Latest / Educational Book Collection / The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Patanjali
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: The Yoga Sutras of Patangli The Book of the Spiritual Man,
- 0:05Speaker 1: an interpretation by Charles Johnston, Bengal Civil Service, Retired Indian
- 0:11Speaker 1: Civil Service, Sanskrit Prizeman, Dublin University, Sanskrit Prizemen. The Yoga
- 0:21Speaker 1: Sutras of Patanjali are in themselves exceedingly brief, less than
- 0:25Speaker 1: ten pages of large type in the original. Yet they
- 0:28Speaker 1: contain the essence of practical wisdom set forth in admirable
- 0:32Speaker 1: order and detail. The theme, if the present interpreter be right,
- 0:36Speaker 1: is the great regeneration, the birth of the spiritual from
- 0:39Speaker 1: the psychical man, the same theme which Paul so wisely
- 0:43Speaker 1: and eloquently set forth in writing to his disciples in Corinth,
- 0:46Speaker 1: the theme of all mystics in all lands. We think
- 0:51Speaker 1: of ourselves as living a purely physical life in these
- 0:54Speaker 1: material bodies of ours. In reality, we have gone far, indeed,
- 0:58Speaker 1: from pure physical life. For ages, our life has been psychical.
- 1:03Speaker 1: We have been centered and immersed in the psychic nature.
- 1:06Speaker 1: Some of the schools of India say that the psychic
- 1:09Speaker 1: nature is, as it were, a looking glass, wherein are
- 1:12Speaker 1: mirrored the things seen by the physical eyes, unheard by
- 1:16Speaker 1: the physical ears. But this is a magic mirror. The
- 1:20Speaker 1: images remain and take a certain life of their own. Thus,
- 1:24Speaker 1: within the psychic realm of our life, there grows up
- 1:26Speaker 1: in imaged worlds, wherein we dwell a world of the
- 1:29Speaker 1: images of things seen and heard, and therefore a world
- 1:32Speaker 1: of memories, a world also of hopes and desires, of
- 1:36Speaker 1: fears and regrets. Mental life grows up among these images,
- 1:41Speaker 1: built on a measuring and comparing, on the massing of
- 1:44Speaker 1: images together into general ideas, on the abstraction of new
- 1:47Speaker 1: notions and images from these, till the new world is
- 1:50Speaker 1: built up within, full of desires and hates, ambition, envy, longing, speculation, curiosity,
- 1:59Speaker 1: self will, self interest. The teaching of the East is
- 2:04Speaker 1: that all these are true powers, overlaid by false desires.
- 2:08Speaker 1: That though in manifestation psychical, they are in us in spiritual,
- 2:12Speaker 1: that the psychical man is the veil and prophecy of
- 2:15Speaker 1: the spiritual man. The purpose of life, therefore is the
- 2:20Speaker 1: realizing of that prophecy, the unveiling of the immortal man,
- 2:24Speaker 1: the birth of a spiritual from the psychical, whereby we
- 2:28Speaker 1: enter our divide inheritance and come to inhabit eternity. This
- 2:32Speaker 1: is indeed salvation, the purpose of all true religion. In
- 2:35Speaker 1: all times, Potangali has in mind the spiritual man to
- 2:40Speaker 1: be borne from the psychical. His purpose is to set
- 2:43Speaker 1: in order the practical means for the unveiling and regeneration,
- 2:48Speaker 1: and to indicate the fruit, the glory, and the power
- 2:50Speaker 1: of that new birth. Through the Sutras of the first book,
- 2:55Speaker 1: Potangley is concerned with the first great problem, the emergence
- 2:58Speaker 1: of the spiritual man from the veils and meshes of
- 3:01Speaker 1: the psychic nature, the moods and vestures of the mental
- 3:05Speaker 1: and emotional man. Later will come the consideration of the
- 3:08Speaker 1: nature and powers of the spiritual man, once he stands
- 3:11Speaker 1: clear of the psychic veils and trammels, and a view
- 3:14Speaker 1: of the realms in which these new spiritual powers are
- 3:17Speaker 1: to be revealed. At this point may come a word
- 3:21Speaker 1: of explanation. I have been asked why I use the
- 3:24Speaker 1: word sutras for these rules of Potangali's system, when the
- 3:27Speaker 1: word aphorism has been connected with them in our minds
- 3:30Speaker 1: for a generation. The reason is this, the name aphorism
- 3:35Speaker 1: suggests to me, at least a pithy sentence of very
- 3:38Speaker 1: general application. A piece of proverbial wisdom that may be
- 3:41Speaker 1: quoted in a good many sets of circumstances, and which
- 3:44Speaker 1: will almost bear on its face the evidence of its truth.
- 3:48Speaker 1: But with the sutra the case is different. It comes
- 3:51Speaker 1: from the same root as the word so and means
- 3:54Speaker 1: indeed a thread, suggesting therefore a close knit, consecutive chain
- 3:59Speaker 1: of argument. Not only has each sutra a definite place
- 4:03Speaker 1: in the system, but further taken out of this place,
- 4:06Speaker 1: it will be almost meaningless, and will by no means
- 4:09Speaker 1: be self evident. So I have thought best to adhere
- 4:13Speaker 1: to the original word. The sutras of Patangli are as
- 4:16Speaker 1: closely knit together, as dependent on each other as the
- 4:19Speaker 1: propositions of Euclid, and can no more be taken out
- 4:22Speaker 1: of their proper setting. In the second part of the
- 4:26Speaker 1: first book, the problem of the emergence of the spiritual
- 4:29Speaker 1: man is further dealt with. We are led to the
- 4:31Speaker 1: consideration of the barriers to his emergence, of the overcoming
- 4:35Speaker 1: of the barriers, and of certain steps and stages in
- 4:38Speaker 1: the ascent from the ordinary consciousness of practical life to
- 4:41Speaker 1: the finer, deeper, radiant consciousness of the spiritual man. End
- 4:49Speaker 1: of introduction to book one, Book one Sutras one to
- 4:54Speaker 1: twenty nine Sutra one A. Here follows instruction in union.
- 5:13Speaker 1: Union here, as always in the scriptures of India, means
- 5:16Speaker 1: union of the individual soul with the over soul, of
- 5:20Speaker 1: the personal consciousness with the divine consciousness, whereby the mortal
- 5:24Speaker 1: becomes immortal and enters the eternal. Therefore, salvation is first
- 5:30Speaker 1: freedom from sin and the sorrow which comes from sin,
- 5:33Speaker 1: and then a divine and eternal well being, wherein the
- 5:36Speaker 1: soul partakes of the being, the wisdom and glory of
- 5:39Speaker 1: God Sutritu Union. Spiritual consciousness is gained through control of
- 5:50Speaker 1: the versatile psychic nature. The goal is the full consciousness
- 5:57Speaker 1: of the spiritual man, illumined by the divine light. Nothing
- 6:02Speaker 1: except the objurate resistance of the psychic nature keeps us
- 6:05Speaker 1: back from the goal. The psychical powers are spiritual powers
- 6:09Speaker 1: run wild, perverted, drawn from their proper channel. Therefore, our
- 6:15Speaker 1: first task is to regain control of this perverted nature,
- 6:19Speaker 1: to chasten, purify, and restore the misplaced powers. Sutra three.
- 6:28Speaker 1: Then the seer comes to consciousness in his proper nature.
- 6:34Speaker 1: Egotism is but the perversion of spiritual being. Ambition is
- 6:38Speaker 1: the inversion of spiritual power. Passion is the distortion of love.
- 6:43Speaker 1: The mortal is the limitation of the immortal. When these
- 6:47Speaker 1: false images give place to true then the spiritual man
- 6:51Speaker 1: stands forth, luminous as the sun when the clouds disperse
- 6:59Speaker 1: Sutra four. Heretofore the seer has been enmeshed in the
- 7:03Speaker 1: activities of the psychic nature. The power and life, which
- 7:09Speaker 1: are the heritage of the spiritual man have been caught
- 7:12Speaker 1: and enmeshed in psychical activities. Instead of pure being in
- 7:16Speaker 1: the divine, there has been fretful combative egotism its hand
- 7:20Speaker 1: against every man. Instead of the light of pure vision,
- 7:24Speaker 1: there have been restless senses and imaginings. Instead of spiritual joy,
- 7:29Speaker 1: the undivided joy of pure being, there has been self
- 7:33Speaker 1: indulgence of body and mind. These are all real forces,
- 7:37Speaker 1: but distorted from their true nature and goal. They must
- 7:41Speaker 1: be extricated, like gems from the matrix, like the pith
- 7:45Speaker 1: from the reed, steadily, without destructive violence. Spiritual powers are
- 7:51Speaker 1: to be drawn forth from the psychic meshes cutrifyve. The
- 8:00Speaker 1: psychic activities are five. They are either subject or not
- 8:04Speaker 1: subject to the five hindrances see Book two Sutra three.
- 8:13Speaker 1: The psychic nature is built up through the image making power,
- 8:17Speaker 1: the power which lies behind and dwells in mind pictures.
- 8:21Speaker 1: These pictures do not remain quiescent in the mind. They
- 8:24Speaker 1: are kinetic, restless, stimulating to new acts. Thus the mind
- 8:29Speaker 1: image of an indulgence suggests and invites to a new indulgence.
- 8:33Speaker 1: The picture of past joy is framed in regrets or hopes,
- 8:37Speaker 1: and there is the ceaseless play of the desire to know,
- 8:40Speaker 1: to penetrate to the essence of things. To classify, this, too,
- 8:44Speaker 1: busies itself ceaselessly with the mind images, so that we
- 8:48Speaker 1: may classify the activities of the psychic nature. Thus Sutra six.
- 8:55Speaker 1: These activities are sound intellection, unsound intellection, predication, sleep memory.
- 9:10Speaker 1: We have here a list of mental and emotional powers,
- 9:12Speaker 1: of powers that picture and observe, and of powers that
- 9:15Speaker 1: picture and feel. But the power to know and feel
- 9:19Speaker 1: is spiritual and immortal. What is needed is not to
- 9:23Speaker 1: destroy it, but to raise it from the psychical to
- 9:26Speaker 1: the spiritual realm. Sutra seven. The elements of sound intellection
- 9:36Speaker 1: are direct observation, inductive reason, and trustworthy testimony. Each of
- 9:48Speaker 1: these is a spiritual power. Thinly veiled. Direct observation is
- 9:52Speaker 1: the outermost form of the soul's pure vision. Inductive reason
- 9:58Speaker 1: rests on the great principles of continuity and correspondence, and
- 10:01Speaker 1: these on the supreme truth that all life is of
- 10:04Speaker 1: the one. Trustworthy testimony the sharing of one soul in
- 10:10Speaker 1: the wisdom of another rests on the ultimate oneness of
- 10:14Speaker 1: all souls. Sutra eight. Unsound Intellection is false understanding not
- 10:25Speaker 1: resting on a perception of the true nature of things,
- 10:30Speaker 1: when the object is not truly perceived, When the observation
- 10:34Speaker 1: is inaccurate and faulty. Thought or reasoning based on that
- 10:38Speaker 1: mistaken perception is of necessity false and unsound. Sutra nine.
- 10:49Speaker 1: Predication is carried on through words or thoughts, not resting
- 10:53Speaker 1: on an object perceived. The purpose of this sutra is
- 10:59Speaker 1: to distinctinguish between the mental process of predication and observation,
- 11:03Speaker 1: induction or testimony. Predication is the attribution of a quality
- 11:09Speaker 1: or action to a subject by adding to it a predicate.
- 11:13Speaker 1: In the sentence, the man is wise, the man is,
- 11:16Speaker 1: the subject is wise, is the predicate. This may be
- 11:21Speaker 1: simply an interplay of thoughts without the presence of the
- 11:24Speaker 1: object thought of or the things thought of may be
- 11:27Speaker 1: imaginary or unreal, while observation, induction, and testimony always go
- 11:32Speaker 1: back to an object. Suit ten. Sleep is the psychic
- 11:42Speaker 1: condition which rests on mind states, all material things being absent.
- 11:50Speaker 1: In waking life, we have two currents of perception, an
- 11:54Speaker 1: outer current of physical things seen and heard and perceived,
- 11:57Speaker 1: an inner current of mind images and thoughts. The outer
- 12:02Speaker 1: current ceases in sleep, the inner current continues, and, watching
- 12:07Speaker 1: the mind images float before the fields of consciousness, we dream.
- 12:12Speaker 1: Even when there are no dreams, there is still a
- 12:14Speaker 1: certain consciousness in sleep, so that on waking one says
- 12:18Speaker 1: I have slept well or I have slept badly. Sutra eleven.
- 12:27Speaker 1: Memory is holding to mind images of things perceived without
- 12:31Speaker 1: modifying them. Here, as before, the mental power is explained
- 12:38Speaker 1: in terms of mind images, which are the material of
- 12:41Speaker 1: which the psychic world is built. Therefore, the sages teach
- 12:45Speaker 1: that the world of our perception, which is indeed a
- 12:48Speaker 1: world of mind images, is but the wraith or shadow
- 12:51Speaker 1: of the real and everlasting world. In this sense, memory
- 12:55Speaker 1: is but the psychical inversion of the spiritual, ever present vision.
- 13:01Speaker 1: That which is ever before the spiritual eye of the
- 13:03Speaker 1: seer needs not to be remembered Sura twelve. The control
- 13:12Speaker 1: of these psychic activities comes through the right use of
- 13:15Speaker 1: the will, and through ceasing from self indulgence. If these
- 13:22Speaker 1: psychical powers and energies, even such evil things as passion
- 13:27Speaker 1: and hate and fear, are but spiritual powers, fallen and perverted,
- 13:32Speaker 1: how are we to bring about their release and restoration?
- 13:36Speaker 1: Two means are presented to us, the awakening of the
- 13:39Speaker 1: spiritual will and the purification of mind and thought Sutra thirteen.
- 13:51Speaker 1: The right use of the will is the steady effort
- 13:53Speaker 1: to stand in spiritual being. We have thought of ourselves,
- 13:59Speaker 1: perhaps as creatures moving upon this earth, rather helpless at
- 14:04Speaker 1: the mercy of storm and hungers and our enemies, we
- 14:09Speaker 1: are to think of ourselves as immortals, dwelling in the light,
- 14:13Speaker 1: encompassed and sustained by spiritual powers. This steady effort to
- 14:18Speaker 1: hold this thought will awaken dormant and unrealized powers, which
- 14:23Speaker 1: will unveil to us the nearness of the eternal Sutra fourteen.
- 14:32Speaker 1: This becomes a firm resting place when followed long persistently
- 14:39Speaker 1: with earnestness. We must seek spiritual life in conformity with
- 14:45Speaker 1: the laws of spiritual life with earnestness, humility, gentle charity,
- 14:51Speaker 1: which is an acknowledgment of the one soul within us,
- 14:54Speaker 1: all only through obedience to that shared life, through perpetual
- 14:58Speaker 1: remembrance of our one na with all divine being. Are
- 15:01Speaker 1: nothingness Apart from divine being? Can we enter our inheritance?
- 15:10Speaker 1: Sutra fifteen. Ceasing from self indulgence is conscious mastery over
- 15:16Speaker 1: the thirst for sensuous pleasure here or hereafter Rightly understood,
- 15:24Speaker 1: the desire for sensation is the desire of being, the
- 15:27Speaker 1: distortion of the soul's eternal life. The lust of sensual
- 15:31Speaker 1: stimulus and excitation rests on the longing to feel one's
- 15:35Speaker 1: life keenly, to gain the sense of being really alive.
- 15:39Speaker 1: The sense of true life comes only with the coming
- 15:42Speaker 1: of the soul, and the soul comes only in silence,
- 15:47Speaker 1: after self indulgence has been courageously and loyally stilled through
- 15:51Speaker 1: reverence before the coming soul Sutra sixteen. The consummation of
- 16:00Speaker 1: this is freedom from thirst for any mode of psychical
- 16:03Speaker 1: activity through the establishment of the spiritual man. In order
- 16:10Speaker 1: to gain a true understanding of this, teaching, study must
- 16:13Speaker 1: be supplemented by devoted practice faith by works. The reading
- 16:18Speaker 1: of the words will not avail. There must be a
- 16:21Speaker 1: real effort to stand as the soul, a real ceasing
- 16:24Speaker 1: from self indulgence, with the awakening of the spiritual will
- 16:29Speaker 1: and purification will come at once the growth of the
- 16:32Speaker 1: spiritual man and our awakening consciousness as the spiritual man.
- 16:36Speaker 1: And this attained in even a small degree, will help us,
- 16:40Speaker 1: notably in our contest to Him that hath shall be given.
- 16:49Speaker 1: Sutra seventeen. Meditation with an object follows these stages. First
- 16:58Speaker 1: exterior examining, then interior judicial action, then joy, then realization
- 17:08Speaker 1: of individual being. In the practice of meditation, a beginning
- 17:15Speaker 1: may be made by fixing the attention upon some external object,
- 17:18Speaker 1: such as a sacred image or picture, or a part
- 17:21Speaker 1: of a book of devotion. In the second stage, one
- 17:25Speaker 1: passes from the outer object to an inner pondering upon
- 17:29Speaker 1: its lessons. The third stage is the inspiration the heightening
- 17:34Speaker 1: of the spiritual will which results from this pondering. The
- 17:38Speaker 1: fourth stage is the realization of one's spiritual being as
- 17:42Speaker 1: enkindled by this meditation Sutra eighteen. After the exercise of
- 17:52Speaker 1: the will has stilled the psychic activities, meditation rests only
- 17:57Speaker 1: on the fruit of former meditations. In virtue of continued
- 18:03Speaker 1: practice and effort, the need of an external object on
- 18:06Speaker 1: which to rest the meditation is outgrown, an interior state
- 18:10Speaker 1: of spiritual consciousness is reached, which is called the cloud
- 18:14Speaker 1: of things knowable see Book four Sutra twenty nine, Sutra nineteen.
- 18:26Speaker 1: Subjective consciousness, arising from a natural cause, is possessed by
- 18:30Speaker 1: those who have laid aside their bodies and been absorbed
- 18:33Speaker 1: into subjective nature. Those who have died entered the paradise
- 18:40Speaker 1: between births are in a condition resembling meditation without an
- 18:44Speaker 1: external object. But in the fullness of time, the seeds
- 18:48Speaker 1: of desire in them will spring up, and they will
- 18:51Speaker 1: be borne again into this world Suitor twenty. For the others,
- 19:00Speaker 1: there is spiritual consciousness led up to by faith valor
- 19:05Speaker 1: right mindfulness, one pointedness perception. It is well to keep
- 19:14Speaker 1: in mind to these steps on the path to illumination
- 19:17Speaker 1: faith valor, right mindfulness, one pointedness perception. Not one can
- 19:25Speaker 1: be dispensed with. All must be one first faith, and
- 19:30Speaker 1: then from faith valor from valor right mindfulness, from right mindfulness,
- 19:37Speaker 1: a one pointed aspiration towards the soul from this perception
- 19:42Speaker 1: and finally full vision as the soul suit For twenty one.
- 19:52Speaker 1: Spiritual consciousness is nearest to those of keen intense will.
- 20:00Speaker 1: The image used is the swift impetus of the torrent.
- 20:03Speaker 1: The kingdom must be taken by force. Firm will comes
- 20:07Speaker 1: only through effort. Effort is inspired by faith. The great
- 20:12Speaker 1: secret is this. It is not enough to have intuitions.
- 20:16Speaker 1: We must act on them, We must live them Suitra
- 20:23Speaker 1: twenty two. The will may be weak, or of middle strength,
- 20:29Speaker 1: or intense. Therefore there is a spiritual consciousness higher than this.
- 20:37Speaker 1: For those of weak will, there is this counsel to
- 20:40Speaker 1: be faithful in obedience, to live the life, and thus
- 20:44Speaker 1: to strengthen the will to more perfect obedience. The will
- 20:48Speaker 1: is not ours but God's, and we come into it
- 20:51Speaker 1: only through obedience. As we enter into the spirit of God,
- 20:55Speaker 1: we are permitted to share the power of God. Higher
- 20:59Speaker 1: than the three ste ages of the way is the goal,
- 21:02Speaker 1: the end of the way Suitra twenty three. Or Spiritual
- 21:10Speaker 1: consciousness may be gained by ardent service of the Master.
- 21:16Speaker 1: If we think of our lives as task laid upon
- 21:19Speaker 1: us by the Master of life. If we look on
- 21:21Speaker 1: all duties as parts of that Master's work entrusted to
- 21:25Speaker 1: us in forming our life work. Then if we obey promptly,
- 21:30Speaker 1: loyally sincerely, we shall enter by degrees into the Master's
- 21:35Speaker 1: life and share the Master's power. Thus we shall be
- 21:38Speaker 1: initiated into the spiritual will Suitra twenty four. The Master
- 21:47Speaker 1: is the spiritual man, who is free from hindrances, bondage
- 21:52Speaker 1: to works, and the fruition and seed of works. The
- 21:58Speaker 1: soul of the Master the Lord is of the same
- 22:02Speaker 1: nature as the soul in us, But we still bear
- 22:05Speaker 1: the burden of many evils. We are in bondage through
- 22:08Speaker 1: our former works. We are under the dominance of sorrow.
- 22:14Speaker 1: The soul of the Master is free from sin and
- 22:17Speaker 1: servitude and sorrow Sutra twenty five. In the Master is
- 22:25Speaker 1: the perfect seed of omniscience. The soul of the Master
- 22:32Speaker 1: is in essence one with the over soul, and therefore
- 22:35Speaker 1: partaker of the over souls. All wisdom and all power.
- 22:40Speaker 1: All spiritual attainment rests on this and is possible because
- 22:44Speaker 1: the soul and the over soul are one. Sutra twenty six.
- 22:53Speaker 1: He is the teacher of all who have gone before,
- 22:56Speaker 1: since he is not limited by time. From the beginning,
- 23:02Speaker 1: the over Soul has been the teacher of all souls, which,
- 23:05Speaker 1: by their entrance into the over Soul, by realizing their
- 23:08Speaker 1: oneness with the over Soul, have inherited the kingdom of
- 23:10Speaker 1: the Light. For the over Soul is before time, and
- 23:14Speaker 1: time father of all else is one of his children
- 23:22Speaker 1: Suitre twenty seven. His word is om Om, the symbol
- 23:32Speaker 1: of the three in one, the three worlds in the soul,
- 23:35Speaker 1: the three times, past, present, future, in eternity, the three
- 23:39Speaker 1: divine powers, creation, preservation, transformation in the one being, the
- 23:45Speaker 1: three essences, immortality, omniscience, joy in the one's spirit. This
- 23:52Speaker 1: is the word, the symbol of the Master and Lord,
- 23:55Speaker 1: the perfected spiritual man suit For twenty eight. Let there
- 24:02Speaker 1: be soundless repetition of om and meditation thereon. This has
- 24:08Speaker 1: many meanings in ascending degrees. There is first the potency
- 24:12Speaker 1: of the word itself, as of all words. Then there
- 24:16Speaker 1: is the manifold significance of the symbol as suggested above. Lastly,
- 24:21Speaker 1: there is the spiritual realization of the high essences thus symbolized.
- 24:25Speaker 1: Thus we rise step by step to the eternal Suitra
- 24:31Speaker 1: twenty nine. Thence come the awakening of interior consciousness and
- 24:36Speaker 1: the removal of barriers. Here again, faith must be supplemented
- 24:42Speaker 1: by works. The life must be led as well as studied,
- 24:46Speaker 1: before the full meaning can be understood. The awakening of
- 24:49Speaker 1: spiritual consciousness can only be understood in measure as it
- 24:52Speaker 1: is entered. It can only be entered where the conditions
- 24:56Speaker 1: are present, purity of heart and strong aspiration, and the
- 25:01Speaker 1: resolute conquest of each sin. This, however, may easily be
- 25:05Speaker 1: understood that the recognition of the three worlds as resting
- 25:09Speaker 1: in the soul leads us to realize ourselves and all
- 25:12Speaker 1: life as of the soul. That as we dwell not
- 25:15Speaker 1: in past, present, or future, but in the eternal, we
- 25:18Speaker 1: become more at one with the Eternal. That as we
- 25:21Speaker 1: view all organization, preservation, mutation as the work of a
- 25:25Speaker 1: divine one, we shall come more into harmony with the One,
- 25:29Speaker 1: and thus remove the barrier in our path towards the light.
- 25:34Speaker 1: In a second part of the first book, the problem
- 25:36Speaker 1: of the emergence of the spiritual man is further dealtswith.
- 25:40Speaker 1: We are led to the consideration of the barriers to
- 25:42Speaker 1: his emergence, of the overcoming of the barriers, and of
- 25:46Speaker 1: certain steps and stages in the ascent from the ordinary
- 25:49Speaker 1: consciousness of practical life to the finer, deeper, radiant consciousness
- 25:54Speaker 1: of the spiritual man. End of Book one Sutras one
- 26:02Speaker 1: to twenty nine. Book one Sutras thirty to fifty one
- 26:10Speaker 1: Sutra thirty. The barriers to interior consciousness which drive the
- 26:15Speaker 1: psychic nature this way and that are these sickness, inertia, doubt,
- 26:22Speaker 1: light mindedness, laziness, intemperance, false notions, inability to reach a
- 26:29Speaker 1: stage of meditation or to hold it when reached. We
- 26:35Speaker 1: must remember that we are considering the spiritual man is
- 26:38Speaker 1: enwrapped and enmeshed by the psychic nature, the emotional and
- 26:42Speaker 1: mental powers, and is unable to come to clear consciousness,
- 26:45Speaker 1: unable to stand and see clearly because of the psychic
- 26:48Speaker 1: veils of the personality. Nine of these are enumerated, and
- 26:53Speaker 1: they go pretty thoroughly into the brute toughness of the
- 26:55Speaker 1: psychic nature. Sickness is included rather for its effect on
- 27:00Speaker 1: the emotions and mind, since bodily infirmity such as blindness
- 27:05Speaker 1: or deafness, is no insuperable barrier to spiritual life and
- 27:08Speaker 1: may sometimes be a help as cutting off distractions. It
- 27:13Speaker 1: will be well for us to ponder over each of
- 27:15Speaker 1: these nine activities, thinking of each as a psychic state,
- 27:19Speaker 1: a barrier to the interior consciousness of the spiritual man.
- 27:25Speaker 1: Sutra thirty one. Grieving, despondency, bodily restlessness, the drawing in
- 27:32Speaker 1: and sending forth of a life breath also contribute to
- 27:35Speaker 1: drive the psychic nature to and fro. The first two
- 27:41Speaker 1: moods are easily understood. We can well see how a
- 27:44Speaker 1: sudden psychic condition, flagrantly opposed to the pure and positive
- 27:48Speaker 1: joy of spiritual life would be a barrier. The next,
- 27:52Speaker 1: bodily restlessness, is, in a special way the fault of
- 27:56Speaker 1: our day and generation. When it is conquered, mental restlessness
- 28:00Speaker 1: will be half conquered too. The next two terms concerning
- 28:05Speaker 1: the life breath offer some difficulty. The surface meaning is
- 28:09Speaker 1: harsh and irregular breathing. The deeper meaning is a life
- 28:13Speaker 1: of harsh and irregular impulses. Sutra thirty two. Steady application
- 28:21Speaker 1: to a principle is the way to put a stop
- 28:23Speaker 1: to these. The will, which in its pristine state was
- 28:29Speaker 1: full of vigor, has been steadily corrupted by self indulgence.
- 28:33Speaker 1: The seeking of moods and sensations for sensation's sake, Hence
- 28:39Speaker 1: come all the morbid and sickly moods of the mind.
- 28:42Speaker 1: The remedy is a return to the pristine state of
- 28:45Speaker 1: the will by vigorous positive effort, or, as we are
- 28:49Speaker 1: here told, by steady application to a principle. The principle
- 28:54Speaker 1: to which we should thus steadily apply ourselves should be
- 28:57Speaker 1: one arising from the reality of spiritual life, valorous work
- 29:01Speaker 1: for the soul in others as in ourselves Sutra thirty three.
- 29:09Speaker 1: By sympathy with the happy, compassion for the sorrowful, delight
- 29:14Speaker 1: in the holy, disregard of the unholy, the psychic nature
- 29:18Speaker 1: moves to gracious peace. When we are wrapped up in ourselves,
- 29:24Speaker 1: shrouded with the cloak of our egotism, absorbed in our
- 29:28Speaker 1: pains and bitter thoughts. We are not willing to disturb our,
- 29:31Speaker 1: strain our own sickly mood by giving kindly sympathy to
- 29:34Speaker 1: the happy, thus doubling their joy, or by showing compassion
- 29:38Speaker 1: for the sad, thus having their sorrow. We refuse to
- 29:42Speaker 1: find delight in holy things, and let the mind brood
- 29:45Speaker 1: in sad pessimism on unholy things. All these evil psychic
- 29:49Speaker 1: moods must be conquered by strong effort of will. This
- 29:53Speaker 1: rending of the veils will reveal to us something of
- 29:56Speaker 1: the grace and peace which are of the interior consciousness
- 29:59Speaker 1: of the spiritual mans Sutra thirty four. Or peace may
- 30:06Speaker 1: be reached by the even sending forth and control of
- 30:08Speaker 1: the life breath. Here again we may look for a
- 30:14Speaker 1: double meaning, First that even and quiet breathing, which is
- 30:18Speaker 1: a part of the victory over bodily restlessness. Then the
- 30:21Speaker 1: even and quiet tenor of life without harsh or dissonance impulses,
- 30:26Speaker 1: which brings stillness to the heart Sutra thirty five. Faithful
- 30:34Speaker 1: persistent application to any object, if completely attained, will bind
- 30:39Speaker 1: the mind to steadiness. We are still considering how to
- 30:44Speaker 1: overcome the wavering and perturbation of the psychic nature, which
- 30:48Speaker 1: make it quite unfit to transmit the inward consciousness and stillness.
