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different plexuses as representing these circles, the idea of
the Yogi can be understood very easily in the language of
modern physiology. We know there are two sorts of actions
in these nerve currents, one afferent, the other efferent, one
sensory and the other motor; one centripetal, and the other
centrifugal. One carries the sensations to the brain, and the
other from the brain to the outer body. These vibrations are
all connected with the brain in the long run. Several other
facts we have to remember, in order to clear the way for the
explanation which is to come. This spinal cord, at the brain,
ends in a sort of bulb, in the medulla, which is not attached
to the bone, but floats in a fluid in the brain, so that if there
be a blow on the head the force of that blow will be
dissipated in the fluid, and will not hurt the bulb. This will
be an important fact as we go on. Seconly, we have also to
know that, of all the centres, we have particularly to
remember three, the Muladhara (the basis), the Sahacrara
(the thousand-petalled lotus of the brain) and the
Svadhisthana (next above the Muladhara). Next we will
take one fact from physics. We all hear of electricity, and
various other forces connected with it. What electricity is no
one knows, but, so far as it is known, it is a sort of motion.
There are various other motions in the universe; what is
the difference between them and electricity? Suppose this
table moves, that the molecules which compose this table are
moving in different directions; if they are all made to move
in the same direction it will be electricity. Electric motion is
when the molecules all move in the same direction. If all the
air molecules in a room are made to move in the same
direction it will make a gigantic battery of electricity of the
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THE PSYCHIC PRANA
room. Another point from physiology we must remember,
that the centre which regulates the respiratory system, the
breathing system, has a sort of controlling action over the
system of nerve currents, and the controlling centre of the
respiratory system is opposite the thorax, in the spinal
column. This centre regulates the respiratory organs, and
also exercises some control over the secondary centres.
Now we shall see why breathing is practised. In the first
place, from rhythmical breathing will come a tendency of all
the molecules in the body to have the same direction. When
mind changes into will, the currents change into a motion
similar to electricity, because the nerves have been proved to
show polarity under action of electric currents. This shows
that when the will evolves into the nerve currents it is
changed into something like electricity. When all the
motions of the body have become perfectly rhythmical the
body has, as it were, become a gigantic battery of will. This
tremendous will is exactly what the Yogi wants. This is,
therefore, a physiological explanation of the breathing
exercise. It tends to bring a rhythmic action in the body, and
helps us, through the respiratory centre, to control the other
centres. The aim of Pranayama here is to rouse the coiled-
up power in the Muladhara, called the Kundalini.
Everything that we see, or imagine, or dream, we have to
perceive in space. This is the ordinary space, called the
Mahakaca, or great space. When a Yogi reads the thoughts
of other men, or perceives super-sensuous objects, he sees
them in another sort of space called the Chittakaca, the
mental space. When perception has become objectless, and
the soul shines in its own nature, it is called the Chidakaca,
or knowledge space. When the Kundalini is aroused, and
enters the canal of the Susumna all the perceptions are in the
mental space. When it has reached that end of the canal
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RAJA YOGA
which opens out into the brain, the objectless perception is in
the knowledge space. Taking the analogy of electricity, we
find that man can send a current only along a wire, but
nature requires no wires to send her tremendous currents.
This proves that the wire is not really necessary, but that
only our inability to dispense with it compels us to use it.
Similarly, all the sensations and motions of the body are
being sent into the brain, and sent out of it, through these
wires of nerve fibres. The columns of sensory and motor
fibres in the spinal cord are the Ida and Pingala of the Yogis.
They are the main channels through which the afferent and
efferent currents are travelling. But why should not the mind
send the news without any wire, or react without any wires?
We see that this is being done in nature. The Yogi says if
you can do that you have got rid of the bondage of matter.
How to do it? If you can make the current pass through the
Susumna, the canal in the middle of the spinal column, you
have solved the problem. The mind has made this net-work
of the nervous system, and has to break it, so that no wires
will be required to work through. Then alone will all
knowledge come to us  no more bondage of body; that is
why it is so important that you should get control of the
Susumna. If you can send the mental current through that
hollow canal without any nerve fibres to act as wires, the
Yogi says you have solved the problem, and he also says it
can be done.
This Susumna is, in ordinary persons, closed up at the
lower extremity; no action comes through it. The Yogi
proposes a practice by which it can be opened, and the nerve
currents made to travel through. When a sensation is carried
to a centre, the centre reacts. This reaction, in the case of
automatic centres, is followed by motion; in the case of
conscious centres it is followed first by perception, and
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THE PSYCHIC PRANA
secondly by motion. All perception is the reaction to action
from outside. How, then, do perceptions in dreams arise?
There is then no action from outside. The sensory motions,
therefore, are coiled up somewhere, just as the motor
motions are known to be in different centres. For instance, I
see a city; the perception of that city was from the reaction to
the sensations brought from outside objects comprising that
city. That is to say, a certainmotion in the brain molecules
has been set up by the motion in the incarrying nerves,
which again were set in motion by external objects in the
city. Now, even after a long time I can remember the city.
This memory is exactly the same phenomenon, only it is in a
milder form. But whence is the action that set up even the
milder form of similar vibrations in the brain? Not certainly
from the primary sensations. Therefore it must be that the
sensations are coiled up somewhere, and they, by their
acting, bring out the mild reaction which we call dream
perception. Now the centre where all these residual
sensations are, as it were, stored up, is called the Muladhara,
the root receptacle, and the coiled up energy of action is
Kundalini, the  coiled up. It is very probable that the
residual motor energy is also stroed up in the same centre as, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]