An Introduction to Yoga by Annie Besant

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Episode Transcript

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Section zero of an Introduction to Yoga. This is a LibriVox recording. All
LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit librivoukx dot org. Readby Ritoo An Introduction to Yoga by Annie
Besant forward. These lectures beginning offootnote number one, delivered at the thirty

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second Anniversary of the Theosophical Society heldat Benares on December twenty seventh, twenty
eighth, twenty ninth, and thirtieth, nineteen o seven, and off footnote
number one, are intended to givean outline of yoga in order to prepare
the student to take up for practicalpurposes the Yoga Sutras of Patangeli, the

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chief treaties on yoga. I haveon hand with my friend Bagwan Das as
collaborator, a translation of these sutraswith Vyasa's commentary, and a further commentary
and elus sedation written in the lightof Theosophy beginning of footnote number two.
These have never been finished or printed. End off footnote number two. To

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prepare the student for the mastering ofthat more difficult task. These lectures were
designed, hence the many references toPatangily. They may, however, also
serve to give to the ordinary layreader some idea of the science of sciences,
and perhaps to allure a few towardsits study. Annie Besant end off

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forward, Section one of an Introductionto Yoga by Annie Besant. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain Lectureone, The Nature of Yoga. In
this first discourse, we shall concernourselves with the gaining of a general idea

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of the subject of yoga, seekingits place in nature, its own character,
its object in human evolution one themeaning of the universe. Let us,
first of all, ask ourselves,looking at the world around us,
what it is that the history ofthe world signifies. When we read history,

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what does the history tell us?It seems to be a moving panorama
of people and events, but itis really only a dance of shadows.
The people are shadows, not realities. The kings and statesmen, the ministers
and armies, and the events,the battles and revolutions, the rises and

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falls of states, are the mostshadow like dance of all. Even if
the historian tries to go deeper,if he deals with economic conditions, with
social organizations, with the study ofthe tendencies of the currents of thought.
Even then he is in the midstof shadows, the illusory shadows cast by

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unseen realities. This world is fullof forms that are illusory, and the
values are all wrong. The proportionsare out of focus. The things which
a man of the world thinks valuable, a spiritual man must cast aside as
worthless. The diamonds of the world, with their glare and glitter in the

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rays of the outside sun, aremere fragments of broken glass to the man
of knowledge. The crown of theking, the scepter of the Emperor,
the triumph of earthly power are lessthan nothing to the man who has had
one glimpse of the majesty of theself. What is then real? What
is truly valuable? Our answer willbe very different from the answer given by

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the man of the world. Theuniverse exists for the sake of the self,
not for what the outer world cangive, not for control over the
objects of desire. Not for thesake even of beauty or pleasure. Does
the great architect plan and build hisworlds. He has filled them with objects
beautiful and pleasure, giving the Greatarch of the sky above, the mountains

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with snow clad peaks, the valleyssoft with verdure and fragrant with blossoms,
the oceans with their vast depths,their surface now calm as a lake now
tossing in fury. They all existnot for the objects themselves, but for
their value to the Self, notfor themselves because they are anything in themselves,
but that the purpose of the Selfmay be served and his manifestations made

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possible. The world, with allits beauty, its happiness, and suffering,
its joys and pains, is plannedwith the utmost ingenuity, in order
that the powers of the Self maybe shown forth in manifestation. From the
fire mist to the logos, allexist for the sake of the Self.

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The lowest grain of dust, themightiest deva in his heavenly regions, the
plant that grows out of sight inthe nuk off a mountain, the star
that shines aloft over us. Allthese exist in order that the fragments of
the One Self, embodied in countlessforms, may realize their own identity and
manifest the powers of the Self throughthe matter that envelopes them. There is

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but Oneself in the lowliest dust,and the loftiest Deva mammum Saha, my
portion, a portion of myself,says Sri Krishna. Are all these jivatmas,
all these living spirits? For them, the universe exists. For them,
the sun shines, and the wavesroll, and the winds blow,

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and the rainfalls. That the selfmay know himself as manifested in matters embodied
in the universe. End of sectionone section two of an introduction to Yoga
by Annie Besant. This LibriVox recordingis in the public domain. Two.

