Niyama #3: Tapah (Tapas: Intense Meditation)

“Education is the manifestation of perfection present already in (hu)man.” – Vivekananda paraphrasing Rishi’s doctrines

“Knowledge of Platonic Idea is innate, so that learning is the development of ideas buried deep in the soul…” – paraphrasing Plato (in Wiki)

Tapas literally means “intensely focusing to attain….” Sometimes this involves ignoring other needs of life, and hence (mis)-interpreted as “austerity”. Austerity is a part of tapas, but it is not necessarily the main point.

All this could sound very philosophical, but…  Rishis relied upon this paradigm heavily to gain intuitive insights. As we already listed some of them, they had arrived at a number of interesting hypothesis and insights into a wide range of issues using this technique.

So the central tenet that taught them to look inward is that the knowledge is within, and not just outside. Let’s look at some interesting case studies first. Storied accounts of some famous neurologists on a variety of patients is one such source; Oliver Sacks and VS Ramachandran are two such writer-researchers.

In his book “Musicophilia”, Oliver Sacks lists a number of instances where patients suddenly develop musical skills. He sites a number of cases where seizures or even aneurysms/strokes are followed by such musical abilities. Some people start hearing music, some start fearing music.

https://www.amazon.com/Musicophilia-Tales-Musi…/…/1400033535

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1. Grace M., described the rather sudden onset of her own musicality at the age of fifty-five. Shortly after returning from a vacation in Israel and Jordan, she started to hear song fragments in the head. She tried to record them “by drawing lines on paper” – she did not know the formal musical notation. When this did not work, she bought a tape recorder and sang into it. Now, three years later, she has recorded more than thirty-three hundred fragments. “I have never had any great ability in music,” she wrote, “and do not have a great a ear for it.”
2. Jon S., a robust man of forty five, had been in perfect health until January of 2006. His work week had just started, he was in the office on a Monday morning, and went to get something from the closet. Once he entered the closet, he suddenly heard music – “the classical, melodic, quite nice, something vaguely familiar… It was a string instrument, a solo violin”. Jon S. immediately thought, “Where the hell is that music coming from?”… A colleague in the office who saw all this described John S. as “slumped over, unresponsive,” in the closet, though not convulsing. Long story short, he was having a temporal lobe epilepsy!
3. At a much deeper level, a level beyond action, improvisation, and performance… an elderly man with very little musical training or background who at sixty-eight began composing classical music! What occurred suddenly and spontaneously to this were not musical ideas but musical patterns – and it was from these, by elaboration and permutation that he built up his compositions!!!
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Some people suddenly start speaking languages after having a concussion or a stroke, all of a sudden. Take the example of this kid – this English-speaking kid suddenly started speaking Spanish; another individual-German! (links below).

http://time.com/4542967/teen-coma-fluent-spanish-georgia/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/…/Croatian-teenager-wakes-from-…

Is this some kind of magic? Here’s an intriguing theory (paraphrased summary from Sack’s book): normally there is a balance between excitatory and inhibitory forces in all of us. Excitatory, if it can reach the surface, can manifest itself as a talent. When the inhibition dominates, the talent or pattern remains dormant, and probably remains undeveloped (as not connecting to other areas of the brain).  For example, one can easily pick out a wrong note in a recital, but that person may not actually “know” anything about music.  Sometimes, injuries, even strokes can selectively damage the inhibitory areas, and thus let the excitatory areas dominate easily and express that talent.

To be more technical, if there is damage to the (more recently-evolved) anterior temporal lobe of the dominant hemisphere, this equilibrium may be upset, and there may be a disinhibition or release of the perceptual powers associated with the posterior parietal and temporal areas of the non-dominant hemisphere. For most of the mature adults, left side is the dominant hemisphere and right side is the non-dominant hemisphere. We shift more and more towards procedural/non-creative left side as we age. Can we deliberately, in a controlled way, mute the selected areas of the brain, in order to express a specific talent? Meditation?

In this case, what’s learning as we know it? Is it just a disciplined way of etching away the inhibitory areas? Is it just a way of gaining confidence in expressing and reinforcing specific patterns that our brain has already been generating? Just a realization, gaining confidence in expressing? In that sense we are not acquiring it necessarily, are we? The semantics are less important, but the point is – apparently “learning or knowing” could simply be a pattern realization and expression process. And, people can realize patterns suddenly through accidental injuries, and diseases, also.

As we all know very well by now, yogis shun accidents, and uncontrolled mental states. They want to do everything in a controlled way, just like how we have to come out of postures with the same control as going in. Rishis demonstrate that you don’t have to be ill to be knowledgeable. There’s a controlled way to know and un-know, if there’s such a word. Clearing out habit patterns fall into the latter “un-knowing” category. When that specific pattern can express itself through the functional paraphernalia (Karmendriyas) we have, we recognize that person as having that specific capability. If someone does not express something, it may look like that person does not know, but that pattern is there. So when next time someone comes and tells you that they can sing better than you, you tell ’em….