- 30:52Speaker 1: We are once more told to use the will and
- 30:55Speaker 1: to train it by steady and persistent work, by sitting
- 30:58Speaker 1: close to our work, in the phrase of the Aara
- 31:00Speaker 1: original Sutra thirty six, as also will a joyful, radiant spirit.
- 31:10Speaker 1: There is no such allusion as gloomy pessimism, and it
- 31:14Speaker 1: has been truly said that a man's cheerfulness is the
- 31:16Speaker 1: measure of his faith. Gloom, despondency, the pale cast of
- 31:22Speaker 1: thought are very amenable to the will. Sturdy and courageous
- 31:26Speaker 1: effort will bring a clear and valorous mind. But it
- 31:29Speaker 1: must always be remembered that this is not for solace
- 31:32Speaker 1: to the personal man, but is rather an offering to
- 31:35Speaker 1: the ideal of spiritual life, a contribution to the universal
- 31:39Speaker 1: and universally shared treasure in heaven Sutra thirty seven, or
- 31:47Speaker 1: the purging of self indulgence from the psychic nature. We
- 31:52Speaker 1: must recognize that the fall of man is a reality
- 31:55Speaker 1: exemplified in our own persons. We have quite other sins
- 32:00Speaker 1: than the animals, and far more deleterious, and they have
- 32:03Speaker 1: all come through self indulgence, with which our psychic natures
- 32:07Speaker 1: are soaked through and through. As we climbed downhill for
- 32:11Speaker 1: our pleasure, so must we climb up again for our
- 32:15Speaker 1: purification and restoration to our former high estate. The process
- 32:20Speaker 1: is painful, perhaps yet indispensable. Sutra thirty eight, or a
- 32:29Speaker 1: pondering on the perceptions gained in dreams and dreamless sleep
- 32:35Speaker 1: for the Eastern stages. Dreams are, it is true, made
- 32:38Speaker 1: up of images of waking life, reflections of what the
- 32:41Speaker 1: eyes have seen and the ears heard. But dreams are
- 32:45Speaker 1: something more, for the images are in a sense real,
- 32:48Speaker 1: objective on their own plane, and the knowledge that there
- 32:52Speaker 1: is another world, even a dream world, lightens the tyranny
- 32:56Speaker 1: of material life. Much of poetry and art is such
- 32:59Speaker 1: a solace from dream land. But there is more in
- 33:03Speaker 1: dream for it may image what is above as well
- 33:06Speaker 1: as what is below. Not only the children of men,
- 33:09Speaker 1: but also the children by the shore of the immortal
- 33:12Speaker 1: sea that brought us hither, may throw their images on
- 33:15Speaker 1: this magic mirror. So too, of the secrets of dreamless sleep,
- 33:19Speaker 1: with its pure vision an even greater degree Suitra thirty nine,
- 33:28Speaker 1: or meditative brooding on what is dearest to the heart.
- 33:34Speaker 1: Here is a thought which our own day is beginning
- 33:36Speaker 1: to grasp, that love is a form of knowledge, that
- 33:39Speaker 1: we truly know any thing or any person by becoming
- 33:43Speaker 1: one therewith in love. Thus love has a wisdom that
- 33:47Speaker 1: the minds cannot claim. And by this hearty love, this
- 33:50Speaker 1: becoming one with what is beyond our personal borders, we
- 33:54Speaker 1: may take a long step toward freedom. Two directions for
- 33:58Speaker 1: this may be suggested the pure love of the artist
- 34:01Speaker 1: for his work, and the earnest, compassionate search into the
- 34:05Speaker 1: hearts of others Sutra forty Thus he masters all, from
- 34:13Speaker 1: the atom to the infinite. Newton was asked how he
- 34:19Speaker 1: made his discoveries by intending my mind on them. He replied,
- 34:25Speaker 1: this steady pressure, this becoming one with what we seek
- 34:28Speaker 1: to understand, whether it be atom or soul, is the
- 34:32Speaker 1: one means to know when we become a thing, we
- 34:36Speaker 1: really know it, not otherwise, therefore, live the life to
- 34:41Speaker 1: know the doctrine, do the will of the Father if
- 34:44Speaker 1: he would know the Father Sutra forty one. When the
- 34:51Speaker 1: perturbations of the psychic nature have all been stilled, then
- 34:55Speaker 1: the consciousness, like a pure crystal, takes the color of
- 34:58Speaker 1: what it rests on, whether that be the perceiver, perceiving,
- 35:03Speaker 1: or thing perceived. This is a fuller expression of the
- 35:07Speaker 1: last sutra, and is so lucid that comment can hardly
- 35:11Speaker 1: add to it. Everything is either perceiver, perceiving, or the
- 35:16Speaker 1: thing perceived, or as we might say, consciousness, force or matter.
- 35:22Speaker 1: The stage tells us that the one key will unlock
- 35:25Speaker 1: the secrets of all three The secrets of consciousness, force,
- 35:29Speaker 1: and matter alike. The thought is that the cordial sympathy
- 35:33Speaker 1: of a gentle heart intuitively understanding the hearts of others
- 35:37Speaker 1: is really a manifestation of the same power as that
- 35:40Speaker 1: penetrating perception. Whereby one divines the secrets of planetary motions
- 35:45Speaker 1: or atomic structure Sutra forty two, when the consciousness poised
- 35:54Speaker 1: and perceiving blends together the name, the object dwelt On,
- 35:58Speaker 1: and the idea with exterior consideration. In the first stage
- 36:05Speaker 1: of the consideration of an external object, the perceiving mind
- 36:08Speaker 1: comes to it preoccupied by the name and idea conventionally
- 36:11Speaker 1: associated with that object. For example, in coming to the
- 36:15Speaker 1: study of a book, we think of the author, his period,
- 36:19Speaker 1: the school to which he belongs. The second stage, set
- 36:22Speaker 1: forth in the next sutra, goes directly to the spiritual
- 36:25Speaker 1: meaning of the book, setting its traditional trappings aside, and
- 36:28Speaker 1: finding its application to our own experience and problems. The
- 36:33Speaker 1: commentator takes a very simple illustration a cow, where one
- 36:37Speaker 1: considers in the first stage the name of the cow,
- 36:40Speaker 1: the animal itself, and the idea of a cow in
- 36:43Speaker 1: the mind. In the second stage, one pushes these trappings
- 36:47Speaker 1: aside and entering into the inmost being of the cow
- 36:51Speaker 1: shares its consciousness, as do some of the artists who
- 36:54Speaker 1: paint cows. They get at the very life of what
- 36:57Speaker 1: they study in paints Sutra forty three. When the object
- 37:04Speaker 1: dwells in the mind, clear of memory, pictures uncolored by
- 37:08Speaker 1: the mind, as a pure luminous idea. This is perception
- 37:12Speaker 1: without exterior consideration. We are still considering external visible objects.
- 37:20Speaker 1: Such perception, as is here described, is of the nature
- 37:23Speaker 1: of that penetrating vision whereby Newton, intending his mind on things,
- 37:28Speaker 1: made his discoveries, or that whereby a really great portrait
- 37:31Speaker 1: painter pierces to the soul of him whom he paints
- 37:34Speaker 1: and makes that soul live on canvas. These stages of
- 37:38Speaker 1: perception are described in this way to lead the mind
- 37:42Speaker 1: up to an understanding of the piercing soul vision of
- 37:45Speaker 1: the spiritual man the Immortal Sutra forty four. The same
- 37:52Speaker 1: two steps, when referring to things of finer substance, are
- 37:56Speaker 1: said to be with or without judicial action of the mind.
- 38:02Speaker 1: We now come to mental or psychical objects, to objects
- 38:06Speaker 1: in the mind. It is precisely by comparing, arranging and
- 38:10Speaker 1: superposing these mind images that we get our general notions
- 38:13Speaker 1: or concepts. This process of analysis and synthesis, whereby we
- 38:18Speaker 1: select certain qualities in a group of mind images and
- 38:21Speaker 1: then range together those of like quality, is a judicial
- 38:24Speaker 1: action of the mind spoken of. But when we exercise
- 38:27Speaker 1: swift divination upon the mind images, as does a poet
- 38:31Speaker 1: or a man of genius, then we use a power
- 38:34Speaker 1: higher than the judicial, and one nearer to the keen
- 38:37Speaker 1: vision of the spiritual man Sutra forty five. Subtle substance
- 38:45Speaker 1: rises in ascending degrees to that pure nature which has
- 38:48Speaker 1: no distinguishing mark. As we ascend from outer material things,
- 38:54Speaker 1: which are permeated by separateness, and whose chief characteristic is
- 38:58Speaker 1: to be separates, as so many pebbles are separate from
- 39:01Speaker 1: each other. As we ascend first to mind images, which
- 39:05Speaker 1: overlap and coalesce in both space and time, and then
- 39:09Speaker 1: to ideas and principles, we finally come to purer essences,
- 39:13Speaker 1: drawing ever nearer and nearer to unity. Or we may
- 39:18Speaker 1: illustrate this principle. Thus, our bodily external selves are quite
- 39:22Speaker 1: distinct and separate in form, name, place substance. Our mental
- 39:28Speaker 1: selves of finer substance meet and part meet and part
- 39:32Speaker 1: again in perpetual concussion and interchange. Our spiritual cells attain
- 39:38Speaker 1: true consciousness through unity, where the partition well between us
- 39:42Speaker 1: and the Highest, between us and others is broken down,
- 39:46Speaker 1: and we are all made perfect in the One. The
- 39:49Speaker 1: highest riches are possessed by all pure souls only when united.
- 39:53Speaker 1: Thus we rise from separation to true individuality in Unity
- 40:02Speaker 1: Sutra forty six. The above are the degrees of limited
- 40:06Speaker 1: and conditioned spiritual consciousness, still containing the seed of separateness
- 40:13Speaker 1: in the four stages of perception above described. The spiritual
- 40:16Speaker 1: vision is still working through the mental and psychical. The
- 40:19Speaker 1: inner genius is still expressed through the outer personal man.
- 40:23Speaker 1: The spiritual man has yet to come completely to consciousness
- 40:26Speaker 1: as himself in his own realm, the psychical veils laid
- 40:29Speaker 1: aside Sutra forty seven. When pure perception without judicial action
- 40:37Speaker 1: of the mind is reached, there follows the gracious peace
- 40:41Speaker 1: of the inner self. We have instanced certain types of
- 40:46Speaker 1: this pure perception, the poet's divination, whereby he sees the
- 40:51Speaker 1: spirit within the symbol, likeness in things unlike, and beauty
- 40:55Speaker 1: in all things. The pure insight of the true philosopher,
- 40:59Speaker 1: whose vision rests not on the appearances of life, but
- 41:02Speaker 1: on its realities, or the saint's firm perception of spiritual
- 41:06Speaker 1: life and being. All these are far advanced on the
- 41:09Speaker 1: way they have drawn nearer to the secret dwelling of
- 41:12Speaker 1: peace Sutra forty eight. In that piece, perception is unfailingly true,
- 41:24Speaker 1: the poet, the wise philosopher, and the saint not only
- 41:28Speaker 1: reach a wide and luminous consciousness, but they gain certain
- 41:31Speaker 1: knowledge of substantial reality. When we know, we know that
- 41:36Speaker 1: we know, for we have come to the stage where
- 41:39Speaker 1: we know things by being them, and nothing can be
- 41:42Speaker 1: more true than being. We rest on the rock and
- 41:46Speaker 1: know it to be rock rooted in the very heart
- 41:49Speaker 1: of the world Sutra forty nine. The object of this
- 41:56Speaker 1: perception is other than what is learned from the sacred
- 41:59Speaker 1: books or by sound inference. Since this perception is particular,
- 42:06Speaker 1: the distinction is a luminous and inspiring one. The scriptures
- 42:11Speaker 1: teach general truths concerning universal spiritual life and broad laws,
- 42:16Speaker 1: and inference from their teaching is not less general. But
- 42:20Speaker 1: the spiritual perception of the awakened seer brings particular truth
- 42:24Speaker 1: concerning his own particular life and needs. Whether these be
- 42:28Speaker 1: for himself or others. He receives defined, precise knowledge exactly
- 42:33Speaker 1: applying to what he has at heart. Sutra fifty. The
- 42:39Speaker 1: impress on the consciousness springing from this perception supersedes all
- 42:44Speaker 1: previous impressions. Each state or field of the mind, each
- 42:50Speaker 1: field of knowledge, so to speak, which is reached by
- 42:53Speaker 1: mental and emotional energies, is a psychical state. Just as
- 42:57Speaker 1: a mind picture of a stage with the actors on
- 42:59Speaker 1: it is a psychical state or field. When the pure vision,
- 43:04Speaker 1: as of the poet, the philosopher, the saint, fills the
- 43:07Speaker 1: whole field, all lesser views and visions are crowded out.
- 43:12Speaker 1: This high consciousness displaces all lesser consciousness. Yet in a
- 43:16Speaker 1: certain sense, that which is viewed as part, even by
- 43:20Speaker 1: the vision of a sage, has still an element of illusion,
- 43:23Speaker 1: a thin psychical veil. However pure and luminous that veil
- 43:27Speaker 1: may be, it is the last and highest psychic state
- 43:34Speaker 1: Sutra fifty one. When this impression ceases, then, since all
- 43:40Speaker 1: impressions have ceased, there arises pure spiritual consciousness, with no
- 43:45Speaker 1: seed of separateness left. The last psychic veil is drawn aside,
- 43:52Speaker 1: and the spiritual man stands with unveiled vision, pure serene.
- 44:02Speaker 1: End of Book one Sutras thirty to fifty one, Introduction
- 44:08Speaker 1: to Book two. The first book of Patangali's Yoga Sutras
- 44:14Speaker 1: is called the Book of Spiritual Consciousness. The second book,
- 44:18Speaker 1: which we now begin, is the Book of the Means
- 44:21Speaker 1: of sole growth. And we must remember that sole growth
- 44:25Speaker 1: here means the growth of the realization of the spiritual man, or,
- 44:30Speaker 1: to put the matter more briefly, the growth of the
- 44:33Speaker 1: spiritual man, and the disentangling of the spiritual man from
- 44:37Speaker 1: the wrappings, the veils, the disguises laid upon him by
- 44:41Speaker 1: the mind and the psychical nature, wherein he is enmeshed
- 44:45Speaker 1: like a bird caught in a net. The question arises,
- 44:50Speaker 1: by what means may the spiritual man be freed from
- 44:53Speaker 1: these psychical meshes and disguises, so that he may stand
- 44:56Speaker 1: forth above death in his radiant, eternalness and divine power.
- 45:01Speaker 1: And the second book sets itself to answer this very
- 45:03Speaker 1: question and to detail the means in a way entirely
- 45:06Speaker 1: practical and very lucid, so that he who runs may read,
- 45:10Speaker 1: and he who reads man understands and practice. The second
- 45:15Speaker 1: part of the second book is concerned with practical spiritual training,
- 45:19Speaker 1: that is, with the earlier practical training of the spiritual man.
- 45:24Speaker 1: The most striking thing in it is the emphasis laid
- 45:26Speaker 1: on the commandments, which are precisely those of the latter
- 45:29Speaker 1: part of the Decalogue, together with obedience to the Master.
- 45:34Speaker 1: Our day and generation is far too prone to fancy
- 45:36Speaker 1: that there can be mystical life and growth on some
- 45:39Speaker 1: other foundation, on the foundation, for example, of intellectual curiosity
- 45:44Speaker 1: or psychical selfishness. In reality, on this latter foundation, the
- 45:49Speaker 1: life of the spiritual man can never be built, nor
- 45:52Speaker 1: indeed anything but a psychic counterfeit, a dangerous delusion. Therefore, potentially,
- 45:59Speaker 1: like every great spiritual teacher, meets the question what must
- 46:02Speaker 1: I do to be saved? With the age old answer
- 46:06Speaker 1: keep the commandments. Only after the disciple can say these
- 46:11Speaker 1: have I kept? Can there be the further and finer
- 46:13Speaker 1: teaching of the spiritual rules. It is therefore vital for
- 46:18Speaker 1: us to realize that the yoga system, like every true
- 46:21Speaker 1: system of spiritual teaching, rests on this broad and firm
- 46:24Speaker 1: foundation of honesty, truth, cleanness, obedience. Without these there is
- 46:33Speaker 1: no salvation, and he who practices these, even though ignorant
- 46:37Speaker 1: of spiritual things is laying up treasure against the time
- 46:41Speaker 1: to come. End of introduction to Book two, Book two
- 46:48Speaker 1: Sutras one to twenty seven Sutra one. The practices which
- 46:55Speaker 1: make for union with the soul are fervent aspiration, reading,
- 47:01Speaker 1: and complete obedience to the Master. The word which I
- 47:06Speaker 1: have rendered fervent aspiration, means primarily fire, and in the
- 47:11Speaker 1: Eastern teaching it means the fire which gives life and light,
- 47:15Speaker 1: and at the same time the fire which purifies. We
- 47:18Speaker 1: have therefore as our first practice, as the first of
- 47:22Speaker 1: the means of spiritual growth, that fiery quality of the will,
- 47:25Speaker 1: which enkindles and illumines, and at the same time the
- 47:29Speaker 1: steady practice of purification, the burning away of all known impurities.
- 47:35Speaker 1: Spiritual reading is so universally accepted and understood that it
- 47:38Speaker 1: needs no comments. The very study of Potangali Sutras is
- 47:42Speaker 1: an exercise in spiritual reading, and a very effective one,
- 47:47Speaker 1: And so with all other books of the Soul. Obedience
- 47:51Speaker 1: to the Master means that we shall make the will
- 47:53Speaker 1: of the Master our will, and shall conform in all
- 47:56Speaker 1: ways to the will of the Divine, setting aside the
- 47:59Speaker 1: wills of self, which are but psychic distortions. Of the
- 48:02Speaker 1: one divine will. The constant effort to obey in all
- 48:06Speaker 1: the ways we know and understand, will reveal new ways
- 48:10Speaker 1: and new tasks, the evidence of new growth of the soul.
- 48:14Speaker 1: Nothing will do more for the spiritual man in us
- 48:16Speaker 1: than this, for there is no such regenerating power as
- 48:20Speaker 1: the awakening spiritual will. Sutre two. Their aim is to
- 48:28Speaker 1: bring soul vision and to wear away hindrances. The aim
- 48:34Speaker 1: of fervor, spiritual reading and obedience to the Master is
- 48:38Speaker 1: to bring soul vision and to wear away hindrances. Or,
- 48:41Speaker 1: to use the phrase we have already adopted, the aim
- 48:44Speaker 1: of these practices is to help the spiritual man to
- 48:46Speaker 1: open his eyes, to help him also to throw aside
- 48:50Speaker 1: the veils and disguises, the enmeshing psychic nets which surround him,
- 48:54Speaker 1: tying his hands, as it were, and bandaging his eyes.
- 48:58Speaker 1: And this, as all teachers testify, is a long and
- 49:02Speaker 1: arduous task, a steady upill fight, demanding fine courage and
- 49:07Speaker 1: persistent toil. Fervor the fire of the spiritual will is
- 49:13Speaker 1: as we said twofold. It illumines, and so helps the
- 49:17Speaker 1: spiritual man to see, and it also burns up the
- 49:19Speaker 1: nets and meshes which ensnare the spiritual man, so would
- 49:24Speaker 1: the other means spiritual reading and obedience. Each in its
- 49:28Speaker 1: action is twofold, wearing away the psychical and upbuilding the
- 49:32Speaker 1: spiritual man. Sutra three. These are the hindrances, the darkness
- 49:42Speaker 1: of unwisdom, self assertion, lust, hate, attachment. Let us try
- 49:51Speaker 1: to translate this into terms of the psychical and spiritual man.
- 49:55Speaker 1: The darkness of unwisdom is primarily the self absorption of
- 49:59Speaker 1: the psychical man, his complete preoccupation with his own hopes
- 50:02Speaker 1: and fears, plans and purposes, sensations and desires, so that
- 50:07Speaker 1: he fails to see or refuses to see, that there
- 50:10Speaker 1: is a spiritual man, and so doggedly resists all efforts
- 50:14Speaker 1: of the spiritual man to cast off his psychic tyrant
- 50:16Speaker 1: and set himself free. This is the real darkness. And
- 50:21Speaker 1: all those who deny the immortality of the soul, or
- 50:23Speaker 1: deny the soul's existence, and so lay out their lives
- 50:27Speaker 1: wholly for the psychical mortal man and his ambitions are
- 50:30Speaker 1: under the power of darkness. Born of this darkness, this
- 50:34Speaker 1: psychic self absorption is the dogged conviction that the psychic
- 50:38Speaker 1: personal man has separate, exclusive interests, which he can follow
- 50:41Speaker 1: for himself alone. And this conviction, when put into practice
- 50:46Speaker 1: in our life, leads to contest with other personalities, and
- 50:49Speaker 1: so to hate. This hate again makes against the spiritual man,
- 50:54Speaker 1: since it hinders the revelation of the high harmony between
- 50:57Speaker 1: the spiritual man and his other selves, harmony to be
- 51:00Speaker 1: revealed only through the practice of love, that perfect love
- 51:03Speaker 1: which casts out fear. In like manner, lust is the
- 51:09Speaker 1: psychic man's craving for the stimulus of sensation, the din
- 51:13Speaker 1: of which smothers the voice of the spiritual man, as
- 51:16Speaker 1: in Shakespeare's phrase, the cackling geese would drown the song
- 51:19Speaker 1: of the nightingale. And this craving for stimulus is the
- 51:23Speaker 1: fruit of weakness, coming from the failure to find strength
- 51:26Speaker 1: in the primal life of the spiritual man. Attachment is
- 51:31Speaker 1: but another name for psychic self absorption, for we are
- 51:34Speaker 1: absorbed not in outward things, but rather in their images
- 51:38Speaker 1: within our minds. Our inner eyes are fixed on them,
- 51:41Speaker 1: our inner desires brood over them, and we blind ourselves
- 51:45Speaker 1: to the presence of the prisoner, the enmeshed and fettered
- 51:48Speaker 1: spiritual man sutraphor the darkness of unwisdom is the field
- 51:57Speaker 1: of the others. These hindrances may be dormant, or worn thin,
- 52:02Speaker 1: or suspended or expanded. Here we have really two sutras
- 52:08Speaker 1: in one. The first has been explained already. In the
- 52:11Speaker 1: darkness of unwisdom grow the parasites, hate, lust, attachments. They
- 52:18Speaker 1: are all outgrowths of the self absorption of the psychical self. Next,
- 52:23Speaker 1: we are told that these barriers may be either dormant
- 52:25Speaker 1: or suspended, or expanded or worn thin. Faults which are
- 52:31Speaker 1: dormant will be brought out through the pressure of life
- 52:34Speaker 1: or through the pressure of strong aspiration. Thus expanded, they
- 52:38Speaker 1: must be fought and conquered, or as potently a quaintly says,
- 52:42Speaker 1: they must be worn thin as a veil might, or
- 52:46Speaker 1: the links of manacles. Sutra five. The darkness of ignorance
- 52:53Speaker 1: is holding that which is unenduring, impure, full of pain,
- 52:59Speaker 1: not the soul, to be eternal, pure, full of joy,
- 53:04Speaker 1: the soul. This we have really considered already. The psychic
- 53:10Speaker 1: man is unenduring, impure, full of pain, not the soul,
- 53:15Speaker 1: not the real self. The spiritual man is enduring, pure,
- 53:20Speaker 1: full of joy, the real self. The darkness of un
- 53:23Speaker 1: wisdom is therefore the self absorption of the psychical personal
- 53:27Speaker 1: man to the exclusion of the spiritual man. It is
- 53:31Speaker 1: the belief carried into action that the personal man is
- 53:35Speaker 1: the real man, the man for whom we should toil,
- 53:38Speaker 1: for whom we should build, for whom we should live.
- 53:42Speaker 1: This is that psychical man, of whom it is said,
- 53:44Speaker 1: he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh
- 53:47Speaker 1: reap corruption Sutra six. Self assertion comes from thinking of
- 53:56Speaker 1: the seer and the instrument of vision as for oneself.
- 54:04Speaker 1: This is the fundamental idea of the Sanchia philosophy, of
- 54:07Speaker 1: which yoga is avowedly the practical side. To translate this
- 54:11Speaker 1: into our terms, we may say that the seer is
- 54:14Speaker 1: the spiritual man, the instrument of vision is the psychical
- 54:17Speaker 1: man through which the spiritual man gains experience of the
- 54:21Speaker 1: outer world. But we turn the servant into the master.
- 54:26Speaker 1: We attribute to the psychical man the personal self, a
- 54:30Speaker 1: reality which really belongs to the spiritual man alone. And
- 54:33Speaker 1: so thinking of the quality of the spiritual man as
- 54:36Speaker 1: belonging to the psychical, we merge the spiritual man in
- 54:39Speaker 1: the psychical, or, as the text says, we think of
- 54:43Speaker 1: the two as forming one's self. Sutra seven. Lust is
- 54:51Speaker 1: the resting in the sense of enjoyment. This has been
- 54:56Speaker 1: explained again and again sensation, as for example, the sense
- 55:02Speaker 1: of taste is meant to be the guide to action,
- 55:05Speaker 1: in this case the choice of wholesome food and the
- 55:08Speaker 1: avoidance of poisonous and hurtful things. But if we rest
- 55:12Speaker 1: in the sense of taste as a pleasure in itself,
- 55:15Speaker 1: rest that is, in the psychical side of taste, we
- 55:18Speaker 1: fall into gluttony and live to eat instead of eating
- 55:22Speaker 1: to live. So will the other great organic power, the
- 55:26Speaker 1: power of reproduction. This lust comes into being through resting
- 55:31Speaker 1: in the sensation and looking for pleasure from that. Sutra eight.
- 55:39Speaker 1: Hate is the resting in the sense of pain. Pain
- 55:45Speaker 1: comes for the most part from the strife of personalities,
- 55:49Speaker 1: the jarring discords between psychic selves, each of which deems
- 55:53Speaker 1: itself supreme. A dwelling on this pain breeds hate, which
- 55:58Speaker 1: tears the warring cells yet further asunder and puts new
- 56:01Speaker 1: enmity between them, thus hindering the harmony of the real.
- 56:05Speaker 1: The reconciliation through the soul. Sutrinine attachment is the desire
- 56:14Speaker 1: toward life even in the wise, carried forward by its
- 56:18Speaker 1: own energy. The life here desired is the psychic life,
- 56:24Speaker 1: the intensely vibrating life of the psychical self. This prevails
- 56:29Speaker 1: even in those who have attained much wisdom, so long
- 56:32Speaker 1: as it falls short of the wisdom of complete renunciation,
- 56:35Speaker 1: complete obedience to each least behest of the spiritual man
- 56:39Speaker 1: and of the Master who guards and aids the spiritual man.
- 56:43Speaker 1: The desire of sensation, the desire of psychic life, reproduces itself,
- 56:48Speaker 1: carried on by its own energy and momentum, and hence
- 56:51Speaker 1: comes the circle of death and rebirth. Death and rebirth
- 56:55Speaker 1: instead of the liberation of the spiritual man Sutraten. These hindrances,
- 57:05Speaker 1: when they have become subtle, are to be removed by
- 57:08Speaker 1: a countercurrent. The darkness of unwisdom is to be removed
- 57:13Speaker 1: by the light of wisdom pursued through fervor, spiritual reading
- 57:17Speaker 1: of holy teachings and of life itself, and by obedience
- 57:20Speaker 1: to the Master. Lust is to be removed by pure
- 57:24Speaker 1: aspiration of spiritual life, which, bringing true strength and stability,
- 57:28Speaker 1: takes away the void of weakness which we try to
- 57:30Speaker 1: fill by the stimulus of sensations. Hate is to be
- 57:35Speaker 1: overcome by love. The fear that arises through the sense
- 57:38Speaker 1: of separate warring selves is to be stilled by the
- 57:41Speaker 1: realization of the one self, the one soul. In all
- 57:45Speaker 1: this realization is the perfect love that casts out fear.
- 57:49Speaker 1: The hindrances are said to have become subtle when, by
- 57:52Speaker 1: initial efforts they have been located and recognized in the
- 57:55Speaker 1: psychic nature. Sure eleven. Their active turnings are to be
- 58:03Speaker 1: removed by meditation. Here is, in truth the whole secret
- 58:09Speaker 1: of yoga, the science of the soul. The active turnings,
- 58:14Speaker 1: the strident vibrations of selfishness, lust, and hate are to
- 58:18Speaker 1: be stilled by meditation, by letting heart and mind dwell
- 58:22Speaker 1: in spiritual life, by lifting up the heart to the strong,
- 58:26Speaker 1: silent life above, which rests in the stillness of eternal
- 58:29Speaker 1: love and needs no harsh vibration to convince it of
- 58:32Speaker 1: true being Suxra twelve. The burden of bondage to sorrow
- 58:40Speaker 1: has its root in these hindrances. It will be felt
- 58:43Speaker 1: in this life or in a life not yet manifested.
