Latest / Philosophy and Faith / 11 - Book 4, Sutras 1-34 - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

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11 - Book 4, Sutras 1-34 - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali · Philosophy and Faith

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Speaker 1: Book four Sutra one. Psychic and spiritual powers may be inborn,
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Speaker 1: or they may be gained by the use of drugs,
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Speaker 1: or by incantations, or by fervor, or by meditation. Spiritual
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Speaker 1: powers have been enumerated and described in the preceding section.
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Speaker 1: They are the normal powers of the spiritual man, the antetype,
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Speaker 1: the divine edition of the powers of the natural man.
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Speaker 1: Through these powers, the spiritual man stands, sees, hears speaks
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Speaker 1: in the spiritual world, as the physical man stands, sees
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Speaker 1: hears speaks in the natural world. There is a counterfeit
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Speaker 1: presentment of the spiritual man in the world of dreams,
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Speaker 1: a shadow, lord of shadows, who has his own dreamy
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Speaker 1: powers of vision, of hearing, of movement. He has left
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Speaker 1: the natural without reaching the spiritual. He has set forth from
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Speaker 1: the shore, but has not gained the further verge of
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Speaker 1: the river. He is borne along by the stream, with
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Speaker 1: no foothold on either shore, leaving the actual. He has
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Speaker 1: fallen short of the real, caught in the limbo of
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Speaker 1: vanities and delusions. The cause of this aberran phantasm is
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Speaker 1: always the worship of a false, vain self, the lord
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Speaker 1: of dreams, within one's own breast. This is the psychic man,
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Speaker 1: lord of delusive and bewildering psychic powers. Spiritual powers, like
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Speaker 1: intellectual or artistic gifts, may be inborn the fruit, that is,
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Speaker 1: of seeds planted and reared with toil in a former birth.
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Speaker 1: So also the powers of the psychic man may be
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Speaker 1: inborn a delusive harvest from seeds of delusion. Psychical powers
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Speaker 1: may be gained by drugs, as power already shame debasement
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Speaker 1: may be gained by the self. Same drugs. In their action,
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Speaker 1: they are baneful, cutting the man off from consciousness of
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Speaker 1: the restraining power of his divine nature, so that his
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Speaker 1: forces break forth exuberant, like the laughter of drunkards, and
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Speaker 1: he sees and hears things delusive. While sinking, he believes
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Speaker 1: that he has risen, growing weaker, he thinks himself full
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Speaker 1: of strength, beholding illusions, he takes them to be true.
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Speaker 1: Such are the powers gained by drugs. They are holy psychic,
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Speaker 1: since the real powers, the spiritual, can never be so gained.
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Speaker 1: Incantations are affirmations of half truth concerning spirit and matter,
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Speaker 1: what is and what is not, which work upon the
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Speaker 1: mind and slowly build up a wraith of powers and
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Speaker 1: a delusive well being. These two are of the psychic
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Speaker 1: realm of dreams. Lastly, there are the true powers of
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Speaker 1: the spiritual man, built up and realized in meditation through
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Speaker 1: reverent obedience to spiritual law, to the pure condition of
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Speaker 1: being in the divine realm Sutritut. The transfer of powers
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Speaker 1: from one venture to another comes through the flow of
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Speaker 1: the natural creative forces. Here, if we can perceive it,
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Speaker 1: is the whole secret of spiritual birth, growth, and life.
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Speaker 1: Spiritual being, like all being, is but an expression of
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Speaker 1: the self, of the inherent power and being of Atma.
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Speaker 1: Inherent in the self are consciousness and will, which have
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Speaker 1: as their lordly heritage the wide sweep of the universe
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Speaker 1: throughout eternity. For the self is one with the eternal,
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Speaker 1: and the consciousness of the Self may make itself manifest
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Speaker 1: as seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, or whatsoever perceptive powers there
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Speaker 1: may be. Just as the white sun light may divide
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Speaker 1: into many colored rays, so may the will of the
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Speaker 1: Self manifest itself in the uttering of words, or in handling,
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Speaker 1: or in moving, and whatever powers of action there are
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Speaker 1: throughout the seven worlds. Where the Self is, there will
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Speaker 1: its powers be. It is but a question of the
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Speaker 1: vesture through which these powers shall shine forth. And wherever
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Speaker 1: the consciousness and desire of the ever creative self are fixed,
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Speaker 1: there will a vesture be built up. Where the heart
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Speaker 1: is there will the treasure be also. Since through the
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Speaker 1: ages the desire of the self has been toward the
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Speaker 1: natural world, wherein the self sought to mirror himself that
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Speaker 1: he may know himself. Therefore a vesture of natural elements
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Speaker 1: came into being, through which blossomed forth the self's powers
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Speaker 1: of perceiving and of will, the power to see, to hear,
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Speaker 1: to speak, to walk, to handle. And when the Self
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Speaker 1: thus come to self consciousness, and with it to a
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Speaker 1: knowledge of his imprison shall set his desire on the
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Speaker 1: divine and real world, and raise his consciousness there too,
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Speaker 1: the spiritual vesture shall be built up for him there,
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Speaker 1: with its expression of his inherent powers. Nor will migration
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Speaker 1: thither be difficult for the self, since the divine is
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Speaker 1: no strange or form land for him, but the house
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Speaker 1: of his home, where he dwells. From Everlasting Sutra three,
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Speaker 1: the apparent immediate cause is not the true cause of
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Speaker 1: the creative nature powers. But like the husbandman in his field,
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Speaker 1: it takes obstacles away. The husbandman tills his field, breaking
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Speaker 1: up the clods of earth into fine mold, penetrable to
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Speaker 1: air and rain. He sows his seed, carefully covering it
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Speaker 1: for fear of birds and the wind. He waters the
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Speaker 1: seed laden earth, turning the little rills from the irrigation tank.
