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Page 1 of 11912 · PDF PAGE 29
…plies disorder or disease. In analysing the nature of this work of controlling the mind, the student will appreciate without trouble the fact that two things are involved—the person seeing and the thing seen—the person knowing and the thing known; and he will come to regard this as the necessary condition of all consciousness. We are too accustomed to assume to be facts things about which we have no real right even to guess. We assume, for example, that the unconscious is the torpid; and yet nothing is more certain than that bodily organs which…
1912 · PDF PAGE 32
… 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 sacrifice.1 Similarly the visions of Joan of Arc were entir…
1912 · PDF PAGE 42
…s 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, however, in all cases, the discomforts will begin. As you go on, they will begi…
1912 · PDF PAGE 17
…h reward as immortality. No religion has failed hitherto by not promising enough; the present breaking up of all religions is due to the fact that people have asked to see the securities. Men have even renounced the important material advantages which a well- organized religion may confer upon a State, rather than acquiesce in fraud or falsehood, or even in any system which, if not proved guilty, is at least unable to demonstrate its innocence. Being more or less bankrupt, the best thing that we can do is to attack the problem afresh without pr…
1912 · PDF PAGE 80
…s value in a perfectly unbiassed way, without allowing ourselves the usual rhapsodies, or deducing any theory of the universe. One extra fact may destroy some
1912 · PDF PAGE 81
65 existing theory; that is common enough. But no single fact is sufficient to construct one. It will have been understood that Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi form a continuous process, and exactly when the climax comes does not matter. It is of this climax that we must speak, for this is a matter of experience, and a very striking one. In the course of our concentration we noticed that the contents of the mind at any moment consisted of two things, and no more: the Object, variable, and the Subject, invariable, or apparently so. By success in Dh…
1912 · PDF PAGE 64
… still. (See 0722137627” opposite.) A similar curve might be plotted for the real and apparent painful- ness of Asana. Conscious of this fact, we begin to try to control it: “Not quite so many thoughts, please!” “Don’t think quite so fast, please!” “No more of that kind of thought, please!” It is only then that we discover that what we thought was a school of playful porpoises is really the con- volutions of the sea-serpent. The attempt to repress has the effect of exciting. When the unsuspecting pupil first approaches his holy but Wily Guru, an…
1912 · PDF PAGE 86
…. Spasm is a normal func- tion of at least one of the organs of the body. That the brain is not damaged by the practice is proved by the fact that many people who claim to have had this experience repeatedly continue to exercise the ordinary avocations of life without diminished activity. We may dismiss, then, the physiologicalquestion. It throws no light on the main problem, which is the value of the testimony of the experience. Now this is a very difficult question, and raises the much larger question as to the value of any testimony. Every po…
1912 · PDF PAGE 88
…qualities which are, to use ordinary language, impossible, is very much more real than the chair he is sitting on. The chair is only one fact; and its existence is testified by one very falliole person. The ether is the necessary deduction from millions of facts, which have been verified again and again and checked by every pos- sible test of truth. There is therefore no ὰpriori reason for rejecting anything on the ground that it is not directly perceived by the senses. To turn to another point. One of our tests of truth is the vividness of the i…
1912 · PDF PAGE 89
… assume that the premisses are in some way false; but in this case, if one attacks the evidence for Dhyana, the mind is staggered by the fact that all other experience, attacked on the same lines, will fall much more easily. In whatever way we examine it the result Will always be the same. Dhyana may be false; but, if so, so is everything else. Now the mind refuses to rest in a belief of the unreality of its own experiences. It may not be what it seems; but it must be something, and if (on the whole) ordinary life is something, how much more mu…
1912 · PDF PAGE 73
…ch in front of you. You are not to practise at first for more than ten minutes at a time, so as to avoid risk of overtiring the brain. In fact you will probably find that the Whole of your will-power is not equal to keeping to a sub- ject at all for so long as three minutes, or even apparently con— centrating on it for so long as three seconds, or three-fifths of one second. By “keeping to it at all” is meant the mere attempt to keep to it. The mind becomes so fatigued, and the object so incredibly loathsome, that it is useless to continue for the…