Moses Yoga

"The knowledge of the Vedas is found in the scripture of every religion, in the do's and don'ts." ~Maharshi Mahesh Yogi

Many view the Ten Commandments as dusty moralistic platitudes. But the commandments are dynamic practices for connecting divine consciousness to the body. Closely related to the Yamas ("restraints") of Astanga Yoga, the Hebrew commandments are practiced in a holistic program that integrates social action, focussed breathing, and meditation.

The stops in a pipe organ govern the flow of air to make different tones. Likewise, the commandments direct the flow of consciousness through the body's chakras. These chakras are psycho-physical stops that transform the quality and tone of our awareness. The major chakras lie along the spinal path: in the base of the spine, genitals, solar plexus, heart, throat, forehead, and crown. At each chakra, the flow of energy in our body may be blocked or deflected as it rises. When this occurs, the positive emotional quality of that particular chakra expresses its opposite quality. That is why, for example, love quickly becomes angry, generosity is the mirror of greed, and sorrow is the shadow of joy.

1. "Thou shalt not murder" governs the muladhara chakra at the base of the spine, allowing energy to rise upward as heath-giving vitality. But when we entertain hateful thoughts without restraint, we fall into rage and aggression, and these bring sickness.

2. "Thou shalt not commit adultery" governs the svadisthana chakra behind the sexual organs, allowing consciousness to express creativity and communion, rather than lust and genital obsession.

3. "Thou shalt not steal" governs the manipura chakra at the solar plexus, preventing greed. The organ-stop of this commandment allows our consciousness to rise from a sense of lack and possessiveness to an experience of abundance and generosity.

4. "Thou shalt not covet" is the organ-stop for the heart chakra, anahata. It stops the expression of envy, transforming jealously into selfless love.

5. "Thou shalt have no other god but Me" governs the throat chakra, vishudha. When we proclaim our own achievement, we express arrogance. This commandment puts an organ-stop on our egotism, the little individual "me." It allows the energy bound up in self-worship to rise and expand as pure ego-less joy. We can feel true joy in the success of others. In real joy, God is the only Me. Our little "I" dissolves into God's "Am."

6. "Thou shalt make no graven image" governs the ajna chakra in the brow. This does not refer to religious idols so much as the idols of thought. We worship images of thought, graven in our minds, when we cling to memories of the past and fears about the future. The past and future are not real: they are graven images in the mind. They are only made of thought, though they glitter like silver and gold.

Graven images of thought are much more seductive than idols on an alter. This commandment puts an organ-stop on the mind's restlessness. It prevents us from giving ultimate importance to ghosts and illusions: our regrets about the past and our plans for the future. This commandment allows us to focus on the task of the present moment, where true success begins.

7. "Keep the Sabbath" governs the crown chakra, the sahashrara. Sabbath does not mean a day of the week. The Hebrew word literally means stop. Sabbath happens whenever thought stops and our awareness rests in the present moment. Sabbath is inner silence, even in the midst of outer action. Keeping Sabbath means never breaking our connection with God's stillness. This perpetual sabbath is described in the Bhagavad Gita: "He who sees stillness in action and action in stillness, truly sees." The enlightened are those who experience the sabbath rest in the midst of the market place.

At the crown of the head, awareness opens like a many-petaled flower to the boundless sky of God-Consciousness. In that space, the self in the body is co-extensive with the Self of the cosmos. When we enter this chakra, through this commandment, the stream of individual self flows into the calm ocean of divine Self.

Original stillness is the silence before God says, "Let there be light." This silence not only precedes creation in history, it underlies creation in this moment. We can practice Sabbath anywhere, at any moment of the day, simply by letting the stream of our individual consciousness, which rises up the spine, complete its course, flowing through the crown into the blue sky of God. This final at-onement rests on the foundation of the other commandments, which stop the loss of energy at the lower chakras. Then we are not diverted by any other concern but Oneness. We nourish Oneness through an ancient meditation practice: uniting the breath with God's name. This practice is the next commandment.

8. "Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH God in vain." This command really means: "Don't take your breath for granted". The divine name is the sound of the breath. This sound is YHWH. The divine name is the practice of meditation, taught at the root of every great religion. By breathing God's name, we come to rest in the all-pervading silence of the Sabbath.

Breathing without awareness is a wasted opportunity for union with God. We breathe all day and night, but are we conscious of the secret energy, the divine name, in each breath? If we take a breath unconsciously, we take the Lord's name in vain.

YHWH is the meditation mantra of the Hebrew tradition. YHWH is the sound of breathing. This Name is called tetragrammaton, or "four letter Name." The ignorant have speculated about its pronunciation, some saying "Yahweh" and others "Jehovah." But this mantra is never pronounced aloud by the wise. How could it be, since it is the very energy of silence? In the words of Orthdox Saint Theophan the Recluse, "the most sacred name is the soul of silence."

