.	I was very anxious to know the news about me which that card contained.
3.	Of the frame of mind mentioned above in which my friend wrote the card, what was the result? The picture of his thoughts on the card, both 011 the physical and mental plane, flew in every direction along the tattvic rays of the macrocosmic Prana and mind. A picture was immediately made on the macrocosmic spheres, and from thence it bent its rays towards the destination of the post-card. No doubt all minds in the whole earth received a shock of this current of thought at the same time. But my mind alone was sensitive to the card and the news it contained. It was, therefore, on my mind alone that any impression was made. The rays were, as it were, refracted into my mind, and the result described above followed.
It follows from this illustration that in order to receive the pictorial rays of the Prana we must have a mind in a state of sympathy, and not of antipathy; that is to say, a mind free from all action or intense feeling for the time being is the fitting receptacle for the pictorial representations of the cosmos, and so for﻿THE COSMIC PICTURE-GALLERY.	129
a correct knowledge of the past and the future. And if we have an intense desire to know the thing, so much the better for us. It is in this way that the spiritual occultist reads the records of the past in the book of nature, and it is on this road that the beginner in this science must walk according to the direction of his Guru.
To return to our explanations. It must be understood that everything in every aspect that has been, or is in being on our planet has a legible record in the book of nature, and the tattvic rays of the Prana and the mind are constantly bringing the outlines of these pictures back to us. It is to a great extent due to this that the past never leaves us, but always lives within us, although many of its most magnificent monuments have been for ever effaced from the surface of our planet for the ordinary gaze. These returning rays are always inclined towards the centre which originally gave them birth. In the case of the mineral surroundings of terrestrial phenomena these centres are preserved intact for ages upon ages, and it is quite possible for any sensitive mind, at any time, to turn these rays towards itself by coming into contact with any material remains of historic phenomena. A stone unearthed at Pompeii is pictured as part of the great event which destroyed the city, and the rays of that picture are naturally inclined towards that piece of stone. If Mrs. Denton puts the stone to her forehead, a sympathetic and receptive condition is the only prerequisite for the transference of the whole picture to﻿130	NATURE'S FiNER FORCES.
her mind. This sympathetic state of mind may be natural to a person, or it may be acquired, but as regards the term "natural" it may be mentioned that what we are in the habit of calling natural powers are really acquired, but they have been acquired in previous incarnations. Says Shiva:
"There are some to whom Tattvas become known, when the mind is purified by habituation, either by the acquired rapidity of other births or by the kindness of the Guru.'^
It seems that two pieces of granite, the same to all intents and purposes externally, may have an entirely different tattvic colour, for the colour of a thing depends to a very great extent upon its tattvic surroundings. It is this occult colour which constitutes the real soul of things, although the reader must by this time know that the Sanskrit word Prana is more appropriate.
It is no myth to say that the practised Yogi may with a single effort of his will bring the picture of any part of the world, past or present, before his mind's eye —and not only visual pictures, as our illustration might lead the reader to think. The preservation and formation of visual pictures is only the work of the lumini-ferous ether—the Tejas Tattva. The other Tattvas perform their functions as well. The Akasha or sono-riferous ether preserves all the sounds that have ever been heard or are being heard on earth, and similarly do the three others preserve the records of the remaining sensations respectively. We see, therefore, that﻿THE COSMIC PICTURE-GALLERY.	131
combining all these pictures, a Yogi in contemplation may have before his mind's eye any man at any distance whatsoever and may hear his voice also. Glyndon, in Italy, seeing and hearing the conversation of Viola and Zanoni in their distant home, is therefore not merely a dream of the poet, but a scientific reality. The only thing necessary is to have a sympathetic mind. The phenomena of mental telegraphy, psychometry, clairvoyance, clairaudience, are all phases of this tattvic action. Once understood it is all a very simple affair. It may be useful in this place to offer some reflections as to how these pictorial representations of a man's present go to shape his future. I shall first attempt to show how complete the record is. I may at the outset remind the reader of what was said above about the tattvic colour of everything. It is this which gives individuality even to a piece of stone.
This pictorial whole is only the cosmic counterpart of the individual Pranamaya Kosha or the coil of life. It is possible that anyone who may not have thoroughly understood the manner of the storing up of tattvic energy in the individual Prana, may more easily comprehend the phenomena in its cosmic counterpart. In fact, the macrocosmic and microcosmic phenomena are both links of the same chain, and both will conduce to the thorough understanding of the whole. Suppose a man stands on a mountain, with the finest prospect of nature stretched out before his eyes. As he stands there contemplating this wealth of beauty, his picture﻿132
nature's finer forces.
in this posture is at once made in the ecliptic. Not only is his external appearance pictured, but the hue of his life receives the fullest representation. If the Agni Tattva prevails in him at that moment, if there is the light of satisfaction in his face, if the look in his eyes is calm, Collected, and pleasant, if he is so much absorbed in the gaze as to forget everything else, Tattvas separate or in composition will do their duty, and all the satisfaction, calmness, pleasure, attention or inattention will, to the finest possible shade, be represented in the sphere of the ecliptic. If he walks or runs, comes down or goes up, the tattvic rays of Praua with the utmost faithfulness picture the generating and the generated colours in the same retentive sphere.
A man stands with a weapon in his hand, with the look of cruelty in liis eyes, with the glow of inhumanity in his veins, his victim, man or animal, helpless or struggling before him. The whole phenomenon is instantaneously recorded. There stands the murderer and the victim in their truest possible colours, there is the solitary room or jungle, the dirty shed or the filthy slaughter-house; all are there as surely and certainly as they are in the eye of the murderer or the victim himself.
L,et us again change the scene. We have a liar before us. He tells a lie, and thereby injures some brother mail. No sooner is the word uttered than the Akasha sets to work with all possible activity. There we have the most faithful representation. The liar is﻿the cosmic picture-gallery.	133
there from the reflection which the thought of the injured person throws into the individual Praua; there is the injured man also. The words are there with all the energy of the contemplated wrong. And if that contemplated wrong is completed, there is also the change for worse which his mendacity has produced in the victim. There is nothing in fact of the surroundings, the antecedents and the consequent postures— the causes and effects—which is not there represented.
The scene changes, and we come to a thief. Let the night be as dark as it may, let the thief be as circumspect and wary as he can, our picture is there with all its colours well defined, though not perhaps so prominent. The time, the house, the wall with a hole, the sleeping and injured inmates, the stolen property, the subsequent day, the sorrowful householders, with all the antecedent and consequent situations, aire pictured. And this is not only for the murderer, the thief, the liar, but for the adulterer, the forger, the villain who thinks his crime hidden from every human eye. Their deeds, like all deeds that have ever been done, are vividly, clearly, exactly recorded in Nature's picture-gallery. Instances might be multiplied, for the phenomena of our social life are various and complicated. But it is unnecessary. What has been said is sufficient to explain the principle, and the application is useful and not very difficult. But we must now bring our pictures back from our gallery.
We have seen that time and space and all the possible factors of a phenomenon receive there an﻿134
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accurate representation, and, as I said before, these tattvic rays are united to the time that saw them leaving their record on the plane of our pictorial region. When, in the course of ages, the same time throws its shade again upon the earth, the pictorial rays, stored up long since, energize man-producing matter, and shape it according to their own potential energy, which now begins to become active. It will be readily conceded that the sun gives life to the earth —to men as well as to vegetables and minerals. Solar life takes human shape in the womb of the mother, and this is only an infusion of some one set of our pictorial rays into the sympathetic life, which already shows itself on our planet. These rays thus produce for themselves a human gross body in the womb of the mother, and then having the now somewhat different and differing maternal body, start on their terrestrial journey. As time advances, the pictorial representation changes its tattvic postures, and with it the gross body does the same.
In the case of the re-birth of the man we saw gazing on the mountains, the calm, watchful, contented attitude of the mind which he cultivated then has its influence upon the organism now, once more the man enjoys the beauty of nature and so is pleased and happy.
But now take the case of the cruel murderer. He is by nature cruel, he still yearns to murder and destroy, and he could not be restrained from his horrible practices, but that the picture of the ebbing life of﻿THE COSMIC PICTURE-GALLERY.	135
the victim is now part and parcel of his constitution; the pain, the terror, and the feeling of despair and helplessness are there in all their strength. Occasionally he feels as if the blood of life were leaving his very veins. There is no apparent cause, and yet he suffers pain; he is subject to unaccountable fits of terror, despair and helplessness. His life is miserable; slowly but surely it wanes away.
Let the curtain fall on this scene. The incarnated thief now comes on the stage. His friends leave him one by one or he is driven away from them. The picture of the lonely house must assert its power over him. He is doomed to a lonely house. The picture of somebody coming into the house through some unfrequented part, stealing some of his property, perhaps strangling him, makes its appearance with the fullest strength. The man is doomed to eternal cowardice. He draws towards himself irresistibly the men who will cause him the same grief and heartrending he long ago caused to others. This posture of heartrending grief has its influence upon him in the ordinary way, and it creates its surroundings under the same influence.
Take, too, the case of the adulterer. As he walks upon the earth, he is attracted towards as many of the other sex as he has guiltily loved before. He loves one, and his love might meet with a favourable response, but very soon a second, a third, and a fourth picture make their appearance, which are, as a matter of course, antagonistic to the first and repel it. The pledges of﻿136
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love are quite unaccountably broken, and the heartrending pain that is caused may well be imagined.' All the -jealousy and all the complicated quarrels of lovers might with ease be traced to causes such as these.
And those who have sinned by selling their love for gold long ago will now love and will in return be looked down upon with contempt for their poverty. What can be more miserable than to be denied even the luxury of love through very poverty?
These illustrations are, I believe, sufficient to explain the law according to which these cosmic pictures govern our future lives. Whatever other sins may be committed under the innumerable varying circumstances of life, their tattvic effects can easily be traced through the pictorial representations of the cosmos-.
It is not difficult to understand that the picture of each individual organism in Prana, although ever changing with the varying postures of the object, remains the same in substance. Every object exists in its form of Prana until, in the course of evolution, Pr&na itself merges into the higher atmosphere of Manas.
Every genus and every species of living organism upon the face of the earth is pictured in Prana, and it is these pictures which on the highest plane of existence correspond in my opinion to the ideas of Plato. A very interesting question arises at this point. Are these pictures of eternal existence, or do they only come into existence after formations have taken place on the﻿the cosmic picture-gaixery. 137
terrestrial plane? Ex nihilo nihil fit is a well-known doctrine of philosophy, and I hold with Vyasa that the representations (what we now call pictures) of all objects in their generic, specific, and individual capacities have ever been existing in the universal mind. Svara, or what may be called the Breath of God, the Breath of I^ife, is nothing more nor less, as has already been explained, than abstract intelligence, or if such an expression be better understood, intelligent motion. Our book says:
"In the Svara are pictured, or represented, the Vedas and the Shastras, in the Svara the highest Gandharvas, and in the Svara all the three worlds; the Svara is Atina itself."
It is not necessary to enter more thoroughly into a discussion of this problem; the suggestion is sufficient. It may, however, be said that all formation in progress on the face of our planet is the assuming by everything under the influence of solar ideas of the shape of these ideas. The process is precisely similar to the process of wet earth taking impressions of anything that is pressed upon it. The idea of anything is its soul.
Human souls (Pranamaya Koshas) exist in this sphere just like the souls of other things, and are affected in that home of theirs by terrestrial experience in the manner above mentioned.
■ In the course of ages, these ideas make their appearance in the physical plane again and again, according to laws previously hinted at.﻿138	nature's finer forces.
I have also said that these pictures have their counterparts in the mental and the higher atmospheres. Now it might be said that just as these solar pictures recur again and again, there are times at which these mental pictures also recur. The ordinary deaths known to us are terrestrial deaths. That is to say they consist in the withdrawal of the influence of the solar pictures for a time from the earth. When that time has expired, the duration depending upon the colours of the picture, they throw their influence again upon the earth, and we have terrestrial re-birth. We may die any number of terrestrial deaths, and yet our solar life may not be extinct.
But men of the present Manvantara may die solar deaths under certain circumstances. Then they pass out of the influence of the sun, and are born again only in the reign of the second Manu. Men who now die solar deaths will remain in a state of bliss all through the present Manvantara. Their re-birth may also be delayed for more than one Manvantara. All these pictures remain in the bosom of Manu during the Manvantaric Pralaya. In the same way men may undergo higher deaths, and pass their time in a state of even higher and more enduring bliss. The mental coil may be broken, too, just as the gross, the terrestrial, and the solar may be, and then the blessed soul remains in bliss and unborn until the dawn of the second Day of Brahma. Higher still and longer is the state which follows Brahmic death. Then the spirit is at rest for the remaining Kalpa and the Mahapralaya﻿the cosmic picture-gallery. 139
that follows. After this it will be easy to understand the meaning of the Hindu doctrine, that during the Night of Brahma, as, indeed, during all the minor Nights, the human soul, and, in fact, the whole of the universe, is hidden in the bosom of Brahma like the tree in the seed.﻿VII.
THE MANIFESTATIONS OF PSYCHIC FORCE.
Psychic force is the form of matter known as Vijnana in active connection with the mental and life-matters. In the quotation given above from the I shop anishad, it has been said that the Devas—the macrocosmic and microcosmic manifestations of Prana—do not reach the Atma, inasmuch as it moves faster than even the mind. The Tattvas of Prana move with a certain momentum. The mind has greater velocity, and psychic matter greater still. In the presence of the higher, the lower plane always appears to be at rest, and is always amenable to its influence. Creation is a manifestation of the psychic force on the lower planes of existence. The first process is, of course, the appearance of the various macrocosmic spheres with their various centres. In each of these spheres—the Prana, the Manas, and the Vijnana—the universal tattvic rays on their own planes give birth to innumerable individualities. Bach Truti on the plane of Prana is a life-coil (Pranamaya Kosha). The rays which give existence to each of these Trutis come from each and all of the other Trutis, which are situated in﻿THE MANIFESTATIONS OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 141
the space allotted to each of the five Tattvas and their innumerable admixtures, and which represent therefore all the possible tattvic manifestations of life.
On the plane of Manas each mental Truti represents an individual mind. Each individual mind is given birth to by mental tattvic rays from the other quarters. These rays come from all the other Trutis situated under the dominion of each of the five Tattvas and their innumerable admixtures; representing therefore all the possible tattvic phases of mental life.
On the psychic plane, each Truti represents an individual soul brought into existence by the psychic Tattvas flying from every point to every other point. These rays come from every Truti situated under the dominion of each of the five Tattvas and their innumerable admixtures; thus representing all the possible manifestations of psychic life.
The latter class of Trutis on the various planes of existence are the so-called gods and goddesses. The former class are coils which manifest themselves in earth life.
Each psychic Truti is thus a little reservoir of every possible tattvic phase of life which may manifest itself on the lower planes of existence. And so, sending its rays downwards just like the sun, these Trutis manifest themselves in the Trutis of the lower planes. According to the prevalent phase of tattvic colour in these three sets of Trutis, the Vijnana (psychic Truti) selects its mind, the mind selects its coil, and in the end the life-coil creates its habitation on earth.﻿142
nature's finer forces.
The first function of the individual Truti, Vijnana, is to sustain the life of the mental Truti just as the macrocosmic Vij nana sustains the life of the macro-cosmic mind. And so also does the mental Truti sustain the life of the individual Truti of Prana. In this state the souls are only conscious of their subjectivity "with reference to the mind and the Prana. They know that they sustain the lower Trutis, they know themselves, they know all the other psychic Trutis, they know the whole of the macrocosm of Ishvara, the tattvic rays reflecting every point into their individual consciousness. They are omniscient; they are perfectly happy because they are perfectly balanced.
When the Pranamaya Kosha enters the habitation of earth, the soul is for the first time assailed by fini-tude. This means a curtailment, or rather the creation of a new curtailed consciousness. For long ages the soul takes no note of these finite sensations, but as the impressions gain greater and greater strength they are deluded into a belief of identity with these finite impressions. From absolute subjectivity consciousness is transferred to relative passivity. A new world of appearances is created. This is their fall. How these sensations and perceptions, etc., are born, and how they affect the soul, has been already discussed. How the soul is awakened out of this forgetfulness and what it does then to liberate itself will come further on.
It will be seen at this stage that the soul lives two lives, an active and a passive. In the active capacity﻿THE MANIFESTATIONS OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 143
it goes on governing and sustaining the substantial life of the lower Trutis. In the passive capacity it forgets itself, and deludes itself into identity with the changes of the lower Trutis imprinted upon them by the external Tattvas. The consciousness is transferred to finite phases.
The whole fight of the soul upon reawakening consists in the attempt to do away with its passive capacity and regain its pristine purity. This fight is Yoga, and the powers which Yoga evokes in the mind and the Prana are nothing more than tattvic manifestations of the psychic force, calculated to destroy the power of the external world on the soul. This constant change of phase in the new unreal finite coils of existence is the upward march of the life-current from the beginnings of relative consciousness to the original absolute state.
There is no difficulty in understanding the how of these manifestations. They are there in the psychic reservoir, they simply show themselves when the lower Trutis assume the state of sympathetic polish and tattvic inclination. Thus the spectrum only shows itself when certain objects assume the polish and form of a prism.
Ordinarily the psychic force does not manifest itself either in the Prana or the mind in any uncommon phase. Humanity progresses as a whole, and whatever manifestations of this force take place, they take in races as a whole. Finite minds are therefore slow to recognize it.﻿144
nature's finer forces.
