Brunton - The hidden teaching beyond yoga: the path to self-realization and philosophic insight, vol. 1

The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga is more than another book of teachings designed to deepen or broaden spiritual pursuit: this book can fundamentally change ones orientation to life. Through a remarkable exploration of experience, The Hidden Teaching answers the question, What is the nature of reality and the relationship of mind, body, and world?

Paul Brunton (PB, as he referred to himself) begins this journey with a step-by-step analysis of ordinary perception. He deftly guides one down a path that demonstrates that an assumed dualismme and my worldis not what it seems. PB shows that one cannot go beyond or outside the ideas and images in awarenessthat these are all we ever know, not an outside world. This understanding of mind as the basis of experience is called mentalism by PB.

By mentalism we mean more precisely this: that all things in human experience without any exception are wholly and entirely mental things and are not merely mental copies of material things; that this entire panorama of universal existence is nothing but a mental experience and not merely a mental representation of a separate material existence; that we can arrive at such conclusions not only by a straight-line sequence of reasoned thinking but also by a reorientation of consciousness during advanced mystical meditation.

The Hidden Teaching is a guide to experiencing this truth for oneself. PBs masterful presentation delivers the realization of mentalism through expert analysis and examples of how perception happens. And he grounds these inquiries in the still-relevant twentieth-century science. Yet this is much more than an intellectual study; if pursued wholeheartedly, it is designed to awaken ones insight and to transform ones person into a mirror of reality.

If this truth is to become a living one, one needs to walk an independent path to question and discover for oneself the true nature of experience. PB is very familiar with the attitudes, mental disciplines, and character traits that are beneficial for success in this quest. The first part of The Hidden Teaching details the preparation needed for this inquiry. For without these disciplines and attitudes, one will likely stumble over oneself in the pursuit of truth.

Why does PB call this book The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga? Practicing to transcend our life situation in meditative trance is a mystical movement. Mysticism and many yoga practices work within the context of duality by controlling or refining that which are known as components of oneself, such as thoughts, the breath, and the body. This is only a stage along the way. To awaken to the fundamental nature of reality and to simultaneously know and live this truth in the world is something deeperphilosophy (as PB uses the term), which brings one insight into Mind as the final truth of self and world. While mysticism dives deep into ones own heart to relate to God therein, philosophy reaches beyond the personal into the collective heart of humanity and realizes the value in serving God in all.

PB holds a special place in the story of Eastern wisdom coming to the West. Before he traveled to Asia, PB was well equipped as both a mystic and an acute thinker. He was recognized by the teachers he met as someone with a destiny to re-create the timeless treasures of Eastern spirituality in a form suitable to the modern West. In his early writings (A Search in Secret India and A Search in Secret Egypt), he took the role of an inquiring skeptic so that Western readers unfamiliar with the mysteries of the East could sympathetically explore with him without having to leave the convenience of their armchairs. In his later works, PB takes off this guise and is the wise teacher who effectively guides students through the mystical and philosophic grades of spirituality.