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Yukteswar's Ascent Teachings

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The Great Ideas

Previously

Sleeping kitten.
Shanhara's Self is Unwavering Reality of Self-Knowledge.
Yukteswar accepts that God is. He tells that Parambrahma (Spirit or God) is everlasting, without beginning or end, beyond Time (kala) [Hos 21].
      Yukteswar talks of constituents of the cosmos, and uses the ancient Hindu philosophy of Sankhya (Samkhya) to that end. Ordinary Sankhya is an an atheistic system, says Gavin Flood, but theistic tendencies of Sankhya were developed in the 1500s or around there, even though it was acknowledged also then that the system did not need the idea of a Lord anyhow. [Ith 235]
      Sankhya tells there are many separate selves. When such a self (at first without an object) draws to itself subtle material, "spiritual awareness" is first formed. Next a deep ego consciousness arises, and from it what it takes to speak, grasp, move, procreate, evacuate), and also a matrix of it all, the mind itself.
      The title and last part of Yukteswar's book talk of liberation as a certain inward "aloneness", or separatedness. There are added meanings to Sankhya's term kaivalya (liberation), such as transcendent self and witness self in our daily mind. The inward Self is hardly ever found through severe activity. [Ith 234] Adi Shankara describes it:
There is a self-existent Reality, which is the basis of our consciousness of ego. That Reality is the Witness of the state of ego consciousness and of the body. That Reality is the constant Witness . . . your real Self. That Reality pervades the universe . . . Its nature is timeless Awareness . . . This is your real Self, the Supreme Being . . . It is unwavering. It is Spirit itself. [MORE]

What this Page is About

Here we render and quote central parts of Yukteswar's message in his book The Holy Science [Hos], and draw some lines of comparison. Yukteswar asked his disciple Yogananda in 1920, when Yogananda was on the brink of leaving India for Boston onboard "The City of Sparta", to use this book as the pillar of his Self-realization yoga teachings in the West, we are told by Sailendra Das Gupta in Kriya Yoga and Sri Yukteswar [A]


Exceptional Comprehension

Yukteswar says in his book The Holy Science [Hos]:
YUKTESWAR The purpose of this book is to show as clearly as possible that there is an essential unity in all religions . . . and that there is but one Goal admitted by all scriptures [Hos 3].
      The object of this book is to point out the harmony underlying the various religions [Hos 4].
      The highest aim of religion is Atmajnanam, Self-knowledge [Hos 6].
      After A.D. 499 . . . the intellectual power of man started to develop [Hos 16].
      There are indeed exceptional personages [who] can grasp today what ordinary people can not . . . those exalted ones . . . require nothing of it [his book] [Hos 18-19].
      God, the only Substance in the universe, is therefore not comprehensible by man of this material world, unless he becomes divine by lifting his self [Hos 22; cf. Net xxiv].
      Directing his attention inward he can comprehend within him the . . . Force and Feeling, the sole properties of his Self - the Force Almighty as his will . . . with enjoyment . . . and the Feeling Omniscient as his [enjoying] Consciousness [Hos 22-23].

Comments

  1. Is there any essential unity?
  2. Is there underlying harmony between the religions?
  3. Did the intellectual power of man started to develop in AD 499?
Instead of arguing futilely about it, ask for evidence. The burden of proof lies the one who proposes something, in this case Yukteswar. Great claims and being hailed as an authority figure does not count as evidence.
      The bible translator George Lamsa goes into the aramaic concept of barnasha, son of man, in one of his books. The term has four meanings. The lowest is the habit-governed everyday person, the less conscious side to man. Man can be enabled to lift himself, so to speak, by going inwards, much as in Transcendental Meditation, TM. [Net xxiv]
      This said, scriptural mentions and notions are not good enough either, says Buddha in his ground-breaking Kalama Sutta. It is well worth reading.


