☉ Diamond Samadhi

 "Good man, when the mind is not being aroused, or not conceiving anything, it will be independent of everything. Not lingering over all the formations (samskara) [of subject, or object relative to the body, speech and mind], the mind will be constantly void and calm, without any projections. It is like the empty space - motionless and non-abiding, non-arising and non-doing, free from either this or that. One [thus] attains the eye (essence) of the void of mind, and the body (nature) of the void of dharmas. Thus the five aggregates [of being] and the six sense-bases will be void and calm." -The Vajrasamadhi Sutra, 685 CE

     SAMADHI itself has two values whether spelled with a Samekh, 60 or Shin, 300 when using Hebrew values, thus it can be either 121 (11x11), or 361 (19x19, The Circle-360 and The Point). Knowing that 11 is the number of Daath, the world of the shells, and 121 that of OCCULT, the hidden or dark realm which the archetypal 'dweller on the threshold' of which SATAN is Lord. Eleven Cubed is symbolic of the folding of the gravitational matrix of the space-time continuum (Daath/Daath), a type of wormhole. In the psychosomatic sense, this is the 'Union' and energetic interaction between subject and object. 361 as the Point in the Circle is the SOLAR number par excellence, and the POWER of THE UNIVERSE which is 'finite yet boundless' as well. 19 is also the number of the Tarot card of The Sun. And just as Crowley explains the unfolding of the monad into the Tree of Life, this also represents the Tree in its three major planes, the Supernal Triad (3), the Ruach (6) [not counting Daath], and Malkuth (1), or 'Etheric', 'Astral'/'Mental', and 'Material' planes. The Material/Malkuth as the Ego, 'I' (10) is the mind combined of all the forces in a solitary 'sphere'.

     One of my own noteworthy attainments occurred in Summer of 2013. I was at a music festival, in intense heat and was overcome at one point by a jolting experience I can only explain as a circular pillar of 'O' (void/zero) rise through me and out the top of my head expanding outward infinitely but with a knowledge that this related to the Ma-Ion and the 13-fold Star-Diamond of Manifestation, the 'PERFECT-ION'. This had a lasting effect which eventually tapered off, but was one unique experience which caused me to later ground out and integrate/understand as an opening of the subtle centers or higher chakras. The Halo is a common archetype relating to this idea, as is the Solar-cycle of 12 Zodiacal signs or 'Hours' with the central 'Serpent-Bearer', or activated Kundalini. The 121 of Satan is the Zodiac wrapping around itself, the Ouroboros of the Quantum container which is the 'Holy Grail' or 'Philosopher's Stone' of the 'I' (10) of MALKUTH (111) = 121. The Eye (Ayin, 15, 'O') is the Opened Ajna which illumines the Tower (Peh, 16) with the Stellar Light (Tzaddi, 17) not from above, but from within. (Note also that the sum of 121 and 361 is 482, which Grant notes in The Ninth Arch is the value of LBNTh, the actual 'Stone', and its function: ASPQLRIA, meaning 'looking-glass or (skrying) mirror'. This obviously relates to THE BLACK EGG of Ma-Ion, as well as the Ρομβος, 'Rhombus', 'Diamond', or 'Magic Wheel'. See below for Carl Jung's notes on the relation betwen the 4/Diamond and the O/Circle-Egg.)

     As Crowley has shown, when used logically and consistently, mathematics can help as a tool of the Initiate to separate the astral light from the sticky magick 'web' of things, and though it is highly useful for breaking down and analyzing information and energy-patterns it always leads back to itself, the 'Aleph-Zero Point'. (Note 438, 'PERFECTION' + 121, 'SAMADHI', + 107, 'MA-ION' = 666 = 'A HOLLOW 103 PILLAR'. 103 is the 13 warding the 'O', Ophiuchus with the Egg of the Universe. 103 is MABYN, the Crowned Babe in the Egg.)

(ZERO = 282 = FOUR)

     "Kircher's system shows certain affinities with our series of quaternios. Thus the Second Monad is a duality consisting of opposites, corresponding to the angelic world that was split by Lucifer's fall. Another significant analogy is that Kircher conceives his schema as a cycle set in motion by God as the prime cause, and unfolding out of itself, but brought back to God again through the activity of human understanding, so that the end returns once more to the beginning. This, too, is an analogy of our formula. The alchemists were fond of picturing their opus as a circulatory process, as a circular distillation or as the uroboros, the snake biting its own tail, and they made innumerable pictures of this process. Just as the central idea of the lapis Philosophorum plainly signifies the self, so the opus with its countless symbols illustrates the process of individuation, the step-by-step development of the self from an unconscious state to a conscious one. That is why the lapis, as prima materia, stands at the beginning of the process as well as at the end. [113] According to Michael Maier, the gold, another synonym for the self, comes from the opus circulatorium of the sun. 

  This circle is "the line that runs back upon itself (like the serpent that with its head bites its own tail), wherein that eternal painter and potter, God, may be discerned." [114] In this circle, Nature "has related the four qualities to one another and drawn, as it were, an equilateral square, since contraries are bound together by contraries, and enemies by enemies, with the same everlasting bonds." Maier compares this squaring of the circle to the "homo quadratus," the four-square man, who "remains himself" come weal come woe. [115] He calls it the "golden house, the twice-bisected circle, the four-eornered phalanx, the rampart, the 6ty wall, the four-sided line of battle." [116] This circle is a magic circle consisting of the union of opposites, "immune to all injury.

    Independently of Western tradition, the same idea of the circular opus can be found in Chinese alchemy: "When the light is made to move in a circle, all the energies of heaven and earth, of the light and the dark, are crystallized," says the text of the Golden Flower. [117]" -Aion, Ch. 14, C.G. Jung

Carl Jung on the Symbol of the “Diamond.”

      Professor Jung: As a matter of fact, it does have something to do with consciousness. Could you give more details about it?

