In the early texts of the Hebrew Bible, we read, for example, that Abraham had once shared a meal with his God, who had appeared in his encampment as an ordinary traveler.But for the Axial Age prophets, God was often experienced as a devastating shock. Isaiah was filled with mortal terror when he had a vision of God in the Temple; Jeremiah knew the divine as a pain that convulsed his limbs, broke his heart and made him stagger around like a drunk. The whole career of Ezekiel, who may have been a contemporary of Gotama, illustrates the radical discontinuity that now existed between the Sacred on the one hand, and the conscious, self-protecting self, on the other: God afflicted the prophet with such anxiety that he could not stop trembling; when his wife died, God forbade him to mourn; God forced him to eat excrement and to walk around town with packed bags like a refugee. Sometimes, in order to enter the divine presence, it seemed necessary to deny the normal responses of a civilized individual and to do violence to the mundane self. The early yogins were attempting the same kind of assault upon their ordinary consciousness in order to propel themselves into an apprehension of the Unconditioned and Absolute Self, which they believed to be within.
Yogins believed that the Self could only be liberated if they destroyed their normal thought processes, extinguished their thoughts and feelings, and wiped out the unconscious vasanas that fought against enlightenment. They were engaged in a war against their conventional mental habits. At each point of his interior journey, the yogin did the opposite of what came naturally; each yogic discipline was crafted to undermine ordinary responses. Like any ascetic, the yogin began his spiritual life by “Going Forth” from society, but he then went one step further. He would not even share the same psyche as a householder; he was “Going Forth” from humanity itself. Instead of seeking fulfilment in the profane world, the yogins of India determined, at each step of their journey that they would refuse to live in it.
Alara Kalama would probably have initiated Gotama into these yogic exercises, one by one. But first, before Gotama could even begin to meditate, he had to lay a sound foundation of morality. Ethical disciplines would curb his egotism and purify his life, by paring it down to essentials. Yoga gives the practitioner a concentration and self-discipline so powerful that it could become demonic if used for selfish ends. Accordingly, the aspirant had to observe five “prohibitions” (yama) to make sure that he had his recalcitrant (lower-case) self firmly under control. The yama forbade the aspirant to steal, lie, take intoxicants, kill or harm another creature, or to engage in sexual intercourse. These rules were similar to those prescribed for the lay disciples of the Jains, and reflect the ethic of ahimsa (harmlessness), and the determination to resist desire and to achieve absolute mental and physical clarity, which most of the Ganges ascetics had in common. Gotama would not have been permitted to proceed to the more advanced yogic disciplines until these yama had become second nature. He also had to practice certain niyamas (bodily and psychic exercises), which included scrupulous cleanliness, the study of the dhamma, and the cultivation of an habitual serenity. In addition, there were ascetic practices (tapas): the aspirant had to put up with the extremes of heat and cold, hunger and thirst without complaint, and to control his words and gestures, which must never betray his inner thoughts. It was not an easy process, but once Gotama had mastered the yama and niyamas, he probably began to experience the “indescribable happiness” that, the yogic classics tell us, is the result of this self-control, sobriety and ahimsa.
Gotama was then ready for the first of the truly yogic disciplines: asana, the physical posture that is characteristic of yoga. Each one of these methods entailed a denial of a natural human tendency and demonstrated the yogin’s principled refusal of the world. In asana, he learned to cut the link between his mind and his senses by refusing to move. He had to sit with crossed legs and straight back in a completely motionless position. It would have made him realize that, left to themselves, our bodies are in constant motion: we blink, scratch, stretch, shift from one buttock to another, and turn our heads in response to stimulus. Even in sleep we are not really still. But in asana, the yogin is so motionless that he seems more like a statue or a plant than a human being. Once mastered, however, the unnatural stillness mirrors the interior tranquility that he is trying to achieve.
Next, the yogin refuses to breathe. Respiration is probably the most fundamental, automatic and instinctive of our bodily functions and absolutely essential to life. We do not usually think about our breathing, but now Gotama would have had to master the art of pranayama, breathing progressively more and more slowly. The ultimate goal was to pause for as long as possible between a gradual exhalation and inhalation, so that it seemed as though respiration had entirely ceased. Pranayama is very different from the arrhythmic breathing of ordinary life and more similar to the way we breathe during sleep, when the unconscious becomes more accessible to us in dreams and hypnogogic imagery. Not only did the refusal to breathe show the yogin’s radical denial of the world; from the start, pranayama was found to have a profound effect on his mental state. In the early stages, aspirants still find that it brings on a sensation comparable to the effect of music, especially when played by oneself: there is a feeling of grandeur, expansiveness and calm nobility. It seems as though one is taking possession of one’s own body.
Once Gotama had mastered these physical disciplines, he was ready for the mental exercise of ekagrata: concentration “on a single point.” In this, the yogin refused to think. Aspirants learned to focus on an object or an idea, to exclude any other emotion or association, and refused to entertain a single one of the distractions that rushed into their minds.
Gotama was gradually separating himself from normality and trying to approximate the autonomy of the eternal Self. He learned pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), the ability to contemplate an object with the intellect alone, while his senses remained quiescent. In dharana (concentration) he was taught to visualize the Self in the ground of his being, like a lotus rising from the pond or an inner light. During his meditation, by suspending his breathing, the aspirant hoped that he would become conscious of his own consciousness and penetrate to the heart of his intellect, where, it was thought, he would be able to see a reflection of the eternal Spirit (purusa). Each dharana was supposed to last for twelve pranayamas; and after twelve dharanas the yogin had sunk so deeply into himself that he spontaneously attained a state of “trance” (dhyana; in Pali, jhana).