Visualization Yoga. Vadim Zaporojtsev. Lecture. Pt.1. 04.06.2010

Author Vadim Zaporozhtsev
Anandaswami Tradition Yoga School
Place of lecture delivering Cultural Center “Enlightenment”.
Date April 6, 2010
Yoga school address International Open Yoga University, Yoga School of Anadasvami tradition. Cultural Center “Enlightenment” Dolgorukovskaya str. # 29, Novoslobodskaya metro station, Moscow, Russia. Tel.: 8(495)251-2108, 8(495)251-3367. E-mail: HappYoga@mail.ru. Sites: www.openyoga.ru, www.yogacenter.ru, www.happyoga.narod.ru.
Licence Creative Commons. You may copy, duplicate and spread this lecture. It’s desirable to give a reference to our site www.openyoga.ru.
Typed and edited by Vita Yarotskaya
Translated by Anna Polyakova
Overview Visualization Yoga is one of yoga section that is included in fast yoga methods. Where does our inner world end? How does our inner world associated with the outside one? How can we change our outside world? How did we create our own Universe? What is the nature of the world surrounding us? What are two points of rest that we need for Visualization Yoga practice?

Introduction

Today we are waited for a new cycle of lectures devoted to visualization. And now let’s start to consider this section of yoga knowledge. It is supposed that you are already acquainted with material that we recounted at our previous yoga seminar. But though some things we will repeat and try to comprehend anew.

Well let’s begin from the very beginning. Visualization Yoga is one of the sections of yoga knowledge. Visualization Yoga is extremely powerful. It is widely used in many other kinds of yoga. Visualization Yoga may be an independent as well as constituent part of fast yoga methods.


Figure 1. Visualization Yoga

We remember that all yoga methods may be separated into classic and fast methods for convenience. Visualization Yoga is thought to be more exactly fast yoga methods. And once again: Visualization Yoga is an integral part of the very different sections of yoga. More over there are such sections of yoga knowledge where visualization exercises are the main part and all numerous practices rest upon them. This is an important reason to know something about this yoga to say nothing of its practicing.

As ever we will begin from the very beginning. And I’m going to describe Visualization Yoga’s main ideology. Then we will repeat general axiomatic moments that are the foundation of this yoga. Here we will refer to yoga axiomatics but I will remind you some propositions from yoga axiomatics to refresh your memory about them.

Macrocosmos and Microcosmos Approaches

Well, we remember that according to the yoga axiomatics there are two sets of axioms: Macrocosmos system of axioms and Microcosmos system of axioms. Being based on them we can logically build and argue these or those yoga knowledge sections. But there are such kinds of yoga that rest upon both these systems at the same time. I.e. one part of any exercise becomes clearer if we examine it from the Microcosmos system of axioms stand and strange as it may seem another part of the same exercise becomes clearer for us if we examine it from the point of view of Macrocosmos system of axioms. Visualization Yoga is just the even yoga. But now I want to remind you its general propositions to give some linkage to our everyday life to your brain.

We feel somehow, we live somehow and we see the world surrounding us. More over we are inclined to divide everything we see and feel into two parts: our inner world and so called outside world. Or in my own words: everything we see on the outside of our body we call “the outside world” and everything inside us we call “our inner world”. And the next thing actually happens: everything we do when we are awake we perceive as these two pictures superposition. I.e. what happens from without is put over feelings that we have inside us. These inner feelings leads to our higher I. and this higher I is an observer.

It is clear that our inner world differs from the outside one (for you and me). This difference is conditional to the boundary where our sense organs stop working. I.e. we feel our body until nobody touches us or at the moment when somebody touches us we feel our body. And just from this moment there is this boundary of passage of our inner world into the outside world.

Here there is one very serious statement in Visualization Yoga (as well as in Yoga in general): our inner world (the realm of fancy, the world of our memories, dreams and plans) as well as the outside world (where we live, go to work, communicate with other people) is the external worlds with respect to our higher I all the same.

