Latest / Philosophy and Faith / 09 - Book Three, Sutras 37-55 - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

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09 - Book Three, Sutras 37-55 - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Book three Sutras thirty seven to fifty five Sutra thirty seven.
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  Speaker 1: These powers stand in contradistinction to the highest spiritual vision
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  Speaker 1: in manifestation, they are called magical powers. The divine man
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  Speaker 1: is destined to supersede the spiritual man. As the spiritual
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  Speaker 1: man supersedes the natural man, then the disciple becomes a master.
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  Speaker 1: The opened powers of the spiritual man, spiritual vision, hearing,
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  Speaker 1: and touch, stand therefore in contradistinction to the higher divine
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  Speaker 1: power above them, and must in no wise be regarded
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  Speaker 1: as the end of the way, for the path has
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  Speaker 1: no end, but rises ever to higher and higher glories.
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  Speaker 1: The soul's growth and splendor have no limit, so that
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  Speaker 1: if the spiritual powers we have been considering are regarded
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  Speaker 1: as in any sense final, they are a hindrance, a
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  Speaker 1: barrier to the far higher powers of the divine man.
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  Speaker 1: But viewed from below, from the standpoint of normal physical experience,
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  Speaker 1: there are powers true magical. As the power is natural
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  Speaker 1: to a four dimensional being will appear magical to a
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  Speaker 1: three dimensional being su Tra thirty eight. Through the weakening
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  Speaker 1: of the causes of bondage and by learning the method
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  Speaker 1: of passing, the consciousness is transferred to the other body.
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  Speaker 1: In due time, after the spiritual man has been formed
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  Speaker 1: and grown stable through the forces and virtues already enumerated,
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  Speaker 1: and after the senses of the spiritual man have awaked,
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  Speaker 1: there comes the transfer of the dominant consciousness, the sense
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  Speaker 1: of individuality, from the physical to the spiritual man. Thereafter,
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  Speaker 1: the physical man is felt to be a secondary, a subordinate,
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  Speaker 1: an instrument through whom the spiritual man works, and the
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  Speaker 1: spiritual man is felt to be the real individuality. This is,
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  Speaker 1: in a sense, the attainment to full salvation and immortal life.
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  Speaker 1: Yet it is not the final goal or resting place,
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  Speaker 1: but only the beginning of the greater way. The means
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  Speaker 1: for this transfer are described as the weakening of the
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  Speaker 1: causes of bondage and an understanding of the method of
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  Speaker 1: passing from the one consciousness to the other. The first
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  Speaker 1: may also be described as detachment, and comes from the
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  Speaker 1: conquest of the delusion that the personal self is the
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  Speaker 1: real man. When that delusion abates and is held in check,
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  Speaker 1: the finer consciousness of the spiritual man begins to shine
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  Speaker 1: in the background of the mind. The transfer of the
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  Speaker 1: sense of individuality to this finer consciousness and thus to
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  Speaker 1: the spiritual man then becomes a matter of recollection of attention,
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  Speaker 1: primarily a matter of taking a deeper interest in the
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  Speaker 1: life and doings of the spiritual man than in the
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  Speaker 1: pleasures or occupations of the personality. Therefore, it is said,
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  Speaker 1: they not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth
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  Speaker 1: and rust cloth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steel,
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  Speaker 1: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither
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  Speaker 1: moth nor rust cloth corrupt, and where thieves do not
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  Speaker 1: break through nor steel. For where your treasure is there
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  Speaker 1: will your heart be also Sutra thirty nine. Through mastery
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  Speaker 1: of the upward life comes freedom from the dangers of water, morass,
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  Speaker 1: and thorny places, and the power of ascension is gained.
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  Speaker 1: Here is one of the sentences so characteristic of this
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  Speaker 1: author and indeed of the Eastern Spirit, in which there
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  Speaker 1: is an obvious exterior meaning, and within this a clear
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  Speaker 1: interior meaning, not quite so obvious, but far more vital.
