an introduction to yoga: sūtras of patañjali - annie besant (1913)

7/30/2019 An Introduction to Yoga: Stras of Patajali - Annie Besant (1913)

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ANIINTRODUCTION TO YOGA

ANNIE BESAKT


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GIFT OF

Mr s . Laur a S . Hunt ,

1 1 " ;

II''


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AN INTRODUCTION TO YOGA


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ANINTRODUCTION TO YOGA

POUR LECTURES DELIVERED AT THE32ND ANNIVERSARY OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,

HELD AT BENARES, ON DEC. 2?TH, 28TH, 29TH, 30TH, 1907

BY

ANNIE BESANT(SECOND EDITION)

THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSEADYAR, MADRAS, INDIA

BENARES, INDIA; CHICAGO, U. S. A.T. P. S., LONDON

1913THL 'OAL / .

826 OAK&ALEAV.CHICAGO, ILL


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CONTENTSPAGE

LECTURE I. THE NATURE OF YOGA1. The Meaning of the Universe ... 12. The Unfolding of Consciousness . . 43. The Oneness of the Self .... 74. The Quickening of the Process of Self-

Unfoldment 85. Yoga is a Science 106. Man a Duality 147. States of Mind . . . . . .188. Samadhi 219. The Literature of Yoga . . . .25

10. Some Definitions 2911. God Without and God Within ... 3212. Changes of Consciousness and Vibrations

of Matter 3413. Mind . . . . . . .3814. Stages of Mind 3915. Inward and Outward-turned Consciousness 4216. 'The Cloud' 44


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VI CONTENTS

PAGELECTURE II. SCHOOLS OP THOUGHT 47

1. The Relation ofYoga to Indian Philosophies 502. Mind 703. The Mental Body 734. Mind and Self 76

LECTURE III. YOGA AS SCIENCE 811. Methods of Yoga 822. To the Self by the Self .... 843. To the Self through the Not-Self . . 894. Yoga and Morality 915. Composition of States of the Mind . . 976. Pleasure and Pain . . . . 103

LECTURE IV. YOGA AS PRACTICE 1141. Inhibition of States of Mind . . . 1152. Meditation with and without Seed . .1203. The Use of Mantras 1274. Attention . . -. . . .1285. Obstacles to Yoga . . . . 1316. Capacities for Yoga..... 1327. Porthgoing and Returning . . . 1388. Purification of Bodies .... 1469. Dwellers on the Threshold . . . 149

10. Preparation for Yoga .... 15611. The End . 157


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FOREWORDTHESE lectures are intended to give an out-line of Yoga, in order to prepare thestudent to take up, for practical purposes,the Sutras of Patanjali, the chief treatiseon Yoga. I have on hand, with my friendBhagavan Das as collaborates, a trans-lation of these Sutras, with Vyasa's com-mentary, and a further commentary andelucidation written in the light of Theo-sophy. To prepare the student for themastering of that more difficult task, theselectures were designed ; hence the manyreferences to Patanjali. They may, how-ever, also serve to give to the ordinary layreader some idea of the Science of sciences,and perhaps to allure a few towards itsstudy.

ANNIE BESANT


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LECTURE ITHE NATURE OP YOGA

BROTHERS :In this first discourse we shall concern our-

selves with the gaining of a general idea of thesubject of Yoga, seeking its place in nature, itsown character, its object in human evolution.

THE MEANING OF THE UNIVERSELet us, first of all, ask ourselves, looking at

the world around us, what it is that the historyof the world signifies. When we read history,what does the history tell us ? It seems to be amoving panorama of people and events, but it isreally only a dance of shadows ; the people areshadows, not realities, the kings and statesmen,the ministers and armies ; and the events thebattles and revolutions, the rises and falls of


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2 / t INTRODUCTION TO YOGAStates are the most shadow-like dance of all.Even if the historian tries to go deeper, if hedeals with economic conditions, with socialorganisations, with the study of the tendenciesof the currents of thought, even then he is inthe midst of shadows, the illusory shadows castby unseen realities. This world is full of formsthat are illusory, and the values are all wrong,the proportions are out of focus. The thingswhich a man of the world thinks valuable, aspiritual man must cast aside as worthless. Thediamonds of the world, with their glare andglitter in the rays of the outside sun, are merefragments of broken glass to the man of know-ledge. The crown of the King, the sceptre ofthe Emperor, the triumph of earthly power, areless than nothing to the man who has had oneglimpse of the majesty of the Self. What is,then, real ? What is truly valuable ? Our answerwill be very different from the answer given bythe man of the world.

" The universe exists for the sake of theSelf." Not for what the outer world can give,not for control over the objects of desires, notfor the sake even of beauty or pleasure, does theGreat Architect plan and build His worlds. Hehas filled them With objects, beautiful and


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 3

pleasure-giving. The great arch of the skyabove, the mountains with snow-clad peaks, thevalleys soft with verdure and fragrant withblossoms, the oceans with their vast depths,their surface now calm as a lake, now tossingin fury they all exist, not for the objects them-selves, but for their value to the Self. Not forthemselves because they are anything in them-selves, but that the purpose of the Self may beserved, and his manifestations made possible.The world, with all its beauty, its happiness and

suffering, its joys and pains, is planned with theutmost ingenuity, in order that the powers of theSelf may be shown forth in manifestation. Fromthe fire-mist to the LOGOS, all exists for the sake ofthe Self. The lowest grain of dust, the mightiestDeva in his heavenly regions, the plant thatgrows out of sight in the nook of a mountain,the star that shines aloft over us all these existin order that the fragments of the one Self,embodied in countless forms, may realise theirown identity, and manifest the powers of theSelf through the matter that envelops them.There is but one Self in the lowliest dust and

the loftiest Deva. ' Mamamsha/ ' My portion/" a portion of My Self," says Shri Krshna, areall these Jivatmas, all these living Spirits. For


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4 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAthem the universe exists ; for them the sun shines,and the waves roll, and the winds blow, and therain falls, that the Self may know himself as mani-fested in matter, as embodied in the universe.

THE UNFOLDING OF CONSCIOUSNESSOne of those pregnant and significant ideas

which Theosophy scatters so lavishly around isthis that the same scale is repeated over andover again, the same succession of events inlarger or smaller cycles. If you understand onecycle, you understand the whole. The samelaws by which a solar system is builded go tothe building up of the system of man. Thelaws by which the Self unfolds his powers inthe universe, from the fire-mist up to the LOGOS,are the same laws of consciousness which repeatthemselves in the universe of man. If youunderstand them in the one, you can equallyunderstand them in the other. Grasp them inthe small, and the large is revealed to you.Grasp them in the large, and the small becomesintelligible to you.The great unfolding from the stone to theGod goes on through millions of years, through

aeons of time. But the long unfolding that


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THE NATURE OF YOGA Otakes place in the universe, takes place in ashorter time-cycle within the limit of humanity,and this in a cycle so brief that it seems asnothing beside the longer one. Within a stillbriefer cycle a similar unfolding takes place inthe individual rapidly, swiftly, with all theforce of its past behind it. These forces thatmanifest and unveil themselves in evolution arecumulative in their power. Embodied in thestone, in the mineral world, they grow and putout a little more of strength, and in the mineralworld accomplish their unfolding. Then theybecome too strong for the mineral, and press oninto the vegetable world. There they unfoldmore and more of their divinity, until they be-come too mighty for the vegetable, and becomeanimal.Expanding within and gaining experiences from

the animal, they again overflow the limits of theanimal, and appear as the human. In the humanbeing they still grow and accumulate with ever-increasing force, and exert greater pressureagainst the barrier; and then out of the human,they press into the super-human. This lastprocess of evolution is called Yoga.Coming to the individual, the man of ourown globe has behind him his long evolution in


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O INTRODUCTION TO YOGAother chains than ours this same evolutionthrough mineral to vegetable, through vegetableto animal, through animal to man, and then fromour last dwelling-place in the lunar orb on tothis terrene globe that we call the earth. Ourevolution here has all the force of the last evo-lution in it, and hence, when we come to thisshortest cycle of evolution which is called Yoga,the man has behind him the whole of the forcesaccumulated in his human evolution, and it isthe accumulation of these forces which enableshim to make the passage so rapidly. We mustconnect our Yoga with the evolution of con-sciousness everywhere, else we shall not under-stand it at all ; for the laws of evolution of con-sciousness in a universe are exactly the same asthe laws of Yoga, and the principles wherebyconsciousness unfolds itself in the great evolutionof humanity are the same principles that we takein Yoga and deliberately apply to the more rapidunfolding of our own consciousness. So thatYoga, when it is definitely begun, is not a newthing, as some people imagine.The whole evolution is one in its essence. The

succession is the same, the sequences identical.Whether you are thinking of the unfolding ofconsciousness in the universe, or in the human


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THE NATURE OF YOGA /race, or in the individual, you can study thelaws of the whole, and in Yoga you learn toapply those same laws to your own consciousnessrationally and definitely. All the laws are one,however different in their stages of manifestation.