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The unfolding of consciousness. One ofthose pregnant and significant ideas which theosophy scatters
so lavishly around is this that thesame scale is repeated over and over again,
the same succession of events in largeror smaller cycles. If you understand
one cycle, you understand the whole. The same laws by which a solar

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system is builded go to the buildingup of the system of man. The
laws by which the self unfolds hispowers in the universe, from the firemist
up to the logos are the samelaws of consciousness which repeat themselves in the
universe of man. If you understandthem in the one, you can equally

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understand them in the other. Graspthem in the small, and the large
is revealed to you. Grasp themin the large, and the small becomes
intelligible to you. The great unfoldingfrom the stone to the God goes on
through millions of years, through aeonsof time. But the long unfolding that

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takes place in the universe takes placein a shorter time cycle, within the
limit of humanity, and this ina cycle so brief that it seems as
nothing beside the longer one. Withina still briefer cycle, a similar unfolding
takes place in the individual, rapidly, swiftly, with all the force of
its past behind it. These forcesthat manifest and unveil themselves in evolution are

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cumulative in their power, embodied inthe stone. In the mineral world,
they grow and put out a littlemore of strength, and in the mineral
world accomplish their unfolding. Then theybecome too strong for the mineral and press
on into the vegetable world. Therethey unfold more and more of their divinity,

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until they become too mighty for thevegetable and become animal. Expanding within
and gaining experiences from the animal,they again overflow the limits of the animal
and appear as the human. Inthe human being, they still grow and
accumulate with ever increasing force, andexert greater pressure against the barrier, and

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then out of the human they pressinto the superhuman. This last process of
evolution is called yoga. Coming tothe individual, the man of our own
globe has behind him his long evolutionin other chains than ours, this same
evolution through mineral to vegetable, throughvegetable to animal, through animal to man,

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and then from our last dwelling placein the lunar orb onto this teren
globe that we call the Earth.Our evolution here has all the force of
the last evolution in it. Andhence, when we come to this shortest
cycle of evolution, which is calledyoga, the man has behind him the
whole of the forces accumulated in hishuman evolution, and it is the accumulation

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of these forces which enables him tomake the passage so rapidly. We must
connect our yoga with the evolution ofconsciousness everywhere, else we shall not understand
it at all. For the lawsof evolution of consciousness in a universe are
exactly the same as the laws ofyoga, and the principles whereby consciousness unfolds

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itself in the great evolution of humanity, are the same principles that we take
in yoga and deliberately apply to themore rapid unfolding of our own consciousness,
So that yoga, when it isdefinitely begun, is not a new thing,
as some people imagine. The wholeevolution is one in its essence,

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the succession is the same, thesequences identical. Whether you are thinking of
the unfolding of consciousness in the universe, or in the human race, or
in the individual, you can stillstudy the laws of the whole, and
in yoga you learn to apply thosesame laws to your own consciousness rationally and
definitely. All the laws are one, however different in their stage of manifestation.

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If you look at yoga in thislight, then this yoga, which
seemed so alien and so far off, will begin to wear a familiar face
and come to you in a garbnot wholly strange. As you study the
unfolding of consciousness and the corresponding evolutionof form, it will not seem so
strange that from man you should passon to superman, transcending the barrier of

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humanity and finding yourself in the regionwhere divinity becomes more manifest. End of
section two, section three of anintroduction to Yoga by Annie Besant. This
LibriVox recording is in the public tooythree. The oneness of the self.

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The self in you is the sameas the self universal. Whatever powers are
manifested throughout the world, those powersexist in germ in latency in you.
He the Supreme does not evolve inhim. There are no additions or subtractions.
His portions. The givatmas are ashimself, and they only unfold their

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powers in matter, as conditions aroundthem draw those powers forth. If you
realize the unity of the self amidthe diversities of the nor self, then
yoga will not seem an impossible thingto you. End of section three,

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Section four of an Introduction to Yogaby Any Basant. This LibriVox recording is
in the public domain. Four.The quickening of the process of self unfoldment.
Educated and thoughtful men and women,you already are. Already you have
climbed up that long ladder which separatesthe present outer form of the deity in