      Participant: The transparent stone refers to the diamond. It is refined earth, the epitome of refined earth. The earth is dark, gloomy, nontransparent, and starts to become transparent in the stone. Although the stone is earth, hardest earth, it assumes the character of transparent water. We speak of a diamond “of the first water.” Because of its transparency, the philosopher’s stone is also called vitrum aureum (the golden glass) or vitrum malleabile (the malleable glass). In the Book of Revelation it says that the streets of the new Jerusalem were like golden glass. [Rev. 21:21]

     Professor Jung: So it is the same idea as in alchemy—that the earth had been transformed into a transparent, waterlike, yet hard and imperishable, incorruptible structure. Therefore, the philosopher’s stone is the expression of the highest perfection of the earthly body, and, therefore, you also find the idea that the lapis philosophorum is man himself, that is, his corpus glorificatum, his body at the Resurrection. This immortal body is the subtle body that had left the physical body and is beyond corruption. The diamond, the hardest mineral, is synonymous with the lapis philosophorum. This is ancient metaphysics, old speculation in symbolic form. What does this mean psychologically?
It was mentioned that the diaphanitas and the stoniness, the inelasticity, could have to do with the nature of consciousness. You can find this connection in the old texts of alchemy, the idea, that is, that the stone is the product of a mental operation, the equivalent, so to speak, of enlightenment.

     Therefore the stone says in a Hermetic text: “I create the light, the light that is greater than all other lights in the world.” So what is actually meant is a phenomenon of consciousness, a product of human effort, and at the same time a donum gratiae, a gift of God’s grace. It is always stressed that it is impossible to do it on one’s own, it can only be given per gratiam dei, but man still has to make the effort to make this structure. It originally was a head, that is, a consciousness that was in the head.
It is symbolized as the head of Osiris that was washed ashore from the sea and venerated by the women of Byblos.

      This severed head, the so-called round element, is the epitome of perfection. A consciousness has crystallized that is imperturbable, a detached consciousness, characterized by wholeness (represented by roundness).

     Participant: In the legend of Perseus, too, we find this idea, in the severed head of the Gorgon. Here, roundness is linked to the mortification of the mother.

     Professor Jung: Yes, quite right. In the stars you find the constellation of Perseus with the Gorgon’s head above the sign of Taurus. The great Gorgon’s head is the horrible face entwined by snakes; it is the face of the past in front of which we are petrified. The fear it provokes can be traced back to the fear of the devouring mother, the horror of this; for this face can turn you into dead earth again. This danger was averted by Perseus by cutting the Gorgon’s throat with a fiery sword, a diamond sword.

This would mean that the danger is averted by the intervention of consciousness, of thinking; because it was an act of consciousness that detached him from that horror. When the flood of blackness is later inundating him again, he can free himself from it, because he cut the head of the horrible mother. 

     You find a similar standpoint in the philosophy of the Upanishads; the knowledge about Atman liberates from the law of the earth. So the head is that round thing, originally hidden in matter, that Zosimos called the Omega element. That’s why the ancient philosophers called themselves “children of the golden head.” This was the opposite of the caput mortuum or caput corvi,which is the sediment that precipitates, or the opposite of nigredo. This caput aureum, however, is the end product of the process.It is also round, it is the wholeness, and it is a transparent stone. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Pages 221-223

Dharana & Dhyana In-Depth

     I had to take a somewhat short break the last few days to continue an Inner Working more completely on the Outer which involved much work, meetings and travel. For the most part, I have been a solitary Adept with only a few contacts I find worthy of working with in any deeper way, and even then they happen to be located far away. This is all well enough though, and from the looks of it this publication is already doing its job of spreading the 999 Current around the planet. (I.e. the fusion of the 93-Horus Current and that of 696-Maat with that of 210, the Gnosis of THE KEY OF IT ALL, as has been presented earlier in this publication.) As readers will have known, this is the revived Gnosis of THERION (=999 using Nun final [700]) which was prophesized in Liber AL to be revealed by 'another prophet'. This Gnosis is only 'secret' or 'occult' to those who fail to understand.

     The last chapter of Liber ABA we read was Chapter 5, Dharana along with Lecture 4 of Eight Lectures on Yoga.

     After reading Chapter 5 we proceeded to the next Liber, which was Liber E vel Exercitiorum sub figura IX. Crowley says that "This book instructs the aspirant in the necessity of keeping a record. Suggests methods of testing physical clairvoyance. Gives instruction in āsana, prāṇāyāma and dhāraṇā, and advises the application of tests to the physical body, in order that the student may thoroughly understand his own limitations." Crowley's emphasis on the magickal record is crucial. Though I call this publication my 'magickal record', it is really the drawing board on which I lay out for others what I have already come to experience and analyze in my real magickal record(s). Along with a basic magickal record in which every possible detail is recorded one should also maintain a separate Dream Record.

     Skipping over the next chapter of Liber ABA I went ahead to the next two Libers since they are relatively short and deal in part with some of the concepts currently talked about in ABA and the Lectures. Crowley says of Liber Porta Lucis sub figura X, "This book is an account of the sending forth of the Master Therion by the A∴A∴ and an explanation of His mission.' and 'Porta Lucis, the Gate of Light, is one of the titles of Malkuth, whose number is X."

 
  The next Liber is Liber Nv sub figura XI, which is Crowley's "Instruction for attaining Nuit".

     Yesterday I was finally able to get back to reading and editing. Chapter 6 is about Dhyana and the differences between it and Samadhi, which is what the next chapter will be about.

     Note that DHYANA has a value of 71, which is also that of the union between A(1) and O(70). The A-O, or I/O binary sequence also forms the Sol symbol - ☉ - and remember what Crowley says about Dhyana also being called 'The Sun'. In this glyph the subject (1) and the object (O) are united via the DISCIPLINE of= DHARANA. Adding the concentration of DHARANA (262) to the result of DHYANA gives the value of 333, which is that of THE OCCULT KNOWLEDGE (/QABALAH KNOWLEDGE) of S'LBA, the term Kenneth Grant uses in Outer Gateways to symbolize the True Stellar Self beyond the lower self.
     In LIBER AL 55 (chapter 2) it is said "Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet; thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto." The 'NEW SYMBOLS' are really just the old Hebrew letter values applied to English, which when applied to LIBER L VEL LEGIS itself shows that the original title (before Frater Achad mentioned his 'Key') has the same value as The Beast 666, as well as THE AL CRYPTOGRAM and THE VALUE OF LIBER AL.II.76., THE SECRET LIBER AL CODE which no one has hitherto discovered apparently, as can be seen if you do any searches on this material, or even if you ask any 'Adepts' of the O.T.O. or Outer College of A∴A∴ they will tell you that Gematria is merely "mental masturbation" and are themselves too illiterate in the Qabalah (and Crowley's work itself sometimes) to understand.
     Thus, these Orders are defunct and will bar themselves from future progress until they catch up for these Keys unlock further Gnosis necessary to advancement.
     The revival and updating of this Gnosis is being effected now through the formula of 999.

