S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 4 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 1 8 2 1 Gejza M. Timčák able or be enabled to go beyond the level of existence where from they started? In the Tattva Shuddhi sādhanā (Unknown 1913; Woodroffe 1990, 108–115; Satyasangananda 1992) in essence the sādhaka starts a process of un-creating himself, by merging the tattvas from prithivi tattva to ākāśa tattva, then this tattva to ahamkāra, then ahamkāra toMahat tattva, Mahat tattva to Prakrti and Prakrti to Purusha. Subsequently the sādhaka gets re-created by an opposite process. Here there is no mention of the various lokas, apart fromMahat related to Maharloka. A similar process is described by Patanjali: “te pratiprasava-heyah sukshmah”, what is translated in a number of ways. Karambelkar renders it as: “They (kleśas) can be curbed down and done away with by the process of counter-evolution (and are) subtle.” (Patanjali, II:10, 176–177). Satyananda renders it as: “Those kleśas are reducible by involution when they are subtle.” (Patanjali 1979, 103). Swami Veda Bharati favours the following translation: “Those afflictions (being made progressively) subtler are to be abandoned through the process of dissolution as devolution is reversed.” (Patanjali 2001, 111). Patanjali defines the way it is to be done: “dhyāna heyas tad vrttayah”, that is “through dhyāna – meditation, which reduces, eliminates and eradicates the vrittis” (Patanjali 1979, II:11, 103). The reversing of the evolution that otherwise causes the creation of a greater and greater mass of information useless from the point of view of enlightenment is an analogous process to tattva shuddhi, with the exception of return to the Bhuloka and to the body, because the Yoga Sutra ends with the state of Kaivalya: “Kaivalya is the involution of the gunas because of the fulfilment of their purpose, or it is the restoration of the Purusha to his natural form which is pure consciousness” (Patanjali 1979, IV:34, 258). The difference of models of spiritual advance and enlightenment (here one reflexes the gradual up-going path, the other a “quantum jump”) are interesting from more points of view: 1. The yogic literature (e.g. Saradananda 1952, 596–597; Nikhilananda 1952, 931–945) indicates that yogis after nirvikalpa-samādhi may or may not stay on the Earth or may choose to reincarnate here again. It means that a trace of ahamkāra is still tied to their being. The Spanda Karika (Kallata 2015, 170) describes some of the related processes. Sources like the Bhagavad Gita (Vyasa 1948, 235–257) and Vay (1924, 33–36, 47–50) communicated that some highly evolved souls may decide to incarnate on Earth or other existential levels in order to help the beings living on that level to get to a higher level. This would also indicate that the path to higher understanding and higher levels of existence is gradual. 2. The earlier cited texts reporting on a sudden “jump” to “melting into Being” seem to avoid this gradual process and they seem to indicate that mukti is a “meltdown” into the absolute state of being. 3. The process of tattva shuddhi (sometimes called bhuta shuddhi) seems to combine the two as it is gradual, but halfway through the sādhanā it melts into the Absolute, then after restoration brings back the sādhaka to his original environment. Swami Vireshwarananda (in 1980) related an event from the life of Śrī Ramakrishna that when his disciples asked him to describe to them what does he experience when kundalini rises through the chakras, he fell into samādhi and said that above Viśuddha chakra, “his tongue was tied” and could not speak about his experience. Thus, those yogis, who live in sahaja-samādhi, may also melt into information fields that are not transmittable and thus cannot be articulated. As Patanjali speaks about a curtain of light that prevents seeing beyond it (Patanjali II:52, 626), the ānanda associated with the Absolute (Sat-Chit-Ānanda) may prevent an articulated understanding of laws that regulate this issue and covers That which is behind ānanda. Thus, the jñāni is overwhelmed, like in the Avadhut Gita of Adi Śankarācārya (Shankarachaya 1968, 15–17), and communicates his ānandic meltdown, but not the “technical” details:
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