Aleister Crowley - Eight Lectures on Yoga

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(Part 1 of 8)

THE EQUINOX VOLUME III, NUMBER FOUR

EIGHT LECTURES ON YOGA

MAHATMA GURU

SRI PARAMAHANSA SHIVAJI

BY ALEISTER CROWLEY

*******************

PREFACE

*******************

Aleister Crowley has achieved the reputation of being a master

of the English language. This book which is as fresh and vibrant

today as when it was penned over thirty years ago demonstrates this

fact. It shows how impossible it is to categorize him as a particu-

lar kind of stylist. At turns he can be satirical, poetical, sarcas-

tic, rhetorical, philosophical or mystical, gliding so easily from

one to the other that the average reader is hard put to determine

whether or not to take him at face value.

His description of mystical states of consciousness clarifies

what tomes of more erudite writing fails to elucidate. It is in

effect a continuation of Part I of Book 4 brought to maturity.

Nearly three decades had elapsed between the writing of these two

books, in which time his own inner development had soared ineffably.

A great deal of what he has to say may seem prosaic at first sight,

but do not be fooled by this. Other of his comments are profound

beyond belief, requiring careful and long meditation if full value is

to be derived from them.

This is not a book to be read while standing or running. It is

a high water mark of Crowley's literary career, incorporating all

that we should expect from one who had experimented with and mastered

most technical forms of spiritual growth. There is humor here, a

great deal of sagacity, and much practical advice. This book cannot

be dispensed with for the student for whom Yoga is 'the way.'

Israel Regardie

March 21, 1969

Studio City, Calif.

***************************

CONTENTS

***************************

YOGA FOR YAHOOS

First Lecture. First Principles. . . . . . . Part 1

Second Lecture. Yama . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 2

Third Lecture. Niyama. . . . . . . . . . . . Part 3

Fourth Lecture. Asana and Pranayama. . . . . Part 4

YOGA FOR YELLOWBELLIES

First Lecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 5

Second Lecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 6

Third Lecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 7

Fourth Lecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 8

************************************************************

YOGA FOR YAHOOS.

FIRST LECTURE. FIRST PRINCIPLES.

************************************************************

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

It is my will to explain the subject of Yoga in clear language,

without resort to jargon or the enunciation of fantastic hypotheses,

in order that this great science may be thoroughly understood as of

universal importance.

For, like all great things, it is simple; but, like all great

things, it is masked by confused thinking; and, only too often,

brought into contempt by the machinations of knavery.

(1) There is more nonsense talked and written about Yoga than

about anything else in the world. Most of this nonsense, which is

fostered by charlatans, is based upon the idea that there is some-

thing mysterious and Oriental about it. There isn't. Do not look to

me for obelisks and odalisques, Rahat Loucoum, bul-buls, or any other

tinsel imagery of the Yoga-mongers. I am neat but not gaudy. There

is nothing mysterious or Oriental about anything, as everybody knows

who has spent a little time intelligently in the continents of Asia

and Africa. I propose to invoke the most remote and elusive of all

Gods to throw clear light upon the subject -- the light of common

sense.

(2) All phenomena of which we are aware take place in our own

minds, and therefore the only thing we have to look at is the mind;

which is a more constant quantity over all the species of humanity

than is generally supposed. What appear to be radical differences,

irreconcilable by argument, are usually found to be due to the

obstinacy of habit produced by generations of systematic sectarian

training.

(3) We must then begin the study of Yoga by looking at the

meaning of the word. It means Union, from the same Sanskrit root as

the Greek word Zeugma, the Latin word Jugum, and the English word

yoke. (Yeug -- to join.)

When a dancing girl is dedicated to the service of a temple

there is a Yoga of her relations to celebrate. Yoga, in short, may

be translated 'tea fight,' which doubtless accounts for the fact that

all the students of Yoga in England do nothing but gossip over

endless libations of Lyons' 1s. 2d.

(4) Yoga means Union.

In what sense are we to consider this? How is the word Yoga to

imply a system of religious training or a description of religious

experience?

You may note incidentally that the word Religion is really

identifiable with Yoga. It means a binding together.

(5) Yoga means Union.

What are the elements which are united or to be united when this

word is used in its common sense of a practice widely spread in

Hindustan whose object is the emancipation of the individual who

studies and practises it from the less pleasing features of his life

on this planet?

I say Hindustan, but I really mean anywhere on the earth; for

research has shown that similar methods producing similar results are

to be found in every country. The details vary, but the general

structure is the same. Because all bodies, and so all minds, have

identical Forms.

(6) Yoga means Union.