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  Speaker 1: The surface meaning is that by mastery of a certain
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  Speaker 1: power here called the upward life, and akin to levitation,
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  Speaker 1: there comes the ability to walk on water or to
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  Speaker 1: pass over thorny places without wounding the feet. But there
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  Speaker 1: is a deeper meaning. When we speak of the disciple's
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  Speaker 1: path as a path of thorns, we use a symbol,
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  Speaker 1: and the same symbol is used here. The upward life
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  Speaker 1: means something more than the power often manifested in an
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  Speaker 1: abnormal psychical experiences of levitating the physical body or nearby
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  Speaker 1: physical objects. It means the strong power of aspiration, of
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  Speaker 1: upward will, which first builds and then awakes the spiritual man,
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  Speaker 1: and finally transfers the conscious individuality to him. For it
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  Speaker 1: is he who passes safely over the waters of death
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  Speaker 1: and rebirth and is not pierced by the thorns in
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  Speaker 1: the path. Therefore, it is said that he who would
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  Speaker 1: tread the path of power must look for a home
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  Speaker 1: in the air and afterwards in the ether of this
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  Speaker 1: upward life. This is written in the Kata Upanishad. A
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  Speaker 1: hundred and one are the hearts channels of these one
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  Speaker 1: passes to the crown. Going up this he comes to
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  Speaker 1: the immortal. This is the power of ascension spoken of
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  Speaker 1: in the Sutra Sutra forty. By mastery of the binding
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  Speaker 1: life comes radiance. In the Upanishads, it is said that
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  Speaker 1: this binding life unites the upward life to the downward life,
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  Speaker 1: and these lives have their analogies in the vital breaths
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  Speaker 1: in the body. The thought in the text seems to
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  Speaker 1: be that when the personality is brought thoroughly under control
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  Speaker 1: of the spiritual man through the life currents which bind
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  Speaker 1: them together, the personality is endowed with a new force,
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  Speaker 1: a strong personal magnetism. One might call it such as
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  Speaker 1: is often an appendage of genius. But the text seems
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  Speaker 1: to mean more than this, and to have in view
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  Speaker 1: the vesture of the color of the sun attributed by
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  Speaker 1: the Upanishads to the spiritual man. That vesture which a
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  Speaker 1: disciple has thus described, The Lord shall change our vile body,
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  Speaker 1: that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps body of radiance would better translate the Greek. In
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  Speaker 1: both these passages, the teaching seems to be that the
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  Speaker 1: body of the full grown spiritual man is radiant or
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  Speaker 1: luminous for those at least to have anointed their eyes
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  Speaker 1: with eyes salve, so that they see Sutra forty one.
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  Speaker 1: From perfectly concentrated meditation on the correlation of hearing and
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  Speaker 1: the ether comes the power of spiritual hearing. Physical sound,
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  Speaker 1: we are told, is carried by the air, or by water, iron,
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  Speaker 1: or some other medium on the same plane of substance.
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  Speaker 1: But there is a finer hearing whose medium of transmission
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  Speaker 1: would seem to be the ether. Perhaps not that ether
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  Speaker 1: which carries light, heat, and magnetic waves, but it may
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  Speaker 1: be the far finer ether through which the power of
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  Speaker 1: gravity works. For while light or heat or magnetic waves
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  Speaker 1: traveling from the Sun to the Earth take eight minutes
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  Speaker 1: for the journey, it is mathematically certain that the pole
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  Speaker 1: of gravitation does not take as much as eight seconds,
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  Speaker 1: or even the eighth of a second. The pull of
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  Speaker 1: gravitation travels it would seem as quick as thought. So
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  Speaker 1: it may well be that in thought transference or telepathy,
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  Speaker 1: the thoughts travel by the same way, carried by the
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  Speaker 1: same thought swift medium. The transfer of a word by
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  Speaker 1: telepathy is the simplest and earliest form of the divine
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  Speaker 1: hearing of the spiritual man. As that power grows, and