Yukteswar says further, in essence:

YUKTESWAR The Word, Time, Space, and the Atom are one and the same. These four ideas are the four beasts of the Revelation and give rise to confusion . . . The cause of creation is the individual Atoms, the thrones of Spirit. They keep the Spiritual Light out of comprehension, which makes man ignorant even of his own Self. [Hos 24-25, rendered]
      Kutastha Chaitanya is Omnipresent Holy Spirit, and is called the Holy Ghost which shines on the individual parts of Darkness. Ignorance is repulsion and does not comprehend the Spiritual Light. [Hos 26, rendered]
      Fifteen attributes plus Mind and Intelligence constitute the seventeen "fine limbs" of the subtle body. These fifteen attributes with two poles - Mind and Intelligence - of the spiritualised Atom constitute the fine material body [Hos 21, 31, abr]

Comments

The four beasts of the Revelation can be taken to mean this and that, and are frequently used to such ends, on and on. The ancient bible concepts of thrones, relate to angel herarchies in Hebrew ideations.
      The Holy Spirit of the gospels is different from what Yukteswar tells. Evidence is here: [LINK]
      Ignorance is hardly repulsion. There is reason to cross out that tendentious definition attempt too.
      The subtle body Yukteswar refers to, is the Sankhya items found in a figure on the previous page.

TO TOP


Steps and Stages Homeward

Here are abstracts:
YUKTESWAR The highest goal is freedom from unhappiness. The heart's immediate aim is cessation of all suffering, and the ultimate goal is complete destruction of sufferings. [Hos 50]
      The real necessities of the human heart have nothing to do with anything outside his Self. They are essential properties of his own nature. Attention turned inward satisfies heart wants. The one with a contented heart that focuses on anything he chooses, can comprehend. [Hos 51]
      Man can withdraw awareness inward and in so doing be freed to comprehend his own Self as Real Substance. Hence Self-Existence comes to light. [Hos 52]
      A thus purified heart actively manifests spiritual light. He has been anointed by the Holy Spirit thus and becomes Christ, the anointed Savior, the Son of God, and unifies himself with the Supreme Reality. He becomes one integrated whole and is saved forever. [Hos 53, 42-43]

Comments

The highest goal is happiness, or bliss, along with being and awareness, in Hindu scriptures. In other words, the goal is positively formulated as Sat-Chit-Ananda (Being-Consciousness-Joy), which is a good concept.
      Tendentious redefinitions of the bible's talking Holy Spirit are hardly needed at all. Good thinking can tackle to stand on its own legs. Gurus and cults are free to define and reshape Hindu ideas. But they could also point it out if the Bible has other essential meanings than theirs. That is being fair and tidy.

Adhering to good company

YUKTESWAR By "the dictates of our conscience and . . . our natural liking, we will at once find that we favor those persons whose magnetism affects us harmoniously," he teaches. "If on the other hand we disobey the warning . . . without listening to the dictates of our pure conscience, and keep the company of whatever has been designated as Asat [not good, etc], an opposite effect is produced and our health is impaired and our life shortened." [Hos 69-70]
      Yukteswar maintains that "natural living is helpful for the practice of Yama" and Niyama, the don'ts and do's of yogi living. [Hos 70]
      Magnanimity of heart is the antidote to prejudice, family pride, and smugness. [Hos 71]