In the mind of a pious person, the inferiority complex which

accounts for his piety compels him to interpret this emancipation as

union with the gaseous vertebrate whom he has invented and called

God. On the cloudy vapour of his fears his imagination has thrown a

vast distorted shadow of himself, and he is duly terrified; and the

more he cringes before it, the more the spectre seems to stoop to

crush him. People with these ideas will never get to anywhere but

Lunatic Asylums and Churches.

It is because of this overwhelming miasma of fear that the whole

subject of Yoga has become obscure. A perfectly simple problem has

been complicated by the most abject ethical and superstitious non-

sense. Yet all the time the truth is patent in the word itself.

(7) Yoga means Union.

We may now consider what Yoga really is. Let us go for a moment

into the nature of consciousness with the tail of an eye on such

sciences as mathematics, biology, and chemistry.

In mathematics the expression 'a' plus 'b' plus 'c' is a trivi-

ality. Write 'a' plus 'b' plus 'c' equals 0, and you obtain an

equation from which the most glorious truths may be developed.

In biology the cell divides endlessly, but never becomes any-

thing different; but if we unite cells of opposite qualities, male

and female, we lay the foundations of a structure whose summit is

unattainably fixed in the heavens of imagination.

Similar facts occur in chemistry. The atom by itself has few

constant qualities, none of them particulary significant; but as soon

as an element combines with the object of its hunger we get not only

the ecstatic production of light, heat, and so forth, but a more

complex structure having few or none of the qualities of its ele-

ments, but capable of further combination into complexities of

astonishing sublimity. All these combinations, these unions, are

Yoga.

(8) Yoga means Union.

How are we to apply this word to the phenomena of mind?

What is the first characteristic of everything in thought? How

did it come to be a thought at all? Only by making a distinction

between it and the rest of the world.

The first proposition, the type of all propositions, is: S is P.

There must be two things -- different things -- whose relation forms

knowledge.

Yoga is first of all the union of the subject and the object of

consciousness: of the seer with the thing seen.

(9) Now, there is nothing strange of wonderful about all this.

The study of the principles of Yoga is very useful to the average

man, if only to make him think about the nature of the world as he

supposes that he knows it.

Let us consider a piece of cheese. We say that this has certain

qualities, shape, structure, colour, solidity, weight, taste, smell,

consistency and the rest; but investigation has shown that this is

all illusory. Where are these qualities? Not in the cheese, for

different observers give quite different accounts of it. Not in

ourselves, for we do not perceive them in the absence of the cheese.

All 'material things,' all impressions, are phantoms.

In reality the cheese is nothing but a series of electric

charges. Even the most fundamental quality of all, mass, has been

found not to exist. The same is true of the matter in our brains

which is partly responsible for these perceptions. What then are

these qualities of which we are all so sure? They would not exist

without our brains; they would not exist without the cheese. They

are the results of the union, that is of the Yoga, of the seer and

the seen, of subject and object in consciousness as the philosophical

phrase goes. They have no material existence; they are only names

given to the ecstatic results of this particular form of Yoga.

(10) I think that nothing can be more helpful to the student of

Yoga than to get the above proposition firmly established in his

subconscious mind. About nine-tenths of the trouble in understanding

the subject is all this ballyhoo about Yoga being mysterious and

Oriental. The principles of Yoga, and the spiritual results of Yoga,

are demonstrated in every conscious and unconscious happening. This

is that which is written in 'The Book of the Law' -- Love is the law,

love under will -- for Love is the instinct to unite, and the act of

uniting. But this cannot be done indiscriminately, it must be done

'under will,' that is, in accordance with the nature of the particu-

lar units concerned. Hydrogen has no love for Hydrogen; it is not

the nature, or the 'true Will' of Hydrogen to seek to unite with a

molecule of its own kind. Add Hydrogen to Hydrogen: nothing happens

to its quality: it is only its quantity that changes. It rather

seeks to enlarge its experience of its possibilities by union with

atoms of opposite character, such as Oxygen; with this it combines

(with an explosion of light, heat, and sound) to form water. The

result is entirely different from either of the component elements,

and has another kind of 'true Will,' such as to unite (with similar

disengagement of light and heat) with Potassium, while the resulting

'caustic Potash' has in its turn a totally new series of qualities,

with still another 'true Will' of its own; that is, to unite

explosively with acids. And so on.

