Latest / Philosophy and Faith / 06 - Book Two, Sutras 28-55 - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Book two Sutras twenty eight to fifty five. Sutra twenty eight.
- 0:09Speaker 1: From steadfastly following after the means of yoga until impurity
- 0:13Speaker 1: is worn away, there comes the illumination of thought up
- 0:17Speaker 1: to full discernment. Here we enter on the more detailed
- 0:22Speaker 1: practical teaching of Patangili, with its sound and luminous good sense.
- 0:28Speaker 1: And when we come to detail the means of yoga,
- 0:31Speaker 1: we may well be astonished at their simplicity. There is
- 0:34Speaker 1: little in them that is mysterious. They are very familiar.
- 0:39Speaker 1: The essence of the matter lies in carrying them out.
- 0:44Speaker 1: Sutra twenty nine. The eight means of yoga are the commandments,
- 0:50Speaker 1: the rules, right poise, right control of the life force, withdrawal, attention, meditation, templation.
- 1:02Speaker 1: These eight means are to be followed in their order,
- 1:05Speaker 1: in the sense which will immediately be made clear. We
- 1:08Speaker 1: can get a ready understanding of the first two by
- 1:11Speaker 1: comparing them with the commandments which must be obeyed by
- 1:14Speaker 1: all good citizens, and the rules which are laid on
- 1:16Speaker 1: the members of religious orders. Until one has fulfilled the first,
- 1:21Speaker 1: it is futile to concern oneself with the second, and
- 1:24Speaker 1: so with all the means of yoga, they must be
- 1:27Speaker 1: taken in their order. Sutra thirty The commandments are these
- 1:34Speaker 1: non injury, truthfulness, abstaining from stealing, from impurity, from covetousness.
- 1:44Speaker 1: These five precepts are almost exactly the same as the
- 1:47Speaker 1: Buddhist commandments not to kill, not to steal, not to
- 1:52Speaker 1: be guilty of incontinence, not to drink intoxicants, to speak
- 1:56Speaker 1: the truth. Almost identical is Saint Paul's list. Thou shalt
- 2:02Speaker 1: not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal,
- 2:07Speaker 1: Thou shalt not covet And in the same spirit is
- 2:11Speaker 1: the answer made to the young man having great possessions
- 2:13Speaker 1: who asked what shall I do to be saved? And
- 2:17Speaker 1: receive the reply Keep the commandments. This broad general training,
- 2:23Speaker 1: which forms and develops human character, must be accomplished to
- 2:26Speaker 1: a very considerable degree before there can be much hope
- 2:29Speaker 1: of success in the further stages of spiritual life, first
- 2:33Speaker 1: the psychical and then the spiritual. First the man, then
- 2:38Speaker 1: the angel. On this broad, humane and wise foundation is
- 2:42Speaker 1: the system of potentially rest suit Tra thirty one. The commandments,
- 2:50Speaker 1: not limited to any race, place, time, or occasion. Universal
- 2:56Speaker 1: are the great obligation. The smandments form the broad general
- 3:01Speaker 1: training of humanity. Each one of them rests on a
- 3:04Speaker 1: universal spiritual law. Each one of them expresses an attribute
- 3:09Speaker 1: or aspect of the self, the eternal. When we violate
- 3:13Speaker 1: one of the commandments, we set ourselves against the law
- 3:16Speaker 1: and being of the eternal, thereby bringing ourselves to inevitable confusion.
- 3:22Speaker 1: So the first steps in spiritual life must be taken
- 3:24Speaker 1: by bringing ourselves into voluntary obedience to these spiritual laws,
- 3:28Speaker 1: and thus making ourselves partakers of the spiritual powers the
- 3:32Speaker 1: being of the eternal, Like the law of gravity the
- 3:36Speaker 1: need of air to breathe, these great laws know no exceptions.
- 3:40Speaker 1: Therein force in all lands, throughout all times, for all
- 3:44Speaker 1: mankinds Sutra thirty two. The rules are these purity, serenity,
- 3:55Speaker 1: fervent aspiration, spiritual reading, and perfect obedience to the Master.
- 4:03Speaker 1: Here we have a finer law, one which humanity as
- 4:06Speaker 1: a whole is less ready for, less fit to obey.