If you look at Yoga in this light, then thisYoga, which seemed so alien and so far off, willbegin to wear a familiar face, and come to youin a garb not- wholly strange. As you study theunfolding of consciousness, and the correspond-ing evolution of form, it will not seem so strangethat from man you should pass on to super-man,transcending the barrier of humanity, and findingyourself in the region where divinity becomesmore manifest.

THE ONENESS OF THE SELFThe Self in you is the same as the Self

Universal. Whatever powers are manifestedthroughout the world, those powers exist ingerm, in latency, in you. He, the Supreme,does not evolve. In Him there are no additionsor subtractions. His portions, the Jivatmas, areas Himself, and they only unfold their powersin matter as conditions around them draw thosepowers forth. If you realise the unity of the


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8 INTRODUCTION TO YOGA

Self amid the diversities of the Not-Self, thenYoga will not seem an impossible thing toyou.

THE QUICKENING OF THE PROCESS OF SELF-UNFOLDMENT

Educated and thoughtful men and women youalready are ; already you have climbed up thatlong ladder which separates the present outerformof the Deity in you from His form in the dust.The manifested Deity sleeps in the mineral and thestone. He becomes more and more unfolded invegetables and animals, and lastly in man He hasreached what appears as His culmination to ordi-nary men. Having done so much, shall you notdo more ? With the consciousness so far unfoldeddoes it seem impossible that it should unfold inthe future into the divine ?As you realise that the laws of the evolution of

form and of the unfolding of consciousness in theuniverse and man are the same, and that it isthrough these laws that the Yogi brings out hishidden powers, then you will understand alsothat it is not necessary to go into the mountainor into the desert, to hide yourself in a cave ora forest, in order that the union with the Self


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THE NATURE OP YOGA 9may be obtained He who is within you andwithout you. Sometimes for a special purposeseclusion may be useful. It may be well at timesto retire temporarily from the busy haunts ofmen. But in the universe planned by Ishvara,in order that the powers of the Self may bebrought out there is your best field for Yoga,planned with Divine wisdom and sagacity.The world is meant for the unfolding of the Self :why should you then seek to run away from it ?Look at Shri Krshna Himself in that greatUpanishat of Yoga, the Bhagavad-Gita. Hespoke it out on a battlefield, and not on a moun-tain peak. He spoke it to a Kshattrya readyto fight, and not to a Brahmana quietly retiredfrom the world. The Kurukshetra of the worldis the field of Yoga. They who cannot face theworld have not the strength to face the diffi-culties of Yoga practice. If the outer world out-wearies your powers, how do you expect toconquer the difficulties of the inner life ? If youcannot climb over the little troubles of the world,how can you hope to climb over the difficultiesthat a Yogi has to scale ? Those men blunder,who think that running away from the world isthe road to victory, and that peace can be foundonly in certain localities.


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10 INTRODUCTION TO YOGA

As a matter of fact, you have practised Yogaunconsciously in the past, even before your Self-consciousness had separated itself, was awareof itself, and knew itself to be different, in tem-porary matters at least, from all the others thatsurround it. And that is the first idea that youshould take up and hold firmly : Yoga is only aquickened process of the ordinary unfolding ofconsciousness.Yoga may then be defined as the " rational

application of the laws of the unfolding of con-sciousness in an individual case ". That is what ismeant by the methods of Yoga. You study thelaws of the unfolding of consciousness in the uni-verse, you then apply them to a special caseand that case is your own. You cannot applythem to another. They must be self-applied.That is the definite principle to grasp. So wemust add one more word to our definition:" Yoga is the rational application of the laws ofthe unfolding of consciousness, self-applied in anindividual case."

YOGA is A SCIENCENext : Yoga is a science. That is the second

thing to grasp. Yoga is a science, and not a


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 11vague, dreamy drifting or imagining. It is anapplied science, a systematised collection of lawsapplied to bring about a definite end. It takesup the laws of psychology, applicable to theunfolding of the whole consciousness of man onevery plane, in every world, and applies thoserationally in a particular case. This rationalapplication of the laws of unfolding conscious-ness acts exactly on the same principles thatyou see applied around you every day in otherdepartments of science.You know, by looking at the world aroundyou, how enormously the intelligence of man,co-operating with nature, may quicken ' natural'processes, and the working of intelligence is as' natural * as anything else. W make thisdistinction, and practically it is a real one,between f rational * and ' natural ' growth, becausehuman intelligence can guide the working ofnatural laws; and when we come to deal withYoga, we are in the same department of appliedscience as, let us say, is the scientific farmer orgardener, when he applies the natural laws ofselection to breeding. The farmer or gardenercannot transcend the laws of nature, nor can hework against them. He has no other laws ofnature to work with save the universal laws by


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12 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAwhich nature is evolving forms around us, andyet he does in a few years what nature takes,perhaps, hundreds of thousands of years to do.And how ? By applying human intelligence tochoose the laws that serve him, and to neutralisethe laws that hinder. He brings the divineintelligence in man to utilise the divine powersin nature, that are working for general ratherthan for particular ends.Take the breeder of pigeons. Out of the blue

rock pigeon he develops the pouter, or thefantail; he chooses out, generation after genera-tion, the forms that show most strongly thepeculiarity that he wishes to develop. He matessuch birds together, takes every favouringcircumstance into consideration, and selectsagain and again, and so on and on, till thepeculiarity that he wants to establish has becomea well-marked feature. Remove his controllingintelligence, leave the birds to themselves, andthey revert to the ancestral type.Or take the case of the gardener. Out of thewild rose of the hedge has been evolved every roseof the garden. Many-petalled roses are but theresult of the scientific culture of the five-petalledrose of the hedge-row,

the wild product ofnature. A gardener who chooses the pollen


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 13from one plant and places it on the carpels ofanother is simply doing deliberately what is doneevery day by the bee and the fly. But hechooses his plants, and he chooses those thathave the qualities he wants intensified, and fromthose again he chooses those that show thedesired qualities still more clearly, until he hasproduced a flower so different from the originalstock that only by tracing it back can you tellthe stock whence it sprang.So is it in the application of the laws of

psychology that we call Yoga. Systematisedknowledge of the unfolding of consciousnessapplied to the individualised self, that is Yoga.As I have just said, it is by the world that con-sciousness has been unfolded, and the world isadmirably planned by the LOGOS for this unfold-ing of consciousness ; hence the would-be Yogi,choosing out his objects and applying his laws,finds in the world exactly the things he wantsto make his practice of Yoga a real, a vitalthing, a quickening process for the knowledgeof the Self. There are many laws. You canchoose those which you require, you can evadethose you do not require, you can utilise thoseyou need, and thus you can bring about theresult that nature, without that application


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14 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAof human intelligence, cannot so swiftlyeffect.Take it, then, that Yoga is within your reach,

within your powers, and that even some of thelower practices of Yoga, some of the simplerapplications of the laws of the unfolding of con-sciousness to yourself, will benefit you in thisworld as well as in all others. For you arereally merely quickening your growth, yourunfolding, taking advantage of the powers natureputs within your hands, and deliberately elimin-ating the conditions which would not help you inyour work, but rather hinder your march forward.If you see it in that light, it seems to me thatYoga will be to you a far more real, practicalthing, than it is when you merely read somefragments about it taken from Samskrt books,and often mistranslated into English, and youwill begin to feel that to be a Yogi is notnecessarily a thing for a life far off, an incarna-tion far removed from the present one.

MAN A DUALITYSome of the terms used in Yoga are necessarily

to be known. For Yoga takes man for a specialpurpose and studies him for a special end, and,


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 15therefore, only troubles itself about two greatfacts regarding man, Mind and Body. First, heis a Unit, a Unit of consciousness. That is apoint to be definitely grasped. There is onlyone of him in each set of envelopes, and some-times the Theosophist has to revise his ideasabout man when he begins this practicalline. Theosophy, quite usefully and rightly,for the understanding of the human constitu-tion, divides man into many parts and pieces.We talk of physical, astral, mental, etc. Orwe talk about Sthula Sharira, SukshmaSharira, Karana Sharira, and so on. Sometimeswe divide man into Annamayakosha, Prana-mayakosha, Manomayakosha, etc. We divideman into so many pieces, in order to study himthoroughly, that we can hardly find the manbecause of the pieces. This is, so to say, forthe study of human anatomy and physiology.But Toga is practical and psychological. I

am not complaining of the various subdivisionsof other systems. They are necessary for thepurpose of those systems. But Yoga, for itspractical purposes, considers man simply as aduality Mind and Body, a Unit of consciousnessin a set of envelopes. This is not the duality ofthe Self and the Not-Self. For in Yoga, ' Self '


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16 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAincludes consciousness plus such matter as itcannot distinguish from itself, and Not-Self iaonly the matter it can put aside.Man is not pure Self, pure consciousness, Sam-vit. That is an abstraction. In the concreteuniverse there are always the Self and hissheaths, however tenuous the latter may be, sothat a unit of consciousness is inseparable frommatter, and a Jivatma, or Monad, is invariablyconsciousness plus matter.