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you from his form in the dust. The manifest deity sleeps in the mineral
and the stone. He becomes moreand more unfolded in vegetables and animals,
and lastly in man. He hasreached what appears as his culmination to ordinary
men. Having done so much,shall you not do more? With the
consciousness so far unfolded? Does itseem impossible that it should unfold in the

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future into the divine. As yourealize that the laws of the evolution of
form and of the unfolding of consciousnessin the universe and man are the same,
and that it is through these lawsthat the Yogi brings out his hidden
powers, then you will understand alsothat it is not necessary to go into
the mountain or into the desert,to hide yourself in a cave or a

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forest, in order that the unionwith the self may be obtained he who
is within you and without you.Sometimes, for a special purpose, seclusion
may be useful. It may bewell at times to retire temporarily from the
busy haunts of men. But inthe universe planned by Ishuara, in order
that the powers of the self maybe brought out, there is your best

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field for yoga, planned with divinewisdom and sagacity. The world is meant
for the unfolding of the self.Why should you then seek to run away
from it? Look at Ri Krishnahimself in that great Opanishad of Yoga,
the bagworth Githa. He spoke itout on a battlefield, and not on
a mountain peak. He spoke itto Akshatriyah ready to fight, and not

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to a Brahmana quietly retired from theworld. The Kurukshethra of the world is
the field of yoga. They whocannot face the world have not the strength
to face the difficulties of yoga practice. If the outer world outwaries your powers,
how do you expect to conquer thedifficulties of the inner life. If

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you cannot climb over the little troublesof the world, how can you hope
to climb over the difficulties that ayogi has to scale. Those men blunder
who think that running away from theworld is the road to victory and that
peace can be found only in certainlocalities. As a matter of fact,
you have practiced yoga unconsciously in thepast, even before your self consciousness had

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separated itself, was aware of itself, sand knew itself to be different in
temporary matter, at least from allthe others that surround it. And that
is the first idea that you shouldtake up and hold firmly. Yoga's only
a quickened process of the ordinary unfoldingof consciousness. Yoga may then be defined

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as the rational application of the lawsof the unfolding of consciousness in an individual
case. That is what is meantby the methods of yoga. You study
the laws of the unfolding of consciousnessin the universe. You then apply them
to a special case, and thatcase is your own. You cannot apply
them to another. They must beself applied. That is the definite principle

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to grasp. So we must addone more word to our definition. Yoga
is the rational application of the lawsof the unfolding of consciousness, self applied
in an individual case. End ofsection four Section five of an introduction to

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Yoga by Annie Besant. This LibriVoxrecording is in the public domain. Five.
Yoga is a science. Next,Yoga is a science. That is
the second thing to grasp. Yugais a science and not a vague dreamy,
drifting, or imagining. It isan applied science, a systematized collection

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of laws applied to bring about adefinite end. It takes up the laws
of psychology applicable to the unfolding ofthe whole consciousness of man on every plane
in every world, and applies thoserationally in a particular case. This rational
application of the laws of unfolding consciousnessacts exactly on the same principles that you

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see applied around you every day inother departments of science. You know by
looking at the world around you,how enormously the intelligence of man cooperating with
nature may quicken natural processes, andthe working of intelligence is as natural as
anything else. We make this distinction, and practically it is a real one

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between rational and natural growth, becausehuman intelligence can guide the working of natural
laws. And when we come todeal with you, Uga, we are
in the same department of applied scienceas let us say, is the scientific
farmer or gardener. When he appliesthe natural laws of selection to breeding.
The farmer or gardener cannot transcend thelaws of nature, nor can he work

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against them. He has no otherlaws of nature to work with, save
universal laws by which nature is evolvingforms around us. And yet he does
in a few years what nature takesperhaps hundreds of thousands of years to do
and how. By applying human intelligenceto choose the laws that serve him and

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to neutralize the laws that hinder hebrings the divine intelligence in man to utilize
the divine powers in nature that areworking for general rather than for particular ends.
Take the breeder of pigeons. Outof the blue rock pigeon, he
develops the powder or the fantail.He chooses out generation after generation the forms