- 4:10Speaker 1: Yet we can see that these rules are the same
- 4:12Speaker 1: in essence as the commandments, but on a higher, more
- 4:15Speaker 1: spiritual plane. The commandments may be obeyed in outer acts
- 4:20Speaker 1: and abstinences. The rules demand obedience of the heart and spirit,
- 4:25Speaker 1: a far more awakened and more positive consciousness. The rules
- 4:30Speaker 1: are the spiritual counterpart of the commandments, and they have
- 4:33Speaker 1: finer degrees for more advanced spiritual growth. Suitra thirty three.
- 4:41Speaker 1: When transgressions hinder the weight of the imagination should be
- 4:45Speaker 1: thrown on the opposite side. Let us take a simple
- 4:49Speaker 1: case that of a thief, a habitual criminal who has
- 4:53Speaker 1: drifted into stealing in childhood before the moral consciousness has awakened.
- 4:59Speaker 1: We may imprison to thief and deprive him of all
- 5:02Speaker 1: possibility of further theft or of using the divine gift
- 5:05Speaker 1: of will. Or we may recognize his disadvantages and help
- 5:10Speaker 1: him gradually to build up possessions which express his will
- 5:13Speaker 1: and draw forth his self respect. If we imagine that
- 5:18Speaker 1: after he has built well and his possessions have become
- 5:20Speaker 1: dear to him, he himself is robbed, then we can
- 5:24Speaker 1: see how he would come vividly to realize the essence
- 5:26Speaker 1: of theft and of honesty, and would cleave to honest
- 5:29Speaker 1: dealings with firm conviction. In some such way, does the
- 5:34Speaker 1: Great Law teach us our sorrows and losses teach us
- 5:38Speaker 1: the pain of the sorrow and loss we inflict on others,
- 5:42Speaker 1: and so we cease to inflict them. Now, as to
- 5:47Speaker 1: the more direct application to conquer a sin, let heart
- 5:51Speaker 1: and mind rest not on the sin, but on the
- 5:54Speaker 1: contrary virtue. Let the sin be forced out by positive
- 5:58Speaker 1: growth in the true direction, not by direct opposition. Turn
- 6:02Speaker 1: away from the sin, and go forward, courageously, constructively, creatively,
- 6:07Speaker 1: in well doing. In this way, the whole nature will
- 6:11Speaker 1: gradually be drawn up to the higher level on which
- 6:13Speaker 1: the sin does not even exist. The conquest of a
- 6:17Speaker 1: sin is a matter of growth and evolution, rather than
- 6:20Speaker 1: of opposition. Suitra thirty four. Transgressions are injury, falsehood, theft, incontinence, envy,
- 6:33Speaker 1: whether committed or caused or assented to through greed, wrath
- 6:37Speaker 1: or infatuation, whether faint or middling or excessive, bearing endless
- 6:42Speaker 1: fruit of ignorance and pain. Therefore must the weight be
- 6:46Speaker 1: cast on the other side. Here are the causes of sin, greed, wrath, infatuation,
- 6:56Speaker 1: with their effects ignorance and pain. The us are to
- 7:00Speaker 1: be cured by better wisdom, by a truer understanding of
- 7:03Speaker 1: the self of life. For greed cannot endure before the
- 7:07Speaker 1: realization that the whole world belongs to the Self, which
- 7:10Speaker 1: self we are. Nor can we hold wrath against one
- 7:14Speaker 1: who is one with the Self and therefore with ourselves.