But all the individuals of a race have not the same strength of tattvic phase. Some show greater sympathy with the psychic force in one or more of its component tattvic phases. Such organisms are called mediums. In them the particular tattvic phase of psychic force with which they are in greater sympathy than the rest of their kind, makes its uncommon appearance. This difference of individual sympathy is caused by a difference of degree in the commissions and omissions of different individuals, or by the practice of Yoga.
This psychic force may in this way manifest itself in the shape of all the innumerable possibilities of tattvic combination. Therefore, so far as theory is concerned, these manifestations may cover the whole domain of tattvic manifestations in the visible and also in the invisible macrocosm, which latter, however, we know not. These manifestations may violate all our present notions of time and space, cause and effect, force and matter. Intelligently utilized, this force might very well perform the functions of the vril of The Coming Race. The following essay will trace some of these manifestations on the plane of the mind.﻿VIII.
YOGA—THE SOUL.
I HAVE now described more or less perfectly two principles of the human constitution—Prana and Manas. Something has also been said about the nature and relations of the soul. The gross body was omitted as needing no special handling.
The five manifestations of each of the two principles —the Prana and the Manas—it may be mentioned, may be either fortunate or unfortunate. Those manifestations are fortunate which are consonant with our true culture, which lead us to our highest spiritual development, the summum bonum of humanity. Those that keep us chained to the sphere of recurring births and deaths may be called unfortunate. On each of the two planes of life—Prana and Manas—there is a possibility of double existence. We may have, and, in fact, in the present conditions of the universe we have, a fortunate and an unfortunate Prana, a happy and an unhappy mind. Considering these two to be four, the number of the principles of the human constitution may be raised from five to seven. The unhappy intelligences of the one plane ally themselves with﻿146
nature's finer forces.
the unhappy ones of the other, the happy ones with the happy, and we have in the human constitution an arrangement of principles something like the following:
1.	The gross body (Sthula Sharira).
2.	( The unhappy Prana.
3.	( The unhappy Mind.
4.	j The happy Prana.
5.	( The happy Mind.
6.	The soul (Vijnana).
7.	The spirit (Ananda).
The fundamentum dimsionis in the fivefold division is the Upadhi, the particular and distinct state of matter (Prakriti) in each case; in the sevenfold division it is the nature of Karma with reference to its effect upon human evolution.
Both the sets of these powers—the blessed and the unhappy—work upon the same plane, and although the blessed manifestations tend in the long run towards the state of Moksha, that state is not reached until the higher powers—the Siddhis—are induced in the mind by the exercise of Yoga. Yoga is a power of the soul. It is, therefore, necessary to say something about the soul and Yoga, before the higher powers of the mind can be intelligibly described. Yoga is the science of human culture in the highest sense of the word. Its purpose is the purification and strengthening of the mind. By its exercise the mind is filled with high aspirations, and acquires divine powers, while the unhappy tendencies die out. The second and third﻿YOGA—THE SOUL.
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principles of this essay are burnt up by the fire of divine knowledge, and the state of what is called salvation in life is attained. By and by the fourth principle, too, becomes neutral, and the soul passes into a state of Manvantaric Moksha. Higher still the soul may pass, according to the strength of her exercise. When the mind, too, is at rest, as in sound sleep (Sushupti), during life, the omniscience of the Vijnana is reached. There is a state higher still—the state of Ananda. Such are the results of Yoga; I must now describe the nature of the thing and the process of acquirement.
So far as the nature of Yoga is concerned I may say that mankind has reached its present state of development by the exercise of this great power. Nature herself is a great Yogi, and humanity has been, and is being, purified into perfection by the exercise of her sleepless will. Man need only imitate the great teacher to shorten for his individual self the road to perfection. How are we to render ourselves fit for that great imitation ? What are the steps on the great ladder of perfection? These things have been discovered for us by the great sages of yore, and Patanjali's little book is only a short and suggestive transcript of so much of our past experiences and future potentialities as is recorded in the book of nature. This little book uses the word Yoga in a double signification. The first is a state of the mind otherwise called Sam&dhi; the second is a set of acts and observances which induce that state in the mind. The definition﻿148	nature's Finer forces.
given by the sage is a negative one, and is only applicable on the plane of the mind. The source of the positive power lies in the higher principle, the soul. Yoga, it is said, is the keeping in check of the (five) manifestations of the mind. In the very wording of the definition is involved the supposition of the existence of a power which can control and keep in check the mental manifestations. This power is otherwise familiar to us as freedom of the will. Although by the manifestations of egoism (Asmita).on the mental plane the soul is deluded into regarding herself as a slave of the second and third principles, the fact is not such, and as soon as the chord of egoism is slackened to a certain extent, the awakening takes place. This is the first step in the initiation by nature herself of the race of man. It is a matter of necessity. The working side by side with each other of the second and third, and the fourth and fifth principles, weakens the hold of natural mental Asmita upon the soul. "I am these, or of these mental manifestations," says egoism. Such a state of things cannot, however, last long. These manifestations are double in their nature; the one is just the reverse of the other. Which of them is one with the Ego—the unhappy or the blessed? No sooner is this question asked than the awakening takes place. It is impossible to answer any of these questions in the affirmative, and the soul naturally ends in discovering that she is a separate thing from the mind, that though she has been the slave, she might be (what she naturally is) the Iyord of the mind. Up to this time the﻿YOGA—THE SOUL.
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soul has been tossed this way or that,- in obedience to the tattvic vibrations of the mind. Her blind sympathy with the mental manifestations gives her unison with the mind, and hence the tossing. By the waking above noticed, the chord of sympathy is loosened. The stronger the nature, the greater the departure from unison. Instead of the soul being tossed by the mental vibrations, it is now time that the mind should vibrate in obedience to the vibrations of the soul. This assumption of lordship is the freedom of the will, and this obedience of the mind to the vibrations of the soul is Yoga. The manifestations evoked in the mind by the external Tattvas must now give way to the stronger motion coming from the soul. By and by the mental colours change their very nature, and the mind comes to coincide with the soul. In other words, the individual mental principle is neutralized, and the soul is free in her omniscience.
Let us now trace step by step up to Samadhi the acquirements of the mind.
Samadhi, or the mental state induced by the practice of Yoga, is of two descriptions. As long as the mind is not perfectly absorbed in the soul the state is called Samprajnata. It is that state in which the discovery of new truths in every department of nature follows labour. The second is the state of perfect mental absorption. It is called Asampraj iiata. In this there is no knowing, no discovering of unknown things. It is a state of intuitive omniscience. Two questions are naturally suggested at the awakening﻿nature's finer forces.
stage. "If I am these manifestations, which of them am I? I think I am none of them. What am I then? What are these?" The second question is solved in the Samprajiiata Samadhi, the first in the other. Before entering farther into the nature of SamMhi a word about habituation and apathy. These two are mentioned by Patanjali as the two means of checking mental manifestations, and it is very important to understand them thoroughly. The manifestation of apathy is the reflection in the mind of the colour of the soul when she becomes aware of her free nature and is disgusted consequently at the sway of the passions. It is a necessary consequence of the awakening. Habituation is the repetition of the state so as to confirm it in the mind.
The confirmation of the mind in this state means a state of ordinary mental inactivity. By this I mean that the five ordinary manifestations are for the time being at rest. This being so, the mind is for the time left free to receive any influences. Here for the first time we see the influence of the soul in the shape of curiosity (Vitarka). What is this? What is that? How is this? How is that? This is the form in which curiosity shows itself in the mind. Curiosity is a desire to know, and a question is an expression of such a desire. But how does man become familiar with questions? The mental shape of curiosity and question will be easily understood by paying a little attention to the remarks I have made on the genesis of desire. The process of the birth of philosophical﻿YOGA—THE SOUL.	151
curiosity is similar to that of the birth of desire. In the latter the impulse comes from the external world through Prana; in the former directly from the soul. The place of pleasure in this is supplied by the reflection into the mind of the knowledge of the soul that Self and independence are better than the bondage of Non-Self. The strength of the philosophical curiosity depends upon the strength of this reflection, and as this reflection is rather faint in the beginning (as in the present state of the spiritual development of humanity it generally is), the hold of philosophical curiosity upon the mind bears almost no comparison in strength with the hold of desire.
Philosophical curiosity is then the first step of mental ascent towards Yoga. We place before our mind to begin with every possible manifestation of nature, and try to fit in every possible phase of it with every related manifestation. This is, as we shall see hereafter, Dharana. It is, in plain language, to apply ourselves to the investigation of all the branches of natural science one by one.
This is the natural result of curiosity. By this attempt to discover the relations already existing or possible, actual or potential, among the phenomena of nature, another power is induced in the mind. This power Patanjali calls Vichara, meditation. The radical idea of the word is to go among the various relations of the portions that make up the whole subject of our contemplation. It is only a deeper hold on the mind of the philosophical curiosity noticed above.﻿152
nature's finer forces.
The third state of this Samadhi is what is called Ananda, happiness or bliss. As long as there is curiosity or meditation, the mind is only assuming the consistency of the soul. This means to say that the vibrations of the soul are as yet only making way into the mind, they have not yet succeeded entirely. When, however, the third stage is arrived at, the mind is sufficiently polished to receive the full and clear image of the sixth coil. This image presents itself to the mind as bliss. Every man who has devoted himself to the study of nature has been, for however short a time, in that coveted state. It is very difficult to make it intelligible by description, but I am sure that the majority of my readers are not strangers to it.
But whence does this bliss come? What is it? I have called it a reflection of the soul. But first of all, what is the soul? From what I have been writing up to this time, my readers will no doubt surmise that I understand the soul to be only a picture of the gross body, the Prana, and the mind, so far only, however, as its constitution is concerned.
I have mentioned that in the macrocosm the sun is the centre, and the Prana is the atmosphere of the second principle, and that the ecliptic marks the shape of this principle. I have also mentioned that the individual human principle is only a picture of this macrocosmic whole. I have mentioned again that in the macrocosm Virat is the centre and Manu the atmosphere of the second principle. This atmosphere is made of the five universal Tattvas, just like Prana,﻿YOGA—THE SOUL,.
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the only difference being that the mental Tattvas undergo a greater number of vibrations per second than the Tattvas of Prana. I have also said that the individual mind is an exact picture—the aspect of course differing with the surroundings of time, just as in the case of Prana—of the inacrocosmic mind.
Now I have to say the same with regard to the soul. In the macrocosm there is Brahma for the centre, and Vijnana for the atmosphere of this principle. As the earth moves in Prana, as the sun breathes in Manu, as the Manu (or Virat) breathes in Vijnana, so the soul breathes in the highest atmosphere of Ananda. Brahma is the centre of spiritual life, as the sun is the centre of Prana, and Virat the centre of mental life. These centres are similar in luminosity to the sun, but ordinary senses cannot perceive them, because the number of tattvic vibrations per second is beyond their power.
The soul of the universe (the Vijnanamaya Kosha), with Brahmst for its centre, is our psychic ideal.
The tattvic currents of this sphere extend over what we call a Brahmanda. This they do in a way similar to the tattvic rays of Prana with which we are familiar through the medium of gross matter. This centre with this universe forms the self-conscious universe. In the bosom of this atmosphere exist all the lower centres.
Under the influence of gross matter the mental macrocosm registers the external pictures, that is to say, it gains the power of manifesting itself in the﻿154
nature's finer forces.
five ways I have described in the essay on mind. Under the Brahma, however, the mental macrocosm (Manu) attains the higher powers under discussion. This double influence changes, after a time, the nature of Manu himself. The universe has, as it were, a new mind after every Manvantara. This change is always for the better. The mind is ever spiritualizing. The later the Manu the more spiritual. A time will come when the present macrocosmic mind will be entirely absorbed in the soul. The same is the case with the microcosm of man. Thus Brahma is by nature omniscient. He is conscious of a self. The types of everything that was or is to be in process of time are but so many varying compositions of his Tattvas. Every phase of the universe, with its antecedents and consequents, is in him. It is himself, his own self-consciousness. One mind is absorbed in him in the space of fourteen Manvantaras. The motion of the mental Tattvas is so much accelerated that they become spiritual. By the time that this takes place in the universe the vibrations of the Tattvas of Prana are being accelerated, too, under the influence of Manu until the Prana itself is turned into the Manu of the next period. And, again,^while this is being done, the gross matter is similarly developing itself into Prana.
This is the process of involution, but for the present let us leave it here and resume the subject in hand.
The human soul is an exact picture of this macro-cosmic principle. It is omniscient like its prototype,﻿YOGA—THE SOUL.
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and has the same constitution. But the omniscience of the human soul is still latent on acc6unt of her for-getfulness. The sixth principle (absolute) has only-developed a little. Humanity in general has only a very dim notion of infinity, of Godhead, and of all such subjects. This means that the rays of the infinite at this stage of our progress are only just evoking our sixth principle into active life. When in process of time the rays of the infinite gather sufficient strength our soul will come out in her true light. We might accelerate this process by Vairagya (apathy), which, as has been seen, gives strength to Yoga.
The means of strengthening Yoga deserve separate consideration. Some of them help to remove those influences and forces which are antagonistic to progress, others, such as the contemplation of the divine principle, accelerate the process of the development of the human soul, and the consequent absorption of the mind in the soul. At present I have simply to set forth the nature of the blissful Samadhi, which I spoke of as being caused by the reflection of the soul in the mind. •
This reflection simply means the assumption by the mind of the state of the soul. The mind passes from its own ordinary state to the state of the higher energy of the soul. The greater number of tattvic vibrations per second make their way in the matter of a lower number of tattvic vibrations per second. This rising up of the mind, this passing out of itself, the﻿156	nature's finer forces.
English language recognizes by the name of elation, and this is the meaning of the word Ananda as qualifying the third state of the Samprajnata Samadhi. The Anandamaya Kosha takes its name from its being the state of the highest elation. Every moment of Ananda is a step towards the absorption of the mind, and by constant scientific meditation the mind as it were changes its nature, passing for ever into a higher state of consistency. That state which in Ananda only appeared in the moment of triumph now becomes part and parcel of the mind. This confirmation of the higher energy is known by the name of Asmita, which may be translated (as it generally is) by the word egoism, but must be understood as the identification of the consciousness with self.
The object in view in this essay is to mark the stages along the road of mental matter to its final absorption in the soul. In the last sentences I brought the mind to the state of Samprajnata Samadhi. It is in this state that the mind acquires the .power of discovering new truths, and seeing new combinations of things existent. As this state has been attained in the long cycles of bygone ages, man has acquired a knowledge of science to its present stage of development, and the attainment of this quantum of knowledge has been the means (in the manner traced) whereby our minds have been raised "to our present pitch of perfection, when we have learned to say that these great powers are native to the human mind. As I have shown, these powers have become native to﻿YOGA—THE SOUL.
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the mind only after long submission of the mind to the influence of the soul.
By the constant exercise of this Samadhi the mind learns to incline towards those cosmic influences that are in their very nature antagonistic to those evil powers of our constitution which check our progress. These powers tend naturally to die out. The ultimate goal of this path is that state of mind when its manifestations become entirely potential. The soul, if she pleases, may propel them by her inherent power into the domain of the actual, but they lose all power to draw the soul after them.
When this state is reached, or when it is about to be reached, certain powers begin to show themselves in the mind, which in the present cycle are by no means common. This state is technically called Para-vairagya, or the higher apathy.
The word Vairagya is usually rendered into English as apathy, and is looked upon by modern thinkers with disfavour. This, I believe, is partly owing to a misconception of the meaning of the word. It is generally understood, I believe, that misanthropy is the only indication, or perhaps the highest perfection, of this mental state. Nothing can be further from the intention of those sages who put Vairagya down as the highest means of the attainment of bliss. Vairagya or apathy is defined by Vyasa in his commentary on the Aphorisms of Yoga as the "final state of perfected knowledge." It is that state in which the mind, coming to know the real nature of things,﻿158	nature's finer forces.
will no longer be deluded into false pleasure by the manifestations of Avidya. When this upward inclination becomes confirmed, when this habit of soaring towards the divine becomes second nature, the name of Paravairagya is given to the complementary mental state.
This state is reached in many ways, and the road is marked by many clearly defined stages. One way is the practice of Samprajnata Samadhi. By the constant practice of this Samadhi, to which the mind runs of itself when once it tastes the bliss of the fourth stage of that state, the mind is habituated to a state of faith in the efficacy of the pursuit. This faith is nothing more than a state of mental lucidity in which the yet unknown truths of nature begin to throw their shadows forward. The mind begins, as it were, to feel truth in any and every place, and, drawn by the taste of bliss (Ananda), proceeds with greater and greater zeal to work out the process of its evolution. This faith, I may remark, has been called by Patanjali Shraddha, and the consequent zeal of which I have spoken, he names Virya.
Confirmed in this zeal and working on, the manifestation of memory comes in naturally.* This ,is a state of high evolution. Every truth comes to be present before the mind's eye at the slightest thought, and the four stages of Samadhi make their appearance again and again till the mind becomes very nearly a mirror of Nature.
* I may refer the reader to my analysis of memory.﻿YOGA—THE SOUL.
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This corresponds to the state of Paravairagya, which would in the second place be also attained by the contemplation of the high prototype of the soul. This is the macrocosmic soul, the Ishvara of Patanjali, which remains for ever in that entity's soul of pristine purity. It is this Ishvara of which I have spoken as the self-conscious universe.
This Ishvara, as I conceive it, is only a macrocosmic centre, similar in nature to, though higher in function than, the sun.
