The strength of will necessary to accomplish this higher power of
hypnotism is achieved by arduous and long-continued exercises in
concentration, by the practice of a strict morality, and by
submission to a physical regimen which few Occidentals would care to
undergo. Severe as is this training, it is less so than that which
the true Yogi imposes upon himself, and its fruits are less. The
achievement to which he addresses himself is far beyond that of the
most accomplished hypnotist. The Yogi scorns all supernormal powers,
even while possessing them. The Yogi, as the word implies--it means
literally union--seeks to unite himself with his own higher self, the
eternal and immortal part of his own nature, and the achievement of
this brings with it the freedom of the three worlds at all times,
and in full consciousness. As this involves an inward turning of the
mind and will, and the withdrawal from the ordinary active life of
average humanity, he alone is witness of his own success. "The rest
is silence."
The knowledge of past births which may be obtained by the
questionable and cumbersome method of hypnotism is one of the
wayside flowers which the Yogi may pluck, if he will, on his path
towards perfection. There are definite rules for the attainment of
this knowledge, and they conform so closely to Colonel de Rochas'
method--save for the fact that operator and subject are one and not
twain--that it will be interesting to give them here. The ensuing
passage is from the _Vishuddhi Marga_, or _Path of Purity_, a work
written some sixteen hundred years ago by the famous sage,
Buddhaghosha, whose name signifies the Voice of Buddha, the revealer
of Buddha's teachings. It is quoted in Charles Johnston's _The
Memory of Past Births_.
"The devotee, then, who tries for the first time to call to mind
former states of existence, should choose a time after breakfast,
when he has returned from collecting alms, and is alone and plunged
in meditation, and has been absorbed in the four trances in
succession. On rising from the fourth trance, which leads to the
higher powers, he should consider the event which last took place,
namely, his sitting down; next, the spreading of the mat; the
entering of the room; the putting away of bowl and robe; his eating;
his leaving the village; his going the rounds of the village for alms;
his entering the village for alms; his departure from the monastery;
his offering adoration in the courts of the shrine and of the Bodhi
tree; his washing the bowl; what he did between taking the bowl and
rinsing his mouth; what he did at dawn; what he did in the middle
watch of the night; what he did in the first watch of the night.
Thus he must consider what he did for a whole day and night, going
backwards over it in reverse order.
"In the same reverse order he must consider what he did the day
before, the day before that, up to the fifth day, the tenth day, a
fortnight ago, a month ago, a year ago; and having in the same
manner considered the previous ten and twenty years, and so on up to
the time of his conception in this birth, he must then consider the
name and form which he had at the moment of death in his last birth.
But since the name and form of the last birth came quite to an end,
and were replaced by others, this point of time is like thick
darkness, and difficult to be made out by the mind of any person
still deluded. But even such a one should not despair nor say: 'I
shall never be able to penetrate beyond conception, or take as the
object of my thought the name and form which I had in my last birth,
at the moment of death,' but he should again and again enter the
trance which leads to the higher powers, and each time he rises from
the trance, he should again intend his mind upon that point of time.
"Just as a strong man in cutting down a mighty tree to be used as
the peaked roof of a pagoda, if the edge of his axe be turned in
lopping off the branches and twigs, will not despair of cutting down
the tree, but will go to an iron-worker's shop, have his axe
sharpened, return, and go on with his cutting; and if the edge of
his axe be turned a second time, he will a second time have it
sharpened, and return, and go on with his cutting; and since nothing
that he chopped once needs to be chopped again, he will in no long
time, when there is nothing left to chop, fell that mighty tree. In
the same way the devotee rising from the trance which leads to the
higher powers, without considering what he has considered once, and
considering only the moment of conception, in no long time will
penetrate beyond the moment of conception, and take as his object
the name and form which he had at the moment of death, in his last
birth.
"His alert attention having become possessed of this knowledge, he
can call to mind many former states of existence, as, one birth, two
births, three births, four births, five births, and so on, in the
words of the text."
This quotation casts an interesting light upon Eastern monasticism.
The Buddhist monasteries are here revealed as schools of practical
psychology, the life of the monk a life of arduous and unceasing
labor, but labor of a sort which seems but idleness. The successive
"initiations" which are the milestones on the "Path of Perfection"
upon which the devotee has set his feet represent successive
emancipations of consciousness gained through work and knowledge.
Their nature may best be understood by means of a fanciful analogy.