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that show most strongly the peculiarity thathe wishes to develop. He mates such
birds together, takes every favoring circumstanceinto consideration, and selects again and again,
and so on and on till thepeculiarity that he wants to establish has
become a well marked feature. Removehis controlling intelligence, leave the birds to

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themselves, and they revert to theancestral type. Or take the case of
the gardener, out of the wildrows of the hedge has been evolved.
Every rows of the garden. Manypetaled roses are but the result of the
scientific culture of the five petaled rowsof the hedge row the wild product of

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nature. A gardener who chooses thepollen from one plant and places it on
the carpers of another is simply doingdeliberately what is done every day by the
bee and the fly. But hechooses his plants, and he chooses those
that have the qualities he wants intensified. And from those again he chooses those
that show the desired qualities still moreclearly, until he has produced a flower

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so different from the original stock thatonly by tracing it back can you tell
the stock whence it sprang. Sois it in the application of the laws
of psychology that we call yoga systematizedknowledge of the unfolding of consciousness applied to
the individualized self, that is yoga. As I have just said, it

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is by the world that consciousness hasbeen unfolded, and the world is admirably
planned by the logos for this unfoldingof consciousness. Hence, the would be
yogi, choosing out his objects andapplying his laws, finds in the world
exactly the things he wants to makehis practice of yoga real, a vital

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thing, a quickening process for theknowledge of the self. There are many
laws. You can choose, thosewhich you require, you can evade those
you do not require, you canutilize those you need, And thus you
can bring about the result that nature, without that application of human intelligence cannot
so swiftly effect take it. Thenthat yoga is within your reach with your

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powers, and that even some ofthe lower practices of yoga, some of
the simpler applications of the laws ofthe unfolding of consciousness to yourself, will
benefit you in this world as wellas in all others. For you are
really merely quickening your growth. You'reunfolding, taking advantage of the powers nature

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puts within your hands, and deliberatelyeliminating the conditions which would not help you
in your work but rather hinder yourmarch forward. If you see it in
that light, it seems to methat yoga will be to you a far
more real, practical thing than itis when you merely read some fragments about
it taken from Sanskrit books and offenmistranslated into English, and you will begin

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to feel that to be a yogiis not necessarily a thing for a life
far off an incarnation, far removedfrom the present one end of section five,
section six of an Introduction to Yogaby Annie Besant. This LibriVox recording

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is in the public domain. Sixman a duality. Some of the terms
used in yoga are necessarily to beknown. For yoga takes man for a
special purpose and studies him for aspecial end, and therefore only troubles itself
about two great facts regarding man,mind and body. First, he is

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a unit, a unit of consciousness, that is a point to be definitely
grasped. There is only one ofhim in each set of envelopes, and
sometimes the theosophist has to revise hisidea about man when he begins this practical
line. Theosophy quite usefully and rightly, for the understanding of the human constitution,

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divides man into many parts and pieces. We talk of physical, astral,
mental, et cetera. Or wetalk about s thoo, lasharirazuksh misharira,
karanasharira, and so on. Sometimeswe divide man into anamaya, kosha,
prana, maya kosha, mano maayakosha, et cetera. We divide

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man into so many pieces in orderto study him thoroughly, that we can
hardly find the man because of thepieces. This is so to say for
the study of human anatomy and physiology. But yoga is practical and psychological I'm
not complaining of the various subdivisions ofother systems. They are necessary for the
purpose of those systems. But Yoga, for its practical purposes, considers man

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simply as a duality mind and body, unit of consciousness in a set of
envelopes. This is not the dualityof the self and the not self.
For in yoga, self includes consciousnessplus such matter as it cannot distinguish from
itself, and not self is onlythe matter it can put aside. Man

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is not pure self, pure consciousnesssome with that is an abstraction. In
the concrete universe. There are alwaysthe self and his cheats. However,
tenures the latter may be so thata unit of consciousness is inseparable from matter,
and a jivatma or monad is invariablyconsciousness plus matter. In order that

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this may come out clearly, twoterms are used in yoga as constituting man
prana and pradhana life breath and matter. Prana is not only the life breath
of the body, but the totalityof the life forces of the universe,
or in other words, the lifeside of the universe. I am prana,
says Indra Prana. Here means thetotality of the life forces. They