The Talmud records the use of this mantra: "Why is it that the children of Israel pray in this age and are not answered? It is because they no longer know the ineffable name." (Midrash on Psalm 91) Some of the most sacred books of Jewish mysticism are devoted to the divine name and is uses: the Book Bahir and the Sepher Yetsirah. The very Hebrew word for meditation used in the Bible comes from a root meaning to silently repeat a word. "The secret pronunciation of the divine name of four letters the sages confided to their disciples once every seven years" (Talmud, Kiddushan 71a).

We need no longer make this practice a secret. In secret merely means in silence. Jesus uses this expression for prayer in his Sermon on the Mount: "When you pray, go into your inner chamber and pray in secret." The chamber is the heart and prayer is breathing God's name, until it is hallowed in silence. "Hallowed be thy Name."

God's silence is the boundless space between our breaths. At the end of the exhalation, before the next inhalation, awareness merges for an instant with divine silence. The space of this silence is eternal, measureless and still. It is the source of existence, consciousness, and joy. In this silence, breath and Spirit are one. That is why the Bible uses exactly the same word for breath and Spirit: Ruach. Inhaling breath, we incarnate Spirit. Exhaling, we offer Spirit back to its Giver. This is our central purpose, our central function on earth. All other work is secondary.

The syllables of YHWH are Yah and Hu. We find these two seed-mantras in other ancient traditions of meditation: Indian Yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, Islamic Sufism. Breathing in, we hear Yah flowing down through the crown into the heart as a stream of living Spirit ,born of the infinite sky. Breathing out, we hear Hum vibrating from the heart into every cell, every atom of our body. With each breath, we incarnate God's name in humanity. "In the beginning was the Word... and the Word became flesh."

The commandment, "Thou shalt not take the Lord's Name in vain," is an invitation to conscious breathing. When I practice the gift of conscious breath, then I discover the secret: I do not breathe God. God breathes me.

Two More Commandments?
How then do we interpret the other two commandments, "Thou shalt not bear false witness (lie) " and "Honor thy father and mother'? These two commandments describe the effects of our practice in human society, and in the environment.

9. "Thou shalt not lie." When the chakras are purified, breath flows directly to and from the divine source. There is no deviation in the path of energy rising and descending through the spine. Thus, there is no crookedness in our path of daily living. When the inner flow of energy in the spine is straight, outward behavior is also "straight." We are straight with our neighbor because we are straight with God.

Then we no longer live a lie. Our smile is a true smile. If someone asks us how we're doing, we don't say one thing and feel another. Our deeds are aligned with our words, our words are aligned with our intentions, and our intentions come straight from the silence, the purity, in the core of the heart. Truth flowers in us.

10. "Honor your Father and Mother." Like Eden's Tree of Life, the straight truth-teller stands upright. The flowering tree of this human body unites Earth to Heaven, Creation to Creator. Earth is our Mother and heaven is our Father. Father and Mother in the commandment refer not just to our biological parents, but to the Mother and Father aspects of God, Heaven and Earth. In Yogic science, these are known as Shiva and Shakti. In Chinese medicine, they are Yang and Yin. In the Biblical tradition, they are called the Lord and his Shekinah.

The Hebrew verb Shakan means "to dwell". Shekinah is the energy expressing God in creation. She is Spirit in-dwelling nature and humanity. Hebrew tradition regards this aspect of God as feminine wisdom. The book of Proverbs, chapter 8, reveals that She is with God at the creation of the world. Shekinah is the divine spark in every human heart, longing to return to its source. This longing of the heart for God is fulfilled in the mystical marriage, the wedding of matter and consciousness. You can hear the love song of Lord and Shekinah in the Biblical book, Song of Songs.
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Having expounded the Ten Commandments through the science of Yoga, we are left with one question. Why are the Biblical commandments not given in the precise order of the chakras, from the base of the spine to the crown of the head?

We can presume that, once upon a time, they were. But emotional disturbance corrupts the flow of energy and shatters the proper alignment of the chakras. This is why scripture places such emphasis on Moses' anger, an anger which prevented him from finally entering the Promised Land. Moses, you will recall, was filled with anger, judgment, and righteous indignation when, descending from the mountain with the tablets of the Law, he beheld the Israelites in revelry, practicing sensual idol-worship. In his wrath, he threw down the tablets and shattered them.

Don't we all engage in idol-worship and sensuality, even when we are on the spiritual path? Our awareness gets distracted and absorbed by the charms and fears of material living. We cannot always practice conscious breathing. We cannot always "pray without ceasing." Should we therefor feel guilty and sinful?

Feelings of guilt and fear of punishment makes us project our "sinfulness" onto others. Then we judge them. Then we are lost! For nothing blocks the flow of spiritual energy like self-righteous judgment of others. Our chakras are no longer aligned in a straight and narrow path. Like Moses, we have "broken the tablets."

This is why Jesus declares, "Judge not, lest ye be judged!"