- 58:50Speaker 1: The burden of bondage to sorrow has its root in
- 58:52Speaker 1: the darkness of unwisdom, in selfishness, in lust, in hate,
- 58:58Speaker 1: in attachment to sensation. All these are, in the last analysis,
- 59:03Speaker 1: absorption in the psychical self. And this means sorrow because
- 59:08Speaker 1: it means the sense of separateness, and this means drawing
- 59:10Speaker 1: discord and inevitable death. But the psychical self will breed
- 59:15Speaker 1: a new psychical self in a new birth, and so
- 59:18Speaker 1: new sorrows in a life not yet manifest Sutra thirteen.
- 59:26Speaker 1: From this root there grow and ripen the fruits of birth,
- 59:29Speaker 1: of the life span of all that is tasted in life.
- 59:35Speaker 1: Fully to comments on this would be to write a
- 59:37Speaker 1: treatise on karma and its practical working in detail, whereby
- 59:41Speaker 1: the place and time of the next birth, its content
- 59:44Speaker 1: and duration are determined. And to do this the present
- 59:47Speaker 1: commentator is in no wise fitted. But this much is
- 59:50Speaker 1: clearly understood, that through a kind of spiritual gravitation, the
- 59:55Speaker 1: incarnating self is drawn to a home and life circle
- 59:58Speaker 1: which will give its scope and discipline, and its need
- 1:00:01Speaker 1: of discipline is clearly conditioned by its character, its standing,
- 1:00:05Speaker 1: its accomplishment Sutra fourteen. These bare fruits of rejoicing or
- 1:00:14Speaker 1: of affliction, as they are sprung from holy or unholy works,
- 1:00:20Speaker 1: since holiness is obedience to divine law, to the law
- 1:00:23Speaker 1: of divine harmony, and obedience to harmony strengthens that harmony
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: in the soul, which is the one true joy. Therefore
- 1:00:30Speaker 1: joy comes of holiness comes indeed in no other way.
- 1:00:34Speaker 1: And as unholiness is disobedience, and therefore discord, Therefore unholiness
- 1:00:39Speaker 1: makes for pain. And this twofold law is true, whether
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: the cause take effect in this or in a yet
- 1:00:45Speaker 1: unmanifested birth Sutra fifteen. To him who possesses discernment, all
- 1:00:53Speaker 1: personal life is misery because if ever waxes and wanes,
- 1:00:57Speaker 1: is ever afflicted with restlessness, makes ever new dynamic impresses
- 1:01:01Speaker 1: in the mind, and because all its activities war with
- 1:01:05Speaker 1: each other. The whole life of the psychic self is
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: misery because it ever waxes and wanes, because birth brings
- 1:01:13Speaker 1: inevitable death, because there is no expectation without its shadow fear.
- 1:01:20Speaker 1: The life of the psychic self is misery because it
- 1:01:22Speaker 1: is afflicted with restlessness, so that he who has much
- 1:01:26Speaker 1: finds not satisfaction, but rather the wetted hunger for more.
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: The fire is not quenched by pouring oil on it,
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: so desire is not quenched by the satisfaction of desire. Again,
- 1:01:38Speaker 1: the life of the psychic self is misery because it
- 1:01:40Speaker 1: makes ever new dynamic impresses on the mind. Because a
- 1:01:43Speaker 1: desire satisfied is but the seed from which springs the
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: desire to find like satisfaction. Again, the appetite comes in eating,
- 1:01:51Speaker 1: as the proverb says, and grows by what it feeds on.
- 1:01:55Speaker 1: And the psychic self, torn with conflicting desires, is ever
- 1:01:59Speaker 1: the house divine against itself, which must surely fall Sutra sixteen.
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: This pain is to be warded off before it has come.
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: In other words, we cannot cure the pains of life
- 1:02:14Speaker 1: by laying on them any bomb. We must cut the
- 1:02:17Speaker 1: root absorption in the psychical self. So it is said,
- 1:02:22Speaker 1: there is no cure for the misery of longing, but
- 1:02:24Speaker 1: to fix the heart upon the eternal Sutra seventeen. The
- 1:02:32Speaker 1: cause of what is to be warded off is the
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: absorption of the seer in things seen. Here again we
- 1:02:39Speaker 1: have the fundamental idea of the sankia, which is the
- 1:02:42Speaker 1: intellectual counterpart of the yoga system. The cause of what
- 1:02:46Speaker 1: is to be warded off, the root of misery is
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: the absorption of consciousness in the psychical man, and the
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: things which beguile the psychical man. Their cure is liberation.
- 1:03:00Speaker 1: Sutra eighteen. Things seen have as their property manifestation action inertia.
- 1:03:08Speaker 1: They form the basis of the elements and the sense
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: powers they make for experience and for liberation. Here is
- 1:03:17Speaker 1: the whole philosophy of life. Things seen, the total of
- 1:03:21Speaker 1: the phenomena, possess as their property, manifestation, action, inertia, the
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: qualities of force and matter in combination, these in their
- 1:03:32Speaker 1: grosser form make the material world. In their finer, more
- 1:03:36Speaker 1: subjective form, they make the psychical world the world of
- 1:03:40Speaker 1: sense impressions and mind images. And through this totality of
- 1:03:44Speaker 1: the phenomenon, the soul gains experience and is prepared for liberation.
- 1:03:49Speaker 1: In other words, the whole outer world exists for the
- 1:03:53Speaker 1: purposes of the soul and finds in this its true
- 1:03:56Speaker 1: reason for being Sutrare nineteen. The grades or layers of
- 1:04:03Speaker 1: the three potencies are the defined, the undefined, that with
- 1:04:08Speaker 1: distinctive mark, that without distinctive mark, or as we might say,
- 1:04:14Speaker 1: there are two strata of the physical and two strata
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: of the psychical realms. In each there is the side
- 1:04:21Speaker 1: of form and the side of force. The form side
- 1:04:25Speaker 1: of the physical is here called the defined. The fore
- 1:04:29Speaker 1: side of the physical is the undefined, that which has
- 1:04:32Speaker 1: no boundaries. So in the psychical there is the form side,
- 1:04:37Speaker 1: that with distinctive marks, such as the characteristic features of
- 1:04:41Speaker 1: mind images, and there is the fore side without distinctive marks,
- 1:04:45Speaker 1: such as the forces of desire or fear, which may flow.
- 1:04:48Speaker 1: Now to this mind image, now to that Sutra twenty
- 1:04:56Speaker 1: The seer is pure vision. Though pure, he looks out
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: through the vesture of the mind. The seer, as always
- 1:05:05Speaker 1: is the spiritual man, whose deepest consciousness is pure vision,
- 1:05:08Speaker 1: the pure life of the eternal. But the spiritual man,
- 1:05:12Speaker 1: as yet unseeing in his proper person, looks out in
- 1:05:14Speaker 1: the world through the eyes of the psychical man, by
- 1:05:17Speaker 1: whom he is unfolded and enmeshed. The task is to
- 1:05:20Speaker 1: set this prisoner free, to clear the dust of ages
- 1:05:23Speaker 1: from this very temple Suitre twenty one. The very essence
- 1:05:30Speaker 1: of things seen is that they exist for the seer.
- 1:05:35Speaker 1: The things of outer life, not only material things, but
- 1:05:38Speaker 1: the psychic man also exist in very deed for the
- 1:05:41Speaker 1: purposes of the seer, the soul, the spiritual man. Disaster
- 1:05:46Speaker 1: comes when the psychical man sets up, so to speak,
- 1:05:49Speaker 1: on his own account, trying to live for himself alone,
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: and taking material things to solace his loneliness. Twenty two.
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: Though fallen away from him who has reached the goal,
- 1:06:03Speaker 1: things seen have not altogether fallen away, since they still
- 1:06:06Speaker 1: exist for others. When one of us conquers hate, hate
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: does not thereby cease out of the world, since others
- 1:06:14Speaker 1: still hate and suffer hatred. So with other delusions, which
- 1:06:18Speaker 1: hold us in bondage to material things, and through which
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: we look at all material things. When the colored veil
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: of illusion is gone, the world which saw through it
- 1:06:28Speaker 1: is also gone. For now we see life as it
- 1:06:31Speaker 1: is in the white radiance of eternity. But for others
- 1:06:34Speaker 1: the colored veil remains, and therefore the world thus colored
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: by it remains for them, and will remain till they
- 1:06:41Speaker 1: too conquer delusion Suitre twenty three. The association of the
- 1:06:48Speaker 1: seer with things seen is the cause of the realizing
- 1:06:51Speaker 1: of the nature of things seen, and also of the
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: realizing of the nature of the seer. Life is educative.
- 1:07:00Speaker 1: All life's infinite variety is for discipline for the development
- 1:07:04Speaker 1: of the soul. So passing through many lives. The soul
- 1:07:07Speaker 1: learns the secrets of the world, the august laws that
- 1:07:10Speaker 1: are written in the form of the snow crystal, or
- 1:07:13Speaker 1: the majestic order of the stars. Yet all these laws
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: are but reflections, but projections outward of the laws of
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: the soul. Therefore, in learning these, the soul learns to
- 1:07:25Speaker 1: know itself. All life is but the mirror, wherein the
- 1:07:29Speaker 1: soul learns to know its own face Sutra twenty four.
- 1:07:37Speaker 1: The cause of this association is the darkness of unwisdom.
- 1:07:42Speaker 1: The darkness of unwisdom is the absorption of consciousness in
- 1:07:45Speaker 1: the personal life and in the things seen by the
- 1:07:47Speaker 1: personal life. This is the fall through which comes experience,
- 1:07:52Speaker 1: the learning of the lessons of life. When they are learned,
- 1:07:56Speaker 1: the day of redemption is at hand Sutra twenty five.
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: The bringing of this association to an end, by bringing
- 1:08:05Speaker 1: the darkness of unwisdom to an end is the great liberation.
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: This is the seer's attainment of his own pure being.
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: When the spiritual man has through the psychical, learned all
- 1:08:18Speaker 1: life's lessons, the time has come for him to put
- 1:08:21Speaker 1: off the veil and disguise of the psychical and to
- 1:08:24Speaker 1: stand revealed a king in the house of the Father.
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: So shall he enter into his kingdom and go no
- 1:08:30Speaker 1: more out Sutra twenty six. A discerning, which is carried
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: on without wavering is the means of liberation. Here we
- 1:08:44Speaker 1: come close to the pure Vedanta with its discernment between
- 1:08:48Speaker 1: the eternal and the temporal. Saint Paul, following after Philo
- 1:08:53Speaker 1: and Plato, lays down the same fundamental principle. The things
- 1:08:57Speaker 1: seen are temporal, the things unseen are eternal. Potentially means
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: something more than an intellectual assent, though this too is vital.
- 1:09:08Speaker 1: He has in view a constant discriminating in act as
- 1:09:11Speaker 1: well as thought, of the two ways which present themselves
- 1:09:14Speaker 1: for every deed or choice. Always to choose the higher way,
- 1:09:18Speaker 1: that which makes for the things eternal, honesty rather than roguery,
- 1:09:23Speaker 1: courage and not cowardice, the things of another rather than
- 1:09:26Speaker 1: one's own, sacrifice and not indulgence. This true discernment, carried
- 1:09:32Speaker 1: out constantly makes for liberation. Suit Her twenty seven. His
- 1:09:42Speaker 1: illumination is sevenfold, rising in successive stages. Potentially's text does
- 1:09:49Speaker 1: not tell us what the seven stages of this illumination are.
- 1:09:53Speaker 1: The commentator thus describes them first. The danger to be
- 1:09:57Speaker 1: escaped is recognized. It needs not to be recognized a
- 1:10:00Speaker 1: second time. Second, the causes of the danger to be
- 1:10:05Speaker 1: escaped are worn away. They need not be worn away
- 1:10:08Speaker 1: a second time. Third, the way of escape is clearly
- 1:10:12Speaker 1: perceived by the contemplation, which checks psychic perturbation. Fourth, the
- 1:10:18Speaker 1: means of escape clear discernment has been developed. This is
- 1:10:22Speaker 1: the fourfold release belonging to insight. The final release from
- 1:10:27Speaker 1: the psychic is threefold, as fifth of the seven degrees.
- 1:10:31Speaker 1: The dominance of its thinking is ended as sixth. Its potencies,
- 1:10:36Speaker 1: like rocks from a precipice, follow themselves once dissolved. They
- 1:10:40Speaker 1: do not grow again. Then, as seventh, freed from these potencies,
- 1:10:45Speaker 1: the spiritual man stands forth in his own nature as
- 1:10:48Speaker 1: purity and life. Happy is the spiritual man who beholds
- 1:10:52Speaker 1: the sevenfold illumination in its ascending stages. End of Book
- 1:11:00Speaker 1: two Sutras one to twenty seven, Book two Sutras twenty
- 1:11:05Speaker 1: eight to fifty five, Sutra twenty eight. From steadfastly following
- 1:11:14Speaker 1: after the means of yoga, until impurity is worn away,
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: there comes the illumination of thought up to full discernment.
- 1:11:23Speaker 1: Here we enter on the more detailed practical teaching of Patangili,
- 1:11:27Speaker 1: with its sound and luminous good sense. And when we
- 1:11:31Speaker 1: come to detail the means of yoga, we may well
- 1:11:34Speaker 1: be astonished at their simplicity. There is little in them
- 1:11:37Speaker 1: that is mysterious. They are very familiar. The essence of
- 1:11:42Speaker 1: the matter lies in carrying them out. Sutra twenty nine.
- 1:11:49Speaker 1: The eight means of yoga are the commandments, the rules, right, poise, rite,
- 1:11:56Speaker 1: control of the life force, withdrawal, tension, meditation, contemplation. These
- 1:12:05Speaker 1: eight means are to be followed in their order, in
- 1:12:08Speaker 1: the sense which will immediately be made clear. We can
- 1:12:12Speaker 1: get a ready understanding of the first two by comparing
- 1:12:14Speaker 1: them with the commandments which must be obeyed by all
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: good citizens, and the rules which are laid on the
- 1:12:19Speaker 1: members of religious orders. Until one has fulfilled the first,
- 1:12:23Speaker 1: it is futile to concern oneself with the second, And
- 1:12:27Speaker 1: so with all the means of yoga, they must be
- 1:12:29Speaker 1: taken in their order. Sutra thirty. The commandments are these
- 1:12:37Speaker 1: non injury, truthfulness, abstaining from stealing, from impurity, from covetousness.
- 1:12:47Speaker 1: These five precepts are almost exactly the same as the
- 1:12:49Speaker 1: Buddhist commandments not to kill, not to steal, not to
- 1:12:54Speaker 1: be guilty of incontinence, not to drink intoxicants, to speak
- 1:12:59Speaker 1: the truth. Almost identical is Saint Paul's list. Thou shalt
- 1:13:05Speaker 1: not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal,
- 1:13:10Speaker 1: thou shalt not covet. And in the same spirit is
- 1:13:14Speaker 1: the answer made to the young man having great possessions
- 1:13:16Speaker 1: who asked, what shall I do to be saved? And
- 1:13:19Speaker 1: receive the reply Keep the commandments, This broad general training,
- 1:13:25Speaker 1: which forms and develops human character, must be accomplished to
- 1:13:29Speaker 1: a very considerable degree before there can be much hope
- 1:13:32Speaker 1: of success in the further stages of spiritual life, first
- 1:13:36Speaker 1: the psychical and then the spiritual. First the man, then
- 1:13:41Speaker 1: the Angel. On this broad, humane and wise foundation is
- 1:13:45Speaker 1: the system of potentially rest suit Tra. Thirty one. The commandments,
- 1:13:53Speaker 1: not limited to any race, place, time, or occasion. Universal
- 1:13:59Speaker 1: are the great obligation. The commandments form the broad general
- 1:14:04Speaker 1: training of humanity. Each one of them rests on a
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: universal spiritual law. Each one of them expresses an attribute
- 1:14:11Speaker 1: or aspect of the self, the eternal. When we violate
- 1:14:15Speaker 1: one of the commandments, we set ourselves against the law
- 1:14:18Speaker 1: and being of the eternal, thereby bringing ourselves to inevitable confusion.
- 1:14:24Speaker 1: So the first steps in spiritual life must be taken
- 1:14:27Speaker 1: by bringing ourselves into voluntary obedience to these spiritual laws,
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: and thus making ourselves partakers of the spiritual powers the
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: being of the eternal. Like the law of gravity the
- 1:14:38Speaker 1: need of air to breathe, these great laws know no exceptions.
- 1:14:43Speaker 1: Therein force in all lands, throughout all times, for all
- 1:14:47Speaker 1: mankind Sutra thirty two. The rules are these purity, serenity,
- 1:14:58Speaker 1: fervent aspiration, spiritual reading, and perfect obedience to the Master.
- 1:15:06Speaker 1: Here we have a finer law, one which humanity as
- 1:15:09Speaker 1: a whole is less ready for, less fit to obey.
- 1:15:13Speaker 1: Yet we can see that these rules are the same
- 1:15:15Speaker 1: in essence as the commandments, but on a higher, more
- 1:15:18Speaker 1: spiritual plane. The commandments may be obeyed in outer acts
- 1:15:23Speaker 1: and abstinences. The rules demand obedience of the heart and spirit,
- 1:15:28Speaker 1: a far more awakened and more positive consciousness. The rules
- 1:15:33Speaker 1: are the spiritual counterpart of the commandments, and they have
- 1:15:36Speaker 1: finer degrees for more advanced spiritual growth. Sutra thirty three.
- 1:15:44Speaker 1: When transgressions hinder the weight of the imagination should be
- 1:15:47Speaker 1: thrown on the opposite side. Let us take a simple
- 1:15:52Speaker 1: case that of a thief, a habitual criminal who has
- 1:15:56Speaker 1: drifted into stealing in childhood before the moral consciousness awakened.
- 1:16:02Speaker 1: We may imprison such a thief and deprive him of
- 1:16:04Speaker 1: all possibility of further theft or of using the divine
- 1:16:08Speaker 1: gift of will. Or we may recognize his disadvantages and
- 1:16:13Speaker 1: help him gradually to build up possessions which express his
- 1:16:15Speaker 1: will and draw forth his self respect. If we imagine
- 1:16:20Speaker 1: that after he has built well and his possessions have
- 1:16:23Speaker 1: become dear to him, he himself is robbed, then we
- 1:16:26Speaker 1: can see how he would come vividly to realize the
- 1:16:29Speaker 1: essence of theft and of honesty, and would cleave to
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: honest dealings with firm conviction. In some such way, does
- 1:16:36Speaker 1: the Great Law teach us our sorrows and losses? Teach
- 1:16:41Speaker 1: us the pain of the sorrow and loss we inflict
- 1:16:43Speaker 1: on others, and so we cease to inflict them. Now,
- 1:16:49Speaker 1: as to the more direct application to conquer a sin,
- 1:16:53Speaker 1: let heart and mind rest not on the sin, but
- 1:16:56Speaker 1: on the contrary virtue. Let the sin be forced out
- 1:17:00Speaker 1: by positive growth in the true direction, not by direct opposition.
- 1:17:05Speaker 1: Turn away from the sin, and go forward, courageously, constructively, creatively,
- 1:17:10Speaker 1: in well doing. In this way, the whole nature will
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: gradually be drawn up to the higher level on which
- 1:17:16Speaker 1: the sin does not even exist. The conquest of a
- 1:17:20Speaker 1: sin is a matter of growth and evolution, rather than
- 1:17:23Speaker 1: of opposition. Suitra thirty four. Transgressions are injury, falsehood, theft, incontinence, envy,
- 1:17:36Speaker 1: whether committed or caused or assented to through greed, wrath
- 1:17:40Speaker 1: or infatuation, whether faint or middling or excessive, bearing endless
- 1:17:45Speaker 1: fruit of ignorance and pain. Therefore must the weight be
- 1:17:49Speaker 1: cast on the other side. Here are the causes of sin, greed, wrath, infatuation,
- 1:17:59Speaker 1: with their effects ignorance and pain. The causes are to
- 1:18:03Speaker 1: be cured by better wisdom, by a truer understanding of
- 1:18:06Speaker 1: the self of life. For greed cannot endure before the
- 1:18:10Speaker 1: realization that the whole world belongs to the Self, which
- 1:18:13Speaker 1: self we are. Nor can we hold wrath against one
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: who is one with the Self and therefore with ourselves.
- 1:18:21Speaker 1: Nor can infatuation, which is the seeking for the happiness
- 1:18:25Speaker 1: of the all in some limited part of it, survive
- 1:18:27Speaker 1: the knowledge that we are heirs of the all. Therefore,
- 1:18:32Speaker 1: let thought and imagination, mind and heart throw their weight
- 1:18:35Speaker 1: on the other side, the side not of the world,
- 1:18:39Speaker 1: but of the self Suitra thirty five. Where non injury
- 1:18:46Speaker 1: is perfected, all enmity ceases in the presence of him
- 1:18:49Speaker 1: who possesses it. We come now to the spiritual powers
- 1:18:55Speaker 1: which result from keeping the commandments, from the obedience to
- 1:18:58Speaker 1: spiritual law, which is the keeping of the commandments. Where
- 1:19:02Speaker 1: the heart is full of kindness, which seeks no injury
- 1:19:06Speaker 1: to another, either in act or thought or wish. This
- 1:19:10Speaker 1: full love creates an atmosphere of harmony, whose benign power
- 1:19:14Speaker 1: touches with healing all who come within its influence. Peace
- 1:19:18Speaker 1: in the heart radiates peace to other hearts, even more
- 1:19:21Speaker 1: surely than contention breeds contention Sutra thirty six. When he
- 1:19:29Speaker 1: is perfected in truth, all acts and their fruits depend
- 1:19:33Speaker 1: on him. The commentator thus explains, if he who has
- 1:19:39Speaker 1: attained should say to a man, become righteous, the man
- 1:19:44Speaker 1: becomes righteous. If he should say gain heaven, the man
- 1:19:49Speaker 1: gains heaven. His word is not in vain. Exactly the
- 1:19:54Speaker 1: same doctrine was taught by the Master, who said to
- 1:19:56Speaker 1: his disciples receive Ye the Holy Ghost. Whosoever sins ye remit,
- 1:20:02Speaker 1: they are omitted unto them, and whosoever sins ye retain,
- 1:20:06Speaker 1: they are retained. Sutra thirty seven. Where cessation from theft
- 1:20:14Speaker 1: is perfective, all treasures present themselves to him who possesses it.
- 1:20:20Speaker 1: Here is a sentence which may warn us that beside
- 1:20:23Speaker 1: the outer and apparent meaning, there is in many of
- 1:20:26Speaker 1: these sentences a second and finer significance. The obvious meaning
- 1:20:31Speaker 1: is that he who has wholly ceased from theft in act, thought,
- 1:20:35Speaker 1: and wish, finds buried treasures in his path, treasures of
- 1:20:39Speaker 1: jewels and gold and pearls. The deeper truth is that
- 1:20:44Speaker 1: he who, in every least thing is wholly honest with
- 1:20:46Speaker 1: the spirit of life, finds life supporting him in all things,
- 1:20:51Speaker 1: and gains admittance to the treasure house of life, the
- 1:20:54Speaker 1: spiritual universe Sutra thirty eight. For him who is perfect
- 1:21:02Speaker 1: in continence, the reward is valor and virility. The creative power,
- 1:21:10Speaker 1: strong and full of vigor, is no longer dissipated, but
- 1:21:13Speaker 1: turned to spiritual uses. It upholds and endows the spiritual man,
- 1:21:18Speaker 1: conferring on him the creative will the power to engender
- 1:21:22Speaker 1: spiritual children instead of bodily progeny. An epoch of life,
- 1:21:27Speaker 1: that of man the animal, has come to an end.
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: A new epoch, that of the spiritual man, is opened.
- 1:21:34Speaker 1: The old creative power is superseded and transcended. A new
- 1:21:39Speaker 1: creative power, that of the spiritual man, takes its place,
- 1:21:43Speaker 1: carrying with it the power to work creatively in others
- 1:21:45Speaker 1: for righteousness and eternal life. One of the commentaries says
- 1:21:51Speaker 1: that he who is attained is able to transfer to
- 1:21:53Speaker 1: the minds of his disciples what he knows concerning divine
- 1:21:57Speaker 1: union and the means of gaining it. This is one
- 1:22:00Speaker 1: of the powers of purity Suiture thirty nine. Where there
- 1:22:07Speaker 1: is firm conquest of covetousness, he who has conquered it
- 1:22:11Speaker 1: awakes to the how and why of life. So it
- 1:22:17Speaker 1: is said that before we can understand the laws of karma,
- 1:22:20Speaker 1: we must free ourselves from karma. The conquest of covetousness
- 1:22:24Speaker 1: brings this rich fruit, because the root of covetousness is
- 1:22:28Speaker 1: the desire of the individual soul, the will towards manifested life.
- 1:22:33Speaker 1: And where the desire of the individual soul is overcome
- 1:22:36Speaker 1: by the superb still life of the universal soul welling
- 1:22:39Speaker 1: up in the heart within, the great secret is discerned,
- 1:22:43Speaker 1: the secret that the individual soul is not an isolated reality,
- 1:22:47Speaker 1: but the ray, the manifest instrument of the life, which
- 1:22:51Speaker 1: turns it this way, and that until the great work
- 1:22:54Speaker 1: is accomplished, the age long lesson learned. Thus is the
- 1:22:59Speaker 1: how and why of life disclosed by ceasing from covetousness.
- 1:23:04Speaker 1: The commentator says that this includes a knowledge of one's
- 1:23:07Speaker 1: former births Sutra forty through purity, a withdrawal from one's
- 1:23:16Speaker 1: own bodily life, a ceasing from infatuation with the bodily
- 1:23:19Speaker 1: life of others. As the spiritual light grows in the
- 1:23:24Speaker 1: heart within, as the taste for pure life grows stronger,
- 1:23:28Speaker 1: the consciousness opens towards the great secret places within, where
- 1:23:31Speaker 1: all life is one, where all lives are one. Thereafter,
- 1:23:37Speaker 1: this outer, manifested, fugitive life, whether of ourselves or of others,
- 1:23:41Speaker 1: loses something of its charm and glammer, and we seek
- 1:23:44Speaker 1: rather the deep infinitudes instead of the outer form and
- 1:23:49Speaker 1: surroundings of our lives. We long for their inner and
- 1:23:52Speaker 1: everlasting essence. We desire not so much outer converse and
- 1:23:57Speaker 1: closeness to our friends, but rather the quiet communion with
- 1:24:01Speaker 1: them in the inner chamber of the soul, where spirit
- 1:24:04Speaker 1: speaks to spirit, and spirit answers, where alienation and separation
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: never enter, where sickness and sorrow and death cannot come
- 1:24:17Speaker 1: Suitra forty one. To the peer of heart comes also
- 1:24:21Speaker 1: a quiet spirit. One pointed thought the victory over sensuality
- 1:24:27Speaker 1: and fitness to behold the soul. Blessed are the pure
- 1:24:33Speaker 1: in heart, for they shall see God, who is the
- 1:24:36Speaker 1: supreme Soul, the ultimate self of all beings. In the
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: deepest sense, purity means fitness for this vision, and also
- 1:24:45Speaker 1: a heart cleansed from all disquiet, from all wandering and
- 1:24:49Speaker 1: unbridled thought, from the torment of sensuous imaginings. And when
- 1:24:54Speaker 1: the spirit is thus cleansed and pure, it becomes at
- 1:24:57Speaker 1: one in essence with its source, the great Spirit, the
- 1:25:00Speaker 1: primal life. One consciousness now thrills through both. For the
- 1:25:05Speaker 1: psychic partition wall is broken down. Then shall the pure
- 1:25:09Speaker 1: in heart see God because they become God. Sutra forty two.
- 1:25:18Speaker 1: From acceptance, the disciple gains happiness supreme. One of the
- 1:25:24Speaker 1: wise has said, accept conditions, Accept others, accept yourself. This
- 1:25:32Speaker 1: is the true acceptance. For all these things are what
- 1:25:35Speaker 1: they are through the will of the higher self. Accept
- 1:25:37Speaker 1: their deficiencies, which come through thwarting the will of the
- 1:25:40Speaker 1: higher Self, and can be conquered only through compliance with
- 1:25:43Speaker 1: that will. By the true acceptance, the disciple comes into
- 1:25:47Speaker 1: oneness of spirit with the overruling soul. And since the
- 1:25:51Speaker 1: own nature of the soul is being happiness bliss, he
- 1:25:55Speaker 1: comes thereby into happiness supreme Suit forty three. The perfection
- 1:26:02Speaker 1: of the powers of the bodily vesture comes through the
- 1:26:05Speaker 1: wearing a way of impurities and through fervent aspiration. This
- 1:26:11Speaker 1: is true of the physical powers and of those which
- 1:26:13Speaker 1: dwell in the higher vestures. There must be first purity,
- 1:26:18Speaker 1: as the blood must be pure before one can attain
- 1:26:20Speaker 1: to physical health. But the absence of impurity is not
- 1:26:24Speaker 1: in itself enough, else would many nerveless ascetics of the
- 1:26:28Speaker 1: cloisters rank as high saints. There is needed, further, a
- 1:26:31Speaker 1: positive fire of the will, a keen, vital vigor for
- 1:26:35Speaker 1: the physical powers, and something finer, purer, stronger, but of
- 1:26:40Speaker 1: kindredessence for the higher powers. The fire of genius is
- 1:26:44Speaker 1: something more than a phrase for there can be no
- 1:26:47Speaker 1: genius without the celestial fire of the awakened spiritual will
- 1:26:53Speaker 1: Sutra of forty four. Through spiritual reading, the disciple gains
- 1:26:57Speaker 1: communion with the divine power on which his heart is set.