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are taken as consciousness. Mind.Pradhana is the term used for matter body,
or the opposite of mind means forthe yogi in practice, so much
of the appropriated matter of the outerworld as he is able to put away
from himself, to distinguish from hisown consciousness. This division is very significant

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and useful if you can catch clearlyhold off the root idea. Of course,
looking at the thing from beginning toend, you will see Prana,
the great life, the great Self, always present in all, and you
will see the envelopes, the bodies, the sheaths present at the different stages,
taking different forms. But from thestandpoint of Yogic practice, that is

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called prana or self, with whichthe man identifies himself for the time,
including every sheath of matter from whichthe man is unable to separate himself in
consciousness, that unit to the Yogiis the self, so that it is
a changing quantity. As he dropsoff one sheath after another and says that

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is not myself, he is comingnearer and nearer to his highest point to
consciousness in a single film, ina single atom of matter, a monad
for all practical purposes of yoga.The man, the working conscious man,
is so much of him as hecannot separate from the matter enclosing him or

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with which he is connected. Onlythat is body, which the man is
able to put aside and say,this is not I but mine. We
find we have a whole series ofterms in yoga which may be repeated over
and over again. All the statesof mind exist on every plane, says
Vasa. And this way of dealingwith man enables the same significant words as

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we shall see in a moment,to be used over and over again with
an ever subtler connotation. They allbe relative and are equally true at each
stage of evolution. Now it isquite clear that, so far as many
of us are concerned, the physicalbody is the only thing of which we
can say it is not myself.So that in the practice of yoga,

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at first for you, all thewords that would be used in it to
describe the states of consciousness, thestates of mind, would deal with the
waking consciousness in the body as thelowest state, and rising up from that,
all the words would be relative terms, implying a distinct and recognizable state
of the mind in relation to thatwhich is the lowest. In order to

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know how you shall begin to applyto yourselves the various terms used to describe
the states of mind. You mustcarefully analyze your own consciousness and find out
how much of it is really consciousnessand how much is matter so closely appropriated
that you cannot separate it from yourself. End of section six section seven of

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an Introduction to Yoga by Ani Besant. This LibriVox recording is in the public
domain. Seven states of mind.Let us take it in detail. Four
states of consciousness are spoken of,amongst us waking consciousness or jagrath, the
dream consciousness or swapna, the deepsleep consciousness or sushupti, and the state

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beyond that called turia. Beginning offootnote number three. It is impossible to
avoid the use of these technical termseven in an introduction to yoga. There
are no exact English equivalents, andthey are no more troublesome to learn than
any other technical psychological terms. Andof footnote number three, how are those

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related to the body. Jagreth isthe ordinary waking consciousness that you and I
are using at the present time.If our consciousness works in the subtle or
astral body, and is able toimpress its experiences upon the brain. It
is called swapna or in English dreamconsciousness. It is more vivid and real

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than the jagrith state. When workingin the subtler form, the mental body,
it is not able to impress itsexperiences on the brain, it is
called sushupti or deep sleep consciousness.Then the mind is working on its own
contents, not on outer objects.But if it has so far separated itself
from connection with the brain that itcannot be readily recalled by outer means,

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then it is called thuria, alofty state of trance. These four states,
when correlated to the four planes,represent a much unfolded consciousness. Jagrith
is related to the physical, Swapnahto the astral, Sushupti to the mental,
and Turia to the buddhik. Whenpassing from one world to another,

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we should use these words to designatethe consciousness working under the conditions of each
world. But the same words arerepeated in the books of Yoga with a
different context. There the difficulty occursif we have not learned their relative nature.
Swapner is not the same for all, nor is sushupti the same for

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everyone. Above all, the wordsamadi to be explained in a moment is
used in different ways and in differentsenses. How then, are we to
find our way in this apparent tangleby knowing the state which is the starting
point, and then the sequence willalways be the same. All of you
are familiar with the waking consciousness inthe physical body. You can find four

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states even in that if you analyzeit, and a similar sequence of the
states of the mind is found onevery plane. How to distinguish them?
Then? Let us take the wakingconsciousness and try to see the four states
in that. Suppose I take upa book and read it. I read
the words. My eyes are relatedto the outer physical consciousness, that is