I.e. each of us has his own higher I (it is called “Atma” in Sanskrit and it came from the world “indivisible”). Everything is external towards our Atma. Everything is external towards our higher I. That’s why as a matter of fact we should not set off our inner world of fancy, feelings, memories against the outside world where we show ourselves. In this sense both these worlds are external towards our higher I.

This is the thing you have to clearly understand. Just as we can change the outside world and something may happen there we can change our inner world and something will happen there as well. But all these things are observed from the stand of our higher I. and everything is external towards our higher I.

There is one more proposition from the yoga axiomatics. It says that our inner world (the world of our inner feelings) and the outside world are associated with each other in the most interesting way. Everything happening in the outside world influences our inner world in any way. And everything happening in our inner world influences the outside world. I.e. there is some correspondence between these two worlds.

And really if the weather is fine, the sun is shining, your boss has increased your salary and advanced you, you have good relationships with your husband or wife, you succeed in yoga then all these factors involuntarily make you feel wonderfully inside you as well. You feel some emotional enthusiasm: you see everything in a cheerful light and the world opens to you just now. But if in the outside world you face the chain of events that you don’t like then as a result you begin to feel rather poorly inside you as well.

And the opposite situation takes place. Sometimes we feel some animation and burst of energy inside us. That’s the way of youth. Or we feel it when we have some wish to attain or to change something. Then we feel positive inside us regardless what happens in the outside world. And in such state even some things that we dislike may be a real good stimulus or challenge to make us to start working. Suppose we are full of forces, talents and energy but surrounding world doesn’t give us enough money for living or enough status for respect of people around us. But we aren’t upset about it. We know that everything is still ahead. We apply ourselves to the work, we set up our business or we show our worth in science, culture or we help other live beings – it doesn’t matter. And working with good inner mood we begin to change the outside world. Sometimes it happens quickly and sometimes not but it changes all the same. If we are full of optimism and forces then we attract the same people to ourselves. Like as we are they are full of hopes, forces, they didn’t get accustomed to complain but they got used to lead the situation into positive course. And strange as it may seem the outside world changes.

Another situation is when we are despondent from inside, i.e. we are depressed or we have any karmic cleaning or simply any causeless despondency (but yoga tells us that there is nothing causeless in our world and if something causeless happens it means that this is the work of our causal body). And having negative inside us we are inclined to see no positive in the outside world even if we have the most responsive and thoughtful people around us (for example your husband or wife), even if we have the most well-paid job, even if we hold the most distinguished and respectable post. More over with our negative we come to a situation when people begin to dash aside us. Why does it happen so? That’s because they are tired of our permanent moaning. We are inclined to blame other people for our troubles instead of understand where they come to us from. And other people become tired to hear that they are guilty of all our troubles. Strange as it may seem thus directly or not we create a downcast atmosphere around us.

I.e. the outside and the inner world are associated with each other. But they are associated not in a flash but with any small delay. For example we feel good inside but it becomes good in some time on the outside. Or the other way may be. I.e. these reflections play such a game “hither and thither”.

The next very serious Visualization Yoga conclusion consists in a fact that our inner world and our outside world (that both are external towards our higher I all the same) are associated with each other like a mirror is associated with an object that it reflects. As a matter of fact our outside world is a reflection of our inner world. And we can observe an effect of delay or an effect of echo. We do some actions in the outside world under the influence of our inner world and thus we send impulses to the outside world. But they require some time to be reflected from the outside world and come back to us as a reflected wave engendered by ourselves. This law when we do something and then get the results of our actions is called karma law (cause and effect law).

Of course everything is much more complicated then this example. Our inner world is connected with the outside world in a very intricate way. Inside us we may have a storm of negative. But the most terrible thing happens when this storm of negative provokes us to do some physical impulse into the outside world. When these two factors get together we receive the karmic wave that go away and come back bringing us both mental and physical negative.

Pay your attention on the next two situations. You are in metro and you are angry. So you push somebody proving thereby your displeasure with him. It was your mental impulse or rays of consciousness that interpreted the situation in one or another way and then collided on the real action, i.e. on any impulse of energy. I.e. they collided on each other, went in the real world and then came back to us. And somebody will push us being angry as we were before. He pushed us exactly intentionally to hurt us. And we will suffer not only because it will be unpleasant and painful for us but also because he does it intentionally.

