[Review of:] Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, or Seven Books of Wisdom of the Great Path, according to the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English rendering. Arranged and Edited with Introductions and Annotations to serve as a Commentary by W. Y. Evans-Wentz. Oxford University Press.
In this Transition Age, we, who have the good fortune of being here to watch the new developments and to do our share in their unfoldment, are naturally interested in the progress of scientific discovery and the steady advance of the new science — a philosophic science — toward the Ancient Wisdom. But there is a still more important change taking place in the high intellectual regions of Western thought which likewise is directly traceable to the untiring work of the Theosophical Movement, outwardly started by H. P. Blavatsky in 1875, but originated and constantly energized by the Masters of Wisdom. This change is shown by the new attitude of Western scholarship to the philosophy and Yoga teachings of Tibet. Not many years ago the stories of mysteries and magic in Tibet were utterly ridiculed by serious scholars; it was not respectable to listen to them in academic good society, or perhaps anywhere. The deadly, stodgy opposition from which H. P. Blavatsky suffered so terribly, largely arose from the complete ignorance of such possibilities on the part of the Western cultivated classes, elated and enthusiastic over the triumphs of materialistic science. “There ain’t no sich animal,” as the farmer said, and when H. P. Blavatsky said there was and that she could prove it — well, the natural consequences followed.
When Col. Olcott, the then President of the Theosophical Society, interviewed the great Sanskrit authority, Max Müller, about fifty years ago, the latter pleaded with him to advise the scholars in the Theosophical Society to abandon their belief that there was anything more in the Hindu Scriptures than what appeared on the surface, or that there could be any basis for esoteric or occult interpretations of them, as claimed by the ‘superstitious’ Hindus.
Today, however, we find great Orientalists not only accepting as a matter of course the existence of yogis possessing some occult powers, but whole-heartedly speaking of esoteric interpretations of the Hindu Scriptures, and some, like Mme Alexandra David-Néel, even claiming personal, though limited, knowledge of the rationale of certain psycho-magical processes. Dr. Richard Wilhelm the great German Sinologist, Dr. Carl Jung the psychologist, Sir Wallis Budge, late Egyptologist to the British Museum, and others, have given open support to the fact of that Eastern occult knowledge which was regarded as the purest superstition before H. P. Blavatsky began “to break the molds of mind” in the West. Today we see an audience of eminent scientists in England seriously studying the ‘impossible’ Fire-Walk and finding it a fact, but also finding no physical explanation!
The latest revelation of Oriental psychology is Dr. Evans-Wentz’s Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines. 1 This is the third volume of a trilogy, the others being The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and Tibet’s Great Yogi, Milarepa, also published by the Oxford University Press. Thus, as Dr. Marett says in the Foreword, in regard to the collaboration between the author, or ‘editor’ as he modestly calls himself, and his Tibetan teacher, the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, the translator:
Its fruit is the trilogy of substantial works, based on translations from the Tibetan, and accompanied by an interpretation from within such as demands something even rarer with Western scholars than the ordinary scholarly equipment, namely, a sympathetic insight transcending the prejudices which render the average man antipathetic to any type of unfamiliar experience.
This is hardly surprising in view of the fact that Dr. Evans-Wentz has been closely associated for many years with the teachings of Theosophy and the International Headquarters at Point Loma, and that he has also spent much time in India in the intensive study of the Yoga philosophy at first hand.
Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines consists of seven treatises translated from the Tibetan and “representing a more or less comprehensive and unified expression of the most important tenets of Mahayanic Buddhism,” elucidated by a masterly Commentary and exhaustive explanatory footnotes by Dr. Evans-Wentz. The translation was made by the Lama Dawa-Samdup, assisted by the editor, and the difficulty of rendering subtil philosophical and technical Tibetan expressions into good English has been brilliantly overcome. The Lama was an initiate of the Kargyutpa School of Mahayana or Northern Buddhism and had profound practical knowledge of the Yoga philosophy and methods. He was, therefore, unusually qualified to help in the interpretation of Tibetan esoteric doctrines and secret lore hitherto hardly known, if at all, outside the precincts of Lamaism. They are not easy of comprehension by the Westerner, with the exception of a few students of Theosophy, or the like.
Dr. Evans-Wentz speaks very highly of his Tibetan guru’s learning and marvelous interpretive ability, and of his splendid spirit of helpfulness and desire to serve by bequeathing these translations of the abstruse doctrines of “the master minds,” so-called, of Tibetan Lamaism. Mme David-Néel was also associated with the Lama Dawa-Samdup, of whom she gives an account that shows he was a quaint and unique character. He ended his days as Professor of Tibetan at the University of Calcutta.
