yoga and modern philosophy

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YOGA AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY Author(s): Mircea Eliade Source: The Journal of General Education, Vol. 15, No. 2 (July 1963), pp. 124-137Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27795868Accessed: 16-10-2015 15:28 UTC

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YOGA AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY

Mircea Eliade

Everything leads to the belief that, at the present moment, a

more accurate knowledge of Indian thought has become possible. India has entered the course of History, and, rightly or wrongly, the Western consciousness tends to take a more serious view of

the philosophies of peoples who hold a place in History. On the

other hand, especially since the last generation of philosophers, the Western consciousness is more inclined to define itself with

reference to the problems of Time and History. For over a cen

tury, the greater part of the scientific and philosophical effort of

Europe has been devoted to the factors that "condition" the hu man being. It has been shown how and to what degree man is

conditioned by his physiology, his heredity, his social ambient, the cultural ideology in which he shares, his unconscious ? and

above all by History, by his historical moment and his own per sonal history. This last discovery of Western thought

? that man

is essentially a temporal and historical being, that he is, and can

only be, what History has made him ? still dominates European philosophy. Certain philosophical trends even conclude from it that the only worthy and valid task proposed to man is to as sume this temporality and this historicity frankly and fully, for

any other choice would be equivalent to an escape into the ab stract and non-authentic and would be at the price of the sterility and death that inexorably punish any betrayal of History.

It does not fall to us to discuss these theses. We may, how

ever, remark that the problems that today absorb the Western mind also prepare it for a better understanding of Indian spiri tuality; indeed, they incite it to employ, for its own philosophical effort, the millennial experience of India. Let us explain. It is

the human condition, and above all the temporality of the human

being, which constitutes the object of the most recent Western

philosophy. It is this temporality that makes all other "condi

tionings" possible and that, in the last analysis, makes man a

"conditioned being." Now this problem of the "conditioning" of

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man (and its corollary, rather neglected in the West: his "decon

ditioning") constitutes the central problem of Indian thought. From the Upanisads onward, India has been seriously preoccu

pied with but one great problem ? the structure of the human

condition. The West, therefore, might well learn: 1) what India thinks of the multiple "conditionings" of the human being; 2) how it has approached the problem of Time and History, i.e. the

problem of the temporality and historicity of man; 3 ) what solu tion it has found for the anxiety and despair that inevitably fol low upon consciousness of "temporality," the matrix of all "con

ditionings." With a rigor unknown elsewhere, India has applied itself to

analyzing the various conditionings of the human being. We hasten to add that it has done so not in order to arrive at a pre cise and coherent explanation of man ( as, for example, did nine

teenth-century Europe when it believed that it explained man by his hereditary or social conditioning), but in order to learn how far the conditioned zones of the human being extend and to see if anything else exists beyond these conditionings. Hence it is that, long before depth psychology, the sages and ascetics of India were led to explore the obscure zones of the unconscious.

They had found that mans physiological, social, and cultural con

ditionings were comparatively easy to delimit and hence to mas

ter; the great obstacles to the contemplative life arose from the

activity of the unconscious, from the samskaras and the vasanas,

"impregnations," "residues," "latencies" which constitute what

depth psychology calls the contents and structures of the un conscious. It is not, however, this pragmatic anticipation of cer tain modern psychological techniques which is valuable; it is its

employment for the "deconditioning" of man. Because, for India, knowledge of the systems of "conditioning" could not be an end in itself; it was not knowing them that mattered, but mastering them; if the contents of the unconscious were worked upon it was in order to "burn" them. We shall see by what methods Yoga conceives that it arrives at these surprising results. And it is pri

marily these results which are of interest to European psycholo gists and philosophers.

Let us not be misunderstood. We have no intention of in

viting Western scholars to practice Yoga (which, by the way, is

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THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL EDUCATION

not so easy as some amateurs are wont to suggest), nor of pro posing that the various Western disciplines practice yogic meth ods or adopt the yogic ideology. Another viewpoint seems to us far more fertile ? to study as attentively as possible the results obtained by such methods of exploring the psyche. A whole im memorial experience of human behavior in general here offers itself to Western investigators. It would be at least unwise for them not to profit by it.