September 8, 2021 Update:

Transcript of Email to Soror 722:

It might be useful perhaps to use Liber 777 if one were to want to try to 'decode' AL.II.76., although the more I look at it the more simple it is really.

I think it's a subconscious/astral expression of a simple process of Kundalini yoga.

4, 6, 3 and 8 are all equal and valid 'standards' or statements of the 'quadrants' or dimensions of 'reality'.

A, Aleph - The Fool, Ox, air

B, Beth - The Magus, House, mercury

K, Kaph - Wheel of Fortune / Destiny / Fate, Palm, jupiter

2 / 4 - Macro-/Microprosopus (Mahayana-Hinayana)

A L G M O R, Aleph - Lamed - Gimel - Mem - Ayin - Resh

A simple formula of the path of the Adept;

Aleph and Lamed are 'AL', God, the beginning(s) of the Alef-bayt (Alphabet) as Hebrew is divided midway at Lamed. Gimel, the Camel (crossing/crosser of the Abyss) and Mem, Water (the Abyss, as well as Life-force) Ayin, The Eye (The Devil, Capricorn), Bindu/Ajna and Resh, The Head, The Sun, Sol

3 - Sun, Moon & Fire, ॐ (properly 3½)

Y X, the idea that Y and X could be symbolic of the chromosomes of Male and Female is offset by the fact that one year after 1904: "Nettie Stevens and Edmund Beecher Wilson are credited with independently discovering, in 1905, the chromosomal XY sex-determination system, i.e. the fact that males have XY sex chromosomes and females have XX sex chromosomes."

Y and X could therefore instead be considered in their Tarotic equivalents as Yod, The Hermit and Tzaddi, The Star (X as 90 aptly being 360 divided by 4.) Nonetheless, these symbols imply stellar valences, and their Tarots indicate extreme within (Hermit) and without (Star) polarities.

24 and 89 are both Gnostic gematria values, 24 coming up extensively in the Pistis Sophia and related to the terrestrial 'womb' of 24-hour cycles, while 89 is the 'GVPh', Guph or 'Seventh Heaven' and related as a chamber of 'souls'. Likely indicates sheaths, regions or barriers, as indicated by the next sequence which Kenneth Grant has interpreted variously:

"Perhaps it is necessary to interpret this Oracle in the light of the images (painting and drawings) that formed the Exhibition mounted by Crowley in Greenwi h Village circa 1919. It included his portrait of LAM, the first alien known to be drawn from life. [See Grant, The Magical Revival, plate 5.] The connection between RPSTOVAL, IPSOS and LAM then becomes clear – the “three streams” converged upon Awryd, who transmitted the seed of Nu Isis." -433 of The Ninth Arch

565-17. though he knew the triple stone, the triple egg of Lam’s atu:

     Mâ = 41, the number of AM, ‘mother, but ‘unfertilized’ and ‘unenlightened’. The contradiction is explained by the fact that the unawakened woman typifies the priestess in her magnetic sleep, potentializing infinite magical maternities. There are 41 letters or matrikas (‘mothers’) in a magical incantation for opening the door to other dimensions. [See Lovecraft, ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.] May or Mai, on the other hand, being 51, enumerates ADVM, ‘Edom’, the ‘demon kings’, and ‘Azâzel’ the Angel who, according to Enoch, transmitted to earth the ‘forbidden wisdom’. [See The Book of Enoch.] 51 is a number of the bija mantra, or root-vibration, of the Great Old Ones: HÛM, [See Grant, Hecate’s Fountain, page 246.] and of MA-AT, the house, womb or atu (Aat) of Mâ, The verse-number is attributed to the Path of Zain, the Double Current, and to the Star which is NOT. [See AL.I.57.] The oracle “Tzaddi is not the Star” appears on the seventeenth page of the original manuscript of Liber AL. The letter Tzaddi, 90, + 17 = 107 = BITzH, ‘an egg’; also MÂ-ION, the Aeon of Mâ. 107 is a numerical glyph of the egg warded by 17 (Zain) and 71 (Lam), which conceals the mystery of ULLAM (107), ‘consciousness’, and equates with Akash (Space).

     In the microcosm, Akash is reflected into the power-zone situate between the cranium and the brow. Its powerful vibrations are evident in Crowley’s portrait of Lam. The egg-shaped cranium of Lam is the repository of the Knowledge of Wisdom contain in the domed vault beneath the Ninth Arch, and it is reflected in the secret cypher of AL.II.76, the word RPSTOVAL. The latter encodes the terror (RP) of Set (ST) concealed in the OVAL (Egg). Numerically, 280 (RP + 309 (ShT) + 107 (OVAL) = 696 = IPSOS, the Word of the Aeon of Maat. “It’s all in the egg!” [See Crowley, The Amalantrah Working.] (i.e., in Lam). What is all in Lam? The Aeon of Maat! The Egg, furthermore, is the triple Stone, the triple egg of Lam’s Atu. But then there is a further mystery: 90 (Tzaddi) + 17 + 57 = 164, a number of the NYING-MA cult closely allied to the Drukpas or Dragon Cult [See Grant, Hecate’s Fountain, Part III, chapter 3.] of Bhutan, and to the secret MIG-MI-ZANG (164), the ‘slanting-eyed’, which refers to the hidden Eye or Egg of the Priestess of the Thunder Dragon. Again, 164 = 93 + 71. These correspondences show clearly the oriental component (Lam) of the alchemical formula involving Frater Achad’s triple Egg/Stone. Lam’s Atu is ‘The Star’ of Aquarius; that is, the Double Current, Nuit/Typhon – Sirius/Set. -365, 366 of The Ninth Arch

 4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L. What meaneth this, o prophet? Thou knowest not; nor shalt thou know ever. There cometh one to follow thee: he shall expound it. But remember, o chosen one, to be me; to follow the love of Nu in the star-lit heaven; to look forth upon men, to tell them this glad word.