- 7:18Speaker 1: Nor can infatuation, which is the seeking for the happiness
- 7:22Speaker 1: of the all in some limited part of it, survive
- 7:24Speaker 1: the knowledge that we are heirs of the All. Therefore,
- 7:29Speaker 1: let thought and imagination, mind and heart throw their weight
- 7:32Speaker 1: on the other side, the side not of the world,
- 7:36Speaker 1: but of the Self Suitra thirty five. Where non injury
- 7:43Speaker 1: is perfected, all enmity ceases in the presence of him
- 7:47Speaker 1: who possesses it. We come now to the spiritual powers
- 7:52Speaker 1: which result from keeping the commandments, from the obedience to
- 7:56Speaker 1: spiritual law, which is the keeping of the commandments. If
- 8:00Speaker 1: the heart is full of kindness, which seeks no injury
- 8:03Speaker 1: to another, either in act or thought or wish, this
- 8:07Speaker 1: full love creates an atmosphere of harmony, whose benign power
- 8:11Speaker 1: touches with healing all who come within its influence. Peace
- 8:15Speaker 1: in the heart radiates peace to other hearts, even more
- 8:18Speaker 1: surely than contention breeds contention Sutra thirty six. When he
- 8:26Speaker 1: is perfected in truth, all acts and their fruits depend
- 8:30Speaker 1: on him. The commentator thus explains, if he who has
- 8:36Speaker 1: attained should say to a man, become righteous, the man
- 8:41Speaker 1: becomes righteous. If he should say gain heaven, the man
- 8:46Speaker 1: gains heaven. His word is not in vain. Exactly the
- 8:51Speaker 1: same doctrine was taught by the Master, who said to
- 8:53Speaker 1: his disciples, receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whosoever sins ye remit,
- 8:59Speaker 1: they are omitted unto them, and whosoever sins ye retain,
- 9:03Speaker 1: they are retained. Sutra thirty seven. Where cessation from theft
- 9:11Speaker 1: is perfected, all treasures present themselves to him who possesses it.
- 9:17Speaker 1: Here is a sentence which may warn us that beside
- 9:20Speaker 1: the outer and apparent meaning, there is in many of
- 9:23Speaker 1: these sentences a second and finer significance. The obvious meaning
- 9:28Speaker 1: is that he who has wholly ceased from theft in act, thought,
- 9:32Speaker 1: and wish finds buried treasures in his path, treasures of
- 9:36Speaker 1: jewels and gold and pearls. The deeper truth is that
- 9:41Speaker 1: he who, in every least thing is wholly honest with
- 9:44Speaker 1: the spirit of life, finds life supporting him in all things,
- 9:48Speaker 1: and gains admittance to the treasure house of life, the
- 9:51Speaker 1: spiritual universe Sutra thirty eight. For him who is perfect
- 9:59Speaker 1: in content. The reward is valor and virility. The creative power,
- 10:07Speaker 1: strong and full of vigor, is no longer dissipated, but
- 10:10Speaker 1: turned to spiritual uses. It upholds and endows the spiritual man,
- 10:16Speaker 1: conferring on him the creative will the power to engender
- 10:19Speaker 1: spiritual children instead of bodily progeny. An epoch of life,
- 10:24Speaker 1: that of man the animal, has come to an end.
- 10:27Speaker 1: A new epoch, that of the spiritual man, is opened.
- 10:31Speaker 1: The old creative power is superseded and transcended. A new
- 10:36Speaker 1: creative power, that of the spiritual man, takes its place,
- 10:40Speaker 1: carrying with it the power to work creatively in others
- 10:43Speaker 1: for righteousness and eternal life. One of the commentaries says
- 10:48Speaker 1: that he who is attained is able to transfer to
- 10:51Speaker 1: the minds of his disciples what he knows concerning divine
- 10:54Speaker 1: union and the means of gaining it. This is one
- 10:57Speaker 1: of the powers of purity Suture thirty nine. Where there
- 11:04Speaker 1: is firm conquest of covetousness, he who has conquered it
- 11:08Speaker 1: awakes to the how and why of life. So it
- 11:14Speaker 1: is said that before we can understand the laws of karma,
- 11:17Speaker 1: we must free ourselves from karma. The conquest of covetousness
- 11:22Speaker 1: brings this rich fruit. Because the root of covetousness is
- 11:25Speaker 1: the desire of the individual soul, the will towards manifested life,
- 11:30Speaker 1: and where the desire of the individual soul is overcome
- 11:33Speaker 1: by the superb still life of the universal soul welling
- 11:37Speaker 1: up in the heart within, the great secret is discerned,
- 11:40Speaker 1: the secret that the individual soul is not an isolated reality,
- 11:45Speaker 1: but the ray, the manifest instrument of the life, which
- 11:49Speaker 1: turns it this way, and that until the great work
- 11:52Speaker 1: is accomplished, the age long lesson learned. Thus is the
- 11:56Speaker 1: how and why of life disclosed by ceasing from covetousness.
