Psychic Intelligence 

Deva - Psychic Intelligence

Human Ideals

The Yoga story model of evolution crafts a delightful Psychic Being called the Deva, essentially a psychic intelligence, otherwise known as a 'divine god'.

Deva is a Sanskrit word, and interestingly a cognate of the English word “divine”, from Greek and Latin roots, obviously indicating a universal cultural phenomenon.

Devas are Human ideals come to life as a Psychic Being which we embody within us to Intentionally guide us on our path.

Devas are meant to guide us toward manifesting desired outcomes, thus making make evolution an effortless endeavor, that is quirky and yet fruitful.

A Deva, from the perspective of psychological Time, is really an aspect of our potential Future that we crave to see manifest soon.

Yogic Model

As these psychic intelligences literally come to life within us they activate certain neuropsychological processes in the brain and we can experience a profound shift in consciousness. 

When Devas are instilled within us they adapt to the individual and thus it becomes a highly personalized, and dynamic, intelligence model.

Deification without understanding the Yoga Mind leads to religion, but with proper understanding it leads to psychological evolution.

Deification of the psyche is a mostly unexplored phenomenon in science. Essentially, inasmuch as the Cosmos is our psychological perspective of the universe, so too the Psyche is the individual’s experience of a deified, or spiritualized, world, hence anything mysterious, in the microcosm of the individual is termed psychic. These are potentially evolutionary forces of the Mind, but it needs the lens of the Yoga Mind to appreciate it objectively.

Although deification usually smacks of religiosity, in the Yoga model invoking Devas is actually a psychological tool to cultivate an inner focus leading to outward perfection. Notice that Deva, devotion, deity, divine all have identical linguistic roots. 

Worshiping them is actually getting their energies instilled deeper into the subconscious, so that our psyche is shaped to manifest a desired personal reality, in our subconscious and waking moments.

There are many life-hacking techniques, such as affirmations and positive thinking, that can cultivate a certain subconscious intelligence to manifest a future outcome, for example visualizing a Mercedes-Benz in the car for wealth, or a 6-pak abdomen for health, etc.  

But the Deva model is different in that we are unequivocally told to not focus on the exact form of the outcome. It needs to spontaneously arise. The reason for this is two-fold: 

• We may not know exactly what is the “best” possible outcome, so let the Deva figure it out in our best interest, e.g. the Mercedes model we visualize may have some hidden issues, or the rock-hard abs may lead to abdominal complications, etc.

• The deeper reason is that Devas should be considered as conscious entities who would appreciate the freedom to not be micromanaged, just like humans.

Devas are a neuropsychological tool, and their energies and the psychic terrain in which they operate, are sensitive. They work, but must be carefully employed.

Devas are also useful to counter the negative impacts of Psychic Viruses from the past, but not all “god making” is merely for battling Psychic Viruses, thank "god", as there are many delightful Devas that entice us to tarry on our journey, like

• the Gandharva, divine Musician,

• the Apsara, divine Seductress,

• the Yaksha, divine Wordplayer.

• And even any tree, or stone, or river, or animal, whatever it is can be deified.

There are even transgendered, humanoids, part-animal/human Devas, all reflections of the creativity of the human Mind and the power of Yoga.

The Divine Experience

देव Deva is etymologically, in Sanskrit, about Light, which in turn of course has two meanings, that which: 

• provides illumination (like the light of knowledge)

• has less weight (like lighten up psychological baggage).

As we can see both those meanings imply the same thing, because psychological baggage prevents illumination of the concept of our Self.

And hopefully we now understand what it means to be enlightened!

Portfolio

We could also invoke Devas for particular desired outcomes such as wealth, and acquire even a portfolio of them - for who does not want health in addition to wealth.

And while we are at this might as well add on Devas for the well-being of the family, the village, the traveler's journey - and so on, for every single aspiration of our Life.

We can keep on adding more Devas, and as long as they are all aligned with Dharma these intentional Thought forms do not cause entanglement.

Guru Deva

Very often, a particularly charismatic Guru becomes so integral to our spiritual life that they are deified as a Guru-Deva - which brings up an oft-quoted conundrum that when we are finally face to face with the ultimate reality thanks to the Guru, then whom should we acknowledge first, and with whom would we merge our limited self ? 

Of course, such a question only arises in those who are not fiercely independent Yogis themselves.

Ishta Devatā

Another option is to bide our time and really focus on the Deva that will fulfill our sva-Dharma, our unique Dharma.

Such a Being is our particular इष्ट Ishta-Devatā (maybe Ishta is a cognate of Wish as we have seen earlier), as a personal god.

An Ishta Devatā, by definition, is tuned perfectly to who we actually are, our perfected future self, and naturally this is an intense process to realize fully, albeit very fulfilling for it manifests our total yearning.

When we fully internalize our Ishta Deva we are a unitary Psychic Being, not fragmented in any way by needless distractions on our life journeys.

At this point whatever other Devas we wish to bring in automatically slot into our Being, without having to search them out, for the Ishta Devatā has created a ready environment for instilling them.

Mind Hacking

Do-it-yourself, Self-help afficionados have innovated a grab-bag of mindhacking techniques as a way to get beyond the fetters that hold us back from reaching our full potential.

Mindhacking techniques are indeed useful to finely craft & tune our systems as high-performing smart machines, seeking to optimize every aspect of our life, overcoming all kinds of psychological roadblocks. 