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Speaker 1: Now this way and that, removing obstacles from the channels,
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Speaker 1: until the even hal of water vitalizes the whole field.
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Speaker 1: And so the plants germinate and grow, first the blade,
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Speaker 1: then the air, then the full corn in the air.
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Speaker 1: But it is not the husbandman who makes them grow.
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Speaker 1: It is first the miraculous plasmic power in the grain
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Speaker 1: of seed, which brings forth after its kind. Then the
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Speaker 1: alchemy of sunlight, which, in the presence of the green
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Speaker 1: coloring matter of leaves, gathers hydrogen from the water and
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Speaker 1: carbon from the gases in the air and mingles them
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Speaker 1: in the hydrocarbons of plant growth. And finally the holy
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Speaker 1: occult vital powers of the plant itself, stored up through
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Speaker 1: ages and flowing down from the primal sources of life.
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Speaker 1: The husbandman but removes the obstacles he plants and waters.
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Speaker 1: But God gives the increase. So with the finer husbandman
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Speaker 1: of diviner fields, he till and sows. But the growth
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Speaker 1: of the spiritual man comes through the surge and flow
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Speaker 1: of divine creative forces and powers. Here again God gives
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Speaker 1: the increase. The divine Self puts forth for the manifestation
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Speaker 1: of its powers, a new and finer vesture, the body
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Speaker 1: of the spiritual man, Sutraphour vestures of consciousness are built
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Speaker 1: up in conformity with the feeling of selfhood. The self,
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Speaker 1: says a great teacher, in turn, attaches itself to three vestures,
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Speaker 1: first to the physical body, then to the finer body,
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Speaker 1: and thirdly to the causal body. Finally, it stands forth radiance, luminous,
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Speaker 1: joyous as the self. When the self attributes itself to
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Speaker 1: the physical body, there arises the states of bodily consciousness
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Speaker 1: built up about the physical self. When the self, breaking
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Speaker 1: through this first illusion, begins to see and feel itself
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Speaker 1: in the finer body, to find selfhood. There then the
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Speaker 1: states of consciousness of the finer body come into being. Or,
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Speaker 1: to speak exactly, the finer body and its states of
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Speaker 1: consciousness arise and grow together. But the self must not
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Speaker 1: dwell permanently. There it must learn to find itself in
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Speaker 1: the causal body, to build up the wide and luminous
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Speaker 1: fields of consciousness that belong to that. Nor must it
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Speaker 1: dwell forever there, for there remains the fourth state, the Divine,
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Speaker 1: with its own splendor and everlastingness. It is all a
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Speaker 1: question of the states of consciousness, all a question of
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Speaker 1: raising the sense of selfhood until it dwells forever in
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Speaker 1: the eternal sutrifive in the different fields of manifestation. The consciousness,
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Speaker 1: though one, is the elective cause of many states of consciousness.
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Speaker 1: Here is the splendid teaching of oneness that lies at
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Speaker 1: the heart of the Eastern wisdom. Consciousness is ultimately one,
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Speaker 1: everywhere and forever, the eternal the Father is the one's
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Speaker 1: self of all beings, and so in each individual, who
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Speaker 1: was but a facet of that self, consciousness is one.
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Speaker 1: Whether it breaks through as the dull fire of physical life,
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Speaker 1: or the murky flame of the psychic and passional, or
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Speaker 1: the radiance of the spiritual man, or the full glory
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Speaker 1: of the divine, it is ever the light, not but
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Speaker 1: the light. The one. Consciousness is the effective cause of
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Speaker 1: all states of consciousness on every plane. Sutra six among
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Speaker 1: states of consciousness, that which is born of kantu implati
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Speaker 1: is free from the seed of future sorrow. Where the
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Speaker 1: consciousness breaks forth in the physical body and the full
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Speaker 1: play of bodily life begins, its progression carries with it
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Speaker 1: inevitable limitations. Birth involves death, Meetings have their partings. Hunger
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Speaker 1: alternates with satiety. Age follows on the heels of youth.
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Speaker 1: So do the states of consciousness run along the circle
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Speaker 1: of birth and death. With the psychic, the alternation between
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Speaker 1: prize and penalty is swifter. Hope has its shadow of fear,
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Speaker 1: or it is no hope. Exclusive love is tortured by jealousy.
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Speaker 1: Pleasure passes through deadness into pain. Pain surcease brings pleasure
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Speaker 1: back again. So here too the states of consciousness run
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Speaker 1: their circle. In all psychic states there is egotism, which
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Speaker 1: indeed is the very essence of the psychic. And where
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Speaker 1: there is egotism, there is ever the seed of future sorrow.
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Speaker 1: Desire carries bondage in its womb. But where the pure
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Speaker 1: spiritual consciousness begins, free from self and stain, the ancient
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Speaker 1: law of retaliation ceases, the penalty of sorrow lapses and
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Speaker 1: is no more imposed. The soul now passes no longer
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Speaker 1: from sorrow to sorrow, but from glory to glory. Its
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Speaker 1: growth and splendor have no limit. The good passes to
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Speaker 1: better best suits seven. The works of followers after union
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Speaker 1: make neither for bright pleasure nor for dark pain. The
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Speaker 1: works of others make for pleasure or pain, or a
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Speaker 1: mingling of these. The man of desire wins from his
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Speaker 1: works the reward of pleasure, or incurs the penalty of pain, or,
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Speaker 1: as so often happens in life, his gurden. Like the
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Speaker 1: passionate mood of the lover. His part pleasure and part pain.
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Speaker 1: Works done with self seeking bear within them the seeds
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Speaker 1: of future sorrow. Conversely, according to the proverb, present pain
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Speaker 1: his future gain. But for him who is gone beyond desire,
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Speaker 1: whose desire is set on the eternal, neither pain to
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Speaker 1: be avoided nor pleasure to be gained inspires his work.