Yoga Proper

YUKTESWAR Moral stands need to be cultivated, and some good courses to adhere to in life help too. On top of it there are body postures to train oneself in, control of life energy (prana-yama), and the inward-turning stages of successful contemplation. They are pratyahara (inward-turning of the mind, firm and steady focus (dharana); prolonged such focus, dhyana (Zen in Japanese); and still more steady focus, called samadhi ("deep contemplation"). [Hos 71-72]
      Yukteswar says that proper meditative practices enable man to enjoy life - including the domestic life. [Hos 72]
      He also says "Life and death come under the control of the yogi who perseveres in the practice of Pranayama." [Hos 73] - How few there are who live to demonstrate it.
      Man enjoys due to desiring enjoyment, but he can never be satisfied unless and until he heads inward, Selfward. He can satisfy his heart very quickly in that way. [Hos 74]
      By the fixing of your attention the yoga state of samadhi can come. [Hos 75]
      What is called samyama is called "concentration of the self" by Yukteswar. Such focus opens up to much, including become a Divine Being in the self-help yoga way. Riveting attention on the "sensorium", the Door, is for opening and entering the secret Way. The specifics of it are not divulged in the book, but what he refers to by sensorium is the sushumnadwara, the door [dvara: door, gate] of the internal sphere. [Hos 75-76]
      In yoga teachings the sushumna is a subtle vessel of awareness and energy along the spine - rising from the muladhra chakra at the perineum to the crown of the head, (sahasrara chakra). A chakra in this terminology is a vortex of energy.
      "There [at the sushumna door, near the sexual organ] he perceives . . . John the Baptist, or Radha [mistress of Krishna], and hears the holy Sound (Amen, Aum) . . ." [Hos 80] Oh well . . .
      By activating the "down-to-earth" vortex and thereby "lifting the son of man", various stages are entered. They are Bhu, Bhuvar, Swar, Mahar, Jana, Tapo, and Satya. [Hos 80]
      The yogi enters into the world of fine matter and activates his conscience (consciousness) on the way to attaining a clean and pure heart. The clean heart becomes able to comprehend Real Substance in the universe. Going "on" (inwards) from there he "reaches the region of the Holy Ghost" and then he can be unified with his own Self - seeing that "nothing in the universe exists besides his own Self." [Hos 81-86]
      Difficult question to some, perhaps: Can you be unified with the Self you are?
      Yukteswar talks for purification and spiritualization by mantra (sounds of syllables or words). The mantra should help to make the real sound of OM audible. [Hos 87]


The Seven Lokas

YUKTESWAR Yukteswar tells of seven spheres [lokas, realms, spheres, planes] from the Eternal Substance, God inside and outward to the gross material creation. "Through these seven centers or churches, the Ego or son of man passes toward the Divinity." [Hos 92]. Here they are in ascending order:
  • The lowest sphere is always visible to everyone.
  • The second sphere is "the sphere of electric attributes". The gross matters of the creation are entirely absent from and it is marked by ("is conspicuous by") the presence of the fine matters only. Hence it is called Ordinary Vacuum.
  • Around and utside of the Atom (individuality) is a sphere of magnetic aura, Swarloka. It is marked by the absence of all the creation, and is therefore called Great Vacuum by Yukteswar.
  • The fourth sphere, called Maharloka, is the connecting link between the spiritual and the material creation and is also called the Door and Way. This sphere or level holds a middling position.
  • The fifth sphere is that of Sons of God, wherein the idea of separate existence of Self originates among reflections. This sphere is above the comprehension of anyone steeped in the physical world, and hence called incomprehensible.
  • The next, according to him, is the sphere of the Holy Spirit which is undisturbed ever-patience that is not approachable even by the Sons of God, and is called inaccessible.
  • The innermost in his scenario is the sphere of Real Substance, Sat. "No name can describe it," he says, and calls it the nameless.
Seven stages of creation are suggested by this. [Hos 32-35]. Inside the Door (sphere four) it is incomprehensible, inaccessible, and nameless. Outside it you may detect two vacuums and the material world, your body-self included, he finds.


Vacuum Views

No one needs to freak out over vacuums or vacuum, heavens or heaven.
Dharma Wheel Bodhidharma says sunyata means outward-turned Essence. Hence, the concept of emptiness is too empty.
      "The Void . . . (Skt. Sunyata) is not the void of nothingness, but the Thatness, the . . . Origin of all that constitutes finiteness . . . the unenlightened alone regard It as being nothingness".W. Y. Evans-Wentz. [Tiy 119n]
      "Regard not the Void as being Nothingness." [Tiy 119]
      "All-Pervading Intelligence . . . is the Formless Void." [Tiy 166]
      "Many people are afraid to empty their minds lest they should plunge into the Void. They do not know that their own mind [contains] the Void." [Huang-po]
      Dogen [1200-53] too denies that sunyata (emptiness), is "nothingness, non-existence, or non-reality." Dogen [says] sunyata is not the denial of real existence - it expresses the absence of anything other than real existence." [See Szi, Chapter "Bussho"]
      "You must have been there during the void to be able to say that you experienced a void," says Ramana Maharsi [Rat 132] [COMPARE].
"The particular meanings of "emptiness" vary with the particular context and the religious or cultural tradition in which it is used," says the Britannica. [Ebu "emptiness"].
      By the way, Northern Buddhism enumerates eighteen degrees of the Voidness, starting with Internal Voidness; External Voidness; Internal and External Voidness in union; Voidness of Voidance itself. Next on the list is Great Voidness; Real Voidness; Compounded Voidness; Uncompounded Voidness; and Boundless Voidness. Voidness number 12 is Natural Voidness. Number 13 is Voidness of Phenomena and so on. There are voluminous works and commentaries devoted wholly to the expounding of these eighteen degrees of the Voidness, informs W. Y. Evans-Wentz. Well, would you know! [Tiy 206n]
      Now try to heed these words by Shankara: "Study of the scriptures is fruitless as long as Brahman [God] has not been experienced. And when Brahman has been experienced, it is useless to read the scriptures." Piousness suggests intentness of the soul on its own nature, or "intentness on the reality of the Self", he says too, and "The learning of the learned may bring enjoyment but not freedom — Freedom is won by a perception of the Self's oneness with the Eternal, not by rites and sciences." [SHANKARA TEACHINGS]