Another situation may be. Suppose you accidentally pushed somebody. This impulse spread and somebody pushed you. But you see that he accidentally pushed you (for example he stumbled and thereby treaded on your foot) and your suffering isn’t as strong as in previous case. And strange as it may seem awareness of the fact that this negative came to you was done accidentally may allow you to pay no heed to it to a certain degree and not to suffer from it.

The same situation happens with your thoughts. Suppose somebody angered you very much but you make no sign and on the contrary you show your friendliness towards this person. So your angry thoughts didn’t shoot up out and didn’t turn into real actions. They rested only at a level of your mental activity. This impulse will spread in the Universe as well and it will come back to you but without any physical confirmation. So it will much easier for you to cope with it when it will come back to you.

It happens so that from the yoga axiomatics stand the outside world seems to be a big mirror that reflects all our previous actions that we did for all your previous lives. We have created our Universe by ourselves. We also have invited here all the other live beings that may please or not for us. As a matter of fact we are in the state of initial freedom and nobody and nothing are able to impose anything on us.

Here I refer to yoga axiomatics once again. It is said there that everyone has his own higher I and this higher I is absolutely free. The state of freedom is one of the loftiest states in the Universe. If you will meditate for a long time and reflect upon the sense of the notion “freedom” then you will come to the situation when you will absolutely cease to understand its meaning. It often happens in yoga. And you will grip something but it will be like endlessness.

My favorite example is the next. Go out at the summer night and look at the stars, at the Milky Way and try to imagine where everything ends. But being aware that the Universe is endless you may make yourself psychically tremble. That’s because our brain is unable to digest it. The endlessness of the Universe may even scare our brain to a certain degree. The same thing concerns freedom. More you will think over the notion of freedom more you will realize its grandiosity. Not without reason yoga as a system of self-cognition should guide us towards freedom though this is a thorny path.

We all have the state of freedom. Freedom is our inalienable heritage since we came into being. More over freedom of our higher I is absolute. I.e. we are free even from predetermined knowledge who we are and what we are. So we are in a state of ignorance in respect of ourselves. And this state of ignorance may be interpreted as a state of “freedom from freedom”. Could you try to grip the sense? We are free even from the knowledge that we are free. Practically the way of yoga consists in getting of this knowledge and then in availing ourselves of it. Now we speak about this knowledge and you hear about it but not because you thought out for yourselves. This news was given to us by ancient Yogins and Yoginis who attained the higher stage. They give us the answer of a very difficult problem in advance to precipitate our solution of this problem.

Well, we are free. We have the state of the highest freedom, i.e. we are free even from all one way or another predetermined knowledge. As a matter of fact we weave the entire Universe that surrounds us from one life to another.

No One Live Being May Influence the Freedom of Another One

I remind you one more proposition from yoga axiomatics. Our Universe is a grandiose thing. The most fantastical things are possible here when two free beings communicate with each other. And doing this they don’t influence the freedom of each other. But at the same time there is an opportunity for their two freedoms to interact with each other. This is really the highest thought of our Universe organization. It also escapes our comprehension. It is a superlogical proposition.

This communication becomes possible with the help of maya. One of maya’s qualities is that is called “an illusion”. More precisely put it is the side effect of maya. It turns out that from one life to another little by little we create the Universe we wished or willed to see. It happens so by the simple reason that the word “freedom” is identical with the word “omnipotence” as well as with the word “infinite knowledge”. I.e. you may be free from knowledge and stay in ignorance but you may by free from ignorance and possess all knowledge that only may be in this world. You may be free from the power and don’t show yourself in the world but you also may be free of weakness and have the superpower.