Typically we observe some successful individual's mindhacking technique and adopt it for our own use, but although useful as inspirational role models, and for their innovations, a particular human personality has their own unique limitations and strengths which are not universally applicable and often times undesirable too.

This approach requires a lot of continuous reinforcement and an incremental approach that may not lead to evolution. 

Indra Deva

Probably the most fascinating of all Devas is Indra from primordial times, and quite the equivalent of the Greek Zeus.

We outline this Deva's story in some detail because he is exactly equivalent to the human Mind and its sense organs with which we experience the world of phenomena.

Indra is the ruler of the Devas.

• • Indra is a powerful psychic intelligence, since he is the lord of the Devas.

  • He rides on 

    • an elephant indicating tremendous mental capacity (similar to Ganesha)

    • or two horses, indicating the power of deep breathing, prānāyāma (impacts nervous system)

Indra is considered born of sky & earth, Akāsh and Prithvi, and wields a thunderbolt (like Zeus):

• • With such power we can bridge our most esoteric inner world with practical manifestation,

  • Thunder going between earth & sky, is reflected in kundalini awakenings (nervous system).

Small stories on Indra

Indra battles Vritra, some kind of Rākshasa or Asura, who has has captured the waters of the Earth and hidden it inside a mountain, turning the lands dry, meaning that we have lost our: 

• • powers of consciousness, for whatever reasons

  • creative flow, which is hidden now inside our spine (usually the mountain signifies this)

Indra drinks Soma, defeats Vritra, and opens up the waters from the mountain, and the Earth is now nourished

• Soma is a psychedelic substance that has effect on the Mind,

• this is available either externally in plants, or can be generated internally through Yoga practice.

In the Rāmāyana, Indra is considered the father of Vāli who gets subdued by SugrIva considered as the son of Surya. The implications of this are described in detail in Yoga of Rāmāyana.

And in the Mahābhārata, Indra is considered father of Arjuna, the Mind setting forth into battle, compared to the more inward Mind of Ganesha as elephant.

Coevolution

In the early stages humans had no issues living with our Mind & sense organs, seeing as we were immersed in Nature, and the ancient stories are adapted to that time period.

Later on, when we became tool-makers we had to deal with overloading of sense organs, which are called Indriyas. For example, we probably learnt how to bulk produce sugar, distill alcohol, Soma, etc.

Consequently our Mind became addicted to sensory inputs, and hence Indra (the Manas of Yoga, the super-sense-organ) became a problematic fellow. Just like our Mind is today.

Thus, in this later stage of civilization, Vishnu becomes the protector of the Devas, and although Indra is still their boss, he repeatedly develops issues in our current world of sensory overload.

Essentially the Yoga Mind coevolved to manage its mental creations!

What it is Not

A Deva, when approached intelligently, has nothing to do with the mess of “religion”, and its attendant theology of some external God.

"All in divine timing", or “God only knows!”  is said, with a deep shrug of the shoulders, to indicate we have no clue when something might happen, when it’s all just based on wishful thinking, otherwise called as blind Faith!

So, if we believe God creates Man then that is Religion, and if we believe that Man creates God, in a dismissive fashion as though God is a mere concept to fool the masses, then that is an Atheist perspective.

Yoga is neither of these because our model is that Humans evolve to become a Yogi, who then intentionally crafts Devas for various aspirations, which are then further instilled by Humans to increase their intelligence in order to evolve.

Do this enough number of times, increasing the scope of the Devas, and we get into the Rishi state for the powerful Avatār effect!

The more a particular Thought form has collective appeal, the more energized it gets by the collective consciousness to Avatār proportions. 

Thus indeed is the Yogi a maker of gods - as guides, we hasten to add, not as some remote aloof creator.

God of Dharma

Dharma is itself deified as यम Yama the deity of Death, as a reminder that all beings & concepts must perish eventually in the course of Time, once we realize and fulfill our Sva-Dharma.

In Sanskrit etymology यम  Yama = य: Ya (this) + मम Mam (mine), hence Yama is also the fundamental entanglement to overcome, implying that immortality awaits us for those able to exercise this principle fully.

False gods & idol worship

Although it’s fine to rationalize away all of this as but a Yogi’s mental creations, it’s not cool to proselytize these creations as “false gods”, and break down “idols”, as we each have our own tools for evolution.

Conversely, it’s definitely not a good idea to incur the displeasure of the Yogis, for in as much as we can manifest benevolent Devas, suffice it to hint that the same techniques have been applied otherwise too.

Having said all that, it’s important that we don’t get so caught up in Devas and their charms that we fail to transcend their powerful appeal, for it is a thin line that separates Sanātana Dharma from Religion, which if we forget, then we forsake the ultimate expression of Dharma and the lofty heights of Self-Realization. 

Namaste'

No Yoga class is complete without at least one Namaste' being uttered in reverence, with hands in prayer position, and a slight bow towards the object of our attention.

By uttering Namaste' to someone we are reminding them of their divine inner consciousness, to inspire them on the path of evolution.

The Sanskrit word नाम  Nāma literally means the English word Name, which means "that which comes from नम Nama", which is part of the greeting नमस्ते  Namaste':

• Nama (to deify), +

• Te' (to you).

Deification creates a deep neuropsychological process within, and is the mystical seed of the conscious Being that seeks to evolve in togetherness.