As the sun with his ocean of Prana is the prototype of our life-principle—Pranamaya Kosha—so Ishvara is the great prototype of our souls. What is the sixth principle if not a phase of the existence of this great being prolonged as a separate phase into the lower principles, yet destined again to merge into its own true self? Just as I have shown that the principles of life live in the sun after our terrestrial death, to recur again and again into actual life, so in a similar way does the soul live in the Ishvara. We may if we please look upon this entity as being the group of all the liberated souls, but we must at the same time remember that the unliberated souls too are his undeveloped reflections, destined in the long run to attain their original state. It is therefore necessary to assume the independent existence of Ishvara, and, in Ishvara, of other souls.
This macrocosmic psychic centre, this ideal of the sixth principle in man, is the great reservoir of every actual force in the universe. This is the true type of﻿160	nature's finer forces.
the perfection of the human soul. The incidents of mental and physical existence which, however perfect in themselves, are mere imperfections, find no place in this centre. In this state there is no misery (the five comprehensive miseries of Patanjali are enumerated above), for misery can arise only in the retrograde process of the first awakening of the mind, being only caused by sensation, and the inability of the human sixth principle to draw the mind towards itself and out of the domain of the senses, to make it, so to say, what its prototype originally is, the rod of dominion, and not as sensation has made it, the instrument of slavery.
By this contemplation of the sixth principle of the universe, a sympathy is naturally established between it and the human soul. That sympathy is only necessary for the universal tattvic law to work with greater effect. The human soul begins to be cleansed of the dust of the world, and in its turn affects the mind in a similar way, and therein the Yogi becomes conscious of this influence by the slackening of the fetters forged by Prakriti, and a daily, hourly strengthening of heavenward aspirations.
The human soul then begins to become a centre of power for its own little universe, just as Ishvara is the centre of power in his universe. The microcosm then becomes a perfect little picture of the macrocosm. When perfection is attained, all the mental and physiological Tattvas of the microcosm, and to a certain extent of the surrounding world, become the slaves﻿YOGA—THE SOUL.
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of the soul. Whithersoever it may incline, the Tattvas are at its back. He may will, and the atmospheric Vayu Tattva, with whatever amount of strength he pleases or is capable of concentrating, will set in motion any piece of furniture within the reach of his will. He may will, and at the instant the Apas Tattva will slake thirst, cure fever, or, in fact, wash off the germs of any disease he desires. He may will, and, in fine, any and every Tattva on any of the lower planes will do its work for him. These high powers do not wait to appear all of a sudden, but show themselves gradually, and, of course, according to special aptitudes in special forms.
But a description of these powers is not my present business. My only purpose so far is to show in what way, according to the universal law of nature, the human soul, by contemplation of the macrocosmic sixth principle, becomes the means for the mind attaining the state called' Paravairagya. The laws of the working of these high powers may make the subject of some future attempt.
Besides these two, the author of the Aphorisms of Yoga enumerates five more ways in which the minds of those who by the power of previous Karma are already inclined towards the divine, are seen to work their way to the state under discussion.
The first way is the habituating of the mind to the manifestations of pleasure, sympathy, elation, and pity toward the comfortable, the miserable, and the vicious. Every good man will tell us that the manifestation of﻿162
nature's finer forces.
joy at the comfort of another is a high virtue. Why, what harm is there in jealousy? I think that no other science except the philosophy of the Tattvas explains with any amount of satisfaction the reason of such questions.
We have seen that in a state of enjoyment, comfort, pleasure, satisfaction, and the like, the Pritliivi or the Apas Tattva prevails in the Prana and the mind. It is evident that if we put our minds in the same, we induce either of the two Tattvas into our life and mental principles. What will be the result? A process of purification will set in. Both the principles will begin to be cleansed of any trace of defect which the excess of any of the remaining Tattvas may have given to our constitution.
All those physiological or mental causes which induce inattention in the mind are removed. Bodily distempers take their leave, for they are the result of the disturbance of the balance of the physiological Tattvas, and comfort, pleasure, and enjoyment are foreign to these. The one induces the other As the balance of the Tattvas brings comfort and enjoyment of life, so the sense of comfort and enjoyment which colours our Prana and mind when we put ourselves in sympathy with the comfortable, restores the balance of our Tattvas.
And when the balance of the Tattvas is restored, what remains? Disinclination to work, doubt, laziness and other feelings of that kind can no longer stand, and the only result is the restoration of the mind to per-﻿YOGA—THE SOUL.
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feet calmness. As says Vyasa in his commentary, the White Law makes its appearance in the mind. Such and in a similar way is the result of the manifestations of the other qualities. But, for such a result to be achieved, there must be long and powerful application.
The next method is Pranayama, deep expiration and inspiration. This too conduces to the same end and in the same way. The breathing of deep breaths in and out has to some extent the same effect as running and other hard exercise. The heat that is produced burns out certain elements of disease, which it is desirable should be burnt. But the practice in its effects differs for the better from hard exercise. In hard exercise the Sushumna begins to play, and that is not good for physiological health. Pranayama, however, if properly performed, is beneficial from a physiological as well as from a mental point of view. The first effect that is produced in Pranayama is the general prevalence of the Prithivi Tattva. It is unnecessary to remind the reader that the Apas Tattva carries the breath lowest down, and that the Prithivi is the next. In our attempt to draw deeper breaths than usual, the Prithivi Tattva cannot but be introduced, and the general prevalence of this Tattva, with the consequent golden tinge of the circle of light round our heads, can never fail to cause fixity of purpose and strength of attention. The Apas Tattva next comes in. This is the silvery hue of innocence which encircles the head of a saint and marks the attainment of the state of Paravairagya.﻿164	nature's finer forces.
The next is the attainment of the twofold lucidity —the sensuous and the cardiac. The sensuous lucidity is the power of the senses to perceive the changes of Prana. The previously trained attention, according to special aptitudes, is centred on any one or more of the five senses. If centred in the eyes, one can see the physiological and atmospheric colours of Prana. I can affirm this by personal experience. I can see the various colours of the seasons. I can see rain coming an hour, two hours, and sometimes even two days before an actual shower. Bright sheets of the green washed into coolness and purity by the white make their appearance anywhere about me—in the room, in the heavens, 011 the table before me, on the wall in front. When this happens, I am sure that rain is in the air, and to come down shortly. If the green is streaked with red, it takes some time to come, but it is surely preparing.
These remarks are enough for colour. The power can be made to show itself by a sustained attempt to look into space, or anything else, as the moon, a star, a jewel and so on. The remaining four senses too attain similar powers, and sounds, smells, tastes, and touches which ordinary humanity cannot perceive begin to be perceived by the Yogi.
The cardiac lucidity is the power of the mind to feel and also that of the senses to perceive thoughts. In a previous essay (p. 43) I have given a chart of the head, specifying the places and giving the colours of the various kinds of mental manifestations. These﻿YOGA—THE SOUL.
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colours are seen by anyone who lias or acquires the power, and they constitute the surest book to read the thoughts of any man in. By sustained practice one will recognize the finest shades.
One can also feel these thoughts. The modifications of thought moving along the universal tattvic "wires" affect any and every man. They impart each a distinct impulse to the Pranamaya Kosha, and thus a distinguishable impulse to the throbs of the brain and the more easily perceivable throbs of the heart. A man who studies these throbs of the heart and sits with his attention centred in the heart (while it is of course open to every influence) learns to feel every influence there. The effect on the heart of the mental modifications of other people is a fact which, so far as quality is concerned, may be verified by the commonest experience.
This sensuous or cardiac lucidity, as the case may be, once attained, kills scepticism, and in the end conduces to the state of Paravairagya.
In the next place, says Patanjali, one may rely upon the "knowledge obtainable through dreams and sleep.
The five ethereal currents of sensation are focussed in the brain, and from these five centres of force motion is transmitted to the mental principle. These various foci serve as connecting links between the mental and the life principles. The visual currents produce in the mind the capability of becoming conscious of colour. In other words, they produce eyes in the mind. Similarly does the mind develop the faculty﻿166
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of receiving the impressions of the four remaining sensations. This faculty is acquired after the exposure of ages. Cycles upon cycles pass on, and the mind is not yet capable of receiving these tattvic vibrations. The wave of life begins its organized journey upon earth with vegetable forms. From that time external tattvic currents begin to affect the vegetable organism, and this is the beginning of what we call sensation. The modifications of the external Tattvas through the individualized vegetable life strike the chords of the latent mind, but it will not yet respond. It is not in sympathy. Higher and higher through vegetable forms the life-wave travels; greater and greater is the force with which it strikes the mental chords, and better and better is the capability of that principle to respond to the tattvic calls of life. When we reach the animal kingdom the external tattvic foci are just visible. These are the sensuous organs, each of which has the capability of focussing in itself its own peculiar tattvic rays. In the lowest forms of animal life they are just visible, and this is a sign that the mental principle is then in a comparatively high state of perfection; it has somewhat begun to respond to the external tattvic call. It may be remarked here that this is the superposed relative mind, and not the absolute original mental Truti, of both of which I have spoken in a former essay. It is the uprising of this evolutionary finite structure on all planes of life that has led a German philosopher to the conclusion that God is becoming. This is of course﻿YOGA—THE SOUL.
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true, but it is only true of the finite universe of names and forms and not of the absolute towards which it is moving.
To resume. Longer and longer is now the exposure of this animal life to the external Tattvas; greater and greater every day is the strength of these in their various foci; higher and higher is the formation of these foci; stronger and stronger is the external call upon the mind, and more and more perfect is the mental response. A time comes in the progress of this evolution when the five mental senses are perfectly developed, as is marked by the development of the external senses. The action of the five mental senses we call the phenomenon of perception. On the manifestation of this perception is raised the mighty fabric of those mental manifestations which I have tried to discuss in the essay on mind. The way in which this evolution takes place is sketched there, too.
The external Tattvas of gross matter create gross foci in a gross body whence to send their currents. The soul does the same. The tattvic currents of the external soul—Ishvara—create similar centres of action in connection with the mind. But the tattvic vibrations of the soul are finer than those of the life-principle. The mental matter takes longer time to respond to the call of Ishvara than it does to answer to the call of Prana. It is not till the life-wave reaches humanity that the vibrations of the soul begin to show themselves in the mind. The foci of﻿168
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psycliic currents are located in what is called the Vijnanamaya Kosha—the psychic coil. At the time of the beginning of human life, the psychic foci are in that same state of perfection as are the animal foci—the senses, at the time when the life-wave begins its journey in the animal species. These psychic foci go on gaining strength, race after race, till we reach the point which I have called the awakening of the soul. That process ends in the confirmation of the state of Paravairagya. From this state there are only a few steps to the power of what has been called ulterior or psychic perception. Our former perception we may now call animal perception. And just as on the basis of animal perception has been raised the mighty fabric of inference and verbal authority, so also may be raised (as indeed it lias been by ancient Aryan sages) a more mighty fabric of inference and verbal authority on the basis of psychic perception. We shall come to that by and by. In the meantime, let us resume our subject from the point at which we left it.
As practice confirms in the Yogi's mind the state of Paravairagya, it attains the most perfect calm. It is open to all sorts of tattvic influences, but without any sensuous disturbance. The next power that consequently shows itself is called Samapatti. I shall translate this word by the term iJituition, and define it as that mental state in which it becomes possible to receive the reflection of the subjective and the objective worlds; it is the means of knowledge at the slightest motion in whatever manner imparted.﻿YOGA—'•THE SOUL.	169
Intuition has four stages.
1. Sa-vitarka—verba}.
2„ Nir-vitarka—wordless.
3.	Sa-vichara—meditative.
4.	Nir-vichara—ultra-meditative.
The state of intuition has been likened to a bright, pure, transparent, colourless crystal. View through the crystal whatever object you will and it will most readily show in itself the colour of that object. And so does the mind behave in this state. Let fall on it the tattvic rays which constitute the objective world, it shows itself in the colours of the objective world. Let those colours be removed, it is again as pure as crystal, ready to show in itself any other colours that may be presented to it. Think of the elementary forces of nature—the Tattvas; think of the gross objects where they work; think of the organs of sense, their genesis, and the method of their work; think of the soul—liberated or bound, and the mind readily falls into each of these states. It retains no particular colour which may oppose or vitiate any other colour entering it. The first stage of intuition is the verbal. It is the most common in this age and therefore the most easily intelligible. Let the reader think of a mind in which no colour is evoked at the sound of scientific words. Let him think of thousands of those men in whose minds the sounds of their own language full of high and great ideas is as strange to them as Hebrew is to the Maori. Take an uneducated English peasant and read to him Comus﻿170
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or The Tempest. Do you think those beautiful words will carry to him all the)' are intended to convey ? But why an uneducated peasant? Did the great Johnson himself understand the beauties of Milton? Take again a common schoolboy, and read to him in his own language the truths of philosophy. Does that language, even if you give him its dictionary meaning, convey any idea to his mind? Take the Upani-shads, and read them to any pandit who can understand Sanskrit grammatically and lexicographically tolerably well. Does anyone doubt—I do not—that he does not understand all that those noble words convey? With such a mind, let him compare the mind of a really educated man, a mind which almost intuitively, as it were, takes in the true sense of words, which is not an easy task even for the highly educated, for prejudice, deep-seated antagonistic theories, the strength of one's own convictions, and perhaps some other characteristics of the mind, prove an insurmountable obstacle. This comparison will show that intuition is something more than a mere sharpening of the intellect. It is rather the light that is at the back of everything shining into and through the intellect which has been purged from all opaque obstacles, the densest of which is a deeply-rooted and antagonistic scepticism. Even a John Stuart Mill could not properly understand the philosophy of Sir William Hamilton. One of the greatest Oriental scholars says that Patanjali's system is no philosophy at all! Another has expressed himself to the effect﻿YOGA—THE sour,.
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that Patanjali's Aphorisms on Yoga are mere fanaticism! There are many Tantras of which, though we might translate them verbally into another language, very few of us really know the meaning. This is a very grave shortcoming, and sometimes much to be regretted. It disappears only with the manifestation of verbal intuition. In this state the Yogi is at once en rapport-with the author of the book, and this is because his mind is free from every blinding prejudice, and is, in fact, a pure, bright, colourless -crystal, ready to show any phase of colour that may come in contact with it.
The next stage of intuition is the wordless. In this you no longer stand in need of books to initiate yourself into the secrets of nature. Your mind becomes capable of deriving these truths from their fountain-head—the true pictures of everything in every state of the objective world which are represented through the agency of Prana in the universal mind—pictures which are the souls of these things, their own true selves and pregnant with every state into which they have passed, or have to pass—the realities of the various and varying phases of the phenomenal world—the characteristic qualities of things.
These states have for their object the gross phenomenal world. The next two stages of intuition have for their object the world of forces—the world of subtle bodies which lies at the root of the changes of the gross world. The meditative intuition has for its object only the present manifestation of the currents of the subtle body—the forces which are already showing﻿172
NATURE^ EINER FORCES.
or going to show themselves. In this state, for example, the Yogi knows intuitively the present forces of the atmospheric Prana as they are gathering strength enough to give us a shower of rain or Hail, snow or hoarfrost, but he does not know what has given them their present activity, or whether the potential will ever become the actual, and if so, to what extent. He knows the forces that are working at the present moment in that tree, that horse, that man; he knows the powers that keep these things in the state they are in, but he does not know the antecedents and consequents of that state.
The next has for its object all the three states of subtle bodies. The present state is of course*known, but with it the Yogi combines the whole history of the object from beginning to end. Place before him that rose, and he knows its subtle principle in all its states, antecedent and consequent. He is familiar with the little beginnings of the tree, and its growth in various states; he knows how the budding began, he knows how the bud opened and how it grew into that beautiful flower. He knows what will be its end, how it will perish, and when. He knows at what time again the same flowzr will energize gross matter. Put before him a closed letter and he knows not only what that letter contains, but can trace the thoughts to the brain whence they proceeded, to the hand which traced the lines, to the room in which they were written, and so on. It is in this state too that mind knows mind, without the medium of words.﻿YOGA—THE SOUL.
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I hope I have sufficiently explained these four states. They constitute what is called the objective trance (Savija Samadhi).
Occasionally these powers show themselves in many minds. But that simply proves that the favoured mortal is on the right track. He must make sure of the point if he would win.
When the last stage of this Samadhi is confirmed in the mind, our psychic senses gain power over that amount of certain knowledge which is the portion of our animal senses. The authority of these senses is supreme with us, so far as the gross world is concerned. In a similar way there is left for us no room to doubt the truth of the knowledge which our psychic senses bring us. This high power of knowing every supersensuous truth with perfect certainty is known as Ritambhara, or what I have in English called psychic perception.
The knowledge which psychic perception gives us is by no means to be confounded with the knowledge obtained through inference, imagination, or the records of others' experience.
% Inference, imagination, and verbal authority, based on animal perception, can only work upon knowledge obtained through the animal senses. But psychic perception and inference based upon it have for their object things of the supersensuous world, the realities which underlie the phenomenal existence we are familiar with. That perception takes in the fact of the existence and the nature of Prakriti itself, the subtlest state of matter, just as animal perception takes in gross matter.﻿174
nature's finer forces.
Animal perception draws the mind towards gross matter, the world that has given it birth. So does psychic perception draw the mind towards the soul. The practice of objective Samadhi destroys itself. The mind takes in so much of the higher energy of the soul that it loses its mental consistency. Down goes the entire structure of unreal names and forms. The soul lives in herself, and not as now in the mind.