Five Sheaths, Koshas

YUKTESWAR Yukteswar also teaches that the Son of God is covered by five sheaths, koshas. He is "screened by five coverings".
  1. The grossest sheath is of matter. This coating may nourish and support the material world. Take care not to do it to your long-range loss. [Hos 35-36]
  2. The "envelope" inside the body is of Prana (life energy, vital energy), and thus called Pranamaya Kosha.
  3. The third layer from inside is the Mind.
  4. The "layer" inside it is Magnetic Intelligence that determines what is truth. This layer is the seat of knowledge, says Yukteswar.
  5. The innermost covering is the Heart, also called the Atom, which feels great bliss. The Atom Heart!
On page 24 Yukteswar says the World, Time, Space and Atom are one and the same, and on page 35 he says the Atom (Heart) is composed of these four ideas. What kind of teachings is this? "The atom is composed of the Atom and three more one-and-the-same ideas"? It is Yukteswar's teaching. The "Atom Heart" covering contains all ideas, might be added, and why not "A perfectly Self-contained Heart may serve you all right"? Inside the Heart is that Nameless Reality.
      The Way inwards is to withdraw into the Heart (of four ideas), and so on, till one is free from bondages in Subtle, Bright Light. It is being baptised in the stream of Light [Hos 42].
      The teaching of koshas, sheaths, are generally well supported yoga teachings. They are concisely described by Ramana Maharsi.


Hay

"Make hay when the sun shines."
YUKTESWAR Egoism causes attachment — "Ignorance . . . is nothing but a particle". . [Hos 48].
      Complete destruction of sufferings is possible within — Being conscious may destroy troubles. [Hos 50, 51]
      Man's Self is indestructible, Real Substance — Supreme wealth, Paramartha, is the ultimate goal. [Hos 52, 51]
      Man attains bliss by focusing his attention inward for a while. Yoga has methods for it. [Hos 51]
      The Heart becomes purified in Bright Light — What is called the OM sound is the way to Brahman (Spirit) — Uniting one's Self with Aum (OM) is for transcending to one's Fatherhood deep inside. [Hos 53, 55-56]


Yukteswar on Love

Loving well is turning love away from others, Yukteswar divulges.
YUKTESWAR Love expels germs of diseases. It makes healthy and helps one understand. [Hos 56]
      Without Chit attraction (he calls it "natural heart love"), man cannot live - he becomes often excited and suffers. He can never find any peace. [Hos 57, etc]
      The secret is in directing one's love away from anybody into the Godlike Supreme. [Hos 58] It means: Stop loving them; accept Divinity inside! Hence, free and spontaneous love can be good, and being truthful is above tanning. [cf Hos 61]
      "The power of love has been beautifully described" - Yukteswar. [Hos 97]


Powers

YUKTESWAR The Son of God may find giant powers at his disposal. Patanjali, and Yukteswar, speaks of eight such powers. In Buddhism there are more such powers at one's disposal. The enumerated "Patanjali powers" are:
  • The power of making one's body or anything else as small as he likes . . .
  • The power of magnifying or making one's body or anything else . . . as large as he likes.
  • The power of making one's body or anything else . . . as light in weight as he likes.
  • The power of making one's body or anything else . . . as heavy as he likes.
  • The power of . . . obtaining anything he likes.
  • The power of . . . bringing anything under control.
  • The power of satisfying all desires . . . by irresistible will force.
  • The power of becoming Isa, Lord, over everything. See John 14:12. [Hos 94-95]
Well, would you know! (Seeing is believing.)