The Lama is a valuable witness in defense of H. P. Blavatsky against the absurd charges made in her lifetime that she invented the teachings of Theosophy. In his Tibetan Book of the Dead, Dr. Evans-Wentz says:
The late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup was of opinion that, despite the adverse criticisms directed against H. P. Blavatsky’s works, there is adequate internal evidence in them of their author’s intimate acquaintance with the higher lamaistic teachings into which she claimed to have been initiated.
We venture to suggest that, while the Lama was right so far as he goes, H. P. Blavatsky belonged to a far higher Order, and a far nobler, than the term ‘lamaistic’ suggests.
The seven treatises are arranged in a definite order, though each can be profitably studied by itself, but they are not all of similar origin. The first four are from the Kargyutpa School of the Mahayana or ‘Great Path,’ and are decidedly interesting to students of Theosophy. Dr. Evans-Wentz says that the entire Seven, however, “represent a more or less comprehensive and unified expression of the most important tenets of Mahayanic Buddhism, some of which in the form herein presented are as yet unknown to the Occident save for a few fragmentary extracts.”
Much, if not all, of the Kargyutpa Treatises are fairly in harmony with the Theosophical teachings on inner development, but parts of the others deal with extremely perilous psychological exercises which cannot be attempted safely, if at all, without an adept teacher and without the previous attainment, after almost incredible labor, of a power of self-control hardly conceivable in the West. These parts treat of occult forces, and of powers that are said, perhaps with truth, to arise as by-products of deep insight into occult laws or of spiritual development, but we are compelled to state that high spiritual Teachers would never give the real facts outside the privacy of the asrama. Most of the Treatises which touch on these matters are derived from the primitive unreformed Bonpa sources. The Bon religion, as H. P. Blavatsky mentions it, is:
itself a degenerated remnant of the Chaldean mysteries of old, now a religion entirely based upon necromancy, sorcery and soothsaying. The introduction of Buddha’s name into it means nothing. — The Complete Works of H. P. Blavatsky, III, 271
The Ritualistic Texts contain instructions for the development of occult knowledge little or not at all known in the West, such as immunity from fire, levitation, materializing of thought-forms, “transfer of consciousness,” and the Tummo, or the control of bodily temperature. In the last case the yogi keeps warm and comfortable while sitting on the snow in a furious blizzard with the temperature far below zero! Mme David-Neel describes her observations of this feat, and even mentions her own application of the Tummo to a limited degree when caught without fuel in a Tibetan wilderness!
The Fifth Treatise, which largely comes down from the pre-Buddhistic Bon faith, presents the Chod Rite of the ‘short path’ method, a desperate method of rapidly breaking the fetters of Maya and separateness by the mystical sacrifice of the body to the elementals, which sometimes brings insanity or death to the impatient venturer. Mme David-Neel gives a rather horrifying account of personal experiences in connexion with Chod in Magic and Mystery in Tibet. The ostensible aim of this grim Rite is to deliver the candidate from the necessity of rebirth, but it seems only too probable that it would be more often used to gain control of the elementals for personal power. Mme David-Neel frankly states that many so-called yogis enter the psychic training for selfish reasons such as revenge and vanity.
It is interesting, and should be of great significance to Western ill-informed and skeptical psychologists and other students for whom this work is written, to see in what a matter-of-fact way these occult and psychic matters are regarded by the yogi-authors of the Treatises. All such things are known to be strictly governed by natural laws, however obscure and ‘miraculous’ to the profane. Also, as we are told, they are treated by the most respected lamaistic teachers as being insignificant in comparison with the attainment of the Cosmic consciousness, the transcending of Maya, the Great Illusion in this and higher worlds.
It would be an error to condemn these Treatises as a whole, though some of the instructions, derived from Bonpa practices entirely at variance with the pure, impersonal, and beneficent Yoga of the Lord Buddha, are not at all consonant with the wholesome self-disciplinary methods advised by H. P. Blavatsky for her pupils. It seems a pity that the excellent precepts of the first Treatise on ‘The Supreme Path of Discipleship’ should have to be associated in the same series with certain phenomenalistic instructions, useless though the latter may be without the guiding and warning hand of a real teacher. Are not such texts, while perhaps informative for scholars as exhibiting the weaker side of lamaistic Buddhism, doubtfully suitable for wide publication to the Western world which is turning more and more toward the development of psychic powers for purely selfish purposes, or, at best, for the gratification of curiosity disguised under high-sounding names?