As we said earlier, the problem of the human condition ?

that is, the temporality and historicity of the human being ? is

at the very center of Western thought, and the same problem has

preoccupied Indian philosophy from its beginnings. It is true that we do not there find the terms "History" and "historicity" in the senses that they bear in the West today, and that we very seldom find the term "temporality." In fact, it was impossible that these concepts should be found under the particular desig nations of "History" and "historicity." But what matters is not

identity in philosophical terminology; it is enough if the prob lems are equivalent. Now, it has long been known that Indian

thought accords considerable importance to the concept of maya, which has been translated ? and with good reason ? as "illu

sion, cosmic illusion, mirage, magic, becoming, irreality," and the like. But looking more closely, we see that maya is illusion be cause it does not participate in Being, because it is "becoming," "process," "temporality"

? cosmic becoming, to be sure, but also

historical process. It is possible, then, that India has been not unaware of the relation between illusion, temporality, and human

suffering. Although its sages have generally explained human

suffering in cosmic terms, we realize, if we read them with the

attention they deserve, that they were thinking particularly of

human suffering as a "becoming," as a process conditioned by the structures of temporality. What modern Western philosophy terms "being situated," "being constituted by temporality and

historicity," has its counterpart, in Indian philosophy, in "exist ence in maya" If we can homologize the two philosophical horizons ? Indian and Western ?

everything that India has

thought on the subject of maya has a certain timeliness for us

today. This becomes apparent if, for example, we read the

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Bhagavad-Gita: its analysis of human existence is conducted in a language that is familiar to us: maya is not only cosmic illusion but also, and above all, historicity; not only existence in the eternal cosmic becoming but above all existence in Time and

History.

To the third question that is of concern to Western philoso phy (the question, that is, what solution India proposes for the

anxiety produced by our discovery of our temporality and histori

city, the means by which one can remain in the world without

letting oneself be exhausted by Time and History), the answers

offered by Indian thought all more or less directly imply some

knowledge of Yoga. Hence it is apparent what familiarity with this problem can mean to Western investigators and philoso phers. To repeat: it is not a matter of purely and simply accept ing one of the solutions proposed by India. A spiritual value is not acquired after the fashion of a new brand of automobile. Above all, it is not a matter of philosophical syncretism, nor of

"Indianization," still less of the detestable "spiritual" hybridism inaugurated by the Theosophical Society and continued, in ag gravated forms, by the countless pseudomorphoses of our time. The problem is more serious: it is essential that we know and understand a thought that has held a place of the first impor tance in the history of universal spirituality. And it is essential that we know it now. For, on the one hand, it is from now on

that, any cultural provincialism having been outstripped by the

very course of History, we are forced ? Western and non-West ern alike ? to think in terms of Universal History and to forge universal values. And, on the other hand, it is now that the prob lem of man s situation in the world dominates the philosophical consciousness of Europe

? and, to repeat, this problem is at the

very center of Indian thought.

Perhaps this philosophical dialogue will not be carried on,

especially at first, without some disappointments. A number of Western investigators and philosophers may find the Indian an

alyses rather oversimplified and the proposed solutions ineffec tual. Any technical language that is dependent upon a certain

spiritual tradition always remains a jargon. Western philosophers may perhaps find the jargon of Indian philosophy outmoded,

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lacking in precision, unserviceable. But all these risks to which the dialogue is subject are of minor importance. The great dis coveries of Indian thought will in the end be recognized, under and despite the philosophic jargon. It is impossible, for example, to disregard one of India's greatest discoveries: that of the con sciousness as witness, of consciousness freed from its psycho physiological structures and their temporal conditioning, the con

sciousness of the "liberated" man, of him, that is, who has suc

ceeded in emancipating himself from the temporality and there after knows the true, inexpressible freedom. The conquest of this absolute freedom, of perfect spontaneity, is the goal of all Indian

philosophies and mystical techniques; but it is above all through Yoga, through one of the many forms of Yoga, that India has held that it can be assured.

It is not easy to define Yoga. Etymologically, the term yoga derives from the root yuj, "to bind together," "hold fast," "yoke," which also governs Latin j?ngere, jugum, French joug, etc. The word yoga serves, in general, to designate any ascetic technique and any method of meditation. Naturally, these techniques and meditations have been differently evaluated by the many Indian

philosophical currents and mystical movements. There is a "clas sic" Yoga, a darsana, a "system of philosophy" expounded by Patanjali in his celebrated Yoga-Sutra. But, side by side with this "classic," systematic Yoga, there are countless forms of the

nonsystematic, popular Yoga, and there are also non-Brahmanic

Yogas (Buddhist, Jainist).