Regulations of Living: Yama and Niyama

YUKTESWAR Yukteswar goes on to enumerate the don'ts and do's of basic yoga, as they are listed in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. The don'ts and do's are differently laid out by different authors. Yukteswar tells Yama comprises noninjury to others, truthfulness, nonstealing, continence, and noncovetousness, and niyama means purity of body and mind, contentment in all circumstances, and obedience (following the instructions of the guru). That is his definition of the subject. [Hos 62]
      Clearing the mind is fine, he says, and what he calls natural living. Living depends on the selection of food, dwelling, and company. However, man also has to experiment and reason to get at natural living. [Hos 62-63]


Things to Eat for Yogis and Many Others

From their teeth, Yukteswar holds men and women are fruit eaters, and judged by the shape and length of the digestive tract - stating that
YUKTESWAR the bowels of the frugivorous animals are 10 to 12 times the length of their body; their stomach is somewhat broader than that of the carnivorous and has a continuation in the duodenum serving the purpose of a second stomach.
      This is exactly the formation we find in human beings, [Hos 63-64]
Yukteswar decrees - and that "man bowels are 3 to 5 times the length of man's body" measuring "from mouth to anus." He makes this good point: "man is, in all probability, a frugivorous animal." [Hos 64-65].
      Yukteswar does not tell that the pig is much like man by the yardsticks used. Roots and vegetables help too -
      "In men of all races we find that their senses of smell, sound, and sight never lead them to slaughter animals," says Yukteswar. "Can flesh then be considered the natural food of man, when both his eyes and his nose are so much against it, unless deceived by flavors of spices, salt, and sugar?" [Hos 65] - He does not tell that in Vedic India people used to eat meet. Says Encyclopaedia Britannica: "In ancient India, killing people in war or in capital punishment and killing animals in Vedic sacrifices were acceptable to many people who for other reasons refrained from eating meat." Mind "a fleshless diet". [Ebu "Hinduism"]
      He also talks for milk! "By observation of the nourishment of the young we find that milk is undoubtedly the food of the newborn babe." [Hos 66] - Mind "the protection and veneration of the cow, which gives food without having to be killed." [Ebu "Hinduism"]
      "From these observations the only conclusion that can reasonably be drawn is that various grains, fruits, roots, and - for beverage - milk, and pure water openly exposed to air and sun are decidedly the best natural food for man . . . well chewed and mixed with saliva . . ." [Hos 66]. You may include some vegetables too!
      "Other foods are unnatural to man and produce diseases, mental and physical, and ultimately lead to premature death", he says. [Hos 67]


He Does not Advocate Very Much Sex

Interestingly, he also says, " In the sexual desire everyone has a very accurate thermometer to indicate the condition of his health." He holds that "sexual desire in its normal state makes man quite free from all disturbing lusts." "The sexual organ . . . is in a sense the root of the tree of life." He also says "Man well instructed in the proper use of sex can keep his body and mind in proper health and can live a pleasant life throughout." [Hos 68]. Let us hope that.

Comment

The formerly married man who became a monk, does not say you should abstain from sex, but to go for proper use of sex, whatever that might be. There is something to learn from the following cartoon:

Hagar the Humble  Hagar the Listener  Hagar's hm-mm

"THE LIKEABLE one learns to ask for a second opinion to avoid getting stuck in the next best things of life." [Maxim]


Where to live

YUKTESWAR "We can easily understand . . . after breathing fresh air on a mountaintop or in an expanse of field or garden, that the atmosphere of the town or any crowded place is quite an unnatural dwelling-place. The fresh atmosphere of the mountaintop . . . freely ventilated with fresh air is the proper dwelling place for man according to Nature." [Hos 69]
      Consider how high the mountain can be for thriving too. There is no doubt that fresh, unpolluted, sweet-smelling, and temperate air is good for all who fail without it.