 

777-76 = 701 - the reflection of 107, and value of 

Αυγοειδης – Augoeides, The Holy Guardian Angel

Παντος – All, Everything, Pantos

LAM (Bija-mantra of Muladhara, rendered as LAॐ, i.e. 30+1 + OM, 670 (70+600) ^{(See the Comment to verse 562 of Liber OKBISh. See also 141 and 638.)}

701-9. hiding a body lest the buzzards swooped;

     The number 9 is that of the GV, or ‘body’, the Kamite Kha. It is the body hidden in Amenta and preserved by the sand of the future manifestation as the ‘Ka’. The Oracle is SHÂT, ‘god of slaughter’ (Book of the Dead, page 291), hence the buzzards, 701 also = ALSOS, code-name of a German Nuclear Programme which includes AL (the transmission of that name) and SOS, the number of which is 670, OM, the sound between Om and Hum, which simulates the humming or buzzing (of insects) characteristic of the vibration associated with the Great Old Ones (AL, and others). 701 is the number of LAM (71), plus the Egg (0).

701 is quite literally LAM, 30+1+600 with the 'Egg', as O (631 + 70 = 701).

701/107 seems to hint toward the whole 'Chicken and Egg' riddle, which resonates with the HAMSA mythos of THE MIGHTY EGG, etc. etc. OLAM happens to also mean 'Master of the World' in Hebrew, connecting to Jagannatha / KITTUNG as 'Lord of the World', and the reflection of 701+76 is shown in 107, ANANDA with 670, 'OM'. With this knowledge we can then consider what may yield from 999 when 670 is subtracted, and we find 329 = AUM MANI PADME HUM, THE JEWEL IN THE LOTUS, THE WHOLE STONE, THE WISH-FULFILLING GEM, THE PADMA CHINTAMANI, etc., also 'THE WORLD', 'ARCHON' and 'CROWN', 'THE PHOENIX', etc.

'FLOWER GARLANDS', (6+30+70+6+5+200 + 3+1+200+30+1+50+4+60) such as that of AL.II.76 can be contemplative maps that can unfold numerous avenues or dimensions of Cognition, if but conceived of in their multi-dimensional natures, back of the superficial optical forms with which we but usually spend a brief moment consciously apprehending. The web of connections spawned once THE SEED IS SOWN (999) within the SUPERSPECTRUM (999) of the SAHASRARA CHAKRA (999) is unfathomable in its potential, and we need not concern ourselves with the petty tyrannies of the surface level of The Buoy of Malkuth, wherein the Path and the Goal are so often forgotten IN THE CAVERN (999) of our Initiation.

USE THE CODE (/=MADHU VIDYA) TO RAISE YOUR KUNDALINI

6+60+5 + 9+5+5 + 8+70+4+5 + 9+70 + 200+1+10+60+5 + 10+70+6+200 + 20+6+50+4+1+30+10+50+10

The Yamas & Niyamas, and Pratyahara

     As was said in the post regarding the last chapter, the lectures from Eight Lectures on Yoga and Part I of Liber ABA talk about pretty much the same things but explain them in different ways. One of the main reasons I myself feel compelled to work through this material is because in the beginning of my studies the 'foreignness' of the beginning material regarding Yoga and all the multitude of not too dissimilar words were too much for me to really make much sense of at the time. Now in going over this material with closer attention and a more extensive background knowledge it is much more meaningful.

 