In order that this may come out clearly, twoterma are used in Yoga as constituting manPrana and Pradhana, life-breath and matter.Prana is not only the life-breaths of the body,but the totality of the life-forces of the universe,or, in other words, the life-side of the universe.

t I am Prana," says Indra. Prana here meansthe totality of the life-forces. They are taken asconsciousness, mind. Pradhana is the term usedfor matter. Body, or the opposite of mind,means for the Yogi in practice, so much of theappropriated matter of the outer world as he isable to put away from himself, to distinguishfrom his own consciousness.

This division is very significant and useful, ifyou can catch clearly hold of the root idea. Ofcourse, looking at the thing from beginning to


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 17end, you will see Prana, the great Life, thegreat Self, always present in all, and you willsee the envelopes, the bodies, the sheaths, presentat the different stages, taking different forms ;but from the standpoint of Yogic practice, thatis called Prana, or Self, with which the manidentifies himself for the time, including everysheath of matter from which the man is unableto separate himself in consciousness. That unit,to the Yogi is the Self, so that it is a changingquantity. As he drops off one sheath after an-other and says : " That is not myself," he iscoming nearer and nearer to his highest point,to consciousness in a single film, in a singleatom of matter, a Monad. For all practical pur-poses of Yoga, the man, the working, consciousman, is so much of him as he cannot separatefrom the matter enclosing him, or with whichhe is connected. Only that is body which theman is able to put aside and say : " This is notI, but mine." We find we have a whole seriesof terms in Yoga which may be repeated overand over again. All the states of mind exist onevery plane, says Vyasa, and this way of dealingwith man enables the same significant words, aswe shall see in a moment, to be used over andover again, with an ever subtler connotation ;

2


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18 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAthey all become relative, and are equally true ateach stage of evolution.Now it is quite clear that, so far as many ofus are concerned, the physical body is the onlything of which we can say : " It is not myself" ;so that, in the practice of Yoga at first, for you,all the words that would be used in it to describethe states of consciousness, the states of mind,would deal with the waking consciousness inthe body as the lowest state, and, rising up fromthat, all the words would be relative terms,implying a distinct and recognisable state ofthe mind in relation to that which is the lowest.In order to know how you shall begin to applyto yourselves the various terms used to describethe states of mind, you must carefully analyseyour own consciousness, and find out how muchof it is really consciousness, and how much ismatter so closely appropriated that you cannotseparate it from yourself.

STATES OF MIND

Let us take it in detail. Four states of con-sciousness are spoken of amongst us. Waking, orJagrat ; the

f dream ' consciousness, or Svapna ;the ' deep sleep ' consciousness, or Sushupti ;


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 19and the state beyond that, called Turiya. *How are those related to the body ?

Jagrat is the ordinary waking consciousness,that you and I are using at the present time.If our consciousness works in the subtle, orastral, body, and is able to impress its ex-periences upon the brain, it is called Svapna, orin English, dream consciousness ; it is morevivid and real than the Jagrat state. Whenworking in the subtler form, the mental body,it is not able to impress its experiences on thebrain, it is called Sushupti, or deep sleep con-sciousness ; then the mind is working on its owncontents, not on outer objects. But if it has sofar separated itself from connection with thebrain, that it cannot be readily recalled by outermeans, then it is called Turiya, a lofty state oftrance. These four states, when correlated tothe four planes, represent a much unfoldedconsciousness. Jagrat is related to the physical ;Svapna to the astral; Sushupti to the mental;and Turiya to the buddhic. When passing fromone world to another, we should use these wordsto designate the consciousness working under the

1 It is impossible to avoid the use of these technical terms,even in an introduction to Yoga. There are no exactEnglish equivalents, and they are no more troublesome tolearn than any other technical psychological terms.


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20 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAconditions of each world. But the same wordsare repeated in the books of Yoga with a differentcontext. There the difficulty occurs, if wehave not learned their relative nature. Svapiiais not the same for all, nor is Sushupti the samefor every one.Above all, the word Samadhi, to be explained

in a moment, is used in different ways and indifferent senses. How then are we to find ourway in this apparent tangle ? By knowing thestate which is the starting point, and then thesequence will always be the same. All of youare familiar with the waking consciousness inthe physical body. You can find four stateseven in that if you analyse it, and a similarsequence of the states of the mind is found onevery plane.How to distinguish them, then ? Let us takethe waking consciousness, and try to see the fourstates in that. Suppose I take up a book andread it. I read the words ; my eyes are relatedto the outer physical consciousness. That isthe Jagrat state. I go behind the words to themeaning of the words. I have passed from thewaking state of the physical plane into theSvapna state

of waking consciousness, that seesthrough the outer form, seeking the inner life.


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 21I pass from this to the mind of the writer ; herethe mind touches the mind ; it is the wakingconsciousness in its Sushupti state. If I passfrom this contact and enter the very mind ofthe writer, and live in that man's mind, then Ihave reached the Turiya state of the wakingconsciousness.Take another illustration. I look at my watch ;

I am in Jagrat. I close my eyes and make animage of the watch ; I am in Svapna. I calltogether many ideas of many watches, and reachthe ideal watch ; I am in Sushupti. I pass tothe idea of time in the abstract ; I am in Turiya.But all these are stages in the physical planeconsciousness ; I have not left the body.

In this way, you can make states of mindintelligible and real, instead of mere words.

SAMADHI

Some other important words which recur fromtime to time in the Toga Sutras, need to beunderstood, though there are no exact Englishequivalents. As they must be used to avoidclumsy circumlocutions, it is necessary to explainthem. It is said : " Yoga is Samadhi." Samadhiis a state in which the consciousness is so


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22 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAdissociated from the body that the latter remainsinsensible. It is a state of trance, in which themind is fully self-conscious, though the body isinsensitive, and from which the mind returns tothe body with the experiences it has had in thesuper-physical state, remembering them whenagain immersed in the physical brain. Samadhifor any one person is relative to his wakingconsciousness, but implies insensitiveness of thebody. If an ordinary person throws himself intotrance and is active on the astral plane, hisSamadhi is on the astral. If his consciousnessis functioning in the mental plane, his Samadhiis there. The man who can so withdraw fromthe body as to leave it insensitive, while hismind is fully self-conscious, can practiseSamadhi.The phrase " Yoga is Samadhi " covers facts

of the highest significance and greatest instruc-tion. Suppose you are only able to reach theastral world when you are asleep, your con-sciousness there is, as we have seen, in theSvapna state. But as you slowly unfold yourpowers, the astral forms begin to intrude uponyour waking physical consciousness, until theyappear as distinctly as do physical forms, andthusbecome objects of your waking consciousness.


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THE NATURE OP YOGA 23The astral world then, for you, no longerbelongs to the Svapna consciousness, but to theJagrat ; you have taken two worlds within thescope of your Jagrat consciousness the physicaland the astral worlds and the mental world isin your Svapna consciousness. ' Your ' body isthen the physical and the astral bodies takentogether. As you go on, the mental plane beginssimilarly to intrude itself, and the physical, astraland mental all come within your waking con-sciousness ; all these are, then, your Jagrat world.These three worlds form but one world to you ;their three corresponding bodies but one body,that perceives and acts. The three bodies of *the ordinary man have become one body for theYogi. If under these conditions you want tosee only one world at a time, you must fix yourattention on it, and thus focus it. You can, inthat state of enlarged waking, concentrate yourattention on the physical and see it ; then theastral and mental will appear hazy. So youcan focus your attention on the astral and seeit; then the physical and the mental, being outof focus, will appear dim. You will easily under-stand this, if you remember that, in this hall, Imay focus my sight in the middle of the hall,when the pillars on both sides will appear


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24 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAindistinctly. Or I may concentrate my attentionon a pillar and see it distinctly, but I then seeyou only vaguely at the same time. It is achange of focus, not a change of body. Re-member that all which you can put aside as notyourself is the body of the Yogi, and hence, asyou go higher, the lower bodies form but a singlebody, and the consciousness in that sheath ofmatter which it still cannot throw away, thatbecomes the man.( " Yoga is Samadhi." It is the power to with-/draw from all that you know as body, and tos concentrate yourself within. That is Samadhi.No ordinary means will then call you back tothe world that you have left. 1 This will alsoexplain to you the phrase in The Secret Doctrinethat the Adept " begins his Samadhi on theatmic plane ". When a Jivanmukta enters intoSamadhi, He begins it on the atmic plane.All planes below the atmic are one plane forHim. He begins His Samadhi on a plane towhich the mere man cannot rise. He beginsit on the atmic plane, and thence risesstage by stage to the higher cosmic planes.

a An Indian Yogi in Samadhi, discovered in a forest bysome ignorant and brutal Englishmen, was so violently ill-used that he returned to his tortured body, only to leave itagain at once by death.