Bible Props

Albrecht Dürer. The Revelation of St John: The Four Riders of the Apocalypse, 1497-98, Woodcut.
Bamberger Apokalypse. The Son of Man and the seven lampstands.


Yukteswar uses many passages from Revelation to prop up his Sankhya thinking and yogi outlooks. Here is one that deserves mention: One day on the island of Patmos John
was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, which said: "Write on a scroll what you see."
      I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone "like a son of man," dressed in a robe . . . His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow . . . and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun. [Revel 1:16]
      I fell at his feet. [Revel 1:10-17]

Comment

Yogin with six chakras, India, Punjab Hills, Kangra, late 1700s National Museum, New Delhi.
Seven chakras of man and woman.
Yukteswar uses such passages to illustrate yoga teachings. He says the Ego or son of man passes toward the Divinity through the seven golden candlesticks, equating them with yoga chakras (padmas) along the subtle spine and in the skull. He also thinks the candlesticks are seven churches. The Ego that journeys through all the seven churches, understands the true nature of the universe and perceives his own dear Heart, his Atom [Hos 91-93].
      There is much reference to chakras (padmas, lotuses, whirls and vortexes of inner energy) in yoga works, particularly in Kundalini works. Sir John Woodroffe's The Serpent Power [Spo] goes deeply into this difficult terrain. A books that is a summary of Sir John's book, is the slender Kundalini Yoga. The latter leaves out juicy details, such as lots of mantras associated with the chakras, but gives an overview. It says, for example, that the sound of OM is the root mantra (syllables), of the centre between the eyebrows (see figure), and that there are two minor chakras above it, before the "brain chakra" or "white, thousand-petalled lotus" [Kuo 38-39].
      Yukteswar taught kriya yoga, which is at bottom Kundalini Yoga (serpent yoga), and sometimes loosely referred to as Raja Yoga. In Yoga and Kriya and Kundalini Tantra Satyananda explains how kriyas are done, in detail. The information is free. Yukteswar's disciple Yogananda teaches how to too, but that information is secret, guarded by severe bond-making that goes against human rights laws of very many countries. [Cy; Kta] [LINK]
      The chakras are linked to the spine, without being physical. Each comes with a root mantra, and associated qualities and sounds (represented by lotus petals - see figure). Besides ascent is marked by increased awareness, which is at the heart of it. From bottom and upward the seven main chakras are:
  1. Muladhara (base centre) around the perineum/scrotum. Root mantra: Lam.
  2. Svadhisthana (sexual organs). Root mantra: Vam
  3. Manipura (navel). Root mantra: Ram
  4. Anahata (heart). Root mantra: Yam
  5. Vishuddha (throat). Root mantra: Ham
  6. Ajna (between the eyebrows). Root mantra: Om
  7. Sahasrara (skull). The mantra hang-saw (hamsa, hong-saw) is associated with it - and joined to the natural, unrestrained ingoing and outgoing breath in the hamsa meditation technique. [All: Kuo 34-40]
In chapter 1, "Mahabharata Imageries", in the book Kriya Yoga and Sri Yukteswar by Sailendra Bejoy Das Gupta, the battle scene of the Bhagavad Gita is likewise used figuratively to tell of the secret lotuses of every man and women. As the yogi reaches deeper stages in meditation, he hears OM manifesting
YUKTESWAR from the different Chakras in the Shushumna ["unseen spine channel". The gradual refinement of the sound indicate deeper concentrations achieved . . .
      As the mind withdraws gradually from the senses as a result of deep concentration an unusual buzzing note emanates, "flowers out' . . . and becomes audible . . . It appears as the sound of a bunch of disturbed black-bees . . . [Questioning]
      By diving deeper into the buzzing sound like that of black-bees the Yoga performer gets elevated into the next Chakra, the Svadhishthan, . . . when the sound becomes clearer and finer appearing like a note from the flute . . . [Observing and inquiring]
      By concentrating on this sound of the flute one realises that the same changes into the enchanting sound of the lute [and] one becomes filled with immense joy . . . This is the sign of achieving Manipur Chakra . . . [Meanings arise]
      With still deeper concentration the sound of the lute changes into one like the prolonged unbroken stream of sound of the gong . . . which is called Anahata Nad [sound], when one is supposed to have entered . . . the Anahata Chakra in the Shushumna . . . [Stilling the mind - some say dissolving it too]
      [Next] the "all conquering' sound of thunder or the sound of roar of the sea manifests. This is the sign of reaching the Vishuddha Chakra . . . in the region of the Shushumna opposite the throat . . . [The universe is experienced, says Yukteswar]
      The above five strains of sound next mingling together become audible as a cluster . . . [Ky, ch 1, v. 27-29, commentary]
Yukteswar adds that without experiencing these things first-hand, there is no adequate understanding of them, and that is true. Anyhow, such chakra descriptions are part of rather common Tantric yoga. And this goes to show what Yuktewar drawns on in his ascent teachings. It relates to an unseen spine channel called sushumna ("the narrow way"), and "circles", chakras of energy and consciousness that are associated with it. [Bhg, ch 1, v. 15-18, commentary]
      There are yoga methods that consist in "plugging the ears" and listening intently for these sounds too. It may take some time before OM can be heard - it seems to be individual too.
      In Zen, knowledge of chakras is not throught much of. Again, yoga teachings about chakras is one thing, and obscure references quite another. The question is how to verify these things duly. The chakras are not physical, and there are no naked statements in Revelation as to what the visionary images mean. And by the way, John's Revelation is in part like revelations in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. Daniel furnishes interpretations too, which John does not [Daniel 7-8, 10, 12].
      For example,
OT "As I looked, "thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him . . . and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority . . . His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. [Dan 7:9-10, 13-14]
      I [asked] one of those standing there [of] the true meaning of all this [and was informed]: "The four great beasts are four kingdoms that will rise from the earth. But the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever - yes, for ever and ever." [Daniel 7:16-18]
In another vision a shaggy goat was the king of Greece, and the large horn between his eyes was the first king. Despite the explanations furnished in the vision, when Daniel woke up he found his goat-vision was beyond understanding. [Dan 8:20-21, 27]
      The term "son of man" was also applied to Daniel himself, and is part of biblical shareware. The tall problem of drawing in more or less obscure bible allegories is that of proving the links fairly well. Intriguing as such figuratively-telling activity may be, it is not good enough just to claim a lot that such and such similarities are apparent. Further, yoga teachings do not depend on biblical comparisons, but are capable of standing on their own bottoms.

