Primary Yoga is direct Self-realization of absolute Being through Self-awakening, which is breaking through into transcendental Awareness-of-Being beyond causal ego of consciousness, beyond reactive emotional or dreaming mind and personality, and beyond the restless and uncomfortable physical body with its pleasures and pains.  Secondary Yoga is any process used to suspend, at least for awhile, the ordinary and debilitating activities of consciousness, mind or body.  Understanding these issues of direct and indirect Yoga, of Vedanta and Rajayoga, of Zen and T’ien T’ai, of Mahamudra and the Six Yogas of Naropa, of the Path of Immediate Liberation and the Path of Gradual Means, is of extreme spiritual importance for aspiring human beings on our planet here, both now and in the future.  To increase this understanding, I offer an illustrative story from my own early life and realization.

At the age of seven, I had a childhood all-night Kevalasamadhi of Divine cosmic oneness with Brahman as the Deity-of-the-Galaxy.  After that, I would re-enter that realization often at night, particularly in the early morning hours before dawn.  Though my body was then only that of a child, this immense thing was somehow going on anyway.

Now, one afternoon at the age of eight, my mother left myself and my little brother in the car in the parking lot of a supermarket while she went in to do some shopping for groceries.  My brother was quietly playing around with something in the front seat while I was sitting quietly in the backseat.  There was nothing much to do but quietly wait.  So, as I was quietly waiting, I found myself spontaneously rising in Spirit beyond body, mind and consciousness, into ecstatic, all-pervading awareness of divine and cosmic being.  At the same time, there was an inclusion of bodily wakefulness.  I found this inclusively natural or Sahaj Samadhi quite wonderful – a new development of my secret divine life of childhood!  But just when it was becoming more intense and wonderful, here came mother and started driving on the streets to our house.  As we drove along, I was still in Sahaj Samadhi, but I began to be concerned upon arrival at the house that all the usual activities of childhood play and running about would take me down out of my on-going cosmic ecstasy.  So I hit upon an idea:  I told my brother that I would like to play with him in the sandy soil of the flower bed next to the side of the house.  So we got our sand-shovels and I started digging a hole deep enough for my body to sit in up to the neck.  Then I sat in it and asked my little brother to help bury my body up to the neck, “just for fun”.  This he did.  Then I told him to leave and just let me have the fun of “seeing what it is like to sit there buried for awhile”.  So, he left, and the whole thing was working perfectly.  I was able to maintain my Samadhi for about two or three hours.  Of course, ultimately, I had to come out and the Samadhi slowly drained off. 

That bodily self-burial was a Secondary Yoga in support of Primary Yoga.  Later on in life, of course, I have sometimes sat in Samadhi for hours in a hot-tub much as I sat in that bed of sand as a child.

The purpose of Secondary Yoga is to make the body and mind comfortable and without the usual activities, tensions and anxieties.  It is not about locking the knees to the point of pain while sitting rigidly on an official meditation pad in an official “Lotus Posture” or the like.  But even when standing, or walking about or even laying in bed in-and-out of sleep, one can realize oneself in Primary Yoga of Awareness of Being through searching within the thought/mantra of “I Am”.

In Cosmic Language of Space, AUI, the sound meaning of “I” (as in the word “eye”) is Light.  The sound of “A” in “am” means: One.  The M means Quality, Characteristic.  Thus “Am” in Cosmic Language of Space means Oneness.  And “I Am” means Light of Oneness.  If you therefore breathe in all of existence as “I” and breathe out yourself as oneness with all existence as “Am”, you are inducing Kevala Samadhi, Absolute-suspension-of-consciousness-for-total-nondual-Awarness-of-Being, into yourself as Primary Yoga.

If you can sometimes do this in a hot tub or spabath, it can be a very useful supplemental deepening.  Some seekers have utilized deprivation tanks with a similar rationale.  But a lot depends on whether one is in Primary Yoga or not.  Some occult seekers do Secondary Yoga for merely getting into their subtle or dreaming body to unfold such experiences and develop subtle personal powers so they can be famous “healers” or Carlos Castaneda type people.   They want to expand their occult social self-importance, which is a psychological illness.  Such spiritually sick and immature people need to awaken their higher intellect in the causal body of consciousness and search for greater truth of what human evolution is about.  But, unfortunately, the vast majority of these “clairvoyants”, “healers” and “counselors” remain vaingloriously inert and stupid from being unconscious on the causal level plus unaware of real being on the Divine level.