The Kargyutpa School, to which the Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup belonged, originated in a purifying reform under the famous Gurus Marpa and Milarepa in the 12th century when it separated from the Singmapa School, the “Red Caps” founded in 747 a.d. by the Hindu University Professor Padma Sambhava, who introduced the Tantrik element into Buddhism. The improvement brought about by the Kargyutpa reform was important, and its Tibetan Gurus followed Marpa (llth-12th cent.) in regular ‘apostolic succession,’ as Dr. Evans-Wentz mentions with approval. The word Kargyutpa means ‘Followers of the Apostolic Succession,’ and the line from which the Order was derived traditionally goes back for unknown centuries before the Christian Era. In this esoteric method each successor was obligated to hand on the teachings as received, and even Gautama-Buddha “is but One who handed on teachings which had existed since beginningless time.” The author praises the followers of the reforming Gurus, Marpa and Milarepa, for “their insistence upon the Bodhisattvic ideal of world-renunciation and selfless aeon-long labor looking to the ultimate enlightenment of every sentient being.”
Dr. Evans-Wentz states that Tsongkhapa, the greatest and wisest Reformer of Tibetan Buddhism, was “an eminent apostle” of the Kargyutpa School, but he refers to him only very briefly. Tsongkhapa did not, however, utilize that School as the nucleus of his sweeping reform in the fourteenth century, but associated himself with the Khadampas, “Those bound by the Ordinances.” This was the School which Atisha, another great Reformer, joined in the eleventh century. A good deal was written by H. P. Blavatsky about Tsongkhapa, but significantly she does not mention the names of the Kargyutpa Gurus. It was Tsongkhapa as Avatara of Buddha, she says, who established the Gelugpa, ‘Yellow Caps,’ the now Established Church, and also “the mystic Brotherhood connected with its chiefs.” Tsongkhapa must have had good reasons for choosing the Khadampas rather than the Kargyutpas as the foundation of his new and completely reformed institution. Is it not possible that there was too much old Bonpa sorcery, or at least phenomenalism, in the Kargyutpa Order?
“The Esoteric Philosophy is alone calculated to withstand, in this age of crass and illogical materialism, the repeated attacks on all and everything man holds most dear and sacred, in his inner spiritual life.” — H. P. Blavatsky (quoted in The Esoteric Tradition)
In resuming our consideration of Dr. W. Y. Evans-Wentz’s Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, a work which contains much information hitherto entirely unknown to Western scholars, we must draw special attention to the “general Introduction” to the subject of Mahayana or Northern Buddhism. Dr. Evans-Wentz gives a concise and sympathetic outline of the teaching, which is shown as the most systematic, philosophical and logical form. He points out that without the Mahayana the Southern or Pali canon would be very difficult to understand, as it contains so many obscure passages and doctrines. As outlined in his brief analysis, the Mahayana Buddhism is very closely akin to the philosophic and devotional teaching of Theosophy as presented by H. P. Blavatsky.
We regret that there is not room here to quote the first twenty-one pages of the “General Introduction,” which with very slight alteration would make an excellent introductory handbook to Theosophy. The supreme aim of Buddhism, according to our author, is the Deliverance of the Mind from ignorance, illusion, and thereby the attainment of Nirvana — or perhaps more properly, of the right to enter Nirvana — for the Lord Buddha taught, above all, the Great Renunciation — never finally to pass out of the Samsara or phenomenal world into the ineffable Bliss of Nirvana until the weary pilgrims in all the worlds have reached “the Other Shore.”
According to the deepest teaching given in the Seven Treatises translated from the Tibetan and contained in Dr Evans-Wentz’s scholarly work, the emancipated yogi reaches actual perception of the unity of the Universe, the consciousness that Samsara, the phenomenal, and Nirvana, the noumenal, are really One. Of this supreme attainment, the author writes with justified enthusiasm:
The Conqueror of Maya becomes a master of life and death, a Light in the Darkness, a Guide to the Bewildered, a Freer of the Enslaved. In the transcendent language of the Great Path, the Mahayana, no longer is there for Him any distinction between the Sangsara and Nirvana Like an unbridled lion roaming free among the mountain ranges, He roams at will through the Existences. [See page 12 of The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett ]
Samsara is the state of conditioned being, the realm of phenomena, of impermanence; while Nirvana is beyond lower “Nature,” beyond all “paradises” and “hells.” It is “the Other Shore.” As Shelley intuitively divined, we have to wake from “this dream of life.” The Tibetan-Yoga use of dreams is very different from that of the Freudians. By studying them and controlling their content it is seen that they are mere playthings of the mind, and from this a further step in yoga-training shows that the essential nature of “name and form” is equally unreal, and that the Reality must be looked for outside this or any other phenomenal world.