YOGA FOR YAHOOS
Third Lecture - Niyama

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

1. The subject of my third lecture is Niyama. Niyama? H'm!
The inadequacy of even the noblest attempts to translate these wretched Sanskrit words is now about to be delightfully demonstrated. The nearest I can get to the meaning of Niyama is 'virtue'! God help us all! This means virtue in the original etymological sense of the word-the quality of manhood; that is, to all intents and purposes, the quality of godhead. But since we are translating Yama 'control,' we find that our two words have not at all the same relationship to each other that the words have in the original Sanskrit; for the prefix 'ni' in Sanskrit gives the meaning of turning everything upside down and backwards forwards, -- as you would say, Hysteron Proteron-at the same time producing the effect of transcendental sublimity. I find that I cannot even begin to think of a proper definition, although I know in my own mind perfectly well what the Hindus mean; if one soaks oneself in Oriental thought for a sufficient number of years, one gets a spiritual apprehension which it is quite impossible to express in terms applicable to the objects of intellectual apprehension; it is therefore much better to content ourselves with the words as they stand, and get down to brass tacks about the practical steps to be taken to master these preliminary exercises.
2. It will hardly have escaped the attentive listener that in my previous lectures I have combined the maximum of discourse with the minimum of information; that is all part of my training as a Cabinet Minister. But what does emerge tentatively from my mental fog is that Yama, taking it by long and by large, is mostly negative in its effects. We are imposing inhibitions on the existing current of energy, just as one compresses a waterfall in turbines in order to control and direct the natural gravitational energy of the stream.
3. It might be as well, before altogether leaving the subject of Yama, to enumerate a few of the practical conclusions which follow from our premise that nothing which might weaken or destroy the beauty and harmony of the mind must be permitted. Social existence of any kind renders any serious Yoga absolutely out of the question; domestic life is completely incompatible with even elementary practices. No doubt many of you will say, 'That's all very well for him; let him speak for himself; as for me, I manage my home and my business so that everything runs on ball bearings.' Echo answers . . .
4. Until you actually start the practice of Yoga, you cannot possibly imagine what constitutes a disturbance. You, most of you, think that you can sit perfectly still; you tell me what artists' models can do for over thirty-five minutes. They don't. You do not hear the ticking of the clock; perhaps you do not even know whether a typewriter is going in the room; for all I know, you could sleep peacefully through an air-raid. That has nothing to do with it. As soon as you start the practices you will find, if you are doing them properly, that you are hearing sounds which you never heard before in your life. You become hypersensitive. And as you have five external batteries bombarding you, you get little repose. You feel the air on your skin with about the same intensity as you would previously have felt a fist in your face.
5. To some extent, no doubt, this fact will be familiar to all of you. Probably most of you have been out at some time or other in what is grotesquely known as the silence of the night, and you will have become aware of infinitesimal movements of light in the darkness, of elusive sounds in the quiet. They will have soothed you and pleased you; it will never have occurred to you that these changes could each one be felt as a pang. But, even in the earliest months of Yoga, this is exactly what happens, and therefore it is best to be prepared by arranging, before you start at all, that your whole life will be permanently free from all the grosser causes of trouble. The practical problem of Yama is therefore, to a great extent, 'How shall I settle down to the work?' Then, having complied with the theoretically best conditions, you have to tackle each fresh problem as it arises in the best way you can.
6. We are now in a better position to consider the meaning of Niyama, or virtue. To most men the qualities which constitute Niyama are not apprehended at all by their self-consciousness. These are positive powers, but they are latent; their development is not merely measurable in terms of quantity and efficiency. As we rise from the coarse to the fine, from the gross to the subtle, we enter a new (and what appears on first sight to be an immeasurable) region. It is quite impossible to explain what I mean by this; if I could, you would know it already. How can one explain to a person who has never skated the nature of the pleasure of executing a difficult figure on the ice? He has in himself the whole apparatus ready for use; but experience, and experience only, can make him aware of the results of such use.
7. At the same time, in a general exposition of Yoga, it may be useful to give some idea of the functions on which those peaks that pierce the clouds of the limitations of our intellectual understanding are based.
I have found it very useful in all kinds of thinking to employ a sort of Abacus. The schematic representation of the universe given by astrology and the Tree of Life is extremely valuable, especially when reinforced and amplified by the Holy Qabalah. This Tree of Life is susceptible to infinite ramifications, and there is no need in this connection to explore its subtleties. We ought to be able to make a fairly satisfactory diagram for elementary purposes by taking as the basis of our illustration the solar system as conceived by the astrologers.
I do not know whether the average student is aware that in practice the significations of the planets are based generally upon the philosophical conceptions of the Greek and Roman gods. Let us hope for the best, and go on!
8. The planet Saturn, which represents anatomy, is the skeleton: it is a rigid structure upon which the rest of the body is built. To what moral qualities does this correspond? The first point of virtue in a bone is its rigidity, its resistance to pressure. And so in Niyama we find that we need the qualities of absolute simplicity in our regimen; we need insensibility; we need endurance; we need patience. It is simply impossible for anyone who has not practised Yoga to understand what boredom means. I have known Yogis, men even holier than I, (*no! no!*) who, to escape from the intolerable tedium, would fly for refuge to a bottle party! It is a 'physiological' tedium which becomes the acutest agony. The tension becomes cramp; nothing else matters but to escape from the self-imposed constraint.
But every evil brings its own remedy. Another quality of Saturn is melancholy; Saturn represents the sorrow of the universe; it is the Trance of sorrow that has determined one to undertake the task of emancipation. This is the energising force of Law; it is the rigidity of the fact that everything is sorrow which moves one to the task, and keeps one on the Path.
9. The next planet is Jupiter. This planet is in many ways the opposite of Saturn; it represents expansion as Saturn represents contraction; it is the universal love, the selfless love whose object can be no less than the universe itself. This comes to reinforce the powers of Saturn when they agonise; success is not for self but for all; one might acquiesce in one's own failure, but one cannot be unworthy of the universe. Jupiter, too, represents the vital, creative, genial element of the cosmos. He has Ganymede and Hebe to his cupbearers. There is an immense and inaccessible joy in the Great Work; and it is the attainment of the trance, of even the intellectual foreshadowing of that trance, of joy, which reassures the Yogi that his work is worth while.
Jupiter digests experiences; Jupiter is the Lord of the Forces of Life; Jupiter takes common matter and transmutes it into celestial nourishment.
10. The next planet is Mars. Mars represents the muscular system; it is the lowest form of energy, and in Niyama it is to be taken quite literally as the virtue which enables one to contend with, and to conquer, the physical difficulties of the Work. The practical point is this: 'The little more and how much it is, the little less and what worlds away!' No matter how long you keep water at 99 degrees Centigrade under normal barometric pressure, it will not boil. I shall probably be accused of advertising some kind of motor spirit in talking about the little extra something that the others haven't got, but I assure you that I am not being paid for it.
Let us take the example of Pranayama, a subject with which I hope to deal in a subsequent lucubration. Let us suppose that you are managing your breath so that your cycle, breathing in, holding, and breathing out, lasts exactly a minute. That is pretty good work for most people, but it may be or may not be good enough to get you going. No one can tell you until you have tried long enough (and no one can tell you how long 'long enough' may be) whether that is going to ring the bell. It may be that if you increase your sixty seconds to sixty-four the phenomena would begin immediately. That sounds all right but as you have nearly burst your lungs doing the sixty, you want this added energy to make the grade. That is only one example of the difficulty which arises with every practice.
Mars, morover, is the flaming energy of passion, it is the male quality in its lowest sense; it is the courage which goes berserk, and I do not mind telling you that, in my own case at least, one of the inhibitions with which I had most frequently to contend was the fear that I was going mad. This was especially the case when those phenomena began to occur, which, recorded in cold blood, did seem like madness. And the Niyama of Mars is the ruthless rage which jests at scars while dying of one's wounds.

' . . . the grim Lord of Colonsay
Hath turned him on the ground,
And laughed in death-pang that his blade
The mortal thrust so well repaid'