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the jagarth state. I go behindthe words to the meaning of the words.
I have passed from the waking stateof the physical plane into the swapnah
state of waking consciousness that sees throughthe outer form seeking the inner life.
I pass from this to the mindof the writer. Here the mind touches
the mind. It is the wakingconsciousness in its Sushupti state. If I

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pass from this contact and enter thevery mind of the writer and live in
that man's mind. Then I havereached the thuria state of the waking consciousness.
Take another illustration. I look atany watch, I am in jagrath.
I close my eyes and make animage of the watch. I am
in swapnah. I call together manyideas of many watches and reach the ideal

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watch. I am in SUSHUPTI Ipass to the ideal of time in the
appas distract. I am in thuria. But all these are stages in the
physical plane consciousness. I have notleft the body. In this way,
you can make states of mind intelligibleand real instead of mere words. End
of section seven Section eight of anIntroduction to Yoga by Anibassentt. This LibriVox

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recording is in the public domain.Eight Samadi. Some other important words which
recur from time to time in theYoga sutras need to be understood. Though
there are no exact English equivalents,as they must be used to avoid clumsy
circumlocutions, it is necessary to explainthem. It is said yoga is samadi.

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Samadi is a state in which theconsciousness is so dissociated from the body
that the latter remains insensible. Itis a state of trance in which the
mind is fully self concious though thebody is insensitive, and from which the
mind returns to the body with theexperiences it has had in the superphysical state,
remembering them when again immersed in thephysical brain. Samadi for any one

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person is relative to his waking consciousness, but implies insensitiveness of the body.
If an ordinary person throws himself intotrance and is active on the astral plane,
his samadi is on the astral Ifhis consciousness is functioning in the mental
plane, samadi is there. Theman who can so withdraw from the body

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as to leave it insensitive while hismind is fully self conscious can practice samadhi.
The phrase yoga is samadi covers factsof the highest significance and greatest instruction.
Suppose you are only able to reachthe astral world when you are asleep.
Your consciousness there is as we haveseen in the sweptness state. But

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as you slowly unfold your powers,the astral forms begin to intrude upon your
waking physical consciousness until they appear asdistinctly as do physical forms, and thus
become objects of your waking consciousness.The astral world, then, for you
no longer belongs to the Swaptna consciousness, but to the Jagreth. You have

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taken two worlds within the scope ofyour Jargrath consciousness, the physical and the
astral worlds, and the mental worldis in your sweptna consciousness. Your body
is then the physical and the astralbodies taken together. As you go on,
the mental plane begins similarly to intrudeitself, and the physical, astral,

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and mental all come within your wakingconsciousness. All these are then your
Jargrath world. These three worlds formbut one world to you. Their three
corresponding bodies but one body that perceivesan act. The three bodies of the
ordinary man have become one body forthe Yogi. If under these conditions you

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want to see only one world ata time, you must fix your attention
on it and thus focus it.You can, in that state of enlarged
waking, concentrate your attention on thephysical and seat. Then the astral and
mental will appear hazy. So youcan focus your attention on the astral and
seat. Then the physical and themental, being out of focus, will

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appear dim. You will easily understandthis if you remember that in this hall,
I may focus my site in themiddle of the hall, when the
pillars on both sides will appear indistinctly. Or I may concentrate my attention on
a pillar and see it distinctly,but I then see you only vaguely at
the same time. It is achange of focus, not a change of

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body. Remember that all which youcan put aside as not yourself, is
the body of the Yogi. Andhence, as you go higher, the
lower bodies form but a single body, and the consciousness in that sheath of
matter, which it still cannot throwaway, that becomes the man. Yoga
is Samadi. It is the powerto withdraw from all that you know as

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body, and to concentrate yourself withinThat is Samadi. No ordinary means will
then call you back to the worldthat you have left. Beginning of footnote
number four. And Indian Yogi inSamadi, discovered in a forest by some
ignorant and brutal englishman, was soviolently ill used that he returned to his

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tortured body, only to leave itagain at once by death. End of
footnote number four. This will alsoexplain to you the phrase in the Secret
doctrine that the adept begins his samadion the atmiic plane. When Adjevan Mukta
enters into samadi, he begins iton the atmic plane. All plains below