With this the greater part of my work is done. It is now clear that what we call man lives chiefly in the mind. The mind has two entities to affect it. The one is the life-principle, the other the psychic principle—the one producing certain changes in the mind from below, the other from above. These changes have been recorded, and it has been found that the dominion of the soul is more desirable than that of the life-principle. When the mind loses itself entirely in the soul, man becomes God.
The object of these essays has been roughly to portray the nature, function, and mutual relation of the principles, in other words, to trace the operation of the universal tattvic law on all the planes of existence.
This has been briefly done. A good deal more remains to be said about the powers latent in the^ Prana and the mind, which show themselves in special departments of the progress of man. That need not, however, be entered on at present, and therefore with some description of the first and last principle of the cosmos—the spirit—I close this series.﻿IX.
THE SPIRIT.
This is the Anandamaya Koslia, literally the coil of bliss of the Vedantins. With the power of psychic perception, the soul knows the existence of this entity, but in the present stage of human development it has hardly made its presence directly felt in the human constitution. The characteristic difference between the soul and the spirit is the absence in the latter of the "/."
It is now the dawn of the day of evolution. It is the first setting-in of the positive current of the great breath. It is the first state of cosmic activity after the night of Mahapralaya. As we have seen, the breath in every state of existence has three differentiations— the positive, the negative, and the Sushumna. The Sushumna is pregnant with either of the two remaining states. This is the state which is described in the Parameshthi Sukta of the Rig Veda as neither Sat (positive) nor Asat (negative). This is the primary state of Parabrahman, in which the whole universe lies hidden like a tree in the seed. As billows rise and lose themselves in an ocean, the two states of evolution and involution take their rise in this state,﻿176	nature's finer forces.
and are in due time lost in the same. What is 'Prakriti itself in this state of potential omnipotence? The phenomena of Prakriti owe their origin and existence to the modifications of the great breath. When that great breath is in the state of Sushumna, can we not say-that Prakriti itself is held in that state by Sushumni? It is in fact Parabrahman that is all in all. Pra,kriti is only the shadow of that substance, and like a shadow it follows the modifications of the breath. The first modification of the great breath is the setting in of the evolutionary (positive) current. In this state Prakriti modifies itself into the ethers of the first degree, which make up the atmosphere from which Ishvara draws life. The subject (Parabrahman), whose breath causes these prakritic modifications, is in this first state of evolution known as the Sat, the fountain-head of all existence. The I is latent in this state and naturally enough, because it is differentiation which gives birth to the /. But what is this state? Must man be annihilated before he reaches this state of what, from the standpoint of man, is called Nirvana or Parinirvana? There is no reason to suppose that it is the state of annihilation any more than is the condition of latent heat in water. The simple fact is that the colour which constitutes the ego becomes latent in the- spirit's higher form of energy. It is a state of consciousness or knowledge above self, certainly not destroying that self.
The individual spirit bears the same relation to the Sat which the individual soul bears to the Ishvara, the﻿THE SPIRIT.
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individual mind to the Virat, and the individual life-principle to the Prana. Bach centre is given birth by the tattvic rays of that degree. Each is a drop in its own ocean. The Upanishad explains this state under many names. The Chhandogya, however, has a very comprehensive dialogue, on this subject, between Uddalaka and his son Shvetaketu.
Professor Max Miiller has made some very questionable remarks 011 certain assertions in this dialogue,
o /
calling them "more or less fanciful." These remarks could never have fallen from so learned a man had he known and understood something of the ancient Science of Breath and the philosophy of the Tattvas. The Upanishads can never be very intelligible without this comprehensive science. It must be remembered that the Upanishads themselves have in many places clearly laid down that a teacher is wanted for the proper understanding of their divine words. Now the teacher taught nothing else but the Science of Breath, which is said to be the secret doctrine of all secret doctrines. It is, in fact, the key of all that is taught in the Upanishads. The little book which these essays try to explain to the world appears, from its very arrangement, to be a compilation of various couplets on the same subject inherited from various esoteric circles. It is, in fact, as a key to Aryan philosophy and occult science that this handful of stanzas now presented to the reader has its chief value. But, ah! I cannot hope that this little book will serve to dispel the gloom of ages.
13﻿178
nature's finer forces.
To return, however, to the dialogue between the father and the son. It is contained in the sixth Prapathaka of the Chhdndogya Uftcmishad.
"'In the beginning, my dear, there was that only which is (to ov) one only, without a second. Others say in the beginning there was that only which is not (to ov) one only, without a second, and from that which is not, that which is was born."'
This is the translation of Professor Max Miiller. Notwithstanding the authority of his great name, and real scholarship, I venture to think that the sense of the Upanishad is totally lost sight of in the translation. The words of the original are: Sad eva sawnyedamagre asit.
I cannot find any word in the translation giving the sense of the word idam in the original. Idam means "this," and it has been explained as meaning- the phenomenal world; this that is perceived, etc. The real translation of the text would therefore be: This [world] was Sat alone in the beginning. Perhaps in the translation of Professor Max Miiller, the word "there" is printed by mistake for "this." If this is the case the defect in the translation is at once remedied.
The text means that the first state of the world before differentiation was the state known as Sat. From what comes afterwards, it appears that this is the state of the universe in which all its phenomena— material, mental, and psychic—are held in posse. The word eva, for which the word "alone," or "only," stands﻿THE SPIRIT.
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in the translation, signifies that at the beginning of the day of evolution the universe had not all five, or even two or more of the five plaijes of existence together. Now it has, but in the beginning the Sat alone existed.
The Sat is one only, without a second. In these two epithets there is no qualification of time. The Sat is one alone/and has not, like Prana, Virat, and Ishvara, (all three existing simultaneously) a shadowy side of existence.
The next sentence goes on to say that in the beginning there was Asat alone. As Professor Max Miiller renders it: "There (?) was that only which is not."
Now this carries no meaning, notwithstanding the Greek accompaniment (to ^ 6V). That the word Asat is used in the sense of "that which is not" or briefly "nothing," there is 110 doubt. But that such is not the meaning of the Upanishad there is also no doubt. The words are used here in the same sense in which they are used in the "Nosad asit" Hymn of the Rig Veda.	,	__
"Then there was neither the Sat nor the Asat." This is of course a state quite other than the Sat of the Upanishad. It is nothing more than the Sushumna of the Brahinic breath. After this in the beginning of evolution the Brahman became Sat. This is the positive eyolutionary potential phase. The Asat is nothing more than the cooler negative life current, which rules during the night of Mahapralaya. When the shadowy Prakriti has undergone the preparatory﻿180	nature's finer forces.
influence of the negative current, the day of evolution sets in with the beginning of the positive current. The dispute as to beginning is merely of a technical nature. In reality there is no beginning. It is all a motion in a circle, and from this point of view we may put whatever state we like in the beginning.
But, argues the Asat philosopher, unless the Maya undergo the preparatory influence of the Night, there can be 110 creation. Hence, according to him, we must put the Asat in the beginning.
To this the sage Uddalaka would not consent. According to him the active impressive force is in the Sat, the positive state, just as all the life-forms take their origin from Prana (the positive life-matter) and not from Rayi (the negative life-matter).* It is only impressibility that exists in the Asat, the real names and forms of the phenomenal universe do not there exist. In fact the name Sat has been given to the primary state of the evolving universe for this very reason. If we would translate these two words into English we would have to coin two very unique compounds :
Sat—that-in-which-is.
Asat—that-in-which-is-not.
It is only such a rendering that would carry the true idea, and hence it is after all advisable to retain the Sanskrit words and explain them as one best may.
That actually existing state in which the names and forms exist not, cannot very properly stand as the cause * See the Prashnopanishad,﻿THE SPIRIT.
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of the names and forms which do exist. Hence the Sat alone was in the beginning, etc.
The individual spirit has the same relation to the Sat as the soul has to the Ishvara.
This is enough to show that there is no annihilation anywhere in the universe. Nirvana simply means the extinguishment (which is not extinction) of the phenomenal rays.﻿﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.﻿﻿The Science of Breath
and The
Philosophy-of the Tattyas.
(Translated from the Sanskrit.)
[This book is couched in the form of a dialogue between the god Shiva and his wife Parvati. All the Tantras have the same form. The former is generally spoken of as Ishvara, the latter as Devi or Shakti. From its method of composition the treatise does not seem to have been written by Shiva, the supposed author of the Shiv&gama. In the first place there are several stanzas in the book, which appear to be the composition of different authors, put in the present form by some compiler; and, secondly, the author says in one place that he was going to describe certain experiments as he had seen them in the Shimgama, or "Teachings of Shiva."
In the end of one MS., however, it is said that the book comprises the eighth chapter of the Shivagama.
In the Kenopanishad the great commentator Shan-karacharya interprets Uma Haimavati (another name﻿i86
nature's finer forces.
of Parvati) as Brahma Vidya, the Divine Scicnce or Theosophia. There the goddess appears as a teacher, and she may well personify Theosophia. This explanation, However, will hardly hold good here. Here Shiva and Parvati seem to be the positive and negative principles. They are best acquainted with their own working. The god, the positive principle, explaining to the Sliakti, the negative principle, the various modes in which the finer forces of nature imprint themselves upon the grosser planes, may be the symbol of the eternal impression of all thoughts and living organisms into the Shakti—the passive matter, Rayi—by C '	'* )rinciple.]
1.	Lord Mahadeva, god of gods, be kind to me, and tell me the wisdom that comprehends everything.
2.	How did the universe come forth? How does it continue? How does it disappear? Tell me, CHord, the philosophy of the universe.
3. The universe came out of Tattva* [or the Tatt-vas]; it goes on by the instrumentality of the Tattvas; it disappears into the Tattvas; by the Tattvas is known the nature of the universe. -
[The universe comprehends all the manifestations with which we are familiar, either on the physical, the mental, or the psychic plane. All of them have
* In the original the singular number is often used to denote the common quality of the five Tattvas—that by which each is kno.wn as such.
Said the god:﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
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come out of the Tattvas. The Tattvas are the forces which lie at the root of all these manifestations. Creation, preservation, and destruction, or, more strictly speaking, appearance, sustenance, and disappearance of the phenomena we are acquainted with, are tattvic changes of state.]
Said the goddess:
4.	The knowers of the Tattvas have ascertained the Tattvas to be the highest root; what, O god, is the nature of the Tattvas? Throw light upon the Tattvas.
Said the god:
5.	Unmanifested, formless, the one giver of light, is the Great Power; from that appeared the sonorifer-ous ether (Akasha); from that had birth the tangiferous ether.
[This Great Power is the Parabrahman of the Vedantins, the first change of state which stands at the crown of evolution. This is the first positive phase of life. All the Upanisliads concur in this. In the beginning all this was Sat (the positive phase of Brahma).
From this state come out by degrees the five ethers —Tattvas or Mahabhutas as they are also called. "From him came the Akasha and so on," says the Upanishad. This state of Parabrahman is called in the text "unmanifested." Manifestation for us only begins with the "Ego," the sixth principle of our constitution—all beyond that is naturally unmanifested.
"Formless"—this epithet is given because forms﻿i88
nature's finer forces.
only show themselves when the Tattvas and the two states ,of matter—the positive and the negative, the active and the passive—come into existence.
As yet there is only one universal state of matter. Hence is also given to that state the epithet "one."
He is also called the " giver of light." This light is the real life. It is this state which changes into the five ethers, which form the atmosphere of the sixth principle of the universe.]
6.	From the tangiferous ether, the luminiferous ether, and from this the gustiferous ether; thence was the birth of the odoriferous ether. These are the five ethers and they have five-fold extension.
7.	From these the universe came forth; by these it continues; into these it disappears; among these also it shows itself again.
8.	The body is made of the five Tattvas; the five Tattvas, O fair one, exist therein in the subtle form; they are known by the learned who devote themselves to the Tattvas.
[The body—human as well as every other—is made of the five Tattvas in their gross form. In this gross body play the five Tattvas in their subtle form. They govern it physiologically, mentally, psychically and spiritually. These are therefore the four subtle forms of the Tattvas.]
9.	On this account shall I speak of the rise of breath in the body; by knowing the nature of inspiration and expiration comes into being the knowledge of the three times.﻿THE , SCIENCE OF BREATH.	189
[Man can devote himself most easily to his own body. On this account have been described here the laws of the rise of the breath in the body.
Knowledge of the three times—the past, the present and the future—is nothing more than a scientific knowledge of the causes and effects of phenomena. Know, the present tattvic state of things, know its antecedent and consequent states, and you have a knowledge of the three times.]
10.	This science of the rise of breath, the hidden of the hidden, the revealer of the true Good, is a pearl on the head of the wise.
11.	This knowledge is the subtle of the subtle; it is easily understood; it causes the belief of truth; it excites wonder in the world of unbelievers; it is the support among them that believe.
\_The Qualities of the Pupil^\
12.	The science of the rise of breath is to be given to the calm, the pure, the virtuous, the firm and the grateful, and to the single-minded devotee of the Guru.*
13.	It is not to be given to the vicious, the impure, the angry, the untruthful, the adulterer, and him who has wasted his substance.
[ The Science of Breath.]
14.	Hear, thou goddess, the wisdom which is found in the body; omniscience is caused by it, if well understood.
* Spiritual teacher.﻿190	NATURES FINER FORCES.
15.	Ill the Svara are the Vedas and the SMstras; in the Svara the highest Gandharva; in the Svara are all the three worlds; the Svara is the reflection of Parabrahman.
["In the Svara are the Vedas," etc. Svara, as has been seen, is the "current of the life-wave." It is the same as the "intelligence" of the Vedantins. The assertion in this stanza may have two meanings. It may mean that the things described in the Vedas are in the Svara, or if may mean that the description itself is there. It may mean that both are there. This is of course an absolute fact. There is nothing in the manifested universe which has not received existence from the Great Breath, which is the Prana of the universe 011 the highest plane of life.]
16.	Without a knowledge of the breath [Svara] the astrologer is a house without its lord, a speaker without learning, a trunk without a head.
17.	Whoever knows the analysis of the Nadis, the Prana, the Tattvas, and the conjunctive Sushumna, gains salvation.
18.	It is always auspicious in the seen or the unseen universe, when the power of breath is mastered; they say, O fair one, that the knowledge of the science of breath is also somewhat auspicious.
[This stanza points to the difference between practical and theoretical occultism. The practice is, of course, highly auspicious, but the theory, too, puts us in the right track, and is, therefore, "somewhat auspicious."]﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
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19.	The parts and the first accumulations of the universe were made by the Svara, and the Svara is visible as the Great Power, the creator and the destroyer.
[For some reflections on this subject the reader is referred to the essay on Evolution.]
20.	A knowledge more secret than the science of breath, wealth more useful than the science of breath, a friend more true than the science of breath, has never been seen or heard of.
21.	A11 enemy is killed by the power of the breath, friends also are brought together; wealth is obtained through the power of the breath, and comfort and reputation also.
22.	By the power of breath one gets a female child or meets a king; by the power of breath are gods propitiated, and by the breath is a king placed in a person's power.
23.	Locomotion is caused by the power of breath; food, too, is taken by the power of breath; urine and faeces are also discharged by the power of breath.
24.	All the Shastras and Puranas and the rest, beginning with the Vedas and the Upanishads, contain no principle beyond the knowledge of Svara [the breath].
25.	All are names and forms. Among all these people wander mistaken. They are fools steeped in ignorance unless the Tattvas are known.
[Every phenomenon is nothing more than a phase of tattvic motion.
All the phenomena of the universe are names and﻿192
nature's finer forces.
forms. All these names and forms live in the Svara of Parabrahman, or rather in the subtler Tattvas, but there nothing is distinguishable. They are only distinguished as such when they are imprinted upon the grosser planes. The impression takes place by the instrumentality of Rayi, the cooler state of life^matter, which is only the shade of Prana, the original state. He lice the names and forms are all unreal.]
26.	This science of the rise of breath is the highest of all the high sciences; it is a flame for illumining the mansion of the soul.
27.	The knowledge cannot be imparted to this man or that except in answer to a question; it is therefore to be known by one's own exertions in and by the soul alone.
[This is the celebrated dictum, "Know thyself by thyself," which differs from the Greek aphorism by the addition of the last two words.]
28.	Neither the lunar day, nor the constellations, nor the solar day, nor planet, nor god; neither rain nor the Vyatipata, nor the conjunctions Vaidhrita, etc.,
[These are all of them the various phases of the five different tattvic states. They have a natural effect upon the terrestrial life. The effect differs with the thing influenced. The rays of the tattvic state of time will only be reflected into any organism if the reflecting surface is akin. The Yogi who has power over his breath can put it into any tattvic state he chooses, and the antagonistic effects of time are simply thrown off.]﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
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29.	Nor do the bad conjunctions, O 'goddess, ever have power; when one attains the pure power of Svara, everything has good effect.
30.	In the body are the Nadis having many forms and extensions; they ought to be known in the body by the wise, for the sake of knowledge.
31.	Branching off from the root in the navel, seventy-two thousand of them extend in the body.
[The Yogis take the navel to be the starting point of the system of Nadis. Says Patanjali, the great Yoga philosopher: "The systems of the body are known by concentration upon the navel." On the other hand, the Vedantins take the heart to be the starting point of the system. The former assign as their reason, the existence in the navel of the power Kundalifii, the latter the existence in the heart of the cardiac soul (the Lingam Atma), which is the real life of the gross body. This, however, is immaterial. We may begin wherever we like, if we only truly understand the location of the life-principle, and its various manifestations.]
