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04 - Introduction to Book Two - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali · Sacred Texts Archive

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