What characterizes Yoga is not only its practical side, but also its initiatory structure. One does not learn Yoga by oneself; the guidance of a master (guru) is necessary. The yogin begins by forsaking the profane world (family, society), and, guided by his guru, dreams of "dying to this world." We witness a death followed by a rebirth to another mode of being

? that repre sented by freedom, by the access to a nonprofane mode of be

ing, to which the Indian schools give various names: moksa, nir

vana, mukti, asamskrta, etc.

From the time of the Upanisads India rejects the world as it is and devaluates life as it reveals itself to the eyes of the sage

? ephemeral, painful, illusory. Such a conception leads neither

128




to nihilism nor to pessimism. This world is rejected, this life de

preciated, because it is known that something else exists, beyond becoming, beyond temporality, beyond suffering. In religious terms, it could almost be said that India rejects the profane Cos

mos and profane life, because it thirsts for a sacred world and a sacred mode of being.

Again and again Indian texts repeat this thesis ? that the cause of the soul's "enslavement" and, consequently, the source

of its endless sufferings, lies in mans solidarity with the Cosmos, in his participation, active and passive, direct or indirect, in

Nature. Let us translate: solidarity with a de-sacralized world,

participation in a profane Nature. Neti! netil cries the sage of the

Upanisads: "No, no! thou art not this; nor art thou that!" In other

words: You do not belong to the fallen Cosmos, as you see it now. You are not necessarily engulfed in this Creation; neces

sarily ? that is to say, by virtue of the law of your own being.

For being can have no relation with non-being. Now, Nature has no true ontological reality; it is, indeed, universal process.

Every cosmic form, complex and majestic though it may be, ends

by disintegrating; the Universe itself is periodically reabsorbed

by "great dissolutions" (mahapralaya), into the primordial matrix

(prakrti). Now, whatever becomes, changes, dies, vanishes, does not belong to the sphere of being

? to translate once again, is not sacred. If solidarity with the Cosmos is the consequence of a progressive desacralization of human existence, and hence a

fall into ignorance and suffering, the road toward freedom neces

sarily leads to a de-solidarization from the Cosmos and profane life.

"All is suffering for the sage," writes Patanjali (Y.S., II, 15). But Patanjali is neither the first nor the last to record this uni versal suffering. Long before him the Buddha had proclaimed: "All is pain, all is ephemeral." It is a leitmotiv of all post-Upani sadic Indian speculation. Soteriological techniques, as well as

metaphysical doctrines, find their justification in this universal

suffering ? for they have no value save in the measure to which

they free man from pain. Human experience of whatever kind

engenders suffering. Yet, to repeat, this universal suffering does not lead to a pessimistic philosophy. On the contrary, the revela

129




tion of "pain" as the law of existence can be regarded as the

conditio sine qua non for emancipation. Intrinsically, then, this

universal suffering has a positive, stimulating value. It perpetu

ally reminds the sage that but one way remains for him to attain

to freedom and bliss ? withdrawal from the world, detachment

from possessions and ambitions, radical isolation. Man, more

over, is not alone in suffering; pain is a cosmic necessity. Whether one be a god or a tiny insect, the mere fact of existing in time, of

having duration, implies pain. Unlike the gods and other living

beings, man possesses the capability of passing beyond his con

dition and thus abolishing suffering. To "emancipate" oneself from suffering

? such is the goal of all Indian philosophies and all Indian mysticisms. No knowl

edge has any value if it does not pursue the "salvation" of man.

"Save for that, nothing is worth knowing," says the Svetasvatara

Up. (I, 12). And Bhoja, one of the commentators of the Yoga Sutra (IV, 22), declares that any knowledge whose object is not

deliverance is valueless. The importance that all Indian metaphysics, and even the

techniques that constitute Yoga, accord to "knowledge" is easily explained if we take into consideration the causes of human suf

fering. The wretchedness of human life is not due to a divine

punishment nor to an original sin, but to ignorance. Not any and

every kind of ignorance, but only ignorance of the true nature of

spirit, the ignorance that makes us confuse spirit with our psycho mental experience, that makes us attribute "qualities" and predi cates to the eternal and autonomous principle that is spirit

? in

short, a metaphysical ignorance. Hence it is natural that it should be a metaphysical knowledge which supervenes to end this igno rance. This metaphysical knowledge leads the disciple to the threshold of illumination, that is, to his true "self."

