Mystical Hypnotism

[An Excerpt from a discussion between

Çréla Bhakti Rakñak Çrédhar Dev-Goswämé Mahäräj
and a group of University students and Professors]

Reality is subjective. It is based on consciousness. Color is perceived

through the eye. It is not that the color is there and the eye can catch it. But
the seer sees through the eye and perceives color. So color is a perception.
Its posi- tion as actual substance should be traced to the subtle plane of
existence. This is the nature of reality: the gross is coming from the subtle.
According to Säìkhya philosophy, there are three branches of worldly reality:
the sensation, the sensory instruments, and the sense objects. Sound is
created by the ear, color is produced by the eye, and so on.
So the gross world is coming from the subtle through the channel of
consciousness. The feeler, the instrument of perception, is creating the
object of his perception. You are being taught that you and other souls of
your type are the subjects, the center of the universe, and everything, all
else, is an object meant only for your exploitation. You are being taught that
we are exploiters and that the entire environ- ment is for our exploitation.
That is the foundation upon which the present system of education is based.
Dr. Singh: Objective evolution is what modern science calls Darwinian
evolution, but how does subjective evolution unfold in Krishna conscious
science?
Çréla Çrédhar Mahäräj: You have to take the example of hypnotism.
The subject is the soul, and its object is all these worlds of experience. And
the supersubject is the venerable area which is superior to the subject, the
soul – that is the supersubjective area.
If, like a hypnotist, the higher subject wants to make the lower subject
see something, he cannot but see that thing. We are all in the subjective,
imaginary world, but above imagination is the supersubjective plane of
reality.
The standard to measure truth or untruth mustn't come from a
vitiated, vulnerable plane, but from a real plane. And to realize that is not an
ordinary class of knowledge, which as a subject we can make our object; it is
supersubjective. We may be the subjects in this mundane world, but we will
have to become objects to be handled by the superknowledge of that plane.
Through a form of mystic “hypnotism,’’ the supersubject controls the
subject to see a particular thing, and he is bound to see that. One may think
that as we see a stone, the stone compels us to see it as stone, but it is just
the opposite: we are compelled to see it as stone being under the influence
of the supersubject who displays everything as He likes. When He
commands, “See stone,” then we shall see stone. Full control over whatever
we see rests in His hands. No power to control what we see rests in the
objective world. The objective world is fully controlled by the subjective. This
is confirmed in Bhagavad-gétä, where Krishna says paçya me yogam
aiçvaryam: “If I say, ‘Behold my mystic power,’ you are bound to see it. You
have no other choice.” Just as if He were a magician, the Supersubject can
show one thing to you and something entirely different to me. The
Supersubject, the universal subject, has such power.
Try to understand this principle of hypnotism. The whole thing is
hypnotism – this whole creation – and it is completely in the hand of the
Supreme Subject. All mate- rial laws have no meaning; the laws and the
sublaws are all pertaining to the subjective world.
Dr. Murphey: But how can one perceive this sort of hypnotism?
Çréla Çrédhara Mahäräja: How can we know beforehand that in a
laboratory, combining hydrogen and oxygen – two gases – will produce
water? Only when one comes to a particular stage of scientific knowledge
can he know that a more subtle thing like gas can produce a tangible
material thing like water. In that way, when you have an idea of the higher
substance, then you can understand how from the subtle, the gross has
originated.
The relative world is a perverted reflection of the absolute reality. It is
not that a lower thing can produce a higher thing, but it is easy for a higher
thing to produce something lower. This is not difficult to understand. The
modern scientific position is saying basically that stone can produce soul; but
why not consider that soul can produce stone? We have to inquire about that
process – how the soul can produce stone. But we have done away with that
and instead we say that stone is gradually producing soul – we are very fond
of investigating in that line. Why?
The subtle should be given more importance than the gross. In reality,
we are not the subject, the center of the universe. The cause is in the higher
world. To know this is real education – subjective learning.