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 25The same word, Samadhi, is used to describethe states of the consciousness, whether it riseabove the physical into the astral, as in the self-induced trance of an ordinary man, or, as in thecase of a Jivanmukta, when, the consciousnessbeing already centred in the fifth, or atmic,plane, it rises to the higher planes of a largerworld.

THE LITERATURE OP YOGA

Unfortunately for non - Samskrt - knowingpeople, the literature of Yoga is not largelyavailable in English. The general teachings ofYoga are to be found in the Upanishats, andthe Shagavad-Gita j those, in many translations,are within your reach, but they are general, notspecial ; they give you the main principles, but donot tell you about the methods in any detailedway. Even in the Bhagavad-Gita, while youare told to make sacrifices, to become indifferent,and so on, it is all of the nature of moralprecept, absolutely necessary indeed, but stillnot telling you how to reach the conditions putbefore you. The special literature of Yoga is,first of all, many of the minor Upanishats,

"thehundred-and-eight " as they are called. Few of


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26 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAthese are translated.1 Then comes the enormousmass of literature called the Tantras. Thesebooks have an evil significance in the ordinaryEnglish ear, but not quite rightly. The fantrasare very useful books, very valuable andinstructive ; all occult science is to be found inthem. But they are divisible into three classes :those that deal with white magic, those thatdeal with black magic, and those that deal withwhat we may call grey magic, a mixture of thetwo. Now magic is the word which coversthe methods of deliberately bringing aboutsuper-normal physical states, by the action ofthe will.A high tension of the nerves, brought on byanxiety or disease, leads to ordinary hysteria,emotional and foolish. A similarly high tension,brought about by the will, renders a mansensitive to super-physical vibrations. Going tosleep has no significance, but going into Samadhiis a priceless power. The process is largely thesame, but one is due to ordinary conditions,the other to the action of the trained will. The

1 Dr. Otto Schrader, Director of the Adyar Library, is nowengaged on these, and is busy with the laborious task ofconstructing a critical text, to be followed by a completetranslation, copiously annotated. A great boon will havebeen bestowed on all interested in Samskrt literature, whenthis work is completed.


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THE NATUKB OF YOGA 27Yogi is the man who has learned the power ofthe will, and knows how to use it to bringabout foreseen and foredetermined results. Thisknowledge has ever been called magic ; itis the name of the Great Science of the pastthe one Science, to which only the word' great ' was given in the past. The Tantrascontain the whole of that ; the occult side ofman and nature, the means whereby discoveriesmay be made, the principles whereby the manmay recreate himself, all these are in the Tantras.The difficulty is that without a teacher theyare very dangerous, and again and again a mantrying to practise the tantric methods without ateacher makes himself very ill. So the Tantrashave got a bad name both in the West and herein India. A good many of the American ' occult 'books now sold are scraps of the Tantras whichhave been translated. One difficulty is thatthese tantric works often use the name of abodily organ to represent an astral or mentalcentre. There is some reason in that, becauseall the centres are connected with each otherfrom body to body ; but no reliable teacherwould set his pupil to work on the bodily organs,until he had some control over the highercentres, and had carefully purified the physical


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28 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAbody. Knowing the one helps you to know theother, and the teacher who has been through itall can place his pupil on the right path ; but ifyou take up these words, which are all physical,and do not know to what the physical word isapplied, then you will only become very confused,and may injure yourselves. For instance, inone of the sutras it says that if you meditate ona certain part of the tongue you will obtainastral sight. That means that if you meditateon the pituitary body, just over this part of thetongue, astral sight will be opened. The parti-cular word used to refer to a centre has acorrespondence in the physical body, and theword is often applied to the physical organswhen the other is meant. This is what is c'alleda ' blind/ and it is intended to keep the peopleaway from dangerous practices in the books thatare published; people may meditate on thatpart of their tongues all their lives without any-thing coming of it ; but if they think upon thecorresponding centre in the body, a good dealmuch harm may come of it. " Meditate onthe navel" it is also said. This means thesolar plexus, for there is a close connectionbetween the two. But to meditate on that is toincur the danger of a serious nervous disorder,


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 29almost impossible to cure. All who know howmany people in India suffer through thesepractices, ill understood, recognise that it is notwise to plunge into them without some one totell you what they mean, and what may besafely practised and what not. The other partof the Yoga literature is a small book calledThe Sutras of Patanjali. That is available, butI am afraid that few are able to make much ofit by themselves. In the first place, to elucidatethe Sutras, which are simply headings, there isa great deal of commentary in Samskrt, onlypartially translated. And even the commen-taries have this peculiarity, that all the mostdifficult words are merely repeated, not explained,so that the student is not much enlightened.

SOME DEFINITIONS

There are a few words, constantly recurring,which need brief definitions, in order to avoidconfusion ; they are : unfolding, evolution,spirituality, psychism, yoga, and mysticism.

' Unfolding ' always refers to consciousness,' evolution ' to forms. Evolution, according toHerbert Spencer, is the homogeneous becomingthe heterogeneous, the simple becoming complex.


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SO INTRODUCTION TO YOGABut there is no growth and no perfectioning forSpirit, for consciousness ; it is all there andalways, and all that can happen to it is to turnitself outwards instead of remaining turnedinwards. The God in you cannot evolve,but He may show forth His powers throughmatter that He has appropriated for the pur-pose, and the matter evolves to serve Him. HeHimself only manifests what He is. And onthat, many a saying of the great Mystics maycome to your mind : " Become," says S. Ambrose," what you are " a paradoxical phrase, but onethat sums up a great truth : become in outermanifestation that which you are in innerreality. That is the object of the whole processof Yoga.

' Spirituality ' is the realisation of the One.c Psychism ' is the manifestation of intelligencethrough any material vehicle.1

' Yoga ' is the seeking of union by the in-tellect, a science ;

'

Mysticism' is the seeking ofthe same union by emotion.2

1 See London Lectures of 1907. ' Spirituality andPsychism.'

2 The word ' yoga ' may, of course, be rightly used of allunion with the Self, whatever the road taken. I am usingit here in the narrower sense, as peculiarly connected withthe intelligence, as a science, herein following Patanjali.


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 31See the Mystic. He fixes his mind on the

object of devotion ; he loses self-consciousness,and passes into a rapture of love and adora-tion, leaving all external ideas, wrapped in theobject of his love, and a great surge of emotionsweeps him up to God. He does not know howhe has reached that lofty state. He is con-scious only of God and his love for Him. Hereis the rapture of the Mystic, the triumph of theSaint.The Yogi does not work like that. Step

after step, he realises what he is doing. Heworks by science and not by emotion, so thatany who do not care for science, finding it dulland dry, are not at present unfolding that partof their nature which will find its best help inthe practice of Yoga. The Yogi may use devo-tion as a means. This comes out very plainlyin Patanjali. He has given many meanswhereby Yoga may be followed, and, curi-ously, devotion to Ishvara

'is one of severalmeans. There comes out the spirit of the scienti-

fic thinker. Devotion to Ishvara is not for himan end in itself, but a means to an end theconcentration of the mind. You see there atonce the difference of spirit. Devotion toIshvara is the path of the Mystic. He attains


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 38and thus reach the stage where you havepure consciousness save a veil of the thinnirvanic matter. Then you know that God is.So you read in the Upanishat : " Whose onlyproof is the witness of the Self." This is verydifferent from western methods of thought, whichtry to demonstrate God by a process of argu-ment. The Hindu will tell you that you cannotdemonstrate God by any argument or reasoning ;He is above and beyond reasoning, and althoughthe reason may guide you on the way, it willnot prove to demonstration that God is. Theonly way you can know Him is by diving intoyourself. There you will find Him, and knowthat He is without as well as within you ; andYoga is a system that enables you to get rid ofeverything from consciousness that is not God,save that one veil of the nirvanic atom, and soto know that God is, with an unshakablecertainty of conviction. To the Hindu thatinner conviction is the only thing worthy to becalled Faith, and this gives you the reason whyfaith is said to be beyond reason, and so is oftenconfused with credulity. Faith is beyond reason,because it is the testimony of the Self to himself,that conviction of existence as Self, of whichreason is only one of the outer manifestations, and

3


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34 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAthe only true faith is that inner conviction, whichno argument can either strengthen or weaken,of the innermost Self of you, that of which aloneyou are entirely sure. It is the aim of Yoga toenable you to reach that Self constantly, not bya sudden glimpse of intuition, but steadily,unshakably, and unchangeably, and when thatSelf is reached, then the question : " Is there aGod ?" can never again come into the humanniind.

