BOOK II
INTRODUCTION TO BOOK II
The first book of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is
called the Book of Spiritual Consciousness. The second book, which
we now begin, is the Book of the Means of Soul Growth. And we must
remember that soul growth here means the growth of the realization
of the spiritual man, or, to put the matter more briefly, the growth
of the spiritual man, and the disentangling of the spiritual man
from the wrappings, the veils, the disguises laid upon him by the
mind and the psychical nature, wherein he is enmeshed, like a bird
caught in a net
The question arises: By what means may the
spiritual man be freed from these psychical meshes and disguises, so
that he may stand forth above death, in his radiant eternalness and
divine power? And the second book sets itself to answer this very
question, and to detail the means in a way entirely practical and
very lucid, so that he who runs may read, and he who reads may
understand and practise.
The second part of the second book is
concerned with practical spiritual training, that is, with the
earlier practical training of the spiritual man.
The most striking thing in it is the emphasis
laid on the Commandments, which are precisely those of the latter
part of the Decalogue, together with obedience to the Master. Our
day and generation is far too prone to fancy that there can be
mystical life and growth on some other foundation, on the
foundation, for example, of intellectual curiosity or psychical
selfishness. In reality, on this latter foundation the life of the
spiritual man can never be built; nor, indeed, anything but a
psychic counterfeit, a dangerous delusion.
Therefore Patanjali, like every great
spiritual teacher, meets the question: What must I do to be saved?
with the age- old answer: Keep the Commandments. Only after the
disciple can say, These have I kept, can there be the further and
finer teaching of the spiritual Rules.
It is, therefore, vital for us to realize that
the Yoga system, like every true system of spiritual teaching, rests
on this broad and firm foundation of honesty, truth, cleanness,
obedience. Without these, there is no salvation; and he who
practices these, even though ignorant of spiritual things, is laying
up treas- against the time to come.
BOOK II
1. The practices which make for union with
the Soul are: fervent aspiration, spiritual reading, and complete
obedience to the Master.
The word which I have rendered "fervent
aspiration' means primarily "fire"; and, in the Eastern teaching, it
means the fire which gives life and light, and at the same time the
fire which purifies. We have, therefore, as our first practice, as
the first of the means of spiritual growth, that fiery quality of
the will which enkindles and illumines, and, at the same time, the
steady practice of purification, the burning away of all known
impurities. Spiritual reading is so universally accepted and
understood, that it needs no comment. The very study of Patanjali's
Sutras is an exercise in spiritual reading, and a very effective
one. And so with all other books of the Soul. Obedience to the
Master means, that we shall make the will of the Master our will,
and shall confirm in all wave to the will of the Divine, setting
aside the wills of self, which are but psychic distortions of the
one Divine Will. The constant effort to obey in all the ways we know
and understand, will reveal new ways and new tasks, the evidence of
new growth of the Soul. Nothing will do more for the spiritual man
in us than this, for there is no such regenerating power as the
awakening spiritual will.
2. Their aim is, to bring soul-vision, and
to wear away hindrances.
The aim of fervour, spiritual reading and
obedience to the Master, is, to bring soulvision, and to wear away
hindrances. Or, to use the phrase we have already adopted, the aim
of these practices is, to help the spiritual man to open his eyes;
to help him also to throw aside the veils and disguises, the
enmeshing psychic nets which surround him, tying his hands, as it
were, and bandaging his eyes. And this, as all teachers testify, is
a long and arduous task, a steady up-hill fight, demanding fine
courage and persistent toil. Fervour, the fire of the spiritual
will, is, as we said, two-fold: it illumines, and so helps the
spiritual man to see; and it also burns up the nets and meshes which
ensnare the spiritual man. So with the other means, spiritual
reading and obedience. Each, in its action, is two-fold, wearing
away the psychical, and upbuilding the spiritual man.
3. These are the hindrances: the darkness
of unwisdom, self-assertion, lust hate, attachment.