Human suffering is rooted in illusion; for man believes that his psycho-mental life ? activity of the senses, feelings, thoughts and volitions ? is identical with Spirit, with the Self. He thus confuses two wholly autonomous and opposed realities, between which there is no real connection but only an illusory relation; for psycho-mental experience does not belong to Spirit, it belongs to Nature (prakrti). Between psychic states and Spirit there is a

difference of an ontological order; they belong to two different

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modes of being, To say "I suffer," "I want," "I hate," "I know," and to think that this refers to Spirit, is to live in illusion and

prolong it. "Liberation" occurs when one has understood this truth and when the Spirit regains its original freedom. According to the teaching of Vedanta and Samkhya, the deliverance is ob tained solely and directly through knowledge

? but for Yoga an

ascesis and a technique of meditation is indispensable. The aim of Yoga, as of Samkhya or Vedanta, is to do away with "normal," i.e. secular, unilluminated "consciousness," in favor of a quali tatively different consciousness, which can fully comprehend

metaphysical truth. Patanjali defines Yoga as "the suppression of states of consciousness." Now this suppression of states of con sciousness is not something easily attained: it implies a long practice, an elaborate system of psycho-physiological techniques.

The point of departure of Yoga meditation is concentration on a single point, ekagrata; whether this is a physical object (the space between the eyebrows, the tip of the nose, something luminous, etc.), or a thought (a metaphysical truth), or God

(Isvara), makes no difference. According to Yoga the human

being is completely at the mercy of psycho-mental associations. The senses or the subconscious continually introduce into con sciousness objects that dominate and change it. Associations dis

perse consciousness, passions do it violence, the "thirst for life"

betrays it by projecting it outward. Even in his intellectual ef

forts, man is passive; for the fate of secular thoughts (controlled not by ekagrata but only by fluctuating moments of concentra

tion) is to be thought by objects. Under the appearance of

thought, there is really an indefinite and disordered flickering, fed

by sensations, words, and memory. The first duty of the yogin is to think ? that is, not to let himself think. This is why Yoga practice begins with ekagrata, which dams the mental stream and thus constitutes a solid and unified continuum.

The practice of ekagrata tends to control the two generators of mental fluidity: sense activity and the activity of the subcon scious. A yogin can, at any time and any place, concentrate on a

"single point" and thus become insensible to any other sensory or mnemonic stimulus. Through ekagrata one gains the power freely to regulate an important sector of psycho-somatic activity. It goes without saying that ekagrata can only be obtained through

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the practice of numerous exercises and techniques, in which

physiology plays a role of primary importance. One cannot ob tain ekagrata if, for example, the body is in a tiring or even un comfortable posture, nor if the respiration is unrhythmical. This is why, according to Patanjali, yogic technique implies several

categories of physiological practices and spiritual exercises, which one must have mastered if one seeks to obtain ekagrata, and, ul

timately, the highest concentration, samadhi. In the "classic"

Yoga exposed by Patanjali, there are eight such types of tech

niques. We cannot discuss them all, but we must say something of the most important ones, i.e. asana (bodily attitudes and pos

tures), pranayama (the rhythm of respiration), dharana (yogic concentration) and samadhi.

The yogic posture, asana, is one of the characteristic tech

niques of Indian asceticism. Asana gives the body a stable rigid ity, at the same time reducing physical effort to a minimum. After some practice, this yogic position becomes natural; only then does it further concentration. As Vyasa says: "Asana becomes perfect

when the effort to attain it disappears." In this way one realizes a certain "neutrality" of the senses; consciousness is no longer troubled by the feeling of the "presence of the body." Asana is

the first concrete step taken for the purpose of abolishing the

modalities of human existence. On the plane of the "body," asana

is a concentration on a single point, an ekagrata; the body is con

centrated in a single position. Just as ekagrata puts an end to

the fluctuation and dispersion of the "states of consciousness," so asana puts an end to the mobility of the body, by reducing the infinity of possible positions to a single motionless, hieratic

posture. The immediate purpose of this yogic exercise is obvious:

it is to abolish (or to transcend) the human condition by a re

fusal to conform to the most elementary human inclination: the

necessity to move.

Pranayama, i.e. the disciplining of respiration, is the "refusal" to breathe like the majority of mankind, that is, non-rhythmically. Pranayama begins with making the respiratory rhythm as slow as possible; and this is its first objective. The respiration of the

ordinary man is generally arythmie; it varies in accordance with

external circumstances or with mental tension. This irregularity

132




produces a dangerous psychic fluidity, with consequent instability and diffusion of attention. One can become attentive by making an effort to do so. But, for Yoga, effort is an "exteriorization."

Hence, through pranayama, one attempts to do away with the effort of respiration; rhythmic breathing must become something so automatic that the yogin can forget it.