(11) It may seem to some of you that these explanations have

rather knocked the bottom out of Yoga; that I have reduced it to the

category of common things. That was my object. There is no sense in

being frightened of Yoga, awed by Yoga, muddled and mystified by

Yoga, or enthusiastic over Yoga. If we are to make any progress in

its study, we need clear heads and the impersonal scientific atti-

tude. It is especially important not to bedevil ourselves with

Oriental jargon. We may have to use a few Sanskrit words; but that

is only because they have no English equivalents; and any attempt to

translate them burdens us with the connotations of the existing

English words which we employ. However, these words are very few;

and, if the definitions which I propose to give you are carefully

studied, they should present no difficulty.

(12) Having now understood that Yoga is the essence of all

phenomena whatsoever, we may ask what is the special meaning of the

word in respect of our proposed investigation, since the process and

the results are familiar to every one of us; so familiar indeed that

there is actually nothing else at all of which we have any knowledge.

It *is* knowledge.

What is it we are going to study, and why should we study it?

(13) The answer is very simple.

All this Yoga that we know and practice, this Yoga that produced

these ecstatic results that we call phenomena, includes among its

spiritual emanations a good deal of unpleasantness. The more we

study this universe produced by our Yoga, the more we collect and

synthesize our experience, the nearer we get to a perception of what

the Buddha declared to be characteristic of all component things:

Sorrow, Change, and Absence of any permanent principle. We constant-

ly approach his enunciation of the first two 'Noble Truths,' as he

called them. 'Everything is Sorrow'; and 'The cause of Sorrow is

Desire.' By the word 'Desire' he meant exactly what is meant by

'Love' in 'The Book of the Law' which I quoted a few moments ago.

'Desire' is the need of every unit to extend its experience by

combining with its opposite.

(14) It is easy enough to construct the whole series of argu-

ments which lead up to the first 'Noble Truth.'

Every operation of Love is the satisfaction of a bitter hunger,

but the appetite only grows fiercer by satisfaction; so that we can

say with the Preacher: 'He that increaseth knowledge increaseth

Sorrow.' The root of all this sorrow is in the sense of insufficien-

cy; the need to unite, to lose oneself in the beloved object, is the

manifest proof of this fact, and it is clear also that the satisfac-

tion produces only a temporary relief, because the process expands

indefinitely. The thirst increases with drinking. The only complete

satisfaction conceivable would be the Yoga of the atom with the

entire universe. This fact is easily perceived, and has been con-

stantly expressed in the mystical philosophies of the West; the only

goal is 'Union with God.' Of course, we only use the word 'God'

because we have been brought up in superstition, and the higher

philosophers both in the East and in the West have preferred to speak

of union with the All or with the Absolute. More superstitions!

(15) Very well, then, there is no difficulty at all; since

every thought in our being, every cell in our bodies, every electron

and proton of our atoms, is nothing but Yoga and the result of Yoga.

All we have to do to obtain emancipation, satisfaction, everything we

want is to perform this universal and inevitable operation upon the

Absolute itself. Some of the more sophisticated members of my

audience may possibly be thinking that there is a catch in it

somewhere. They are perfectly right.

(16) The snag is simply this. Every element of which we are

composed is indeed constantly occupied in the satisfaction of its

particular needs by its own particular Yoga; but for that very reason

it is completely obsessed by its own function, which it must natural-

ly consider as the Be-All and End-All of its existence. For in-

stance, if you take a glass tube open at both ends and put it over a

bee on the windowpane it will continue beating against the window to

the point of exhaustion and death, instead of escaping through the

tube. We must not confuse the necessary automatic functioning of any

of our elements with the true Will which is the proper orbit of any

star. A human being only acts as a unit at all because of countless

generations of training. Evolutionary processes have set up a higher

order of Yogic action by which we have managed to subordinate what we

consider particular interests to what we consider the general wel-

fare. We are communities; and our well-being depends upon the wisdom

of our Councils, and the discipline with which their decisions are

enforced. The more complicated we are, the higher we are in the

scale of evolution, the more complex and difficult is the task of

legislation and of maintaining order.

(17) In highly civilised communities like our own (*loud

laughter*), the individual is constantly being attacked by conflict-

ing interests and necessities; his individuality is constantly being

assailed by the impact of other people; and in a very large number of

cases he is unable to stand up to the strain. 'Schizophrenia,' which

is a lovely word, and may or may not be found in your dictionary, is

an exceedingly common complaint. It means the splitting up of the

mind. In extreme cases we get the phenomena of multiple personality,

Jekyll and Hyde, only more so. At the best, when a man says 'I' he

refers only to a transitory phenomenon. His 'I' changes as he utters

the word. But -- philosophy apart -- it is rarer and rarer to find a

man with a mind of his own and a will of his own, even in this

modified sense.