- 12:01Speaker 1: The commentator says that this includes a knowledge of one's
- 12:04Speaker 1: former births Sutra forty through purity, a withdrawal from one's
- 12:13Speaker 1: own bodily life, a ceasing from infatuation with the bodily
- 12:17Speaker 1: life of others. As the spiritual light grows in the
- 12:21Speaker 1: heart within, as the taste for pure life grows stronger,
- 12:25Speaker 1: the consciousness opens towards the great secret places within where
- 12:29Speaker 1: all life is one, where all lives are one. Thereafter
- 12:34Speaker 1: this outer manifested fugitive life whether of ourselves or of others,
- 12:39Speaker 1: loses something of its charm and glammer, and we seek
- 12:41Speaker 1: rather the deep infinitudes instead of the outer form and
- 12:46Speaker 1: surroundings of our lives. We long for their inner and
- 12:49Speaker 1: everlasting essence. We desire not so much outer converse and
- 12:54Speaker 1: closeness to our friends, but rather the quiet communion with
- 12:58Speaker 1: them in the inner chamber of the soul, where spirit
- 13:01Speaker 1: speaks to spirit, and spirit answers, where alienation and separation
- 13:06Speaker 1: never enter, where sickness and sorrow and death cannot come.
- 13:14Speaker 1: Suitra forty one, to the peer of heart comes also
- 13:19Speaker 1: a quiet spirit. One pointed thought. The victory over sensuality
- 13:24Speaker 1: and fitness to behold the soul. Blessed are the pure
- 13:30Speaker 1: in heart, for they shall see God, who is the
- 13:33Speaker 1: supreme Soul, the ultimate self of all beings. In the
- 13:38Speaker 1: deepest sense. Purity means fitness for this vision, and also
- 13:42Speaker 1: a heart cleansed from all disquiet, from all wandering and
- 13:46Speaker 1: unbridled thought, from the torment of sensuous imaginings. And when
- 13:51Speaker 1: the spirit is thus cleansed and pure, it becomes at
- 13:54Speaker 1: one in essence with its source, the Great Spirit, the
- 13:57Speaker 1: primal life, one consciousness, now thrills through both. For the
- 14:02Speaker 1: psychic partition wall is broken down, then shall the pure
- 14:06Speaker 1: in heart see God, because they become God Sutra forty two.
- 14:15Speaker 1: From acceptance, the disciple gains happiness supreme. One of the
- 14:21Speaker 1: wise has said, accept conditions, accept others, accept yourself. This
- 14:29Speaker 1: is the true acceptance, for all these things are what
- 14:32Speaker 1: they are through the will of the higher Self. Accept
- 14:35Speaker 1: their deficiencies, which come through thwarting the will of the
- 14:37Speaker 1: higher Self, and can be conquered only through compliance with
- 14:40Speaker 1: that will. By the true acceptance, the disciple comes into
- 14:44Speaker 1: oneness of spirit with the overruling soul. And since the
- 14:48Speaker 1: own nature of the soul is being happiness bliss, he
- 14:52Speaker 1: comes thereby into happiness supreme Suitra forty three. The perfection
- 15:00Speaker 1: of the powers of the bodily vesture comes through the
- 15:02Speaker 1: wearing a way of impurities and through fervent aspiration. This
- 15:08Speaker 1: is true of the physical powers and of those which
- 15:11Speaker 1: dwell in the higher vestures. There must be first purity,
- 15:15Speaker 1: as the blood must be pure before one can attain
- 15:17Speaker 1: to physical health. But the absence of impurity is not
- 15:21Speaker 1: in itself enough, else would many nerveless ascetics of the
- 15:25Speaker 1: cloisters rank as high saints. There is needed further, a
- 15:29Speaker 1: positive fire of the will, a keen, vital vigor for
- 15:32Speaker 1: the physical powers, and something finer, purer, stronger, but of
- 15:37Speaker 1: kindredessence for the higher powers. The fire of genius is
- 15:41Speaker 1: something more than a phrase, for there can be no
- 15:44Speaker 1: genius without the celestial fire of the awakened spiritual will
- 15:50Speaker 1: Sutra of forty four. Through spiritual reading, the disciple gains
- 15:55Speaker 1: communion with the divine power on which his heart is set.