Let us try to translate this into terms of the
psychical and spiritual man. The darkness of unwisdom is, primarily,
the self-absorption of the psychical man, his complete preoccupation
with his own hopes and fears, plans and purposes, sensations and
desires; so that he fails to see, or refuses to see, that there is a
spiritual man; and so doggedly resists all efforts of the spiritual
man to cast off his psychic tyrant and set himself free. This is the
real darkness; and all those who deny the immortality of the soul,
or deny the soul's existence, and so lay out their lives wholly for
the psychical, mortal man and his ambitions, are under this power of
darkness. Born of this darkness, this psychic self- absorption, is
the dogged conviction that the psychic, personal man has separate,
exclusive interests, which he can follow for himself alone; and this
conviction, when put into practice in our life, leads to contest
with other personalities, and so to hate. This hate, again, makes
against the spiritual man, since it hinders the revelation of the
high harmony between the spiritual man and his other selves, a
harmony to be revealed only through the practice of love, that
perfect love which casts out fear. In like manner, lust is the
psychic man's craving for the stimulus of sensation, the din of
which smothers the voice of the spiritual man, as, in Shakespeare's
phrase, the cackling geese would drown the song of the nightingale.
And this craving for stimulus is the fruit of weakness, coming from
the failure to find strength in the primal life of the spiritual
man.
Attachment is but another name for psychic
self-absorption; for we are absorbed, not in outward things, but
rather in their images within our minds; our inner eyes are fixed on
them; our inner desires brood over them; and em we blind ourselves
to the presence of the prisoner' the enmeshed and fettered spiritual
man.
4. The darkness of unwisdom is the field of
the others. These hindrances may be dormant, or worn thin, or
suspended, or expanded.
Here we have really two Sutras in one. The
first has been explained already: in the darkness of unwisdom grow
the parasites, hate, lust, attachment. They are all outgrowths of
the self-absorption of the psychical self. Next, we are told that
these barriers may be either dormant, or suspended, or expanded, or
worn thin. Faults which are dormant will be brought out through the
pressure of life, or through the pressure of strong aspiration. Thus
expanded, they must be fought and conquered, or, as Patanjali
quaintly says, they must be worn thin,-as a veil might, or the links
of manacles.
5 The darkness of ignorance is: holding that
which is unenduring, impure, full of pain, not the Soul, to be
eternal, pure, full of joy, the Soul.
This we have really considered already. The
psychic man is unenduring, impure, full of pain, not the Soul, not
the real Self. The spiritual man is enduring, pure, full of joy, the
real Self. The darkness of unwisdom is, therefore, the
self-absorption of the psychical, personal man, to the exclusion of
the spiritual man. It is the belief, carried into action, that the
personal man is the real man, the man for whom we should toil, for
whom we should build, for whom we should live. This is that
psychical man of whom it is said: he that soweth to the flesh, shall
of the flesh reap corruption.
6. Self -assertion comes f rom thinking of
the Seer and the instrument of vision as forming one self.
This is the fundamental idea of the Sankhya
philosophy, of which the Yoga is avowedly the practical side. To
translate this into our terms, we may say that the Seer is the
spiritual man; the instrument of vision is the psychical man,
through which the spiritual man gains experience of the outer world.
But we turn the servant into the master. We attribute to the
psychical man, the personal self, a reality which really belongs to
the spiritual man alone; and so, thinking of the quality of the
spiritual man as belonging to the psychical, we merge the spiritual
man in the psychical; or, as the text says, we think of the two as
forming one self.
7. Lust is the resting in the sense of
enjoyment.
This has been explained again and again.
Sensation, as, for example, the sense of taste, is meant to be the
guide to action; in this case, the choice of wholesome food, and the
avoidance of poisonous and hurtful things. But if we rest in the
sense of taste, as a pleasure in itself; rest, that is, in the
psychical side of taste, we fall into gluttony, and live to eat,
instead of eating to live. So with the other great organic power,
the power of reproduction. This lust comes into being, through
resting in the sensation, and looking for pleasure from that.
8. Hate is the resting in the sense of
pain.
Pain comes, for the most part, from the strife
of personalities, the jarring discords between psychic selves, each
of which deems itself supreme. A dwelling on this pain breeds hate,
which tears the warring selves yet further asunder, and puts new
enmity between them, thus hindering the harmony of the Real, the
reconciliation through the Soul.
9. Attachment is the desire toward life,
even in the wise, carried forward by its own energy.
The life here desired is the psychic life, the
intensely vibrating life of the psychical self. This prevails even
in those who have attained much wisdom, so long as it falls short of
the wisdom of complete renunciation, complete obedience to each
least behest of the spiritual man, and of the Master who guards and
aids the spiritual man. The desire of sensation, the desire of
psychic life, reproduces itself, carried on by its own energy and
momentum; and hence comes the circle of death and rebirth, death and
rebirth, instead of the liberation of the spiritual man.
