David Frawley - Soma in Yoga and Ayurveda: The Power of Rejuvenation and Immortality

Table of Contents

Soma in Yoga and Ayurveda

The Power of Rejuvenation and Immortality

By David Frawley

(Pandit Vamadeva Shastri)

P.O. Box 325

Twin Lakes, WI 53181 USA

Disclaimer

This book is not intended to treat, diagnose or prescribe. The information contained herein is in no way to be considered as a substitute for a consultation with a duly licensed health care professional.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Author: David FrawleyCopyright copyright 2012 by David FrawleyAll Sanskrit translations cited in the book by the author unless otherwise indicated.Illustrations by courtesy of Hinduism Today, including cover.www.vedanet.compvshastri@aol.comFirst Edition 2012

Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-0-9406-7621-3 Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2012932154

Published by: Lotus Press, P.O. Box 325, Twin Lakes, WI53181 USA web:www.lotuspress.com Email:lotuspress@lotuspress.com 800.824.6396

Foreword

By this praise unto thee, O Soma, May we enter the secret caves of intuitive wisdoms; Do reveal unto us the luminosities that are thine, The earthly ones and the heavenly ones. By this power and sacrament thine, Oh Soma, May we wander freely in the secret contemplative revelations; Do kindle unto us the fires that are thine, The earthly ones and the heavenly ones.

Soma is one of the key words in the ancient traditions of India. It stands for all that is gentle, beautiful, delicate, and sweet of temperament. It is also a synonym for the Moon. A person is complimented by calling him/her saumya , moon-like. A saumya face, saumya mien is what one looks for in choosing a friend. When one looks at a saumya person, it generates the kind delight, the feeling of soft light that looking at the moon generates. This is a common idiom in all the languages of India.

Soma is part of the eternal pair of Agni-Soma . Agni is the fire element; Soma is the water element, moonlike. This pair is the Vedic equivalent of the Taoist yin-yang principle, balancing of the female and the male, energizer (female) and the energized (male). We read in Rigveda that this fire wears the ocean as a robe:

Agnim samudra-vsasam...Rigveda VIII.102.6

In the daily fire sacrament of the Vedic-Hindu tradition, one of the offerings is made to this biune principle. The mantra for that offering is simple:

Agn -ombhym svh; Idam Agn-ombhym, idam na mama

Unto Agni and Soma, this sincere, truthful, beautiful offering.

This is unto Agni and Soma; [I seek] nothing [in] this as mine.

The purpose of this offering is to balance and unite within oneself what appear to be opposites but are in truth complementary principles. This balancing and uniting reaches a point where Soma is itself called Agni ; moon that is water is called immortal fire in the mantra:

Abhi vahnir amartya... Rigveda IX.9.6

This very gentle feminine power is identified with the mind as:

Candram manaso jta

[Universal] mind is born from the moon... Rigveda X.90.13

This moon is the same that is in the waters:

Candram apsv antar ...Rigveda I.105.1

This mind of the waters and the moon blows towards us eternal peace:

Na pavasva am Rigveda IX.11.3

In the mystic poetry of all spiritual traditions we hear about a state of divine inebriation. This wine is drunk not from the mouth but in the heart .

This is not the inebriation that renders a mind crazy, but the bliss that makes us masters of the mind, the nectar that grants us spiritual immortality. This Soma finds the world, knows the world; it is the lord of the mind.

It is no longer an enslaved mind, for Soma has rendered it free. Thus this Soma is the one that moves with the subtlest intuitive wisdom, sends forth inspired speech, guards the Perennial Poem and with the same Perennial Contemplation, races in diverse ways to the luminous heaven.

It is not intended here to summarize all the 114 paeans to Soma sung in the ninth book of Rigveda , and many more elsewhere. The above references are just to give a glimpse of how deep spiritual realizations are sung of in the Vedic lore.

Shri Vamadeva Shastri (Dr. David Frawley) has brought out the core knowledge of Soma in the present volume. With his Dh (intuitive wisdom and insight) and manman (contemplation), he has revealed the manifold connections of Soma with centers of consciousness and vitality, secrets of immortality, diet and herbs, Ayurvedic theory, Yoga practices and meditation, with Vedic astrology, Vastu and many other profound regions of the deeper knowledge not easily accessible today.

The Vedic lore teaches us to see connections everywhere in the expanse from the subtlest to the grossest, from the most minute to the most all-pervasive. Just to look at the books Contents page awakens in us an awareness of the vast scale of connections from the earth of our physical identities to the highest heavens of our inner lights that Soma encompasses with beauty and grace. Dr. Frawley shows us in this wonderful book his ability to see such wide and varied connections with Soma and also provide us with the practical tools for working with them to transform our lives.

With these myriad insights presented by him, may we seek to enjoy an unending friendship and companionship with this immortal nectar of the Moon-Soma:

Indo sakhitvam umasi...Rigveda IX.66.14

Swami Veda Bharati

Mahamandaleshwar Swami Veda Bharati

Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama, Rishikesh, India

Authors Preface

Today as most of us are living longer, we must be concerned about the quality of our lives. Longevity is not a simple matter of having more chronological years, but should include physical, mental and spiritual well-being. It is not merely the quantity of our lifespan that matters but the joy, freedom, love and awareness that we can experience along the way.

Curiously, in spite of a greater physical longevity overall today, we seem to be suffering from more psychological malaise, depression, unhappiness, and sorrow. Greater longevity is certainly possible but to really benefit us, it must be linked with life of greater meaning, creativity and consciousness. This requires an ability to connect with the immortal essence of our being.

The pursuit of longevity should be part of an inner quest for eternal truth and bliss. Seeking to live longer physically should be connected with an endeavor to grow and evolve in intelligence and awareness. Our lives must become a spiritual search, not simply a running after sensory enjoyments and worldly possessions that change from moment to moment. Certainly the spiritual life particularly the yogic life of meditation can improve our health and longevity as well as our emotional state. Yet it can offer us something far more, an inner immortality, taking our awareness beyond the limitations of time and circumstances. In fact, if we discover this inner immortality, how long we may actually live physically may lose its importance. We will be able to drop the body at any moment without a sense of loss to embrace a greater existence in consciousness itself.

The following book, Soma in Yoga and Ayurveda , weaves together the outer and inner search for immortality and transcendence of death and sorrow. It shows that an immortality in consciousness is our very nature and that it is possible to prolong our outer lives by aligning ourselves to it. The orientation of the book is practical, presenting comprehensive knowledge and special methods to heal and rejuvenate body and mind and to resurrect the immortal spirit within us. Yet the book does require that we look at ourselves, examining our nature not simply as human beings, but as immortal souls. The book rests upon a yogic view of who we are, what our greater existence is, the nature of mind and consciousness, and the place of our physical life within the context of many lives and incarnations.