It happens so that we will something from one life to another. Thus we bring our potential freedom, potential omnipotence and potential “infinite knowledge” putting into our higher I into play. And right our higher I weaves that world we live in. But other people’s higher Is act in the same way. And in due course these higher Is willing approximately one and the same things get into one and the same living conditions. These higher Is attract to each other. All of them willed some chains of events, some laws that are identical with each other to the certain degree. Thus there is an opportunity for two higher Is with approximately identical history to be in contact with each other. Actually all of you sitting now in this place are such live beings who willed one and the same things during the train of births and deaths. As a result we invited people similar to us into our world. Now we deal with all positive and negative qualities of these people. Some people we have invited without thinking about it even for a while. And now we suffer from them.

Of course I tell you now this theory and I try to explain you this idea as simply as possible. Everything is undoubtedly much more complicated in the real world. But the structure is just the same. From one life to another we weave the outside world that we subsequently see. And just in the same way we weave our inner world in which we subsequently feel ourselves.

What Is the Difference Between Our Inner World and the Outside World?

How does our outside world differ from our inner world? From the formal point of view the outside world begins where our physical sense organs end (i.e. where our inner world ends). But we try to go deeper.

According to Visualization Yoga both our inner world and the outside world are external towards our higher I. Our inner world and our outside world were created by ourselves and they are closely related to each other. They say sometimes that the inner world of any person was formed under the influence of the outside world. For example a person wasn’t proper educated, he didn’t get good breeding and so on. But he was born in such living conditions where he couldn’t get good breeding and education. And just the fact of his bad living conditions tells us that in his previous lives he created some factors bringing him to such living conditions in this life and having an effect on his inner world.

I.e. everything is interconnected. It is not obvious by the reason of certain echo or delay between inner and outside processes. Imagine that you give any impulse from inner world and it goes into the outside world. While it goes there, reflects there and comes back we have time to give a lot of other impulses from our inner world into the outside one. And sometimes these impulses may be exactly the opposite. But sooner or later the first impulse comes back to us and sometimes it muddles us.

There was very good writer O. Henry. His favorite theme traceable in his numerous humoristic short stories was about an inveterate law-breaker or rogue. At one fine day this law-breaker or rogue decided to change his life: he gave up drinking, smoking and being a thief. And just at that moment some bad things began to happen with him like as a punishment. External troubles fell to him. But while he drank and was a thief he got away with everything… O. Henry described this story in a rather humoristic way. If you have an opportunity read it.

So we may be muddled in such situations especially when they are burdened with temporal factors (particularly fact of births and deaths existence). Sometimes a person may act improperly all his life. More over he even may dead being an honourable veteran or a despot. And it seems as if he got away with everything. He even may be buried at the best cemetery and everyone may see his monument from several kilometers (for example if he was any underworld leader). It looks strange because he did so many negative things into the outside world but he got only positive things and even died with honour.

In such situations yoga tells us the next things. If a person didn’t attain the higher state of enlightenment he has to be born again after his death without fail. And he will be born in conditions that he created in his previous lives by his actions. You know it is like a stone thrown into the water: waves diverge rounding and then come together again. For example in the next life such person will become a great saint yogin and suddenly he becomes to get one blow after another. And he can’t understand why he gets all these. But the answer is very simple: he must reap what he has sown.

It happens sometimes that the most inveterate law-breaker becomes righteous man in the twinkling of an eye. It may happen when he immediately receive big negative blows after his bad actions. Quick answers suggested him that there is any cause and effect law which is called karma.

Here we speak about an extreme situation of course when an underworld leader becomes a saint in his next life. But there are so many grey and neutral situations that is much more difficult to be determined. More often we live in a state of sheer unaccountableness and absence of control. I.e. sometimes we are kind and sometimes we do meanness being unaware of it. Why it is so? And it is so for no particular reason. As a result we get a chain of these good and bad impulses coming back to us. And we seem to be good people and doing harm to nobody never even crosses our mind. But some people injure us and these are just those people that we injured in our previous lives. These may be our colleges, bosses or subordinates, our spouses or just the world surrounding us.

Here you should stop and think about the external world. It is like a mirror reflecting ourselves but in the past. Analyze whether you didn’t leave any “failed tests” from your previous lives. Suppose a wife impolitely behaved in respect of her husband or a husband impolitely behaved in any way in respect of his wife. Of course we may abuse our wife or husband. But we also may sit and think about the Universe that is showing me to myself right now. It is showing what an unbalanced and illogical person I was. It is showing my own negative qualities.