(18) I want you therefore to see the nature of the obstacles to

union with the Absolute. For one thing, the Yoga which we constantly

practice has not invariable results; there is a question of atten-

tion, of investigation, of reflexion. I propose to deal in a future

instruction with the modifications of our perception thus caused, for

they are of great importance to our science of Yoga. For example,

the classical case of the two men lost in a thick wood at night. One

says to the other: 'That dog barking is not a grasshopper; it is the

creaking of a cart.' Or again, 'He thought he saw a banker's clerk

descending from a bus. He looked again, and saw it was a

hippopotamus.'

Everyone who has done any scientific investigation knows pain-

fully how every observation must be corrected again and again. The

need of Yoga is so bitter that it blinds us. We are constantly

tempted to see and hear what we want to see and hear.

(19) It is therefore incumbent upon us, if we wish to make the

universal and final Yoga with the Absolute, to master every element

of our being, to protect it against all civil and external war, to

intensify every faculty to the utmost, to train outselves in know-

ledge and power to the utmost; so that at the proper moment we may be

in perfect condition to fling ourselves up into the furnace of

ecstasy which flames from the abyss of annihilation.

Love is the law, love under will.

(Part 2 of 8)

************************************************************

YOGA FOR YAHOOS.

SECOND LECTURE. YAMA.

************************************************************

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Stars and

placental amniotes! And ye inhabitants of the ten thousand worlds!

The conclusion of our researches last week was that the ultimate

Yoga which gives emancipation, which destroys the sense of separate-

ness which is the root of Desire, is to be made by the concentration

of every element of one's being, and annihilating it by intimate

combustion with the universe itself.

I might here note, in parenthesis, that one of the difficulties

of doing this is that all the elements of the Yogi increase in every

way exactly as he progresses, and by reason of that progress.

However, it is no use crossing our bridges until we come to them, and

we shall find that by laying down serious scientific principles based

on universal experience they will serve us faithfully through every

stage of the journey.

2. When I first undertook the investigation of Yoga, I was

fortunately equipped with a very sound training in the fundamental

principles of modern science. I saw immediately that if we were to

put any common sense into the business (science is nothing but

instructed common sense), the first thing to do was to make a com-

parative study of the different systems of mysticism. It was immedi-

ately apparent that the results all over the world were identical.

They were masked by sectarian theories. The methods all over the

world were identical; this was masked by religious prejudice and

local custom. But in their quiddity -- identical! This simple

principle proved quite sufficient to disentangle the subject from the

extraordinary complexities which have confused its expression.

3. When it came to the point of preparing a simple analysis of

the matter, the question arose: what terms shall we use? The

mysticisms of Europe are hopelessly muddled; the theories have

entirely overlaid the methods. The Chinese system is perhaps the

most sublime and the most simple; but, unless one is born a Chinese,

the symbols are of really unclimbable difficulty. The Buddhist

system is in some ways the most complete, but it is also the most

recondite. The words are excessive in length and difficult to commit

to memory; and generally speaking, one cannot see the wood for the

trees. But from the Indian system, overloaded though it is by

accretions of every kind, it is comparatively easy to extract a

method which is free from unnecessary and undesirable implications,

and to make an interpretation of it intelligible to, and acceptable

by, European minds. It is this system, and this interpretation of

it, which I propose to put before you.

4. The great classic of Sanskrit literature is the Aphorisms of

Patanjali. He is at least mercifully brief, and not more than ninety

or ninety-five percent of what he writes can be dismissed as the

ravings of a disordered mind. What remains is twenty-four carat

gold. I now proceed to bestow it.

5. It is said that Yoga has eight limbs. Why limbs I do not

know. But I have found it convenient to accept this classification,

and we can cover the ground very satisfactorily by classing our

remarks under these eight headings.

6. These headings are: --

1. Yama.

2. Niyama.

3. Asana.

4. Pranayama.

5. Pratyahara.

6. Dharana.

7. Dhyana.

8. Samadhi.

Any attempt to translate these words will mire us in a hopeless

quag of misunderstanding. What we can do is to deal with each one in

turn, giving at the outset some sort of definition or description

which will enable us to get a fairly complete idea of what is meant.

I shall accordingly begin with an account of Yama.

Attend! Perpend! Transcent!

7. Yama is the easiest of the eight limbs of Yoga to define,

and corresponds pretty closely to our word 'control.' When I tell

you that some have translated it 'morality,' you will shrink appalled

and aghast at this revelation of the brainless baseness of humanity.

The word 'control' is here not very different from the word

'inhibition' as used by biologists. A primary cell, such as the

amoeba, is in one sense completely free, in another completely

passive. All parts of it are alike. Any part of its surface can

ingest its food. If you cut it in half, the only result is that you

have two perfect amoebae instead of one. How far is this condition

removed in the evolutionary scale from trunk murders!