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Speaker 1: He fears no hell and desires no heaven. His one
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Speaker 1: desire is to know the will of the Father and
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Speaker 1: finish his work. He comes directly in line with the
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Speaker 1: divine will, and works cleanly and immediately, without longing or fear.
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Speaker 1: His heart dwells in the eternal. All his desires are
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Speaker 1: set on the eternal suture. Eight. From the force inherent
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Speaker 1: in works comes the manifestation of those tynamic mind images
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Speaker 1: which are conformable to the ripening out of each of
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Speaker 1: these works. We are now to consider the general mechanism
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Speaker 1: of karma, in order that we may pass on to
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Speaker 1: the consideration of him who is free from karma. Karma, indeed,
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Speaker 1: is the concern of the personal man of his bondage
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Speaker 1: or freedom. It is a succession of the forces which
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Speaker 1: built up the personal man, reproducing themselves in one personality
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Speaker 1: after another. Now let us take an imaginary case to
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Speaker 1: see how these forces may work out. Let us think
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Speaker 1: of a man with murderous intent in his heart, striking
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Speaker 1: with a dagger at his enemy. He makes a red
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Speaker 1: wound in his victim's breast. At the same instant he
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Speaker 1: paints in his own mind a picture of that wound,
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Speaker 1: a picture dynamic with all the fierce will power he
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Speaker 1: has put into his murderous blow. In other words, he
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Speaker 1: has made a deep wound in his own psychic body,
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Speaker 1: And when he comes to be born again, that body
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Speaker 1: will become his outermost vesture, upon which, with its wounds
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Speaker 1: still there, bodily tissue will be built up, so the
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Speaker 1: man will be born maimed or with the predisposition to
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Speaker 1: some mortal injury. He is unguarded at that point, and
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Speaker 1: any trifling accidental blow will pierce the broken joints of
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Speaker 1: his psychic armor. Thus, to the dynamic mind, images manifest themselves,
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Speaker 1: coming to the surface, so that works done in the
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Speaker 1: past may ripen and come to fruition. Suitur nine, works
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Speaker 1: separated by different nature or place or time are brought
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Speaker 1: together by the correspondence between memory and dynamic impression, just
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Speaker 1: as in the ripening out of mind images into bodily conditions,
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Speaker 1: the effect is brought about by the ray of creative
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Speaker 1: force sent down by the self. Somewhat as the light
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Speaker 1: of the magic lantern projects the details of a picture
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Speaker 1: on the screen, revealing the hidden and making secret things
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Speaker 1: palpable and visible. So does this divine ray exercise a
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Speaker 1: selective power on thy dynamic mind images, bringing together into
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Speaker 1: one day of life the seeds gathered for many days.
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Speaker 1: The memory constantly exemplifies this power. A passage of poetry
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Speaker 1: will call up in the mind, like passages of many
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Speaker 1: poets read at different times, So a prayer may call
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Speaker 1: up many prayers in like manner. The same overruling selective power,
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Speaker 1: which is a ray of the higher self, gathers together
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Speaker 1: from different births and times, and places those mind images
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Speaker 1: which are conformable and may be grouped in the frame
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Speaker 1: of a single life or a single event. Through this grouping,
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Speaker 1: visible body conditions or outward circumstances are brought about, and
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Speaker 1: by these the soul is taught and trained. Just as
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Speaker 1: the dynamic mind images of desire ripen out in bodily
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Speaker 1: conditions and circumstances, so the far more dynamic powers of aspiration,
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Speaker 1: wherein the soul reap which is toward the eternal, have
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Speaker 1: their fruition in a finer world building the vesture of
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Speaker 1: the spiritual man. Ten the series of dynamic mind images
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Speaker 1: is beginningless because desire is everlasting. The whole series of
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Speaker 1: dynamic mind images, which make up the entire history of
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Speaker 1: the personal man, is a part of the mechanism which
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Speaker 1: the self employs to mirror itself in a reflection, to
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Speaker 1: embody its powers in an outward form, to the end
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Speaker 1: of self expression, self realization, self knowledge. Therefore, the initial
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Speaker 1: impulse behind these dynamic mind images comes from the self,
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Speaker 1: and is the descending ray of the self, so that
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Speaker 1: it cannot be said that there is any first member
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Speaker 1: of the series of images from which the rest arose.
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Speaker 1: The impulse is beginningless, since it comes from the self,
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Speaker 1: which is everlasting. Desire is not to cease. It is
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Speaker 1: to turn to the eternal, and so become as aspiration
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Speaker 1: Sutra eleven. Since the dynamic mind images are held together
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Speaker 1: by impulses of desire, by the wish for personal reward,
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Speaker 1: by the substratum of mental habit, by the support of
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Speaker 1: outer things desired. Therefore, when these cease, the self reproduction
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Speaker 1: of dynamic mind images ceases. We are still concerned with
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Speaker 1: the personal life in its bodily vesture, and with the
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Speaker 1: process whereby the forces which have upheld it are gradually
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Speaker 1: transferred to the life of the spiritual man and build
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Speaker 1: up for him his finer vesture in a finer world.
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Speaker 1: How is the current to be changed? How is the
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Speaker 1: flow of self reproductive mind images, which have built the
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Speaker 1: conditions of life after life in this world of bondage
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Speaker 1: to be checked, that the time of imprisonment may come
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Speaker 1: to an end the day of liberation dawn. The answer
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Speaker 1: is given in the sutra just translated, the driving force
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Speaker 1: is withdrawn and directed to the upbuilding of the spiritual body.
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Speaker 1: When the building impulses and forces are withdrawn, the tendency
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Speaker 1: to manifest a new psychical body, a new body of bondage,
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Speaker 1: ceases with them Suit twelve. The difference between that which
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Speaker 1: is past and that which has not yet come, according
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Speaker 1: to their natures, depends on the difference a phase of
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Speaker 1: their properties. Here we come to a high and difficult
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Speaker 1: matter which has always been held to be of great
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Speaker 1: moment in the Eastern wisdom, the thought that the division
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Speaker 1: of time into past, present, and future is in great
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Speaker 1: measure an illusion that past, present, future all dwell together
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Speaker 1: in the eternal now. The discernment of this truth has
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Speaker 1: been held to be so necessarily a part of wisdom
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Speaker 1: that one of the names of the enlightened is he
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Speaker 1: who has passed beyond the three times, past, present, future.