CHANGES OP CONSCIOUSNESS AND VIBRATIONSOF MATTER

Now it is necessary to understand somethingabout that consciousness which is your Self, andabout the matter which is the envelope of con-sciousness, but which the Self so often identifieswith himself. The great characteristic of con-sciousness is change, with a foundation of cer-tainty that it is. The consciousness of existencenever changes, but beyond this all is change,and only by the changes does consciousnessbecome Self-consciousness. Consciousness is anever-changing thing, circling round one ideathat never changes Self-existence. The con-sciousness itself is not changed by any change


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THE NATURE OP YOGA 35of position or place. It only changes its stateswithin itself.

In matter, every change of state is broughtabout by change of place. A change of con-sciousness is a change of state ; a change ofmatter is a change of place. Moreover, everychange of state in consciousness is related tovibrations of matter in its vehicle. Whenmatter is examined, we find three fundamentalqualities rhythm, mobility, stability sattva,rajas, tamas. Sattva is rhythm, vibration. It ismore than rajas, or mobility. It is a regulatedmovement, a swinging from one side to theother over a definite distance, a length of wave,a vibration.The question is often put : " How can thingsin such different categories as Matter and Spirit

affect each other ? Can we bridge that greatgulf which Tyndall said can never be crossed ? "Yes, the Indian has crossed it, or rather, hasshown that there is no gulf. To the Indian,Matter and Spirit are not only the two phasesof the One, but, by a subtle analysis of therelation between consciousness and matter, hesees that in every universe the LOGOS imposesupon matter a certain definite relation ofrhythms, every vibration of matter corresponding


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THE NATURE OP YOGA 37great strain imposed on the comparatively intract-able matter of the physical plane sometimesleads to atrophy of the very organs, the activityof which is necessary for effecting the changesin consciousness that would be useful. The HathaYogi gains control over the bodily organs withwhich the waking consciousness no longerconcerns itself, having relinquished them to itslower part, the sub-consciousness '. This isoften useful as regards

theprevention

of disease,but serves no higher purpose. When he beginsto work on the brain centres, connected withordinary consciousness, and still more when hetouches those connected with the super-conscious-ness, he enters a dangerous region, and is morelikely to paralyse than to evolve.

That relation alone it is which makes mattercognisable ; the change in the thinker is answeredby a change outside, and his answer to it, andthe change in it that he makes by his answer,re-arrange again the matter of the body whichis his envelope. Hence the rhythmic changesin matter are rightly called its cognisability.Matter may be known by consciousness, becauseof this unchanging relation between the twosides of the manifested LOGOS who is one,and the Self becomes aware of changes within


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38 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAHimself, and thus of those of the external worldsto which those changes are related.

MINDWhat is mind ? From the yogic standpoint it is

simply the individualised consciousness, the wholeof it, the whole of your consciousness includingyour activities which the western psychologistputs outside mind. Only on the basis of easternpsychology is Yoga possible. How shall wedescribe this individualised consciousness ? Firstit is aware of things. Becoming aware of them,it desires them. Desiring them, it tries to attainthem. So we have the three aspects of con-sciousness intelligence, desire, activity. On thephysical plane, activity predominates, althoughdesire and thought are present. On the astralplane, desire predominates, and thought andactivity are subject to desire. On the mentalplane, intelligence is the dominant note, desireand activity are subject to it. Go to the buddhicplane, and cognition, as pure reason, predomin-ates, and so on. Each quality is present all thetime, but one predominates. So with the matterthat belongs to them. In your combinationsof matter you get rhythmic, active, or stable


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 39ones ; and according to the combinations ofmatter in your bodies will be the conditions ofthe activity of the whole of these in conscious-ness. To practise Yoga you must build yourbodies of the rhythmic combinations, withactivity and inertia less apparent. The Yogiwants to make his body match his mind.

STAGES OF MINDThe mind has five stages, Patanjali tells us,

and Vyasa comments that " these stages of mindare on every plane ". The first stage is thestage in which the mind is flung about, theKshipta stage; it is the butterfly mind, theearly stage of humanity, or, in man, the mind ofthe child, darting constantly from one object toanother. It corresponds to activity on thephysical plane. The next is the confused stage,Mudha, equivalent to the stage of the youth,swayed by emotions, bewildered by them ; hebegins to feel he is ignorant a state beyondthe fickleness of the child a characteristicstate, corresponding to activity in the astralworld. Then comes the state of preoccupation,or infatuation, Vikshipta, the state of the manpossessed by an idea love, ambition, or what


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40 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAnot. He is no longer a confused youth, but aman with a clear aim, and an idea possesseshim. It may be either the fixed idea of themadman, or the fixed idea which makes thehero or the saint ; but in any case he is possessedby the idea. The quality of the idea, its truthor falsehood, makes the difference between themaniac and the martyr.

Maniac or martyr, he is under the spell of afixed idea. No reasoning avails against it. Ifhe has assured himself that he is made of glass,no amount of argument will convince him to thecontrary. He will always regard himself asbeing as brittle as glass. That is a fixed ideawhich is false. But there is a fixed idea whichmakes the hero and the martyr. For some greattruth dearer than life is everything thrownaside. He is possessed by it, dominated by it,and he goes to death gladly for it. That stateis said to be approaching Yoga, for such a manis becoming concentrated, even if only possessedby one idea. This stage corresponds to activityon the lower mental plane. Where the manpossesses the idea, instead of being possessedby it, that one-pointed state of the mind,called Bkagrata in Samskrt, is the fourthstage. He is a mature man, ready for the true


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 41life. When the man has gone through life domin-ated by one idea, then he is approaching Yoga ;he is getting rid of the grip of the world, and isbeyond its allurements. But when he possessesthat which before possessed him, then he has be-come fit for Yoga, and begins the training whichmakes his progress rapid. This stage corre-sponds to activity on the higher mental plane.Out of this fourth stage, or Ekagrata, arises

the fifth stage, Niruddha or Self-controlled.When the man not only possesses one idea, but,rising above all ideas, chooses as he wills, takesor does not take according to the illumined Will,then he is Self-controlled, and can effectivelypractise Yoga. This stage corresponds toactivity on the buddhic plane.

In the third stage, Vikshipta, where he is pos-sessed by the idea, he is learning viveka, or dis-crimination between the outer and the inner, thereal and the unreal. When he has learned thelesson of viveka, then he advances a stage for-ward ; and in Ekagrata he chooses one idea, theinner life ; and as he fixes his mind on that ideahe learns vairagya, or dispassion. He risesabove the desire to possess objects of enjoyment,belonging either to this or any other world.Then he advances towards the fifth stage,


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THE NATURE OF YOGA 43consciousness is always first. You are in thestage of Samadhi belonging to the outward-turnedwaking consciousness, when you can pass beyondthe objects to the principles which those objectsmanifest, when through the form you catch aglimpse of the life. Darwin was in this stagewhen he glimpsed the truth of evolution. Thatis the outward-turned samadhi of the physicalbody.

This is technically the Samprajnata Samadhi,the " Samadhi with consciousness," but to bebetter regarded, I think, as with the conscious-ness outward-turned, i.e., conscious of objects.When the object disappears, that is when con-sciousness draws itself away from the sheath bywhich those objects are seen, then comes theAsamprajnata Samadhi, called the " Samadhiwithout consciousness." I prefer to call it theinward-turned consciousness, as it is by turningaway from the outer that this stage is reached.

These two stages of Samadhi follow each otheron every plane ; the intense concentration on ob-jects in the first stage, and the piercing therebythrough the outer form to the underlying prin-ciple, are followed by the turning away of theconsciousness from the sheath which has servedits purpose, and its withdrawal into itself, i.e.,


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44 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAinto a sheath not yet recognised as a sheath. Itis then for a while conscious only of itself andnot of the outer world. Then comes the ' cloud/the dawning sense again of an outer, a dimsensing of ' something ' other than itself ; thatagain is followed by the functioning of the highersheath and the recognition of the objects of thenext higher plane, corresponding to that sheath.Hence the complete cycle is : SamprajfiataSamaclhi, Asamprajnata Samadhi, Megha (cloud),and then the Samprajfiata Samadhi of the nextplane, and so on.

