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04 - Introduction to Book Two - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Introduction to Book two. The first book of Patangali's Yoga
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  Speaker 1: Sutras is called the Book of Spiritual Consciousness. The second book,
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  Speaker 1: which we now begin, is the Book of the Means
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  Speaker 1: of sole growth. And we must remember that sole growth
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  Speaker 1: here means the growth of the realization of the spiritual man, or,
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  Speaker 1: to put the matter more briefly, the growth of the
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  Speaker 1: spiritual man, and the disentangling of the spiritual man from
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  Speaker 1: the wrappings, the veils, the disguises laid upon him by
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  Speaker 1: the mind and the psychical nature, wherein he is enmeshed
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  Speaker 1: like a bird caught in a net. The question arises,
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  Speaker 1: by what means may the spiritual man be freed from
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  Speaker 1: these psychical meshes and disguises, so that he may stand
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  Speaker 1: forth above death in his radiant, eternalness and divine power.
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  Speaker 1: And the second book sets itself to answer this very
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  Speaker 1: question and to detail the means in a way entirely
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  Speaker 1: practical and very lucid, so that he who runs may read,
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  Speaker 1: and he who reads may understands and practice. The second
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  Speaker 1: part of the second book is concerned with practical spiritual training,
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  Speaker 1: that is, with the earlier practical training of the spiritual man.
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  Speaker 1: The most striking thing in it is the emphasis laid
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  Speaker 1: on the commandments, which are precisely those of the latter
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  Speaker 1: part of the Decalogue, together with obedience to the Master.
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  Speaker 1: Our day and generation is far too prone to fancy
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  Speaker 1: that there can be mystical life and growth on some
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  Speaker 1: other foundation, on the foundation, for example, of intellectual curiosity
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  Speaker 1: or psychical selfishness. In reality, on this latter foundation, the
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  Speaker 1: life of the spiritual man can never be built, nor
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  Speaker 1: indeed anything but a psychic counterfeit, a dangerous delusion. Therefore, potentially,
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  Speaker 1: like every great spiritual teacher, meets the question what must
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  Speaker 1: I do to be saved? With the age old answer
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  Speaker 1: keep the commandments. Only after the disciple can say these
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  Speaker 1: have I kept? Can there be the further and finer
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  Speaker 1: teaching of the spiritual rules. It is therefore vital for
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  Speaker 1: us to realize that the yoga system, like every true
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  Speaker 1: system of spiritual teaching, rests on this broad and firm
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  Speaker 1: foundation of honesty, truth, cleanness, obedience. Without these there is
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  Speaker 1: no salvation, and he who practices these, even though ignorant
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  Speaker 1: of spiritual things, is laying up treasure against the time
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  Speaker 1: to come. End of introduction to Book two