- 1:27:02Speaker 1: Spiritual reading meant for ancient India something more than it
- 1:27:06Speaker 1: does with us. It meant first the recital of sacred texts,
- 1:27:11Speaker 1: which in their very sounds had mystical potencies. And it
- 1:27:15Speaker 1: meant a recital of texts which were divinely emanated and
- 1:27:19Speaker 1: held in themselves the living potent essence of the divine.
- 1:27:24Speaker 1: For us, spiritual reading means a communing with the recorded
- 1:27:27Speaker 1: teachings of the Masters of wisdom, whereby we read ourselves
- 1:27:31Speaker 1: into the Master's mind, just as through his music one
- 1:27:34Speaker 1: can enter into the mind and soul of the master musician.
- 1:27:39Speaker 1: It has been well said that all true art is
- 1:27:41Speaker 1: contagion of feeling, so that through the true reading of
- 1:27:44Speaker 1: true books, we do indeed read ourselves into the spirit
- 1:27:47Speaker 1: of the Masters, share in the atmosphere of their wisdom
- 1:27:50Speaker 1: and power, and come at last into their very presence
- 1:27:56Speaker 1: Sutra forty five. Sole vision is perfected through perfect obedience
- 1:28:01Speaker 1: to the Master. The sorrow and darkness of life come
- 1:28:06Speaker 1: of the erring personal will, which sets itself against the
- 1:28:09Speaker 1: will of the soul, the one great life. The error
- 1:28:13Speaker 1: of the personal will is inevitable, since each will must
- 1:28:17Speaker 1: be free to choose, to try and fail, and so
- 1:28:20Speaker 1: to find the path. And sorrow and darkness are inevitable
- 1:28:25Speaker 1: untill the path be found, and the personal will made
- 1:28:28Speaker 1: once more one with the greater will, wherein it finds
- 1:28:31Speaker 1: rest and power without losing freedom. In His will is
- 1:28:36Speaker 1: our peace, and with that peace comes light. Soul vision
- 1:28:41Speaker 1: is perfected through obedience. Sutra forty six. Right poise must
- 1:28:50Speaker 1: be firm and without strain. Here we approach a section
- 1:28:55Speaker 1: of the teaching which has manifestly a twofold meaning. The
- 1:29:00Speaker 1: first is physical and concerns the bodily position of the
- 1:29:02Speaker 1: student and the regulation of breathing. These things had their
- 1:29:07Speaker 1: direct influence upon soul life, the life of the spiritual man.
- 1:29:11Speaker 1: Since it is always and everywhere true that our study
- 1:29:14Speaker 1: demands a sound mind in a sound body, the present
- 1:29:18Speaker 1: sentence declares that for work and for meditation, the position
- 1:29:22Speaker 1: of the body must be steady and without strain, in
- 1:29:26Speaker 1: order that the finer currents of life may run their course.
- 1:29:30Speaker 1: It applies further to the poise of the soul, that
- 1:29:33Speaker 1: fine balance and stability which nothing can shake, where the
- 1:29:37Speaker 1: consciousness rests on the firm foundation of spiritual being. This
- 1:29:42Speaker 1: is indeed the house set upon a rock which the
- 1:29:45Speaker 1: winds and waves beat upon. In Vain Sutra forty seven,
- 1:29:54Speaker 1: right poise is to be gained by steady and temperate
- 1:29:56Speaker 1: effort and by setting the heart upon the everlasting. Here
- 1:30:02Speaker 1: again there is the two fold meaning. For physical poise
- 1:30:05Speaker 1: is to be gained by steady effort of the muscles,
- 1:30:08Speaker 1: by gradual and wise training, linked with the right understanding
- 1:30:11Speaker 1: of and relation with the universal force of gravity. Uprightness
- 1:30:16Speaker 1: of body demands that both these conditions shall be fulfilled
- 1:30:21Speaker 1: in like manner. The firm and upright poise of the
- 1:30:24Speaker 1: spiritual man is to be gained by steady and continued effort,
- 1:30:28Speaker 1: always guided by wisdom, and by setting the heart on
- 1:30:31Speaker 1: the eternal, filling the soul with the atmosphere of the
- 1:30:34Speaker 1: spiritual worlds. Neither is effective without the other. Aspiration without
- 1:30:40Speaker 1: effort brings weakness. Effort without aspiration brings a false strength,
- 1:30:45Speaker 1: not resting on enduring things. The two together make for
- 1:30:49Speaker 1: the right poise which sets the spiritual man firmly and
- 1:30:52Speaker 1: steadfastly on his feet. Sutra forty eight. The fruit of
- 1:31:00Speaker 1: right poise is the strength to resist the shocks of
- 1:31:03Speaker 1: infatuation or sorrow. In the simpler physical sense, which is
- 1:31:10Speaker 1: also covered by the wording of the original, this sentence
- 1:31:13Speaker 1: means that wise effort establishes such bodily poise that the
- 1:31:17Speaker 1: accidents of life cannot disturb it, as the captain remains
- 1:31:20Speaker 1: steady though disaster overtake his ship. But the deeper sense
- 1:31:25Speaker 1: is far more important. The spiritual man, too must learn
- 1:31:29Speaker 1: to withstand all shocks, to remain steadfast through the perturbations
- 1:31:33Speaker 1: of external things and the storms and whirlwinds of the
- 1:31:36Speaker 1: psychical world. This is the power which is gained by wise,
- 1:31:40Speaker 1: continuous effort, and by filling the spirit with the atmosphere
- 1:31:44Speaker 1: of the eternal Sutra forty nine. When this is gained,
- 1:31:52Speaker 1: there follows the right guidance of the life currents, the
- 1:31:55Speaker 1: control of the incoming and outgoing breath. It is well
- 1:32:00Speaker 1: understood to day that most of our maladies come from
- 1:32:03Speaker 1: impure conditions of the blood. It is coming to be
- 1:32:06Speaker 1: understood that right breathing, right oxygenation will do very much
- 1:32:11Speaker 1: to keep the blood clean and pure. Therefore, a right
- 1:32:15Speaker 1: knowledge of breathing is a part of the science of life.
- 1:32:19Speaker 1: But the deeper meaning is that the spiritual man, when
- 1:32:22Speaker 1: he has gained poise through right effort and aspiration, can
- 1:32:25Speaker 1: stand firm and guide the currents of his life, both
- 1:32:29Speaker 1: the incoming current of events and the outgoing current of
- 1:32:32Speaker 1: his acts. Exactly the same symbolism is used in the saying,
- 1:32:37Speaker 1: not that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man,
- 1:32:41Speaker 1: But that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth
- 1:32:44Speaker 1: the man. Those things which proceed out of the mouth
- 1:32:47Speaker 1: come forth from the heart. Out of the heart procede
- 1:32:50Speaker 1: evil thoughts, murders, uncleanness, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. Therefore, the
- 1:32:59Speaker 1: first step is purification, is to keep the commandments Sutra fifty.
- 1:33:06Speaker 1: The life current is either outward or inward, or balanced.
- 1:33:11Speaker 1: It is regulated according to place, time number. It is
- 1:33:15Speaker 1: prolonged and subtle. The technical physical side of this has
- 1:33:19Speaker 1: its value in the breath. There should be right in breathing,
- 1:33:23Speaker 1: followed by the period of pause when the air comes
- 1:33:26Speaker 1: into contact with the blood, and this again followed by
- 1:33:29Speaker 1: right out breathing. Even steady silence. Further, the lung should
- 1:33:35Speaker 1: be evenly filled. Many maladies may arise from the neglect
- 1:33:39Speaker 1: and consequent weakening of some region of the lungs, And
- 1:33:43Speaker 1: the number of breaths is so important, so closely related
- 1:33:46Speaker 1: to health, that every nurse's chart records it. But the
- 1:33:50Speaker 1: deeper meaning is concerned with the currents of life, with
- 1:33:54Speaker 1: that which goeth into and cometh out of the heart
- 1:34:00Speaker 1: fifty one. The fourth degree transcends external and internal objects.
- 1:34:07Speaker 1: The inner meaning seems to be that, in addition to
- 1:34:09Speaker 1: the three degrees of control already described, control that is
- 1:34:13Speaker 1: over the incoming current of life, over the outgoing current,
- 1:34:17Speaker 1: and over the condition of pause or quiescence, there is
- 1:34:20Speaker 1: a fourth degree of control, which holds in complete mastery
- 1:34:24Speaker 1: both the outer passage of events and the inner current
- 1:34:27Speaker 1: of thoughts and emotions, a condition of perfect poise and
- 1:34:30Speaker 1: stability in the midst of the flux of things outward
- 1:34:34Speaker 1: and inward Sutra fifty two. Thereby is worn away the
- 1:34:40Speaker 1: veil which covers up the light. The veil is the
- 1:34:45Speaker 1: psychic nature. The web of emotions desires argumentative trains of thought,
- 1:34:51Speaker 1: which cover up and obscure the truth by absorbing the
- 1:34:54Speaker 1: entire attention and keeping the consciousness in the psychic realm,
- 1:34:58Speaker 1: when hopes and fears are reckoned at their true worth
- 1:35:01Speaker 1: and comparison with lasting possessions of the soul, When the
- 1:35:04Speaker 1: outer reflections of things have ceased to distract us from
- 1:35:07Speaker 1: inner realities, when argumentative thought no longer entangles us, but
- 1:35:11Speaker 1: yields its place to flashing intuition. The certainty which springs
- 1:35:15Speaker 1: from within, then is the veil worn away. The consciousness
- 1:35:19Speaker 1: is drawn from the psychical to the spiritual, from the
- 1:35:22Speaker 1: temporal to the eternal. Then is the light unveiled Sutra
- 1:35:28Speaker 1: fifty three. Thence comes the mind's power to hold itself
- 1:35:33Speaker 1: in the light. It has been well said that what
- 1:35:37Speaker 1: we most need is the faculty of spiritual attention. And
- 1:35:40Speaker 1: in the same direction of thought, it has been eloquently
- 1:35:42Speaker 1: declared that prayer does not consist in our catching God's attention,
- 1:35:47Speaker 1: but rather in our allowing God to hold our attention.
- 1:35:51Speaker 1: The vital matter is that we need to disentangle our
- 1:35:54Speaker 1: consciousness from the noisy and perturbed thraldom of the psychical,
- 1:35:59Speaker 1: and to come to consciousness as the spiritual man. This
- 1:36:03Speaker 1: we must do first by purification, through the commandments and
- 1:36:07Speaker 1: the rules, and second through the faculty of spiritual attention,
- 1:36:11Speaker 1: by steadily heeding endless fine intimations of the spiritual power
- 1:36:15Speaker 1: within us, and by intending our consciousness there too, thus
- 1:36:19Speaker 1: by degrees, transferring the center of consciousness from the psychical
- 1:36:23Speaker 1: to the spiritual. It is the question first of love
- 1:36:27Speaker 1: and then of attention. Sutra fifty four. The right withdrawal
- 1:36:34Speaker 1: is the disengaging of the powers from entanglement in outer things,
- 1:36:38Speaker 1: as the psychic nature has been withdrawn and stilled. To
- 1:36:43Speaker 1: understand this, let us reverse the process and think of
- 1:36:46Speaker 1: the one consciousness centered in the soul, gradually expanding and
- 1:36:50Speaker 1: taking on the form of the different perceptive powers, the
- 1:36:54Speaker 1: one will, at the same time differentiating itself into the
- 1:36:57Speaker 1: varied powers of action. Now let us imagine this to
- 1:37:01Speaker 1: be reversed, so that the spiritual force, which has gone
- 1:37:05Speaker 1: into the differentiated powers, is once more gathered together into
- 1:37:08Speaker 1: the inner power of intuition and spiritual will, taking on
- 1:37:12Speaker 1: that unity which is the hall mark of spiritual things,
- 1:37:15Speaker 1: as diversity is the seal of material things. It is
- 1:37:19Speaker 1: all a matter of love. For the quality of spiritual
- 1:37:21Speaker 1: consciousness as against psychical consciousness of love and attention. For
- 1:37:27Speaker 1: where the heart is, there will the treasure be Also,
- 1:37:31Speaker 1: where the consciousness is, there will the vesture, with its
- 1:37:34Speaker 1: powers be developed Sutra fifty five. Thereupon follows perfect mastery
- 1:37:43Speaker 1: over the powers. When the spiritual condition which we have
- 1:37:48Speaker 1: described is reached with its purity, poise, and illuminated vision,
- 1:37:53Speaker 1: the spiritual man is coming into his inheritance and gaining
- 1:37:56Speaker 1: complete mastery of his powers. Indeed, much of the struggle
- 1:38:01Speaker 1: to keep the commandments and the rules has been paving
- 1:38:03Speaker 1: the way for this mastery. Through this very struggle and sacrifice,
- 1:38:07Speaker 1: the mastery has become possible. Just as to youse Saint
- 1:38:11Speaker 1: Paul Simile, the athlete gains the mastery in the contest
- 1:38:15Speaker 1: and the race through the sacrifice of his long and
- 1:38:18Speaker 1: arduous training. Thus he gains the crown. End of Book two,
- 1:38:27Speaker 1: introduction to Book three. The third book of the Sutras
- 1:38:32Speaker 1: is the book of spiritual powers. In considering these spiritual powers,
- 1:38:37Speaker 1: two things must be understood and kept in memory. The
- 1:38:41Speaker 1: first of these is this, these spiritual powers can only
- 1:38:45Speaker 1: be gained when the development described in the first and
- 1:38:48Speaker 1: second books has been measurably attained. When the commandments have
- 1:38:52Speaker 1: been kept, the rules faithfully followed, and the experiences which
- 1:38:56Speaker 1: are described have been passed through. For only after this
- 1:39:00Speaker 1: is the spiritual man so far grown, so far disentangled
- 1:39:04Speaker 1: from the psychical bandages and veils which have confined and
- 1:39:07Speaker 1: blinded him, that he can use his proper powers and faculties.
- 1:39:11Speaker 1: For this is the secret of all spiritual powers. They
- 1:39:15Speaker 1: are in no sense an abnormal or supernatural overgrowth upon
- 1:39:18Speaker 1: the material man, but are rather the powers and faculties
- 1:39:22Speaker 1: inherent in the spiritual man, entirely natural to him and
- 1:39:26Speaker 1: coming naturally into activity as the spiritual man is disentangled
- 1:39:30Speaker 1: and liberated from psychical bondage through keeping the commandments and
- 1:39:33Speaker 1: rules already set forth. As the personal man is the
- 1:39:38Speaker 1: limitation and inversion of the spiritual man, all his faculties
- 1:39:42Speaker 1: and powers are inversions of the powers of the spiritual man.
- 1:39:45Speaker 1: In a single phrase, his self seeking is the inversion
- 1:39:49Speaker 1: of the self seeking, which is the very being of
- 1:39:51Speaker 1: the spiritual man, the ceaseless search after the divine and
- 1:39:56Speaker 1: august self of all beings. This inversion is correct by
- 1:40:00Speaker 1: keeping the commandments and rules, and gradually as the inversion
- 1:40:04Speaker 1: is overcome, the spiritual man is extricated and comes into
- 1:40:08Speaker 1: possession and free exercise of his powers. The spiritual powers,
- 1:40:12Speaker 1: therefore are the powers of the grown and liberated spiritual man.
- 1:40:16Speaker 1: They can only be developed and used as the spiritual
- 1:40:19Speaker 1: man grows and attains liberation through obedience. This is the
- 1:40:24Speaker 1: first thing to be kept in mind in all that
- 1:40:26Speaker 1: is said of spiritual powers in the third and fourth
- 1:40:28Speaker 1: books of the Sutras. The second thing to be understood
- 1:40:32Speaker 1: and kept in mind is this. Just as our modern
- 1:40:36Speaker 1: sages have discerned and taught that all matter is ultimately
- 1:40:39Speaker 1: one and eternal, definitely related throughout the whole wide universe,
- 1:40:44Speaker 1: just as they have discerned and taught that all force
- 1:40:47Speaker 1: is one and eternal, so coordinated throughout the whole universe,
- 1:40:51Speaker 1: that whatever affects any atom measurably affects the whole boundless
- 1:40:55Speaker 1: realm of matter and force to the most distant star
- 1:40:58Speaker 1: or nebula on the dim finds of space. So the
- 1:41:02Speaker 1: ancient stages had discerned and taught that all consciousness is one, immortal, indivisible, infinite,
- 1:41:09Speaker 1: so finely correlated and continuous that whatever is perceived by
- 1:41:13Speaker 1: any consciousness is whether actually or potentially within the reach
- 1:41:18Speaker 1: of all consciousness and therefore within the reach of any consciousness.
- 1:41:23Speaker 1: This has been well expressed by saying that all souls
- 1:41:26Speaker 1: are fundamentally one with the over Soul, that the Son
- 1:41:29Speaker 1: of God and all sons of God are fundamentally one
- 1:41:33Speaker 1: with the Father. When the consciousness is cleared of psychic
- 1:41:37Speaker 1: bonds and veils, when the spiritual man is able to
- 1:41:40Speaker 1: stand to see, then this superb law comes into effect.
- 1:41:44Speaker 1: Whatever is within the knowledge of any consciousness, and this
- 1:41:48Speaker 1: includes the whole infinite universe, is within his reach and may,
- 1:41:52Speaker 1: if he wills, be made a part of his consciousness.
- 1:41:56Speaker 1: This he may attain through his fundamental unity with the
- 1:41:59Speaker 1: over Soul, by raising himself toward the consciousness above him
- 1:42:03Speaker 1: and drawing on its resources. The Son, if he would
- 1:42:07Speaker 1: work miracles, whether of perception or of action, must come
- 1:42:11Speaker 1: often into the presence of the Father. This is the
- 1:42:14Speaker 1: birthright of the spiritual man. Through it he comes into
- 1:42:17Speaker 1: possession of his splendid and immortal powers. Let it be
- 1:42:21Speaker 1: clearly kept in mind that what is here to be
- 1:42:24Speaker 1: related of the spiritual man and his exalted powers must
- 1:42:27Speaker 1: in no wise be detached from what has gone before.
- 1:42:30Speaker 1: The being the very inception of the spiritual man depends
- 1:42:34Speaker 1: on the purification and moral attainment already detailed, and can
- 1:42:38Speaker 1: in no wise dispense with or curtail them. Let no
- 1:42:42Speaker 1: one imagine that the true life, the true powers of
- 1:42:45Speaker 1: the spiritual man can be attained by any way except
- 1:42:48Speaker 1: the hard way of sacrifice, of trial, of renunciation, of
- 1:42:53Speaker 1: selfless self conquest, and genuine devotion to the weal of
- 1:42:57Speaker 1: all others. Only thus can the golden gates be reached
- 1:43:01Speaker 1: and entered. Only thus can we attain to that pure
- 1:43:04Speaker 1: world wherein the spiritual man lives and moves and has
- 1:43:08Speaker 1: his being. Nothing impure, nothing unholy, can ever cross that threshold,
- 1:43:14Speaker 1: least of all impure motives or self seeking desires. These
- 1:43:19Speaker 1: must be burnt away before an entrance to that world
- 1:43:22Speaker 1: can be gained. But where there is light, there is shadow,
- 1:43:27Speaker 1: and the lofty light of the soul casts upon the
- 1:43:29Speaker 1: clouds of the midworlds. The shadow of the spiritual man
- 1:43:32Speaker 1: and of his powers, the bastard vesture and the bastard
- 1:43:35Speaker 1: powers of psychism, are easily attained. Yet even when attained,
- 1:43:39Speaker 1: they are a delusion, the very essence of unreality. Therefore,
- 1:43:45Speaker 1: ponder well the earlier rules and lay a firm foundation
- 1:43:48Speaker 1: of courage, sacrifice, selflessness, holiness. End of introduction to Book three,
- 1:44:00Speaker 1: Book three Sutras one to thirty six Sutra one. The
- 1:44:08Speaker 1: binding of the perceiving consciousness to a certain region is attention.
- 1:44:13Speaker 1: Dah Rana Emerson quotes Sir Isaac Newton as saying that
- 1:44:19Speaker 1: he made his great discoveries by intending his mind on them.
- 1:44:22Speaker 1: That is what is meant here. I read the page
- 1:44:25Speaker 1: of a book while thinking of something else. At the
- 1:44:29Speaker 1: end of the page, I have no idea of what
- 1:44:31Speaker 1: it is about, and read it again, still thinking of
- 1:44:34Speaker 1: something else, with the same result. Then I wake up,
- 1:44:38Speaker 1: so to speak, make an effort of attention, fix my
- 1:44:41Speaker 1: thought on what I am reading, and easily take in
- 1:44:44Speaker 1: its meaning. The act of will, the effort of attention,
- 1:44:48Speaker 1: the intending of the mind on each word and line
- 1:44:51Speaker 1: of the page, just as the eyes are focused on
- 1:44:53Speaker 1: each word and line, is the power here contemplated. It
- 1:44:57Speaker 1: is the power to focus the consciousness on a given
- 1:44:59Speaker 1: s and hold it there. Attention is the first and
- 1:45:04Speaker 1: indispensable step in all knowledge. Attention to spiritual things is
- 1:45:09Speaker 1: the first step to spiritual knowledge. Suit Tre two A
- 1:45:17Speaker 1: prolonged holding of the perceiving consciousness in that region is
- 1:45:20Speaker 1: meditation Dianna. This will apply equally to outer and inner things.
- 1:45:29Speaker 1: I may for a moment fix my attention on some
- 1:45:31Speaker 1: visible object in a single penetrating glance, or I may
- 1:45:35Speaker 1: hold the attention fixedly on it until it reveals far
- 1:45:39Speaker 1: more of its nature than a single glance could perceive.
- 1:45:42Speaker 1: The first is the focusing of the searchlight of consciousness
- 1:45:44Speaker 1: upon the object. The other is the holding of the
- 1:45:47Speaker 1: white beam of light steadily and persistently on the object
- 1:45:50Speaker 1: until it yields up the secret of its details. So
- 1:45:54Speaker 1: for things within, one may fix the inner gaze for
- 1:45:59Speaker 1: a moment on spiritual things, or one may hold the
- 1:46:02Speaker 1: consciousness steadily upon them, until what was in the dark
- 1:46:05Speaker 1: slowly comes forth into the light and yields up its
- 1:46:08Speaker 1: immortal secret. But this is possible only for the spiritual man,
- 1:46:14Speaker 1: after the commandments and the rules have been kept. For
- 1:46:17Speaker 1: until this is done, the thronging storms of psychical thoughts
- 1:46:21Speaker 1: dissipate and distract the attention, so that will not remain
- 1:46:24Speaker 1: fixed on spiritual things. The cares of this world, the
- 1:46:28Speaker 1: deceitfulness of riches, choke the word of the spiritual message.
- 1:46:35Speaker 1: Sutra three. When the perceiving consciousness in this meditative is
- 1:46:40Speaker 1: wholly given to illuminating the essential meaning of the object contemplated,
- 1:46:45Speaker 1: and is freed from the sense of separateness and personality.
- 1:46:48Speaker 1: This is contemplation Samadhi. Let us review the steps so
- 1:46:54Speaker 1: far taken. First, the beam of perceiving consciousness is focused
- 1:46:59Speaker 1: on a s certain region or subject through the effort
- 1:47:02Speaker 1: of attention. Then this attending consciousness is held on its object. Third,
- 1:47:10Speaker 1: there is the ardent will to know its meaning, to
- 1:47:12Speaker 1: illuminate with comprehending thought. Fourth, all personal bias, all desire
- 1:47:19Speaker 1: merely to endorse a previous opinion and so prove oneself right,
- 1:47:23Speaker 1: and all desire for personal profit or gratification must be
- 1:47:27Speaker 1: quite put away. There must be a purely disinterested love
- 1:47:31Speaker 1: of truth for its own sake. Thus is the perceiving
- 1:47:35Speaker 1: consciousness made void, as it were, of all personality or
- 1:47:38Speaker 1: sense of separateness. The personal limitation stands aside and lets
- 1:47:43Speaker 1: the all consciousness come to bear upon the problem. The
- 1:47:47Speaker 1: over soul bends its ray upon the object and illumines
- 1:47:50Speaker 1: it with pure light sutraphour. When these three attention, meditation
- 1:48:01Speaker 1: contemplation are exercised at once. This is perfectly concentrated meditation, Sanyama.
- 1:48:10Speaker 1: When the personal limitation of the perceiving consciousness stands aside
- 1:48:13Speaker 1: and allows the all consciousness to come to bear upon
- 1:48:16Speaker 1: the problem, then arises that real knowledge, which is called
- 1:48:19Speaker 1: a flash of genius, that real knowledge which makes discoveries,
- 1:48:23Speaker 1: and without which no discovery can be made, however painstaking.
- 1:48:27Speaker 1: The effort for genius is the vision of the spiritual man,
- 1:48:31Speaker 1: and that vision is a question of growth rather than
- 1:48:34Speaker 1: present effort. Though right effort, rightly continued, will in time
- 1:48:38Speaker 1: infallibly lead to growth and vision through the power. Thus
- 1:48:42Speaker 1: to set aside personal limitation, to push aside petty concerns
- 1:48:46Speaker 1: and cares, and study the whole nature, and will in
- 1:48:49Speaker 1: an ardent love of truth and desire to know it.
- 1:48:52Speaker 1: Through the power. Thus to make way for the all consciousness,
- 1:48:56Speaker 1: all great men make their discoveries. Newton, watching the apple
- 1:49:01Speaker 1: fall to the earth, was able to look beyond, to
- 1:49:04Speaker 1: see the subtle waves of force pulsating through apples and worlds,
- 1:49:10Speaker 1: and suns and galaxies, and thus to perceive universal gravitation.
- 1:49:17Speaker 1: The oversaul, looking through his eyes, recognized the universal force,
- 1:49:21Speaker 1: one of its own children. Darwin, watching the forms and
- 1:49:25Speaker 1: motions of plants and animals, let the same august consciousness
- 1:49:29Speaker 1: come to bear on them, and saw infinite growth perfected
- 1:49:33Speaker 1: through ceaseless struggle. He perceived the superb process of evolution.
- 1:49:38Speaker 1: The oversoul once more, recognizing its own Fraunhoffer, noting the
- 1:49:44Speaker 1: dark lines in the band of sunlight in his spectroscope,
- 1:49:47Speaker 1: divined their identity with the bright lines in the spectra
- 1:49:50Speaker 1: of incandescent iron, sodium, and the rest, and so saw
- 1:49:54Speaker 1: the oneness of substance in the worlds and suns, the
- 1:49:59Speaker 1: unity of the material the universe. Once again, the over soul,
- 1:50:03Speaker 1: looking with his eyes, recognized its own. So it is
- 1:50:08Speaker 1: with all true knowledge. But the mind must transcend its limitations,
- 1:50:13Speaker 1: its idiosyncrasies. There must be purity, for to the pure
- 1:50:17Speaker 1: in heart is the promise that they shall see God sutrify.
- 1:50:25Speaker 1: By mastering this perfectly concentrated meditation, there comes the illumination
- 1:50:30Speaker 1: of perception. The meaning of this is illustrated by what
- 1:50:36Speaker 1: has been said before. When the spiritual man is able
- 1:50:39Speaker 1: to throw aside the trammels of emotional and mental limitation
- 1:50:43Speaker 1: and to open his eyes, he sees clearly he attains
- 1:50:47Speaker 1: to illuminated perception. A poet once said that occultism is
- 1:50:52Speaker 1: the conscious cultivation of genius, and it is certain that
- 1:50:55Speaker 1: the awakened spiritual man attains to the perceptions of genius.
- 1:51:00Speaker 1: Genius is the vision the power of the spiritual man.
- 1:51:03Speaker 1: Whether its possessor recognizes this or not, all true knowledge
- 1:51:08Speaker 1: is of the spiritual man. The greatest in all ages
- 1:51:11Speaker 1: have recognized this and put their testimony on record. The
- 1:51:16Speaker 1: great in wisdom who have not consciously recognized it, have
- 1:51:19Speaker 1: ever been full of the spirit of reverence, of selfless
- 1:51:22Speaker 1: devotion to truth, of humility, as West Darwin and Reverence
- 1:51:27Speaker 1: and humility are the unconscious recognition of the nearness of
- 1:51:30Speaker 1: the spirit, that divinity which broods over us, a master
- 1:51:35Speaker 1: or a slave Sutra six. This power is distributed in
- 1:51:44Speaker 1: ascending degrees. It is to be attained step by step.
- 1:51:51Speaker 1: It is a question not of miracle, but of evolution
- 1:51:54Speaker 1: of growth. Newton had to master the multiplication table, then
- 1:51:59Speaker 1: the four rules of arithmetic, then the rudiments of algebra
- 1:52:03Speaker 1: before he came to the binomial theorem. At each point
- 1:52:06Speaker 1: there was a tension, concentration, insight. Until these were attained,
- 1:52:12Speaker 1: no progress to the next point was possible, so would Darwin.
- 1:52:17Speaker 1: He had to learn the form and use of leaf
- 1:52:19Speaker 1: and flower, of bone and muscle, the characteristics of genera
- 1:52:24Speaker 1: and species, the distribution of plants and animals. Before he
- 1:52:28Speaker 1: had in mind that nexus of knowledge on which the
- 1:52:30Speaker 1: light of his great idea was at last able to shine.