10. These hindrances, when they have become
subtle, are to be removed by a countercurrent
The darkness of unwisdom is to be removed by
the light of wisdom, pursued through fervour, spiritual reading of
holy teachings and of life itself, and by obedience to the Master.
Lust is to be removed by pure aspiration of spiritual life, which,
bringing true strength and stability, takes away the void of
weakness which we try to fill by the stimulus of sensations. Hate is
to be overcome by love. The fear that arises through the sense of
separate, warring selves is to be stilled by the realization of the
One Self, the one soul in all. This realization is the perfect love
that casts out fear. The hindrances are said to have become subtle
when, by initial efforts, they have been located and recognized in
the psychic nature.
11. Their active turnings are to be removed
by meditation.
Here is, in truth, the whole secret of Yoga,
the science of the soul. The active turnings, the strident
vibrations, of selfishness, lust and hate are to be stilled by
meditation, by letting heart and mind dwell in spiritual life, by
lifting up the heart to the strong, silent life above, which rests
in the stillness of eternal love, and needs no harsh vibration to
convince it of true being.
12. The burden of bondage to sorrow has its
root in these hindrances.
It will be felt in this life, or in a life not
yet manifested. The burden of bondage to sorrow has its root in the
darkness of unwisdom, in selfishness, in lust, in hate, in
attachment to sensation. All these are, in the last analysis,
absorption in the psychical self; and this means sorrow, because it
means the sense of separateness, and this means jarring discord and
inevitable death. But the psychical self will breed a new psychical
self, in a new birth, and so new sorrows in a life not yet manifest.
13. From this root there grow and ripen the
fruits of birth, of the life-span, of all that is tasted in life.
Fully to comment on this, would be to write a
treatise on Karma and its practical working in detail, whereby the
place and time of the next birth, its content and duration. are
determined; and to do this the present commentator is in no wise
fitted. But this much is clearly understood: that, through a kind of
spiritual gravitation, the incarnating self is drawn to a home and
life-circle which will give it scope and discipline; and its need of
discipline is clearly conditioned by its character, its standing,
its accomplishment.
14. These bear fruits of rejoicing, or of
affliction, as they are sprung from holy or unholy works.
Since holiness is obedience to divine law, to
the law of divine harmony, and obedience to harmony strengthens that
harmony in the soul, which is the one true joy, therefore joy comes
of holiness: comes, indeed, in no other way. And as unholiness is
disobedience, and therefore discord, therefore unholiness makes for
pain; and this two-fold law is true, whether the cause take effect
in this, or in a yet unmanifested birth.
15. To him who possesses discernment, all
personal life is misery, because it ever waxes and wanes, is ever
afflicted with restlessness, makes ever new dynamic impresses in the
mind; and because all its activities war with each other.
The whole life of the psychic self is misery,
because it ever waxes and wanes; because birth brings inevitable
death; because there is no expectation without its shadow, fear. The
life of the psychic self is misery, because it is afflicted with
restlessness; so that he who has much, finds not satisfaction, but
rather the whetted hunger for more. The fire is not quenched by
pouring oil on it; so desire is not quenched by the satisfaction of
desire. Again, the life of the psychic self is misery, because it
makes ever new dynamic impresses in the mind; because a desire
satisfied is but the seed from which springs the desire to find like
satisfaction again. The appetite comes in eating, as the proverb
says, and grows by what it feeds on. And the psychic self, torn with
conflicting desires, is ever the house divided against itself, which
must surely fall.
16. This pain is to be warded off, before it
has come.
In other words, we cannot cure the pains of
life by laying on them any balm. We must cut the root, absorption in
the psychical self. So it is said, there is no cure for the misery
of longing, but to fix the heart upon the eternal.
17. The cause of what is to be warded off,
is the absorption of the Seer in things seen.
Here again we have the fundamental idea of the
Sankhya, which is the intellectual counterpart of the Yoga system.
The cause of what is to be warded off, the root of misery, is the
absorption of consciousness in the psychical man and the things
which beguile the psychical man. The cure is liberation.
18. Things seen have as their property
manifestation, action, inertia.
They form the basis of the elements and the
sense-powers. They make for experience and for liberation.Here is a
whole philosophy of life. Things seen, the total of the phenomena ,
possess as their property, manifestation, action, inertia: the
qualities of force and matter in combination. These, in their
grosser form, make the material world; in their finer, more
subjective form, they make the psychical world, the world of
sense-impressions and mind-images. And through this totality of the
phenomenal, the soul gains experience, and is prepared for
liberation. In other words, the whole outer world exists for the
purposes of the soul, and finds in this its true reason for being.