11. The next of the heavenly bodies is the centre of all, the Sun. The Sun is the heart of the system; he harmonises all, energises all, orders all. His is the courage and energy which is the source of all the other lesser forms of motion, and it is because of this that in himself he is calm. They are planets; he is a star. For him all planets come; around him they all move, to him they all tend. It is this centralisation of faculties, their control, their motivation, which is the Niyama of the Sun. He is not only the heart but the brain of the system; but he is not the 'thinking' brain, for in him all thought has been resolved into the beauty and harmony of ordered motion.
12. The next of the planets is Venus. In her, for the first time, we come into contact with a part of our nature which is none the less quintessential because it has hitherto been masked by our preoccupation with more active qualities. Venus resembles Jupiter, but on a lower scale, standing to him very much as Mars does to Saturn. She is close akin in nature to the Sun, and she may be considered an externalisation of his influence towards beauty and harmony. Venus is Isis, the Great Mother; Venus is Nature herself;
Venus is the sum of all possibilities.
The Niyama corresponding to Venus is one of the most important, and one of the most difficult of attainment. I said the sum of all possibilities, and I will ask you to go back in your minds to what I said before about the definition of the Great Work itself, the aim of the Yogi to consummate the marriage of all that he is with all that he is not, and ultimately to realise, insofar as the marriage is consummated, that what he is and what he is not are identical. Therefore we cannot pick and choose in our Yoga. It is written in the 'Book of the Law', Chapter 1, verse 22, 'Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing and any other thing, for thereby there cometh hurt.'
Venus represents the ecstatic acceptance of all possible experience, and the transcendental assumption of all particular experience into the one experience.
Oh yes, by the way, don't forget this. In a lesser sense Venus represents tact. Many of the problems that confront the Yogi are impracticable to intellectual manipulation. They yield to graciousness.
13. Our next planet is Mercury, and the Niyama which correspond to him are as innumerable and various as his own qualities. Mercury is the Word, the Logos in the highest; he is the direct medium of connection between opposites; he is electricity, the very link of life, the Yogic process itself, its means, its end. Yet he is in himself indifferent to all things, as the electric current is indifferent to the meaning of the messages which may be transmitted by its means. The Niyama corresponding to Mercury in its highest forms may readily be divined from what I have already said, but in the technique of Yoga he represents the fineness of the method which is infinitely adaptable to all problems, and only so because he is supremely indifferent. He is the adroitness and ingenuity which helps us in our difficulties; he is the mechanical system, the symbolism which helps the human mind of the Yogi to take cognisance of what is coming.
It must here be remarked that because of his complete indifference to anything whatever (and that thought is-when you get far enough-only a primary point of wisdom) he is entirely unreliable. One of the most unfathomably dreadful dangers of the Path is that you must trust Mercury, and yet that if you trust him you are certain to be deceived. I can only explain this, if at all, by pointing out that, since all truth is relative, all truth is falsehood. In one sense Mercury is the great enemy; Mercury is mind, and it is the mind that we have set out to conquer.
14. The last of the seven sacred planets is the Moon. The Moon represents the totality of the female part of us, the passive principle which is yet very different to that of Venus, for the Moon corresponds to the Sun much as Venus does to Mars. She is more purely passive than Venus, and although Venus is so universal the Moon is also universal in another sense. The Moon is the highest and the lowest; the Moon is the aspiration, the link of man and God; she is the supreme purity: Isis the Virgin, Isis the Virgin Mother; but she comes right down at the other end of the scale, to be a symbol of the senses themselves, the mere instrument of the registration of phenomena, incapable of discrimination, incapable of choice. The Niyama corresponding to her influence, the first of all, is that quality of aspiration, the positive purity which refuses union with anything less than the All. In Greek mythology Artemis, the Goddess of the Moon, is virgin; she yielded only to Pan. Here is one particular lesson: as the Yogi advances, magic powers (Siddhi the teachers call them) are offered to the aspirant; if he accepts the least of these-or the greatest-he is lost.
15. At the other end of the scale of the Niyama of the Moon are the fantastic developments of sensibility which harass the Yogi. These are all help and encouragement; these are all intolerable hindrances; these are the greatest of the obstacles which confront the human being, trained as he is by centuries of evolution to receive his whole consciousness through the senses alone. And they hit us hardest because they interfere directly with the technique of our work; we are constantly gaining new powers, despite ourselves, and every time this happens we have to invent a new method for bringing their malice to naught. But, as before, the remedy is of the same stuff as the disease; it is the unswerving purity of aspiration that enables us to surmount all these difficulties. The Moon is the sheet-anchor of our work. It is the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel that enables us to overcome, at all times and in all manners, as the need of the moment may be.
16. There are two other planets, not counted as among the sacred seven. I will not say that they were known to the ancients and deliberately concealed, though much in their writing suggests that this may be the case. I refer to the planet Herschel, or Uranus, and Neptune. Whatever may have been the knowledge of the ancients, it is at least certain that they left gaps in their system which were exactly filled by these two planets, and the newly discovered Pluto. They fill these gaps just as the newly discovered chemical elements discovered in the last fifty years fill the gaps in Mendelejeff's table of the Periodic Law.
17. Herschel represents the highest form of the True Will, and it seems natural and right that this should not rank with the seven sacred planets, because the True Will is the sphere which transcends them. 'Every man and every woman is a star.' Herschel defines the orbit of the star, your star. But Herschel is dynamic; Herschel is explosive; Herschel, astrologically speaking, does not move in an orbit; he has his own path. So the Niyama which corresponds to this planet is, first and last, the discovery of the True Will. This knowledge is secret and most sacred; each of you must incorporate for yourself the incidence and quality of Herschel. It is the most important of the tasks of the Yogi, because, until he has achieved it, he can have no idea who he is or where he is going.
18. Still more remote and tenuous is the influence of Neptune.
Here we have a Niyama of infinite delicacy, a spiritual intuition far, far removed from any human quality whatever. Here all is fantasy, and in this world are infinite pleasure, infinite perils. The True Niyama of Neptune is the imaginative faculty, the shadowing forth of the nature of the illimitable light.
He has another function. The Yogi who understands the influence of Neptune, and is attuned to Neptune, will have a sense of humour, which is the greatest safeguard for the Yogi. Neptune is, so to speak, in the front line; he has got to adapt himself to difficulties and tribulations; and when the recruit asks 'What made that 'ole?' he has got to say, unsmiling, 'Mice.'
Pluto is the utmost sentinel of all; of him it is not wise to speak.
. . . Having now given vent to this sybilline, obscure and sinister utterance, it may well be asked by the greatly daring: Why is it not wise to speak of Pluto? The answer is profound. It is because nothing at all is known about him.
Anyhow it hardly matters; we have surely had enough of Niyama for one evening!
19. It is now proper to sum up briefly what we have learnt about Yama and Niyama. They are in a sense the moral, logical preliminaries of the technique of Yoga proper. They are the strategical as opposed to the tactical dispositions which must be made by the aspirant before he attempts anything more serious than the five finger exercises, as we may call them-the recruit's drill of postures, breathing exercises and concentration which the shallow confidently suppose to constitute this great science and art.
We have seen that it is presumptuous and impractical to lay down definite rules as to what we are to do. What does concern us is so to arrange matters that we are free to do anything that may become necessary or expedient, allowing for that development of supernormal powers which enables us to carry out our plans as they form in the mutable bioscope of events.
If anyone comes to me for a rough and ready practical plan I say: Well, if you must stay in England, you may be able to bring it off with a bit of luck in an isolated cottage, remote from roads, if you have the services of an attendant already well trained to deal with the emergencies that are likely to arise. A good disciplinarian might carry on fairly well, at a pinch, in a suite in Claridge's.
But against this it may be urged that one has to reckon with unseen forces. The most impossible things begin to happen when once you get going. It is not really satisfactory to start serious Yoga unless you are in a country where the climate is reliable, and where the air is not polluted by the stench of civilisation. It is extremely important, above all things important, unless one is an exceedingly rich man, to find a country where the inhabitants understand the Yogin mode of life, where they are sympathetic with its practices, treat the aspirant with respect, and unobtrusively assist and protect him. In such circumstances, the exigency of Yama and Niyama is not so serious a stress.
There is, too, something beyond all these practical details which it is hard to emphasise without making just those mysterious assumptions which we have from the first resolved to avoid. All I can say is that I am very sorry, but this particular fact is going to hit you in the face before you have started very long, and I do not see why we should bother about the mysterious assumptions underlying the acceptance of the fact any more than in the case of what is after all equally mysterious and unfathomable: any object of any of the senses. The fact is this; that one acquires a feeling-a quite irrational feeling-that a given place or a given method is right or wrong for its purposes. The intimation is as assured as that of the swordsman when he picks up an untried weapon; either it comes up sweet to the hand, or it does not. You cannot explain it, and you cannot argue it away.
21. I have treated Yama and Niyama at great length because their importance has been greatly underrated, and their nature completely misunderstood. They are definitely magical practices, with hardly a tinge of mystical flavour. The advantage to us here is that we can very usefully exercise and develop ourselves in this way in this country where the technique of Yoga is for all practical purposes impossible. Incidentally, one's real country-that is, the conditions in which one happens to be born is the only one in which Yama and Niyama can be practised. You cannot dodge your Karma. You have got to earn the right to devote yourself to Yoga proper by arranging for that devotion to be a necessary stage in the fulfilment of your True Will. In Hindustan one is not allowed to become 'Sanyasi'-a recluse-until one has fulfilled one's duty to one's own environment-rendered to Caesar the things which are Caesar's before rendering to God the things which are God's.
Woe to that seven months' abortion who thinks to take advantage of the accidents of birth, and, mocking the call of duty, sneaks off to stare at a blank wall in China! Yama and Niyama are only the more critical stages of Yoga because they cannot be translated in terms of a schoolboy curriculum. Nor can schoolboy tricks adequately excuse the aspirant from the duties of manhood. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Rejoice, true men, that this is thus!
For this at least may be said, that there are results to be obtained in this way which will not only fit the aspirant for the actual battle, but will introduce him to classes of hitherto unguessed phenomena whose impact will prepare his mind for that terrific shock of its own complete overthrow which marks the first critical result of the practices of Yoga.