THE CLOUDThis term in full, JJharma-Megha, cloud of

righteousness, or of religion is one which isvery scantily explained by the commentators.In fact, the only explanation they give is thatall the man's past karma of good gathers overhim, and pours down upon him a rain of bless-ing. Let us see if we cannot find somethingmore than this meagre interpretation.The term ( cloud ' is very often used in the

mystic literature of the West ; the ( Cloud on theMount/ the ' Cloud on the Sanctuary/ the' Cloud on the Mercy-Seat/ are expressions


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THE NATURfc OF YOGA 45familiar to the student. And the experiencewhich they indicate is familiar to all Mystics inits lower phases, and to some in its fulness. Inits lower phases, it is the experience just noted,where the withdrawal of the consciousnessinto a sheath not yet recognised as a sheath isfollowed by the beginning of the functioning ofthat sheath, the first indication of which is thedim sensing of an outer. You feel as though"'surrounded by a dense mist, conscious that youare riot alone, but unable to see. Be still ; bepatient ; wait. Let your consciousness be in theattitude of suspense. Presently the cloud willthin, and first in glimpses, then in its full beauty,the vision of a higher plane will dawn on yourentranced sight. This entrance into a higherplane will repeat itself again and again, until,your consciousness centred on the buddhic plane,and its splendours having disappeared as yourconsciousness withdraws even from that exquisitesheath, you find yourself in the true cloud, thecloud on the sanctuary, the cloud that veils theHoliest, that hides the vision of the Self. Thencomes what seems to be the draining away of thevery life, the letting go of the last hold on thetangible, thehanging in a void, the horror of greatdarkness, loneliness unspeakable. Endure, endure.


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LECTURE IISCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

BROTHERS :In studying psychology, any one who isacquainted with the Samskrt tongue must knowhow valuable that language is for precise andscientific dealing with the subject. The Sam-skrt, or the well-made, the constructed, thebuilt together, tongue, is one that lends itselfbetter than .any other to the elucidation ofpsychological difficulties. Over and over again,by the mere form of a word, a hint is given, an ex-planation or relation is suggested. The languageis constructed in a fashion which enables a largenumber of meanings to be connoted by a singleword, so that you may trace all allied ideas, ortruths, or facts, by this verbal connection, whenyou are speaking or using Samskrt. It has alimited number of important roots, and then an


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48 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAimmense number of words constructed on thoseroots.Now the root of the word 'yoga,' is a word that

means, ' to join ', yuj, and that root appearsin many languages, such as the English ofcourse, through the Latin, wherein you getjugarej jungere, ' to join ' and out of that anumber of English words are derived, and will atonce suggest themselves to you : junction, con-junction, disjunction, and so on. The Englishword ' yoke/ again, is derived from this sameSamskrt root, so that all through the various words,or thoughts, or facts, connected with this one root,you are able to gather the meaning of the word( Yoga/ and to see how much that word covers inthe ordinary processes of the mind, and how sug-gestive many of the words connected with it are,acting, so to speak, as signposts to direct youalong the road to the meaning. In other tongues,as in French, we have a word like rapport, usedconstantly in English ; ' being en rapport,' aFrench expression, but so anglicised that it iscontinually heard amongst ourselves. And thatterm, in some ways, is the closest to the meaningof the Samskrt word ' Yoga 9 ; ' to be in relationto ' ; Ho be connected with ' ; ' to enter into ' ;' to merge in ' \ and so on : all these ideas are


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SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT 49classified together under the one head of 'Yoga'.When you find Shri Krshna saying that " Yogais equilibrium," in the Samskrt He is saying aperfectly obvious thing, because Yoga impliesbalance, yoking, and the Samskrt of equilibriumis 'Samatvd, togetherness' ; so that it is a perfectlysimple, straightforward statement, not connotinganything very deep, but merely expressing oneof the fundamental meanings of the wordHe is using. And so with another word, a wordused in the commentary on the sutra I quotedlast week, which conveys to the Hindu a perfectlystraightforward meaning : " Yoga is Samadhi."To an only English-knowing person that doesnot convey any very definite idea ; each wordneeds explanation. To a Samskrt-knowing manthe two words are obviously related to one another.For the word Yoga, we have seen, means c yokedtogether/ and Samadhi is derived from the rootdha, ( to place/ with the prepositions sam and a,meaning

c

completely together '. Samadhi, there-fore, literally means ( fully placing together/ andits etymological equivalent in English would be'to compose' (com=sam; j90sia=place) . Samadhitherefore means c composing the mind/ collectingit together, checking all distractions. Thus byphilological, as well as by practical, investigation


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50 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAthe two words Yoga and Samadhi are inseparablylinked together. And when Vyasa, the comment-ator, says : " Yoga is the composed mind/' ho isconveying a clear and significant idea as to whatis implied in Yoga. Although Samadhi has cometo mean, by a natural sequence of ideas, thetrance-state which results from perfect composure,its original meaning should not be lost sight of.

Thus, in explaining Yoga, one is often at a lossfor the English equivalent of the manifold mean-ings of the Samskrt tongue, and I earnestlyadvise those of you who can do so, at least toacquaint yourselves sufficiently with this admir-able language, to make the literature of Yogamore intelligible to you than it can be to aperson who is completely ignorant of Samskrt.

ITS KELATION TO INDIAN PHILOSOPHIES

Let me ask you to think for a while on theplace of Yoga in its relation to two of the greatHindu Schools of philosophical thought, forneither the Englishman nor the non-Samskrt-knowing Indian can ever really understand thetranslations of the chief Indian books, nowcurrent here and in the West and the force ofall the allusions they make, unless they acquaint


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SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT 51themselves in some degree with the outlines ofthese great Schools of philosophy, they beingthe very foundation on which these books, manyof which are familiar to you, are built up. Takethe Bhagavad-Gitd. Probably there are few ofyou, Indian or English, who do not know thatbook fairly well, who do not use it as the bookto help you most in the spiritual life, who are notfamiliar with most of its precepts. But you mustalways be more or less in a fog in reading it,unless you realise the fact that it is founded on aparticular Indian philosophy, and that themeaning of nearly all the technical words in itis practically limited by their meaning in thephilosophy known as the Sankhya. There arecertain phrases belonging rather to the Vedanta,but the great majority are Sankhyan, and it istaken for granted that the people reading orusing the book are familiar with the outline ofthe Sankhyan philosophy. I do not want totake you into details, but I must give you theleading ideas of this philosophy. For if yougrasp these, you will not only read yourEhagavad-Gita with much more intelligencethan before, but you will be able to use itpractically for yogic purposes in a way that, with-out this knowledge, is almost impossible.


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52 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAAlike in the Bhagavad-Gita and in the Sutras

of Patanjali the terms are Sankhyan, and, his-torically, Yoga is based on the Sankhya, so faras its philosophy is concerned. Sankhya does notconcern itself with the existence of Deity, butonly with the Becoming of a universe, the orderof evolution. Hence it is often called NirishvaraSankhya, the Sankhya without God. But soclosely is it bound up with the Yoga system,that the latter is called Seshvara Sankhya,the Sankhya with God. For its understanding,therefore, I must outline part of the Sankhyaphilosophy, that part which deals with the re-lation of Spirit and Matter, note the differencefrom this of the Vedantic conception of Selfand Not-Self, and then find the reconcilia-tion in the Theosophic statement of the factsin nature. The directions which fall from thelips of the Lord of Yoga in the G-itd, may some-times seem to you opposed to each other andcontradictory, because they sometimes arephrased in the Sankhyan and sometimes in theVedantic terms, starting from different stand-points, one looking at the world from the stand-point of Matter, the other from the standpointof Spirit. If you are a student of Theosophy,then the knowledge of the facts will enable you


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SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT 53to translate the different phrases. That recon-ciliation and understanding of these apparentlycontradictory phrases is the object to which Iwould ask your attention now.The Sankhyan School starts with the state-

ment that the universe consists of two factors,the first pair of opposites, Spirit and Matter, or,more accurately, Spirits and Matter. The Spiritis called Purusha, the Man ; and each Spirit isan individual. Purusha is a Unit, a Unit ofconsciousness ; they are all of the same nature,but distinct everlastingly the one from the other.Of these units there are many; countless Purushasare to be found in the world of men. But whilethey are countless in number they are identicalin nature, they are homogeneous. Every Purushahas three characteristics, and these three arealike in all. One characteristic is awareness ; itwill become Cognition. The second of thecharacteristics is life or prana ; it will becomeActivity. The third characteristic is immuta-bility, the essence of eternity ; it will become Will.Eternity is not, as some mistakenly think, ever-lasting time. Everlasting time has nothing todo with eternity. Time and eternity are two al-together different things. Eternity is changeless,immutable, simultaneous. No succession in time,


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54 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAalbeit everlasting if such could be could giveeternity. The fact that Purusha has this attributeof immutability, tells us that he is eternal ; forchangelessness is a mark of the eternal.