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  Speaker 1: as through perfectly concentrated meditation, the spiritual man comes into
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  Speaker 1: more complete mastery of it. He grows able to hear
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  Speaker 1: and clearly distinguish the speech of the great companions who
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  Speaker 1: counsel and comfort him on his way they may speak
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  Speaker 1: to him, either in wordless thoughts or in perfectly definite
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  Speaker 1: words and sentences. Sutra forty two. By perfectly concentrated meditation
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  Speaker 1: on the correlation of the body with the ether, and
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  Speaker 1: by thinking of it as light as thistle down, will
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  Speaker 1: come the power to traverse the ether. It has been
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  Speaker 1: said that he who would tread the path of power
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  Speaker 1: must look for a home in the air, and afterwards
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  Speaker 1: in the ether. This would seem to mean, besides the constant,
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  Speaker 1: injunction to detachment, that he must be prepared to inhabit
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  Speaker 1: first a psychic and then an etheric body, the former
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  Speaker 1: being the body of dreams, the latter the body of
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  Speaker 1: the spiritual man when he wakes up on the other
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  Speaker 1: side of dream land. The gradual accustoming of the consciousness
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  Speaker 1: to its new etheric vesture, its gradual acclimatization, so to speak,
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  Speaker 1: in the etheric body of the spiritual man, is what
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  Speaker 1: our text seems to contemplate. Sutra forty three. When that
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  Speaker 1: condition of consciousness is reached, which is far reaching and
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  Speaker 1: not confined to the body, which is outside the body
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  Speaker 1: and not conditioned by it, then the veil which conceals
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  Speaker 1: the light is worn away. Perhaps the best common on
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  Speaker 1: this is afforded by the words of Paul. I knew
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  Speaker 1: a man in Christ above fourteen years ago. Whether in
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  Speaker 1: the body, I cannot tell, or whether out of the body,
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  Speaker 1: I cannot tell. God knoweth such a one caught up
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  Speaker 1: to the third Heaven. And I knew such a man.
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  Speaker 1: Whether in the body or out of the body, I
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  Speaker 1: cannot tell. God knoweth how that he was caught up
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  Speaker 1: into paradise and heard unspeakable or unspoken words which it
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  Speaker 1: is not lawful for a man to utter. The condition
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  Speaker 1: is briefly that of the awakened spiritual man who sees
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  Speaker 1: and hears beyond the veil Sutra forty four. Mastery of
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  Speaker 1: the elements comes from perfectly concentrated meditation on their five forms,
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  Speaker 1: the gross, the elemental, the subtle, the inherent, the proposive.
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  Speaker 1: These five forms are analogous to those recognized by modern
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  Speaker 1: physics solid, liquid, gaseous, radiant, and ionic. When the piercing
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  Speaker 1: vision of the awakened spiritual man is directed to the
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  Speaker 1: forms of matter from within, as it were, from behind
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  Speaker 1: the scenes, then perfect mastery over the beggarly elements is attained.
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  Speaker 1: This is perhaps equivalent to the injunction inquire of the earth,
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  Speaker 1: the air, and the water. Of the secrets they hold
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  Speaker 1: for you. The development of your inner senses will enable
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  Speaker 1: you to do this Sutra forty five. Thereupon will come
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  Speaker 1: the manifestation of the atomic and other powers, which are
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  Speaker 1: the endowment of the body, together with its unassailable force.
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  Speaker 1: The body in question is, of course, the etheric body
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  Speaker 1: of the spiritual man. He is said to possess eight powers.
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  Speaker 1: The atomic the power of assimilating himself with the nature
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  Speaker 1: of the atom, which will perhaps involve the power to
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  Speaker 1: disintegrate material forms. The power of levitation, the power of
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  Speaker 1: limitless extension, the power of boundless reach, so that, as
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  Speaker 1: the commentator says, he can touch the moon with the
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  Speaker 1: tip of his finger. The power to accomplish his will,
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  Speaker 1: the power of gravitation, the correlative of levitation, the power
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  Speaker 1: of command, the power of creative will. These are the
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  Speaker 1: endowments of the spiritual man. Further, the spiritual body is unassailable.
