librium of the mind. We must now explore the nature of consciousness
from the viewpoint of intelligence.
The Lens of ConsciousnessThe meaning of Hatha Yoga is Sun (Ha) and Moon (Tha), Yoga in
which Sun is the Soul and Moon is Consciousness. Consciousness can
be compared to a lens. Its inner surface faces the soul itself, and its
outer surface comes into contact with the world. Inevitably a degree of
grime attaches itself to that outer surface and obscures our vision. In
fact it prevents us from seeing clearly what is outside, and it equally
prevents the light of our soul from shining out. If our house is gloomy
because the windows are dirty, we don't say there is a problem with the
sun; we clean the windows. Therefore yoga cleans the lens of con
sciousness in order to admit the sun (soul). So purity is not an end in
itself. Similarly when a woman in India washes and says prayers before
preparing food, she is purifying herself, not for the sake of purity, but
to ensure that her intentions are clearly transmitted, not perverted or
obscured. The loving intention behind cooking is to sustain, nourish,
and uphold others. This intention can be transmitted best through a
pure or clean consciousness. Clean body, clean mind, clean hands, and
clean pots and pans equal a happy, healthy, loving family.
What mind is and does dies with us. But consciousness is that as
pect of mind, the envelope of continual awareness, which endures, even
as we believe from life to life, carrying the imprint of the past and the
potential, for good or ill, of the future. Memory for past-imagination
for future. Squashed between the two, we lose the ability to use direct
perception on what really is-i.e. now, the present.
This brings us to the need to examine the nature of consciousness
from a di fferent perspective, not that of the polluting interference of
the afflictions (klesa) that we will look at in the next chapter, hut from
that of five natural states or modifications of wnsciousness that Wl' all
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