- 1:52:34Speaker 1: So is it with all knowledge, so is it with
- 1:52:37Speaker 1: spiritual knowledge. Take the matter this way. The first subject
- 1:52:43Speaker 1: for the exercise of my spiritual insight is my day,
- 1:52:46Speaker 1: with its circumstances, its hindrances, its opportunities, its duties. I
- 1:52:51Speaker 1: do what I can to solve it, to fulfill its duties,
- 1:52:54Speaker 1: to learn its lessons. I tried to live my day
- 1:52:57Speaker 1: with aspiration and faith. That is the first step. By
- 1:53:03Speaker 1: doing this, I gather a harvest for the evening. I
- 1:53:06Speaker 1: gain a deeper insight into life in virtue, of which
- 1:53:09Speaker 1: I begin the next day with a certain advantage, a
- 1:53:13Speaker 1: certain spiritual advance and attainment. So with all successive days,
- 1:53:19Speaker 1: in faith and aspiration, we pass from day to day
- 1:53:23Speaker 1: in growing knowledge and power, with never more than one
- 1:53:26Speaker 1: day to solve at a time, until all life becomes
- 1:53:29Speaker 1: radiant and transparent. Sutra seven. This threefold power of attention, meditation.
- 1:53:41Speaker 1: Contemptation is more interior than the means of growth previously described,
- 1:53:48Speaker 1: very naturally so, because the means of growth previously described
- 1:53:51Speaker 1: were concerned with the extrication of the spiritual man from
- 1:53:54Speaker 1: the psychic bondages and veils, while this threefold power is
- 1:53:57Speaker 1: to be exercised by the spiritual man thus extrocated and
- 1:54:00Speaker 1: standing on his feet viewing life with open eyes Sutra eight.
- 1:54:08Speaker 1: But this triad is still exterior to the soul vision,
- 1:54:10Speaker 1: which is unconditioned, free from the seed of mental analyzes.
- 1:54:15Speaker 1: The reason is this the threefold power we have been considering.
- 1:54:19Speaker 1: The triad of attention, consumptation, meditation is, so far as
- 1:54:23Speaker 1: we have yet considered it, the focusing of the beam
- 1:54:26Speaker 1: of perceiving consciousness upon some form of manifesting being with
- 1:54:30Speaker 1: a view of understanding it completely. There is a higher
- 1:54:33Speaker 1: stage where the beam of consciousness is turned back upon itself,
- 1:54:36Speaker 1: and the individual consciousness enters into and knows the all consciousness.
- 1:54:41Speaker 1: This is a being, a being in immortality, rather than
- 1:54:44Speaker 1: a knowing. It is free from mental analysis or mental forms.
- 1:54:49Speaker 1: It is not an activity of the higher mind, even
- 1:54:52Speaker 1: the mind of the spiritual man. It is an activity
- 1:54:55Speaker 1: of the soul. Had Newton risen to this higher stage,
- 1:54:59Speaker 1: he would have known not the laws of motion, but
- 1:55:02Speaker 1: that high being from whose life comes eternal motion. Had
- 1:55:06Speaker 1: Darwin risen to this, he would have seen the soul,
- 1:55:08Speaker 1: whose graduated thought and being all evolution expresses. There are
- 1:55:13Speaker 1: therefore these two perceptions, that of living things and that
- 1:55:16Speaker 1: of the life, that of the soul's works, and that
- 1:55:20Speaker 1: of the soul itself. Sutrenin. One of the ascending degrees
- 1:55:29Speaker 1: is the development of control. First there is the overcoming
- 1:55:32Speaker 1: of the mind impressive excitation. Then comes the manifestation of
- 1:55:36Speaker 1: the mind impressive control. Then the perceiving consciousness follows after
- 1:55:41Speaker 1: the moment of control. This is the development of control.
- 1:55:48Speaker 1: The meaning seems to be this. Some object enters the
- 1:55:52Speaker 1: field of observation and at first violently excites the mind,
- 1:55:57Speaker 1: stirring up curiosity, fear, wonder. Then the consciousness returns upon itself,
- 1:56:03Speaker 1: as it were, and takes the perception firmly in hand,
- 1:56:06Speaker 1: steadying itself and viewing the matter calmly from above. This
- 1:56:11Speaker 1: steadying effort of the will upon the perceiving consciousness is control,
- 1:56:15Speaker 1: and immediately upon it follows perception understanding insight. Take a
- 1:56:22Speaker 1: tried example. Supposing one is walking in an Indian forest,
- 1:56:28Speaker 1: a charging elephant suddenly appears. The man is excited by
- 1:56:32Speaker 1: astonishment and perhaps terror, but he exercises an effort of will,
- 1:56:37Speaker 1: perceives the situation in its true bearings, and recognizes that
- 1:56:41Speaker 1: a certain thing must be done. In this case, probably
- 1:56:45Speaker 1: that he must get out of the way as quickly
- 1:56:47Speaker 1: as possible. Or a comet, unheralded appears in the sky
- 1:56:53Speaker 1: like a flaming sword. The beholder is at first astonished,
- 1:56:58Speaker 1: perhaps terror stricken, but he takes himself in hand, controls
- 1:57:03Speaker 1: his thoughts, views the apprestion calmly, and finally calculates its
- 1:57:08Speaker 1: orbit and its relation to meteor showers. These are extreme illustrations,
- 1:57:14Speaker 1: but with all knowledge, the order of perception is the same.
- 1:57:18Speaker 1: First the excitation of the mind by the new object
- 1:57:21Speaker 1: impressed on it. Then the control of the mind from within,
- 1:57:25Speaker 1: upon which follows the perception of the nature of the object.
- 1:57:29Speaker 1: Where the eyes of the spiritual man are open, this
- 1:57:31Speaker 1: will be a true and penetrating spiritual perception. In some
- 1:57:36Speaker 1: such way do our living experiences come to us first
- 1:57:39Speaker 1: with a shock of pain, then the soul steadies itself
- 1:57:42Speaker 1: and controls the pain. Then the spirit perceives the lesson
- 1:57:46Speaker 1: of the event and its bearing upon the progressive revelation
- 1:57:49Speaker 1: of life suit Tritenne. Through frequent repetition of this process,
- 1:57:58Speaker 1: the mind becomes habituated to us, and there arises an
- 1:58:01Speaker 1: equable flow of perceiving consciousness. Control of the mind by
- 1:58:07Speaker 1: the soul, like control of the muscles by the mind,
- 1:58:10Speaker 1: comes by practice and constant voluntary repetition. As an example
- 1:58:16Speaker 1: of control of the muscles by the mind, take the
- 1:58:19Speaker 1: ceaseless practice by which a musician gains mastery over his instrument,
- 1:58:24Speaker 1: or a fencer gains skill with a rapier. Innumerable small
- 1:58:28Speaker 1: efforts of attention will make a result which seems well
- 1:58:31Speaker 1: nigh miraculous, which for the novice is really miraculous. Then
- 1:58:37Speaker 1: consider that far more wonderful instrument, the perceiving mind, played
- 1:58:41Speaker 1: on by that fine musician, the soul. Here again, innumerable
- 1:58:47Speaker 1: small efforts of attention will accumulate into mastery and a
- 1:58:51Speaker 1: mastery worth winning. For a concrete example, take the gradual
- 1:58:56Speaker 1: conquest of each day, the effort to live that day
- 1:58:58Speaker 1: for the soul, to him that is faithful and to death.
- 1:59:02Speaker 1: The master gives the crown of life. Sutra eleven. The
- 1:59:11Speaker 1: gradual conquest of the mind's tendency to flit from one
- 1:59:14Speaker 1: object to another and the power of one pointedness make
- 1:59:18Speaker 1: the developments of contemplation. As an illustration of the mind's
- 1:59:24Speaker 1: tendency to flit from one object to another, take a
- 1:59:27Speaker 1: small boy learning arithmetic. He begins, two ones are two,
- 1:59:34Speaker 1: Three ones are three, And then he thinks of the
- 1:59:37Speaker 1: three coins in his pocket, which will purchase so much
- 1:59:40Speaker 1: candy in the store down the street next to the
- 1:59:43Speaker 1: toy shop where our baseballs, marbles, and so on. And
- 1:59:48Speaker 1: then he comes back with a jerk to four ones
- 1:59:51Speaker 1: are four. So with us also we are seeking the
- 1:59:56Speaker 1: meaning of our task. But the mind takes advantage of
- 1:59:59Speaker 1: a moment of slack and attention and flits off from
- 2:00:02Speaker 1: one frivolous detail to another, till we suddenly come back
- 2:00:05Speaker 1: to consciousness after traversing leagues of space. We must learn
- 2:00:10Speaker 1: to conquer this and to go back within ourselves into
- 2:00:13Speaker 1: the beam of perceiving consciousness itself, which is a beam
- 2:00:16Speaker 1: of the over soul. This is the true one pointedness,
- 2:00:20Speaker 1: the bringing of our consciousness to a focus in the
- 2:00:23Speaker 1: soul Sutra thirteen. Through this, the inherent character, distinctive marks
- 2:00:33Speaker 1: and conditions of being and powers according to their developments,
- 2:00:37Speaker 1: are made clear. By the power defined in the preceding sutra,
- 2:00:43Speaker 1: the inherent character, distinctive marks and conditions of beings and
- 2:00:46Speaker 1: powers are made clear. For through this power, as defined,
- 2:00:51Speaker 1: we get a twofold view of each object, seeing at
- 2:00:54Speaker 1: once all its individual characteristics and its essential character, species,
- 2:00:58Speaker 1: and genus. We see it in relation to itself and
- 2:01:02Speaker 1: in relation to the eternal. Thus we see arose as
- 2:01:06Speaker 1: that particular flower, with its color and scent, its peculiar
- 2:01:10Speaker 1: fold of each petal. But we also see in it
- 2:01:14Speaker 1: the species, the family to which it belongs, with its
- 2:01:17Speaker 1: relation to all plants, to all life, to life itself.
- 2:01:22Speaker 1: So in any day we see events and circumstances, we
- 2:01:26Speaker 1: also see in it the lessons set for the soul
- 2:01:28Speaker 1: by the Eternal Sutra fourteen. Every object has its characteristics,
- 2:01:37Speaker 1: which are already quiescent, those which are active, and those
- 2:01:41Speaker 1: which are not yet definable. Every object has characteristics belonging
- 2:01:47Speaker 1: to its past, its presence, and its future. In a
- 2:01:51Speaker 1: fir tree, for example, there are the stumps or scars
- 2:01:54Speaker 1: of dead branches which once represented its foremost growth. There
- 2:01:58Speaker 1: are the branches with their needles spread out to the air.
- 2:02:01Speaker 1: There are the buds at the end of each branch
- 2:02:04Speaker 1: and twig, which carry the still closely packed needles, which
- 2:02:07Speaker 1: are the promise of the future. In like manner, the
- 2:02:10Speaker 1: chrysalis has as its past, the caterpillar as its future,
- 2:02:15Speaker 1: the butterfly. The man has in his past, the animal
- 2:02:20Speaker 1: in his future, the angel. Both are visible even now
- 2:02:24Speaker 1: in his face. So with all things, for all things
- 2:02:29Speaker 1: change and grow Sutra fifteen. Difference in stage is the
- 2:02:36Speaker 1: cause of difference in development. This but amplifies what has
- 2:02:41Speaker 1: just been said. The first stage is the sapling, the caterpillar,
- 2:02:46Speaker 1: the animal. The second stage is the growing tree, the crysalis,
- 2:02:51Speaker 1: the man. The third is the splendid pine, the butterfly,
- 2:02:56Speaker 1: the angel. Difference of stage is the cause of difference
- 2:03:00Speaker 1: of development. So it is among men and among the
- 2:03:04Speaker 1: races of men. Sutra sixteen. Through perfectly concentrated meditation on
- 2:03:11Speaker 1: the three stages of development comes a knowledge of past
- 2:03:14Speaker 1: and future. We have taken our illustrations from natural science,
- 2:03:20Speaker 1: because since every true discovery in natural science is a
- 2:03:23Speaker 1: dimidation of a law in nature, attained through a flash
- 2:03:26Speaker 1: of genius. Such discoveries really represent acts of spiritual perception,
- 2:03:31Speaker 1: acts of perception by the spiritual man, even though they
- 2:03:34Speaker 1: are generally not so recognized. So we may once more
- 2:03:38Speaker 1: use the same illustration. Perfectly concentrated meditation, perfect insight into
- 2:03:44Speaker 1: the chrysalis reveals the caterpillar that it has been, the
- 2:03:48Speaker 1: butterfly that it is destined to be. He who knows
- 2:03:52Speaker 1: the seed knows the seed pod or ear it has
- 2:03:55Speaker 1: come from, and the plant that is to come from it.
- 2:03:59Speaker 1: So in like manner, he who really knows today and
- 2:04:03Speaker 1: the heart of today knows its parent yesterday, and its
- 2:04:07Speaker 1: childs Tomorrow, past, present, and future are all in the eternal.
- 2:04:14Speaker 1: He who dwells in the eternal knows all three Sutra seventeen.
- 2:04:22Speaker 1: The sound and the object and the thought called up
- 2:04:25Speaker 1: by a word are confounded because they are all blurred
- 2:04:28Speaker 1: together in the mind. By perfectly concentrated meditation on the
- 2:04:33Speaker 1: distinction between them, there comes an understanding of the sounds
- 2:04:37Speaker 1: uttered by all beings. It must be remembered that we
- 2:04:42Speaker 1: are speaking of perception by the spiritual man. Sound, like
- 2:04:47Speaker 1: every force, is the expression of a power of the
- 2:04:50Speaker 1: eternal infinite shades of this power are expressed in the
- 2:04:54Speaker 1: infinitely varied tones of sound. He who, having entry to
- 2:04:59Speaker 1: the consciousness the eternal, knows the essence of this power,
- 2:05:03Speaker 1: can divine the meanings of all sounds, from the voice
- 2:05:06Speaker 1: of the insect to the music of the spheres. In
- 2:05:11Speaker 1: like manner, he who has attained to spiritual vision can
- 2:05:14Speaker 1: perceive the mind images in the thoughts of others with
- 2:05:18Speaker 1: the shade of feeling which goes with them, thus reading
- 2:05:21Speaker 1: their thoughts as easily as he hears their words. Everyone
- 2:05:25Speaker 1: has the germ of this power, since difference of tone
- 2:05:29Speaker 1: will give widely differing meanings to the same words, meanings
- 2:05:33Speaker 1: which are intuitively perceived by everyone. Sutra eighteen. When the
- 2:05:41Speaker 1: mind impressions become visible, there comes an understanding of previous births.
- 2:05:48Speaker 1: This is simple enough. If we grasp the truth of rebirth,
- 2:05:52Speaker 1: the fine harvest of past experiences is drawn into the
- 2:05:55Speaker 1: spiritual nature, forming indeed the basis of its development. When
- 2:06:01Speaker 1: the consciousness has been raised to a point above these
- 2:06:03Speaker 1: fine subjective impressions and can look down upon them from above,
- 2:06:08Speaker 1: this will in itself be a remembering of past births.
- 2:06:14Speaker 1: Sutra nineteen by perfectly concentrated meditation on mind images is
- 2:06:20Speaker 1: gained the understanding of the thoughts of others. Here, for
- 2:06:26Speaker 1: those who can profit by it is the secret of
- 2:06:28Speaker 1: thought reading. Take the simplest case of intentional thought transference.
- 2:06:34Speaker 1: It is the testimony of those who have done this
- 2:06:37Speaker 1: that the perceiving mind must be stilled before the mind
- 2:06:40Speaker 1: image projected by the other mind can be seen. With
- 2:06:44Speaker 1: it comes a sense of the feeling and temper of
- 2:06:46Speaker 1: the other mind, and so on in higher degrees Sutra twenty.
- 2:06:54Speaker 1: But since that on which the thought in the mind
- 2:06:57Speaker 1: of another rests is not objective to the thought reader's consciousness,
- 2:07:01Speaker 1: he perceives the thought only, and not also that on
- 2:07:04Speaker 1: which the thought rests, the meaning appears to be simple.
- 2:07:10Speaker 1: One may be able to perceive the thoughts of some
- 2:07:13Speaker 1: one at a distance, one cannot, by that means alone
- 2:07:17Speaker 1: also perceive the external surroundings of that person which arouse
- 2:07:21Speaker 1: these thoughts Suitra twenty one. By perfectly concentrated meditation on
- 2:07:29Speaker 1: the form of the body, by arresting the body's perceptibility,
- 2:07:34Speaker 1: and by inhibiting the eye's power of sight, there comes
- 2:07:37Speaker 1: the power to make the body invisible. There are many
- 2:07:42Speaker 1: instances of the exercise of this power by mesmerists, hypnotists,
- 2:07:47Speaker 1: and the like, and we may simply call it an
- 2:07:49Speaker 1: instance of the power of suggestion. Shankara tells us that
- 2:07:53Speaker 1: by this power the popular magicians of the East perform
- 2:07:56Speaker 1: their wonders, working on the mind images of others, while
- 2:08:00Speaker 1: remaining invisible themselves. It is all a question of being
- 2:08:03Speaker 1: able to see and control the mind images. Sutra twenty two.
- 2:08:12Speaker 1: The works which fill out the life span may be
- 2:08:15Speaker 1: either immediately or gradually operative. By perfectly concentrated meditation on
- 2:08:20Speaker 1: these comes a knowledge of the time of the end,
- 2:08:23Speaker 1: as also through signs. A garment which is wet, says
- 2:08:29Speaker 1: the commentator, may be hung up to dry and so
- 2:08:32Speaker 1: dry rapidly, or it may be rolled in a ball
- 2:08:35Speaker 1: and dry slowly, so a fire may blaze or smolder.
- 2:08:41Speaker 1: Thus it is with karma, the works that fill out
- 2:08:44Speaker 1: the life span. By an insight into the mental forms
- 2:08:47Speaker 1: and forces which make up karma, there comes a knowledge
- 2:08:51Speaker 1: of the rapidity or slowness of their development, and of
- 2:08:54Speaker 1: the time when the debt will be paid. Twenty three.
- 2:09:02Speaker 1: By perfectly concentrated meditation on sympathy, compassion, and kindness is
- 2:09:08Speaker 1: gained the power of interior union with others. Unity is
- 2:09:14Speaker 1: the reality, separateness the illusion. The nearer we come to reality,
- 2:09:20Speaker 1: the nearer we come to Unity of heart. Sympathy, compassion,
- 2:09:26Speaker 1: kindness are modes of this unity of heart, whereby we
- 2:09:30Speaker 1: rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.
- 2:09:34Speaker 1: These things are learned by desiring to learn them. Suitra
- 2:09:41Speaker 1: twenty four. By perfectly concentrated meditation on power, even such
- 2:09:48Speaker 1: power as that of the elephants may be gained. This
- 2:09:53Speaker 1: is a pretty image. Elephants possess not only force, but
- 2:09:57Speaker 1: poise and fineness of control. They can lift a straw,
- 2:10:02Speaker 1: a child's a tree with perfectly judged control and effort.
- 2:10:07Speaker 1: So the simile is a good one. By detachment, by
- 2:10:11Speaker 1: withdrawing into the soul's reservoir of power, we can gain
- 2:10:14Speaker 1: all these force and finesse and poise, the ability to
- 2:10:18Speaker 1: handle with equal mastery things small and great, concrete and
- 2:10:22Speaker 1: abstract alike. Suit Her twenty five. By bending upon them
- 2:10:30Speaker 1: the awakened inner light, there comes a knowledge of things
- 2:10:33Speaker 1: subtle or concealed or obscure. As was said at the outset,
- 2:10:41Speaker 1: each consciousness is related to all consciousness, and through it
- 2:10:46Speaker 1: has a potential consciousness of all things, whether subtle or
- 2:10:50Speaker 1: concealed or obscure. An understanding of this great truth will
- 2:10:54Speaker 1: come with practice. As one of the wise has said,
- 2:10:58Speaker 1: we have no conception of the power of meditation. Sutra
- 2:11:05Speaker 1: twenty six. By perfectly concentrated meditation on the sun comes
- 2:11:11Speaker 1: a knowledge of the worlds. This has several meanings. First,
- 2:11:17Speaker 1: by a knowledge of the constitution of the sun, astronomers
- 2:11:21Speaker 1: can understand the kindred nature of the stars, and it
- 2:11:24Speaker 1: is said that there is a finer astronomy where the
- 2:11:27Speaker 1: spiritual man is the astronomer. But the sun also means
- 2:11:31Speaker 1: the soul, and through knowledge of the soul comes a
- 2:11:35Speaker 1: knowledge of the realms of life. Sutra twenty seven. By
- 2:11:42Speaker 1: perfectly concentrated meditation on the moon comes a knowledge of
- 2:11:47Speaker 1: the lunar mansions. Here again are different meanings. The moon
- 2:11:53Speaker 1: is first the companion planet, which each day passes backward
- 2:11:58Speaker 1: through one mansion of the stars. By watching the moon,
- 2:12:02Speaker 1: the boundaries of the mansion are learned with their succession
- 2:12:06Speaker 1: in the great time dial of the sky. But the
- 2:12:09Speaker 1: moon also symbolizes the analytic mind with its divided realms,
- 2:12:14Speaker 1: and these two may be understood through perfectly concentrated meditation.
- 2:12:22Speaker 1: Suitra twenty eight. By perfectly concentrated meditation on the fixed
- 2:12:28Speaker 1: pole star comes a knowledge of the motion of the stars.
- 2:12:34Speaker 1: Addressing duty stern daughter of the voice of God. Wordsworth
- 2:12:39Speaker 1: finally said, thou cost preserve the stars from wrong, and
- 2:12:44Speaker 1: the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong,
- 2:12:49Speaker 1: thus suggesting a profound relation between the moral powers and
- 2:12:53Speaker 1: the powers that rule the worlds. So in this sutra,
- 2:12:57Speaker 1: the fixed pole Star is the eternal spirit of about
- 2:13:00Speaker 1: which all things move, as well as the star towards
- 2:13:03Speaker 1: which points the axis of the earth. Deep mysteries attend both,
- 2:13:08Speaker 1: and the veil of mystery is only to be raised
- 2:13:11Speaker 1: by meditation. By open eyed division of the awakened spiritual man.
- 2:13:19Speaker 1: Suit twenty nine, perfectly concentrated meditation on the center of
- 2:13:25Speaker 1: force in the lower trunk brings an understanding of the
- 2:13:28Speaker 1: order of the bodily powers. We are coming to a
- 2:13:32Speaker 1: vitally important part of the teaching of yoga, namely the
- 2:13:36Speaker 1: spiritual man's attainment of full self consciousness, the awakening of
- 2:13:40Speaker 1: the spiritual man as a self conscious individual behind and
- 2:13:44Speaker 1: above the natural man. In this awakening, and in the
- 2:13:48Speaker 1: process of gestation which precedes it, there is a close
- 2:13:51Speaker 1: relation with the powers of the natural man, which are
- 2:13:54Speaker 1: in a certain sense the projection outward and downward of
- 2:13:58Speaker 1: the powers of the spiritual man. This is notably true
- 2:14:02Speaker 1: of that creative power of the spiritual man, which, when
- 2:14:05Speaker 1: embodied in the natural man, becomes the power of generation.
- 2:14:10Speaker 1: Not only is this power the cause of the continuance
- 2:14:13Speaker 1: of the bodily race of mankind, but further, in the individual,
- 2:14:17Speaker 1: it is the key to the dominance of the personal life.
- 2:14:21Speaker 1: Rising as it were, through the life channels of the body.
- 2:14:24Speaker 1: It flushes the personality with physical force, and maintains and
- 2:14:28Speaker 1: colors the illusion that the physical life is the dominant
- 2:14:32Speaker 1: and all important expression of life. In due time, when
- 2:14:36Speaker 1: the spiritual man has begun to take form, the creative
- 2:14:39Speaker 1: force will be drawn off and become operative in building
- 2:14:42Speaker 1: the body of the spiritual man, just as it has
- 2:14:45Speaker 1: been operative in the building of physical bodies through generation
- 2:14:48Speaker 1: in the natural world. Perfectly concentrated meditation on the nature
- 2:14:54Speaker 1: of this force means first that rising of the consciousness
- 2:14:59Speaker 1: into the spiritual world already described, which gives the one
- 2:15:02Speaker 1: sure foothold for meditation, and then from that spiritual point
- 2:15:06Speaker 1: of vantage, not only an insight into the creative force
- 2:15:10Speaker 1: in its spiritual and physical aspects, but also a gradually
- 2:15:14Speaker 1: attained control of this wonderful force, which will mean its
- 2:15:17Speaker 1: direction to the body of the spiritual man and its
- 2:15:20Speaker 1: gradual withdrawal from the body of the natural man, until
- 2:15:23Speaker 1: the over pressure, so general and such a fruitful source
- 2:15:27Speaker 1: of misery in our day is abated and purity takes
- 2:15:30Speaker 1: the place of passion. This over pressure, which is the
- 2:15:34Speaker 1: cause of so many evils and so much of human shame,
- 2:15:38Speaker 1: is an abnormal, not a natural condition. It is primarily
- 2:15:42Speaker 1: due to spiritual blindness, to blindness regarding the spiritual man,
- 2:15:46Speaker 1: and ignorance even of his existence. For by this blind
- 2:15:50Speaker 1: ignorance are closed the channels through which were they open,
- 2:15:54Speaker 1: the creative force could flow into the body of the
- 2:15:56Speaker 1: spiritual man, there building up in immortal vesture. There is
- 2:16:01Speaker 1: no cure for blindness, with its consequent over pressure and
- 2:16:04Speaker 1: attendant misery and shame, but spiritual vision, spiritual aspiration, sacrifice
- 2:16:12Speaker 1: the new birth from above. There is no other way
- 2:16:15Speaker 1: to lighten the burden, to lift the misery and shame
- 2:16:17Speaker 1: from human life. Therefore, let us follow after sacrifice and aspiration,
- 2:16:23Speaker 1: let us seek the light. In this way only shall
- 2:16:26Speaker 1: we gain that insight into the order of the bodily powers,
- 2:16:30Speaker 1: and that mastery of them, which this sutra implies Sutra thirty.
- 2:16:39Speaker 1: By perfectly concentrated meditation on the center of force in
- 2:16:42Speaker 1: the well of the throat, there comes the cessation of
- 2:16:45Speaker 1: hunger and thirst. We are continuing the study of the
- 2:16:50Speaker 1: bodily powers and centers of force in their relation to
- 2:16:53Speaker 1: the powers and forces of the spiritual man. We have
- 2:16:57Speaker 1: already considered the dominant power of physical life, the creative
- 2:17:01Speaker 1: power which secures the continuance of physical life, and further,
- 2:17:05Speaker 1: the manner in which, through aspiration and sacrifice, it is
- 2:17:09Speaker 1: gradually raised and set to the work of upbuilding the
- 2:17:11Speaker 1: body of the spiritual man. We come now to the
- 2:17:15Speaker 1: dominant psychic force, the power which manifests itself in speech
- 2:17:20Speaker 1: and in virtue, of which the voice may carry so
- 2:17:22Speaker 1: much of the personal magnetism, endowing the order with a
- 2:17:25Speaker 1: tongue of fire, magical in its power to arouse and
- 2:17:29Speaker 1: rule the emotions of his hearers. This emotional power, this
- 2:17:34Speaker 1: distinctively psychical force, is the cause of hunger and thirst,
- 2:17:39Speaker 1: the psychical hunger and thirst for sensations, which is the
- 2:17:42Speaker 1: source of our two sided life of emotionalism, with its
- 2:17:46Speaker 1: hopes and fears, its expectations and memories, its desires and hates,
- 2:17:52Speaker 1: the source of the psychical power, or perhaps we should
- 2:17:56Speaker 1: say its center of activity in the physical body is
- 2:17:59Speaker 1: said to be in the cavity of the throat. Thus,
- 2:18:03Speaker 1: in the Teityria Upanishad, it is written, there is this
- 2:18:06Speaker 1: shining ether in the inner being. Therein is the spiritual
- 2:18:10Speaker 1: man formed through thought, immortal golden inward in the palate,
- 2:18:17Speaker 1: the organ that hangs down like a nipple, this is
- 2:18:20Speaker 1: the womb of Indra, and there where the dividing of
- 2:18:24Speaker 1: the hair turns, extending upward to the crown of the head.
- 2:18:28Speaker 1: Indra is the name given to the creative power of
- 2:18:30Speaker 1: which we have spoken, and which we are told resides
- 2:18:34Speaker 1: in the organ which hangs down like a nipple. Inward
- 2:18:37Speaker 1: in the palate Sutra thirty one, by perfectly concentrated meditation
- 2:18:45Speaker 1: on the center of force in the channel called the
- 2:18:47Speaker 1: tortoise formed comes steadfastness. We are concerned now with the
- 2:18:54Speaker 1: center of nervous or psychical force below the cavity of
- 2:18:57Speaker 1: the throat in the chest, in which is to the
- 2:19:00Speaker 1: sensation of fear, the center the disturbance of which sets
- 2:19:04Speaker 1: the heart beating miserably with dread, or which produces that
- 2:19:07Speaker 1: sense of terror, through which the heart is said to
- 2:19:09Speaker 1: stand still. When the truth concerning fear is thoroughly mastered
- 2:19:14Speaker 1: through spiritual insight into the immortal, fearless life, then this
- 2:19:17Speaker 1: force is perfectly controlled. There is no more fear, just
- 2:19:21Speaker 1: as through the control of the psychic power which works
- 2:19:24Speaker 1: through the nerve center in the throat, there comes a
- 2:19:26Speaker 1: cessation of hunger and thirst. Thereafter, these forces, or their
- 2:19:31Speaker 1: spiritual prototypes, are turned to the building of the spiritual man. Always,
- 2:19:36Speaker 1: it must be remembered the victory is first a spiritual one.