- 16:00Speaker 1: Spiritual reading meant for ancient India something more than it
- 16:03Speaker 1: does with us. It meant first the recital of sacred texts,
- 16:08Speaker 1: which in their very sounds had mystical potencies. And it
- 16:13Speaker 1: meant a recital of texts which were divinely emanated and
- 16:16Speaker 1: held in themselves the living potent essence of the divine.
- 16:21Speaker 1: For us, spiritual reading means a communing with the recorded
- 16:24Speaker 1: teachings of the masters of wisdom, whereby we read ourselves
- 16:28Speaker 1: into the Master's mind, just as through his music one
- 16:31Speaker 1: can enter into the mind and soul of the master musician.
- 16:36Speaker 1: It has been well said that all true art is
- 16:38Speaker 1: contagion of feeling, so that through the true reading of
- 16:41Speaker 1: true books. We do indeed read ourselves into the spirit
- 16:44Speaker 1: of the masters, share in the atmosphere of their wisdom
- 16:47Speaker 1: and power, and come at last into their very presence.
- 16:54Speaker 1: Sutra forty five. Sole vision is perfected through perfect obedience
- 16:58Speaker 1: to the Master. The sorrow and darkness of life come
- 17:03Speaker 1: of the erring personal will, which sets itself against the
- 17:06Speaker 1: will of the soul, the one great life. The error
- 17:10Speaker 1: of the personal will is inevitable, since each will must
- 17:14Speaker 1: be free to choose, to try and fail, and so
- 17:18Speaker 1: to find the path. And sorrow and darkness are inevitable
- 17:22Speaker 1: until the path be found and the personal will made
- 17:25Speaker 1: once more one with the greater will, wherein it finds
- 17:28Speaker 1: rest and power without losing freedom. In His will is
- 17:33Speaker 1: our peace, and with that piece comes light. Soul vision
- 17:38Speaker 1: is perfected through obedience Sutra forty six. Right poise must
- 17:47Speaker 1: be firm and without strain. Here we approach section of
- 17:52Speaker 1: the teaching which has manifestly a twofold meaning. The first
- 17:57Speaker 1: is physical and concerns the bodily position of the student
- 18:00Speaker 1: and the regulation of breathing. These things have their direct
- 18:04Speaker 1: influence upon soul life, the life of the spiritual man,
- 18:08Speaker 1: since it is always and everywhere true that our study
- 18:11Speaker 1: demands a sound mind in a sound body. The present
- 18:15Speaker 1: sentence declares that for work and for meditation, the position
- 18:20Speaker 1: of the body must be steady and without strain, in
- 18:23Speaker 1: order that the finer currents of life may run their course.
- 18:27Speaker 1: It applies further to the poise of the soul, that
- 18:30Speaker 1: fine balance and stability which nothing can shake, where the
- 18:34Speaker 1: consciousness rests on the firm foundation of spiritual being. This
- 18:39Speaker 1: is indeed the house set upon a rock which the
- 18:42Speaker 1: winds and waves beat upon. In Vain Sutra forty seven,
- 18:51Speaker 1: right poise is to be gained by steady and temperate effort,
- 18:54Speaker 1: and by setting the heart upon the everlasting Here again
- 18:59Speaker 1: there is the two folds meaning. For physical poise is
- 19:03Speaker 1: to be gained by steady effort of the muscles, by
- 19:05Speaker 1: gradual and wise training, linked with the right understanding of
- 19:09Speaker 1: and relation with the universal force of gravity. Uprightness of
- 19:13Speaker 1: body demands that both these conditions shall be fulfilled in
- 19:19Speaker 1: like manner. The firm and upright poise of the spiritual
- 19:22Speaker 1: man is to be gained by steady and continued effort,
