Latest / Wisdom of the Ages Library / 01 - Introduction to Book One - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Transcript

01 - Introduction to Book One - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali · Wisdom of the Ages Library

• 0:00
  The Yoga Sutras of Patangli The Book of the Spiritual Man, an interpretation by
• 0:06
  Charles Johnston, Bengal Civil Service, Retired Indian Civil Service, Sanskrit Prizeman,
• 0:14
  Dublin University, Sanskrit Prizemen. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are in themselves exceedingly
• 0:24
  brief, less than ten pages of large type in the original. Yet they
• 0:28
  contain the essence of practical wisdom set forth in admirable order and detail. The
• 0:34
  theme, if the present interpreter be right, is the great regeneration, the
• 0:38
  birth of the spiritual from the psychical man, the same theme which Paul so
• 0:42
  wisely and eloquently set forth in writing to his disciples in Corinth, the theme
• 0:47
  of all mystics in all lands. We think of ourselves as living a purely
• 0:52
  physical life in these material bodies of ours. In reality, we have gone
• 0:57
  far, indeed, from pure physical life. For ages, our life has
• 1:00
  been psychical. We have been centered and immersed in the psychic nature. Some
• 1:07
  of the schools of India say that the psychic nature is, as it were,
• 1:10
  a looking glass, wherein are mirrored the things seen by the physical eyes,
• 1:15
  unheard by the physical ears. But this is a magic mirror. The
• 1:19
  images remain and take a certain life of their own. Thus, within the
• 1:23
  psychic realm of our life, there grows up in imaged worlds, wherein we
• 1:26
  dwell a world of the images of things seen and heard, and therefore a
• 1:32
  world of memories, a world also of hopes and desires, of fears and
• 1:37
  regrets. Mental life grows up among these images, built on a measuring and
• 1:42
  comparing, on the massing of images together into general ideas, on the abstraction
• 1:47
  of new notions and images from these, till the new world is built up
• 1:51
  within, full of desires and hates, ambition, envy, longing, speculation,
• 1:57
  curiosity, self will, self interest. The teaching of the East is
• 2:04
  that all these are true powers, overlaid by false desires. That though in
• 2:07
  manifestation psychical, they are in us in spiritual, that the psychical man is
• 2:14
  the veil and prophecy of the spiritual man. The purpose of life, therefore
• 2:20
  is the realizing of that prophecy, the unveiling of the immortal man, the
• 2:23
  birth of the spiritual from the psychical, whereby we enter our divide inheritance and
• 2:29
  come to inhabit eternity. This is indeed salvation, the purpose of all true
• 2:34
  religion. In all times, Potangali has in mind the spiritual man to be
• 2:39
  borne from the psychical. His purpose is to set in order the practical means
• 2:45
  for the unveiling and regeneration, and to indicate the fruit, the glory,
• 2:50
  and the power of that new birth. Through the Sutras of the first book,
• 2:54
  Potangley is concerned with the first great problem, the emergence of the spiritual
• 2:59
  man from the veils and meshes of the psychic nature, the moods and vestures
• 3:04
  of the mental and emotional man. Later will come the consideration of the nature
• 3:08
  and powers of the spiritual man, once he stands clear of the psychic veils
• 3:12
  and trammels, and a view of the realms in which these new spiritual powers
• 3:16
  are to be revealed. At this point may come a word of explanation.
• 3:22
  I have been asked why I use the word sutras for these rules of Potangley's
• 3:25
  system, when the word aphorism has been connected with them in our minds for
• 3:30
  a generation. The reason is this, the name aphorism suggests to me,
• 3:36
  at least a pithy sentence of very general application. A piece of proverbial wisdom
• 3:40
  that may be quoted in a good many sets of circumstances, and which will
• 3:45
  almost bear on its face the evidence of its truth. But with the sutra
• 3:49
  the case is different. It comes from the same root as the word so
• 3:53
  and means indeed a thread, suggesting therefore a close knit, consecutive chain of
• 3:59
  argument. Not only has each sutra a definite place in the system, but
• 4:03
  further taken out of this place, it will be almost meaningless, and will
• 4:08
  by no means be self evident. So I have thought best to adhere to
• 4:13
  the original word. The sutras of Patangli are as closely knit together, as
• 4:17
  dependent on each other as the propositions of Euclid, and can no more be
• 4:21
  taken out of their proper setting. In the second part of the first book,
• 4:27
  the problem of the emergence of the spiritual man is further dealt with.
• 4:30
  We are led to the consideration of the barriers to his emergence, of the
• 4:33
  overcoming of the barriers, and of certain steps and stages in the ascent from
• 4:39
  the ordinary consciousness of practical life to the finer, deeper, radiant consciousness of
• 4:44
  the spiritual man. End of introduction to book one,