the sealing of the seven palaces excerpt

7/28/2019 The Sealing of the Seven Palaces Excerpt

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Excerpted fromThe Sealing of the Seven Palaces

copyright Dr Mark Tarver 2009

Any student of yogic philosophy will, sooner or later, come across texts of yogic

philosophy that deal with the higher aspects of yogic practice. And many students ofyoga, whether or not they have direct experience of these higher aspects, will be able

to quote assertions made in these texts. For example, if the student is asked how

many principal chakras exist in the human body he will most likely answer sevenand he may be able to supply some the Sanskrit names such as muladhara and

ajna. If he is pressed for the authority for these assertions, then he may, if he is a

pandit or expert, be able to quote such and such a tantric text as an authority.However if he is pressed further and asked how he knows that the assertions made in

that text are true, then he may find himself in difficulties and questions will arise then

over the nature of knowledge and what it means to know something and howknowledge of the kinds of things discussed in these texts is possible at all.

Such foundational questions belong to the province of epistemology (the theory of

knowledge), and they must arise and be faced in the course of the study of yoga,unless we view yoga as nothing more than refined means of cultivating health and

discard the metaphysical and spiritual aspects of the practice. So we must begin

then, by understanding how human beings acquire new knowledge and how thestatements made by the sages and ancient yogis can be justified as knowledge. When

we attempt this analysis we find something profound and interesting about the

difference between the Western Mind and the Eastern Mind; a difference that was laid

down 350 years ago, when the Western scientific method was developed.

The Five Ways of Knowing

Though the breadth and depth of human knowledge is vast, the ways of acquiring

knowledge as isolated by classical Western philosophy are few in number; they aredignified under these titles; perception, induction, deduction, abduction andgnosis.

Perception is knowledge derived from the senses and introspection. Thus I know by

observation that I am seated at a computer and that my body is warm and not cold.All these facts are immediately accessible to me from perception and they are

accompanied by a high degree of certainty.

The second form of knowledge is knowledge by induction which is knowledge of the

general case derived from observation of particular cases. Thus if, from observation

of multiple cases of cholera, I observe that diarrhoea, vomiting and dehydration arealways characteristic of these cases, then I will conclude that cholera will always

show this pattern of development and given a case of cholera, rehydration with dilute

saline and glucose may be necessary.

The third form of knowledge is gained by deduction of which mathematics is the most

perfect example. Here new knowledge is gained by inference from established

assumptions in the manner of Euclids Elements of Geometry. In the writings of


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Plato, this is thought of as one of the highest and most perfect forms of knowledge

since it is absolute and certain in its conclusions.

The fourth form of knowledge was described by the American philosopher C. S.

Peirce as abduction. Abduction is knowledge gained through hypothesis and is

central to the scientific method. Thus, in the C19, scientists observing the sunpondered on the longevity of its fire which had burnt for millions of years. An

ancient hypothesis, that the sun was a burning coal, was found to be insufficient to

account for this longevity and the discovery of nuclear energy provided a hypothesissufficient to explain the longevity of the suns radiance. This hypothesis, that the sun

was powered by the fusion of hydrogen, proved so effective as a predictor of

observable astronomical behaviour that it is now counted as part of the conventionalwisdom of astrophysics.

These four forms of knowing we have referred to in their pure form, and it is possibleto multiply instances of knowing - through books and papers for instance. However

Western philosophers have argued that such knowledge is derivative or composite ofthe four mentioned. Thus if I read a report of a storm in the Times of India, I learn of

the storm through observation (reading) of the printed word, by induction I concludethat since the Times is reputable, it prints only true stories, so that the story is true and

hence I come to know of the existence of the storm.

The fifth and final form of knowing is perhaps the most mysterious; it is gnosis or

direct apprehension of truth through union with God. Gnosis appears within almost

every major religion; as union of the soul with the Logos in Gnosticism, Paratman inyoga, Wu Wei in Taoism and God in Christianity. Gnosis is both knowledge of God,

by direct apprehension, and knowledge through God by direct revelation through

contact with the universal mind. It is thought of as a form of observation, though notof the physical eye, but of the awakened soul. Thus in Tattwa Shuddhi we read

Knowledge gained through an expanded mind, gradually evolves and finally

culminates into intuitive knowledge, which has been declared as eternal, absolute,and the true knowledge.

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It isgnosis that underpins most of the material on the higher practices of yoga.

The Rejection of Gnosis in the West

Eastern and Western philosophy part company overgnosis, for whereas Tattwa

Shuddhi records thatgnosis is a more perfect form of knowledge than that attainable

from physical observation, the Western scientists and philosophers mostly reject it.

The basis for this rejection can be traced over 500 years ago. In the mid C15,

printing was invented, and the first book to be printed, and translated en masse wasthe Bible. For the first time men formed independent opinions on the nature of the

Word of God as revealed in the Bible. The result was not uniformity of opinion but

disagreement, as men, claiming gnosis through the written word, disputed the

authority of the Church. Such disagreement could not be resolved by experiment and

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Tattwa Shuddhi, by Swami Satyasangananda, p 7.