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the art mak are one plane forhim. He begins his samadi on a
plane to which the mere man cannotrise. He begins it on the arthmic
plane, and thence rises stage bystage to the higher cosmic planes. The
same word samadi is used to describethe states of the consciousness, whether it

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rises above the physical into the astral, as in self induced trans of an
ordinary man, or as in thecase of Ajeewan Mukdah, when the consciousness,
being already centered in the fifth orarthmic plane, it rises to the
higher planes of a larger world.End of section eight Section nine of an

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Introduction to Yoga by anibssent. ThisLibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Nine. The literature of Yoga.Unfortunately, for nonsense with knowing people,
the literature of yoga is not largelyavailable in English. The general teachings of
yoga are to be found in theUpernishads and the bagworth Getha. Those in

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many translations are within your reach,but they are general, not special.
They give you the main principles,but do not tell you about the methods
in any detailed way. Even inthe bagworth Geita, while you are told
to make sacrifices, to become indifferent, and so on. It is all
of the nature of moral precept absolutelynecessary indeed, but still not telling you

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how to reach the conditions put beforeyou. The special literature of yoga is
first of all, many of theminor Opanishads, the hundred and eight as
they are called. Then comes theenormous mass of literature called the Tantras.
These books have an evil significance inthe ordinary English ear, but not quite

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rightly. The Tantras are very usefulbooks, very valuable and instructive, all
occult signs to be found in them. But they are divisible into three classes,
those that deal with white magic,those that deal with black magic,
and those that deal with what wemay call gray magic, a mixture of
the two. Now, magic isthe word which covers the methods of deliberately

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bringing about super normal physical states bythe action of the will. A high
tension of the nerves brought on byanxiety or disease leads to ordinary hysteria,
emotional and foolish. A similarly hightension brought about by the will renders a
man sensitive to superphysical vibrations. Goingto sleep has no significance, but going

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into samadhi is a priceless power.The process is largely the same, but
one is due to ordinary conditions,the other to the action of the trained
will. The Yogi is the manwho has learnt the power of the will
and knows how to use it tobring about foreseen and four determined results.

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This knowledge has ever been called magic. It is the name of the great
science of the past, the onescience to which only the word great was
given in the past. The Tantrascontain the whole of that, the occult
side of man and nature, themeans whereby discoveries may be made, the
principles whereby the man may recreate himself. All these are in the tantras.

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The difficulty is that without a teacherthey are very dangerous. And again and
again a man trying to practice thetantric methods without a teacher makes himself very
ill. So the tantras have gota bad name, both in the West
and here in India. A goodMany of the American occult books now sold

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are scraps of the tantras which havebeen translated. One difficulty is that these
tantric works often use the name ofa bodily organ to represent an astral or
mental center. There is some reasonin that, because all the centers are
connected with each other from body tobody. But no reliable teacher would set

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his pupil to work on the bodilyorgans until he had some control over the
higher centers and had carefully purified thephysical body. Knowing the one helps you
to know the other, and theteacher who has been through it all can
place his pupil on the right path. But if you take up these words,
which are all physical, and donot know to what the physical word

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is applied, then you will onlybecome very confused and may injure yourself.
For instance, in one of thesutras, it is said that if you
meditate on a certain part of thetongue, you will obtain astral sight.
That means that if you meditate onthe pituitary body just over this part of
the tongue, astral sight will beopened. The particular word used to refer

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to a center has a correspondence inthe physical body, and the word is
often applied to the physical organs whenthe other is meant. This is what
is called a blind and it isintended to keep the people away from dangerous
practices. In the books that arepublished. People may meditate on that part
of their tongues all their lives withoutanything coming of it. But if they

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think upon the corresponding center in thebody, a good deal much harm may
come of it. Meditate on thenavel. It is also said this means
the solar plexus, for there isa close connection between the two. But
to meditate on that is to incurthe danger of a serious nervous disorder,
almost impossible to cure. All whoknow how many people in India suffer through

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these practices ill understood, recognize thatit is not wise to plunge into them
without someone to tell you what theymean, and what may be safely practiced
and what not. The other partof the yoga literature is a small book
called the Sutras of Potangeli that isavailable, but I am afraid that few