- 2:19:39Speaker 1: Only later does the brink control of the bodily powers
- 2:19:45Speaker 1: Sutra thirty two. Through perfectly concentrated meditation on the light
- 2:19:50Speaker 1: in the head comes the vision of the masters who
- 2:19:53Speaker 1: have attained The tradition is that there is a certain
- 2:19:58Speaker 1: center of force in the head PHAs perhaps the penial gland,
- 2:20:01Speaker 1: which some of our Western philosophers have supposed to be
- 2:20:04Speaker 1: the dwelling of the soul, a center which is, as
- 2:20:07Speaker 1: it were the doorway between the natural and the spiritual man.
- 2:20:11Speaker 1: It is the seat of that better and wiser consciousness
- 2:20:13Speaker 1: behind the outward looking consciousness in the forward part of
- 2:20:15Speaker 1: the head, that better and wiser consciousness of the back
- 2:20:19Speaker 1: of the mind, which views spiritual things and seeks to
- 2:20:22Speaker 1: impress the spiritual view on the outward looking consciousness. In
- 2:20:25Speaker 1: the forward part of the head. It is the spiritual
- 2:20:27Speaker 1: man seeking to guide the natural man, seeking to bring
- 2:20:30Speaker 1: the natural man to concern himself with things of his immortality.
- 2:20:34Speaker 1: This is suggested in the words of the Upanishad already quoted.
- 2:20:38Speaker 1: There were the dividing of the hair turns extending upward
- 2:20:42Speaker 1: to the crown of the head, all of which may
- 2:20:44Speaker 1: sound very fantastical until one comes to understand it. It
- 2:20:49Speaker 1: is said that when this power is fully awakened, it
- 2:20:51Speaker 1: brings a vision of the great companions of the spiritual man,
- 2:20:54Speaker 1: those who have already attained, crossing over to the further
- 2:20:57Speaker 1: shore of the sea of death and rebirth. Perhaps it
- 2:21:01Speaker 1: is to this divine sight that the Master alluded, who
- 2:21:03Speaker 1: is reported to have said, I counsel you to buy
- 2:21:06Speaker 1: of me, I salve that he may see. It is
- 2:21:11Speaker 1: of this same vision of the great companions, the children
- 2:21:14Speaker 1: of light, that a seer wrote, Though inland far we be,
- 2:21:18Speaker 1: our souls have sight of that immortal sea which brought
- 2:21:22Speaker 1: us hither, can in a moment travel thither and see
- 2:21:25Speaker 1: the children sport upon the shore, and hear the mighty
- 2:21:29Speaker 1: waters rolling evermore Sutra thirty three. Or through the divining
- 2:21:37Speaker 1: power of intuition, he knows all things. This is really
- 2:21:42Speaker 1: the supplement the spiritual side of the sutra, just translated
- 2:21:46Speaker 1: step by step as the better consciousness, the spiritual of
- 2:21:49Speaker 1: you gains force in the back of the mind. So
- 2:21:52Speaker 1: in the same measure, the spiritual man is gaining the
- 2:21:54Speaker 1: power to see, learning to open the spiritual eyes. When
- 2:21:58Speaker 1: the eyes are fully opened, the spiritual man and beholds
- 2:22:00Speaker 1: the great companion standing about him, he has begun to
- 2:22:03Speaker 1: know all things. This divining power of intuition is the
- 2:22:07Speaker 1: power which lies above and behind the so called rational mind.
- 2:22:11Speaker 1: The rational mind formulates a question and lays it before
- 2:22:14Speaker 1: the intuition, which gives a real answer, often immediately distorted
- 2:22:18Speaker 1: by the rational mind, yet always embodying a kernel of truth.
- 2:22:22Speaker 1: It is by this process through which the rational mind
- 2:22:25Speaker 1: brings questions to the intuition for solution, that the truths
- 2:22:29Speaker 1: of science are reached the flashes of discovery and genius.
- 2:22:33Speaker 1: But this higher power need not work in subordination to
- 2:22:36Speaker 1: the so called rational mind. It may act directly as
- 2:22:39Speaker 1: full illumination the vision and the faculty Divine Suitra thirty four.
- 2:22:47Speaker 1: By perfectly concentrated meditation on the heart, the interior being
- 2:22:52Speaker 1: comes the knowledge of consciousness. The heart here seems to mean,
- 2:22:58Speaker 1: as it so often does in the Upanishads, the interior
- 2:23:01Speaker 1: spiritual nature, the consciousness of the spiritual man, which is
- 2:23:04Speaker 1: related to the heart and to the wisdom of the heart.
- 2:23:08Speaker 1: By steadily seeking after and finding the consciousness of the
- 2:23:11Speaker 1: spiritual man, by coming to consciousness as the spiritual man,
- 2:23:15Speaker 1: a perfect knowledge of consciousness will be attained. For the
- 2:23:18Speaker 1: consciousness of the spiritual man has this divine quality while
- 2:23:22Speaker 1: being and remaining a truly individual consciousness. It at the
- 2:23:25Speaker 1: same time flows over as it were and blends with
- 2:23:28Speaker 1: the divine consciousness above and about it, the consciousness of
- 2:23:32Speaker 1: the great companions. And by showing itself to be one
- 2:23:35Speaker 1: with the divine consciousness, it reveals the nature of all consciousness,
- 2:23:39Speaker 1: the secret that all consciousness is one and Divine Sutra
- 2:23:46Speaker 1: thirty five, the personal self seeks to feast on life.
- 2:23:51Speaker 1: Through a failure to perceive the distinction between the personal
- 2:23:54Speaker 1: self and the spiritual man, all personal experience really exists
- 2:23:59Speaker 1: for the sake of another, namely the spiritual man. By
- 2:24:03Speaker 1: perfectly concentrated meditation on experience for the sake of the self,
- 2:24:08Speaker 1: comes a knowledge of the spiritual man. The divine ray
- 2:24:13Speaker 1: of the Higher Self, which is eternal, impersonal and abstract,
- 2:24:17Speaker 1: descends into life and forms a personality, which, through the
- 2:24:21Speaker 1: stress and storm of life, is hammered into a definite
- 2:24:23Speaker 1: and concrete, self conscious individuality. The problem is to blend
- 2:24:28Speaker 1: these two powers, taking the eternal and spiritual being of
- 2:24:32Speaker 1: the first and blending with it, transferring into it the
- 2:24:35Speaker 1: self conscious individuality of the second, and thus bringing to
- 2:24:38Speaker 1: life a third being, the spiritual man, who is heir
- 2:24:42Speaker 1: to the immortality of his father, the Higher Self, and
- 2:24:45Speaker 1: yet has the self conscious, concrete individuality of his other parent,
- 2:24:49Speaker 1: the personal Self. This is the true immaculate conception, the
- 2:24:54Speaker 1: new birth from above, conceived of the Holy Spirit. Of
- 2:24:58Speaker 1: this new birth, it is said that which is born
- 2:25:01Speaker 1: of the Spirit is spirit. Ye must be born again
- 2:25:07Speaker 1: rightly understood. Therefore, the whole life of the personal man
- 2:25:11Speaker 1: is for another, not for himself. He exists only to
- 2:25:15Speaker 1: render his very life and all his experience for the
- 2:25:18Speaker 1: building up of the spiritual man. Only through failure to
- 2:25:22Speaker 1: see this does he seek enjoyment for himself, seek to
- 2:25:25Speaker 1: secure the feast of life for himself, not understanding that
- 2:25:29Speaker 1: he must live for the other, live sacrificially offering both
- 2:25:33Speaker 1: feasts and his very being on the altar, giving himself
- 2:25:37Speaker 1: as a contrition for the building of the spiritual man.
- 2:25:40Speaker 1: When he does understand this and lives for the higher Self,
- 2:25:44Speaker 1: setting his heart and thought on the higher Self, then
- 2:25:47Speaker 1: his sacrifice bears divine fruit. The spiritual man is built up,
- 2:25:51Speaker 1: consciousness awakens in him, and he comes fully into being
- 2:25:54Speaker 1: as a divine and immortal individuality Sutra thirty six. Thereupon
- 2:26:04Speaker 1: are born the divine power of intuition and the hearing,
- 2:26:08Speaker 1: the touch, the vision, the taste, and the power of
- 2:26:11Speaker 1: smell of the spiritual man. When in virtue of the
- 2:26:16Speaker 1: perpetual sacrifice of the personal man, daily and hourly giving
- 2:26:20Speaker 1: his life for his divine brother, the spiritual man, and
- 2:26:23Speaker 1: through the radiance ever pouring down from the Higher Self,
- 2:26:26Speaker 1: eternal in the heavens. The spiritual man comes to birth.
- 2:26:30Speaker 1: There awaken him those powers whose psychical counterparts we know
- 2:26:33Speaker 1: in the personal man. The spiritual man begins to see,
- 2:26:37Speaker 1: to hear, to touch, to taste, and besides the senses
- 2:26:41Speaker 1: of the spiritual man, there awakes his mind that divine
- 2:26:44Speaker 1: counterpart of the mind of the physical man, the power
- 2:26:48Speaker 1: of direct and immediate knowledge, the power of spiritual intuition
- 2:26:52Speaker 1: of divination. This power, as we have seen, owes its
- 2:26:56Speaker 1: virtue to the unity, the continuity of consciousness, whereby whatever
- 2:27:01Speaker 1: is known to any consciousness is knowable by any other consciousness. Thus,
- 2:27:05Speaker 1: the consciousness of the spiritual man, who lives above are
- 2:27:08Speaker 1: narrow barriers of separateness, is an intimate touch with the
- 2:27:12Speaker 1: consciousness of the great companions, and can draw on that
- 2:27:15Speaker 1: vast reservoir for all real needs. Thus arises within the
- 2:27:19Speaker 1: spiritual man that certain knowledge which is called intuition, divination, illumination.
- 2:27:30Speaker 1: End of Book three Sutras one to thirty six, Book
- 2:27:33Speaker 1: three Sutras thirty seven to fifty five, Sutra thirty seven.
- 2:27:41Speaker 1: These powers stand in contradistinction to the highest spiritual vision.
- 2:27:45Speaker 1: In manifestation. There are calls magical powers. The divine man
- 2:27:51Speaker 1: is destined to supersede the spiritual man. As the spiritual
- 2:27:54Speaker 1: man supersedes the natural man, then the disciple becomes a master.
- 2:27:59Speaker 1: The opened power of the spiritual man. Spiritual vision, hearing,
- 2:28:02Speaker 1: and touch stand therefore in contradistinction to the higher divine
- 2:28:06Speaker 1: power above them, and must in no wise be regarded
- 2:28:09Speaker 1: as the end of the way, for the path has
- 2:28:11Speaker 1: no end, but rises ever to higher and higher glories.
- 2:28:15Speaker 1: The soul's growth and splendor have no limit, so that
- 2:28:18Speaker 1: if the spiritual powers we have been considering are regarded
- 2:28:21Speaker 1: as in any sense final, they are a hindrance, a
- 2:28:24Speaker 1: barrier to the far higher powers of the divine man.
- 2:28:28Speaker 1: But viewed from below, from the standpoint of normal physical experience,
- 2:28:32Speaker 1: there are powers truly magical. As the power is natural
- 2:28:35Speaker 1: to a four dimensional being will appear magical to a
- 2:28:38Speaker 1: three dimensional being sux Tra thirty eight. Through the weakening
- 2:28:45Speaker 1: of the causes of bondage and by learning the method
- 2:28:47Speaker 1: of passing, the consciousness is transferred to the other body
- 2:28:53Speaker 1: in due time, after the spiritual man has been formed
- 2:28:55Speaker 1: and grown stable through the forces and virtues already enumerated,
- 2:28:59Speaker 1: and after this the senses of the spiritual man have awaked.
- 2:29:02Speaker 1: There comes the transfer of the dominant consciousness, the sense
- 2:29:05Speaker 1: of individuality, from the physical to the spiritual man. Thereafter,
- 2:29:10Speaker 1: the physical man is felt to be a secondary, a subordinate,
- 2:29:13Speaker 1: an instrument through whom the spiritual man works, and the
- 2:29:16Speaker 1: spiritual man is felt to be the real individuality. This is,
- 2:29:20Speaker 1: in a sense, the attainment to full salvation and immortal life.
- 2:29:24Speaker 1: Yet it is not the final goal or resting place,
- 2:29:27Speaker 1: but only the beginning of the greater way. The means
- 2:29:31Speaker 1: for this transfer are described as the weakening of the
- 2:29:34Speaker 1: causes of bondage and an understanding of the method of
- 2:29:37Speaker 1: passing from the one consciousness to the other. The first
- 2:29:41Speaker 1: may also be described as detachment, and comes from the
- 2:29:44Speaker 1: conquest of the delusion that the personal self is the
- 2:29:47Speaker 1: real man. When that delusion abates and is held in check,
- 2:29:52Speaker 1: the finer consciousness of the spiritual man begins to shine
- 2:29:55Speaker 1: in the background of the mind. The transfer of the
- 2:29:58Speaker 1: sense of individuality to this finer consciousness, and thus to
- 2:30:02Speaker 1: the spiritual man, then becomes a matter of recollection of attention,
- 2:30:07Speaker 1: primarily a matter of taking a deeper interest in the
- 2:30:09Speaker 1: life and doings of the spiritual man than in the
- 2:30:12Speaker 1: pleasures or occupations of the personality. Therefore it is said,
- 2:30:17Speaker 1: they not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth
- 2:30:21Speaker 1: and rust cloth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steel,
- 2:30:25Speaker 1: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither
- 2:30:28Speaker 1: moth nor rust cloth corrupt, and where thieves do not
- 2:30:31Speaker 1: break through nor steel. For where your treasure is there
- 2:30:35Speaker 1: will your heart be also Sutra thirty nine. Through mastery
- 2:30:42Speaker 1: of the upward life comes freedom from the dangers of water, morass,
- 2:30:46Speaker 1: and thorny places, and the power of ascension is gained.
- 2:30:52Speaker 1: Here is one of the sentences so characteristic of this
- 2:30:55Speaker 1: author and indeed of the Eastern Spirit, in which there
- 2:30:58Speaker 1: is an obvious exterior meaning, and within this a clear
- 2:31:01Speaker 1: interior meaning, not quite so obvious, but far more vital.
- 2:31:06Speaker 1: The surface meaning is that by mastery of a certain
- 2:31:08Speaker 1: power here called the upward life, and akin to levitation,
- 2:31:13Speaker 1: there comes the ability to walk on water or to
- 2:31:15Speaker 1: pass over thorny places without wounding the feet. But there
- 2:31:20Speaker 1: is a deeper meaning. When we speak of the disciple's
- 2:31:23Speaker 1: path as a path of thorns, we is a symbol,
- 2:31:26Speaker 1: and the same symbol is used here the upward life
- 2:31:29Speaker 1: means something more than the power often manifested in abnormal
- 2:31:33Speaker 1: psychical experiences of levitating the physical body or near by
- 2:31:37Speaker 1: physical objects. It means the strong power of aspiration, of
- 2:31:42Speaker 1: upward will, which first builds and then awakes the spiritual man,
- 2:31:47Speaker 1: and finally transfers the conscious individuality to him. For it
- 2:31:51Speaker 1: is he who passes safely over the waters of death
- 2:31:54Speaker 1: and rebirth and is not pierced by the thorns in
- 2:31:56Speaker 1: the path. Therefore, it is said that he who would
- 2:31:59Speaker 1: tread the path of power must look for a home
- 2:32:02Speaker 1: in the air and afterwards in the ether of this
- 2:32:06Speaker 1: upward life. This is written in the Kata Upanishad one
- 2:32:11Speaker 1: hundred and one are the hearts channels of these one
- 2:32:14Speaker 1: passes to the crown. Going up this he comes to
- 2:32:17Speaker 1: the immortal. This is the power of ascension spoken of
- 2:32:22Speaker 1: in the Sutra Sutra forty. By mastery of the binding
- 2:32:30Speaker 1: life comes radiance. In the Upanishads, it is said that
- 2:32:34Speaker 1: this binding life unites the upward life to the downward life,
- 2:32:38Speaker 1: and these lives have their analogies in the vital breaths
- 2:32:41Speaker 1: in the body. The thought in the text seems to
- 2:32:44Speaker 1: be that when the personality is brought thoroughly under control
- 2:32:48Speaker 1: of the spiritual man through the life currents which bind
- 2:32:50Speaker 1: them together. The personality is endowed with a new force,
- 2:32:54Speaker 1: a strong personal magnetism. One might call it such as
- 2:32:58Speaker 1: is often an appendage of genius. But the text seems
- 2:33:02Speaker 1: to mean more than this, and to have in view
- 2:33:05Speaker 1: the vesture of the color of the sun attributed by
- 2:33:07Speaker 1: the Upanishads to the spiritual man, that vesture which a
- 2:33:11Speaker 1: disciple has thus described, The Lord shall change our vile body,
- 2:33:16Speaker 1: that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.
- 2:33:20Speaker 1: Perhaps body of radiance would better translate the Greek. In
- 2:33:25Speaker 1: both these passages, the teaching seems to be that the
- 2:33:28Speaker 1: body of the full grown spiritual man is radiant or
- 2:33:31Speaker 1: luminous for those at least who have anointed their eyes
- 2:33:34Speaker 1: with eyes salve, so that they see Sutra forty one.
- 2:33:42Speaker 1: From perfectly concentrated meditation on the correlation of hearing and
- 2:33:46Speaker 1: the ether comes the power of spiritual hearing. Physical sound,
- 2:33:52Speaker 1: we are told, is carried by the air, or by water, iron,
- 2:33:56Speaker 1: or some other medium on the same plane as substance.
- 2:34:01Speaker 1: But there is a finer hearing whose medium of transmission
- 2:34:04Speaker 1: would seem to be the ether. Perhaps not that ether
- 2:34:07Speaker 1: which carries light, heat, and magnetic waves, but it may
- 2:34:11Speaker 1: be the far finer ether through which the power of
- 2:34:14Speaker 1: gravity works. For while light or heat or magnetic waves
- 2:34:18Speaker 1: traveling from the Sun to the Earth take eight minutes
- 2:34:21Speaker 1: for the journey, it is mathematically certain that the pole
- 2:34:25Speaker 1: of gravitation does not take as much as eight seconds,
- 2:34:28Speaker 1: or even the eighth of a second. The pole of
- 2:34:31Speaker 1: gravitation travels, it would seem as quick as thought. So
- 2:34:36Speaker 1: it may well be that in thought transference or telepathy,
- 2:34:39Speaker 1: the thoughts travel by the same way, carried by the
- 2:34:43Speaker 1: same thought swift medium. The transfer of a word by
- 2:34:47Speaker 1: telepathy is the simplest and earliest form of the divine
- 2:34:50Speaker 1: hearing of the spiritual man. As that power grows, and
- 2:34:54Speaker 1: as through perfectly concentrated meditation, the spiritual man comes into
- 2:34:59Speaker 1: more complete mass of it, he GRoWES able to hear
- 2:35:02Speaker 1: and clearly distinguish the speech of the great companions who
- 2:35:05Speaker 1: counsel and comfort him on his way. They may speak
- 2:35:09Speaker 1: to him either in wordless thoughts or in perfectly definite
- 2:35:13Speaker 1: words and sentences Sutra forty two. By perfectly concentrated meditation
- 2:35:23Speaker 1: on the correlation of the body with the ether, and
- 2:35:25Speaker 1: by thinking of it as light as thistle down, will
- 2:35:28Speaker 1: come the power to traverse the ether. It has been
- 2:35:34Speaker 1: said that he who would tread the path of power
- 2:35:36Speaker 1: must look for a home in the air, and afterwards
- 2:35:39Speaker 1: in the ether. This would seem to mean, besides the
- 2:35:43Speaker 1: constant injunction to detachment, that he must be prepared to
- 2:35:46Speaker 1: inhabit first a psychic and then an etheric body, the
- 2:35:51Speaker 1: former being the body of dreams, the latter the body
- 2:35:54Speaker 1: of the spiritual man when he wakes up on the
- 2:35:56Speaker 1: other side of dreamland. The gradual customing of the consciousness
- 2:36:01Speaker 1: to its new etheric vesture, its gradual acclimatization, so to speak,
- 2:36:05Speaker 1: and the etheric body of the spiritual man, is what
- 2:36:08Speaker 1: our text seems to contemplate Sutra forty three. When that
- 2:36:16Speaker 1: condition of consciousness is reached, which is far reaching and
- 2:36:20Speaker 1: not confined to the body, which is outside the body
- 2:36:23Speaker 1: and not conditioned by it, then the veil which conceals
- 2:36:26Speaker 1: the light is worn away. Perhaps the best comment on
- 2:36:33Speaker 1: this is afforded by the words of Paul, I knew
- 2:36:37Speaker 1: a man in Christ above fourteen years ago. Whether in
- 2:36:40Speaker 1: the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body,
- 2:36:43Speaker 1: I cannot tell. God knoweth such a one caught up
- 2:36:48Speaker 1: to the third Heaven, and I knew such a man,
- 2:36:51Speaker 1: whether in the body or out of the body, I
- 2:36:53Speaker 1: cannot tell. God knoweth how that he was caught up
- 2:36:57Speaker 1: into paradise and heard unspeakable or unspoken words which it
- 2:37:02Speaker 1: is not lawful for a man to utter. The condition
- 2:37:07Speaker 1: is briefly that of the awakened spiritual man who sees
- 2:37:11Speaker 1: and hears beyond the veil Sutra forty four. Mastery of
- 2:37:19Speaker 1: the elements comes from perfectly concentrated meditation on their five forms,
- 2:37:23Speaker 1: the gross, the elemental, the subtle, the inherent, the proposive.
- 2:37:29Speaker 1: These five forms are analogous to those recognized by modern
- 2:37:32Speaker 1: physics solid, liquid, gaseous, radiant, and ionic. When the piercing
- 2:37:38Speaker 1: vision of the awakened spiritual man is directed to the
- 2:37:41Speaker 1: forms of matter from within, as it were, from behind
- 2:37:44Speaker 1: the scenes, then perfect mastery over the beggarly elements is attained.
- 2:37:49Speaker 1: This is perhaps equivalent to the injunction inquire of the earth,
- 2:37:53Speaker 1: the air, and the water, of the secrets they hold
- 2:37:56Speaker 1: for you. The development of your inner senses will enable
- 2:38:00Speaker 1: you to do this Sutra forty five. Thereupon will come
- 2:38:07Speaker 1: the manifestation of the atomic and other powers, which are
- 2:38:11Speaker 1: the endowment of the body, together with its unassailable force.
- 2:38:17Speaker 1: The body in question is, of course, the etheric body
- 2:38:20Speaker 1: of the spiritual man. He is said to possess eight powers.
- 2:38:24Speaker 1: The atomic the power of assimilating himself with the nature
- 2:38:28Speaker 1: of the atom, which will perhaps involve, the power to
- 2:38:31Speaker 1: disintegrate material forms. The power of levitation, the power of
- 2:38:36Speaker 1: limitless extension, the power of boundless reach, so that, as
- 2:38:40Speaker 1: the commentator says, he can touch the moon with the
- 2:38:43Speaker 1: tip of his finger. The power to accomplish his will,
- 2:38:47Speaker 1: the power of gravitation, the correlative of levitation, the power
- 2:38:52Speaker 1: of command, the power of creative will. These are the
- 2:38:56Speaker 1: endowments of the spiritual man. Further, the spiritual body is unassailable.
- 2:39:02Speaker 1: Fire burns it not, water wets it not, the sword
- 2:39:06Speaker 1: cleaves it not, dry winds parch it not. And it
- 2:39:10Speaker 1: is said the spiritual man can impart something of this
- 2:39:13Speaker 1: quality and temper to his bodily. Vesture Sutra forty six, shapeliness, beauty, force,
- 2:39:24Speaker 1: the temper of the diamonds. These are the endowments of
- 2:39:27Speaker 1: that body. The spiritual man is shapely, beautiful, strong, firm
- 2:39:34Speaker 1: is the diamond. Therefore it is written these things Saith
- 2:39:39Speaker 1: the son of God, who hath his eyes like unto
- 2:39:41Speaker 1: a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass.
- 2:39:45Speaker 1: Heath it overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end
- 2:39:49Speaker 1: to him. While I give power over the nations, and
- 2:39:51Speaker 1: he shall rule them with a rod of iron, And
- 2:39:54Speaker 1: I will give him the Morning Star Sutra forty seven.
- 2:40:01Speaker 1: Mastery over the powers of perception and action come through
- 2:40:04Speaker 1: perfectly concentrated meditation on their five fold forms, namely, their
- 2:40:09Speaker 1: power to grasp their distinctive nature, the element of self
- 2:40:12Speaker 1: consciousness in them, their inheritance, and their purpulsiveness. Take for example, sight.
- 2:40:21Speaker 1: This possesses first the power to grasp, apprehend, perceive. Second,
- 2:40:26Speaker 1: it has its distinctive form of perception, that is visual perception. Third,
- 2:40:32Speaker 1: it always carries with its operations self consciousness, the thought
- 2:40:36Speaker 1: I perceive. Fourth, sight has the power of extension through
- 2:40:41Speaker 1: the whole field of vision, even to the utmost star. Fifth,
- 2:40:46Speaker 1: it is used for the purposes of the seer. So
- 2:40:49Speaker 1: with the other senses. Perfectly concentrated meditation on each sense
- 2:40:54Speaker 1: a viewing it from behind and within, as is possible,
- 2:40:57Speaker 1: for the spiritual man brings a mass of the scope
- 2:41:00Speaker 1: and true character of each sense and of the world
- 2:41:03Speaker 1: on which they report collectively Sutra forty eight. Thence comes
- 2:41:12Speaker 1: the power swiftest thought, independent of instruments, and the mastery
- 2:41:16Speaker 1: over matter. We are further enumerting the endowments of the
- 2:41:22Speaker 1: spiritual man. Among these is the power to traverse space
- 2:41:26Speaker 1: with the swiftness of thought, so that whatever place the
- 2:41:29Speaker 1: spiritual man thinks of to that he goes in that
- 2:41:32Speaker 1: place he already is thought now has become his means
- 2:41:36Speaker 1: of locomotion. He is therefore independent of instruments, and can
- 2:41:41Speaker 1: bring his force to bear directly wherever he wills Sutra
- 2:41:47Speaker 1: forty nine. When the spiritual man is perfectly disentangled from
- 2:41:51Speaker 1: the psychic body, he attains to mastery over all things
- 2:41:55Speaker 1: and to a knowledge of all. Spiritual man is enmeshed
- 2:42:01Speaker 1: in the web of the emotions desire, fear, ambition, passion,
- 2:42:06Speaker 1: and impeded by the mental forms of separateness and materialism.
- 2:42:11Speaker 1: When these meshes are sundered, these obstacles completely overcome, then
- 2:42:15Speaker 1: the spiritual man stands forth in his own wide world,
- 2:42:18Speaker 1: strong mighty wise, he uses divine powers with the divine
- 2:42:24Speaker 1: scope and energy, working together with divine companions to such
- 2:42:29Speaker 1: a one. It is said, thou art now a disciple,
- 2:42:33Speaker 1: able to stand, able to hear, able to see, able
- 2:42:37Speaker 1: to speak. Thou hast conquered desire and attained to self knowledge.
- 2:42:41Speaker 1: Thou hast seen thy soul in its bloom, and recognized
- 2:42:44Speaker 1: it and heard the voice of the silence Sutra fifty
- 2:42:53Speaker 1: By absence of all self indulgence, at this point, when
- 2:42:56Speaker 1: the seeds of bondage to sorrow are destroyed, pure spiritual
- 2:42:59Speaker 1: being is attained. The seeking of indulgence for the personal self,
- 2:43:05Speaker 1: whether through passion or ambition, sows the seed of future sorrow.
- 2:43:10Speaker 1: For this self indulgence of the personality is a double
- 2:43:13Speaker 1: sin against the real, a sin against the cleanness of life,
- 2:43:17Speaker 1: and a sin against the universal being, which permits no
- 2:43:20Speaker 1: exclusive particular good, since in the real all spiritual possessions
- 2:43:24Speaker 1: are held in common. This twofold sin brings its reacting punishment,
- 2:43:29Speaker 1: its confining bondage to sorrow, but ceasing from self indulgence
- 2:43:33Speaker 1: brings purity, liberation spiritual life. Sutra fifty one. There should
- 2:43:42Speaker 1: be complete overcoming of allurement or pride in the invitations
- 2:43:46Speaker 1: of the different realms of life, lest attachment to things
- 2:43:49Speaker 1: evil arise. Once more. The commentator tells us that disciples
- 2:43:56Speaker 1: seekers for union are of four degrees. First those who
- 2:44:01Speaker 1: are entering the path, second those who are in the
- 2:44:04Speaker 1: realm of allurements. Third, those who have won the victory
- 2:44:08Speaker 1: over matter and the senses. Fourth, those who stand firm
- 2:44:11Speaker 1: in pure spiritual life. To the second, especially, the caution
- 2:44:16Speaker 1: in the text is addressed. More modern teachers would express
- 2:44:20Speaker 1: the same truth by a warning against the delusions and
- 2:44:22Speaker 1: fascinations of the psychic realm which open around the disciple
- 2:44:26Speaker 1: as he breaks through into the unseen worlds. These are
- 2:44:29Speaker 1: the dangers of the ante room. Safety lies in passing
- 2:44:33Speaker 1: on swiftly into the inner chamber him that overcometh, Will
- 2:44:38Speaker 1: I make a pillar in the temple of My God,
- 2:44:41Speaker 1: and he shall go no more out Sutra fifty two.