19. The grades or layers of the Three
Potencies are the defined, theundefined, that with distinctive mark,
that without distinctive mark.
Or, as we might say, there are two strata of
the physical, and two strata of the psychical realms. In each, there
is the side of form, and the side of force. The form side of the
physical is here called the defined. The force side of the physical
is the undefined, that which has no boundaries. So in the psychical;
there is the form side; that with distinctive marks, such as the
characteristic features of mind-images; and there is the force side,
without distinctive marks, such as the forces of desire or fear,
which may flow now to this mind-image, now to that.
20. The Seer is pure vision. Though pure, he
looks out through the vesture of the mind.
The Seer, as always, is the spiritual man whose
deepest consciousness is pure vision, the pure life of the eternal.
But the spiritual man, as yet unseeing in his proper person, looks
out on the world through the eyes of the psychical man, by whom he
is enfolded and enmeshed. The task is, to set this prisoner free, to
clear the dust of ages from this buried temple.
21. The very essence of things seen is, that
they exist for the Seer.
The things of outer life, not only material
things, but the psychic man also, exist in very deed for the
purposes of the Seer, the Soul, the spiritual man Disaster comes,
when the psychical man sets up, so to speak, on his own account,
trying to live for himself alone, and taking material things to
solace his loneliness.
22. Though fallen away from him who has
reached the goal, things seen have not alto fallen away, since they
still exist for others.
When one of us conquers hate, hate does not
thereby cease out of the world, since others still hate and suffer
hatred. So with other delusions, which hold us in bondage to
material things, and through which we look at all material things.
When the coloured veil of illusion is gone, the world which we saw
through it is also gone, for now we see life as it is, in the white
radiance of eternity. But for others the coloured veil remains, and
therefore the world thus coloured by it remains for them, and will
remain till they, too, conquer delusion.
23. The association of the Seer with things
seen is the cause of the realizing of the nature of things seen, and
also of the realizing of the nature of the Seer.
Life is educative. All life's infinite variety
is for discipline, for the development of the soul. So passing
through many lives, the Soul learns the secrets of the world, the
august laws that are written in the form of the snow-crystal or the
majestic order of the stars. Yet all these laws are but reflections,
but projections outward, of the laws of the soul; therefore in
learning these, the soul learns to know itself. All life is but the
mirror wherein the Soul learns to know its own face.
24. The cause of this association is the
darkness of unwisdom.
The darkness of unwisdom is the absorption of
consciousness in the personal life, and in the things seen by the
personal life. This is the fall, through which comes experience, the
learning of the lessons of life. When they are learned, the day of
redemption is at hand.
25. The bringing of this association to an
end, by bringing the darkness of unwisdom to an end, is the great
liberation; this is the Seer's attainment of his own pure being.
When the spiritual man has, through the
psychical, learned all life's lessons, the time has come for him to
put off the veil and disguise of the psychical and to stand revealed
a King, in the house of the Father. So shall he enter into his
kingdom, and go no more out.
26. A discerning which is carried on without
wavering is the means of liberation.
Here we come close to the pure Vedanta, with
its discernment between the eternal and the temporal. St. Paul,
following after Philo and Plato, lays down the same fundamental
principle: the things seen are temporal, the things unseen are
eternal. Patanjali means something more than an intellectual assent,
though this too is vital. He has in view a constant discriminating
in act as well as thought; of the two ways which present themselves
for every deed or choice, always to choose the higher way, that
which makes for the things eternal: honesty rather than roguery,
courage and not cowardice, the things of another rather than one's
own, sacrifice and not indulgence. This true discernment, carried
out constantly, makes for liberation.
27. His illuminations is sevenfold, rising
In successive stages.
Patanjali's text does not tell us what the
seven stages of this illumination are. The commentator thus
describes them; First, the danger to be escaped is recognized; it
need not be recognized a second time. Second, the causes of the
danger to be escaped are worn away; they need not be worn away a
second time. Third, the way of escape is clearly perceived, by the
contemplation which checks psychic perturbation. Fourth, the means
of escape, clear discernment, has been developed. This is the
fourfold release belonging to insight. The final release from the
psychic is three-fold: As fifth of the seven degrees, the dominance
of its thinking is ended; as sixth, its potencies, like rocks from a
precipice, fall of themselves; once dissolved, they do not grow
again. Then, as seventh, freed from these potencies, the spiritual
man stands forth in his own nature as purity and light. Happy is the
spiritual man who beholds this seven-fold illumination in its
ascending stages.