32.	In the navel is the power Kundalini sleeping like a serpent; thence ten Nadis go upwards and ten downwards.
[The power Kundalini sleeps in the developed organism. It is that power which draws in gross matter from the mother-organism through the umbilical cord, and distributes it to the different places where the seminal Prana gives it form. When the
child separates from the mother the power goes to
14﻿1^4	nature's finer forces. '
sleep. She is no more wanted now. Upon the supplies of the Kundalini depend the dimensions of the body of the child. It is said that it is possible to awake the goddess even in the developed organism by certain practices of Yoga.]
33.	Two and two of the Nadis go crosswise; they are thus twenty-four in number. The principal are the ten Nadis in which act the ten forces.
34.	Crosswise, or upwards, or downwards, in them is manifested the Prana all over the body. They are in the body in the shape of Chakras supporting all the manifestations of Prana.
35.	Of all these, ten are the chief; of the ten, three are the highest—Ida, and Pingala, and Sushumna.
36.	Gandhari, Hastijihva, Pusha and Yashasvini; Alambusha, Kuliu, Shankhini, and also Damini.
37.	Ida is in the left part, Pingala in the right, Sushumna in the middle; Gandhari in the left eye.
38.	I11 the right eye Hastijihva; in the right ear Pusha; Yashasvini in the left ear; in the mouth Alambusha.
39.	Kuhfi in the pudendum; in the anus Shankhini. In this way one at each outlet stand the Nadis.
40.	Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna stand in the way of the Prana, these ten Nadis extend variously in the body.
[For a dissertation on these three Nadis the reader is referred to the essay on Prana. On a small scale the right and left chambers of the heart, and the right and left portions of the spinal column are the﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
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Pingala and Ida. The canal between these two is the Sushumna. Taking the blood-vessel system to be a mere reflection of the nervous system, the terminology might be applied to the nerves alone. It appears, however, that the Nadis of the Tantrists comprehend both these systems. I11 the nervous system there is the real power, and this must be present everywhere where there is any manifestation of life.]
41.	The above are the names of the Nadis. I now give the names of the forces: Prana (1), Apana (2), Sainana (3), Udana (4), and Vyana (5).
42.	Naga (6), Kurma (7), and Krikila (8), Deva-datta (9), and Dhananjay.a (10). In the breast lives always the Prana; the Apana in the circle of the anus.
43.	The Samana in the circle of the navel, the Udana in the midst of the throat; the Vyana pervades all the body. These are the ten principal forces.
44.	The five beginning with the Prana have been described. The remaining five forces begin with Naga. Their names and places too I give.
45.	The Naga is known in belching; the Kurma .in the winking of the eye; the Krikila is known as the cause of hunger; the Devadatta is known in yawning.
46.	The all-pervading Dhananjaya does not leave even the dead body. All these move in all the Nadis where they put 011 the appearance of life.
47.	Let the wise man know the manifest movements of the individualized Prana by the three Nadis—Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna.﻿ig6
nature's finer forces.
48.	The Ida is to be known in the left half and the PingalS. in the right [half of the body].
49.	The moon is placed in Ida, the sun in Pingali; Sushumna has the nature of Sambhu, and Sambhu is the self of Hamsa [both inspiration and expiration].
50.	Expiration is called Ha; inspiration is Sa; Ha is the Shiva [the active], and Sa the Shakti [the passive].
51.	The moon appears as Shakti, causing the left Nadi to flow; causing the right Nadi to flow, the sun appears as Sambhu [active].
52.	Any charity given by the wise while the breath is in the left nostril is multiplied crores* on crores of times in this world.
53.	Let the Yogi look into his face, with one mind and with attention, and thus let him know fully the motion of the sun and the moon.
54.	Let him meditate upon the Tattva when the Prana is calm, never when it is disturbed; his desire will be fulfilled, he will have great benefit and victory.
55.	To those men who practise, and thus always keep the sun and moon in proper order, knowledge of the past and the future becomes as easy as if they were in their hand.
56.	In the left Nadi the appearance of the breath is that of the Amrita [nectar]; it is the great nourisher of the world. In the right, the motion-imparting portion, the world is always born.
[The negative phase of Prana has the qualities of * A crore = 10,000,000.﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.	197
Amrita, the giver of eternal life. The negative matter, the moon, is cooler than the positive matter, the sun. The former is Rayi, the latter Prana. The former receives the impressions from the latter, and this plays the part of imparting impressions to that. The moon, therefore, is the real life of all names and forms. In her they live; she keeps them up. She is, therefore, the Amrita, the nectar of life. The right Nadi is, from the greater temperature it possesses, the imparter of names and forms, or, briefly, the motion-imparting phase of life matter. It is the tendency of the sun to always cause changes in names and forms, and giving new impressions in the place of the old. Hence the sun is the greater destroyer of forms. He is the father of the forms, but the real preserver is the 1110011.]
57.	In the midst the SushumnS. moves very cruelly, and is very bad in all acts; everywhere in auspicious acts the left [Nadi] causes strength.
58.	In going out the left is auspicious; in going in the right is auspicious; the moon must be known to be even, the sun odd.
59.	The moon is the female, the sun is the male; the moon is fair, the sun is dark.* During the flow of the Nadi of the moon, let calm acts be done.
60.	During the flow of the Nadi of the sun harsh works are to be done; during the flow of the Sushumna are to be done acts resulting in the attainment of psychic powers and salvation.
61.	'In the bright fortnight the moon comes in first,
* As compared with the moon.﻿198
nature's finer forces.
in the dark one the sun; beginning from the first lunar day they rise one after the other in order, each after three days.
62.	The moon and the sun have each the white [northward, upward] and the black [southward, downward] duration of two and a half Gharis. They flow in order during the sixty Gharis of a day.
63.	Then by a Ghari each [twenty-four minutes] the five Tattvas flow. The days begin with the Prati-pata [the first lunar day]. When the order is reversed the effect is reversed.
64.	In the bright fortnight the left [is powerful], in the dark the right; let the Yogi with attention bring these into order, beginning with the first lunar day.
65.	If the breath rises* by the way of the moon, and sets t by that of the sun, it confers groups of good qualities; in the reverse, the reverse.
66.	Let the moon flow the whole day through, and the sun the whole night; he who practises thus is verily a Yogi.
67.	The moon is checked by the sun, the sun by the inoon; he who knows this practice, strides in a moment over the three worlds [/.<?., nothing in the three worlds can have an evil effect upon liim].
68.	During Thursdays, Fridays, Wednesdays, and Mondays the left Nadi gives success in all acts, especially in the white fortnight.
69.	During Sundays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays the
* At sunrise.	+ At sunset.﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
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right Nadi gives success in all harsh acts, especially in the black fortnight.
70.	During five Ghans each, the Tattvas have their distinct rise in order, Ghari by Ghari.
71.	Thus there are twelve changes during day and night. Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricornus, Pisces are in the moon \i.e., with these signs the breath rises in the left Nadi].
72.	During Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius and Aquarius, the rise of the breath is in the right Nadi. From this good or bad is ascertained.
73.	The sun is centred in the east and the north, the moon in the west and south. Let none go to west and south during the flow of the right Nadi.
74.	Let none go to east and north during the flow of the left Nadi. ...
75.	The wise who desire good should not therefore go in these directions during these intervals; for then assuredly will there be suffering and death.
76.	When, during the bright fortnight, the moon flows, it is beneficial to the man; comfort is caused in mild deeds.
77.	When at the time of the rise of the sun-breath the moon-breath rises, and vice versa, quarrel and danger make appearance, and all good disappears.
\The Wrong Svara^\
78.	When in the morning the wrong breath takes its rise, that is the sun in place of the moon, and the moon in place of the sun ; then﻿200
NATURES FINER FORCES.
79.	On the first day the mind is confused", oil the second [occurs] loss of wealth; .on the third they speak of motion; on the fourth the destruction of the desired [object].
80.	On the fifth the destruction of worldly position; on the sixth the destruction of all objects; on the seventh disease and pain; on the eighth death.
81.	When for these eight days, at all the three times, the breath is wrong, then the effect is absolutely bad; when it is not quite so there is some good.*
82.	When in the morning and the noon there is the moon, and in the evening the sun, then there is always success and benefit. The reverse gives pain.
83.	Whenever the breath is in the right or the left Nadi, the journey will be successful, if the right or the left, as the case may be, is the first step.
96.	During the flow of the moon, poison is destroyed; during that of the sun, power is obtained over any body. During Sushumna salvation is obtained. One power stands in three forms—Pingala, Ida, and Sushumna.
97.	It may happen that when something is to be done, the breath is not rightly flowing, or conversely, when the breath is flowing as it ought to be, there is
* Thus the effects of the wrong breath depend upon its strength. In the majority of cases there may only be a tendency towards these effects, or there may only be a dream of, or an anxiety about, these things.﻿^Hfi SCIENCE Otf itREATli,
'201
Ylo occasion for the action to be done-. How then is a man of business to follow the promptings of Pr£na?
98.	Auspicious or inauspicious acts are always done day and night. When need be, the proper Nadi is to be set in motion.
[m]
99.	In those acts which are desired to have durable effect, in adornment, in going on a distant journey, in entering an order of life (Ashrama) or a palace, in amassing wealth,
100.	In sinking wells, ponds, tanks, etc., in erecting columns and idols, in buying utensils, in marriage, in having clothes, jewelry, and ornaments made,
101.	In preparing cooling and nourishing medicines, in seeing one's lord, in trade, in the collection of grain,
102.	In going into a new house, in taking charge of some office, in cultivation, in throwing the seed, in auspicious peace-making, in going out—the moon is auspicious.
103.	In such acts as beginning to read, etc., in seeing relations, .... in virtue, in learning from some spiritual teacher, in rehearsing a Mantra,
104.	In reading the aphorisms of the science of time, in bringing quadrupeds home, in the treatment of diseases, in calling upon masters,
105.	In riding horses and elephants, in doing good to others, in making deposits,﻿202
NATURE'S FINER FORCES.
106.	In singing, in playing upon instruments, in thinking of the science of musical sounds, in entering any town or village, in coronation,
107.	I11 disease, sorrow, dejection, fever and swoon, in establishing relations with one's people, and masters, in collecting grain, and fuel, etc.,
108.	In the adornment of the person by women, when rain is coming, in the worship of the teacher, etc., O fair one, the moon is auspicious.
109.	Such acts also as the practice of Yoga are successful in Ida. In Ida, verily, let one give up the Akasha and Tejas modifications of Prana.
no. By day or by night all works are successful; in all auspicious works the flow of the moon is good.
\_Pmgald.~\
hi. In all harsh acts, in the reading and teaching of difficult sciences, .... in going on board a ship,
112.	In all bad acts, in drinking, in rehearsing the Mantras of such a god as Bhairava, ....
113.	In learning the Shastras, in going, in hunting, in the selling of animals, in the difficult collection of bricks, wood, stone, and jewels, etc.,
114.	In the practice of music, in the Yantras and Tantras, in climbing a high place or mountain, in gambling, in theft, in the breaking in of an elephant or a horse, in a carriage or otherwise,
115.	In riding a hew donkey, camel, or buffalo, or﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
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an elephant, or liorse, in crossing a stream, in medicine, in writing,
116.	I11 athletic sports, in killing or producing confusion, in practising the six Karinas, etc., in obtaining power over Yakshinis, Yakshas, Vetalas, Poisons and Bhutas, etc.,
117.	I11 killing, .... in enmity, in mesmerising,* causing one to do anything at bidding—in drawing anyone towards anything, in causing distress and confusion, in charity, and buying and selling,
118.	In practising with swords, in battle, in seeking the king, in eating, in bathing, in mercantile negotiations, in harsh and hot deeds, the sun is auspicious.
119.	Just after eating, . . . . the sun is auspicious. The wise ought to sleep, too, during the flow of the sun breath.
120.	All harsh acts, all those various acts which in their nature must be transitory and temporary, find success during the sun. There is no doubt in this.
[Sushumna.']
121.	When the breath moves one moment in the left and the other in the right, that [state of Prana] is known as Sushumna. It is the destroyer of all acts.
[It will be seen that in this section three phases of the Sushumna are noticed.
* The man will never have courage and moral turpitude enough to do the act but when the right Nadi flows.﻿204	nature's einer forces.
(i)	When the breath comes one moment out of one nostril and the next out of the other.
(ii)-When	the breath at once flows out of both nostrils with equal force.
(iii)	When the breath flows out of one nostril with greater force than it does out of the other.
The first is called the unequal state (VishamabMva). The second and third are called the Vishuvat or Vishuva.]
122.	When the Prana is in that Nadi the fires of death burn. It is called Vishuvat, the destroyer of all actions.
123.	When both the Nadis, which ought to flow one after the other, flow at once, then verily there is danger for him who is thus afflicted.
124.	When it is at one moment in the right, and the other moment in the left, it is called the unequal state. The effect is the reverse of what is desired, and so it ought to be known, O fair one!
125.	The wise call it Vishuvat when both the Nadis flow. Do neither harsh nor mild acts at that time; both will be fruitless.
126.	In life, in death, in asking questions, in income, or its absence, in success or its want—everywhere the reverse is the case during the flow of the Vishuvat. Remember then the Lord of the Universe.
127.	The Ishvara is to be remembered by acts such as the practice of Yoga, nothing else is to be done at that time by those who desire success, income and comfort.﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
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128.	Pronounce a curse or benediction when with the sun the Sushumna flows slowly, and it will be useless.
129.	When the unequal state takes rise, do not so much as think of journeying. Journeying during this state undoubtedly causes pain and death.
130.	When the Nadi changes or the Tattva changes, nothing auspicious shall be done by way of charity, etc.
131.	In the front, in the left and above is the moon. On the back, on the right and below is the sun. 111 this way the wise ought to know the distinction between the full and empty.
[Two more phases of conjunction have been noticed: (i) Sandhya Sandhi; (ii) Vedoveda. According to some philosophers these do not exist. These two are said to be but the names of the two foregoing ones. This, however, is not the thesis of the present writer. He holds that both these states exist separately.
(i) The Sandhya Sandhi is that Sushumna through which disappearance takes place into the higher matter beyond. The physiological Sushumna is the reservoir of man's potential physiological life. From that state either the positive or the negative phase of life takes its birth.
But the Sushumna is the child of a higher phase of life. The positive and negative mental forces according to similar laws give birth to this potential Prana-maya Kosha. The world, as some writers have said,﻿206
nature's finer forces.
is the outcome of mental motion (Sankalpa, Manah Sphurana). The state of the conjunction of these two mental states is the Sandhya Sandhi. The same name seems to have been given to the higher Su-shumna. When the two phases of mental matter are neutralized in the Sushumna, the Pranamaya Kosha loses its vitality and disappears.
(ii) This is that state in which is thrown the reflection of the Higher Atma, and whence it is possible for it to come into the mind.]
132.	The messenger who is above, in front, or on the left, is in the way of the moon, and he who is below, at the back and 011 the right, is in the way of the sun.
133.	The conjunction through which disappearance takes place in the subtle matter beyond, which has no beginning, is one, and is without [potential] nourishment or confusion, is called Sandhya Sandhi.
134.	Some say there is no separate Sandhya Sandhi, but the state in which the Prana is in the Vishuvat is called Sandhya Sandhi.
135.	There is no separate Vedoveda, it does not exist. That conjunction is called Vedoveda by which the highest Atma is known.
\The Taitvas.~\
Said the goddess:
136.	Great lord! god of the gods! in thy mind is the great secret which gives salvation to the world; tell me all of it.﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
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Said the god :
137.	There is no god beyond the secret knowledge of breath; the Yogi who is devoted to the science of breath is the highest Yogi.
138.	Creation takes place from the five Tattvas; the Tattva disappears in Tattva; the five Tattvas constitute the objects of the highest knowledge; beyond the five Tattvas is the Formless.
139.	The Prithivi, the Apas, the Tejas, the Vayu, and the Akaslia are the five Tattvas; everything is of the five Tattvas. Revered is he who knows this.
[How everything—every possible phenomenon of the soul, the mind, the Prana, and the gross matter— is of the Tattvas, the introductory essays have tried to explain.]
140.	In the beings of all the worlds the Tattvas are the same all over; from the earth to the Satya-loka the arrangement only of the system of Nadis differs.
[The nervous system is different in all the Lokas. It has been said many a time that the tattvic rays flying in every direction from every point give birth to innumerable Trutis, which are miniature pictures of the macrocosm. Now, it will be easy to understand that these pictures are formed on different planes, which are differently inclined to the solar axis, and lie at different distances from the sun. Our planet is at a certain distance from the sun, and life is so arranged on this planet that the lunar and solar life-currents must have equal force if the organism is﻿208
nature's finer forces.
to be maintained. The Tattvas also must be balanced. There may be other planes of life in which the respective powers of the two currents and the Tattvas may be greater or less than they are on the earth. This difference will secure a difference in the arrangements of the Nadis, and also in their shape.
We experience this sort of thing even on our earth. Different animals and vegetables have different shapes. This is simply on account of the different Trutis on different planes, differently inclined to the solar axis. Suppose for the sake of illustration that the following is the sphere of the macrocosmic Prana:
Works on astrology assign different organs to these astral divisions, and I shall, for the purpose of explanation, assume these without further explanation.﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.	20g
Thus we have, on a larger scale, the following diagram :
tAo^ Head
These twelve regions comprehend the whole body in and out. Now, suppose there is a plane A B having a certain inclination to the axis of the sun, S. From every point in the twelve regions rays fall in every Truti of the plane A B. Then there are other planes, C D and E F, etc. It is evident that the rays falling on all these planes from the twelve regions, will vary in relative strength and position on different planes. It is evident that on all these planes the different organs will differ in shape, in strength, and in relative position. This gives birth to more or less varying nervous systems in all the Lokas, and the various shapes of the organisms of the earth.