- 2:44:47Speaker 1: From perfectly concentrated meditation on the divisions of time and
- 2:44:51Speaker 1: their succession comes that wisdom which is born of discernment.
- 2:44:56Speaker 1: The Upanishads say of the liberated that he has passed
- 2:45:00Speaker 1: beyond the triad of time. He no longer sees life
- 2:45:03Speaker 1: as projected into past, present, and future. Since these are
- 2:45:07Speaker 1: forms of the mind, but beholds all things spread out
- 2:45:10Speaker 1: in the quiet light of the eternal, this would seem
- 2:45:14Speaker 1: to be the same thought, and to point to that
- 2:45:16Speaker 1: clear eyed spiritual perception which is above time, that wisdom
- 2:45:20Speaker 1: born of the unveiling of time's delusion. Then shall the
- 2:45:24Speaker 1: disciple live neither in the present nor the future, but
- 2:45:27Speaker 1: in the eternal. Sutra fifty three. Hence comes discernment between
- 2:45:35Speaker 1: things which are of like nature, not distinguished by difference
- 2:45:39Speaker 1: of kind, character, or position. Here, as also in the
- 2:45:44Speaker 1: preceding sutra, we are close to the doctrine that distinctions
- 2:45:47Speaker 1: of order, time, and space are creations of the mind,
- 2:45:51Speaker 1: the threefold prism through which the real object appears to
- 2:45:54Speaker 1: us distorted and refracted. When the prism is withdrawn, the
- 2:45:59Speaker 1: object returned learns to its primal unity, no longer distinguishable
- 2:46:03Speaker 1: by the mind, yet clearly knowable by that high power
- 2:46:06Speaker 1: of spiritual discernment, of illumination, which is above the mind.
- 2:46:13Speaker 1: Sutra fifty four. The wisdom which is born of discernment
- 2:46:17Speaker 1: is starlike. It discerns all things and all conditions of things.
- 2:46:22Speaker 1: It discerns without succession simultaneously that wisdom. That intuitive divining
- 2:46:30Speaker 1: power is starlike, says the commentator, because it shines with
- 2:46:34Speaker 1: its own light, because it rises on high and illumines.
- 2:46:37Speaker 1: All things nought is hid from it, whether things past,
- 2:46:41Speaker 1: things present, or things to come, For it is beyond
- 2:46:44Speaker 1: the threefold form of time, so that all things are
- 2:46:47Speaker 1: spread before together in the single light of the divine.
- 2:46:51Speaker 1: This power has been beautifully described by Columba. Some there are,
- 2:46:56Speaker 1: though very few, to whom divine grace has granted this,
- 2:47:00Speaker 1: that they can clearly and most distinctly see, at one
- 2:47:03Speaker 1: and the same moment, as though under one ray of
- 2:47:06Speaker 1: the sun, even the entire circuit of the whole world,
- 2:47:09Speaker 1: with its surroundings of ocean and sky, the inmost part
- 2:47:13Speaker 1: of their mind being marvelously enlarged. Sutra fifty five. When
- 2:47:20Speaker 1: the vesture and the spiritual man are alike pure, then
- 2:47:24Speaker 1: perfect spiritual life is attained. The vesture, says the commentator,
- 2:47:30Speaker 1: must first be washed pure of all stains of passion
- 2:47:33Speaker 1: and darkness, and the seeds of future sorrow must be
- 2:47:36Speaker 1: burned up utterly. Then both the vesture and the wearer
- 2:47:40Speaker 1: of the vesture being alike pure, the spiritual man enters
- 2:47:44Speaker 1: into perfect spiritual life. End of Book three Introduction to
- 2:47:52Speaker 1: Book four. The third book of the Sutras has fairly
- 2:47:56Speaker 1: completed the history of the birth and growth of the
- 2:47:58Speaker 1: spiritual man, the enumeration of his powers, at least so
- 2:48:02Speaker 1: far as concerns that first epoch in his immortal life,
- 2:48:05Speaker 1: which immediately succeeds and supersedes the life of the natural man.
- 2:48:10Speaker 1: In the fourth book, we are to consider what one
- 2:48:12Speaker 1: might call the mechanism of salvation, the ideally simple working
- 2:48:16Speaker 1: of cosmic law, which brings the spiritual man to birth, growth,
- 2:48:20Speaker 1: and fullness of power, and prepares him for the splendid,
- 2:48:23Speaker 1: toilsome further stages of his great journey home. The Sutras
- 2:48:28Speaker 1: are here brief to obscurity. Only a few words, for example,
- 2:48:32Speaker 1: are given to the great triune mystery and illusion of time,
- 2:48:36Speaker 1: a phraser who indicates the sweep of some universal law.
- 2:48:40Speaker 1: Yet it is hoped that by keeping our eyes fixed
- 2:48:42Speaker 1: on the spiritual man, remembering that he is the hero
- 2:48:45Speaker 1: of the story, and that all that is written concerns
- 2:48:48Speaker 1: him and his adventures, we may be able to find
- 2:48:51Speaker 1: our way through this thicket of tangled words and keep
- 2:48:54Speaker 1: in our hands the clue to the mystery. The last
- 2:48:58Speaker 1: part of the last book needs little introduction. In a sense,
- 2:49:01Speaker 1: it is the most important part of the whole treatise,
- 2:49:04Speaker 1: since it unmasks the nature of the personality, that psychical mind,
- 2:49:08Speaker 1: which is the wakeful enemy of all who seek to
- 2:49:10Speaker 1: tread the path. Even now we can hear it whispering
- 2:49:14Speaker 1: the doubt whether that can be a good path, which
- 2:49:17Speaker 1: thus sets mind at defiance. If this then be the
- 2:49:21Speaker 1: most vital and fundamental part of the teaching, should it
- 2:49:24Speaker 1: not stand at the very beginning. It may seem so
- 2:49:27Speaker 1: at first, But had it stood there, we should not
- 2:49:30Speaker 1: have comprehended it. For he who would know the doctrine
- 2:49:33Speaker 1: must lead the life doing the will of his father,
- 2:49:37Speaker 1: which is in heaven. End of introduction to Book four,
- 2:49:43Speaker 1: Book four Sutra one. Psychic and spiritual powers may be inborn,
- 2:49:51Speaker 1: or they may be gained by the use of drugs,
- 2:49:54Speaker 1: or by incantations, or by fervor, or by meditation. Spiritual
- 2:50:02Speaker 1: powers have been enumerated and described in the preceding section.
- 2:50:06Speaker 1: They are the normal powers of the spiritual man, the antetype,
- 2:50:09Speaker 1: the divine edition of the powers of the natural man.
- 2:50:13Speaker 1: Through these powers, the spiritual man stands, sees, hears speaks
- 2:50:19Speaker 1: in the spiritual world, as the physical man stands sees
- 2:50:23Speaker 1: hears speaks in the natural world. There is a counterfeit
- 2:50:29Speaker 1: presentment of the spiritual man in the world of dreams,
- 2:50:32Speaker 1: a shadow, lord of shadows, who has his own dreamy
- 2:50:36Speaker 1: powers of vision, of hearing, of movement. He has left
- 2:50:40Speaker 1: the natural without reaching the spiritual. He has set forth
- 2:50:44Speaker 1: from the shore, but has not gained the further verge
- 2:50:47Speaker 1: of the river. He is borne along by the stream,
- 2:50:50Speaker 1: with no foothold on either shore, leaving the actual. He
- 2:50:55Speaker 1: has fallen short of the real, caught in the limbo
- 2:50:58Speaker 1: of vanities and illusions. The cause of this aberran phantasm
- 2:51:03Speaker 1: is always the worship of a false, vain self, the
- 2:51:07Speaker 1: lord of dreams within one's own breast. This is the
- 2:51:11Speaker 1: psychic man, lord of delusive and bewildering psychic powers. Spiritual powers,
- 2:51:19Speaker 1: like intellectual or artistic gifts, may be inborn the fruit,
- 2:51:24Speaker 1: that is, of seeds planted and reared with toil in
- 2:51:28Speaker 1: a former birth. So also the powers of the psychic
- 2:51:32Speaker 1: man may be inborn a delusive harvest from seeds of delusion.
- 2:51:39Speaker 1: Psychical powers may be gained by drugs, as poverty, shame,
- 2:51:43Speaker 1: debasement may be gained by the self. Same drugs. In
- 2:51:48Speaker 1: their action, they are baneful, cutting the man off from
- 2:51:51Speaker 1: consciousness of the restraining power of his divine nature, so
- 2:51:54Speaker 1: that his forces break forth exuberant like the laughter of drunkards,
- 2:51:59Speaker 1: and he sees in he things delusive. While sinking, he
- 2:52:03Speaker 1: believes that he has risen, growing weaker, he thinks himself
- 2:52:07Speaker 1: full of strength. Beholding illusions, he takes them to be true.
- 2:52:13Speaker 1: Such are the powers gained by drugs. They are holy psychic,
- 2:52:17Speaker 1: since the real powers, the spiritual, can never be so gained.
- 2:52:23Speaker 1: Incantations are affirmations of half truth concerning spirit and matter,
- 2:52:28Speaker 1: what is and what is not, which work upon the
- 2:52:30Speaker 1: mind and slowly build up a wraith of powers and
- 2:52:33Speaker 1: a delusive well being. These two are of the psychic
- 2:52:37Speaker 1: realm of dreams. Lastly, there are the true powers of
- 2:52:42Speaker 1: the spiritual man, built up and realized in meditation through
- 2:52:46Speaker 1: reverent obedience to spiritual law, to the pure condition of
- 2:52:50Speaker 1: being in the divine realm sutrato, the transfer of powers
- 2:52:59Speaker 1: from one venture to another comes through the flow of
- 2:53:02Speaker 1: the natural creative forces. Here, if we can perceive it
- 2:53:08Speaker 1: is the whole secret of spiritual birth, growth, and life.
- 2:53:12Speaker 1: Spiritual being, like all being, is but an expression of
- 2:53:16Speaker 1: the self, of the inherent power and being of Atma.
- 2:53:20Speaker 1: Inherent in the self are consciousness and will, which have
- 2:53:24Speaker 1: as their lordly heritage the wide sweep of the universe
- 2:53:27Speaker 1: throughout eternity. For the self is one with the eternal,
- 2:53:31Speaker 1: and the consciousness of the Self may make itself manifest
- 2:53:34Speaker 1: as seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, or whatsoever perceptive powers there
- 2:53:40Speaker 1: may be. Just as the white sunlight may divide into
- 2:53:43Speaker 1: many colored rays, so may the will of the self
- 2:53:47Speaker 1: manifest itself in the uttering of words, or in handling,
- 2:53:52Speaker 1: or in moving, and whatever powers of action there are
- 2:53:55Speaker 1: throughout the seven worlds. Where the Self is, there will
- 2:53:59Speaker 1: its power be. It is but a question of the
- 2:54:03Speaker 1: vesture through which these powers shall shine forth. And wherever
- 2:54:07Speaker 1: the consciousness and desire of the ever creative Self are fixed,
- 2:54:10Speaker 1: there will a vesture be built up. Where the heart is,
- 2:54:14Speaker 1: there will the treasure be also. Since through the ages
- 2:54:17Speaker 1: the desire of the Self has been toward the natural world,
- 2:54:21Speaker 1: wherein the self sought to mirror himself, that he may
- 2:54:23Speaker 1: know himself. Therefore a vesture of natural elements came into being,
- 2:54:28Speaker 1: through which blossomed forth the self's powers of perceiving and
- 2:54:30Speaker 1: of will, the power to see, to hear, to speak,
- 2:54:34Speaker 1: to walk, to handle. And when the self thus come
- 2:54:38Speaker 1: to self consciousness, and with it to a knowledge of
- 2:54:41Speaker 1: his imprisonment, shall set his desire on the divine and
- 2:54:44Speaker 1: real world, and raise his consciousness there too. The spiritual
- 2:54:48Speaker 1: vesture shall be built up for him there, with its
- 2:54:50Speaker 1: expression of his inherent powers. Nor will migration thither be
- 2:54:55Speaker 1: difficult for the self, since the divine is no strange
- 2:54:58Speaker 1: or form land for him, but the house of his home,
- 2:55:02Speaker 1: where he dwells. From Everlasting Sutra three, the apparent immediate
- 2:55:11Speaker 1: cause is not the true cause of the creative nature powers.
- 2:55:15Speaker 1: But like the husbandman in his field, it takes obstacles away.
- 2:55:21Speaker 1: The husbandman tills his field, breaking up the clods of
- 2:55:25Speaker 1: earth into fine mold, penetrable to air and rain. He
- 2:55:29Speaker 1: sows his seed, carefully covering it for fear of birds
- 2:55:32Speaker 1: and the wind. He waters the seed laden earth, turning
- 2:55:36Speaker 1: the little rills from the irrigation tank. Now this way
- 2:55:39Speaker 1: and that, removing obstacles from the channels, until the even
- 2:55:43Speaker 1: howl of water vitalizes the whole field, and so the
- 2:55:47Speaker 1: plants germinate and grow, first the blade, then the ear,
- 2:55:53Speaker 1: then the full corn in the ear. But it is
- 2:55:56Speaker 1: not the husbandman who makes them grow. It is first
- 2:56:00Speaker 1: the miraculous plasmic power in the grain of seed, which
- 2:56:04Speaker 1: brings forth after its kind. Then the alchemy of sunlight, which,
- 2:56:09Speaker 1: in the presence of the green coloring matter of leaves,
- 2:56:12Speaker 1: gathers hydrogen from the water and carbon from the gases
- 2:56:15Speaker 1: in the air, and mingles them in the hydrocarbons of
- 2:56:18Speaker 1: plant growth. And finally the holy occult vital powers of
- 2:56:22Speaker 1: the plant itself, stored up through ages and flowing down
- 2:56:26Speaker 1: from the primal sources of life. The husbandman but removes
- 2:56:31Speaker 1: the obstacles. He plants and waters, but God gives the increase.
- 2:56:38Speaker 1: So with the finer husbandman of diviner fields he tills
- 2:56:42Speaker 1: and sows. But the growth of the spiritual man comes
- 2:56:46Speaker 1: through the surge and flow of divine creative forces and powers.
- 2:56:50Speaker 1: Here again God gives the increase. The Divine Self puts
- 2:56:55Speaker 1: forth for the manifestation of its powers, a new and
- 2:56:59Speaker 1: finer vesture, the body of the spiritual man. Sutra four
- 2:57:08Speaker 1: Vestures of consciousness are built up in conformity with the
- 2:57:12Speaker 1: feeling of selfhood. The self, says a great teacher, in turn,
- 2:57:18Speaker 1: attaches itself to three vestures, first to the physical body,
- 2:57:23Speaker 1: then to the finer body, and thirdly to the puzzle body.
- 2:57:28Speaker 1: Finally it stands forth radiance, luminous, joyous as the self.
- 2:57:34Speaker 1: When the self attributes itself to the physical body, there
- 2:57:37Speaker 1: arises the states of bodily consciousness built up about the
- 2:57:41Speaker 1: physical self. When the self, breaking through this first illusion,
- 2:57:46Speaker 1: begins to see and feel itself in the finer body,
- 2:57:49Speaker 1: to find selfhood there, then the states of consciousness of
- 2:57:53Speaker 1: the finer body come into being. Or, to speak exactly,
- 2:57:57Speaker 1: the finer body and its states of consciousness a rise
- 2:58:00Speaker 1: and grow together. But the self must not dwell permanently there.
- 2:58:05Speaker 1: It must learn to find itself in the causal body,
- 2:58:09Speaker 1: to build up the wide and luminous fields of consciousness
- 2:58:12Speaker 1: that belong to that. Nor must it dwell forever there,
- 2:58:16Speaker 1: for there remains the fourth state, the divine, with its
- 2:58:20Speaker 1: own splendor and everlastingness. It is all a question of
- 2:58:25Speaker 1: the states of consciousness, all a question of raising the
- 2:58:28Speaker 1: sense of selfhood until it dwells forever in the eternal
- 2:58:36Speaker 1: sutrifive in the different fields of manifestation. The consciousness, though one,
- 2:58:44Speaker 1: is the elective cause of many states of consciousness. Here
- 2:58:49Speaker 1: is the splendid teaching of oneness that lies at the
- 2:58:52Speaker 1: heart of the Eastern wisdom. Consciousness is ultimately one, everywhere
- 2:58:57Speaker 1: and forever, the eternal the Father is the one's self
- 2:59:02Speaker 1: of all beings, and so in each individual, who is
- 2:59:06Speaker 1: but a facet of that self, consciousness is one. Whether
- 2:59:10Speaker 1: it breaks through as the dull fire of physical life,
- 2:59:14Speaker 1: or the murky flame of the psychic and passional, or
- 2:59:18Speaker 1: the radiance of the spiritual man, or the full glory
- 2:59:21Speaker 1: of the divine, it is ever the light, not but
- 2:59:25Speaker 1: the light. The one consciousness is the effective cause of
- 2:59:29Speaker 1: all states of consciousness on every plane. Sutra six. Among
- 2:59:39Speaker 1: states of consciousness, that which is born of contemplation is
- 2:59:43Speaker 1: free from the seed of future sorrow. Where the consciousness
- 2:59:49Speaker 1: breaks forth in the physical body and the full play
- 2:59:52Speaker 1: of bodily life begins, its progression carries with it inevitable limitations.
- 2:59:58Speaker 1: Birth involves death, Meetings have their partings, Hunger alternates with satiety,
- 3:00:07Speaker 1: Age follows on the heels of youth. So do the
- 3:00:11Speaker 1: states of consciousness run along the circle of birth and death.
- 3:00:16Speaker 1: With the psychic, the alternation between prize and penalty is swifter.
- 3:00:21Speaker 1: Hope has its shadow of fear, or it is no hope.
- 3:00:26Speaker 1: Exclusive love is tortured by jealousy. Pleasure passes through deadness
- 3:00:31Speaker 1: into pain. Pain, surcease brings pleasure back again. So here
- 3:00:37Speaker 1: too the states of consciousness run their circle. In all
- 3:00:41Speaker 1: psychic states there is egotism, which indeed is the very
- 3:00:45Speaker 1: essence of the psychic. And where there is egotism, there
- 3:00:48Speaker 1: is ever the seed of future sorrow. Desire carries bondage
- 3:00:53Speaker 1: in its womb. But where the pure spiritual consciousness begins,
- 3:00:58Speaker 1: free from self and stain, the ancient law of retaliation ceases,
- 3:01:03Speaker 1: the penalty of sorrow lapses and is no more imposed.
- 3:01:06Speaker 1: The soul now passes no longer from sorrow to sorrow,
- 3:01:11Speaker 1: but from glory to glory. Its growth and splendor have
- 3:01:14Speaker 1: no limit. The good passes to better best suit his seven.
- 3:01:25Speaker 1: The works of followers after union make neither for bright
- 3:01:28Speaker 1: pleasure nor for dark pain. The works of others make
- 3:01:33Speaker 1: for pleasure or pain, or a mingling of these. The
- 3:01:38Speaker 1: man of desire wins from his works the reward of
- 3:01:41Speaker 1: pleasure or incurs the penalty of pain, or, as so
- 3:01:45Speaker 1: often happens in life, his garden like the passionate mood
- 3:01:49Speaker 1: of the lover. His part pleasure and part pain. Works
- 3:01:53Speaker 1: done with self seeking bear within them the seeds of
- 3:01:56Speaker 1: future sorrow. Conversely, according to the present pain, his future gain.
- 3:02:04Speaker 1: But for him who is gone beyond desire, whose desire
- 3:02:07Speaker 1: is set on the eternal, neither pain to be avoided
- 3:02:10Speaker 1: nor pleasure to be gained inspires his work. He fears
- 3:02:14Speaker 1: no hell and desires no heaven. His one desire is
- 3:02:18Speaker 1: to know the will of the Father and finish his work.
- 3:02:21Speaker 1: He comes directly in line with the divine will, and
- 3:02:24Speaker 1: works cleanly and immediately, without longing or fear. His heart
- 3:02:29Speaker 1: dwells in the eternal. All his desires are set on
- 3:02:32Speaker 1: the eternal. Sutre eight. From the force inherent in works
- 3:02:40Speaker 1: comes the manifestation of those dynamic mind images which are
- 3:02:44Speaker 1: conformable to the ripening out of each of these works.
- 3:02:48Speaker 1: We are now to consider the general mechanism of karma,
- 3:02:51Speaker 1: in order that we may pass on to the consideration
- 3:02:53Speaker 1: of him who is free from karma. Karma, indeed, is
- 3:02:57Speaker 1: the concern of the personal man of his bondage freedom.
- 3:03:01Speaker 1: It is a succession of the forces which built up
- 3:03:03Speaker 1: the personal man, reproducing themselves in one personality after another. Now,
- 3:03:09Speaker 1: let us take an imaginary case to see how these
- 3:03:12Speaker 1: forces may work out. Let us think of a man
- 3:03:15Speaker 1: with murderous intent in his heart, striking with a dagger
- 3:03:19Speaker 1: at his enemy. He makes a red wound in his
- 3:03:22Speaker 1: victim's breast. At the same instant he paints in his
- 3:03:26Speaker 1: own mind a picture of that wound, a picture dynamic
- 3:03:30Speaker 1: with all the fierce will power he has put into
- 3:03:32Speaker 1: his murderous blow. In other words, he has made a
- 3:03:36Speaker 1: deep wound in his own psychic body. And when he
- 3:03:39Speaker 1: comes to be born again, that body will become his
- 3:03:42Speaker 1: outermost vesture, upon which, with its wound still there, bodily
- 3:03:46Speaker 1: tissue will be built up. So the man will be
- 3:03:49Speaker 1: born maimed or with the predisposition to some mortal injury.
- 3:03:53Speaker 1: He is unguarded at that point, and any trifling accidental
- 3:03:57Speaker 1: blow will pierce the broken joints of his psychic armour. Thus,
- 3:04:02Speaker 1: to the dynamic mind, images manifest themselves, coming to the surface,
- 3:04:06Speaker 1: so that works done in the past may ripen and
- 3:04:09Speaker 1: come to fruition sutur nine. Works separated by different nature
- 3:04:18Speaker 1: or place or time are brought together by the correspondence
- 3:04:21Speaker 1: between memory and dynamic impression. Just as in the ripening
- 3:04:27Speaker 1: out of mind images into bodily conditions, the effect is
- 3:04:31Speaker 1: brought about by the ray of creative force sent down
- 3:04:33Speaker 1: by the Self. Somewhat as the light of the magic
- 3:04:36Speaker 1: lantern projects the details of a picture on the screen,
- 3:04:39Speaker 1: revealing the hidden and making secret things palpable and visible.
- 3:04:44Speaker 1: So does this divine ray exercise a selective power on
- 3:04:46Speaker 1: thy dynamic mind images, bringing together into one day of
- 3:04:50Speaker 1: life the seeds gathered for many days. The memory constantly
- 3:04:54Speaker 1: exemplifies this power. A passage of poetry will call up
- 3:04:58Speaker 1: in the mind like passages of many poe read at
- 3:05:01Speaker 1: different times. So a prayer may call up many prayers
- 3:05:06Speaker 1: in like manner. The same overruling selective power, which is
- 3:05:11Speaker 1: a ray of the higher Self, gathers together from different
- 3:05:14Speaker 1: births and times and places those mind images which are
- 3:05:17Speaker 1: conformable and may be grouped in the frame of a
- 3:05:20Speaker 1: single life or a single event. Through this grouping, visible
- 3:05:24Speaker 1: body conditions or outward circumstances are brought about, and by
- 3:05:28Speaker 1: these the soul is taught and trained. Just as the
- 3:05:33Speaker 1: dynamic mind images of desire ripen out in bodily conditions
- 3:05:36Speaker 1: and circumstances, so the far more dynamic powers of aspiration,
- 3:05:41Speaker 1: wherein the soul reaches toward the eternal, have their fruition
- 3:05:44Speaker 1: in a finer world building the vesture of the spiritual man. Ten.
- 3:05:52Speaker 1: The series of dynamic mind images is beginningless because desire
- 3:05:56Speaker 1: is everlasting. The whole series of dynamic mind images, which
- 3:06:02Speaker 1: make up the entire history of the personal man, is
- 3:06:05Speaker 1: a part of the mechanism which the self employs to
- 3:06:07Speaker 1: mirror itself in a reflection, to embody its powers in
- 3:06:11Speaker 1: an outward form, to the end of self expression, self realization,
- 3:06:16Speaker 1: self knowledge. Therefore, the initial impulse behind these dynamic mind
- 3:06:21Speaker 1: images comes from the self and is the descending ray
- 3:06:24Speaker 1: of the self, so that it cannot be said that
- 3:06:26Speaker 1: there is any first member of the series of images
- 3:06:29Speaker 1: from which the rest arose. The impulse is beginningless since
- 3:06:33Speaker 1: it comes from the Self, which is everlast. Desire is
- 3:06:37Speaker 1: not to cease, it is to turn to the eternal
- 3:06:41Speaker 1: and so become aspiration. Sutra eleven. Since the dynamic mind
- 3:06:50Speaker 1: images are held together by impulses of desire, by the
- 3:06:53Speaker 1: wish for personal reward, by the substratum of mental habit,
- 3:06:58Speaker 1: by the support of outer things desire. Therefore, when these cease,
- 3:07:02Speaker 1: the self reproduction of dynamic mind images ceases. We are
- 3:07:08Speaker 1: still concerned with the personal life in its bodily vesture,
- 3:07:12Speaker 1: and with the process whereby the forces which have upheld
- 3:07:15Speaker 1: it are gradually transferred to the life of the spiritual
- 3:07:18Speaker 1: man and build up for him his finer vesture in
- 3:07:21Speaker 1: a finer world. How is the current to be changed?
- 3:07:25Speaker 1: How is the flow of self reproductive mind images, which
- 3:07:29Speaker 1: have built the conditions of life after life in this
- 3:07:31Speaker 1: world of bondage to be checked? That the time of
- 3:07:34Speaker 1: imprisonment may come to an end the day of libration dawn.
- 3:07:39Speaker 1: The answer is given in the suitre just translated. The
- 3:07:42Speaker 1: driving force is withdrawn and directed to the upbuilding of
- 3:07:45Speaker 1: the spiritual body. When the building impulses and forces are withdrawn,
- 3:07:50Speaker 1: the tendency to manifest a new psychical body, a new
- 3:07:54Speaker 1: body of bondage ceases with them suit or twelve. The
- 3:08:03Speaker 1: difference between that which is past and that which has
- 3:08:06Speaker 1: not yet come, According to their natures, depends on the
- 3:08:09Speaker 1: difference a phase of their properties. Here we come to
- 3:08:14Speaker 1: a high and difficult matter which has always been held
- 3:08:17Speaker 1: to be of great moment in the Eastern wisdom, the
- 3:08:20Speaker 1: thought that the division of time into past, present, and
- 3:08:23Speaker 1: future is in great measure an illusion, that past, present,
- 3:08:28Speaker 1: future all dwell together in the eternal now. The discernment
- 3:08:34Speaker 1: of this truth has been held to be so necessarily
- 3:08:37Speaker 1: a part of wisdom that one of the names of
- 3:08:39Speaker 1: the enlightened is he who has passed beyond the three times, past, present, future.
- 3:08:47Speaker 1: So the Western Master said before Abraham, was I am,
- 3:08:51Speaker 1: and again I am with you, always unto the end
- 3:08:54Speaker 1: of the world. Using the eternal present for past and
- 3:08:58Speaker 1: future alike with the same purpose, the Master speaks of
- 3:09:02Speaker 1: himself as the Alpha and the omega, the beginning and
- 3:09:06Speaker 1: the end, the first and the last, and a master
- 3:09:10Speaker 1: of our own days. Writes, I feel even irritated at
- 3:09:13Speaker 1: having to use these three clumsy words, past, present, and future,
- 3:09:19Speaker 1: miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective whole.
- 3:09:23Speaker 1: They are about as ill adapted for the purpose as
- 3:09:26Speaker 1: an axe for fine carving in the eternal now, both
- 3:09:31Speaker 1: past and future are consummated. Bjorklund, the Swedish philosopher has
- 3:09:37Speaker 1: Well stated the same truth. Neither past nor future can exist.
- 3:09:42Speaker 1: To God, he lives undividedly without limitations, and needs not
- 3:09:47Speaker 1: as man to plot out his existence in a series
- 3:09:49Speaker 1: of moments. Eternity, then, is not identical with unending time.
- 3:09:54Speaker 1: It is a different form of existence related to time
- 3:09:57Speaker 1: as the perfect to the imperfect. Man as an entity
- 3:10:00Speaker 1: for himself, must have the natural limitations for the part
- 3:10:05Speaker 1: conceived by God. Man is eternal in the divine sense,
- 3:10:09Speaker 1: but conceived by himself. Man's eternal life is clothed in
- 3:10:13Speaker 1: the limitations we call time. The eternal is a constant
- 3:10:16Speaker 1: present without beginning or end, without past or future Sutra thirteen.
- 3:10:26Speaker 1: These properties, whether manifest or latent, are of the nature
- 3:10:29Speaker 1: of the three potencies. The three potencies are the three
- 3:10:34Speaker 1: manifested modifications of the one primal material, which stands opposite
- 3:10:38Speaker 1: to perceiving consciousness. These three potencies are called substance, force, darkness,
- 3:10:47Speaker 1: or viewed rather for their moral coloring goodness, passion, inertness.