Commenting upon Y.S. I, 34, Bhoja remarks that "there is al

ways a connection between respiration and mental states." This statement seems to us highly important. It contains far more than

mere observation of the bare fact that, for example, the respira tion of a man in anger is agitated, while that of one who is con

centrating becomes rhythmical and automatically slows down. The relation connecting the rhythm of respiration with the states of consciousness mentioned by Bhoja, and which has undoubted

ly been observed and experienced by yogins from the earliest times ? this relation has served them as an instrument for "uni

fying" consciousness. The "unification" here under consideration must be understood in the sense that, by making his respiration rhythmical and progressively slower, the yogin can "penetrate"

? that is, he can experience, in perfect lucidity ? certain states

of consciousness that are inaccessible in a waking condition, par ticularly the states of consciousness that are peculiar to sleep. For there is no doubt that the respiratory rhythm of a man asleep is slower than that of a man awake. By reaching this rhythm of

sleep through the practice of pranayama, the yogin, without re

nouncing his lucidity, penetrates the "states of consciousness" that accompany sleep.

The Indian psychology recognizes four modalities of con sciousness: waking consciousness, consciousness in sleep with

dreams, consciousness in sleep without dreams, and turya or

"cataleptic consciousness." Each one of these four modalities of consciousness is connected with a specific respiratory rhythm. By

means of pranayama, that is, by increasingly prolonging inhala tion and exhalation ? the goal of this practice being to allow as long an interval as possible to pass between the two moments of respiration

? the yogin can, then, penetrate all the modalities of consciousness. For the ordinary man, there is discontinuity between these several modalities; thus he passes from the state of waking to the state of sleep unconsciously. The yogin must

133




preserve continuity of consciousness, that is, he must penetrate each of these "states" with full lucidity.

There is no doubt that the cataleptic state, in which the res

piration is hardly perceptible, can be brought on at will by ex

perienced yogins. The French cardiologist, Dr. Th?r?se Brosse,

proved that the reduction of respiration and cardiac contraction to a degree that is usually only observed immediately before

death ? is a genuine physiological phenomenon, which the yo

gins can realize by force of will and not as the result of autosug

gestion. It goes without saying that such a yogin can be buried

without any danger. "The restriction of respiration," writes Dr.

J. Filliozat, Professor at Coll?ge de France, "the restriction of

respiration is sometimes so great that some yogins can allow

themselves to be buried alive for a specified time, retaining a vol ume of air which would be completely inadequate to assure their

survival. According to them, this small reserve of air is necessary in case an accident should bring them out of their yogic state

during the experiment and put them in danger; it would allow

them to make a few inhalations, by which they could return to

their yogic state." It is not the purpose of these exercises to obtain fakiric

powers. We should distinguish between the exhibitionism of the fakirs and certain hathayogis

? and the goal of the authentic

yogin. The latter attempts to master his body in order to pene trate the secret of the complex somatic conditions of his psycho

mental life. He wants to understand the deep levels of the psyche by way of experience, to understand their dynamism and to find the means to free himself from their dominance. For we should not forget that the final goal of the yogin is absolute freedom,

perfect autonomy, i.e. in one word: deconditioning. Asana, pranayama, and ekagrata succeed in abolishing the

human condition. Motionless, breathing rhythmically, eyes and attention fixed on a single point, the yogin experiences a passing beyond the secular modality of existence. He begins to become autonomous in respect to the Cosmos; external tensions no longer trouble him; sensory activity no longer carries him outward, toward the objects of the senses; the psycho-mental stream is no

longer invaded or directed by distractions, automatisms, and

memory: it is "concentrated," "unified." The yogin returns to

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himself, takes, so to speak, possession of himself. This state is that of yogic concentration (dharana). If the purpose of eka

grata is to arrest the psycho-mental flux and "fix it on a single point"

? dharana realizes such a "fixation" for the purpose of

comprehension. Patanjalfs definition of dharana is: "fixation of

thought on a single point." By prolonging this concentration for a fairly long time, one obtains dhyana, the yogic meditation.