15﻿2IO
nature's finer forces*
As in evolution the necessities of the mind are being changed, the Pranamaya Koshas change their planes, and it is thus that they are changed on earth according to the occult theory of evolution.]
141.	In the left as well as in the right there is the five-fold rise [of the Tattvas]. The knowledge of the Tattvas is eight-fold. Hear me, fair one, I will tell thee.
142.	The first is the number of the Tattvas; the second the conjunction of breath; the third is the signs of the breath; the fourth the place of the Tattvas;
143.	The fifth is the colour of the Tattvas; the sixth is the Prana itself; the seventh is their taste; the eighth is the mode of their vibration.
144.	Hear of the three-fold Prana—the Vishuvat, the active [sun], the passive [the moon]—in these- eight forms.* There is nothing, O lotus-faced goddess, beyond the breath.
145.	When by the effect of time the power of seeing does come it must be seen with great effort. The Yogis act for the purpose of deceiving time.
[The Yogis act for the purpose of deceiving time. Time is the order of appearance of the various tattvic phases of a living organism. In man this order is regulated by his previous Karma. By the power of previous Karma, the human organism assumes different receptive states, and in accordance with the receptivity
* The active is the Chara, the motor, the passive is the Achara or Sthira, the receiver of motion.﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
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the tattvic influences of time—the solar Prana—cause pains or enjoyments of different sorts.
By the practice of Yoga the Yogi masters the tattvic changes of his body. Time is cheated. If he pushes the germ of disease out of his body no epidemic will ever affect him.]
146.	L,et a man shut his ears with his thumbs, his nostrils with the middle fingers, his mouth with the last fingers and those last but one, and his eyes by the remaining fingers.
147.	In this state the five Tattvas are gradually known as the yellow, the white, the red, the blue, and the spotted without any other distinct Upadhi [differentia].
148.	Looking into a mirror, let the breath be thrown upon it; thus let the wise man know the difference of the Tattvas by their forms.
149.	Quadrangular, semi-lunar, triangular, spherical, and spotted are respectively the forms of the five Tattvas.
150.	Thus the first, Prithivi, flows midway; the second, Apas, flows downwards; the third, Agni, flows upwards; the fourth, Vayu, flows at acute angles; the Akasha flows between every two.
151.	The Apas Tattva is white; the Prithivi yellow; the Agni red; the Vayu sky-blue; the Akasha foreshadows every colour.
152.	First of all flows the Vayu Tattva; secondly, the Tejas; thirdly, -the Prithivi; and fourthly, the Apas.﻿212
NATURE'S FINER FORCES.
153.	Between the two shoulders is located the Agni; in the root of the navel Vayu; in the knees the Apas; in-the feet the Prithivi; in the head the Akasha.
154.	The Prithivi Tattva is sweet; the Apas astringent; the Tejas pungent; the V&yu acid; the Akasha bitter.
155.	The Vayu flows eight fingers' breadth; the Agni four; the Prithivi twelve; the Apas sixteen.
156.	The upward motion tends to death; the downward to calmness; the one at acute angles to restlessness; the middle one to endurance; the Akasha is common to all.
157.	During the flow of the Prithivi are performed acts which are expected to live long; during the Apas passing acts; during the Tejas harsh acts; during the
•Vayu killing, etc.
158.	Nothing ought to be done during the Akasha except the practice of Yoga; all other acts will remain without their desired effect.
159.	During the Prithivi and the Apas success is obtained; death comes in the Tejas; reduction in the Vayu. The Ak&sha is known by the tattvic philosophers to be altogether useless.
160.	During the Prithivi income is late; during the Apas, immediate; loss is made manifest by the Tejas and the Vayu; Akasha is altogether useless.
161.	The Prithivi Tattva is yellow, has slow motion, moves in the middle, comes in its flow up to the end of the sternum, is heavy in sound, has slight heat in﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.	213
temperature. It gives success in works which are expected to stay long.
162.	The Apas Tattva is white, has rapid motion, moves downwards, comes in its flow sixteen fingers downwards [up to the navel], is heavy in sound, is cool in temperature. It gives success in auspicious works.
163.	The Tejas Tattva is red, moves in whirls (Avartagah), moves upwards, comes in its flow four fingers downwards [up to the end of the chin], is very high in temperature. It gives birth to harsh actions [actions which, so to say, set one on fire],
164.	The Vavu Tattva is sky-blue, moves at acute angles, comes in flow eight fingers downwards, is hot or cool in temperature. It gives success in those works which are transitory.
165.	The Akasha Tattva is the common surface of all, foreshadows the qualities of all the Tattvas. It gives Yoga to the Yogis.
166.	Yellow and quadrangular, sweet and moving in the middle, and the giver of enjoyment is the Prithivi Tattva, which flows twelve fingers downwards.
167.	White, semi-lunar, astringent, moving downwards, and the causer of benefit is the Apas Tattva, which is sixteen fingers in flow.
168.	Blue, spherical, acid, moving at acute angles, the giver of locomotion is the Vayu Tattva, which is eight fingers in flow.
169.	Foreshadowing all colours, of the shape of an ear, bitter in taste, moving everywhere through the﻿214	nature's finer forces.
giver of Moksha is the Ak&sha Tattva, which is useless in all worldly works.
170.	The Pritliivi and the Apas are auspicious Tattvas, the Tejas is moderate in its effects, the Akasha and Vayu are inauspicious and cause loss and death to mankind.
171.	The Apas Tattva is in the east, the Prithivi in the west, the Vayu iu the north, the Tejas in the south, the Akasha in the middle.
172.	When the Prithivi and the Apas are in the moon, and the Agni in the sun, then verily there is success in mild and harsh acts respectively.
173.	The Prithivi causes income during the day, the Apas during the night; death comes in the Tejas; reduction in the Vayu; the Akasha sometimes burns.
174.	In fitness for living, in success, in income, in cultivation [or, according to one reading, in enjoyment and growth], in amassing wealth, in understanding the' meaning of the Mantras, in questions about battle, in going and coming,
175.	Benefit results during the Apas Tattva; auspicious stay, wherever it is, during the Prithivi; by the Vayu they go away elsewhere; the Akasha and the Tejas cause loss and death.
176.	In the Prithivi comes the thought of roots (Mula); • in the Apas and the Vayu that of living beings; in the Tejas comes the thought of minerals; in the Akasha there is void.
177.	In the Prithivi one thinks of [literally there are] beings of many feet; in the-Apas and Vayu of﻿. THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.	215
bipeds; in the Tejas of quadrupeds; in the Akasha of the footless.
178.	Mars is said to be the Tejas, the Sun the Prith-ivi, Saturn the Apas, and Rahu the Vayu in the right Nadi.
179.	The Moon is the Apas, Jupiter the Prithivi, Mercury the Vayu, and Venus the Tejas in the left Nadi; for all acts verily.
[The tattvic value of the planets described in these two verses seems to be the opinion of a few only. The opinion of the writer, which is also the opinion of the great astrologer Varahamihira, is expressed in stanza 180.]
180.	Jupiter is the Prithivi; the Moon and Venus are the Apas; the Sun and Mars are the Tejas; the Dragon, the Ketu, and Saturn are Vayu; Mercury is the Akasha.
181.	Say during the Prithivi that the question is about earthly things [roots, Mula]; during the Apas about life; during the Tejas about minerals; during the Akasha about nothing.
182.	When the breath, leaving the Sun and the Moon, goes to the Rahu know that it [Prana] is in motion and desires another place.
183.	Pleasure [1], growth [2], affection [3], playfulness [4], success [5], laughing [6], in the Prithivi and the Apas; want of power to work in the organs [7], fever [8], trembling [9], going out of one's country [10] in the Tejas and Vayu.
184.	Loss of the life substance [11], and death [12]﻿2l6
nature's finer forces.
in the Akasha—these twelve are the phases of the moon [i.e., the forms, etc., which the negative matter assumes]; they ought always to be known to be with pains by the wise.
[These twelve are the phases of the moon. The moon here means the power which gives sustenance to names and forms. That power, the Rayi, appears in twelve fornu, according to tattvic changes.
The flow of the left Nadi in its diurnal course is not meant here.]
185.	In the east, the west, the south, and the north, the Tattvas, Prithivi, etc., are powerful, so let it be said.
186.	Fair one, the body must be known as made of the five Mahabhutas—the Prithivi, the Apas, the Tejas, the Vayu, and the Akasha.
187.	Bone, muscle, skin, Nadi and hair—this is the . five-fold Prithivi as laid down by the Bralimvidya [the divine science].
188.	The male seed, the female germs, fat, urine, and saliva—this is the five-fold Apas as laid down by the divine science.
189.	Hunger, thirst, sleep, light, drowsiness—this is ' the five-fold Agni as laid down by the divine science.
190.	Removing, walking, smelling, contraction and inflation—this is the five-fold Vayu as laid down by the divine science.
191.	Desire to have, desire to repel, shame, fear and forgetfulness—this is the five-fold Akasha as laid down by the divine science.﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
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192.	The Prithivi has five qualities, the Apas four, the Tejas three, the Vayu two, the Akasha one. This is a portion of tattvic knowledge.
193.	The Prithivi is fifty Palas; the Apas forty Palas; the Tejas thirty; the Vayu twenty; the Akasha ten.
194.	In the Prithivi income is delayed; in the Apas it comes at once; in the Vayu it is very little; in the Agni even what is in hand is destroyed.
195.	[The lunar mansions] Dhanishtha [1], Rohini [2], Jyeshtha [3], Anaradha [4], Shravana [5], Abhijit [6], and Uttarashadha [7]—these are said to be the Prithivi Tattva.
196.	Bharani [1], Krittika [2], Pushya [3], Magha [4], Purvaphalguni [5], Purvabhadrapada [6], and Svati [7], these are said to be the Tejas Tattva.
197.	Purvashadha [1], Ashlesha [2], Mula [3], Ardra [4], Revati [5], Uttarabhadrapada [6], and Shata-bhishaj [7]—these are the Apas Tattva, beloved!
198.	Vishakha [1], Uttaraphalguni [2], Hasta [3], Chitra [4], Punarvasu [5], Ashvini [6], and Mrigashir-sha [7]—these are the Vayu Tattva.
199.	Whatever good or evil the messenger enquires about, standing towards the flowing Nadi, comes not to pass as he desires. In the empty Nadi it is the reverse.
200.	Even when the Nadi is full, but the Tattva is not congenial, there is no success. The sun or the moon gives success only when combined with the congenial Tattva.﻿218
nature's finer forces.
201.	Rama got victory in an auspicious Tattva; so did Arjuna. The Kauravas were all killed in battle on account 'of the antagonistic Tattva.
202.	By the acquired rapidity of other births, or by the kindness of the Guru, some men come to know the nature of the Tattvas by a mind purified by habit.
\Meditation on the Five Tattvas.]
'203. Meditate upon the Prithivi Tattva with L, [or Lam] as its algebraical symbol, as being quadrangular, yellow, sweet-smelling, and conferring a colour as pure as that of gold, freedom from disease and lightness of the body.
204.	Meditate upon the Apas Tattva with V [or Vam] as its algebraical symbol, as being semi-lunar, white as the moon, and giving endurance of hunger and thirst, etc., and producing a sensation similar to that of a plunge in water.
205.	Meditate upon the Tejas .Tattva with R [or Ram] as the algebraical symbol, as being triangular, red, and giving the power of consuming a great amount of food and drink, and the endurance of burning heat.
206.	Meditate upon the Vayu, with P [or Pam] as the algebraical symbol, as being spherical, sky-blue, and giving the power of going into space, and flying like birds.
207.	Meditate upon the Akasha Tattva with H [or Ham] as the algebraical symbol, .formless, foreshadow-﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
2T9
ing many colours, and as giving the knowledge of the three times, and the powers Anima, etc.
208.	Where there is a man who knows the science of breath, there can be no wealth better than him. It is known that by the knowledge of breath one gets good fruit without much ado.
\The Auspicious Victory.]
♦
Said the goddess:
209.	Great lord, god of gods, giver of happiness, the science of the rise of breath is a very lofty science; how does it comprehend the knowledge of the three times?
Said the god:
210.	Fair one, the knowledge of three times refers to three things, and nothing else:
(i)	Fortune.
(ii)	Victory in battle.
(iii)	Good or bad [end of other actions].
211.	On account of the Tattva any act is good or bad in effect; on account of the Tattva comes victory or discomfiture; on account of the Tattva comes scarcity and abundance of wealth. The Tattvas are said to show themselves in these three states.
Said the goddess:
212.	Great lord, god of gods, the all-comprehending ocean of this world is the greatest friend and helpmate of men; [is it] he who causes the fulfilment of all his works?
Said the god:
213.	The Pr&na alone is the highest friend, the﻿220
NATURE'S FINER FORCES.
Prana is the greatest helpmate. Fair one, there is no friend better than Prana.
Said the goddess:
214.	How does the force of Prana stand in the body? What is the appearance of Prana in the body? How is the Prana known by the Yogis to be acting in the Tattvas?
Said the god:
215.	I11 the city of the body the Prana is the lord protector; while going in, it is ten fingers, while going out, twelve.
[This section refers to the human Aura. The subtle Prana surrounds the human gross body like a halo of light. The natural length from the body to the circumference of this halo is twelve fingers of the man whose Prana is measured. This length is affected during the ordinary course of inspiration and expiration. At the time of inspiration the length is reduced to ten fingers; at the time of expiration it is restored to twelve. During certain other actions, too, the length- varies. Thus, in walking, the length of Prana becomes twenty-four; in running forty-two. In cohabitation, it becomes sixty-five; in sleeping, one hundred. In eating and speaking, it becomes eighteen.
In ordinary men, the length is twelve fingers. The ordinary length is, however, reduced in extraordinary men. Thus:
In those men who are free from desire, the length of Prana is reduced by, one finger; it becomes eleven.﻿THE SCIENCE OE BREATH.	221
In men who are always pleasant, always hilarious, the length is ten fingers.
A poet has nine fingers, a speaker has eight, a seer has seven, a levitator has six, and so on.]
216.	In walking it is twenty-four fingers, in running forty-two; in cohabitation sixty-five; in sleeping a hundred fingers.
217.	The natural length of Prana, O goddess, is twelve fingers. In eating and speaking it stretches to eighteen fingers.
218.	When the Prana is reduced by one finger freedom from desire is the result. Pleasure results when it is reduced "by two; poetical power when by three;
219.	Power of speech when by four; second sight when by five; levitation when by six; great rapidity when by seven;
220.	The eight Siddhis when by eight; the nine Nidhis when by nine; the ten figures when by ten; the loss of the shadow when by eleven;
221.	When it is reduced by twelve the inspiratory and expiratory motions drink of the fountain of immortality in the sun [the centre of Prana]. When the Prana fills the body up to the end of the nails even, for whom then is food ?
222.	Thus has been described the law of Prana. It can be known by the teaching of a Guru, not by millions of sciences and Shastras.
223.	If by chance the moon does not set in in the morning, and the sun in the evening, they do so respectively after mid-day and midnight.﻿222
nature's finer forces.
[Battle.']
224.	In warfare in distant countries the moon is victorious; in near places the sun. When the foot raised first in walking belongs to the flowing Nadi, complete success is the result.
225.	In beginning a journey, in marriage, in entering any town, etc., in all auspicious acts, the flow of the moon is good.
226.	By putting the enemy's army towards the empty Nadi, and one's own towards the full, when the Tattva is congenial, one may conquer the whole world.
227.	L,et one give battle in the direction towards which the breath flows; victory is certain, even i-f Iudra be in front.
228.	If a man puts a question about battle, he will win if he is towards the flowing Nadi; will lose if he isvtowards the other.
229.	The Prithivi Tattva points to wounds in the belly; the Apas in the feet; the Agni in the thighs;-, the Vayu in the hands;
230.	The Akasha in the head. These five-fold wounds have been described in the Science of Breath.
231.	He whose name has even letters wins, if he asks the question during the flow of the moon. He who -has an odd number of letters in his name wins if he asks the question during the flow of the sun.
232.	When the qmestion is put during the moon there will be a peaceful termination; during the sun the fight must come.
233.	During the Prithivi Tattva, the fight will be﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
223
equal. During the Apas the result will be equal. During the Tejas there will be defeat. During the Vayu and the Akasha death will ensue.
234.	When by some cause the flow of the breath is not clearly felt at the time of the question, let the wise man resort to the following expedient.
235.	Sitting motionless let him have a flower thrown upon himself. The flower will fall on the full side. So let him give the answer.
236.	Here or elsewhere the knower of the laws of breath is very powerful; who is more powerful than he?
Said the goddess:
237.	These are the laws of victory when men fight among themselves; how does victory come when they fight with Yama [the god of death].
Said the god:
238.	Let him meditate upon the lord when the Prana is calm; during the flow of the moon and then give up life when after that the two Pranas coincide. He will have what he desires—great benefit and success.
239.	The whole manifested world has come out of the unmanifested. That manifested world disappears in the unmanifested when the fact is known.
[The Year.]
