Читать книгу Ashtanga Yoga - The Intermediate Series - Gregor Maehle - Страница 62

THE UNFATHOMABLE DIVINE

Divine forms, also known as devas or celestials, are sometimes called gods, but as mentioned in chapter 2, this term is slippery and simplistic. As the Upanishads and Brahma Sutra convincingly state, there is only one Brahman. However, this abstract, formless Brahman is difficult to understand. For this reason, the pragmatic approach of the Vedic teaching is to form a close, intimate, personal relationship with one of the aspects or manifestations of the Divine.

Divine forms are meditation images of the Supreme, but their function and importance do not end there. They are also aspects of our higher nature. Here deities are not so much independent beings but rather forces within ourselves that determine our actions as aspects of ourselves. By meditating on a divine image we invoke its qualities. This process of bringing forth the divine qualities within us is very different from what is depicted in today’s mass media, which continually portray the more demonic aspects of human nature and thereby provoke the audience to enact further demonic behavior.

Divine forms, of course, are ruled by sattva. However, as our demonic side is not always evil, our divine side is not necessarily always noble. The downfall of divine forms or celestials can be their attachment to pride and pleasure, as has been the downfall of many a noble human being.

Deities also represent forces of nature. Indra, for example, represents thunder and rain; Varuna represents the ocean; and Agni represents fire. Last but not least, they also often represent celestial bodies, such as Brihaspati representing Jupiter, or Varuna representing Uranus. Divine forms can also be much more than just deities; they can be Brahman with form. This is particularly true of Lord Shiva in his many manifestations, Lord Vishnu and his avataras (incarnations), and Devi, the Goddess.

Vedic divine images are so complex that we need to admit that we don’t know exactly what they are, and we can only learn more about them as we go along. The list of characteristics given of the phenomenon deva is by no means complete. Everything that I have said so far about the Divine says more about my ignorance than about the Divine.

The term pasha is derived from the Sanskrit verb root pash, meaning “to bind.” According to the nineteenth-century American linguist William Dwight Whitney, pash is inferable from the noun pashu, which is again listed as one of the thousand names of the Lord Shiva.⁵ Monier Monier-Williams, a nineteenth-century linguist noted for compiling one of the most widely used Sanskrit-English dictionaries, translated pashu as “animal,” but he pointed out that the term can also be applied derogatively to humans who are unevolved in sacred matters. He explained that the Pashupatas (an ancient school of Shiva worshipers) used the term pashu to refer to the individual consciousness or self, distinct from the consciousness of the Supreme Being. Human beings were labeled beasts (pashus) because they were commonly enmeshed in conditioned existence and unaware of their higher divine nature. The Pashupatas professed that those who do not evolve from this conditioned state are still “animals in sacred matters.”⁶

The Pashupatas called the Supreme Being Pashupati, which is commonly translated as “Lord of the Beasts.” The so-called Pashupati seal, a terracotta seal that was excavated on a site related to the Indus-Sarasvati culture, supplies us with the oldest known archaeological evidence of yoga. The seal depicts an ithyphallic figure with a bovine head, sitting in Siddhasana, surrounded by animals. The figure is thought to represent the Lord Shiva, the bovine head representing his vahana (vehicle), the bull Nandi.

In Kathmandu, Nepal, an ancient Shiva temple called Pashupati Nath still exists today. Pashupatism is thought by some to be the oldest religion on Earth. Although this religion is generally thought to be extinct, there are still sadhus in India who regard themselves as Pashupatas.

In the Mahabharata we find numerous references to the term pashupata. Pashupata is an adjective meaning “belonging to Pashupati” (Shiva). It is also the name of the most terrible weapon of the Lord, called the Pashupata missile, the arrow that he unleashed from his bow to destroy the three aerial demon cities, called Tripura.

The Puranas describe this most destructive of all missiles as having Vishnu (the Supreme in its function as sustainer) as its shaft, Agni (the Supreme in its function as fire) as its tip, and Vayu (the Supreme in its function as wind) as its feathers. The Skanda Purana states that the Pashupata missile was created from the backbone of the Rishi Dadhicha, who also gave his skull for the manufacturing of the vajra, the weapon of the Lord Indra.

In the Mahabharata, Arjuna realizes that he needs this missile to win his brother’s empire back. He performs austerities in the forest and finally receives the Pashupata missile as a boon from Lord Shiva.

Similarly, the performance of this first posture in the Intermediate Series must be seen (if the practitioner is of devotional character) as asking a boon of the trident-bearing Lord (Shiva). The boon being requested is, as usual, immortality — not the immortality of the body, however, but that of recognizing oneself as consciousness, which is eternal and uncreated and therefore immortal. The Lord Shiva is a personification of infinite consciousness.

Pashasana also symbolizes the noose that the Lord throws around the yogi to save him from the fangs of Yama, the Lord of Death. Apart from Lord Varuna, Lord Yama is the other famous carrier of the noose. He is thought to cast the noose at the moment of death to usher the spirit of the departing away.