28. From steadfastly following after the
means of Yoga, until impurity is worn away, there comes the
illumination of thought up to full discernment.
Here, we enter on the more detailed practical
teaching of Patanjali, with its sound and luminous good sense. And
when we come to detail the means of Yoga, we may well be astonished
at their simplicity. There is little in them that is mysterious.
They are very familiar. The essence of the matter lies in carrying
them out.
29. The eight means of Yoga are: the
Commandments, the Rules, right Poise, right Control of the
life-force, Withdrawal, Attention, Meditation, Contemplation.
These eight means are to be followed in their
order, in the sense which will immediately be made clear. We can get
a ready understanding of the first two by comparing them with the
Commandments which must be obeyed by all good citizens, and the
Rules which are laid on the members of religious orders. Until one
has fulfilled the first, it is futile to concern oneself with the
second. And so with all the means of Yoga. They must be taken in
their order.
30. The Commandments are these: nom injury,
truthfulness, abstaining from stealing, from impurity, from
covetousness.
These five precepts are almost exactly the same
as the Buddhist Commandments: not to kill, not to steal, not to be
guilty of incontinence, not to drink intoxicants, to speak the
truth. Almost identical is St. Paul's list: Thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not
covet. And in the same spirit is the answer made to the young map
having great possessions, who asked, What shall I do to be saved?
and received the reply: Keep the Commandments. This broad, general
training, which forms and develops human character, must be
accomplished to a very considerable degree, beforethere can be much
hope of success in the further stages of spiritual life. First the
psychical, and then the spiritual. First the man, then the angel. On
this broad, humane and wise foundation does the system of Patanjali
rest.
31. The Commandments, not limited to any
race, place, time or occasion, universal, are the great obligation.
The Commandments form the broad general
training of humanity. Each one of them rests on a universal,
spiritual law. Each one of them expresses an attribute or aspect of
the Self, the Eternal; when we violate one of the Commandments, we
set ourselves against the law and being of the Eternal, thereby
bringing ourselves to inevitable con fusion. So the first steps in
spiritual life must be taken by bringing ourselves into voluntary
obedience to these spiritual laws and thus making ourselves
partakers of the spiritual powers, the being of the Eternal Like the
law of gravity, the need of air to breathe, these great laws know no
exceptions They are in force in all lands, throughout al times, for
all mankind.
32. The Rules are these: purity, serenity
fervent aspiration, spiritual reading, and per feet obedience to the
Master.
Here we have a finer law, one which humanity as
a whole is less ready for, less fit to obey. Yet we can see that
these Rules are the same in essence as the Commandments, but on a
higher, more spiritual plane. The Commandments may be obeyed in
outer acts and abstinences; the Rules demand obedience of the heart
and spirit, a far more awakened and more positive consciousness. The
Rules are the spiritual counterpart of the Commandments, and they
have finer degrees, for more advanced spiritual growth.
33. When transgressions hinder, the weight
of the imagination should be thrown' on the opposite side.
Let us take a simple case, that of a thief, a
habitual criminal, who has drifted into stealing in childhood,
before the moral consciousness has awakened. We may imprison such a
thief, and deprive him of all possibility of further theft, or of
using the divine gift of will. Or we may recognize his
disadvantages, and help him gradually to build up possessions which
express his will, and draw forth his self-respect. If we imagine
that, after he has built well, and his possessions have become dear
to him, he himself is robbed, then we can see how he would come
vividly to realize the essence of theft and of honesty, and would
cleave to honest dealings with firm conviction. In some such way
does the great Law teach us. Our sorrows and losses teach us the
pain of the sorrow and loss we inflict on others, and so we cease to
inflict them.
Now as to the more direct application. To
conquer a sin. let heart and mind rest, not on the sin, but on the
contrary virtue. Let the sin be forced out by positive growth in the
true direction, not by direct opposition. Turn away from the sin and
go forward courageously, constructively, creatively, in well-doing.
In this way the whole nature will gradually be drawn up to the
higher level, on which the sin does not even exist. The conquest of
a sin is a matter of growth and evolution, rather than of
opposition.
34. Transgressions are injury, falsehood,
theft, incontinence, envy; whether committed, or caused, or assented
to, through greed, wrath, or infatuation; whether faint, or
middling, or excessive; bearing endless, fruit of ignorance and
pain. Therefore must the weight be cast on the other side.