- 19:25Speaker 1: always guided by wisdom, and by setting the heart on
- 19:28Speaker 1: the eternal filling the soul with the atmosphere of the
- 19:31Speaker 1: spiritual world. Neither is effective without the other. Aspiration without
- 19:37Speaker 1: effort brings weakness. Effort without aspiration brings a false strength,
- 19:43Speaker 1: not resting on enduring things. The two together make for
- 19:47Speaker 1: the right poise, which sets the spiritual man firmly and
- 19:49Speaker 1: steadfastly on his feet. Sutra forty eight. The fruit of
- 19:57Speaker 1: right poise is the strength to resis the shocks of
- 20:00Speaker 1: infatuation or sorrow. In the simpler physical sense, which is
- 20:07Speaker 1: also covered by the wording of the original, this sentence
- 20:10Speaker 1: means that wise effort establishes such bodily poise that the
- 20:14Speaker 1: accidents of life cannot disturb it, as the captain remains
- 20:17Speaker 1: steady though disaster overtake his ship. But the deeper sense
- 20:22Speaker 1: is far more important. The spiritual man, too must learn
- 20:26Speaker 1: to withstand all shocks. Shoul remain steadfast through the perturbations
- 20:30Speaker 1: of external things and the storms and whirlwinds of the
- 20:33Speaker 1: psychical world. This is the power which is gained by wise,
- 20:38Speaker 1: continuous effort and by filling the spirit with the atmosphere
- 20:41Speaker 1: of the eternal Sutra forty nine. When this is gained,
- 20:49Speaker 1: there follows the right guidance of the life currents, the
- 20:52Speaker 1: control of the incoming and outgoing breath. It is well
- 20:57Speaker 1: understood today that most of our maladies from impure conditions
- 21:01Speaker 1: of the blood. It is coming to be understood that
- 21:05Speaker 1: right breathing, right oxygenation will do very much to keep
- 21:09Speaker 1: the blood clean and pure. Therefore, a right knowledge of
- 21:12Speaker 1: breathing is a part of the science of life. But
- 21:16Speaker 1: the deeper meaning is that the spiritual man, when he
- 21:19Speaker 1: has gained poise through right effort and aspiration, can stand
- 21:22Speaker 1: firm and guide the currents of his life, both the
- 21:26Speaker 1: incoming current of events and the outgoing current of his acts.
- 21:31Speaker 1: Exactly the same symbolism is used in the saying, not
- 21:35Speaker 1: that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man, But
- 21:38Speaker 1: that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth the man.
- 21:42Speaker 1: Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth
- 21:45Speaker 1: from the heart. Out of the heart procede evil thoughts, murders, uncleanness, thefts,
- 21:52Speaker 1: false witness, blasphemies. Therefore, the first step in purification is
- 21:58Speaker 1: to keep the commandments Sutra fifty. The life current is
- 22:04Speaker 1: either outward or inward, or balanced. It is regulated according
- 22:09Speaker 1: to place, time, number. It is prolonged and subtle. The
- 22:15Speaker 1: technical physical side of this has its value. In the breath.
- 22:19Speaker 1: There should be right in breathing, followed by the period
- 22:21Speaker 1: of pause when the air comes into contact with the blood,
- 22:25Speaker 1: and this again followed by right out breathing even steady silence. Further,
- 22:32Speaker 1: the lung should be evenly filled. Many maladies may arise
- 22:35Speaker 1: from the neglect and consequent weakening of some region of
- 22:38Speaker 1: the lungs, and the number of breaths is so important,
- 22:43Speaker 1: so closely related to health, that every nurse's chart records it.