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  Speaker 1: Fire burns it not, water wets it not, the sword
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  Speaker 1: cleaves it not, dry winds parch it not. And it
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  Speaker 1: is said the spiritual man can impart something of this
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  Speaker 1: quality and temper to his bodily Vesture Sutra forty six. Shapeliness, beauty, force,
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  Speaker 1: the temper of the diamonds. These are the endowments of
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  Speaker 1: that body. The spiritual man is shapely, beautiful, strong, firm
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  Speaker 1: is the diamond. Therefore it is written these things. Saith
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  Speaker 1: the son of God, who hath his eyes like unto
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  Speaker 1: a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass.
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  Speaker 1: Heath it overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end
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  Speaker 1: to him. While I give power over the nations, and
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  Speaker 1: he shall rule them with a rod of iron, And
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  Speaker 1: I will give him the Morning Star Sutra forty seven.
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  Speaker 1: Mastery over the powers of perception and action come through
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  Speaker 1: perfectly concentrated meditation on their five fold forms, namely, their
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  Speaker 1: power to grasp their distinctive nature, the element of self
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  Speaker 1: consciousness in them, their inheritance, and their propulsiveness. Take for example, sight.
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  Speaker 1: This possesses first the power to grasp, apprehend, perceive. Second,
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  Speaker 1: it has its distinctive form of perception, that is visual perception. Third,
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  Speaker 1: it always carries with its operations self consciousness, the thought
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  Speaker 1: I perceive. Fourth, sight has the power of extension through
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  Speaker 1: the whole field of vision, even to the utmost star. Fifth,
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  Speaker 1: it is used for the purposes of the seer, so
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  Speaker 1: with the other senses. Perfectly concentrated meditation on each sense,
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  Speaker 1: a viewing it from behind and within, as is possible
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  Speaker 1: for the spiritual man, brings a mastery of the scope
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  Speaker 1: and true character of each sense, and of the world
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  Speaker 1: on which they report collectively. Sutra forty eight. Thence comes
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  Speaker 1: the power swift as thought independent of instruments, and the
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  Speaker 1: mastery over matter. We are further enumerting the endowments of
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  Speaker 1: the spiritual man. Among these is the power to traverse
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  Speaker 1: space with the swiftness of thought, so that whatever place
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  Speaker 1: the spiritual man thinks of, to that he goes in
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  Speaker 1: that place he already is thought now has become his
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  Speaker 1: means of locomotion. He is therefore independent of instruments, and
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  Speaker 1: can bring his force to bear directly wherever he wills
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  Speaker 1: Sutra forty nine. When the spiritual man is perfectly disentangled
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  Speaker 1: from the psychic body, he attains to mastery over all
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  Speaker 1: things and to a knowledge of all The spiritual man
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  Speaker 1: is enmeshed in the web of the emotions desire, fear, ambition, passion,
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  Speaker 1: and impeded by the mental forms of separateness and materialism.
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  Speaker 1: When these meshes are sundered, these obstacles completely overcome, then
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  Speaker 1: the spiritual man stands forth in his own wide world, strong, mighty, wise.
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  Speaker 1: He uses divine powers with the divine scope and energy,
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  Speaker 1: working together with divine companions to such a one. It
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  Speaker 1: is said, thou art now a disciple, able to stand,
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  Speaker 1: able to hear, able to see, able to speak. Thou
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  Speaker 1: hast conquered desire and attained to self knowledge. Thou hast
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  Speaker 1: seen thy soul in its bloom, and recognized it and
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  Speaker 1: heard the voice of the Silence Sutra fifty. By absence
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  Speaker 1: of all self indulgence. At this point, when the seeds
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  Speaker 1: of bondage to sorrow are destroyed, pure spiritual being is attained.
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  Speaker 1: The seeking of indulgence for the personal self, whether through
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  Speaker 1: passion or ambition, sows the seed of future sorrow. For
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  Speaker 1: this self. Indulgence of the personality is a double sin
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  Speaker 1: against the real, a sin against the cleanness of life,
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  Speaker 1: and a sin against the universal being, which permits no
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  Speaker 1: exclusive particular good. Since in the real all spiritual possessions
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  Speaker 1: are held in common. This twofold sin brings its reacting
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  Speaker 1: punishment its confining bondage to sorrow, but ceasing from sid
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  Speaker 1: self indulgence brings purity, liberation spiritual life. Sutra fifty one.