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reason, since gnosis as conceived, did not lend itself to rational enquiry. However

these questions impinged not only upon the authority of the church, but on the

salvation of mens souls and hence there could be no agreement to disagree. The onlyrecourse then, was to force of arms, and Europe was devastated by the Wars of

Religion that lasted over one hundred years.

With peace at the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648, came a new age; the Age of

Reason and the rise of the scientific method. Later thinkers looked back at the Wars

of Religion as barbarism and gnosis was seen to be a culprit. Claims to know byrevelation of the Word of God were no longer treated as having any scientific validity

and the five ways of knowing were reduced to four. These four ways, skillfully

applied by men of high intelligence, were to power the technical and scientificrevolution over the next 300 years that was to place Western countries at the apex of

power. It was a revolution that marked an advance in our understanding of the

physical world, and one that indelibly separated the East from the West.

Rehabilitating Gnosis

However it is not the purpose of this essay to dismiss gnosis as an unsuccessfulprescientific attempt to gain knowledge of nature. Rather we need to be aware of the

philosophical context in which gnosis was originally taught. We need to be aware

that there is a very old doctrine which fits withgnosis, which is animism.

Animism in its simplest form is the belief that consciousness in some form (albeit

sometimes very limited) is present in all things. Animism is the basis of primitivenature worship and shamanism, but even in C20 philosophy, for example, in Teilhard

de Chardin, we find this doctrine as part of a sophisticated evolutionary theory. De

Chardin believed that living organisms are evolving towards or trying to expresshigher and more evolved forms of consciousness with God-consciousness as the end

point.2

We might then, borrow a term from Kant, and say that physical objects can be thoughtof as possessing a noumenal(from the Greeknous meaning mind) aspect as well as a

phenomenal or physical aspect. The knowledge gained by gnosis relates to the

noumenal aspect of reality; the mental aspect, whereas the phenomenal aspect ofreality is the target of scientific method.

Though animism is generally viewed as a strong doctrine concerned with the status ofexternal objects, we can also invert the doctrine into a weaker form and place the

noumenal aspect within the mind of the observer. We might say then that every

object carries with it a set of associations and mental images which constitute itsnouma. The nouma is the archetypal store of psychic associations and feelings that

is locked into the object. However (and this is where the line between weak and

strong animism blurs) these associations are not altogether personal to the observer,

2 In the Gnostic tradition emanating from Plotinus and others we find the same message, that

consciousness is trapped within matter as a light within darkness, and it is the task of the aspirant to

release it. The disciplines of Taoism and yoga are very similar in agreeing that the task of these

spiritual sciences is the liberate the spirit from the confines of the body through mental and physical

purification.


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but are shared across cultures and centuries.3

We may talk therefore of the nouma or

soul of an object as these shared memories.

Now in the writings of the yogis we find these ideas echoed, that the nouma of an

object cannot be approached other than by meditation or some allied method in which

the normal consciousness is suspended. Gnosis is therefore knowledge of the noumaof a thing rather than its phenomenal aspect. This knowledge is gained through

entering into the object by a process we can callsyntixis.4

Syntixis is described in the writings of the yoga-sage Patanjali as having three stages,

dharana, dhayani and samadhi (concentration, meditation and union). However the

techniques described by Patanjali are not the only means ofsyntixis and historicallywe find alongside meditation, lucid dreaming, chanting, dance and drugs. Hence we

should not necessarily think of syntixis as a quiet passive process of steady

contemplation, but depending upon our disposition and the tradition we follow, maybe explosive. We can say that the there has been two broad traditions of syntixis; an

Apollonian right-hand one of reason, measure and harmony, of which Patanjali is anexample and a Dionysian tradition which is more dynamic and may emphasise dance,

drugs and sex and which is found in certain practices termed left-hand. Naturallythere has been a tension between followers of these different techniques. However

the goal of both hands is the same, to enter into the nouma of an object by annihilating

the distinction between the observer and the observed.

Conventionally we may choose any object forsyntixis,but some objects are richer in

nouma than others. Such objects, we may call them objects of power, includecelestial bodies and the symbols thereof, and various yantras, mandalas and also

sounds (mantras) which are individually gates to changes in consciousness. Once

within the nouma of the sun for instance, we may experience the visions of that spherewhich can be powerful and compelling and may assume a human form. In the

tradition of the shaman,syntixis with a medicinal plant may inform the shaman of the

useful aspects of the plant.

More fundamentally, we may enter into syntixis with areas of our own bodies and in

that way, gain an understanding of their function. According to one tradition, it was

in this manner that the meridians of the body were mapped out in Chinese medicine.And it is fascinating to see how the gnostic knowledge arrived at created a medicine

so different from that of the West.

Right Brain, Left Brain and Psychic Integration

..

.

3 In the writings of Carl Jung, we find a similar idea; that the mind contains a collective unconscious

common to all within which powerful archetypes roam.4 From the Greek word for fusion.


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the sealing of the seven palaces excerpt

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