Here are the causes of sin: greed, wrath,
infatuation, with their effects, ignorance and pain. The causes are
to be cured by better wisdom, by a truer understanding of the Self,
of Life. For greed cannot endure before the realization that the
whole world belongs to the Self, which Self we are; nor can we hold
wrath against one who is one with the Self, and therefore with
ourselves; nor can infatuation, which is the seeking for the
happiness of the All in some limited part of it, survive the
knowledge that we are heirs of the All. Therefore let thought and
imagination, mind and heart, throw their weight on the other side;
the side, not of the world,.but of the Self.
35. Where non-injury is perfected, all
enmity ceases in the presence of him who possesses it.
We come now to the spiritual powers which
result from keeping the Commandments; from the obedience to
spiritual law which is the keeping of the Commandments. Where the
heart is full of kindness which seeks no injury to another, either
in act or thought or wish, this full love creates an atmosphere of
harmony, whose benign power touches with healing all who come within
its influence. Peace in the heart radiates peace to other hearts,
even more surely than contention breeds contention.
36. When he is perfected in truth, all acts
and their fruits depend on him.
The commentator thus explains: If he who has
attained should say to a man, Become righteous! the man becomes
righteous. If he should say, Gain heaven ! the man gains heaven. His
word is not in vain. Exactly the same doctrine was taught by the
Master who said to his disciples: Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose
soever sins ye re mit they are remitted unto them; and whose soever
sins ye retain, they are retained.
37. Where cessation from theft is perfected,
all treasures present themselves to him who possesses it.
Here is a sentence which may warn us that,
beside the outer and apparent meaning, there is in many of these
sentences a second and finer significance. The obvious meaning is,
that he who has wholly ceased from theft, in act, thought and wish,
finds buried treasures in his path, treasures of jewels and gold and
pearls. The deeper truth is, that he who in every least thing is
wholly honest with the spirit of Life, finds Life supporting him in
all things, and gains admittance to the treasure house of Life, the
spiritual universe.
38. For him who is perfect in continence,
the reward is valour and virility.
The creative power, strong and full of vigour,
is no longer dissipated, but turned to spiritual uses. It upholds
and endows the spiritual man, conferring on him the creative will,
the power to engender spiritual children instead of bodily progeny.
An epoch of life, that of man the animal, has come to an end; a new
epoch, that of the spiritual man, is opened. The old creative power
is superseded and transcended; a new creative power, that of the
spiritual man, takes its place, carrying with it the power to work
creatively in others for righteousness and eternal life.
One of the commentaries says that he who has
attained is able to transfer to the minds of his disciples what he
knows concerning divine union, and the means of gaining it. This is
one of the powers of purity.
39. Where there is firm conquest of
covetousness, he who has conquered it awakes to the how and why of
life.
So it is said that, before we can understand
the laws of Karma, we must free ourselves from Karma. The conquest
of covetousness brings this rich fruit, because the root of
covetousness is the desire of the individual soul, the will toward
manifested life. And where the desire of the individual soul is
overcome by the superb, still life of the universal Soul welling up
in the heart within, the great secret is discerned, the secret that
the individual soul is not an isolated reality, but the ray, the
manifest instrument of the Life, which turns it this way and that
until the great work is accomplished, the age-long lesson learned.
Thus is the how and why of life disclosed by ceasing from
covetousness. The Commentator says that this includes a knowledge of
one's former births.
40. Through purity a withdrawal from one's
own bodily life, a ceasing from infatuation with the bodily life of
others.
As the spiritual light grows in the heart
within, as the taste for pure Life grows stronger, the consciousness
opens toward the great, secret places within, where all life is one,
where all lives are one. Thereafter, this outer, manifested,
fugitive life, whether of ourselves or of others, loses something of
its charm and glamour, and we seek rather the deep infinitudes.
Instead of the outer form and surroundings of our lives, we long for
their inner and everlasting essence. We desire not so much outer
converse and closeness to our friends, but rather that quiet
communion with them in the inner chamber of the soul, where spirit
speaks to spirit, and spirit answers; where alienation and
separation never enter; where sickness and sorrow and death cannot
come.
41. To the pure of heart come also a quiet
spirit, one-pointed thought, the victory over sensuality, and
fitness to behold the Soul.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God, who is the supreme Soul; the ultimate Self of all beings.