Many of the more profound and less familiar teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, to which in recent years Dr de Purucker has drawn attention, are referred to in these Treatises. One of these is the problem of Renunciation and the Pratyeka-Buddhas, about which there has been much confusion in some places. Dr. Evans-Wentz says:
Self-Enlightened (Skt. Pratyeka) Buddhas do not teach the Doctrine publicly, but merely do good to those who come into personal contact with Them, whereas Omniscient Buddhas, of Whom was the Buddha Gautama, preach the Doctrine widely, both to gods and to men . . .The Gurus of the Great Symbol School . . . .teach that Nirvana is not to be regarded as a final state, wherein its realizer selfishly abides in absolute bliss and rest. That is to say, Nirvana is not a state to be realized for one’s own good alone, but for the sake of the greater good which will accrue to every sentient thing merely in virtue of a realization of it. Thus it is that in Tibet all aspirants for the Divine Wisdom, for the Full Enlightenment known as Nirvana, take the vow to attain the state of the Bodhisattva, or Great Teacher. The vow implies that the Nirvanic State will not be finally entered, by the one taking the vow, until all beings, from the lowest in subhuman kingdoms on this and every other planet to the highest of unenlightened gods in many heaven-worlds, and the most fallen of dwellers in hell-worlds are safely led across the Ocean of the Sangsara to the Other Shore. Southern Buddhists are inclined to regard Nirvana, at least when attained by Pratyeka (or Non-teaching) Buddhas, as a state of finality. Mahayanists, however, say that Nirvana is a state of mind reached as a result of evolutionary spiritual unfoldment, and that It cannot, therefore, be regarded as a final state, inasmuch as evolution has no conceivable ending, being an eternal progression.
Students of Dr. de Purucker’s recent answers to questions, etc, on the paradoxical question of the Pratyeka-Buddhas and Nirvanic Bliss, will see the way to harmonize these conflicting opinions. The “Selfishness” of the Pratyeka-Buddha, spoken of in several places by H. P Blavatsky, is not the ordinary kind of selfishness but, as she says, a “Spiritual” kind. Efforts have been made by ill-advised editors to suppress H. P. Blavatsky’s remarks about Pratyeka-Buddhas by leaving them out of The Voice of the Silence in certain editions. They apparently forget that she gave half a page to the subject in her Theosophical Glossary! Her observations should be carefully studied, as they are very practical.
The first of the Seven Treatises is called “The Supreme Path of Discipleship: the Precepts of the Gurus” and it consists of 290 aphorisms for the use of those who enter the career of the yogi. Some are strictly practical, and some are not easily comprehended but are open to misconstruction unless explained by the guru, but the majority are clear. Among these are definite teachings in regard to the Nirmanakaya Path of the Great Renunciation, the highest spiritual ideal possible to man. Many of these texts closely resemble those translated by H. P. Blavatsky for The Voice of the Silence, though, as presented, they lack the exquisitely poetical rhythm and loftiness of diction that distinguishes that immortal textbook for aspirants. Here are a few, selected from the more ethical part:
Unless the mind be trained to selflessness and infinite compassion, one is apt to fall into the error of seeking liberation for self alone.
For a religious devotee to try to reform others instead of reforming himself is a grievous mistake.
The smallest amount of merit dedicated to the good of others is more precious than any amount of merit devoted to one’s own good.
If only the good of others be sought in all that one doeth, no need is there to seek benefit for oneself.
For him who hath attained the Sublime Wisdom, it is the same whether he be able to exercise miraculous powers or not.
The fact that there are Those who have attained Bodhic Enlightenment and are able to return to the world as Divine Incarnations and work for the deliverance of mankind and of all living things till the dissolution of the physical universe showeth the virtue of the Holy Dharma.
Having acquired practical knowledge of spiritual things and made the Great Renunciation, permit not the body, speech, or mind to become unruly, but observe the three vows, of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
One text is decidedly “practical” and worth the attention of some would-be ascetics:
One who professeth religion and is unable to live in solitude in his own company and yet knoweth not how to make himself agreeable in the company of others showeth weakness.