Love is the law, love under will.

 

CHAPTER III
YAMA AND NIYAMA

footnote: Yama means literally "control." It is dealt with in detail in Part II, "The Wand."

THE Hindus have place these two attainments in the forefront of their programme. They are the "moral qualities" and "good works" which are supposed to predispose to mental calm.
"Yama" consists of non-killing, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence, and non-receiving of any gift.
In the Buddhist system, "Sila", "Virtue," is similarly enjoined. The qualities are, for the layman, these five: Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt drink no intoxicating drink. For the monk many others are added.
The commandments of Moses are familiar to all; they are rather similar; and so are those given by Christ

footnote: Not, however, original. The whole sermon is to be found in the Talmud.

in the "Sermon on the Mount."
Some of these are only the "virtues" of a slave, invented by his master to keep him in order. The real point of the Hindu "Yama" is that breaking any of these would tend to excite the mind.
Subsequent theologians have tried to improve upon the teachings of the Masters, have given a sort of mystical importance to these virtues; they have insisted upon them for their own sake, and turned them into puritanism and formalism. Thus "non-killing," which originally meant "do not excite yourself by stalking tigers," has been interpreted to mean that it is a crime to drink water that has not been strained, lest you should kill the animalcula.
But this constant worry, this fear of killing anything by mischance is, on the whole, worse than a hand-to-hand conflict with a griesly bear. If the barking of a dog disturbs your meditation, it is simplest to shoot the dog, and think no more about it.
A similar difficulty with wives has caused some masters to recommend celibacy. In all these questions common sense must be the guide. No fixed rule can be laid down. The "non-receiving of gifts," for instance, is rather important for a Hindu, who would be thoroughly upset for weeks if any one gave him a coconut: but the average European takes things as they come by the time that he has been put into long trousers.
The only difficult question is that of continence, which is complicated by many considerations, such as that of energy; but everybody's mind is hopelessly muddled on this subject, which some people confuse with erotology, and others with sociology. There will be no clear thinking on this matter until it is understood as being solely a branch of athletics.
We may then dismiss Yama and Niyama with this advice: let the student decide for himself what form of life, what moral code, will least tend to excite his mind; but once he has formulated it, let him stick to it, avoiding opportunism; and let him be very careful to take no credit for what he does or refrains from doing -- it is a purely practical code, of no value in itself.
The cleanliness which assists the surgeon in his work would prevent the engineer from doing his at all.
(Ethical questions are adequately dealt with in "Then Tao" in "Konx Om Pax," and should be there studied. Also see Liber XXX of the A. A. Also in Liber CCXX, the "Book of the Law," it is said: "DO WHAT THOU WILT shall be the whole of the Law."

WEH FOOTNOTE: SIC, should be: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."

Remember that for the purpose of this treatise the whole object of Yama and Niyama is to live so that no emotion or passion disturbs the mind.)