Such are the three attributes of Purusha,according to the Sankhya. Though these arenot the same in nomenclature as the VedanticSat, Chit, Ananda, yet they are practicallyidentical. Awareness or cognition is Chit ; lifeor force is Sat ; and immutability, the essence ofeternity, is Ananda.Over against these Purushas, homogeneous

units, countless innumber, stands Prakrti, Matter,the second in the Sankhyan duality. Prakrti isone ; Purushas are many. Prakrti is a con-tinuum ; Purushas are discontinuous, being in-numerable, homogeneous units. Continuity isthe mark of Prakrti. Pause for a moment on thename Prakrti. Let us investigate its root mean-ing. The name indicates its essence. Pro, meansf forth

y and kr is the root, ' make'. Prakrti thusmeans s forth-making * ; Matter is that whichenables the essence of Being to become. Thatwhich is Being, is-tence, becomes ex-is-tence, out-being, by Matter, and to describe Matter as*forth-making

' is to give its essence in a singleword. Only by Prakrti can Spirit, or Purusha,


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SCHOOLS OP THOUGHT 55' forth-make ' or ( manifest ' himself. Withoutthe presence of Prakrti, Purusha is helpless, amere abstraction. Only by the presence of, andin, Prakrti, can Purusha make manifest hispowers. Prakrti has also three characteristics,the well-known gunas attributes or qualities.These are rhythm, mobility and inertia. Rhythmenables awareness to become cognition. Mobilityenables life to become activity. Inertia enablesimmutability to become will.Now the conception as to the relation of Spirit

to Matter is a very peculiar one, and confusedideas about it give rise to many misconceptions.If you grasp it, the hagavad-Gita becomesilluminated, and all the phrases about action andactor, and the mistake of saying, 'I act/ becomeeasy to understand, as implying technicalSankhyan ideas.The three qualities of Prakrti, when Prakrti

is thought of as away from Purusha, are inequilibrium, motionless, poised the one againstthe other, counterbalancing and neutralisingeach other, so that Matter is called jada, uncon-scious, ' dead'. But in the presence of Purushaall is changed. When Purusha is in propinquityto Matter, then there is a change in Matter notoutside, but in it.


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56 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAPurusha acts on Prakrti by propinquity, says

Vyasa. It comes near Prakrti, and Prakrtibegins to live. The ' coming near ' is a figure ofspeech, an adaptation to our ideas of time andspace, for we cannot posit ' nearness * of thatwhich is timeless and spaceless Spirit. By theword ' propinquity ' is indicated an influenceexerted by Purusha on Prakrti, and this, wherematerial objects are concerned, would be broughtabout by their propinquity. If a magnet bebrought near to a piece of soft iron, or an elec-trified body be brought near to a neutral one,certain changes are wrought in the soft iron, orin the neutral body, by that bringing near. Thepropinquity of the magnet makes the soft iron amagnet ; the qualities of the magnet are producedin it, it manifests poles, it attracts steel, it attractsor repels the end of an electric needle. In thepresence of a positively electrified body, theelectricity in a neutral body is re-arranged, andthe positive retreats while the negative gathersnear the electrified body. An internal changehas occurred in both cases from the propinquityof another object. So with Purusha and Prakrti.Purusha does nothing, but from Purusha therecomes out an influence, as in the case of themagnetic influence. The three gunas, under this


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SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT 57influence of Purusha, undergo a marvellouschange. I do not know what words to use, inorder not to make a mistake in putting it. Youcannot say that Prakrti absorbs the influence.You can hardly say that it reflects the Puruha.But the presence of Purusha brings aboutcertain internal changes, causes a differencein the equilibrium of the three gunas inPrakrti. The three gunas were in a state ofequilibrium. No guna was manifest. One gunawas balanced against another. What happenswhen Puru^ha influences Prakrti ? The quality ofawareness in Purusha is taken up by, or reflectedin, the guna called sat^va, rhythm, and it becomescognition in Prakrti. The quality that we calllife in Purusha is taken up by, or reflected in,the guna called rajas, mobility, and it becomesforce, energy, activity, in Prakrti. The qualitythat we call immutability in Purusha is takenup by, or reflected in, the guna called tamas,inertia, and shows itself out as will or desire inPrakrti. So that, in that balanced equilibriumof Prakrti, a change has taken place by themere propinquity of, or presence of, the Purusha.The Purusha has lost nothing, but at the sametime a change has taken place in matter.Cognition has appeared in it. Activity, force,


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58 1NTEODUCTION TO YOGAhas appeared in it. Will or desire has appearedin it. With this change in Prakrti another changeoccurs. The three attributes of Purusha cannotbe separated from each other, nor can the threeattributes of Prakrti be separated each fromeach. Hence rhythm, while appropriatingawareness, is under the influence of the wholethree-in-one Purusha, and cannot but also take upsubordinately life and immutability as activityand will. And so with mobility and inertia.In combinations one quality or another maypredominate, and we may have combinationswhich show preponderantly awareness-rhythm,.or life-mobility, or immutability-inertia. Thecombinations in which awareness-rhythm, orcognition, predominates become ' mind in nature/the subject, or subjective half of nature. Com-binations in which either of the other two pre-dominates become the object, or objective halfof nature, the ' force and matter ' of the Europeanscientist.

1

We have thus nature divided into two, thesubject and the object. We have now in natureeverything that is wanted for the manifestation

1 A friend notes that the first is the Shuddha Sattva of theRamanuja School, and the second and third the Prakrti, orspirit-matter, in the lower sense of the same.


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SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT 59of activity, for the production of forms, and forthe expression of consciousness. We havemind, and we have force and matter. Purushahas nothing more to do, for he has infused allpowers into Prakrti, and sits apart, contemplat-ing their interplay, himself remaining unchang-ed. The drama of existence is played outwithin Matter, and all that Spirit does is tolook at it. Purusha is the spectator beforewhom the drama is played. He is not the actor,but only a spectator. The actor is the sub-jective part of nature, the mind, which is thereflection of awareness in rhythmic matter. Thatwith which it works, objective nature, is the re-flection of the other qualities of Purusha lifeand immutability in the gunas, rajas and tamas.Thus we have in nature everything that iswanted for the production of the universe.The Purusha only looks on when the drama isplayed before him. He is spectator, not actor.This is the predominant note of the Bhagavad-Gtta. Nature does everything. The gunasbring about the universe. The man who says :'I act ' is mistaken and confused ; thegunas act, not he. He is only the spectatorand looks on. Most of the Gita teaching is builtupon this conception of the Sankhya, and unless


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60 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAthat is clear in our minds, we can never discrim-inate the meaning under the phrases of aparticular philosophy.

Let us now turn to the Vedantic idea. Accord-ing to the Vedantic view the Self is one, omni-present, all-permeating, the one reality. No-thing exists except the Self that is the startingpoint in Vedanta. All-permeating, all-control-ling, all-inspiring, the Self is everywhere present.As the ether permeates all matter, so does theOne Self permeate, restrain, support, vivify all.It is written in the Gita that as the air goeseverywhere, so is the Self everywhere in theinfinite diversity of objects. As we try to followthe outline of Vedantic thought, as we try tograsp this idea of the one universal Self, who isexistence, consciousness, bliss, Sat-Chit-Ananda,we find that we are carried into a loftier regionof philosophy than that occupied by the Sankhya.The Self is One. The Self is everywhere con-scious, the Self is everywhere existent, the Selfis everywhere blissful. There is no divisionbetween these qualities of the Self. Everywhere,all-embracing, these qualities are found at everypoint, in every place. There is no spot onwhich you can put your finger and say : " TheSelf is not here." Where the Self is and He


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SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT 61is everywhere there is existence, there is con-sciousness, and there is bliss. The Self, beingconsciousness, imagines limitation, division.From that imagination of limitation arises form,diversity, manyness. From that thought of theSelf, from that thought of limitation, all diver-sity of the many is born. Matter is the limitationimposed upon the Self by His own will to limitHimself. " Ekoham, bahu syama," " I am one ;I will to be many " ; " let me be many," is thethought of the One ; and in that thought, themanifold universe comes into existence. In thatlimitation, Self-created, He exists, He is conscious,He is happy. In Him arises the thought thatHe is Self-existence, and behold ! all existencebecomes possible. Because in Him is the willto manifest, all manifestation at once comes intoexistence. Because in Him is all bliss, thereforeis the law of life the seeking for happiness, theessential characteristic of every sentient creature.The Universe appears by the Self-limitation inthought of the Self. The moment the Selfceases to think it, the universe is not, itvanishes as a dream. That is the fundamentalidea of the Vedanta. Then it accepts the Spiritsof the Sankhya, the Purushas ; but it says thatthese Spirits are only reflections of the one Self,