In the deepest sen se , purity means fitness for this vision, and
also a heart cleansed from all disquiet, from all wandering and
unbridled thought, from the torment of sensuous imaginings; and when
the spirit is thus cleansed and pure, it becomes at one in essence
with its source, the great Spirit, the primal Life. One
consciousness now thrills through both, for the psychic partition
wall is broken down. Then shall the pure in heart see God, because
they become God.
42. From acceptance, the disciple gains
happiness supreme.
One of the wise has said: accept conditions,
accept others, accept yourself. This is the true acceptance, for all
these things are what they are through the will of the higher Self,
except their deficiencies, which come through thwarting the will of
the higher Self, and can be conquered only through compliance with
that will. By the true acceptance, the disciple comes into oneness
of spirit with the overruling Soul; and, since the own nature of the
Soul is being, happiness, bliss, he comes thereby into happiness
supreme.
43. The perfection of the powers of the
bodily vesture comes through the wearing away of impurities, and
through fervent aspiration.
This is true of the physical powers, and of
those which dwell in the higher vestures. There must be, first,
purity; as the blood must be pure, before one can attain to physical
health. But absence of impurity is not in itself enough, else would
many nerveless ascetics of the cloisters rank as high saints. There
is needed, further, a positive fire of the will; a keen vital vigour
for the physical powers, and something finer, purer, stronger, but
of kindred essence, for the higher powers. The fire of genius is
something more than a phrase, for there can be no genius without the
celestial fire of the awakened spiritual will.
44. Through spiritual reading, the disciple
gains communion with the divine Power on which his heart is set.
Spiritual reading meant, for ancient India,
something more than it does with us. It meant, first, the recital of
sacred texts, which, in their very sounds, had mystical potencies;
and it meant a recital of texts which were divinely emanated, and
held in themselves the living, potent essence of the divine. For us,
spiritual reading means a communing with the recorded teachings of
the Masters of wisdom, whereby we read ourselves into the Master's
mind, just as through his music one can enter into the mind and soul
of the master musician. It has been well said that all true art is
contagion of feeling; so that through the true reading of true books
we do indeed read ourselves into the spirit of the Masters, share in
the atmosphere of their wisdom and power, and come at last into
their very presence.
45. Soul-vision is perfected through perfect
obedience to the Master.
The sorrow and darkness of life come of the
erring personal will which sets itself against the will of the Soul,
the one great Life. The error of the personal will is inevitable,
since each will must be free to choose, to try and fail, and so to
find the path. And sorrow and darkness are inevitable, until the
path be found, and the personal will made once more one with the
greater Will, wherein it finds rest and power, without losing
freedom. In His will is our peace. And with that peace comes light.
Soul-vision is perfected through obedience.
46. Right poise must be firm and without
strain. Here we approach a section of the teaching which has
manifestly a two-fold meaning.
The first is physical, and concerns the bodily
position of the student, and the regulation of breathing. These
things have their direct influence upon soul-life, the life of the
spiritual man, since it is always and everywhere true that our study
demands a sound mind in a sound body. The present sentence declares
that, for work and for meditation, the position of the body must be
steady and without strain, in order that the finer currents of life
may run their course. It applies further to the poise of the soul,
that fine balance and stability which nothing can shake, where the
consciousness rests on the firm foundation of spiritual being. This
is indeed the house set upon a rock, which the winds and waves beat
upon in vain.
47. Right poise is to be gained by steady
and temperate effort, and by setting the heart upon the everlasting.
Here again, there is the two-fold meaning, for physical poise is to
be gained by steady effort of the muscles, by gradual and wise
training, linked with a right understanding of, and relation with,
the universal force of gravity. Uprightness of body demands that
both these conditions shall be fulfilled.
In like manner the firm and upright poise of
the spiritual man is to be gained by steady and continued effort,
always guided by wisdom, and by setting the heart on the Eternal,
filling the soul with the atmosphere of the spiritual world. Neither
is effective without the other. Aspiration without effort brings
weakness; effort without aspiration brings a false strength, not
resting on enduring things. The two together make for the right
poise which sets the spiritual man firmly and steadfastly on his
feet.
48 The fruit of right poise is the strength
to resist the shocks of infatuation or sorrow.
In the simpler physical sense, which is also
coveted by the wording of the original, this sentence means that
wise effort establishes such bodily poise that the accidents of life
cannot disturb it, as the captain remains steady, though disaster
overtake his ship. But the deeper sense is far more important. The
spiritual man, too, must learn to withstand all shocks, to remain
steadfast through the perturbations of external things and the
storms and whirlwinds of the psychical world. This is the power
which is gained by wise, continuous effort, and by filling the
spirit with the atmosphere of the Eternal.