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Speaker 1: So the Western Master said before Abraham, was I am
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Speaker 1: and again I am with you always unto the end
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Speaker 1: of the world, using the eternal present for past and
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Speaker 1: future alike. With the same purpose. The Master speaks of
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Speaker 1: himself as the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and
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Speaker 1: the end, the first and the last, and a master
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Speaker 1: of our own days, writes, I feel even irritated at
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Speaker 1: having to use these three clumsy words. Past, present, and
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Speaker 1: future miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective whole.
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Speaker 1: They are about as ill adapted for the purpose as
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Speaker 1: an axe for fine carving in the eternal. Now, both
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Speaker 1: past and future are consummated. Bjorklund, the Swedish philosopher, has
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Speaker 1: well stated the same truth. Neither past nor future can exist.
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Speaker 1: To God, he lives undividedly without limitations, and needs not
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Speaker 1: as man to plot out his existence in a series
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Speaker 1: of moments. Eternity, then, is not identical with unending time.
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Speaker 1: It is a different form of existence related to time
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Speaker 1: as the perfect to the imperfect. Man as an entity
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Speaker 1: for himself, must have the natural limitations for the part
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Speaker 1: conceived by God. Man is eternal in the divine sense,
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Speaker 1: but conceived by himself. Man's eternal life is clothed in
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Speaker 1: the limitations we call time. The eternal is a constant present,
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Speaker 1: without beginning or end, without past or future Sutra thirteen.
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Speaker 1: These properties, whether manifest or latent, are of the nature
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Speaker 1: of the three potencies. The three potencies are the three
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Speaker 1: manifested modifications of the one primal material which stands opposite
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Speaker 1: to perceiving consciousness. Three potencies are called substance, force, darkness,
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Speaker 1: or viewed rather for their moral coloring, goodness, passion, inertness.
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Speaker 1: Every material manifestation is a projection of substance into the
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Speaker 1: empty space of darkness. Every mental state is either good
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Speaker 1: or passional, or inert. So, whether subjective or objective, latent
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Speaker 1: or manifest, all things that present themselves to the perceiving
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Speaker 1: consciousness are compounded of these three. This is a fundamental
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Speaker 1: doctrine of the Sanchia system Sutra fourteen. The external manifestation
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Speaker 1: of an object takes place when the transformations are in
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Speaker 1: the same phase. We should be inclined to express the
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Speaker 1: same law by saying, for example, that a sound is
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Speaker 1: audible when it consists of vibrations within the compass of
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Speaker 1: the auditory nerve. That an object is visible when either
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Speaker 1: directly or by reflection, it sends forth luminiferous vibrations within
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Speaker 1: the compass of the retina and the optic nerve. Vibrations
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Speaker 1: below or above that compass make no impression at all,
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Speaker 1: and the object remains invisible, as, for example, a kettle
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Speaker 1: of boiling water in a dark room, though the kettle
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Speaker 1: ascending forth heat vibrations closely akintilight. So when the vibrations
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Speaker 1: of the object and those of the perceptive power are
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Speaker 1: in the same phase, the external manifestation of the object
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Speaker 1: takes place. There seems to be a further suggestion that
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Speaker 1: the appearance of an object in the present or its
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Speaker 1: remaining hidden the past or future, is likewise a question
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Speaker 1: of phase, And just as the range of vibrations perceived
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Speaker 1: might be increased by the development of finer senses, so
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Speaker 1: the perception of things past and things to come may
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Speaker 1: be easy from a higher point of view. Sutra fifteen.
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Speaker 1: The paths of material things and of states of consciousness
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Speaker 1: are distinct, as is manifest from the fact that the
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Speaker 1: same object may produce different impressions in different minds. Having
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Speaker 1: shown that our bodily condition and circumstances depend on karma,
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Speaker 1: while karma depends on perception and will, the sage recognizes
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Speaker 1: the fact that from this may be drawn the false
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Speaker 1: deduction that material things are no wise different from states
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Speaker 1: of minds. The same thought has occurred and still occurs
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Speaker 1: to all philosophers, and by various reasonings, they all come
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Speaker 1: to the same wise conclusion that the material world is
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Speaker 1: not made by the mood of any human mind, but
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Speaker 1: is rather the manifestation of the totality of invisible being,
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Speaker 1: whether we call this mahat with the ancients or ether
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Speaker 1: with the moderns Sutra sixteen. Nor do material objects depend
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Speaker 1: upon a single mind, for how could they remain objective
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Speaker 1: to others if that mind ceased to think of them.
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Speaker 1: This is but a further development of the thought of
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Speaker 1: the perceiving Sutra, carrying on the thought that while the
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Speaker 1: universe is spiritual, yet its material expression is ordered consistent
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Speaker 1: rules by law, not subject to the whims or affirmations
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Speaker 1: of a single mind. Unwelcome material things may be escaped
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Speaker 1: by spiritual growth, by rising to a realm above them,
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Speaker 1: and not by denying their existence on their own plane,
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Speaker 1: so that our system is neither materialistic nor idealistic in
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Speaker 1: the extreme sense, but rather intuitional and spiritual, holding that
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Speaker 1: matter is the manifestation of spirit as a whole, a
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Speaker 1: reflection or externalization of spirit, and like spirit everywhere obedient
24:41
Speaker 1: to law. The path of liberation is not through denial
24:45
Speaker 1: of matter but through denial of the wills of self,
24:49
Speaker 1: through obedience and that aspiration which builds the vesture of
24:53
Speaker 1: the spiritual man Suitra seventeen. Object is perceived or not perceived,
25:03
Speaker 1: according as the mind is or is not tinged with
25:06
Speaker 1: the color of the object. The simplest manifestation of this
25:11
Speaker 1: is the matter of attention. Our minds apprehend what they
25:15
Speaker 1: wish to apprehend. All else passes unnoticed. Or on the
25:20
Speaker 1: other hand, we perceive what we resent, as for example,
25:25
Speaker 1: the noise of a passing train, while others used to
25:28
Speaker 1: the sound do not notice it at all. But the
25:32
Speaker 1: deeper meaning is that out of the vast totality of
25:35
Speaker 1: objects ever present in the universe, the mind perceives only
25:39
Speaker 1: those which can form to the hue of its karma.