CHAPTER IV
PRATYAHARA

     PRATYAHARA is the first process in the mental part of our task. The previous practices, Asana, Pranayama, Yama, and Niyama, are all acts of the body, while mantra is connected with speech: Pratyahara is purely mental.
      And what is Pratyahara? This word is used by different authors in different senses. The same word is employed to designate both the practice and the result. It means for our present purpose a process rather strategical than practical; it is introspection, a sort of general examination of the contents of the mind which we wish to control: Asana having been mastered, all immediate exciting causes have been removed, and we are free to think what we are thinking about.
      A very similar experience to that of Asana is in store for us. At first we shall very likely flatter ourselves that our minds are pretty calm; this is a defect of observation. Just as the European standing for the first time on the edge of the desert will see nothing there, while his Arab can tell him the family history of each of the fifty persons in view, because he has learnt how to look, so with practice the thoughts will become more numerous and more insistent.
      As soon as the body was accurately observed it was found to be terribly restless and painful; now that we observe the mind it is seen to be more restless and painful still. (See diagram opposite.)

      A similar curve might be plotted for the real and apparent painfulness of Asana.
Conscious of this fact, we begin to try to control it: "Not quite so many thoughts, please!" "Don't think quite so fast, please!" "No more of that kind of thought, please!" It is only then that we discover that what we thought was a school of playful porpoises is really the convolutions of the sea-serpent. The attempt to repress has the effect of exciting.
      When the unsuspecting pupil first approaches his holy but wily Guru, and demands magical powers, that Wise One replies that he will confer them, points out with much caution and secrecy some particular spot on the pupil's body which has never previously attracted his attention, and says: "In order to obtain this magical power which you seek, all that is necessary is to wash seven times in the Ganges during seven days, being particularly careful to avoid thinking of that one spot." Of

{diagram on page 26, nothing else, graph with following text beneath: BD shows the Control of the Mind, improving slowly at first, afterwards more quickly. It starts from at or near zero, and should reach absolute control at D.
EF shows the Power of Observation of the contents of the mind, improving quickly at first, afterwards more slowly, up to perfection at F. It starts well above zero in the case of most educated men.
The height of the perpendiculars HI indicates the dissatisfaction of the student with his power of control. Increasing at first, it ultimately diminishes to zero.}

course the unhappy youth spends a disgusted week in thinking of little else.
      It is positively amazing with what persistence a thought, even a whole train of thoughts, returns again and again to the charge. It becomes a positive nightmare. It is intensely annoying, too, to find that one does not become conscious that one has got on to the forbidden subject until one has gone right through with it. However, one continues day after day investigating thoughts and trying to check them; and sooner or later one proceeds to the next stage, Dharana, the attempt to restrain the mind to a single object.
      Before we go on to this, however, we must consider what is meant by success in Pratyahara. This is a very extensive subject, and different authors take widely divergent views. One writer means an analysis so acute that every thought is resolved into a number of elements (see "The Psychology of Hashish," Section V, in Equinox II).
      Others take the view that success in the practice is something like the experience which Sir Humphrey Davy had as a result of taking nitrous oxide, in which he exclaimed: "The universe is composed exclusively of ideas."
Others say that it gives Hamlet's feeling: "There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so," interpreted as literally as was done by Mrs. Eddy.
      However, the main point is to acquire some sort of inhibitory power over the thoughts. Fortunately there is an unfailing method of acquiring this power. It is given in Liber III. If Sections 1 and 2 are practised (if necessary with the assistance of another person to aid your vigilance) you will soon be able to master the final section.
      In some people this inhibitory power may flower suddenly in very much the same way as occurred with Asana. Quite without any relaxation of vigilance, the mind will suddenly be stilled. There will be a marvellous feeling of peace and rest, quite different from the lethargic feeling which is produced by over-eating. It is difficult to say whether so definite a result would come to all, or even to most people. The matter is one of no very great importance. If you have acquired the power of checking the rise of thought you may proceed to the next stage.

    Many of these concepts can be further meditated upon, especially with Gematria. For example, taking MITAHARA, 'Fixed Receiving', or 'Moderation', we see it equates with KAMA-RAGA, 'Sensuous Craving'. Many people, even those who actually use Gematria such as the orthodox Jews, dismiss the idea that it can be applied to other languages, much less transliterations thereof, but the more I look into these concepts in various languages the more I see that underlying each of them is a unified language of mathematics which bridges the gaps between them and unveils deeper levels of them, as well as the concepts and knowledge viewed through them. The point is, even if it is all in your head, which it is, then you are entirely free to make of that what you will. It just helps to have some balance in the chaos.

Note that the YAMAS, which are 'self-restraints' bring a corresponding NIYAMA quality.

11 primary Yamas:

Ahiṃsā: Nonviolence

Satya: truthfulness

Asteya: not stealing

Brahmacharya: continence

Aparigraha: non-avarice, non-possessiveness

Kṣamā: forgiveness

Dhṛti: fortitude

Dayā: compassion

Ārjava: non-hypocrisy, sincerity

Mitāhāra: measured diet, moderation

Śauca: purity, cleanliness

12 primary Niyamas: 

Tapas: persistence, perseverance in one's purpose, austerity

Santoṣa: contentment, acceptance of others and of one's circumstances as they are, optimism for self

Āstika: faith in Real Self (jnana yoga, raja yoga), belief in God (bhakti yoga), conviction in Vedas/Upanishads (orthodox school)

Dāna: generosity, charity, sharing with others

Īśvarapūjana: worship of the Ishvara (God/Supreme Being, Brahman, True Self, Unchanging Reality)

Siddhānta Vakya śrāvaṇa: listening to the ancient scriptures

Hrī: remorse and acceptance of one's past, modesty, humility

Svādhyāya: study of self, self-reflection, introspection of self's thoughts, speeches and actions

Mati: think and reflect to understand, reconcile conflicting ideas

Japa: mantra repetition, reciting prayers or knowledge

Huta: rituals, ceremonies such as yajna sacrifice

Īśvarapraṇidhāna: contemplation of the Ishvara (God/Supreme Being, Brahman, True Self, Unchanging Reality)

     Pratyahara refers to the withdrawal of the senses and even mental action and movement. It would be unwise to think that the true states which Yoga can confer can actually be accessed or apprehended through any form of analysis or consideration since they are naturally formless. This is why the idea of 'Zero' is the portal of dimensions and porthole through which the withdrawal via PRATYAHARA (THE SENSE-/&CHITTA WITHDRAWAL [Chitta, 'Mind-stuff']) confers the SARVA, the 'All' which pervades All.