Book 4 (Part I)

75 Another rationalist consideration is this. The student has not been trying to excite the mind but to calm it, not to produce any one thought but to exclude all thoughts; for there is no connection between the object of meditation and the Dhyana. Why must we suppose a breaking down of the whole process, especially as the mind bears no subsequent traces of any interference, such as pain or fatigue? Surely this once, if never again, the Hindu image expressesthe simplest theory! That image is that of a lake into which five glaciers move. These glaciers are the senses. While ice (the impressions) is breaking off constantly into the lake, the waters are troubled. If the glaciers are stopped the surface becomes calm ; and then, and only then, can it reflect unbroken the disk of the sun. This sun is the “soul” or “God.” We should, however, avoid these terms for the present, on account of their implications. Let us rather speak of this sun as “some unknown thing whose presence has been masked by all things known, and by the knower.” It is probable, too, that our memory of Dhyana is not of the pheno- menon itself, but of the image left thereby on the mind. But this is duration of Dhyana. One can only say that, since it certainly occurred between such and such hours, it must have lasted less than that time. Thus we see, from Frater P. ’5 record, that it can certainly occur in less than an hour and five minutes.