49. When this is gained, there follows the
right guidance of the life-currents, the control of the incoming and
outgoing breath.
It is well understood to-day that most of our
maladies come from impure conditions of the blood. It is coming to
be understood that right breathing, right oxygenation, will do very
much to keep the blood clean and pure. Therefore a right knowledge
of breathing is a part of the science of life. But the deeper
meaning is, that the spiritual man, when he has gained poise through
right effort and aspiration, can stand firm, and guide the currents
of his life, both the incoming current of events, and the outgoing
current of his acts. Exactly the same symbolism is used in the
saying: Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that
which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.... Those things
which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart . . out of
the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, uncleanness, thefts, false
witness, blasphemies. Therefore the first step in purification is to
keep the Commandments.
50. The life-current is either outward, or
inward, or balanced; it ;is regulated according to place, time,
number; it is prolonged and subtle.
The technical, physical side of this has its
value. In the breath, there should be right inbreathing, followed by
the period of pause, when the air comes into contact with the blood,
and this again followed by right outbreathing, even, steady, silent.
Further, the lungs should be evenly filled; many maladies may arise
from the neglect and consequent weakening of some region of the
lungs. And the number of breaths is so important, so closely related
to health, that every nurse's chart records it. But the deeper
meaning is concerned with the currents of life; with that which
goeth into and cometh out of the heart.
51. The fourth degree transcends external
and internal objects.
The inner meaning seems to be that, in addition
to the three degrees of control already described, control, that is,
over the incoming current of life, over the outgoing current, and
over the condition of pause or quiesence, there is a fourth degree
of control, which holds in complete mastery both the outer passage
of events and the inner currents of thoughts and emotions; a
condition of perfect poise and stability in the midst of the flux of
things outward and inward.
52. Thereby is worn away the veil which
covers up the light.
The veil is the psychic nature, the web of
emotions, desires, argumentative trains of thought, which cover up
and obscure the truth by absorbing the entire attention and keeping
the consciousness in the psychic realm. When hopes and fears are
reckoned at their true worth, in comparison with lasting possessions
of the Soul; when the outer reflections of things have ceased to
distract us from inner realities; when argumentative - thought no
longer entangles us, but yields its place to flashing intuition, the
certainty which springs from within; then is the veil worn away, the
consciousness is drawn from the psychical to the spiritual, from the
temporal to the Eternal. Then is the light unveiled.
53. Thence comes the mind's power to hold
itself in the light.
It has been well said, that what we most need
is the faculty of spiritual attention; and in the same direction of
thought it has been eloquently declared that prayer does not consist
in our catching God's attention, but rather in our allowing God to
hold our attention. The vital matter is, that we need to disentangle
our consciousness from the noisy and perturbed thraldom of the
psychical, and to come to consciousness as the spiritual man. This
we must do, first, by purification, through the Commandments and the
Rules; and, second, through the faculty of spiritual attention, by
steadily heeding endless fine intimations of the spiritual power
within us, and by intending our consciousness thereto; thus by
degrees transferring the centre of consciousness from the psychical
to the spiritual. It is a question, first, of love, and then of
attention.
54. The right Withdrawal is the disengaging
of the powers from entanglement in outer things, as the psychic
nature has been withdrawn and stilled.
To understand this, let us reverse the process,
and think of the one consciousness, centred in the Soul, gradually
expanding and taking on the form of the different perceptive powers;
the one will, at the same time, differentiating itself into the
varied powers of action. Now let us imagine this to be reversed, so
that the spiritual force, which has gone into the differentiated
powers, is once more gathered together into the inner power of
intuition and spiritual will, taking on that unity which is the
hall- mark of spiritual things, as diversity is the seal of material
things. It is all a matter of love for the quality of spiritual
consciousness, as against psychical consciousness, of love and
attention. For where the heart is, there will the treasure be also;
where the consciousness is, there will the vesture with its powers
be developed.
55. Thereupon follows perfect mastery over
the powers.
When the spiritual condition which we have
described is reached, with its purity, poise, and illuminated
vision, the spiritual man is coming into his inheritance, and
gaining complete mastery of his powers. Indeed, much of the
struggle to keep the Commandments and the Rules has been paving the
way for this mastery; through this very struggle and sacrifice the
mastery has become possible; just as, to use St. Paul's simile, the
athlete gains the mastery in the contest and the race through the
sacrifice of his long and arduous training. Thus he
gains
the crown. |