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62 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAemanated by the activity of the Self, and thatthey all reproduce Him in miniature, with thelimitations which the universal Self has imposedupon them, which are apparently portions ofthe universe, but are really identical with Him.It is the play of the Supreme Self that makes thelimitations, and thus reproduces within limitationsthe qualities of the Self ; the consciousness of theSelf, of the Supreme Self, becomes, in the particu-larised Self, cognition, the power to know ; andthe existence of the Self becomes activity, thepower to manifest ; and the bliss of the Self be-comes will, the deepest part of all, the longingfor happiness, for bliss ; the resolve to obtain itis what we call will. And so in the limited, thepower to know, and the power to act, and thepower to will, these are the reflections in theparticular Self of the essential qualities of the uni-versal Self. Otherwise put : that which was uni-versal awareness, becomes now cognition in theseparated

Self j that which in the universal Selfwas awareness of itself, becomes in the limitedSelf awareness of others ; the awareness of thewhole becomes the cognition of the individual.So with the existence of the Self ; the Self-exist-ence of the universal Self becomes in the limitedSelf, activity, preservation of existence. So does


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SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT 63the bliss of the universal Self, in the limited ex-pression of the individual Self, become the willthat seeks for happiness, the Self-determinationof the Self, the seeking for Self-realisation, thatdeepest essence of human life.The difference comes with limitation, with thenarrowing of the universal qualities into the

specific qualities of the limited Self ; both are thesame in essence, though seeming different inmanifestation. We have the power to know, thepower to will, and the power to act. These arethe three great powers of the Self, that showthemselves in the separated Self, in every diver-sity of forms, from the minutest moneron to theloftiest Logos.

Then, just as in the Sankhya, if the Purusha,the particular Self, should identify himself withthe matter in which he is reflected, then there isdelusion and bondage ; so in the Vedanta, if theSelf, eternally free, imagines himself to be boundby matter, identifying himself with his limit-ations, he is deluded, he is under the domain ofMaya ; for Maya is the Self-identification of theSelf with his limitations,. The eternally free cannever be bound by matter ; the eternally purecan never be tainted by matter ; the eternallyknowing can never be deluded by matter ; the


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64 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAeternally Self-determined can never be ruled bymatter, save by his own ignorance. His ownfoolish fancy limits his inherent powers ; he isbound, because he imagines himself bound ; heis impure, because he imagines himself impure -,he is ignorant, because he imagines himself ig-norant. With the vanishing of delusion he findsthat he is eternally free, eternally pure, eternallywise.Here is the great difference between the

Sankhya and the Vedanta. According to theSankhya, Purusha is the spectator, and neverthe actor. According to Vedanta, the Self is theonly actor, all else is Maya : there is no one elsewho acts but the Self, according to the Vedanticteaching. As says the Upanishat : the Self willedto see, and there were eyes ; the Self willed tohear and there were ears; the Self willed tothink, and there was mind. The eyes, the ears,the mind exist, because the Self has willed theminto existence. The Self appropriates matter, inorder that He may manifest his powers through it.There is the distinction between the Sankhya,and the Vedanta : in the Sankhya the propinquityof Purusha brings out in matter, or Prakr^i, allthese characteristics ; the Prakrti acts, and notthe Puruha : in the Vedanta, Self alone exists,


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SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT 65and Self alone acts ; He imagines limitation andmatter appears ; He appropriates that matter, inorder that He may manifest His own capacity.The Sankhya is the view of the universe of

the scientist ; the Vedanta is the view of the uni-verse of the metaphysician. Haeckel uncon-sciously is expounding the Sankhyan philosophyalmost perfectly. So close to the Sankhyan ishis exposition, that another idea would make itpurely Sankhyan ; he has not yet supplied thatpropinquity of consciousness which the Sankhyapostulates in its ultimate duality. He has forceand matter, he has mind in matter, but he has noPurusha. His last book, criticised by Sir OliverLodge, is thoroughly intelligible from the Hindustandpoint, as an almost accurate representationof Sankhyan philosophy. It is the view of thescientist, indifferent to the ' why ' of the factswhich he records. The Vedanta, as I said, isthe view of the metaphysician ; he seeks theunity in which all diversities are rooted, and intowhich they are resolved.Now what light does Theosophy throw on boththese systems ? As usual, by giving the facts ofthe universe, Theosophy enables every thinkerto reconcile the partial statements which are ap-parently so contradictory. Theosophy, with the


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66 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAVedanta, proclaims the universal Self. All thatthe Vedanta says of the universal Self and theSelf-limitation, Theosophy repeats. We call theseSelf-limited selves Monads, and we say, as theVedantin says, that these Monads reproduce thenature of the universal Self whose portions theyare. And hence you find in them three qualitieswhich you find in the Supreme. They are units,and these represent the Purushas of the Sankhyabut with a very great difference, for they arenot passive watchers, but active agents in thedrama of the universe, although, being abovethe five-fold universe, they are as spectators whopull the strings of the players on the stage.The Monad takes to himself from the universeof matter atoms which show out the qualitiescorresponding to his three qualities, and inthese he thinks, and wills and acts. Hetakes to himself rhythmic combinations, andshows his quality of cognition. He takes tohimself combinations that are mobile ; throughthose he shows out his activity. He takes thecombinations that are inert, and shows out hisquality of bliss, as the will to be happy. Nownotice the difference of phrase and thought. Inthe Sankhya, Matter changed to reflect theSpirit ; in the fact, the Spirit appropriates


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SCHOOLS OP THOUGHT 67portions of Matter, and through those expresseshis own characteristics an enormous difference.He creates an actor for Self-expression, and thisactor is the ' spiritual man ' of the theosophicalteaching, the spiritual Triad, the Atma-buddhi-manas, to whom we shall return in amoment.

The Monad remains ever beyond the five-folduniverse, and in that sense is a spectator. Hedwells beyond the five planes of matter. Beyondthe atmic, or akashic ; beyond the buddhic plane,the plane of Vayu ; beyond the mental plane,the plane of Agni ; beyond the astral plane, theplane of Varuna ; beyond the physical plane, theplane of Kubera. Beyond all these planes theMonad, the Self, stands Self-conscious and Self-determined. He reigns in changeless peace andlives in eternity. But, as said above, he appro-priates matter. He takes to himself an atom ofthe atmic plane, and in that he, as it were,incorporates his will, and that becomes atma.He appropriates an atom of the buddhic plane,and reflects in that his aspect of cognition, andthat becomes buddhi. He appropriates an atomof the manasic plane and embodies, as it were,his activity in it, and it becomes manas. Thuswe get atma, plus buddhi, plus manas. That


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SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT 69Now when we understand the nature of the

spiritual man, or triad, what do we find withregard to all the manifestations of conscious-ness ? That they are duads, Spirit-matter every-where, on every plane of our five-fold universe.If you are a scientist, you will call it spiritualisedmatter ; if you are a metaphysician you will callit materialised Spirit. Either phrase is equallytrue, so long as you remember that both arealways present in every manifestation, that whatyou see is not the play of matter alone, but theplay of Spirit-matter, inseparable through theperiod of manifestation. Then, when you come,in reading an ancient book, to the statement," mind is material," you will not be confused ;you will know that the writer is only speakingon the Sankhyan line, which speaks of mattereverywhere, but always implies that the Spiritis looking on, and that this presence makes thework of matter possible. You will not, whenreading the constant statement in Indian philo-sophies that " mind is material," confuse this withthe opposite view of the materialist which saysthat " mind is the product of matter " a verydifferent thing. Although the Sankhyan mayuse materialistic terms, he always posits thevivifying influence of Spirit, while the materialist


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70 INTRODUCTION TO YOGAmakes Spirit the product of matter. Really agulf divides them, although the language theyuse may often be the same.

MIND" Yoga is the inhibition of the functions of the

mind," says Patanjali. The functions of themind must be suppressed, and in order that wemay be able to follow out really what this means,we must go more closely into what the Indianphilosopher means by the word 'mind '.

Mind, in the wide sense of the term, has threegreat properties or qualities : cognition, desire orwill, activity. Now Yoga is not immediatelyconcerned with all these three, but only with one,cognition, the Sankhyan subject. But you can-not separate cognition, as we have seen, com-pletely from the others, because consciousness isa unit, and although we are only concerned withthat part of consciousness which we specificallycall cognition, we cannot get cognition all byitself. Hence the Indian psych

an introduction to yoga: sūtras of patañjali - annie besant (1913)

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