260. On the first lunar day of the white fortnight of the month of Chaitra, let the wise Yogi see both the﻿224
nature's finer forces.
northward and southward journey of the sun by an analysis of the Tattvas.
[On this day begins the Samvat year of the era of King Vikramaditya.]
261.	If at the time of the rise of the moon, the Prithivi, the Apas, or the Vayu Tattva be flowing, all kinds of grain will be plentiful.
262.	The flow of the Tejas and the A kasha gives fearful famines. This is the nature of time. In this way is known the effect of time in the year, the month, and the day.
263.	If the Susliumna, which is bad in all worldly concerns, be flowing, there will be confusion in the land, subversion of the kingdom, or fear thereof, epidemic and all sorts of diseases.
264.	When the sun passes into Aries, let the Yogi meditate upon the breath, and, finding out the prevalent Tattva, tell the world what will be the nature of the next year.
[On this day begins the solar year. The tattvic colour of universal Prana—the external one—at any time is determined by the positions of the sun and moon and by those of the planets, whose presence exercises a very potent influence upon the tattvic value of any moment. This tattvic value changes according to a universal law.
If at any time the Apas Tattva is flowing, it can never abruptly pass into the Tejas, but must do so grade by grade. These atmospheric Tattvas run many minor courses. Hence it is possible, though﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
225
extremely difficult and complicated, to calculate from the tattvic value of one moment the tattvic value of any future moment.
The living world is always affected by these tattvic changes. In the act of breathing nature has furnished a very exact and faithful scale for the measurement of tattvic changes. Hence the Yogi, who can live in conformity with time and space can foretell the future very easily. Ah! but how difficult is it to live in perfect conformity with time and space!]
265.	The good aspect of the year, the month, and the day is known by the Tattvas, Prithivi, etc., and the bad one by the Akasha and the Vayu.
266.	If the Prithivi Tattva flows there will be plenty and prosperity in the kingdom, and the earth will be full of good crops; there will be much comfort and enjoyment.
267.	If the Apas Tattva flows there will be plenty of rain, plenty of grain, no want, great comfort, and well-grown fields.
268.	If the Agni Tattva flows there will be famine, subversion, or fear thereof; there will be fearful epidemics and the least possible rain.
269.	If the Vayu Tattva flows when the sun goes into Aries, there will be confusion, accidents, famine, little rain, or the itis.
[The Itis are six afflictions which distress the crops —too much rain, etc.]
270.	If the Akasha Tattva flows when the sun goes into Aries, there will be want of grain and of comfort.
16﻿226	nature's finer forces."
271.	When the full breath is in its own proper place, with its own proper Tattvas, success of all sorts is the result. If the sun and the moon are the reverse, grain must be laid up [against a scarcity].
272.	If the Agni Tattva flows there will be inequality of prices; if Akasha, there will be continuous scarcity. Let things be laid up then; there will be a rise in the prices two months thereafter.
273.	When the breath is changing into the sun it gives birth to fearful diseases. When the Akasha and the Vayu are conjoined with the Tejas, the earth will become the picture of hell.
[The disturbance of tattvic balance is disease; hence every Tattva has its own diseases.]
[Diseased]
274.	In the Prithivi Tattva there is its own disease; in the Apas Tattva the disease of the same Tattva; and so in the Tejas, the Vayu, and the Akasha, similar and hereditary diseases.
[When two men come together their Pranas exchange colour. It is on this account that one can measure from the momentary reflection in one's own body the colour of any other man that is near him. The present of every man is the father of His future. Hence one can predict the end of any disease, or the time of death.
All that has been ascertained to be true on these heads has been described in the various sections of this book.]﻿THE SCIENCE OF BREATH.
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275.	When the messenger [querent] comes first towards the empty half of the body, and then towards the full half, he about whom the question is put will surely live, even if he be [apparently] lying in the swoon [of death].
276.	If the question is put to the Yogi while sitting in the same direction with the patient, he will live even though many a disease may have gathered strength in his body.
277.	When the breath is in the right * nostril, and the messenger speaks of his affliction in piteous accents, the patient will live. During the moon the effect is ordinary.
278.	If the question be asked while holding the picture of the patient towards the Prana and looking at it, the patient will live.
279.	When during the flow of the sun or moon, the Yogi gets into a carriage and the question is put to him while there, the messenger will have success in his desire.
280.	When at the time of the question the Yogi sits upstairs while the patient is downstairs, he will certainly live. If the patient be upstairs, he will certainly go to the house of Yarna [the god of death].
281.	If at the time of the question the messenger is towards the empty nostril, but speaks the reverse of what he desires, he will have success. If the reverse is the case, the result too is the reverse.
282.	When the patient is towards the moon and the asker towards the sun the patient will certainly﻿228
nature's finer forces.
die, even if he be surrounded by hundreds of physicians.
283.	When the patient is towards the sun, and the asker towards the moon, then too the patient dies, even if Sambhu be his protector,
284.	When one Tattva is out of its proper time, people are subdued by disease; when two are wrong, they cause misfortune to friends and relations; if it is out of place for two fortnights death is the result.
[7Zv; Prediction of Dcathi]
285.	At the beginning of a month, a fortnight, and a year, let the wise man try to find out the time of death from the movements of the Prana.
286.	The lamp of the five Tattvas receives its oil from the moon. Protect it from the solar force; life will thereby become long and stationary.
287.	If by mastering the flow of breath, the sun is kept in check, life is prolonged. Even solar time is cheated.
288.	The moon falls from heaven giving the nectar of life to the lotuses of the body. By the constant practice of good actions and Yoga one becomes immortal by the lunar nectar.
289.	Make the moon flow during .the day, the sun during the night. He who practises thus is verily a true Yogi.
290.	If for one night and day the breath flows continuously by one Nadi, death will ensue in three years.
291.	He whose breath flows by the Pingala two﻿^HE SCIENCE OF BREACH.
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whole days and nights continuously has, as the knowers of the Tattvas say, two years more to live.
292.	If the moon continuously flows during the night and the sun during the day, death will come within six months.
293.	When the sun flows altogether, and the moon is altogether unseen, death comes in a fortnight. So says the Science of Death.
294.	He whose breath flows from one nostril for three nights continuously has, so say the wise, a year only to live.
295.	Take a vessel of the Kansiya alloy [bell-metal]. Fill it with water, and see in it the reflection of the sun. If in the midst of the reflection is seen a hole the seer will die within ten days. If the reflection is smoky, death will come the same day. If it is seen towards the south, west, or north death will come within six, two or three months respectively. Thus has been described the measure of life by the omniscient.
296.	If a man sees the figure of the messenger of death he is sure to die.
[The messenger of death has red or reddish clothes, matted hair, diseased teeth, oil-besmeared body, a weeping and red-hot face, a body besmeared with ashes, flying flames of fire, having long heavy rods, and standing towards the empty-Nadi.]
297.	When the skin is cool but the inside is hot, death must come within a month.
298.	When a man changes .suddenly and unaccount-﻿230
nature's finer forces.
ably from good habits to bad, or from bad habits to good, he is sure to die.
299.	He whose breath coming out of the nose is cool, but coming out of the mouth is hot like fire, is sure to die of great heat.
300.	He who sees hideous figures, and bright light without making out the flame, dies before nine mouths.
301.	He who suddenly begins to feel heavy bodies light, and light bodies heavy, and he who being dark in colour begins in disease to look gold-coloured, must die.
302.	He whose hands, chest, and feet become at once dry after bathing, has not ten nights to live.
303.	He who becomes dim of sight, and cannot see his face in the pupil of another's eye must assuredly die.
304.	Now will I tell thee something about the shadow-figure (Chhaya Purusha). Knowing this, man very soon becomes the knower of the three times.
305.	I shall speak of those experiments by means of which even distant death is known. I shall describe all these in accordance with Shivagama.
306.	Going to a lonely place and standing with the back towards the sun let a man look with attention at the neck of the shade he throws on the ground.
307.	Let him see this for as long a time as he can calmly repeat the words: "Om kram parabrahmane ^namah" for one hundred and eight times. Then let him look up into the sky. He will thus see Shankara﻿the science of breath.	231
[the figure of a being capable of appearing in many colours].
308.	By doing this for six months, the Yogi becomes the lord of those who walk on earth; in two years he becomes absolutely independent and his own master.
309.	He obtains the knowledge of the three times and great bliss. There is nothing impossible for the constant practice of Yoga.
310.	The Yogi who sees this figure in the clear heavens having a dark colour, dies within six months. - 311. When it is yellow there is fear of disease; when it is red there will be loss; when it has many colours there will be great confusion and dejection.
312.	If the figure be wanting in feet, shanks, abdomen and the right arm a relation is sure to die.
313.	If the left arm is wanting the wife will die; when the chest and the right arm is wanting, death and destruction will come.
314.	When the faeces and gas escape together, the man is sure to die in ten days.
315.	When the moon flows altogether, and the sun is not seen at all, death comes surely in a month. So says the Science of Death.
316.	Those whose death is near cease to see the Arandhati, the Dhruva, the steps of Vishnu, and the circle of the mothers as they are pointed out to them.
317.	The Arandhati is the tongue; the Dhruva the tip of the nose; the eyebrows are the steps of Vishnu; the pupil of the eye the circle of the mothers.
318.	The man who ceases to see the eyebrows dies﻿232
nature's finer forces.
within nine days; he who ceases to see the pupil of the eye dies within five days; he who ceases to seq the nose dies within three days; he who ceases to see the tongue dies within one day.
319.	The pupil of the eye is seen by pressing the eye near the nose.
[The Nadis^\
320.	The IdS. is also technically called Ganga; the Pingala Yamuna; the Sushumna Sarasvati; the conjunction is called Prayaga.
321.	Let the Yogi sit in the posture called Padnia-sana, and perforin Pranayama.
322.	The Yogis must know the Puraka, the Rechaka, and the third, Kumbhaka, for obtaining power over the body.
323.	The Puraka causes growth and nourishment, and equalizes the humours; the Kumbhaka causes stability, and increases the security of life.
324.	The Rechaka takes away all sins. He who practises this reaches the state of Yoga.
325.	In the Kumbhaka hold the air in as much as possible; let it go out by the moon and in by the sun.
326.	The sun drinks the moon, the moon drinks the sun; by saturating one with the other, one may live as long as the moon and the planets.
327.	The Nadi flows iu one's own body. Have power over that; if it is not let go through the mouth or nose, one becomes a young man.
328.	When the mouth, nose, eyes, and ears are﻿the science of breath.
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stopped by the fingers, the Tattvas begin to take their rise before the eyes.
339. He who knows their colour, their motion, their taste, their places, and their signs, becomes in this world equal to the god Rudra.
330.	He who knows all this, and reads it always, is freed from all pain and gets what he desires.
331.	He who has the knowledge of breath in his head, has fortune at his feet.
332.	I/ike the One in the Vedas, and the sun in the universe, is the knower of the Science of Breath to be honoured. He who knows the Science of Breath and the Philosophy of the Tattvas, knows that even millions of elixirs are not equal to it.
334.	There is nothing in the world which will release you of the debt of the man who gives you the knowledge of the word [Om] and of breath.
335.	Sitting in his own place, with measured food, and sleep, let the Yogi meditate upon the highest Atma [whose reflection the Breath is]. Whatever he says will come to pass.
The End.﻿﻿GLOSSARY.﻿﻿GLOSSARY.
AbhijiT, one of the lunar mansions.
Abhinivesha, the technical name for that weakness of the mind which causes fear of death. It is one of the five "miseries" of the Yogis.
Agama, one of the three means of knowledge. The knowledge which comes to us from the experience of researches of others, which we take on authority, is said to come from Agama. The Vedas are called Agama for the same reason.
Agni, fire. A name of the luminiferous ether, otherwise called the Tejas Tattva. Its colour is red. Other colours result from a composition with other Tattvas.
Ahankara, egoism.
Ahavaniya, one of three fires which were maintained in an ancient Hindu household.
AkaSha, the name of the first Tattva, the sonoriferous ether. This is a very important Tattva. All the other Tattvas come out of it, and live and work in it. All the forms and ideas of the universe live in it. There is no living thing in the world which is not preceded by Akasha or followed by it. This is that state from which we may expect every other substance and every other Tattva to immediately come out, or, more strictly, in which everything is, but is not seen.
Axambusha, or Alammukha, a tube in the human body which is said to open in the mouth; therefore the alimentary canal.
Ambar/Sha, one of the five hells. The qualities of the Apas Tattva are found here in painful excess.
Amrita, the nectar of the gods.
Ananda, that state of bliss in which the soul merges into the spirit, It also means the spiritual state of tattvic atmosphere.﻿238
nature's finer forces.
Anandamaya Kosha, the spiritual coil, the spiritual monad.
Anaradha, the seventeenth lunar mansion.
AndhaTamishra, the hell where the qualities of the AkashaTattva are found in painful excess.
Anumana, inference.
Apana, that manifestation of the life principle which throws out of the system things which it no longer requires, such as faeces, urine, etc.
ApanTartamah, a Vedic Rishi, said to have incarnated as Vyasa Krishna Dvaipayana, the author of the Mahabharata, etc.
Apas, the name of one of the five Tattvas, translated into English as the gustiferous ether.
Ardra, one of the lunar asterisms.
Asamprajnata, the higher state of mental trance, in which' the mind is perfectly absorbed in the soul. The lower state is known as Samprajnata.
AsaT, the negative breath or phase of matter.
ashi/esha, a lunar mansion.
Ashvxn", the first lunar mansion.
Asmita, (i) a synonym of Ahankara; egoism, (ii) Making part or parcel of self, (iii) The notion that the self is nothing separate from percepts aud concepts.
Avidya, false knowledge.
Bharani, the second lunar mansion.
BhOtas, the shells of the departed spirits.
Brahma (with the short a), also known as Parabraliman, the One Absolute, from which comes out the universe.
Brahma (with the long a), the self-conscious universe, the sixth principle of the universe.
Brahmadanda, the vertebral column.
Brahmanda, the universe. Literally, the Egg of Brahma.
Brahmarandhra, the hole in the head through which the soul of the Yogi passes out of the body. The spinal canal ends in this.
Brahmavidya, the Divine Science, Theosophia. Buddhi, understanding.﻿GLOSSARY.
239
Ch, the symbol for one of those vessels which emanate from the heart.
Chh, the symbol for another of them.
ChaiTra, a lunar month of the Indian Calendar, corresponding generally to February-March.
Chakra, a circle, a disc.
Chakshus, the eye; the ocular modification of Prana.
Chandra, the moon, the left breath.
Chandraxoka, the lunar sphere.
ChaTuryuga, the four Yugas—Satya, Treta, Dvapara and Kali— put together; a period of 12,000 Daiva years.
Chhandogya, the name of a Upanishad, a class of treatises on the Indian Esoteric Philosophy.
Chitra, one of the lunar asterisms.
Daiva, pertaining to the gods (Devas). A Daiva day = one year of men. A Daiva year=365 such days.
Damini, the name of one of the vessels of the human body, probably the one with all its ramifications which proceeds to the breast of the female (?). I have not yet found it described anywhere.
DEVACHAN, a Tibetan term now used in English to denote that state of bliss which one enjoys, after death, in the lunar sphere.
DevadaTTa, one of the ten modifications of the life principle.
Dhananjaya, one of the ten modifications of the life principle.
DhanishTha, a lunar mansion.
Dharana, concentration of the mind.
DrESHKANA, the third part of a sign of the Zodiac.
Duhkkha, pain.
Dvadashansha, the twelfth part of a sign of the Zodiac.
Dvesha, that manifestation of the mind which repels disagreeable things.
G, the symbol for one of the vessels which branch from the heart.
Gandharx, the Nadi which goes to the left eye.
Gandharva, a heavenly musician.
Ganga, a technical term for the sun breath.﻿240
nature's finer forces.
Gargya Sauryayana, the name of au ancient philosophical student mentioned in the Upanishads.
Garhapatya, one of the three household fires.
Gh, the symbol for one of the tubes which proceed from the heart to branch off all over the body.
Ghari, or GhaTi, (i) a period of twenty-four minutes, (ii) A lunar Ghati is somewhat less—one-sixtieth of a lunar day.
Ghrana, the organ of smell, the odoriferous modification of Prana.
Ha, wi) the technical symbol for the process of expiration, (ii)
Hah, ) The symbol for the Akaslia Tattva. the neuter nominative of the same.
Hamsa, from Ham and Sa, is the technical name of Parabrahtnan, because in this state both the positive and negative motions lie in posse.
Hamsachara, the technical term for the process of breathing.
HASTA, a lunar mansion.
Hastijihva, a Nadi which goes to the right eye.
Hora, the half of a Zodiacal sign.
Ida, the Nadi which spreads in the left part of the body; the left sympathetic.
Indra, the ruler of the gods; the wielder of the thunderbolt.
Ishopanishad, the name of a Upanishad.
Isiivara, the sixth principle of the universe (according to the septenary division); the same as Brahma.
J, the symbol for one of the twelve stem Nadis which branch off from the heart.
JAGRATA, the waking state.
Jh, the symbol for one of the stem Nadis proceeding from the heart.
JyeshTha, a lunar mansion.
K, the symbol for one of the Nadis proceeding from the heart.
Kai,a, a division of time = i|- minutes.﻿GLOSSARY.
241
Kai^asGtra, the name of a hell in which the qualities of the Vayu Tattva are found in painful excess.
Kau, the name of a cycle of 2,400 Daiva years. The Iron Age.
Kamaia, the lotus. A centre of nervous force in the body.
