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Page 1 of 11912 · PDF PAGE 66
…e does not become consciousthat one has got on to the forbidden subject until one has gone right through with it. However, one continues day after day investigating thoughts and trying to check them; and sooner or later one proceeds to the next stage, Dharana, the attempt to restrain the mind to a single object. Before we go on to this, however, we must consider what is meant by success in Pratyahara. This is a very extensive subject, and different authors take widely divergent views. One writer means an analysis so acute that every thought is …
1912 · PDF PAGE 41
…the process of quitting the Asana involves several minutes of the acutest agony. It will require a good deal of determination to persist day after day, for in most cases it will be found that the discomfort and pain, instead of diminishing, tend to increase.
1912 · PDF PAGE 76
…nish, even though the total number of breaks in a meditation remain stationary. By the time that you are meditating two or three hours-a day, and filling up most of the rest of the day with other practices de- signed to assist, when nearly every time something or other happens,and there is constantly a feeling of being “ on the brink of something pretty big,” one may expect to proceed to the next state—Dhyana.
1912 · PDF PAGE 27
…l our lives! This difficulty has been solved by a practice called Arcana, which will be described later on. Memories of the events of the day will bother us ; we must arrange our day so that it is absolutely uneventful. Our minds will recall to us our hopes and fears, our loves and hates, our ambitions, our envies, and many other emotions. All these must be cut off. We must have absolutely no interest in life but that of quieting our minds. This is the object of the usual monastic vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience. If you have no property,…
1912 · PDF PAGE 105
…e is this anchor for the beginner,that his work is cumulative: every act directed towards attainment builds up a destiny which must some day come to fruition. May all attain! 1 Yet all this has come of our desire to be as modest as Yajna Valkya!
1912 · PDF PAGE 22
…ments are at first sight, all agree in announcing an experience of the class which fifty years ago would have been called supernatural, to-day may be called spiritual, and fifty years hence will have a proper name based on an understanding of the phenomenon which occurred. Theorists have not been at a loss to explain; but they differ. The Mohammedan insists that God is, and did really send Gabriel with messages for Mohammed: but all others contradict him. And from the nature of the case proof is impossible. The lack of proof has been so severely f…
1912 · PDF PAGE 75
…ed by the senses without the mind becoming conscious of it. Zsz'rdly, there is a class of breaks partaking of the nature of reverie or “ day-dreams.” These are very insidious-one may go on for a long time without realizing that one has wandered at all. Fowl/21y, we get a very high class of break, which is a sort of aberration of the control itself. You think, “ How well I am doing it! ” or perhaps that it would be rather a good idea if you were on a desert
1912 · PDF PAGE 32
18 enabled to persist through the usual persecution, and founded a religion to which even to—day one man in every eight belongs. The history of Christianity shows precisely the same remarkable fact. Jesus Christ was brought up on the fables of the “ Old Testament,” and so was compelled to ascribe his experiences to “Jehovah,” although his gentle spirit could have had nothing in common with the monster who was always commanding the rape of virgins and the murder of little children, and whose rites were then, and still are, celebrated by human sa…
1912 · PDF PAGE 42
… which naturally is rather cramped and awkward, and in which slight changes are not sufficient to bring ease. Otherwise, for the first few days, the student may even imagine that he has conquered the position. In fact, in all these practices their apparent simplicity is such that the beginner is likely to wonder what all the fuss is about, perhaps to think that he is specially gifted. Similarly a man who has never touched a golf club will take his umbrella and carelessly hole a putt which would frighten the best putter alive. In a few days, howev…
1912 · PDF PAGE 87
…“ The Soldierand the Hunchback,” “ Equinox,” Ι.) But apart from this deep-seated philosophic doubt there is the practical doubt of every day. The popular phrase, “to doubt the evidence of one’s senses,” shows us that that evidence is normally accepted; but a man of science does nothing of the sort. He is so well aware that his senses constantly deceive him, that he invents elaborate instruments to correct them. And he is further aware that the Universe which he can directly perceive through sense, is the minutest fraction of the Universe which …
1912 · PDF PAGE 23
9 they accused Christ of “sedition.” When the Pope had all power it was necessary to prove an enemy a “ heretic.” Advancing to-day towards a medical oligarchy, we try to prove that our opponents are “insane,” and (in a Puritan country) to attack their “morals.” We should then avoid all rhetoric, and try to investigate with perfect freedom from bias the phenomena which occurred to these great leaders of mankind. There is no difficulty in our assuming that these men themselves did not understand clearly what happened to them. The only one who expl…
1912 · PDF PAGE 28
… of many adventures that may come to you ; but it is one of the most typical. By this time your hours of meditation will fill most of the day, and you will probably be constantly having presenti- ments that something is about to happen. You may also be terrified with the idea that your brain may be giving way ; but you will have learnt the real symptoms of mental fatigue, and you will be careful to avoid them. They must be very carefully distinguished from idleness! At certain times you will feel as if there were a contest between the will and th…