Hatha Yoga Pradipika

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down, he has to keep fully awake--and still convert his consciousness! This cannot be achieved
through any kind of technique, but only through the suggestive influence of the guru.
This practice, by the way, is nowadays seldom encountered. Is it perhaps due to the fact that there are
not any more gums who have these suggestive powers?
(83) When someone, though leading a worldly life without observing the laws of yama and niyama,
practices vajroli mudra he will become a vessel for siddhi powers.
The following slokas, 84-103, describe the vajroli, sahajoli and amaroli mudras. These are practices
that aim at reversing the flow of the semen virile in coito. The purpose of such practices is clear: to
enjoy all the benefits of yoga without sacrificing any of the worldly pleasures.
In leaving out these passages, we merely bypass the description of a few obscure and repugnant
practices that arefollowed by only those yogis who lack the will power to reach their goal otherwise.
In these 20 slokas, we encounter a yoga that has nothing but its name in common with the yoga of a
Patanjali or a Ramakrishna.
Any technique that enables a yogi to sublimate his virility within his organism merits approval.
Whatever he does outside his organism cannot be called yoga. For a yoga without yamas and
niyamas does not exist. Even the very profound maithuna practices (i.e. ritual cohabitation) of the
Shaktism cult can be acknowledged as a symbolic background of a religious ritual, but not this
technique of uniting pleasure with the benefits of yoga. So let us take a detour around Orcus into the
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Yoga Swami Svatmarama. Hatha yoga pradipika
purer fields of kundalini.
CHAPTER 10
THE SHAKTI
everything so far has really been only preparation. Everything essential has been accomplished,
except the most essential: the raising of kundalini. To be sure, the yogi is now capable ot going into
deep meditation; he can put his body into a deathlike state; and he can fan or quench the inner fire.
He has complete control over the functions of his body. All in all, he is master of hatha yoga.
But what of it? He is still only an insignificant apprentice of raja yoga. We have already seen that it
is not the bodily functions and their control that count. Decisive is the degree of total
perfection--physical, mental, and spiritual. Mastery of hatha yoga is only a preliminary to the
mastery of raja yoga.
This final chapter of the third stage of training is concerned with the last, though the most
magnificent of all physical phenomena: the guiding of the kundalini serpent through the various
chakras to its highest goal, the sahasrara. Note, however, that it does not bring in the all-important
phenomena that characterize absolute consciousness, the essence of raja yoga. The
technical-dynamic process which is taught in the following will lead up to that goal to which Part
Four is devoted.
(104) I now describe shakti calana kriya [literally: the action that loosens the inner power of nature].
Kutitangi, kundalini, bhujangi, shkti, ishvari, kundali, arundhati: all these are names for the same
shakti.
Shakti is the name for all dynamic forces of nature. The release of the shakti in man corresponds in
its effect directly to the release of the latent shakti in the atom. Through nuclear fission we do not
call forth an external power, but simply release the power latent in the atom. In man too repose
unsuspected powers that do not manifest materially blit act with equal force on the mental plane,
which in turn reacts on the spiritual plane. We need such an atomic spiritual power in order to reach
the goal of the yogi. With our threadbare everyday intellect we get nowhere. It leads us, if anywhere,
into a hopeless blind alley.
Where else can we find the needed forces for the highest goal, if not from within our own selves?
Since there is a path to liberation, there also must exist the means to pursue it to the end. And all the
means that we require to reach our ultimate goal, however high it may be, lie within us. The problem
is only how to release them.
(105-110) As one opens the door with a key, so the yogi should open the gate to liberation
[moksha] with the kundalini. The great goddess [kundalini] steeps, closing with her mouth the
opening through which one can ascend to the brahmarandhra (crown of the head), to that place
where there is neither pain nor suffering. The kundalini sleeps above the kanda [where the nadis
converge]. She gives liberation to the yogi and bondage to the fool. He who knows kundalini knows
yoga. --The kundalini, it is said, is coiled like a serpent. He who can induce her to move [upward]
is liberated. There is no doubt about it. --Between Ganga and Yamuna sits a young widow,
arousing compassion. One should despoil her, for this leads to the supreme seat of Vishnu [her
spouse in sahasrara]. The sacred Ganga is ida [nodi] and Yamuna if pin gala [nodi]. Between ida
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Yoga Swami Svatmarama. Hatha yoga pradipika
and pingala sits the young widow kundalini.
(111) You should awaken the sleeping serpent by grasping its tad. The shakti, when aroused, moves
upward. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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