Organisms developed by specialising their component structures

have not achieved this so much by an acquisition of new powers, as by

a restriction of part of the general powers. Thus, a Harley Street

specialist is simply an ordinary doctor who says: 'I won't go out

and attend to a sick person; I won't, I won't, I won't.'

Now what is true of cells is true of all already potentially

specialised organs. Muscular power is based upon the rigidity of

bones, and upon the refusal of joints to allow any movement in any

but the appointed directions. The more solid the fulcrum, the more

efficient the lever. The same remark applies to moral issues. These

issues are in themselves perfectly simple; but they have been com-

pletely overlaid by the sinister activities of priests and lawyers.

There is no question of right or wrong in any abstract sense

about any of these problems. It is absurd to say that it is 'right'

for chlorine to combine enthusiastically with hydrogen, and only in a

very surly way with oxygen. It is not virtuous of a hydra to be

hermaphrodite, or contumacious on the part of an elbow not to move

freely in all directions. Anybody who knows what his job is has only

one duty, which is to get that job done. Anyone who possesses a

function has only one duty to that function, to arrange for its free

fulfilment.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

8. We shall not be surprised therefore if we find that the

perfectly simple term Yama (or Control) has been bedevilled out of

all sense by the mistaken and malignant ingenuity of the pious Hindu.

He has interpreted the word 'control' as meaning compliance with

certain fixed proscriptions. There are quite a lot of prohibitions

grouped under the heading of Yama, which are perhaps quite necessary

for the kind of people contemplated by the Teacher, but they have

been senselessly elevated into universal rules. Everyone is familiar

with the prohibition of pork as an article of diet by Jews and

Mohammedans. This has nothing to do with Yama, or abstract right-

eousness. It was due to the fact that pork in eastern countries was

infected with the trichina; which killed people who ate pork impro-

perly cooked. It was no good telling the savages that fact. Any

way, they would only have broken the hygienic command when greed

overcame them. The advice had to be made a universal rule, and

supported with the authority of a religious sanction. They had not

the brains to believe in trichinosis; but they were afraid of Jehovah

and Jehannum. Just so, under the grouping of Yama we learn that the

aspiring Yogi must become 'fixed in the non-receiving of gifts,'

which means that if anyone offers you a cigarette or a drink of

water, you must reject his insidious advances in the most Victorian

manner. It is such nonsense as this which brings the science of Yoga

into contempt. But it isn't nonsense if you consider the class of

people for whom the injunction was promulgated; for, as we will be

shown later, preliminary to the concentration of the mind is the

control of the mind, which means the calm of the mind, and the Hindu

mind is so constituted that if you offer a man the most trifling

object, the incident is a landmark in his life. It upsets him

completely for years.

In the East, an absolutely automatic and thoughtless act of

kindness to a native is liable to attach him to you, body and soul,

for the rest of his life. In other words, it is going to upset him;

and as a budding Yogi he has got to refuse it. But even the refusal

is going to upset him quite a lot; and therefore he has got to become

'fixed' in refusal; that is to say, he has got to erect by means of

habitual refusal a psychological barrier so strong that he can really

dismiss the temptation without a quiver, or a quaver, or even a

demisemiquaver of thought. I am sure you will see that an absolute

rule is necessary to obtain this result. It is obviously impossible

for him to try to draw the line between what he may receive and what

he may not; he is merely involved in a Socratic dilemma; whereas if

he goes to the other end of the line and accepts everything, his mind

is equally upset by the burden of the responsibility of dealing with

the things he has accepted. However, all these considerations do not

apply to the average European mind. If someone gives me 200,000

pounds sterling, I automatically fail to notice it. It is a normal

circumstance of life. Test me!

9. There are a great many other injunctions, all of which have

to be examined independently in order to find whether they apply to

Yoga in general, and to the particular advantage of any given stu-

dent. We are to exclude especially all those considerations based on

fantastic theories of the universe, or on the accidents of race or

climate.

For instance, in the time of the late Maharajah of Kashmir,

mahsir fishing was forbidden throughout his territory; because, when

a child, he had been leaning over the parapet of a bridge over the

Jhilam at Srinagar, and inadvertently opened his mouth, so that a

mahsir was able to swallow his soul. It would never have done for a

Sahib -- a Mlecha! -- to catch that mahsir. This story is really

typical of 90% of the precepts usually enumerated under the heading

Yama. The rest are for the most part based on local and climatic

conditions, and they may or may not be applicable to your own case.

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