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Yoga and Hypnotism
WHEN
the mind is entirely passive, then
the force of Nature which works in the whole of animate and
inanimate creation, has free play; for it is in reality this force
which works in man as well as in the sun and star. There is no
doubt of this truth whether in Hinduism or in Science. This is the
thing called Nature, the sum of cosmic force and energy, which
alone Science recognises as the source of all work and activity.
This also is the Prakriti of the Hindus to which under different
names Sankhya and Vedanta agree in assigning a similar position
and function in the Universe. But the immediate question is
whether this force can act in man independently of man's individual will and initiative. Must it always act through his volition
or has it a power of independent operation ? The first real proof
which Science has had of the power of action independent of volition is the
phenomena of hypnotism. Unfortunately, the nature of hypnotism has not been properly understood. It is supposed that by putting the subject to sleep the hypnotist is able
in some mysterious and unexplained way to substitute his will for
the subject's. In a certain sense all the subject's activities in the
hypnotic state are the results of his own volition, but that volition is not
spontaneous, it is used as a slave by the operator working through the medium of suggestion. Whatever the hypnotist
suggests that the subject shall think, act or feel, he thinks, acts
or feels, and whatever the hypnotist suggests that the subject
shall become, he becomes. What is it that gives the operator this
stupendous power ? Why should the mere fact of a man passing
into this sleep-condition suspend the ordinary reactions of mind
and body and substitute others at the mere word of the man who
has said to him "sleep" ? It is sometimes supposed that it is the
superior will of the hypnotist which overcomes the will of the
other and makes it a slave. There are two strong objections to
this view. It does not appear to be true that it is the weak and
distracted will that is most easily hypnotised; on the contrary,
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the strong concentrated mind forms a good subject. Secondly, if
it were the operator's will using the will of the subject, then the
results produced must be such as the latter could himself bring
about, since the capacities of the instrument cannot be exceeded
by the power working through the instrument. Even if we suppose that the invading will brings with it its own force still the
results produced must not exceed the sum of its capacity plus the
capacity of the instrument. If they commonly do so, we must
suppose that it is neither the will of the operator nor the will of
the subject nor the sum of these two wills that is active, but some
other and more potent force. This is precisely what we see in
hypnotic performance.
What is this force that enables or compels a weak man to
become so rigid that strong arms cannot bend him; that reverses
the operations of the senses and abrogates pain ? That changes
the fixed character of a man in the shortest of periods ? That is
able to develop power where there was no power, moral strength
where there was weakness, health where there was disease?
That in its higher manifestations can exceed the barriers of space
and time and produce that far-sight, far-hearing and far-thinking
which shows mind to be an untrammelled agent or medium pervading the world and not limited to the body which it informs or
seems to inform. The European scientist experimenting with
hypnotism is handling forces which he cannot understand, stumbling on truths of which he cannot give a true account. His feet
are faltering on the threshold of Yoga. It is held by some thinkers, and not unreasonably if we consider these phenomena, that
mind is all and contains all. It is not the body which determines
the laws of the body. It is the ordinary law of the body that if it
is struck, pierced or roughly pressed, it feels pain. This law is
created by the mind which associates pain with these contacts,
and if the mind changes its Dharma and is able to associate with
those contacts not pain but insensibility or pleasure, then they
will bring about those results of insensibility or pleasure and no
other. The pain and pleasure are not the result of the contact,
neither is their seat in the body; they are the result of association
and their seat is in the mind. Vinegar is sour, sugar sweet, but to
the hypnotised mind vinegar can be sweet, sugar sour. The sour-
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ness or sweetness is not in the vinegar or sugar, but in the mind.
The heart also is the subject of the mind. My emotions are like
my physical feelings, the result of association, and my character
is the result of accumulated past experiences with their resultant
associations and reactions crystallising into habits of mind and
heart summed up in the word, character. These things like all
the rest that are made of the stuff of associations are not permanent or binding but fluid and mutable,
anityāh sarve samskārāh.
If my friend blames me, I am grieved; that is an association and
not binding. The grief is not the result of the blame but of an
association in the mind. I can change the association so far that
blame will cause me no grief, praise no elation. I can entirely stop
the reactions of joy and grief by the same force that created them.
They are habits of the mind, nothing more. In the same way
though with more difficulty I can stop the reactions of physical
pain and pleasure so that nothing will hurt my body. If I am a
coward today, I can be a hero tomorrow. The cowardice was
merely the habit of associating certain things with pain and grief
and the shrinking from the pain and grief; this shrinking and
the physical sensations in the vital or nervous man which accompany it are called fear and they can be dismissed by the action of
the mind which created them. All these are propositions which
European science is even now unwilling to admit, yet it is being
proved more and more by the phenomena of hypnotism that
these effects can be temporarily at least produced by one man
upon another; and it has even been proved that disease can be
permanently cured or character permanently changed by the
action of one mind upon another. The rest will be established in
time by the development of hypnotism.