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Literature  
      Ay: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 1st ed. New York: Philosophical Library, 1946. Online. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]
      Bhg: Yukteswar, Swami. Srimad Bhagavad Gita: Spiritual Commentary. Portland, Mn: Yoganiketan, 2002. On-line. [www.yoganiketan.net].
      Cy: Satyananda Saraswati, Swami. A Systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya. Munger: Yoga Publications Trust, 1981.
      Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2009.
      Ha: Yogananda, Paramahansa: Autobiography of a Yogi. 12th ed. Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF). Los Angeles, 1981.
      Hos: Yukteswar, Swami: The Holy Science. 7th ed. Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), Los Angeles, 1972.
      Kuo: Pandit, M. Kundalini Yoga. 5th ed. Madras: Ganesh, 1972.
      Kta: Satyananda Saraswati, Swami. Kundalini Tantra.8th ed. Munger: Yoga Publications Trust, 2001.
      Ky: Dasgupta, Sailendra B. Kriya Yoga and Sri Yukteshvar. Portland, Mn: Yoganiketan, 1998. On-line: [www.yoganiketan.net].
      Net: Lamsa, George, tr. The New Testament. Philadelphia: Holman Bible Publishers, 1968. Later edition is Online.
      Spo: Avalon, Arthur (Sir John Woodroffe). The Serpent Power: The Secrets of Tantric and Shaktic Yoga. 7th ed. New York: Dover, 1974.
      Tiy: Evans-Wentz, Walter Yeeling, ed. Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines. 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1967.
     
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