Yoga's Origins and Evolution of Consciousness

Yogic Evolution

1. Yoga's psychospiritual technology, in its fully developed form, dates from the "axial age," the crucial period around the middle of the first millennium B.C.E., when Lao Tzu and Confucius lived in China, Mahavira and Gautama the Buddha lived in India, and Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle lived in Greece.

2. These geniuses and a host of other path-makers of the time - The Swiss cultural philosopher Jean Geb ser has brilliantly defined what this new perspective implies in the broader history of human civilisation.

3. He believes that mankind has traveled through a succession of four mental structures, or cognitive styles, that he has labeled the follows:

1. Archaic consciousness: This is the simplest and oldest cognitive type, with the lowest level of self-awareness and is still nearly entirely instinctive.

It dates back to the period of Australopithecus and Homo habilis in terms of history.

Today, this curiosity expresses itself in us as the desire for self-transcendence, for example.

It's also involved in ecstatic experiences (samtidhi) and drug-induced altered states of consciousness, when the barrier between subject and object is temporarily removed.

2. Magical consciousness: The magical consciousness, which emerges from archaic consciousness, is still pre-egoic and has a diffuse awareness.

It works on the concept of identity, as represented in analogical thinking, a gut-level (archetypal) reaction that connects seemingly disparate parts into a whole.

Over one-and-a-half million years ago, this kind of consciousness may have defined Homo erectus.

When we are captivated or in sympathy with someone or something, it is still effective in us now.

It shows itself in a variety of ways, like blindly falling in love or momentarily forgetting one's judgment (and perhaps one's humanity) when under the hypnotic effect of a big crowd.

The magical consciousness is also evident in parts of Yoga that require intense inner concentration, which leads to a loss of bodily awareness.

Of course, it is also the conceptual foundation for all kinds of sympathetic magic, which is a component of certain yogic pathways, particularly Tantric schools that stress the development of paranormal abilities, or siddhis.

3. Mystical perception: This indicates a higher level of selfawareness, similar to but not equal to that of a toddler.

Rather than mystical identity or mental duality, thinking is based on the concept of polarity.

Symbols rather than mathematics, myth rather than hypothesis, emotion or intuition rather than abstraction are used to tell the story.

The legendary consciousness may have been mainly embodied by the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons.

It, like the other structures of consciousness, is still functional today and played a key role in the development of a vast array of spiritual traditions, including Yoga.

When we shut our eyes and immerse ourselves in mental images, or when we give lyrical expression to our deepest feelings, we engage mythological awareness.

Most traditional Yoga methods have a significant mythological component, and they may be effectively put together under the term of Mythic Yoga, as opposed to a more integrative approach, such as Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga.

"In, up, and out" is the verticalist slogan of Mythic Yoga.

All of this is covered in more depth in Wholeness or Transcendence?

4. Awareness of the mind:

This cognitive style, as its name implies, is the realm of the thinking, logical mind, and it operates on the concept of duality ("either/or").

Here, self-awareness is high, and the world is seen as divided into subject and object.

This cognitive approach has controlled our lives since the Renaissance in Europe, and it has even become a harmful force.

Today, the naturally balanced mental awareness has degenerated into what Gebser refers to as the rational mode.

When Patanjali authored his Yoga-Sutra and Vyasa penned his commentary on it, mental awareness was still at its peak.

Yoga does not rule out this specific cognitive approach, but all classic Yoga systems emphasize the transcendence of the mind, both in its lower and higher forms as manas and buddhi.

The truth is always thought to exist outside of the mind and senses.

The mind is often depicted as the arch adversary of the spiritual process in what I've termed Mythic Yoga.

This belief, on the other hand, is a restriction that does not exist in more integrated Yoga.

Although, in order to know the Self, the mind's mechanism must be transcended and liberated from its egoic anchoring, intellectual work is not always harmful to spiritual development.

Gebser claimed that now we are seeing the emergence of a fifth structure of consciousness, which he termed integral consciousness, in his excellent book The Ever-Present Origin and many other writings.

This is not the place to provide a comprehensive explanation of this new human mental mode.

I only want to point out that this new awareness, in Gebser's opinion, is an antidote to the one-sidedness of the excessive logical mentality, which is a degeneration of the original mental consciousness.

In Gebser's interpretation, logical awareness is overly egoic and at conflict with spiritual Reality.

In contrast, integral awareness is naturally ego-transcending and receptive to what Gebser referred to as the "Origin," or the Ground of Being.

There are clear similarities to Sri Aurobindo's philosophy here, and Gebser confessed to being in that great sage's spiritual gravity field.

The job before us, both personally and collectively, is to assist this developing integrated consciousness in ourselves and our human civilization as a whole to take effect.

Only in this manner can we expect to rebalance awareness' different structures, enabling each to express itself according to its inherent values.

I believe that the Yoga tradition, like other spiritual traditions, has many aspects that, when used wisely to our current circumstances, may significantly aid in this difficult process of integration.

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