25:42
Speaker 1: The rest remain unseen, even though close at hand. This
25:47
Speaker 1: spiritual law has been well expressed by Emerson. Through solidest
25:52
Speaker 1: eternal things, the man finds his road as if they
25:56
Speaker 1: did not subsist, and does not once suspect their being.
26:00
Speaker 1: As soon as he needs a new object, suddenly he
26:02
Speaker 1: beholds it and no longer attempts to pass through it,
26:06
Speaker 1: but takes another way. When he has exhausted for the
26:09
Speaker 1: time the nourishment to be drawn from any one person
26:13
Speaker 1: or thing, that object is withdrawn from his observation, and
26:17
Speaker 1: though still in his immediate neighborhood, he does not suspect
26:20
Speaker 1: its presence. Nothing is dead. Men feign themselves dead, and
26:25
Speaker 1: endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries. And there they stand,
26:30
Speaker 1: looking out of the window, sound and well, in some
26:34
Speaker 1: new and strange disguise. Jesus is not dead. He is
26:39
Speaker 1: very well alive. Nor John, nor Paul, nor Mahomet nor Aristotle.
26:47
Speaker 1: At times we believe we have seen them all, and
26:49
Speaker 1: could easily tell the names under which they go. Sutra eighteen.
26:58
Speaker 1: The movements of the psychic nature are perpetually objects of perception,
27:02
Speaker 1: since the spiritual man, who is the lord of them,
27:05
Speaker 1: remains unchanging. Here is teaching of the utmost import both
27:11
Speaker 1: for understanding and for practice. To the psychic nature. Belong
27:16
Speaker 1: all the ebb and flow of emotion, all hoping and fearing,
27:20
Speaker 1: desire and hate, the things that make the multitude of
27:23
Speaker 1: men and women deem themselves happy or miserable. To it.
27:27
Speaker 1: Also belong the measuring and comparing, the doubt and questioning
27:31
Speaker 1: which for the same multitude make up mental life, so
27:35
Speaker 1: that there results the emotion soaked personality, with its dark
27:38
Speaker 1: and narrow view of life, the shivering, terror driven personality
27:43
Speaker 1: that is life itself for all but all of mankind.
27:49
Speaker 1: Yet the personality is not the true man, not the
27:52
Speaker 1: living soul at all, but only a spectacle which the
27:55
Speaker 1: true man observes. Let us understand this, therefore, and ourselves
28:00
Speaker 1: up inwardly to the height of the spiritual man, who,
28:02
Speaker 1: standing in the quiet light of the eternal, looks down
28:05
Speaker 1: serene upon this turmoil of the outer life. When first
28:12
Speaker 1: masters the personality the mind by thus looking down on
28:15
Speaker 1: it from above from within, by steadily watching its ebb
28:19
Speaker 1: and flow as objective outward, and therefore not the real self.
28:25
Speaker 1: This standing back is the first step detachment. The second
28:30
Speaker 1: to maintain the vantage ground thus gained is recollection suitre nineteen.
28:39
Speaker 1: The mind is not self luminous, since it can be
28:43
Speaker 1: seen as an object. This is a further step toward
28:47
Speaker 1: overthrowing the tyranny of the mind, the psychic nature of
28:50
Speaker 1: emotion and mental measuring this psychic self, the personality claims
28:55
Speaker 1: to be absolute, asserting that life is ferish and through
28:58
Speaker 1: it it seeks to impose on the being of man
29:00
Speaker 1: its narrow, materialistic, faithless view of life and the universe.
29:05
Speaker 1: It would clip the wings of the soaring soul. But
29:09
Speaker 1: the soul dethrones the tyrant by perceiving and steadfastly affirming
29:13
Speaker 1: that the psychic self is no true self at all,
29:16
Speaker 1: not self luminous, but only an object of observation, watched
29:20
Speaker 1: by the serene eyes of the spiritual man suit or twenty.
29:28
Speaker 1: Nor could the mind at the same time know itself
29:31
Speaker 1: and things external to it suit or twenty. Nor could
29:37
Speaker 1: the mind at the same time know itself and things
29:40
Speaker 1: external to it. The truth is that the mind knows
29:44
Speaker 1: neither external things nor itself. Its measuring and analyzing, its
29:48
Speaker 1: hoping and fearing, hating and desiring, never give it a
29:52
Speaker 1: true measure of life, nor any sense of real values.
29:55
Speaker 1: Ceaselessly active, it never really attains to knowledge, or if
30:00
Speaker 1: we admit its knowledge, it ever falls short of wisdom,
30:03
Speaker 1: which comes only through intuition. The vision of the spiritual man.
30:07
Speaker 1: Life cannot be known by the mind. Its secrets cannot
30:11
Speaker 1: be learned through the mind. The proof is the ceaseless
30:14
Speaker 1: strife and contradictions of opinion among those who trust in
30:17
Speaker 1: the mind. Much less can the mind know itself, the
30:21
Speaker 1: more so because it is pervaded by the illusion that
30:23
Speaker 1: it truly knows truly is true. Knowledge of the mind
30:28
Speaker 1: comes first when the spiritual man arising, stands detached, regarding
30:33
Speaker 1: the mind from above with quiet eyes and seeing it
30:36
Speaker 1: for the tangled web of psychic forces that it truly is.