Yogis recite a very interesting story to make this point:

The Story:

Śiva and Śakti have two kids – both boys – Vināyaka and Kumāra.  The older son, Vinayaka was born with all feminine element, and is the perfect feminine embodied.  Sakti makes him from her pure thoughts.  The second son, Kumara is all masculine, and is born from Siva’s pure virility.  There are several versions of this story, but the plain yogic version is that they both come to their parents asking who is faster.  Addressing that question, Siva and Sakti tell them that whoever can circle around everything that exists and comes back to the starting point is clearly faster.  Everything that exists obviously includes all the “lower” knowledge.  By circumambulating all that exists, they are also gaining complete knowledge.

On Set 1-2-3 go,  Kumara takes off to circle around the universe, while Vinayaka begins to circle around his own axis (Ātma–Pradakṣiṇa) once, and declares that he is done on completion! Siva and Sakti concur that Vinayaka has won the race.  Of course, Kumara on his return sees the point immediately and concedes.  That is because of the Tat – Twam correspondence (link to the previous article below).  Outer universe and inner universe are mirror images, including all the knowledge.  This quick thinking gave Vinayaka the edge, and ends up winning the competition.  The coaching point of yogis here is about the presence of everything within, although it is very difficult to grasp that for the externally-focused mind.

Before we move on from “knowledge” is also within paradigm:

Q.  Why is Tapas included here in Niyamas, while Dhyana is the seventh (7th) step of the Yoga method?

For us beginners, they are closely related but tapas is about some thing, and is focused on a goal, whereas dhyana is about assimilation into the larger ocean of “brahman” – after all, Samadhi is the step after Dhyana.  Tapas is expected to generate intense heat (tapah-agni)”.  Tapah as a root that can be found in several colloquial words that are associated with an intense craving.

Digging a little deeper on relative position of Tapah and Dhyana:

Rishis speak of Six different doctrines to contemplate on to get to this “one truth”, and those doctrines are called “ṣat–darśana” or the “six-visions” –  Nyāya (logic), Vaiseṣika (atomism), Sānkhya (dualist), Yoga (Integration), Mīmāṁsā and Vedānta (non-dualist).   Modern schools look at them (incorrectly) as six different philosophies.  Modern commentaries also leave large gaps because of the incompleteness of the documentation.  But at least from a yoga point of view, they are more of six rungs in a ladder, than radically different ideologies.   We all will eventually have our own darśana or vision!  Another topic for another day….

These six in addition to what we already are, without any contemplative progression, that is “Carvaka”. This  corresponds to the “materialist ” view of the world with a dash of empiricism – we are born with  a subscription to this school, and card-holding members ever since.  Then we have one more, which is Nāstika or “non-believer in existence of anything” (root “asti” – “it is or exists”).  

Anyway, even though, there are these six-visions, the method to realize these visions is through Yoga.  So, Yoga is the technique, irrespective of our philosophical inclinations…  The goal is to “see” you-are-that, i.e,  Twam-asi-Tat.  Yoga is that ladder that takes us from You to That.  So, now if we lay out the eight steps,

You –> Yama –> Niyama –> Asana–>Pranayama–>Pratyahara–>Dharana –> Dhyana –> Samadhi –> That

Now we can see that Niyama is closer to You-end of the practice, and hence we are still at the answer-seeking phase.  Dhyana on the other hand has no burning desire or a learning goal.  All done by that time. Absorption and subsequent realization is the goal.

As we talked about before, Yogis lay the responsibility of knowing what’s required largely on the students.  Ignorance does not let us off  the hook completely in the karma model.  It’s not necessary that everyone has to agree on any one theory, but the effort through contemplation is the most stressed aspect in the yoga tradition – it’s the process, not the conclusion that’s important.  Moreover, there’s only one truth!  We can pick any path and any starting point we choose to get there.  What Rishis’ experience teaches us is that meditation can be a very powerful tool when one is seeking an intuitive, non-linear solution to a problem. Sit, close your eyes, and deliberately etch away the inhibitory areas is one way to put it. A little axiomatic at this point, but the best we can do is to make small efforts and see if it is taking us in the right direction. That’s exactly what kriya yoga is – experimental, nothing sudden…

In the recent history, several scientists have provided accounts of realizing some breakthroughs while in a transient or lucid state between sleep and awake states – Kekule’s realization of ring structure for benzene is one such example; that turned out to be one of the major breakthroughs of his time.

This is one aspect that modern education system is seriously lacking, and in some parts of the world, this contemplative aspect is completely being stripped out – classroom study all the time. We are pushing information down kids’ throats more and more. Whereas we should actually be helping them raise better questions, and enable them to seek and realize answers. Joseph Campbell of “The Power of Myth”-fame makes this key observation in his book. We need to achieve a balance between these two methods. Another topic for another day…

Hence Tapah is included as a Niyama, to accompany Svādhyāya.  If meditation is a niyama, and an useful one, what exactly should we be meditating on? Enter Svadhyaya, the fourth niyama.  Yogis’ take on this topic next.

May we all be blessed with a “vibrant and churned” mind_/\_/\_/\_