A sense of humor is not absent in Tibet:
To preach religion and not practise it is to be like a parrot saying a prayer; and this is a grievous failure.
Dr. Evans-Wentz prefaces these “Precepts of the Gurus” by a page from H. P. Blavatsky’s Voice of the Silence, though he does not mention her name. While the subject-matter of the aphorisms in both is closely alike in parts, the impression produced by the Kargyutpa precepts is not so inspiring; the latter do not radiate the magnificent Buddhic compassion for all that breathes with the fervor that inspires the noble teaching given in The Voice of the Silence.
Much of great interest in this remarkable book cannot even be mentioned here, especially the exceedingly useful notes which explain the original text. Very many of the most difficult teachings of Theosophy are shown to be stated in the Treatises, or in the oral explanations of obscure passages given by the Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup. It is not surprising that he immediately recognised that H. P. Blavatsky’s books contained proof that she was acquainted with the deeper teachings. To the Western scholar the book will be a revelation of something new — the fact that the Orient has made overwhelming discoveries in human psychology beside which much Western psychology is almost infantile. The author quotes the following from the eminent English philosopher Dr. C. D. Broad:
[Progress] depends upon our getting an adequate knowledge and control of life and mind before the combination of ignorance on these subjects with knowledge of physics and chemistry wrecks the whole social system. Which of the runners in this very interesting race will win, it is impossible to foretell. But physics and death have a long start over psychology and life.
And, as Dr. Evan-Wentz adds:
Is Occidental man for much longer to be content with the study of the external universe, and not know himself?
In place of psychoanalysing dreams, trying crude experiments with hypnotism, studying the reactions of mentally sick patients, and so forth, the Oriental psychologist boldly plunges within himself and tries to find something greater than his surface-personality, namely, a Universal Self. In this process he discovers unthought-of “magical” powers, but as already mentioned they fade into nothingness when the greater goal is glimpsed. In fact, in many cases they are hindrances.
In this process the Oriental has found that true psychology is not a cold, intellectual study, such as can be learned in classrooms, but that it deals with the highest and most spiritual parts of man — begins there, in fact. Without self-sacrificing devotion to the interests of others, the sense of universal brotherhood and the burning desire to lift the heavy burdens of the world, all intellectual knowledge, all development of personal psychic powers, turns to dust and ashes. Dr. Evans-Wentz never loses sight of the spiritual basis of Mahayana Buddhism and Tibetan Yoga, and he would be the last to advocate yoga as a means to attain personal occult powers, to satisfy cold intellectual curiosity, or for other selfish ends; but here and there in the Treatises passages occur which might be construed or misconstrued as leading that way. One of these occurs on page 326, as the author himself points out.
This book should do much to awaken Western scholars and anthropologists from their ignorance of man’s nature, and to arouse a proper respect for Oriental science, but it is difficult to appraise its value to the Theosophist who already has his glorious yoga-teachings in H. P. Blavatsky’s Voice of the Silence, and elsewhere. These are the principles and practices that the world needs for its salvation, and the work of the Theosophical disciple is well marked out therein. As H. P. Blavatsky says, “Occultism is the Science of Life, the Art of Living.” And, “It is altruism, not ego-ism even in its most legal and noble conception, that can lead the unit to merge its little Self in the Universal Selves.” It may be, and probably is, an excellent provision of Nature that scientific Tibetan Yoga, even on a lower level than the highest Atma-Vidya of the Masters of the Great Lodge, and more or less entangled with inferior practices, should be kept alive by a small section of that remarkable, isolated race; but, except as an intellectual study for Western scholars, useful in breaking up the false view of Oriental “superstition” so-called, it does not seem that its introduction in any widespread form in the West would be advantageous. In this hotbed of personal ambitions, personal desires, unrest and emotionalism, the results would be dangerous in the extreme. Already the craze for so-called “occultism” has done much harm in the West. At best, under present conditions here, the Tibetan semi-esoteric yoga would produce Pratyeka-occultists, while the probability of making proficients in Black Magic is almost infinitely great. The wise words of W. Q. Judge express what is the real need of the West:
What then is the panacea finally, the royal talisman? It is DUTY, Selflessness. Duty persistently followed is the highest yoga. . . . If you can do no more than duty it will bring you to the goal. . . . It is that boundless charity of love that led Buddha to say: “Let the sins of this dark age fall on me that the world may be saved,” and not a desire to escape or for knowledge. It is expressed in the words: THE FIRST STEP IN TRUE MAGIC IS DEVOTION TO THE INTERESTS OF OTHERS.