30:40
Speaker 1: But the truth is divined long before it is clearly seen,
30:43
Speaker 1: and then begins the long battle of the mind against
30:46
Speaker 1: the real, the mind fighting doggedly, craftly for its supremacy
30:54
Speaker 1: suit Tra. Twenty one. If the mind be thought of
30:58
Speaker 1: as seen by another, more inward minds, then there would
31:02
Speaker 1: be an endless series of perceiving minds and a confusion
31:05
Speaker 1: of memories. One of the expedients by which the mind
31:11
Speaker 1: seeks to deny and thwart the soul when it feels
31:14
Speaker 1: that it is beginning to be circumvented and seen through,
31:18
Speaker 1: is to assert that this seeing is the work of
31:20
Speaker 1: a part of itself, one part observing the other, and
31:23
Speaker 1: thus leaving no need nor place for the spiritual man
31:28
Speaker 1: to this strategy. The argument is opposed by our philosopher
31:31
Speaker 1: that this would be no true solution, but only a
31:34
Speaker 1: postponement of the solution, for we should have to find
31:37
Speaker 1: yet another part of the mind to view the first
31:39
Speaker 1: observing part, and then another to observe this, and so
31:43
Speaker 1: on endlessly. The true solution is that the spiritual man
31:47
Speaker 1: looks down upon the psychic nature and observes it when
31:51
Speaker 1: he views the psychic picture's gallery. This is memory, which
31:55
Speaker 1: would be a hopeless, inextricable confusion if we thought of
31:58
Speaker 1: one part of the mind with its memories, viewing another
32:00
Speaker 1: part with memories of its own. The solution of the
32:04
Speaker 1: mystery lies not in the mind, but beyond it, in
32:08
Speaker 1: the luminous life of the risen lord the spiritual man
32:14
Speaker 1: Suit twenty two. When the psychical nature takes on the
32:19
Speaker 1: form of the spiritual intelligence by reflecting it, then the
32:23
Speaker 1: self becomes conscious of its own spiritual intelligence. We are
32:29
Speaker 1: considering a stage of spiritual life at which the psychical
32:32
Speaker 1: nature has been cleansed and purified. Formerly it reflected in
32:37
Speaker 1: its plastic substance the images of the earthy. Purified, Now
32:42
Speaker 1: it reflects the image of the heavenly, giving the spiritual
32:45
Speaker 1: intelligence a visible form. The self beholding that visible form
32:51
Speaker 1: in which its spiritual intelligence has, as it were, taken
32:54
Speaker 1: palpable shape, thereby reaches self recognition, self comprehension, Self sees
33:00
Speaker 1: itself in this mirror, and thus becomes not only conscious,
33:04
Speaker 1: but self conscious. This is, from one point of view,
33:08
Speaker 1: the purpose of the whole evolutionary process Suture twenty three.
33:17
Speaker 1: The psychic nature, taking on the color of the seer
33:20
Speaker 1: and of things seen, leads to the perception of all objects.
33:27
Speaker 1: In the unregenerate man, the psychic nature is saturated with
33:30
Speaker 1: images of material things, of things seen or heard, or
33:33
Speaker 1: tasted or felt, and this web of dynamic images forms
33:37
Speaker 1: the ordinary material and driving power of life. The sensation
33:41
Speaker 1: of sweet things tasted clamors to be renewed and drives
33:45
Speaker 1: the man into effort to obtain its renewal. So he
33:48
Speaker 1: adds image to image, each dynamic and importunate, piling up
33:52
Speaker 1: sin's intolerable burden. Then comes regeneration and the washing away
33:58
Speaker 1: of sin through the fiery creative power of the soul,
34:01
Speaker 1: which burns out the stains of the psychic gesture, purifying
34:04
Speaker 1: it as gold is refined in the furnace. The suffering
34:08
Speaker 1: of regeneration springs from this indispensable purifying. Then the psychic
34:13
Speaker 1: gesture begins to take on the color of the soul,
34:15
Speaker 1: no longer stained, but suffused with golden light, and the
34:20
Speaker 1: man red generate gleams with the radiance of eternity. Thus
34:25
Speaker 1: the spiritual man puts on fair raiment. For of this cleansing,
34:29
Speaker 1: it is said, through your sins be as scarlet, they
34:32
Speaker 1: shall be white as snow. Though they be as crimson,
34:36
Speaker 1: they shall be as wool suit. Twenty four. The psychic nature,
34:44
Speaker 1: which has been printed with mind images of innumerable material things,
34:48
Speaker 1: exists now for the spiritual man, building for him the mind.
34:54
Speaker 1: Once the tyrant, is now the slave, recognized as outward separate,
34:59
Speaker 1: not self a well trained instrument to the spiritual man.
35:04
Speaker 1: For it is not ordained for the spiritual man that,
35:07
Speaker 1: finding his high realm, he shall enter altogether there and
35:10
Speaker 1: pass out of the vision of mankind. It is true
35:12
Speaker 1: that he dwells in heaven, but he also dwells on earth.
35:15
Speaker 1: He has angels and archangels, the hosts of the just,
35:18
Speaker 1: made perfect for his familiar friends. But he has at
35:22
Speaker 1: the same time found a new kinship with the prone
35:24
Speaker 1: children of men, who stumble and sin in the dark.
35:27
Speaker 1: Finding sinlessness, he finds also that the world's sin and
35:31
Speaker 1: shame are his not to share, but to atone. Finding
35:34
Speaker 1: kinship with angels, he likewise finds his part in the
35:37
Speaker 1: toil of angels, the toil for the redemption of the world.