Sometimes the Primary Yoga does result in a rather prolonged Secondary Yoga of an ascetic and unbalanced kind without sufficient physical exercise for basic health.  Ramana Maharshi got into Primary Yoga at age 17 in South India.  To maintain his Samadhi, he took refuge in the basement of a temple near Mount Arunachala, maintaining silent sitting for years.  Devotees fed his body and took care of it.  The body was moved to Arunachala itself.  Later he agreed to move to a new ashram elsewhere on the mountain.  Though willing to speak and teach, he continued to neglect physical exercise.  He could have lived longer to help and teach, but he didn’t want to exert any personal effort of Secondary Yoga of an active kind or Kriya Yoga.  But he did give a splendid example of extreme Secondary Yoga in support of Primary Yoga.

If the Primary yoga is weak, the more extreme and elaborate the Secondary Yoga may have to be to maintain it or to regain it when it has subsided from over-involvement in outer life.  This is something that requires Supreme Guidance for the Primary Yogi from the Supreme Self, the Guru Paramatman.

We must ever keep in mind that this is never an issue of Primary Yoga versus Secondary Yoga such as the arguments that developed in Ancient China between the “Sudden School” and the “Gradual School”.  The only conflict possible is where there is no Primary Yoga at all and the Secondary Yogis are pursuing Secondary Yogas for Secondary Aims such as to gain siddhis and attract adoring followers and women for personal vainglory and indulgence of desires.  This can lead to false claims of Primary Yoga Self-realization as with false and dishonest Gurus like Muktananda and Swami Shyam who try to cover-up the obvious fact of their sexual intercourse with lady-disciples.  A realized Self can have sexual intercourse with lady disciples, but in such a case there would be no guilt, shame or attempts to hide the activity.  In the case of Muktananda, for instance, he had publicized claims of having gone beyond sex as a transcendental siddha or superman.  Later it is discovered that he had a secret tunnel to the women’s dorm at his ashram where he could give “special blessings of Shaktipat” through sex.  All these kinds of cases are examples of Secondary Yoga of Secondary Motives in neglect of Primary Yoga along with false claims of Primary Realization.  Carlos Castaneda, who died wretchedly watching old war movies in his cult headquarters in Los Angeles, never came to Primary Yoga, but he got some personal powers from the Mexican Naguals which enabled him to attract members for gain of wealth and enjoyment of sex with chosen female disciples.  There are similar stories about famous Secondary Yogis like Chögyam Trungpa and Osho Rajneesh.

I am not against wealth or sex as such.  What is important in all this is to be honest with oneself and others while realizing Primary Yoga without getting trapped in Secondary Yoga, which should support Primary Yoga and not run off with itself as a glorious distraction.  The world is a dangerous place for anyone who neglects or ignores Primary Yoga, no matter how advanced they are or how helpful their intermediate or secondary teachings are.

The Great Yogi, Lahiri Mahasay of Benares, India, in the Nineteenth Century, would himself bury himself in sand as a child to maintain his Samadhi.  In fact, I actually got the idea from him in Divine Oneness!  That Great Soul (Mahasay) would not let his disciples advertise, promote or publish his teachings until fifty years after his Final Samadhi or passing away from the body.  He did not want his real teaching work disrupted by huge crowds of shallow miracle-mongers.  He did not want the problems or downfall of the vainglorious Secondary Yogis.  Another Secondary Yoga strategy I adopted as a child of eight in addition to burial in sand was to simply put up the garage door in the car garage, then climb up on the door inside of the garage, which would make a nice private and quiet little cavelike place where I could sit in Divine Oneness.  I would find myself in communion there with Divinely awake Selves in India and the Middle East, some of whom were advanced Sufis.  I would enter into the situations of such wonderful beings and “taste” their circumstances.  It was only much later that my physical brain got external information of those foreign situations so close to my heart.  But I am digressing.  The point is that when we have strong spiritual initiative about our inner life, we can and must be resourceful. 

Even on other planets in the Universe the evolving beings have issues about Primary Yoga and Secondary Yoga.  These issues will be there even when men and women from the Earth travel to other starsystems and interact with races of extraterrestrial people.  If there are bodies there, there is always a need for Self-awakening and Self-realization.  Spiritual evolution is not just a local Earthbound challenge faced by Westerners and Easterners, by Christians, Jews and Technological Atheists; by Buddhists and Hindus; by Muslims; by Tribal Shamans or Medicine Men; or by Mexican Naguals, modern occultists or New Agers.  All the Earthbound local cultures and regions, along with their mutual sense of superiority, are just a grain of sand on the beach of the Universe.  For every level of body, mind, consciousness, nondual Awareness and Beyond; there are infinite beings, infinite individuals.  There are infinite spiritual teachings, methods or Yogas.  No conscious intellect anywhere in existence can possibly contain the real cosmic complexity of spiritual transmission.

©2006 Kevalin Absoluto