Yoga and Buddhism in the life of a contemporary person (Ukázka, strana 99)

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Yoga and Buddhism

it is a subjective matter, however, it does not seem that those, who have forgotten the small net called “body” and begun to live in a net called “universe”, will care about the fact that the physical death marks their objective end.

The issue of nourishment is thus, in the first place, a problem of contacts – either the contacts of the physical organs with the solid substances serving as food, or the contacts of the power of awareness with the cosmic essences. Even though the contacts of physical organs with solid substances seem to be primary, still I know from my experience that they are secondary. This is because without consciousness, nothing can exist that could be called a living being. If it so happened that a person contented themselves with consciousness as a secondary existence, still it is only a matter of their choice or preference, weakness and ignorance. This will clearly manifest itself in the practice of yoga. Even though yoga begins with making the body present in the consciousness, yet this state of things later becomes natural and then the next long stage of s­ elf-discipline comes, which is called operation with the states of consciousness; this ­self-discipline gives the experience that the possibilities of awareness outside the body are inexhaustible.

What does the objective reality matter here? After all, it is as relative as that which we denote by the word subjective – that subjective which always and definitively decides the question of the reality as a whole. From this point of view I must consider the objective reality as a reality which is only conditionally conclusive and everyone should pay attention to stop making a ‘Lord God’ of it and begin to observe and examine, from an impersonal point of view, all happening of which they are a victim. It is only under these circumstances that they will realise that the objective reality is a small part of the universal reality which is waiting to be discovered in the future. And the scientists, caught in the net of prejudice, are arguing for their seeming truth, detected by the technical instruments!

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Yoga and health

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6. The significance of breath The gaseous nature of air is, to a certain extent, similar to the nature of the substance which the living organisms fix by their awareness. Due to this, the relationships among these substances have the greatest significance in the creating of an electromagnetic phenomenon which manifests itself in contact with the body as the body’s vitality. The only important thing here is that at the contact place of the gaseous or even higher substances on one hand and the physical substances on the other hand, these contacts are a result of the karmic predispositions rather than of the conscious processes. Due to this reason, the creatures live under the law of predestination and the entire process of living is only a mechanical phenomenon.

The yogis, who, according to the instructions of the yogic teaching, undergo the discipline of concentration and conscious breathing, actually broaden their awareness up to the place of touch of the gaseous and even higher substances with the physical substances.

Although we can not think that, especially at the beginning of the yogic practice, the yogi can carry out the enlivening actions by acts of correct concentration, still we can be sure that the same is being carried out to a lesser extent by the yogic breathing. The instruction which prescribes that a yogi should, besides keeping themselves in the inner calmness, carry out in a precise proportion to this moral effort also the breathing practices, talks about an even breathing in and breathing out, which is supposed to be practised consciously. If the yogi carries out this prescribed breathing in and breathing out, while being aware of this activity and their body in general, they are creating, precisely by the vigilance of consciousness and by a focused attention, a link between the body and the higher factors whose most coarse representative is breath.

Thus, if someone carries out the breathing practices according to the instructions of yoga and, at the same time, they are clearly aware of what they are doing in that moment, they have connected

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Yoga and Buddhism

two disparate factors – the body and the s­ uper-gaseous factors. By this they are slowly working themselves through to, one day, being able to take hold of the control over their body by a conscious maintaining of its vitality on a desirable level. This whole thing takes place in stages. In the initial stages of this effort, the yogi feels that their life potential increases. Yoga refuses the character of this life potential, because it works on the physical and vital level.

Therefore, the yogi should continue further, until they learn how to bind the higher factors which allow performing operations with vitality on the causal level.

According to yoga, a yogi should, by conscious breathing, arrive at a stage where they will increase their level of vitality with a character of indifference, much rather than strengthening the vitality with animal manifestations. Admittedly, a yogi also passes through the states of a refreshing of the vitality which is crudely manifesting itself, but because they are consciously, evenly breathing in and breathing out, they are becoming anchored in the field of life manifesting itself in an increase of the vitality, which leads them to behave indifferently to the external world. This subsequently happens through the correct states of concentration. From this it is obvious that, when taking the ideal sequence of steps in yoga, a person cannot avoid the enlivening power of the conscious breathing in and breathing out. This also means that a correctly performed yoga has a favourable influence on the increase in vitality, which is, after all, an indirect manifestation of a good health. From the physiological point of view, the most interesting thing, can be that the form of breathing in question, is such a form, during which a person is internally steady, and their mind n ­ on-wandering.

This is, though, not that interesting from the point of view of knowledge which is important in yoga, because exactly the etheric substances in breath actually give rise to impulses which set the right direction and effect for the lymph. It is exactly by the correct or incorrect breathing that these etheric substances are set in rhythm or in chaotic movement; the results are thus s­ elf-evident. The guide-

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