35:42
Speaker 1: For this work, he who now stands in the heavenly realm,
35:46
Speaker 1: needs his instrument on earth. In this instrument he finds
35:50
Speaker 1: ready to his hand, and fitted and perfected by the
35:53
Speaker 1: very struggles he has waged against it and the personality.
35:56
Speaker 1: The mind of the personal man, this one's tyrant is
36:01
Speaker 1: now his servant and perfect ambassador, bearing witness before men
36:05
Speaker 1: of heavenly things, and even in this present world, doing
36:08
Speaker 1: the will and working the works of the Father Suitra
36:14
Speaker 1: twenty five. For him who discerns between the mind and
36:18
Speaker 1: the spiritual man, there comes perfect fruition of the longing
36:21
Speaker 1: after the real being of the self. How many times
36:26
Speaker 1: in the long struggle have the soul's aspirations seemed but
36:29
Speaker 1: a hopeless, impossible dream, a madman's counsel of perfection. Yet
36:33
Speaker 1: every finest, most impossible aspiration shall be realized, and ten
36:38
Speaker 1: times more than realized. Once the long arduous fight against
36:41
Speaker 1: the mind and the mind's worldview is one, And then
36:45
Speaker 1: it will be seen that unfaith and despair were but
36:47
Speaker 1: weapons of the mind to daunt the soul and put
36:50
Speaker 1: off the day when the neck of the mind shall
36:52
Speaker 1: be put under the foot of the soul. Have you
36:55
Speaker 1: aspired well nigh hopeless after immortality, he shall be paid
36:59
Speaker 1: by any the immortality of God. Have you aspired in
37:03
Speaker 1: misery and pain? After consoling healing love, you shall be
37:07
Speaker 1: made a dispenser of the divine love of God himself
37:09
Speaker 1: to weary souls. Have you sought ardently in your day
37:14
Speaker 1: of feebleness? After power? You shall wield power immortal, infinite,
37:19
Speaker 1: with God, working the works of God. Have you, in
37:24
Speaker 1: lonely darkness longed for companionship and consolation. You shall have
37:28
Speaker 1: angels and archangels for your friends, and all the immortal
37:31
Speaker 1: hosts of the dawn. These are the fruits of victory.
37:35
Speaker 1: Therefore overcome, These are the prizes of regeneration. Therefore, die
37:40
Speaker 1: to self, that you may rise again to God suit
37:46
Speaker 1: your twenty six. Thereafter the whole personal being bends towards illumination,
37:52
Speaker 1: toward eternal life. This is part of the secret of
37:57
Speaker 1: the soul. That salvation means not merely that a soul
38:00
Speaker 1: shall be cleansed and raised to heaven, but that the
38:02
Speaker 1: whole realm of the natural power shall be redeemed. Building
38:05
Speaker 1: up even in this present world the kingly figure of
38:08
Speaker 1: the spiritual man. The traditions of the ages are full
38:11
Speaker 1: of his footsteps. Majestic, uncomprehended shadows, myths, demi gods fill
38:17
Speaker 1: the memories of all the nobler peoples. But the time
38:20
Speaker 1: cometh when he shall be known no longer demi god,
38:23
Speaker 1: nor myth, nor shadow, but the ever present Redeemer, working
38:27
Speaker 1: amid man for the life and cleansing of all souls
38:32
Speaker 1: Suitra twenty seven. In the eternals of the batique, other
38:36
Speaker 1: thoughts will arise through the impression of the dynamic mind images.
38:42
Speaker 1: The battle is long and arduous. Let there be no
38:45
Speaker 1: mistake as to that go not forth to this battle
38:48
Speaker 1: without counting the cost ages have gone to the strengthening
38:52
Speaker 1: of the foe. Ages of conflict must be spent ere
38:55
Speaker 1: the foe, wholly conquered becomes a servant, the soul's minister
38:58
Speaker 1: to mankind. And from these long past ages, in hours
39:02
Speaker 1: when the contest flags will come new foes, mind born
39:06
Speaker 1: children springing up to fight for mind, reinforcements coming from
39:10
Speaker 1: forgotten years, forgotten lives. For once this conflict is begun,
39:15
Speaker 1: it can be ended only by sweeping victory and unconditional,
39:18
Speaker 1: unreserved surrender of the vanquished suit Or twenty eight. These
39:27
Speaker 1: are to be overcome, as it was taught that hindrances
39:29
Speaker 1: should be overcome. These new enemies and fears are to
39:33
Speaker 1: be overcome by ceaselessly renewing the fight, by a steadfast,
39:37
Speaker 1: dogged persistence, whether in victory or defeat, which shall put
39:41
Speaker 1: the stubbornness of the rocks to shame. For the soul
39:43
Speaker 1: is older than all things and invincible. It is of
39:47
Speaker 1: the very nature of the soul to be unconquerable. Therefore,
39:50
Speaker 1: fight on undaunted, knowing that the spiritual will, once awakened,
39:55
Speaker 1: shall through the effort of the contest, come to its
39:57
Speaker 1: full strength. That ground gained, he can be held permanently.
40:01
Speaker 1: That great as is the dead weight of the adversary,
40:04
Speaker 1: k it is yet measurable. While the warrior who fights
40:07
Speaker 1: for you, for whom you fight, is in might, immeasurable, invincible,
40:14
Speaker 1: everlasting Suiture twenty nine. He who, after he has attained,
40:20
Speaker 1: is wholly free fro himself reaches the essence of all
40:23
Speaker 1: that can be known, gathered together like a cloud. This
40:27
Speaker 1: is the true spiritual consciousness. It has been said that
40:32
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the way, we must kill out ambition,
40:35
Speaker 1: the great curse, the giant weed, which grows as strongly
40:38
Speaker 1: in the heart of the devoted disciple as in the
40:40
Speaker 1: manner of desire. The remedy is sacrifice of self obedience, humility,
40:45
Speaker 1: that purity of heart which gives the vision of God. Thereafter,
40:50
Speaker 1: he who has attained is wrapt about with the essence
40:52
Speaker 1: of all that can be known, as with the cloud,
40:55
Speaker 1: he has that perfect illumination, which is the true spiritual consciousness.