The difference between Yoga and hypnotism is that what
hypnotism does for a man through the agency of another and in
the sleeping state, Yoga does for him by his own agency and in
the waking state. The hypnotic sleep is necessary in order to prevent the activity of the subject's mind full of old ideas and associations, from interfering with the operator.
In the waking state he would naturally refuse to experience
sweetness in vinegar or sourness in sugar or to believe that he can
change from disease to health, cowardice to heroism by a mere
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act of faith; his established association would rebel violently
and successfully against such contradictions of universal experience. The force which transcends matter would be hampered
by the obstruction of ignorance and attachment to universal
error. The hypnotic sleep does not make the mind a tabula rasa,
but it renders it passive to everything but the touch of the operator. Yoga similarly teaches passivity of the mind so that the
will may act unhampered by the samskāras, or old associations.
It is these samskāras, the habits formed by experience in the
body, heart or mind, that form the laws of our psychology. The
associations of the mind are the stuff of which our life is made.
They are more persistent in the body than in the mind and therefore harder to alter. They are more persistent in the race than in
the individual; the conquest of the body and mind by the individual is comparatively easy and can be done in the space of a
single life, but the same conquest by the race involves the development of ages. It is conceivable, however, that the practice of
Yoga by a great number of men and persistence might bring
about profound changes in human psychology and, by stamping
these changes into body and brain through heredity, evolve a
superior race which would endure and by the law of the survival
of the fittest eliminate the weaker kinds of humanity. Just as the
rudimentary mind of the animal has been evolved into the fine
instrument of the human being so the rudiments of higher force
and faculty in the present race might evolve into the perfect
buddhi of the Yogin.
Yo yacchraddhah sa eva sah. According as is a man's fixed
and complete belief, that he is, not immediately always but sooner or later, by the law that makes the psychical tend inevitably
to express itself in the material. The will is the agent by which
all these changes are made and old samskāras replaced by new,
and the will cannot act without faith. The question then arises
whether mind is the ultimate force or there is another which
communicates with the outside world through the mind. Is the
mind the agent or simply the instrument? If the mind be all,
then it is only animals that can have the power to evolve; but
this does not accord with the laws of the world as we know them.
The tree evolves, the clod evolves, everything evolves. Even in
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animals it is evident that mind is not all in the sense of being the
ultimate force in nature. It seems to be all, only because that
which is all expresses itself in the mind and passes everything
through it for the sake of manifestation. That which we call
mind is a medium which pervades the world. Otherwise we could
not have the instantaneous and electrical action of mind upon
mind of which human experience is full and of which the new
phenomena of hypnotism, telepathy, etc., are only fresh proofs.
There must be contact, there must be interpenetration if we are
to account for these phenomena on any reasonable theory. Mind
therefore is held by the Hindus to be a species of subtle matter
in which ideas are waves or ripples and it is not limited by the
physical body which it uses as an instrument. There is an ulterior
force which works through this subtle medium called mind. An
animal species develops, according to the modern theory, under
the subtle influence of the environment. The environment supplies a need and those who satisfy the need develop a new species
which survives because it is more fit. This is not the result of any
intellectual perception of the need nor of a resolve to develop the
necessary changes, but of a desire, often though not always, a
mute, inarticulate and unthought desire. That desire attracts a
force which satisfies it. What is that force ? The tendency of psychical desire to manifest in the material change is one term in the
equation; the force which develops the change in response to the
desire is another. We have a will beyond mind which dictates
the change, we have a force beyond mind which affects it. According to Hindu philosophy, the will is the Jiva, the Purusha, the
Self in the ānandakosa acting through vijñāna, universal or transcendental mind; this is what we call spirit. The force is Prakriti
or Shakti, the female principle in Nature which is at the root of
all action. Behind both is the single Self of the universe which
contains both Jiva and Prakriti, spirit and material energy. Yoga
puts these ultimate existences within us in touch with each other
and by stilling the activity of the samskāras or associations in
mind and body, enables them to act swiftly, victoriously and as
the world calls it, miraculously. In reality, there is no such thing
as a miracle; there are only laws and processes which are not yet
understood.
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Yoga is therefore no dream, no illusion of mystics. It is
known that we can alter the associations of mind and body temporarily and that the mind can alter the conditions of the body
partially. Yoga asserts that these things can be done permanently
and completely. For the body, conquest of disease, pain and
material obstructions, for the mind, liberation from bondage to
past experience and the heavier limitations of space and time,
for the heart victory over sin and grief and fear, for the spirit
unclouded bliss, strength and illumination, this is the gospel of
Yoga, this is the goal to which Hinduism points humanity.
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