These are very good preventive measures to look into your inner world to find seeds of negative that we met into the outside world. Do you know that if before some qualities flourished in your life and in this life you got a wave of negative reactions then some seeds of these bad qualities may remain inside you? They may sprout in certain conditions and you become as you were before. You will engender impulses and phenomena from which you are suffering now dealing with your close people. This is very good reason to pause and become thoughtful from the stand of the first, second and third yoga principles.

We may observe the next tendency: faster you go on your road of spiritual development smaller are these delays, these spaces of time between your generated reaction and the answer you get from the outside world. This tendency is described in detail in part of yoga knowledge called “Karma Yoga”. And I also have to mention it in our course of Visualization Yoga. I.e. a storm in our inner world engenders storm in the outside world in shorter period of time. And you don’t have to wait all your life until you will receive answers on your actions. This helps you better understand your life and the cause and effect law. It also helps us to quicker neutralize this law.

If living at an ocean shore you engendered tsunami and it went away destroying everything on its way then sooner or later it reflects and comes back on your shore. And what will you do if you live there and even don’t know that any tsunami may come? You begin to act like people in Japan: you understand that if the sea suddenly draws back and the bottom bares itself then a terrible wave of tsunami will follow it. Usually when a big wave approaches it takes all water bellow it. Physical laws definitely describe all this. Seeing something like this you realize that tsunami is near and you have to run away into the mountains. Doing so you won’t stop retroaction of the Universe but you will be able to minimize its consequences.

The same things happen with our family and friends. If we engendered any negative then it will return to us. The main thing here is to realize that it will come back. More clearly we realize the cause and effect law quicker all the rest methods of working with the Universe will come home to us.

Who or What We Believe Ourselves to Be?

But let’s return to Visualization Yoga. There is our inner world and there is the outside world and they are interconnected. There is an observer who watches both these two worlds. But we have one peculiarity: less an observer is aware of itself (i.e. less our higher I realize that it is the higher I and it has nothing to do even with the inner world) more our higher I considers itself to be the inner world.

If a person is absolutely wild then he believes himself to be a rough physical body. And if we ask him about his nature then he will speak about his arms, head, torso and so on. If you ask any professor of philosophy then most likely he will tell you that he is a physical body but also he is any conglomeration of feelings and something more subtle. For example he may tell you that there is a soul and a body. And when a person divides his body into a rough physical body and something usually called “a soul”. But only few people may say something persuasive about a soul.

There are thoughts, feelings, notions and recollection. They all interlace into a tangle and a person believes himself to be this tangle. Suppose a person thinks: “I’m a man. I’m certain years old, I have certain education. I’m interesting in some things. There are other things that annoy me and some situations turn my stomach”. So he has any correlation of his feelings with a thing called “soul”. If we speak with more subtle adept of philosophical sciences then we may face more abstract definition: there is our higher I. Such people begin to realize that they are not only physical bodies. More over today they have one tangle of feelings and notions and tomorrow they have absolutely different one. But their permanent observer, onlooker, player is always one and the same. And he watches what happens into the external world.

Well sooner or later overcoming our ignorance about ourselves we come to the awareness of our higher I. Our higher I has nothing to deal with our physical body, with our mental processes and recollections. But it is something truly fabulous and inexpressible. Yoga just goes in for bringing us closer to our higher I awareness using different methods, physical and mental exercises. That’s why until we don’t realize what our higher I is we see the next picture of the world: our inner world and the outside world. Some processes in our world are detached a little bit and other are closer to out higher I. Some thoughts and feelings progress in our inner world but as if they were somewhere aside. They don’t touch us. But there are other feelings and thoughts that touch us very much.

A jealous wife has only to think that her husband is unfaithful to her and this thought touches so deeper notions and feeling of this woman that she begins to suffer just from one this thought. And it doesn’t matter to her whether her husband is really unfaithful to her or she thought it up by herself. So there is certain gradation in our inner world: some things are far from us and other are closer to our higher I. More over even the simple thoughts may disturb this tangle and we are inclined to believe them to be right ourselves.

