Eight Lectures On Yoga.pdf

EIGHT LECTURES ON YOGA

THE EQUINOX

VOLUME III, NUMBER FOUR

EIGHT LECTURES ON YOGA

BY MAHATMA GURU SRI PARAMAHANSA SHIVAJI

BY ALEISTER CROWLEY

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EIGHT LECTURES ON YOGA

(Part 1 of 8)

THE EQUINOX VOLUME III, NUMBER FOUR

EIGHT LECTURES ON YOGA

MAHATMA GURU

SRI PARAMAHANSA SHIVAJI

BY ALEISTER CROWLEY

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PREFACE

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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.

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EIGHT LECTURES ON YOGA

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CONTENTS

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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

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EIGHT LECTURES ON YOGA

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YOGA FOR YAHOOS.

FIRST LECTURE. FIRST PRINCIPLES.

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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

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EIGHT LECTURES ON YOGA

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.

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