- 22:47Speaker 1: But the deeper meaning is concerned with the currents of life,
- 22:51Speaker 1: with that which goeth into and cometh out of the
- 22:54Speaker 1: heart Sutra fifty one the fourth degree and sends external
- 23:01Speaker 1: and internal objects. The inner meaning seems to be that,
- 23:06Speaker 1: in addition to the three degrees of control already described,
- 23:09Speaker 1: control that is over the incoming current of life, over
- 23:12Speaker 1: the outgoing current, and over the condition of pause or quiescence,
- 23:17Speaker 1: there is a fourth degree of control which holds in
- 23:20Speaker 1: complete mastery both the outer passage of events and the
- 23:24Speaker 1: inner current of thoughts and emotions, a condition of perfect
- 23:27Speaker 1: poise and stability in the midst of the flux of
- 23:30Speaker 1: things outward and inward Sutra fifty two. Thereby is worn
- 23:37Speaker 1: away the veil which covers up the light. The veil
- 23:42Speaker 1: is the psychic nature. The web of emotions desires argumentative
- 23:47Speaker 1: trains of thought, which cover up and obscure the truth
- 23:50Speaker 1: by absorbing the entire attention and keeping the consciousness in
- 23:53Speaker 1: the psychic realm. When hopes and fears are reckoned at
- 23:57Speaker 1: their true worth and comparison with lasting possessions of the soul,
- 24:01Speaker 1: when the outer reflections of things have ceased to distract
- 24:04Speaker 1: us from inner realities, when argumentative thought no longer entangles us,
- 24:08Speaker 1: but yields its place to flashing intuition, the certainty which
- 24:12Speaker 1: springs from within, then is the veil worn away. The
- 24:15Speaker 1: consciousness is drawn from the psychical to the spiritual, from
- 24:19Speaker 1: the temporal to the eternal. Then is the light unveiled
- 24:25Speaker 1: Sutra fifty three. Thence comes the mind's power to hold
- 24:30Speaker 1: itself in the light. It has been well said that
- 24:34Speaker 1: what we most need is the faculty of spiritual attention.
- 24:37Speaker 1: And in the same direction of thought, it has been
- 24:39Speaker 1: eloquently declared that prayer does not consist in our catching
- 24:43Speaker 1: God's attention, but rather in our allowing God to hold
- 24:47Speaker 1: our attention. The vital matter is that we need to
- 24:51Speaker 1: disentangle our consciousness from the noisy and perturbed thraldom of
- 24:54Speaker 1: the psychical, and to come to consciousness as the spiritual man.
- 25:00Speaker 1: This we must do first by purification through the commandments
- 25:04Speaker 1: and the rules, and second through the faculty of spiritual attention,
- 25:08Speaker 1: by steadily heeding endless fine intimations of the spiritual power
- 25:12Speaker 1: within us, and by intending our consciousness there too. Thus,
- 25:16Speaker 1: by degrees transferring the center of consciousness from the psychical
- 25:20Speaker 1: to the spiritual. It is a question first of love
- 25:24Speaker 1: and then of attention. Sutra fifty four. The right withdrawal
- 25:31Speaker 1: is the disengaging of the powers from entanglement in outer things,
- 25:35Speaker 1: as the psychic nature has been withdrawn and stilled. To
- 25:40Speaker 1: understand this, let us reverse the process and think of
- 25:43Speaker 1: the one consciousness centered in the soul, gradually expanding and
- 25:48Speaker 1: taking on the form of the different perceptive powers. The
- 25:51Speaker 1: one will, at the same time differentiating itself into the
- 25:55Speaker 1: varied powers of action. Now, let us imagine this to
- 25:59Speaker 1: be reversed, so that the spiritual force, which has gone
- 26:02Speaker 1: into the differentiated powers, is once more gathered together into
- 26:06Speaker 1: the inner power of intuition and spiritual will, taking on
- 26:09Speaker 1: that unity which is the hall mark of spiritual things,
- 26:13Speaker 1: as diversity is the seal of material things. It is
- 26:16Speaker 1: all a matter of love, for the quality of spiritual
- 26:19Speaker 1: consciousness as against psychical consciousness of love and attention. For
- 26:25Speaker 1: where the heart is, there will the treasure be Also,
- 26:28Speaker 1: where the consciousness is, there will the vesture, with its
- 26:31Speaker 1: powers be developed Sutra fifty five. Thereupon follows perfect mastery
- 26:40Speaker 1: over the powers. When the spiritual condition which we have
- 26:45Speaker 1: described is reached with its purity, poise, and illuminated vision,
- 26:50Speaker 1: the spiritual man is coming into his inheritance and gaining
- 26:53Speaker 1: complete mastery of his powers. Indeed, much of the struggle
- 26:58Speaker 1: to keep the commandments and the rules has been paving
- 27:00Speaker 1: the way for this mastery. Through this very struggle and sacrifice,
- 27:04Speaker 1: the mastery has become possible. Just as to use Saint
- 27:08Speaker 1: Paul Simile, the athlete gains the mastery in the contest
- 27:12Speaker 1: and the race through the sacrifice of his long and
- 27:15Speaker 1: arduous training. Thus he gains the crown. End of Book two,