Imagine like a sharp-clawed cat’s paw digs into this tangle and we begin to suffer just from only a thought. For example some recollections of previous offences, recollections of real or hypothetic situations touching this tangle bring very big discomfort to us sometimes. But an opposite situation is observed sometimes as well. Some thoughts may delight us. Imagine that you are a physic and they are going to present Nobel prize for you the other day. This thought about your future Nobel prize soars in your inner world and it pleases your self-respect. So you are in a good mood because other people have highly appreciated you.

So even if we speak about the inner world and the outside world it comes out that this inner world isn’t very simple. There is certain trend from more remote processes to deeper ones that touches us a lot. And analyzing this trend you will come to grips with a fact that there are three groups of our bodies.

There Are Three Groups of Our Bodies

From ancient books we know that people have three groups of bodies: physical, subtle and causal. Today there is a tendency to mystify it. They intimidate and make people to believe in some things without a moment’s thought. But you remember that the main characteristic of yoga as a system of self-cognition is the next: a criterion of every verity is the practice. If they say any theory even the most wonderful to you and it doesn’t work in practice it means that it may be wrong or may be you don’t understand anything. Analyzing this trend you will come to grips with a fact that there are three groups of our bodies. And you don’t have to believe different kinds of obscurantist books (sometimes even supposedly yogic books). You don’t have to believe in something because you may verify everything.

Let’s return to Visualization Yoga. There is certain gradient bring us nearer from rough physical body to subtle body and then to causal one. After that it will bring you nearer from your causal body to your deepest displays, i.e. to the thing called “prana” (Energy and Consciousness). If you come closer to prana then you have to do only a small step to cognize the source of it. And prana’s source is just our higher I. So the goal of yoga is to bring you closer to this awareness. It becomes clear even from such simple analyze of our everyday life.

And throughout this theme I will give one connective from Rajah Yoga. Rajah Yoga tells that more you control your inner world more you can control the external world. And if you want to become a president, a business manager of any organization or to hold any leading post then you have to know how to manage yourself in the first place. And probably it won’t happen before you don’t get to know the wisdom of managing your inner world. But your inner world is so heterogeneous. And you will be able to manage it only when you begin to get closer to your higher I. At this moment a tangle of your feelings, notions and thoughts will move away from you. Your feelings, notions and thoughts will stay with you all the same but they won’t become your fixed idea. From such thoughts you won’t feel hot and cold all over.

Today we spoke about a woman feeling jealousy. One thought on this theme engenders absolutely uncontrollable reactions.

Your Inner World and Visualization Yoga

Let’s go further in Visualization Yoga. Let’s analyze the outside world now. Very interesting surprises wait us here as well. Imagine that you live somewhere into the thick of the forest with the very limited circle of communication. I.e. all your world is rightly limited with those people who live near to you and with the distance that you can go walk while shooting. But if you live in any megalopolis then you naturally may quickly take any transport and go much more far away. Thus more space will enter your consciousness. More over having TV or Internet you may see what is happening now in every spot on the globe or somewhere in the space.

Do you know there are people living in their small world? In the morning they wake up and go to work. In the evening they come back home from their work, watch TV and go to bad. And this is their small world. But there are other people who are bored of such living and their world is wider. There are people who think globally on the whole. These are for example scientists who think over the Universe organization. And their world is much wider.

And in any case the outside world is the reflection of our inner impulses and it is very strange and secret thing. We don’t know whether the outside world is kind or angry? Such categories are just inapplicable to it. We know only about the cause and effect law: everything we send into the Universe will come back to us.

– And what is the nature of this mirror that reflects everything?

People don’t think over it as usual. They simply live in this world. But one moment they begin to research the surrounding world using their feelings and brain. And as soon as they will to understand what the world around them is (what this mirror is) and begin to get an experience the very strange things begin to happen with such people. It was observed in ancient times and it is observed in our days: the very strange things happen and they don’t depend on place and times when such people live.