Kansiya, an alloy of zinc and copper, largely used in making vessels.
KashTha, a division of time = 34- seconds.
KaThopanishad, one of the Upanishads.
Kh, the symbol for a Nali proceeding from the heart.
Komai^a, literally, soft.
Kram, the Tantrik symbol for the idea of the human mind, stepping beyond the ordinary bounds of the visible and thus looking into the invisible. The ancient T&ntrik philosophers had symbols to denote almost every idea. This was absolutely necessary to them, because they held that if the human mind were fixed upon any object with sufficient strength for a certain time, it was sure by the force of will to attain the object. The attention was secured generally by constantly muttering certain words, and thus keeping the idea always before the mind. Symbols were therefore used to denote every idea. Thus "Hrieu" denotes modesty, "Kliw" denotes love, "Aiw" denotes protection, "Shaum" denotes welfare, and so on. Similar symbols were used to name blood-vessels, etc. The Tfintrik science is now almost entirely lost; there is at present no available comprehensive key to the symbolical terminology, and much of the symbolical language is, therefore, unfortunately, up to the present time, simply unintelligible.
Krikii<a, that manifestation of the life principle which causes hunger.
KriTTIka, the third lunar mansion.
Kuhu, that Nadi which goes to the generative organs.
Kumbhaka, the practice in Pranayama of drawing as deep a breath as possible and holding the inspired air in as long as possible.
KCrma, that manifestation of the life principle which causes twinklings of the eye.
l7﻿24-2
nature's finer forces.
Lam (L), the symbol for the Prithivi Tattva.
1/OKA, a sphere of being.
Magha, the tenth lunar mansion.
Mahabhuta, a synonym of Tattva.
Mahakaxa, the hell in which the qualities of the Prithivi Tattva are found in painful excess.
Mahamoha, one of the five miseries of Patanjali. A synonym of Raga (desire to obtain or retain).
Maheshvara, the great Lord, the great Power.
Mahurta, a division of time = forty-eight minutes.
Manas, mind; the third principle of the universe from below.
Manomaya Kosha, the mental coil. The individualized mind which is, as it were, a sheath for the spiritual energy to manifest itself in, in the particular way we find the mind working.
Manu, the Being conceived as the substratum of the third principle of the universe from below. The idea of the humanitj' of one of those cycles known as Manvantaras.
Manusha, pertaining to men; human. Manusha day, the ordinary day of twenty-four hours; Manusha year, the ordinarj' solar year. The lunar month is known as the. day of the fathers (Pitriya), the solar year itself is known as the day of the gods.
Manvantara, a cycle of seventy-one Chaturyugas, during which one Manu reigns, i.e., during which exists humanity of a certain type.
Manvantaric, pertaining to a Manvantara.
MAtarishva, literally, he who sleeps in space. Applied to Prana as performing the functions of recording the acts of men, etc.
MERU, also called Sumeru. The Puranas speak of its being a mountain (Parvata, Achala), on which is situated Svarga, the heaven of India, containing the cities of gods, with celestial spirits for inhabitants. It is, in fact, spoken of as the Olympus of the Hindus. The fact is that Meru is no mountain of earthly mould, such as we are familiar with on the face of'our earth. It is the boundary line which divides the atmosphere of earth from the upper air, the pure ether, or, in our terminology,-the﻿GLOSSARY.
243
Meru is the bounding circle of the terrestrial Prana. This side the circle is our planet, with its atmosphere; that side the celestial Prana, the abode of the celestials. The sage Vyasa describes the Bhurloka (or earth) as extending from sea level to the back of the Meru. On the face of the so-called mountain live the celestials, hence the earth's boundary is its back. This line is called a mountain from its fixed, unchangeable position.
Moha, forget fulness. It is a synonym of Asmita, one of the five "miseries" of Patanjali.
Moksha, that state of being in which the downward tendencies of the mind absolutely die out, and in which, therefore, the mind remains merged in the soul without the danger of rebirth.
Mrigashirsha, a lunar mansion.
Mui,a, a lunar asterism.
N, the symbol for one of those Nadis which ramify from the heart.
Nadi, this word means a tube, a vessel. It is applied indiscriminately to blood-vessels and nerves. The idea of the word is that of a tube, a vessel, or even a line, along which something flows, be it a liquid or the current of a force.
Naga, that manifestation of life which causes belching.
Namah, obeisance.
NAsad asit, a hymn of the Rig Veda, the one hundred and twenty-ninth of the tenth Mandala, which begins with these words. Ill this hymn is found the germ of the Science of Breath.
. Navansha, the ninth part of a sign of the Zodiac.
Nidra, dreamless sleep.
Nimesha, a division of time = -JL. of a second. Literally, it means the twinkling of the eye.
Nirvana, the extinguishment of the downward tendencies of the mind. It is a synonym of Moksha.
Nirvichara, the ultra-meditative intuition in which, without the least effort of-thought, the past and future, the antecedents and consequents of a present phenomenon at once make their appearance in the mind.
NirviTarka, a kind of intuition (Sampatti), the wordless in-﻿244
nature's finer forces.
tuition. It is that state of mental lucidity in which the truths of nature shine of themselves without the intervention of words.
Pada, foot; that modification of life matter which acts in walking.
Padma, a synonym of Kamala.
Pai,a, a measure, a weight, about ij oz.
Pam (P), the algebraical symbol for the V&yu Tattva. Pam is the neuter nominative of the letter Pa, the first letter of the word Pavana, a synonym of Vayu.
Panchi-karana, literally, the word means making five-fold. It
lias been roughly translated as the division into five. It means
the process of a minimum of a Tattva being composed with
those of others. Thus, after the process, every molecule, say of
the Prithivi Tattva, will consist of eight minima.
p . . . - _ Prithivi Akaslia Vayu Agni Apas mtmvi - - - + - 8 + - 8- +	+
And so on. In Ananda the Tattvas are single. In Vijnana and afterwards each is five-fold, and hence each has a colour, etc.
Pan i, hand; manual power.
Parabrahman, this is now well known as the causeless cause of the Universe, the One Absolute All.
Parabrahmane, the dative of Parabrahman, meaning "to Para-brahma."
Parameshthi SOkta, the "Nasad asit" hymn noticed above is also called the Parameshthi Sukta.
Paravairagya, that state of the mind when its manifestations become absolutel)' potential, and lose all power of coming into the actual without the nod of the soul. In this state every high power makes its appearance easily in the mind.
Parinirvana, the last state in which the human soul can live, and the psychic, mental, and physiological influences have no power on that.
PaTanjaij, the author of the Aphorisms of Yoga, the science of mental application and embellishment.
Payu, excretive organs; the modification of Prana which goes to make up these.﻿GLOSSARY.
245
PingaiA, the N&di, and the system of Nadis which works 111 the right half of the body; the right sympathetic.
PiTriya, pertaining to the fathers. Pitriya day means the lunar month.
PiTTa, a synonym of Agni; means heat, temperature.
PrakriTi, the undifferentiated cosmic matter.
Prai,aya, the cessation of the creative energies of the world; the period of rest.
Pramana, means of knowledge. These are: (i) Senses, (ii) Inference, (iii) Authority; or, iu other words, the experience of others.
Prana, the life principle of the universe and its localized manifestation; the life principle of ma^and other living beings. It consists of an ocean of the five Tattvas. The suns are the different centres of the ocean of Prana. Our solar system is filled to its extremest limit with Prana, and it is in this ocean that move the various heavenly bodies. It is held that the whole ocean of Prana, with the sun and moon and other planets, is a complete picture of every living organism on earth, or, for that matter, of any planet. Hence is Prana spoken of sometimes as a person* a living being. All the manifestations of life in the body are known as minor Pranas. The pulmonary manifestation is known as Prana by preeminence. The positive phase of matter is also so called as distinguished from Rayi, the negative phase of life matter.
Pranamaya Kosha, the coil of life; the life principle.
Pranayama, the practice of drawing deep breaths, keeping the indrawn air inside as long as possible, and then breathing the lungs out as empty as possible.
PrapaThaka, a chapter of the Chhandogya Upanishad.
Prashnopanishad, one of the Upanishads.
PraTyaksha, perception.
Prayaga, really the conjunction of the three rivers, the Ganges, the Jumna, and the now nowhere visible Sarasvati at Allahabad. In the terminology of the Science of Breath it is applied to the conjunction of the right and left streams of breath.
PriThivi, one of the five Tattvas; the odoriferous ether.
PUNARVASfi, one of the lunar mansions.﻿246
nature's finer forces.
Puraka, the process in Pranayama of filling the lungs with as much air as possible, drawing as deep a breath as possible.
Purvabhadrapada, one of the lunar mansions.
Purvashadha, one of the lunar mansions.
POsha, the name of the Nadi which goes to the right ear.
Pushya, one of the lunar mansions.
Raga, (i) that manifestation of the mind which seeks to retain pleasure-giving objects, (ii) A mode of music. There are eight modes of music, and each of these has several minor modes called Raginis. Bach Ragini has again several harmonies.
Ragini (see Raga).
Ram, neuter nominative of R'a; stands as the symbol for the Agni Tattva.
Rasana, the organ of taste.
Raurava, the hell in which the qualities of the Tejas Tattva are found in painful excess.
Rayi, the negative phase of matter, distinguished from the positive phase by its impressibility. In fact, it is the cooler life-matter, while the hotter is named Prana.
rechaka, the practice in Pranayama of driving the breath out cf the lungs.
Revati, one of the lunar mansions.
Rig Veda, the oldest and most important of the Vedas.
RiTambhara, the faculty of psychic perception by which the realities of the world are known with as much truth and exactness as the external things arc known by ordinary perception.
Rohini, the fourth lunar mansion.
Sa, the symbol for the process of inspiration. The Shakti, the receptive modification of life-matter, is also called Sa.
SadhakapiTTa, the temperature of the heart, said to be the cause of intelligence and understanding.
Samadhi, trance; the state in which the mind is so much absorbed in the object of its pursuit, or in the soul, as to forget itself in the object of its attention.
Samana, that manifestation of life which in the abdomen is said to cause the absorption and distribution of food all over the body.﻿GLOSSARY.
247
Sambhu, the male principle; the positive phase of matter. A name of the god Shiva.
SamprajnAta, a kind of Samadhi; that in which the mental application is rewarded by the discovery of truth.
Sandhi, the conjunction of the positive and negative phases of any force. This is a synonym of Sushumna. The conjunction of two Tattvas. When one Tattva passes into another the Akasha intervenes. In fact, there can be 110 change from one state of matter to another without this all-pervading Tattva intervening. This intervening state is, however, not the Sandhi. By tattvic conjunction a new conjunct Tattva is always produced. This is indicated by the length of the breath. Thus, when the Agni and the Vayu conjoin, the length is somewhere between these two. Similarly for other Tattvas. If the positive and negative phases in any object make their appearance in regular immediate succession for some time, they will be said to be in conjunction (Sandhi). If, however, coming from opposite directions, they cancel each other, the result is either Akasha or Sushumna. The reader will perceive that there is very little difference, and sometimes none at all, in the states of Akasha, Sandhi, and Sushumna. If Akasha remains stationary, it is Sushumna; if Sushumna tends towards production, it becomes Akasha. In fact, Akasha is that state which immediately foreshadows any other tattvic state of being.
SanSkara, acquired velocity; acquired habits. A synonym of Vasana.
SarasvaTi, the goddess of speech.
Sat, the first state of the universe, in which every form of the living universe, even tshvara himself, lay latent. It is that state from which the non-composite Tattvas are first emitted.
satya, veracity; truthfulness; truth.
Savichara, the meditative intuition. (See Nirvitarka and Nir-vichara.)
Savitarka, a kind of intuition; the verbal intuition.
ShakTi, a power; the negative phase of any force; the consort of a god, the god being the positive phase of the force.
Shankhavau, the name of a drug.﻿248
nature's finer forces.
Shankhini, a NMi, with all its ramifications, which goes to the anus.
Shastra, the sacred books of the Hindus. The six schools of philosophy.
Shatabhishaj, a lunar mansion.
ShaTachakra Nirupana, the name of a work on the philosophy of the Tantrists.
Shivagama, the name of an ancient book. The present treatise on the Science of Breath contains only the subject of one chapter of that book, which is now nowhere found.
Shravana, a lunar mansion.
ShroTra, ear; the auditory phase of life-matter.
ShvetakKTU, the name of an ancient philosopher who is represented in the Chhdndogya (Jpanishad as reading Brahmavidya with his father Gautama.
Smriti, the faculty of retentive memory.
SThui,a, gross.
Sthula Sharira, the gross body as distinguished from the higher subtle principles.
Sukha, the feeling of pleasure.
Surya, the sun.
StJRYATyOKA, the solar sphere.
S u r yah and ai,a, the portion of space where the influence of the sun reaches.
Sushumna, (i) the Nadi which spreads in the middle of the body, (ii) The spinal chord, with all its ramifications, (iii) That state of force which is pregnant of both the negative and positive phases; when neither the moon-breath nor the sun-breath flows, the Prana is said to be in Sushumna.
SuShupti, dreamless sleep, the state of the soul when the manifestations of the mind experienced in dream are at rest.
Svapna, a dream.
Svara, the current of the life-wave; the Great Breath; the breath of man. The Great Breath, on whatever plane of life, has five modifications, the Tattvas.
SvaTi, a lunar mansion.﻿GLOSSARY.
249
T, the name of one of the Nadis which ramify from the heart.
TamaS, a synonym of Avidya.
TanTra, a class of treatises on the science of the human body and soul. They comprehend a great deal of Yoga. The language which they use is highly symbolical, and the formulae of their faith are little more than algebraical expressions without, at present, any available key.
TaTTva, (i) a mode of motion, (ii) The central impulse which keeps matter in a certain vibrator}- state, (iii) A distinct form of vibration. The Great Breath gives to Prakriti five sorts of elementary extension. The first and the most important of these is the Akasha Tattva; the remaining four are the Prithivi, Vayu, Apas, and Agni. Every form and every motion is a manifestation of these Tattvas singly or in conjunction, as the case may be.
Tejas, this is one of the Tattvas; the luminiferous ether. The synonyms of this word are Agni, and, rarely, Raurava.
Th, the name of one of the Nadis which ramify from the heart.
TrETa, the second cycle of the Chaturyuga, a period of 3,600 Daiva years.
Trinshansha, the thirtieth part of a sign of the Zodiac.
TruTI, (i) a division of time. One hundred and fifty Trutis equal one second, (ii) A measure of space; as much as the sun or moon takes a Truti of time to move over. A Truti is a perfect picture of the whole ocean of Prana. It is the astral germ of every living organism.
Tura, the higher notes of music opposed to Komala.
Turiya, the fourth state of consciousness. The state of absolute consciousness. The first three states are: (i)-waking, (ii) dreaming, (iii) sleep.
Tvak, skin.
Udana, (i) that manifestation of life which carries us upwards, (ii) That manifestation by which life recedes into rest.
Udaxaka, an ancient philosopher who appears as teacher in the Prashnopanishad.
UTTarabhadhrapada, a lunar mansion.
UTTARA GixA, the name of a Tantrik work.﻿250
•nature's finer forces.
UTTAraphai^guni, a lunar mansion.
Uttarashadha, another lunar mansion.
VaidhriTa, or Vaidhrtti, the twenty-seventh Yoga. There are twenty-seven Yogas in the ecliptic. "The Yoga," says Cole-brooke, "is nothing else than a mode of indicating the sum of the longitudes of the sun and moon"; and so it is.
Vairagya, indifference to the pleasing objects of the world.
Vak, the goddess of speech; another name of Sarasvati.
Vam (V), the symbol of the Apas Tattva, from Vari, a synonym of
' Apas.
Vasana, the habit and tendency engendered in the mind by the doing of any act.
Vayu, one of the Tattvas; the tangiferous ether.
VEdaS, the four sacred books of the Hindus.
Vedoveda, a manifestation of the Sushumna.
Vetaxa, an evil spirit.
Vichara, meditation.
Vijnana, literally, it means knowing. Technically, it is the psychic matter and its manifestations.
Vijnanamaya Kosha, the psychic coil of the spirit.
Vikalpa, complex imagination.
Vina, a string instrument of music.
Vindu, point.
Vipala, a measure of time, of a second.
Viparyaya, false knowledge, one of the five manifestations of mind recognized by the sage Patanjali.
ViraT, the immediate father of Maim, and son of Brahma. The akashic state of psychic matter from which proceed the mental Tattvas which constitute Manu.
Vishakha, a lunar asterism.
Vishamabhava, unequal state. This is a manifestation of Sushumna. In this the breath flows one moment out of one nostril and the next out of the other.
ViShramopanishad, the name of a Upanishad translated in the text.
ViShuva, Vishuvat, this is a manifestation of Sushumna.﻿GLOSSARY.
251
ViTarka] philosophical curiosity.
Vyana, that manifestation of life which causes every part of the body to keep its shape.
Vyasa, an ancient philosopher, the author of the Mahabharata, a commentator on the aphorisms of Yoga, the aphorisms of the Vedanta and other works.
VyaTipaTa, one of the twenty-seven Yogas. (See Vaidhrita.)
Yaksha, a class of demi-gods.
Yakshini, the female Yaksha.
Yamuna, in the terminology of the Science of Breath used for the flowing left Nadi.
Y-ashashvini, the Nadi which goes to the left ear.
Yoga, the science of application, attention, and the embellish-ment\>f the human mind.﻿﻿ADVERTISEMENTS.﻿﻿advertisements.
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