The final result and the crown of all the yogin s efforts and exercises is samadhi, a term which can be translated by "union,

totality, absorption in, conjunction, en-stasis." Samadhi is a

modality of being peculiar to yoga. This paradoxical state makes

possible the self-revelation of the Self, and makes final liberation a reality. Through samadhi, the yogin realizes the "absolute iso

lation" (kaivalya), that is the liberation of the Self from the illu

sory dominance of the psycho-somatic experience. It would be

wrong to regard this mode of being of the Spirit as a simple "trance" in which consciousness is emptied of all content. For, on

the contrary, at such a moment consciousness is saturated with a

direct and total intuition of Being. As an old commentator,

Madhava, says: "The final arrest of all psycho-mental experience must not be imagined as a non-existence, but rather as the sup

port of a particular condition of the Spirit." The yogin is now a

jivanmukta, that is a "liberated in life." He no longer lives in

Time and under the domination of Time, but in an eternal pres ent, in the nunc stans by which Boethius defined eternity. It is not possible to give here an adequate description of samadhi.

This ultimate stage becomes intelligible only through long tech

nical analysis. But we have said enough to understand the goal of yoga-practice, and the importance that this practice has for

Western psychology and philosophy. We have seen that Yoga starts from this presupposition: man suffers because he confounds

the Self with psycho-mental experience, that is to say he confuses

the Spirit with the innumerable states of consciousness. Man is

conditioned as long as he is a slave of his psycho-somatic dyna mism. He is the object, and not the subject of existence. In order to become free, master of himself, he must control his psycho

mental flux and finally stop it. The yogin intends to suppress the states of consciousness because he wants to attain a stage where

thought will be free and no longer conditioned by psychic mech

135




anisms. In other words, he tries to change radically his mode of

being. He wants to be free.

As we said at the beginning, thousands of years of experi ence have shown to the Hindus that the activity of the uncon

scious raises an obstacle insuperable for all attempts to achieve

de-conditioning. This is the reason why Patanjali and others

emphasize the importance of vasanas, the subliminal latencies. The concept of vasana entirely agrees with the "unconscious" as

described by modern depth psychology. Yoga does not believe, like Samkhya and Vedanta, that metaphysical knowledge alone is sufficient to free man of illusion and suffering. For Yoga, the

problem is more complex, for the following reason: the states of

consciousness that are to be mastered are only the actualization of the vasanas, of the latencies. Because of their very nature, the vasanas are forced to become manifest, that is to say to nourish

continuously the psycho-mental stream. By various techniques, the yogin tries to penetrate into his unconscious, in order to

know its mechanism and to annihilate it.

This means that before the West, Yoga identified the princi pal reason of human conditioning in the unconscious. But the

yogis were not satisfied simply with the objective study of these

conditionings. The yogis made an effort to control and master

the activity of the unconscious. On this point lies the great im

portance of Yoga for Western thought. The unconscious and the

techniques that were developed to work with its dynamisms are

recent discoveries in the West. But India disposes of a long prac tical experience in this field. It is useful to study these practices, to find out in how far de-conditioning is achieved. Yoga followed this long and difficult path in order to obtain perfect autonomy,

integral freedom. Its ideal is to realize what certain Western

psychologists call "consciousness as witness," that is a conscious ness that is no longer engaged in psycho-mental dynamism. It is

the paradoxical stage of the jivanmukta, of one who is "liberated in life," who lives in an "eternal present," outside of Time.

We know that this stage is not illusory, that mans decondi

tioning can become reality. And I should like to conclude these brief remarks by reminding you of the case of the greatest yogin and saint of contemporary India, Ramana Maharshi, who died a

136




few years ago. As you perhaps know, Maharshi suffered of can cer for many years. He was treated according to modern medi

cine, and was under the observation of several distinguished doc tors. These doctors were puzzled by the fact that Ramana

Maharshi did not suffer, although the cancer followed its course, and must have caused unbearable pain. Pain which one would

ordinarily treat with massive doses of morphine. He was serene; he continued receiving visitors and spending long hours in medi tation as usual. Because the disease followed its course, certainly the flesh suffered, but these sufferings did not reach Ramana

Maharshi. In other words, the sufferings of the flesh did not harm

the Spirit. I emphasize this point: Maharshi did not abolish the

pain, as a miraculous cure ? or morphine ? would have done.

He did suffer in the flesh, but this did not bother him any more.

He was a ?vanmukta, that is to say he did not confound his

psycho-somatic experience with his Spirit. In this case we see in

concreto what it means for India to discover the Self, to take

possession of the Spirit. Above all, this means to do away with

psycho-somatic conditionings and to gain access to a new mode

of being: the mode of perfect autonomy, of absolute freedom. I

think that this freedom, which is so hard to imagine, and the

techniques through which this freedom can be attained, are

problems that deserve attention in contemporary Western philos

ophy and psychology.

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