And suddenly you begin to realize that there is somebody else behind this mirror. You guess it firstly vaguely but then more and more clearly. This “somebody” tries to intelligently communicate with you on a language that is clear for you. He tries to answer your questions or interact with you in any other way. In the process the entire world around you may change. And it seems to you that they are like puzzles or attempts to make something intelligent clear to us, to communicate with you, to speak to you or to answer your questions in any incomprehensible way.

As a result sooner or later such person comes to a conception of the Absolute. I.e. the Absolute is like a certain interlocutor who can show itself through many forms that you face in the outside world. You face reflections of yourself in the outside world. Something that you engendered before dispersed like a wave and now it comes back to you. But besides this reflection of yourself you guess that there is another interlocutor there if you will it. This interlocutor tries to speak with you if you ask something to him. This interlocutor is inclined to display himself in absolutely no way until you will to appeal to him. I.e. he is very unobtrusive, tolerant and forbearing interlocutor or some intelligent principle. And once again: it happens only for people who will to communicate in this way. But other people willing that there is nothing there will never face this.

I.e. the very strange thing happens: something else begins to show through all phenomena and through all situations in our life. It shows through all scenery that we engendered by our previous impulses (as be guess now), that we built in the past by ourselves (i.e. we create an impulse to make them appear in the present). And I want to get ahead of myself: referring to yoga axiomatics such person begins to realize that people around him are similar to him. I.e. people’s higher Is are similar to the Absolute who lies hidden behind the scenery of the external world.

And at last there is the next thing you have to clearly understand: more a person wills to cognize someone hiding behind this scenery more he begins to realize that this “someone” is more real than the scenery. Or in other words: the Absolute may show itself through the train of events, people and information flows that singly come to us from different sides but form something whole (for example a phrase one part of which is told by one person, the second part is told by the second person, the third part – by the third person and so long).

Firstly of course we are inclined to believe people speaking with us to be more real than this interlocutor (the Absolute) standing behind these people. We believe the Absolute to be less real and more abstract. But as a result your experience shows you that all these people and phenomena are less real than someone hidden behind them. In what respect they are less real? I mean here that they are more liable to different changes and instability than someone hidden behind them.

Very different people came to this in very different times. In principle everyone from you may feel the same. But it is only on condition that you will to feel it, that you will the Absolute to become apparent. Why? That’s because this interlocutor will never be a burden to you with your concrete and unambiguous will. I.e. the Absolute is unobtrusive.

Awareness of Our Higher I and Transformation of the Inner and Outside Worlds

The interesting proposition goes further. The next thing happens: if you begin to realize your higher I then it becomes easier for you to change both your inner and outside worlds. Sometimes it is easier to change your inner world then the outside one. But sometimes we change the outside world and the changes of the inner world come. It is very good to rely on your higher I. Or in other words: if you realize your higher I then it is easier for you to change the outside world as well. I.e. the point of rest appears and it is our higher I. Relying upon this point of rest you can easier change your inner and outside worlds. But if your interlocutor (or the Absolute) opened up to you then he becomes another point of rest for you. And this point of rest is as equivalent as your higher I. If you are aware of the Absolute and see it behind all transient events in your life then it becomes another point of rest for you. And more you realize it more simply you will change your outside world and your inner world as well and vice versa.

The next picture is drawn: your higher I is like an origin of coordinates, and there is a space of your inner world and the space of your outside world. And somewhere beyond these bounds another point of rest or the Absolute is hidden. And you may easily swap intermediate sections of your inner and outside world regardless of whether you are aware of at least one of these points of rest.

Or I will give another image to think over. Imagine that some big river flows. It may be Volga or Ganga River for example. And everything is permanently changing in its waters: sometimes a wave passes by, sometimes a ship goes. The same changes happen in our inner world every day. Or inner state always changes: we may feel ourselves better or worse and so on. The outside situation is changing as well. Thus our entire world is changeable like a river. But each river has two banks. They are firm and unvarying like a rock. One of these banks is your higher I. and another bank is your interlocutor or the Absolute. And the river of your life – events, feelings and emotional experiences – flows between them.