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  Speaker 1: There should be complete overcoming of allurement or pride in
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  Speaker 1: the invitations of the different realms of life, lest attachment
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  Speaker 1: to things evil arise once more, the commentator tells us
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  Speaker 1: the disciples seekers for union are of four degrees. First
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  Speaker 1: those who are entering the path, Second those who are
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  Speaker 1: in the realm of allurements. Third, those who have won
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  Speaker 1: the victory over matter and the senses. Fourth, those who
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  Speaker 1: stand firm in pure spiritual life. To the second, especially,
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  Speaker 1: the caution in the text is addressed. More modern teachers
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  Speaker 1: would express the same truth by a warning against the
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  Speaker 1: delusions and fascinations of the psychic realm which open around
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  Speaker 1: the disciple as he breaks through into the unseen worlds.
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  Speaker 1: These are the dangers of the ante room. Safety lies
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  Speaker 1: in passing on swiftly into the inner chamber him that overcometh.
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  Speaker 1: Will I make a pillar in the temple of My God,
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  Speaker 1: and he shall go no more out Sutra fifty two.
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  Speaker 1: From perfectly concentrated meditation on the divisions of time and
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  Speaker 1: their succession comes that wisdom which is born of discernment.
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  Speaker 1: The Upanishads say of the liberated that he has passed
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  Speaker 1: beyond the triad of time. He no longer sees life
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  Speaker 1: as projected into past, present, and future, since these are
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  Speaker 1: forms of the mind, but beholds all things spread out
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  Speaker 1: in the quiet light of the eternal. This would seem
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  Speaker 1: to be the same thought, and to point to that
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  Speaker 1: clear eyed spiritual perception which is above time, that wisdom
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  Speaker 1: born of the unveiling of time's delusion. Then shall the
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  Speaker 1: disciple live neither in the present nor the future, but
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  Speaker 1: in the eternal. Sutra fifty three. Hence comes discernment between
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  Speaker 1: things which are of like nature, not distinguished by difference
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  Speaker 1: of kind, character, or position. Here, as also in the
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  Speaker 1: preceding sutra, we are close to the doctrine. The distinctions
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  Speaker 1: of order, time, and space are creations of the mind,
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  Speaker 1: the threefold prism through which the real object appears to us,
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  Speaker 1: distorted and refracted. When the prism is withdrawn, the object
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  Speaker 1: returns to its primal unity, no longer distinguishable by the mind,
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  Speaker 1: yet clearly knowable by that high power of spiritual discernment,
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  Speaker 1: of illumination, which is above the mind. Sutra fifty four.
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  Speaker 1: The wisdom which is born of discernment is starlike. It
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  Speaker 1: discerns all things and all conditions of things. It discerns
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  Speaker 1: without succession simultaneously. That wisdom, that intuitive divining power, is starlike,
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  Speaker 1: says the commentator, because it shines with its own light,
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  Speaker 1: because it rises on high and illumines. All things. Nought
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  Speaker 1: is hid from it, whether things past, things present, or
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  Speaker 1: things to come, For it is beyond the threefold form
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  Speaker 1: of time, so that all things are spread before together
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  Speaker 1: in the single light of the divine. This power has
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  Speaker 1: been beautifully described by Columba. Some there are, though very few,
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  Speaker 1: to whom divine grace has granted this, that they can
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  Speaker 1: clearly and most distinctly see, at one and the same moment,
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  Speaker 1: as though under one ray of the sun, even the
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  Speaker 1: entire circuit of the whole world, with its surroundings of
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  Speaker 1: ocean and sky, the inmost part of their mind being
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  Speaker 1: marvelously enlarged. Sutra fifty five. When the vesture and the
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  Speaker 1: spiritual man are alike pure, then perfect spiritual life is attained.
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  Speaker 1: The vesture, says the commentator, must first be washed pure
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  Speaker 1: of all stains of passion and darkness, and the seeds
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  Speaker 1: of future sorrow must be burned up utterly. Then both
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  Speaker 1: the vesture and the wearer of the vesture being alike pure,
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  Speaker 1: the spiritual man enters into perfect spiritual life. End of
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  Speaker 1: Book three.