Not Destruction but Transcendence

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

Not Destruction but Transcendence
Thus destruction upon the spiritual level ultimately comes to express itself as a positive
transcendence where a series of progressive constructions are undertaken, by a series of destruction
of each lower form so that it may give place to each succeeding form higher than itself. Thus, we see
that this process of transcending is a desideratum and not something to be shirked; for as long as we
are clinging to the lower, as long as we refuse to let the lower go, we will not be able to attain the
higher. It is the intervention of the divine power in this aspect of destroying lower that makes it
possible for the attainment of the higher. As today we are to specially consider this application of
Mother in Her aspect of Durga or the all-compassionate Kali to the specific process of Yoga and
Sadhana, we shall see how Mother is to manifest Herself in the individual personality of the seeker,
in what way is the Sadhaka to invoke and to make manifest the Divine Mother within himself if She
is to be a tangible and helpful force in the progress of his Yoga Sadhana. In trying to consider this,
we will do well to first of all get an idea of what this process of Yoga Sadhana actually implies.
Yoga Sadhana is as we all know a process of the human being transcending the
imperfections and limitations, defects, weaknesses and impurities of his limited, finite, human
nature and ascending upward into and partaking of the infinite, eternal, divine consciousness. In
setting about to do this through the path of Yoga and spiritual life, man is confronted with a peculiar
situation, a problem. It is not as though he has merely to take a single step from his human nature to
divine nature; because when he sets about this task, he finds that inherent in his human nature, there
is a whole range of qualities that are essentially subhuman. This is explained in a special manner
which is peculiar to the Hindu culture. The theory of reincarnation has laid down that the Jiva has
arrived at the stage of man after having gone through a long series of transmigrations, through
numerous lower births from the most elementary forms of the minerals and the plant and the
primary forms of life like the amoeba. During this process of passing through various lower stages
of life, his consciousness acquires the impression of the predominant traits of each one of these birth
phases. Therefore, when he arrives at the human stage, in addition to this quality of human 

intelligence, the power of thought and discrimination, he has also a whole host of
previously-acquired tendencies and characteristics which belong to the subhuman plane.
Therefore, we find in him such qualities which are usually attributed to particular types of
animal—the cunningness of the fox, the cruelty of the tiger, the venomousness of the scorpion and
the lethargy of the lower species of creatures, the gluttony of the pig, and all the evil qualities which
are not to be classed as human. These form part of the nature of man though he has risen above the
bestial kingdom. Man is thus a brute endowed with a higher capacity of discrimination, knowledge,
thinking, etc. Therefore, we find that the human being is a triune being. He is as it were midway
between the beast-world and the God-world. There is the brutal nature on the one side of him. There
is the divine nature upon the other side of him. In between he finds himself sometimes swayed by
the bestial instincts on him—as lethargy, passion, cruelty, anger; and sometimes raised up, at rare
moments, to sublime heights where he manifests divine qualities like compassion, justice, truth,
purity and so on.