Gateway To Eastern Philosophy & Religion (August 2012)

From the book Gateway to Eastern Philosophy & Religion, excerpted and reprinted with permission from Good Karma Publishing, and available on www.gkpub.com.

Yin Yang

My great friend, Professor Huang, wrote, “The principle of Yin and Yang is the basis of the entire universe. It is the principle of everything in creation. It brings about the transformation to parenthood. It is the root and source of life and death. Heaven was created from the accumulation of Yang; the earth was created by an accumulation of Yin. The ways of Yin and Yang are to the left and to the right. Water and fire are the symbols of Yin and Yang. Water is Yin; fire is Yang. They are the sources of power of everything in creation. Yang ascends to heaven; Yin descends to earth. Hence the universe, heaven and earth, represents motion and rest, controlled by the wisdom of nature. Nature grants the power to beget, to grow, to harvest, to store, to finish and to begin anew.” Professor Huang translated the principle of Yin and Yang beautifully, but Emperor Huang Ti originally developed the Yin Yang cosmology three thousand years ago.

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A Story: Sacher Tortes

I’m going to tell you a story that will illustrate what nonattachment to the world means. There was a woman, Lynette, living in Santa Fe, who was one of the most advanced people I’ve ever known. When she lived in Los Angeles, she had some guests from out of town and decided to take them to lunch up in Laurel Canyon to a nice little restaurant. We had lunch and then decided to order Sacher tortes. The owner was Viennese so he made excellent Sacher tortes. They’re so good you seldom can stop at eating just one! So we had Sacher tortes brought to the table. Everybody looked at them. I had just lifted my fork when Lynette turned to me and said, “Can we do without this?” I said, “Sure,” put my fork down and pushed the Sacher torte away. She put her fork down and pushed the plate away. Of course, everybody was salivating. When she saw me push it away she said, “Well, in that case, we might as well eat it!” And we took it and ate it. The other guests were all puzzled. Lynette gave us a wonderful lesson. She was a real teacher. If something (in this case, eating the torte) doesn’t make any difference to you, you’re not going to be captivated by it. You might as well eat it if you want to eat it. Just cease to pick and choose.

People feel that money is so terrible or that success is terrible because money and success are things of the world. If you’re not attached to success or money, they don’t have any power over you. Some of the most spiritual people I’ve ever known have been economically very successful; some of the least spiritual have been unsuccessful. But if you’re attached to the fruits, that’s another matter!

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Expansion and Contraction of Time

Yoga believes that life is nothing new. It is an expansion of what has always been. What we see, what there is, has been before. That means that time is a circle, not linear with a beginning and an end. This notion is difficult for us to imagine. Life is nothing new; it is an expansion of what it has always been. My experience in meditation was that there are two things going on: expansion and contraction, Yin and Yang, heat and cold, etc.

The contraction is the cosmos retreating into just potentiality, and the expansion is the cosmos manifesting itself in activity. Man sees only the present stage. He does not take notice of the past and the future. This is true. We always talk about what is at present. The true teacher, however, isn’t like that. The true teacher looks at you and can see into your past and therefore knows what the future will be. Cause makes effect. Without awareness of cause and effect, man sees only the present stage.

The individual is the result of a stress in universal consciousness. That’s a little hard to accept! Ramana Maharshi said, “Individual life is a mistake.” The individual is the result of unaccountable stress in universal consciousness. Individual spirit, the Jiva, comes from the root “jiv” meaning “to live.” Jiva is one who lives. Jivatman is the realized man, the one who has attained salvation while he is alive. In universal terms, the Paratman, “beyond the Atman,” is the universal. Here we have the para, the universal; here we have the jiva, the individual. Only in quantity do they differ. They are the same. One of the bases of Indian thought is the expression “AtmanisBrahmanandBrahmanisAtman.”

If you really want to know Yoga, the Yoga Sutras should be read. Patanjali, the father of Yoga, wrote the Yoga Sutras. He defines Yoga as “restraint of mental modifications.” Mental modifications are called “Vrittis” in Sanskrit. Yoga also talks about mind, chitta. And from mind comes name and form. And finally comes buddhi, which is the seat of intelligence. First comes mind, then name and form, and then intelligence.

The Yoga Sutras say, “Then comes ahamkara“, which is the ego, the sense of “I”, which all Indian philosophies feel is false. And Yoga, like Samkhya, also talks about the tanmatras which one recalls is the essence of sound (shabda or nada in Sanskrit), touch, form, flavor and odor. So you can see yoga has much in common with Samkhya. None of these systems is opposed to one another. However when we get down to Vedanta, Vedanta does disagree with some of the other philosophies.

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