40:59
Speaker 1: Through a being edience to the will of God, he
41:01
Speaker 1: comes into oneness of being with God. He is initiated
41:04
Speaker 1: into God's view of the universe, seeing all life as
41:07
Speaker 1: God sees it Sutra thirty. Thereon comes sur cease from
41:15
Speaker 1: sorrow and the burden of soil. Such a one, it
41:20
Speaker 1: is said, is free from the bond of karma, from
41:22
Speaker 1: the burden of toil, from that debt to works which
41:25
Speaker 1: come from works done in self love and desire, free
41:28
Speaker 1: from self will. He is free from sorrow too, for
41:31
Speaker 1: sorrow comes from the fight of self will against the
41:34
Speaker 1: divine will, through the correcting stress of the divine will,
41:38
Speaker 1: which seeks to counteract the evil wrought by disobedience. When
41:42
Speaker 1: the conflict with the divine will ceases, then sorrow ceases,
41:45
Speaker 1: and he who has grown into obedience thereby enters into joy.
41:52
Speaker 1: Sutra thirty one. When all veils are rent, all stains
41:56
Speaker 1: washed away, his knowledge becomes infinite. Little remains for him
42:00
Speaker 1: to know. The first veil is the delusion that thy
42:04
Speaker 1: soul is, in some permanent ways separate from the great soul,
42:07
Speaker 1: the divine eternal. When that veil is rent, thou shalt
42:11
Speaker 1: discern thy oneness with everlasting life. The second veil is
42:15
Speaker 1: the delusion of enduring separateness from thy other selves, whereas
42:18
Speaker 1: in truth, the soul that is in them is one
42:20
Speaker 1: with the soul that is in thee. The world sin
42:23
Speaker 1: and shame are thy sin and shame its joy. Also
42:28
Speaker 1: these veils rent, thou shalt enter into knowledge of divine
42:31
Speaker 1: things and human things. Little will remain unknown to thee.
42:38
Speaker 1: Sutra thirty two. Thereafter comes the completion of the series
42:43
Speaker 1: of transformations of the three nature potencies. Since their purpose
42:47
Speaker 1: is attained. It is a part of the beauty and
42:52
Speaker 1: wisdom of the great Indian teachings, the Vedanta and the
42:55
Speaker 1: Yoga alike, to hold that all life exists for the
42:57
Speaker 1: purposes of the soul, for the may king of the
43:00
Speaker 1: spiritual man. They teach that all nature is an orderly
43:03
Speaker 1: process of evolution leading up to this, designed for this end,
43:07
Speaker 1: existing only for this to bring forth and perfect the
43:10
Speaker 1: spiritual man. He is the crown of evolution. At his coming,
43:15
Speaker 1: the goal of all development is attained Sutra thirty three.
43:22
Speaker 1: The series of transformations is divided into moments. When the
43:26
Speaker 1: series is completed, time gives place to duration. There are
43:33
Speaker 1: two kinds of eternity, says the commentary, the eternity of
43:37
Speaker 1: immortal life, which belongs to the spirit, and the eternity
43:40
Speaker 1: of change, which inheres in nature, in all that is
43:44
Speaker 1: not spirit. While we are content to live in and
43:48
Speaker 1: for nature, in the circle of necessity Sansara, we doom
43:52
Speaker 1: ourselves to perpetual change. That which is born must die,
43:56
Speaker 1: and that which dies must be reborn. It is change
44:00
Speaker 1: more a ceaseless series of transformations. But the spiritual man
44:05
Speaker 1: enters a new order. For him, there is no longer
44:08
Speaker 1: eternal change, but eternal being. He has entered into the
44:12
Speaker 1: joy of his Lord. This spiritual birth, which makes him
44:17
Speaker 1: air of the everlasting, sets a term to change. It
44:20
Speaker 1: is the culmination, the crowning transformation of the whole realm
44:23
Speaker 1: of change Sutra thirty four. Pure spiritual life is therefore
44:33
Speaker 1: the inverse resolution of the potencies of nature which have
44:36
Speaker 1: emptied themselves of their value for the spiritual man. Or
44:40
Speaker 1: it is the return of the power of pure consciousness
44:42
Speaker 1: to its essential form. Here we have a splendid generalization
44:48
Speaker 1: in which our wise philosopher finally reconciles the naturalists and
44:52
Speaker 1: the idealists, expressing the crown and end of his teaching,
44:56
Speaker 1: first in the terms of the naturalist, and then in
44:59
Speaker 1: the terms of the idealist. The birth and growth of
45:03
Speaker 1: the spiritual man and his entry into his immortal heritage,
45:06
Speaker 1: may be regarded, says our philosopher, either as the culmination
45:10
Speaker 1: of the whole process of natural evolution and involution, where
45:15
Speaker 1: that which flowed from out the boundless deep turns again home.
45:19
Speaker 1: Or it may be looked at as the videntants look
45:21
Speaker 1: at it, as the restoration of pure spiritual consciousness to
45:25
Speaker 1: its pristine and essential form. There is no discrepancy or
45:29
Speaker 1: conflict between these two views, which are but two accounts
45:33
Speaker 1: of the same thing. Therefore, those who study the wise philosopher,
45:38
Speaker 1: be they naturalist or idealist, have no excuse to linger
45:42
Speaker 1: over dialectic subtleties or disputes. These things are lifted from
45:46
Speaker 1: their path, lest they should be tempted to delay over them,
45:49
Speaker 1: and they are left facing the path itself, stretching upward
45:53
Speaker 1: and onward, from their feet to the everlasting hills, radiant
45:57
Speaker 1: with infinite light. End of Book four of the Yoga
46:06
Speaker 1: Sutras of Potangeli, the Book of a Spiritual Man.