More over this river flows from one your life to another and not only during your current life. Even in Yoga of Death it is said that if you die before you attain the highest state in yoga then all your states after your death (there are many of them and there is even special part of yoga knowledge devoted to them) go between these two banks. In principle these states aren’t distinguishable from our real life. And even your dreams when you sleep or your state of sleep without dreams also go between these two banks: one bank is your higher I and another is the Absolute.

You may manage this life river. How can you do it? Well, how do people control rivers? They build hydropower plants there. To build a hydropower plant they have to build a weir, all needed workshops and buildings but as minimum they have to build a bridge from one bank to another. And this bridge has to rely on two points of rest: on the one bank and on the other one. If it leans against only one bank then it will fall into the water if the river is big enough. But if this bridge will lean against two banks and two its part will join together in the middle then this will be reliably construction. One may let trains pass here. One may build weirs under this bridge. We may do everything we want and the bridge won’t fall. But it needs two points of rest.

Situation in Visualization Yoga is the same. Wanting to get the highest result from this yoga we should have two points of rest. Any construction with only one point of rest (our higher I or the Absolute) will partially control the river of our life but not completely. As a matter of fact as you understand everything here comes to axiomatics of yoga fast methods. There are axioms resting upon our higher I and there are axioms resting upon the Absolute. And quite concrete exercises and practices develop between them.

Well, Visualization Yoga in its highest form presupposes work with images. Later we will speak in detail about them: what are they and how to work with them? Better you imagine a point of rest and rest upon them more reliably Visualization Yoga practices will work. And if you have two points of rest which you very clearly realize then these practices will give you quite concrete result. Here I mean the highest goal in yoga by final concrete result and it is enlightenment (Samadhi).

How to “Discern” the Absolute?

And at last in addition to the above I will tell the next thing that you also have to know because you are more or less acquainted with yoga axiomatics. Well everything is not so complicated with our higher I: in the long run our higher I and we are one and the same thing. But it is more difficult to realize the Absolute. In our example it is like another bank of the river. But where is it? How far it is situated? When we see famous great rivers (Volga, Yenisei, Ob or Ganga – what other great river do we have?) we can see their far bank whatever wide they are.

But what is to be done with the Absolute? Some events and phenomena happen around us. And we suspect that the Absolute hides itself behind this scenery. If we live in a small village then the scenery is very close to us. And if we look at an adjacent galaxy through a telescope then we realize that this scenery is far away. But in both these cases the Absolute hides itself behind the scenery. And we can observe a very interesting effect: more faraway the rays of our consciousness penetrate farther the scenery bounds move back. It seems to us that we should make only one step and then we will discover the place where the Absolute hides itself. But it doesn’t happen. We don’t find the Absolute there. It moves back all the time.

Do you remember our example with coordinate axis? Imagine that the origin of coordinates (zero point) is our higher I. And the Absolute is very far away. Farther we go from the origin of coordinates farther it moves away from us. And from the formal stand it comes out that the Absolute is infinitely far away from us. But at the same time it may show itself at any distance from us. It happens so that on the one hand the Absolute is a great way off from us. How far we fathom the secrets of the Universe it escapes us all the same. But at the same time it may shows itself very close to us – right under our very nose – through the objects and phenomena that we face in our everyday life without any telescopes.

It is very interesting thing. And a very interesting conclusion comes out from it. Telling in a couple of words: our inner and outside worlds are external towards our higher I but they both are internal towards the Absolute. The Absolute absorbs everything including ourselves. The Absolute is everywhere. It may show itself both in our outside world (through all this scenery) and in our inner world (when we sit and are lost in thought). There are no boundaries for the Absolute in this sense. As a matter of fact our inner world and our outside world are internal for it. And it may show itself where it likes.

That’s why you may communicate with the Absolute through a train of events happening in your outside world. You may communicate with it in dreams or while sleeping without dreams when there are no images in our habitual interpretation. I.e. there are no boundaries for the Absolute.

And now we finish our today’s lecture.

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