- 3:10:54Speaker 1: Every material manifestation is a projection of substance into the
- 3:10:58Speaker 1: empty space of darkness. Every mental state is either good
- 3:11:03Speaker 1: or passional, or inert. So whether subjective or objective, latent
- 3:11:08Speaker 1: or manifest. All things that present themselves to the perceiving
- 3:11:12Speaker 1: consciousness are compounded of these three. This is a fundamental
- 3:11:16Speaker 1: doctrine of the Sanchia system Sutra fourteen. The external manifestation
- 3:11:24Speaker 1: of an object takes place when the transformations are in
- 3:11:27Speaker 1: the same phase. We should be inclined to express the
- 3:11:31Speaker 1: same law by saying, for example, that a sound is
- 3:11:34Speaker 1: audible when it consists of vibrations within the compass of
- 3:11:36Speaker 1: the auditory nerve. That an object is visible when, either
- 3:11:40Speaker 1: directly or by reflection, it sends forth luminiferous vibrations within
- 3:11:44Speaker 1: the compass of the retina, and the optic nerve vibrations
- 3:11:48Speaker 1: below or above that compass make no impression at all,
- 3:11:50Speaker 1: and the object remains invisible, as for example, a kettle
- 3:11:54Speaker 1: of boiling water in a dark room, though the kettle
- 3:11:57Speaker 1: is sending forth heat vibrations closely akin toilight. So when
- 3:12:02Speaker 1: the vibrations of the object and those of the perceptive
- 3:12:04Speaker 1: power are in the same phase, the external manifestation of
- 3:12:07Speaker 1: the object takes place. There seems to be a further
- 3:12:11Speaker 1: suggestion that the appearance of an object in the present
- 3:12:15Speaker 1: or its remaining hidden. The past or future is likewise
- 3:12:19Speaker 1: a question of phase, and just as the range of
- 3:12:22Speaker 1: vibrations perceived might be increased by the development of finer senses,
- 3:12:26Speaker 1: so the perception of things past and things to come
- 3:12:30Speaker 1: may be easy from a higher point of view. Sutra fifteen.
- 3:12:37Speaker 1: The paths of material things and of states of consciousness
- 3:12:40Speaker 1: are distinct, as is manifest from the fact that the
- 3:12:43Speaker 1: same object may produce different impressions in different minds. Having
- 3:12:49Speaker 1: shown that our bodily condition and circumstances depend on karma,
- 3:12:53Speaker 1: while karma depends on perception and will, the sage recognizes
- 3:12:57Speaker 1: the fact that from this may be drawn the false
- 3:12:59Speaker 1: to day action that material things are no wise different
- 3:13:02Speaker 1: from states of minds. The same thought has occurred and
- 3:13:05Speaker 1: still occurs to all philosophers, and by various reasonings, they
- 3:13:09Speaker 1: all come to the same wise conclusion that the material
- 3:13:13Speaker 1: world is not made by the mood of any human mind,
- 3:13:16Speaker 1: but is rather the manifestation of the totality of invisible being,
- 3:13:20Speaker 1: whether we call this mahat with the ancients or ether
- 3:13:24Speaker 1: with the moderns Sutra sixteen. Nor do material objects depend
- 3:13:33Speaker 1: upon a single mind, for how could they remain objective
- 3:13:36Speaker 1: to others if that mind ceased to think of them.
- 3:13:42Speaker 1: This is but a further development of the thought of
- 3:13:44Speaker 1: the perceiving Sutra, carrying on the thought that while the
- 3:13:47Speaker 1: universe is spiritual, yet its material expression is ordered consistent
- 3:13:52Speaker 1: rules by law, not subject to the whims or affirmations
- 3:13:56Speaker 1: of a single mind. Unwelcome material things may be escaped
- 3:13:59Speaker 1: by spiritual growth, by rising to a realm above them,
- 3:14:03Speaker 1: and not by denying their existence on their own plane,
- 3:14:07Speaker 1: so that our system is neither materialistic nor idealistic in
- 3:14:11Speaker 1: the extreme sense, but rather intuitional and spiritual, holding that
- 3:14:15Speaker 1: matter is the manifestation of spirit as a whole, a
- 3:14:18Speaker 1: reflection or externalization of spirit, and like spirit everywhere obedient
- 3:14:23Speaker 1: to law. The path of liberation is not through denial
- 3:14:27Speaker 1: of matter, but through denial of the wills of self,
- 3:14:31Speaker 1: through obedience and that aspiration which builds the vesture of
- 3:14:35Speaker 1: the spiritual man Suitra seventeen. An object is perceived or
- 3:14:44Speaker 1: not perceived, according as the mind is or is not
- 3:14:47Speaker 1: tinged with the color of the object. The simplest manifestation
- 3:14:53Speaker 1: of this is the matter of attention. Our minds apprehend
- 3:14:57Speaker 1: what they wish to apprehend, all else passes unnoticed, or
- 3:15:02Speaker 1: on the other hand, we perceive what we resent, as
- 3:15:06Speaker 1: for example, the noise of a passing train, while others
- 3:15:10Speaker 1: used to the sound do not notice it at all.
- 3:15:14Speaker 1: But the deeper meaning is that, out of the vast
- 3:15:16Speaker 1: totality of objects ever present in the universe, the mind
- 3:15:20Speaker 1: perceives only those which can form to the hue of
- 3:15:23Speaker 1: its karma. The rest remain unseen, even though close at hand.
- 3:15:29Speaker 1: This spiritual law has been well expressed by Emerson. Through
- 3:15:34Speaker 1: solidest eternal things, the man finds his road as if
- 3:15:38Speaker 1: they did not subsist, and does not once suspect their being.
- 3:15:42Speaker 1: As soon as he needs a new object, suddenly he
- 3:15:44Speaker 1: beholds it and no longer attempts to pass through it,
- 3:15:48Speaker 1: but takes another way. When he has exhausted for the
- 3:15:52Speaker 1: time the nourishment to be drawn from any one person
- 3:15:55Speaker 1: or thing, that object is withdrawn from his observation, and
- 3:15:59Speaker 1: though still in his immediate neighborhood, he does not suspect
- 3:16:02Speaker 1: its presence. Nothing is dead. Men feign themselves dead and
- 3:16:08Speaker 1: endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries, And there they stand,
- 3:16:13Speaker 1: looking out of the window, sound and well in some
- 3:16:16Speaker 1: new and strange disguise. Jesus is not dead, he is
- 3:16:21Speaker 1: very well alive. Nor John, nor Paul, nor Mahomet nor Aristotle.
- 3:16:29Speaker 1: At times we believe we have seen them all and
- 3:16:32Speaker 1: could easily tell the names under which they go Sutra eighteen.
- 3:16:41Speaker 1: The movements of the psychic nature are perpetually objects of perception,
- 3:16:45Speaker 1: since the spiritual man, who is the lord of them,
- 3:16:48Speaker 1: remains unchanging. Here is teaching of the utmost import both
- 3:16:53Speaker 1: for understanding and for practice. To the psychic nature. Belong
- 3:16:59Speaker 1: all the ebb and flow of emotion, all hoping and fearing,
- 3:17:02Speaker 1: desire and hate, the things that make the multitude of
- 3:17:06Speaker 1: men and women deem themselves happy or miserable. To it.
- 3:17:10Speaker 1: Also belong the measuring and comparing, the doubt and questioning, which,
- 3:17:14Speaker 1: for the same multitude make up mental life. So that
- 3:17:18Speaker 1: there results the emotion soaked personality, with its dark and
- 3:17:21Speaker 1: narrow view of life, the shivering, terror driven personality that
- 3:17:25Speaker 1: is life itself for all but all of mankind. Yet
- 3:17:32Speaker 1: the personality is not the true man, not the living
- 3:17:34Speaker 1: soul at all, but only a spectacle which the true
- 3:17:37Speaker 1: man observes. Let us understand this, therefore, and er ourselves
- 3:17:42Speaker 1: up inwardly to the height of the spiritual man, who,
- 3:17:45Speaker 1: standing in the quiet light of the eternal, looks down
- 3:17:48Speaker 1: serene upon this turmoil of the outer life. One first
- 3:17:55Speaker 1: masters the personality the mind by thus looking down on
- 3:17:58Speaker 1: it from above from within, by steadily watching its ebb
- 3:18:01Speaker 1: and flow as objective outward and therefore not the real self.
- 3:18:07Speaker 1: This standing back is the first step detachment. The second
- 3:18:12Speaker 1: to maintain the vantage ground thus gained is recollection Suitour nineteen.
- 3:18:22Speaker 1: The mind is not self luminous, since it can be
- 3:18:25Speaker 1: seen as an object. This is a further step toward
- 3:18:30Speaker 1: overthrowing the tyranny of the mind, the psychic nature of
- 3:18:33Speaker 1: emotion and mental measuring this psychic self, the personality claims
- 3:18:37Speaker 1: to be absolute, asserting that life is ferish, and through
- 3:18:40Speaker 1: it it seeks to impose on the whole being of
- 3:18:42Speaker 1: man its narrow, materialistic, faithless view of life and the universe.
- 3:18:47Speaker 1: It would clip the wings of the soaring soul. But
- 3:18:51Speaker 1: the soul dethrones the tyrant by perceiving and steadfastly affirming
- 3:18:56Speaker 1: that the psychic self is no true self at all,
- 3:18:58Speaker 1: not self luminous, but only an object of observation watched
- 3:19:02Speaker 1: by the serene eyes of the spiritual man suit or twenty.
- 3:19:11Speaker 1: Nor could the mind at the same time know itself
- 3:19:13Speaker 1: and things external to it suit Or twenty. Nor could
- 3:19:20Speaker 1: the mind at the same time know itself and things
- 3:19:22Speaker 1: external to it. The truth is that the mind knows
- 3:19:26Speaker 1: neither external things, nor itself. Its measuring and analyzing, its
- 3:19:30Speaker 1: hoping and fearing, hating and desiring never give it a
- 3:19:34Speaker 1: true measure of life, nor any sense of real values.
- 3:19:38Speaker 1: Ceaselessly active, it never really attains to knowledge, or if
- 3:19:42Speaker 1: we admit its knowledge, it ever falls short of wisdom,
- 3:19:45Speaker 1: which comes only through intuition. The vision of the spiritual
- 3:19:48Speaker 1: man life cannot be known by the mind. Its secrets
- 3:19:52Speaker 1: cannot be learned through the mind. The proof is the
- 3:19:56Speaker 1: ceaseless strife and contradictions of opinion among those who trust
- 3:19:59Speaker 1: in them mind. Much less can the mind know itself,
- 3:20:03Speaker 1: the more so because it is pervaded by the illusion
- 3:20:05Speaker 1: that it truly knows truly is true. Knowledge of the
- 3:20:10Speaker 1: mind comes first when the spiritual man arising, stands detached,
- 3:20:15Speaker 1: regarding the mind from above with quiet eyes and seeing
- 3:20:18Speaker 1: it for the tangled web of psychic forces that it
- 3:20:21Speaker 1: truly is. But the truth is divined long before it
- 3:20:24Speaker 1: is clearly seen, and then begins the long battle of
- 3:20:27Speaker 1: the mind against the real, the mind fighting doggedly, craftly
- 3:20:32Speaker 1: for its supremacy suit Tra. Twenty one. If the mind
- 3:20:40Speaker 1: be thought of as seen by another more inward mind,
- 3:20:44Speaker 1: then there would be an endless series of perceiving minds
- 3:20:47Speaker 1: and a confusion of memories. One of the expedients by
- 3:20:53Speaker 1: which the mind seeks to deny and thwart the soul
- 3:20:56Speaker 1: when it feels that it is beginning to be circumvented
- 3:20:59Speaker 1: and seen through, is to assert that this seeing is
- 3:21:02Speaker 1: the work of a part of itself, one part observing
- 3:21:04Speaker 1: the other, and thus leaving no need nor place for
- 3:21:08Speaker 1: the spiritual man to this strategy. The argument is opposed
- 3:21:12Speaker 1: by our philosopher that this would be no true solution,
- 3:21:16Speaker 1: but only a postponement of the solution, for we should
- 3:21:19Speaker 1: have to find yet another part of the mind to
- 3:21:21Speaker 1: view the first observing part, and then another to observe this,
- 3:21:24Speaker 1: and so on endlessly. The true solution is that the
- 3:21:29Speaker 1: spiritual man looks down upon the psychic nature and observes
- 3:21:32Speaker 1: it when he views the psychic picture's gallery. This is memory,
- 3:21:37Speaker 1: which would be a hopeless inextricable confusion. If we thought
- 3:21:40Speaker 1: of one part of the mind with its memories, viewing
- 3:21:42Speaker 1: another part with memories of its own, the solution of
- 3:21:46Speaker 1: the mystery lies not in the mind, but beyond it
- 3:21:50Speaker 1: and the luminous life of the risen lord, the spiritual
- 3:21:54Speaker 1: man suit Your twenty two. When the psychical nature takes
- 3:22:01Speaker 1: on the form of the spiritual intelligence by reflecting it,
- 3:22:05Speaker 1: then the self becomes conscious of its own spiritual intelligence.
- 3:22:11Speaker 1: We are considering a stage of spiritual life at which
- 3:22:14Speaker 1: the psychical nature has been cleansed and purified. Formerly it
- 3:22:19Speaker 1: reflected in its plastic substance the images of the earthy, purified,
- 3:22:24Speaker 1: Now it reflects the image of the heavenly, giving the
- 3:22:27Speaker 1: spiritual intelligence a visible form. The self beholding that visible
- 3:22:32Speaker 1: form in which its spiritual intelligence has, as it were,
- 3:22:36Speaker 1: taken palpable shape, thereby reaches self recognition, self comprehension. The
- 3:22:42Speaker 1: self sees itself in this mirror, and thus becomes not
- 3:22:45Speaker 1: only conscious, but self conscious. This is, from one point
- 3:22:49Speaker 1: of view, the purpose of the whole evolutionary process. Suture
- 3:22:57Speaker 1: twenty three. The psychic nature taking on the color of
- 3:23:02Speaker 1: the sere and of things seen, leads to the perception
- 3:23:05Speaker 1: of all objects. In the unregenerate man, the psychic nature
- 3:23:12Speaker 1: is saturated with images of material things, of things seen
- 3:23:15Speaker 1: or heard, or tasted or felt, and this web of
- 3:23:18Speaker 1: dynamic images forms the ordinary material and driving power of life.
- 3:23:23Speaker 1: The sensation of sweet things tasted clamors to be renewed
- 3:23:27Speaker 1: and drives the man into effort to obtain its renewal.
- 3:23:30Speaker 1: So he adds image to image, each dynamic and importunate,
- 3:23:34Speaker 1: piling up sin's intolerable burden. Then comes regeneration and the
- 3:23:40Speaker 1: washing away of sin through the fiery creative power of
- 3:23:43Speaker 1: the soul, which burns out the stains of the psychic gesture,
- 3:23:46Speaker 1: purifying it as gold is refined in the furnace. The
- 3:23:49Speaker 1: suffering of regeneration springs from this indispensable purifying. Then the
- 3:23:55Speaker 1: psychic gesture begins to take on the color of the soul,
- 3:23:58Speaker 1: no longer stained, but sephie used with golden light, and
- 3:24:02Speaker 1: the man red generate gleams with the radiance of eternity.
- 3:24:07Speaker 1: Thus the spiritual man puts on fair raiment for of
- 3:24:10Speaker 1: this cleansing. It is said, through your sins be as scarlet,
- 3:24:14Speaker 1: they shall be white as snow, though they be as crimson,
- 3:24:18Speaker 1: they shall be as wool Suitra twenty four. The psychic nature,
- 3:24:27Speaker 1: which has been printed with mind images of innumerable material things,
- 3:24:30Speaker 1: exists now for the spiritual man, building for him the mind,
- 3:24:36Speaker 1: once the tyrant, is now the slave, recognized as outward separate,
- 3:24:41Speaker 1: not self a well trained instrument to the spiritual man.
- 3:24:46Speaker 1: For it is not ordained for the spiritual man that,
- 3:24:49Speaker 1: finding his high realm, he shall enter altogether there and
- 3:24:52Speaker 1: pass out of the vision of mankind. It is true
- 3:24:55Speaker 1: that he dwells in heaven, but he also dwells on earth.
- 3:24:58Speaker 1: He has angels and archangels, the hosts of the just
- 3:25:01Speaker 1: made perfect for his familiar friends. But he has at
- 3:25:04Speaker 1: the same time found a new kinship with the prone
- 3:25:06Speaker 1: children of men, who stumble and sin in the dark.
- 3:25:10Speaker 1: Finding sinlessness, he finds also that the world's sin and
- 3:25:13Speaker 1: shame are his, not to share, but to atone. Finding
- 3:25:17Speaker 1: kinship with angels, he likewise finds his part in the
- 3:25:20Speaker 1: toil of angels, the toil for the redemption of the world.
- 3:25:24Speaker 1: For this work, he who now stands in the heavenly realm,
- 3:25:28Speaker 1: needs his instrument on earth. In this instrument he finds
- 3:25:32Speaker 1: ready to his hand, and fitted and perfected by the
- 3:25:35Speaker 1: very struggles he has waged against it and the personality
- 3:25:38Speaker 1: the mind of the personal man, this one's tyrant is
- 3:25:43Speaker 1: now his servant and perfect ambassador, bearing witness before men
- 3:25:47Speaker 1: of heavenly things, and even in this present world, doing
- 3:25:50Speaker 1: the will and working the works of the Father Suitra
- 3:25:56Speaker 1: twenty five. For him who discerns between the mind and
- 3:26:00Speaker 1: the spiritual man, there comes perfect fruition of the longing
- 3:26:04Speaker 1: after the real being of the self. How many times
- 3:26:08Speaker 1: in the long struggle have the soul's aspirations seemed but
- 3:26:11Speaker 1: a hopeless, impossible dream, a madman's counsel of perfection. Yet
- 3:26:16Speaker 1: every finest, most impossible aspiration shall be realized, and ten
- 3:26:20Speaker 1: times more than realized, once the long, arduous fight against
- 3:26:23Speaker 1: the mind and the mind's world view is one, And
- 3:26:27Speaker 1: then it will be seen that unfaith and despair were
- 3:26:29Speaker 1: but weapons of the minds to daunt the soul and
- 3:26:32Speaker 1: put off the day when the neck of the mind
- 3:26:34Speaker 1: shall be put under the foot of the soul. Have
- 3:26:38Speaker 1: you aspired well nigh hopeless after immortality he shall be
- 3:26:41Speaker 1: paid by entering the immortality of God. Have you aspired
- 3:26:45Speaker 1: in misery and pain? After consoling healing love, you shall
- 3:26:49Speaker 1: be made a dispenser of the divine love of God
- 3:26:51Speaker 1: himself to weary souls. Have you sought ardently in your
- 3:26:56Speaker 1: day of feebleness. After power, you shall wield power immortal, infinite,
- 3:27:01Speaker 1: with God working the works of God. Have you, in
- 3:27:06Speaker 1: lonely darkness longed for companionship and consolation. You shall have
- 3:27:11Speaker 1: angels and archangels for your friends and all the immortal
- 3:27:13Speaker 1: hosts of the dawn. These are the fruits of victory.
- 3:27:17Speaker 1: Therefore overcome, these are the prizes of regeneration. Therefore, die
- 3:27:23Speaker 1: to self, that you may rise again to God suit
- 3:27:28Speaker 1: your twenty six. Thereafter, the whole personal being bends towards illumination,
- 3:27:34Speaker 1: toward eternal life. This is part of the secret of
- 3:27:39Speaker 1: the soul. That salvation means not merely that a soul
- 3:27:42Speaker 1: shall be cleansed and raised to heaven, but that the
- 3:27:44Speaker 1: whole realm of the natural power shall be redeemed. Building
- 3:27:48Speaker 1: up even in this present world the kingly figure of
- 3:27:50Speaker 1: the spiritual man. The traditions of the ages are full
- 3:27:53Speaker 1: of his footsteps. Majestic, uncomprehended shadows, myths, demi gods fill
- 3:27:59Speaker 1: the memories of all the nobler peoples. But the time
- 3:28:02Speaker 1: cometh when he shall be known no longer demigod, nor myth,
- 3:28:06Speaker 1: nor shadow, but the ever present Redeemer, working amid man
- 3:28:10Speaker 1: for the life and cleansing of all souls Suitra twenty seven.
- 3:28:17Speaker 1: In the eternals of the batique, other thoughts will arise
- 3:28:20Speaker 1: through the impression of the dynamic mind images. The battle
- 3:28:25Speaker 1: is long and arduous. Let there be no mistake as
- 3:28:28Speaker 1: to that go not forth to this battle without counting
- 3:28:31Speaker 1: the cost ages have gone to the strengthening of the foe.
- 3:28:35Speaker 1: Ages of conflict must be spent ere the foe, wholly conquered,
- 3:28:38Speaker 1: becomes a servant. The souls minister to mankind. And from
- 3:28:43Speaker 1: these long past ages, in hours when the contest flags
- 3:28:46Speaker 1: will come new foes, mind born children springing up to
- 3:28:49Speaker 1: fight for mind reinforcements coming from forgotten years, forgotten lives.
- 3:28:55Speaker 1: For once this conflict is begun, it can be ended
- 3:28:58Speaker 1: only by sweeping victory, an unconditional, unreserved surrender of the
- 3:29:02Speaker 1: vanquished suitor. Twenty eight. These are to be overcome, as
- 3:29:10Speaker 1: it was taught that hindrances should be overcome. These new
- 3:29:15Speaker 1: enemies and fears are to be overcome by ceaselessly renewing
- 3:29:18Speaker 1: the fight, by a steadfast, dogged persistence, whether in victory
- 3:29:22Speaker 1: or defeat, which shall put the stubbornness of the rocks
- 3:29:24Speaker 1: to shame. For the soul is older than all things
- 3:29:27Speaker 1: and invincible. It is of the very nature of the
- 3:29:30Speaker 1: soul to be unconquerable. Therefore, fight on undaunted, knowing that
- 3:29:35Speaker 1: the spiritual will, once awakened, shall through the effort of
- 3:29:38Speaker 1: the contest, come to its full strength. That ground gained
- 3:29:42Speaker 1: can be held permanently. That great as is the dead
- 3:29:45Speaker 1: weight of the adversary, it is yet measurable. While the
- 3:29:49Speaker 1: warrior who fights for you, for whom you fight, is
- 3:29:52Speaker 1: in might immeasurable, invincible, everlasting suit youre twenty nine. He who,
- 3:30:01Speaker 1: after he has attained is wholly free fro himself, reaches
- 3:30:05Speaker 1: the essence of all that can be known, gathered together
- 3:30:08Speaker 1: like a cloud, this is the true spiritual consciousness. It
- 3:30:13Speaker 1: has been said that at the beginning of the way
- 3:30:15Speaker 1: we must kill out ambition, the great curse, the giant weed,
- 3:30:19Speaker 1: which grows as strongly in the heart of the devoted
- 3:30:21Speaker 1: disciple as in the man of desire. The remedy is
- 3:30:24Speaker 1: sacrifice of self, obedience, humility, that purity of heart which
- 3:30:29Speaker 1: gives the vision of God. Thereafter, he who has attained
- 3:30:33Speaker 1: is wrapt about with the essence of all that can
- 3:30:35Speaker 1: be known, as with a cloud. He has that perfect
- 3:30:38Speaker 1: illumination which is the true spiritual consciousness. Through obedience to
- 3:30:42Speaker 1: the will of God, he comes into oneness of being
- 3:30:45Speaker 1: with God. He is initiated into God's view of the universe,
- 3:30:48Speaker 1: seeing all life as God sees it Sutra thirty. Thereon
- 3:30:56Speaker 1: comes surcease from sorrow and the burden of soil. Such
- 3:31:01Speaker 1: a one, it is said, is free from the bond
- 3:31:04Speaker 1: of karma, from the burden of toil, from that debt
- 3:31:07Speaker 1: to works which come from works done in self love
- 3:31:09Speaker 1: and desire, free from self will, he is free from
- 3:31:12Speaker 1: sorrow too, for sorrow comes from the fight of self
- 3:31:15Speaker 1: will against the divine will, through the correcting stress of
- 3:31:19Speaker 1: the divine will, which seeks to counteract the evil wrought
- 3:31:22Speaker 1: by disobedience. When the conflict with the divine will ceases,
- 3:31:26Speaker 1: then sorrow ceases, and he who has grown into obedience
- 3:31:29Speaker 1: thereby enters into joy Sutra thirty one. When all veils
- 3:31:37Speaker 1: are rent, all stains washed away, his knowledge becomes infinite,
- 3:31:41Speaker 1: little remains for him to know. The first veil is
- 3:31:46Speaker 1: the delusion that thy soul is in some permanent way
- 3:31:48Speaker 1: separate from the great soul, the divine eternal. When that
- 3:31:52Speaker 1: veil is rent, thou shalt discern thy oneness with everlasting life.
- 3:31:56Speaker 1: The second veil is the delusion of enduring separateness from
- 3:31:59Speaker 1: thy other selves. Whereas in truth, the soul that is
- 3:32:02Speaker 1: in them is one with the soul that is in thee.
- 3:32:05Speaker 1: The world sin and shame are thy sin and shame
- 3:32:08Speaker 1: its joy. Also these vales rent, thou shalt enter into
- 3:32:12Speaker 1: knowledge of divine things and human things. Little will remain
- 3:32:16Speaker 1: unknown to thee Sutra thirty two. Thereafter comes the completion
- 3:32:24Speaker 1: of the series of transformations of the three nature potencies.
- 3:32:28Speaker 1: Since their purpose is attained. It is a part of
- 3:32:33Speaker 1: the beauty and wisdom of the great Indian teachings, the
- 3:32:36Speaker 1: Vedanta and the Yoga alike to hold that all life
- 3:32:39Speaker 1: exists for the purposes of the soul, for the making
- 3:32:42Speaker 1: of the spiritual man. They teach that all nature is
- 3:32:45Speaker 1: an orderly process of evolution leading up to this, designed
- 3:32:48Speaker 1: for this end, existing only for this to bring forth
- 3:32:52Speaker 1: and perfect the spiritual man, he is the crown of evolution.
- 3:32:56Speaker 1: At his coming, the goal of all development is attained
- 3:33:03Speaker 1: Suitra thirty three. The series of transformations is divided into moments.
- 3:33:08Speaker 1: When the series is completed, time gives place to duration.
- 3:33:15Speaker 1: There are two kinds of eternity, says the commentary, the
- 3:33:18Speaker 1: eternity of immortal life, which belongs to the spirit, and
- 3:33:22Speaker 1: the eternity of change, which inheres in nature, in all
- 3:33:26Speaker 1: that is not spirit. While we are content to live
- 3:33:30Speaker 1: in and for nature in the circle of necessity Sansara,
- 3:33:34Speaker 1: we doom ourselves to perpetual change. That which is born
- 3:33:38Speaker 1: must die, and that which dies must be reborn. It
- 3:33:41Speaker 1: is change evermore, a ceaseless series of transformations. But the
- 3:33:46Speaker 1: spiritual man enters a new order. For him, there is
- 3:33:49Speaker 1: no longer eternal change, but eternal being. He has entered
- 3:33:54Speaker 1: into the joy of his Lord. This spiritual birth, which
- 3:33:58Speaker 1: makes him heir of the ever life using sets a
- 3:34:01Speaker 1: term to change. It is the culmination, the crowning transformation
- 3:34:05Speaker 1: of the whole realm of change. Sutra thirty four. Pure
- 3:34:13Speaker 1: spiritual life is therefore the inverse resolution of the potencies
- 3:34:17Speaker 1: of nature, which have emptied themselves of their value for
- 3:34:20Speaker 1: the spiritual man, or it is the return of the
- 3:34:23Speaker 1: power of pure consciousness to its essential form. Here we
- 3:34:28Speaker 1: have a splendid generalization in which our wise philosopher finally
- 3:34:32Speaker 1: reconciles the naturalists and the idealists, expressing the crown and
- 3:34:37Speaker 1: end of his teaching, first in the terms of the naturalist,
- 3:34:40Speaker 1: and then in the terms of the idealist. The birth
- 3:34:44Speaker 1: and growth of the spiritual man and his entry into
- 3:34:47Speaker 1: his immortal heritage may be regarded, says our philosopher, either
- 3:34:52Speaker 1: as the culmination of the whole process of natural evolution
- 3:34:55Speaker 1: and involution, where that which flowed from out the boundless
- 3:34:59Speaker 1: deep turn again home. Or it may be looked at
- 3:35:03Speaker 1: as the videntants look at it, as the restoration of
- 3:35:05Speaker 1: pure spiritual consciousness to its pristine and essential form. There
- 3:35:10Speaker 1: is no discrepancy or conflict between these two views, which
- 3:35:14Speaker 1: are but two accounts of the same thing. Therefore, those
- 3:35:18Speaker 1: who study the wise philosopher, be they naturalist or idealist,
- 3:35:22Speaker 1: have no excuse to linger over dialectic subtleties or disputes.
- 3:35:27Speaker 1: These things are lifted from their path lest they should
- 3:35:30Speaker 1: be tempted to delay over them, and they are left
- 3:35:32Speaker 1: facing the path itself, stretching upward and onward, from their
- 3:35:36Speaker 1: feet to the everlasting hills, radiant with infinite light. End
- 3:35:47Speaker 1: of book four of the Yogo Sutras of Potangeli, the
- 3:35:50Speaker 1: Book of the Spiritual Man.