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are able to make much of itthemselves in the first place. To elucidate
the Sutras which are simply headings.There is a great deal of commentary in
Sanskrit, only partially translated, andeven the commentaries have this peculiarity that all
the most difficult words are merely repeated, not explained, so that the student

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is not much enlightened. End ofsection nine Section ten of an Introduction to
Yoga by anibssent. This LibriVox recordingis in the public domain ten some definitions.
There are a few words constantly recurringwhich need brief definitions in order to

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avoid confusion. They are unfolding,evolution, spirituality, psychism, yoga,
and mysticism. Unfolding always refers toconsciousness. Evolution to forms is the homogeneous
becoming the heterogeneous, the simple becomingcomplex. But there is no growth and

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no perfectioning for spirit, for consciousness, it is all there and always,
and all that can happen to itis to turn itself outwards instead of remaining
turned inwards. The God in youcannot evolve, but he may show forth
his powers through matter that he hasappropriated for the purpose, and the matter

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evolves to serve him. He himselfonly manifests what he is, and on
that many a saying of the greatmystics may come to your mind. Become,
says Saint Ambrose, what you area paradoxical phrase, but one that
sums up a great truth. Becomein outer manifestation that which you are in

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inner reality. That is the objectof the whole process of yoga. Spirituality
is the realization of the One.Psychism is the manifestation of intelligence through any
material vehicle. Beginning of footnote numberfive. See London Lectures of nineteen o
seven Spirituality and Psychism. End offfootnote number five. Yoga is the seeking

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of union by the intellect a science. Mysticism is the seeking of the same
union by emotion. Beginning of footnotenumber six. The word yoga may of
course be rightly used of all unionwith the Self, whatever the road taken,
I am using it here in thenarrower sense, as peculiarly connected with

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the intelligence as a science herein followingPATANGII. End off footnote number six.
See the mystic. He fixes hismind on the object of devotion. He
loses self consciousness and passes into arapture of love and adoration, leaving all
external ideas wrapped in the obit ofhis love and a great surge of emotion

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sweeps him up to God. Hedoes not know how he has reached that
lofty state. He is conscious onlyof God and his love for him.
Here is the rapture of the mystic, the triumph of the saint. The
yogi does not work like that.Step after step he realizes what he is
doing. He works by signs andnot by emotion, so that any who

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do not care for signs, findingit dull and dry, are not at
present unfolding that part of their naturewhich will find its best help in the
practice of yoga. The yogi mayuse devotion as a means. This comes
out very plainly in Patangele. Hehas given many means whereby yoga may be
followed, and curiously, devotion toIshwara is one of several means. There

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comes out the spirit of the scientificthinker. Devotion to Ishwara is not for
him an end in itself, butmeans to an end, the concentration of
the mind. You see there atonce the difference of spirit. Devotion to
Ishara is the path of the mystic. He attains communion by that devotion to
Ishwara as a means of concentrating themind. Is the scientific way in which

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the Yogi regards devotion. No numberof words would have brought out the difference
of spirit between yoga and mysticism aswell as this. The one looks upon
devotion to ishwara as a way ofreaching the beloved. The other looks upon
it as a means of reaching Concentrationto the mystic God in himself is the

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object of search. Delight in himis the reason for approaching him. Union
with Him in consciousness is his goal. But to the Yogi, fixing the
attention on God is merely an effectiveway of concentrating the mind. In the
one, devotion is used to obtainan end. In the other, God
is seen as the end and isreached directly by rapture. End of ten,

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Section eleven of an introduction to Yogaby anibssant. This LibriVox recording is
in the public domain eleven God withoutand God within. That leads us to
the next point, the relation ofGod without to God within. To the
Yogi, who is the very typeof Hindu thought, there is no definite

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proof of God save the witness ofthe Self within to his existence and his
idea of finding the proof of Godis that you should strip away from your
consciousness all limitations and thus reach thestage where you have pure consciousness save a
wail of the thin nirvanic matter.Then you know that God is, so

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you read in the Upanishid, whoseonly proof is the witness of the self.
This is very different from Western methodsof thought, which try to demonstrate
God by a process of argument.The Hindu will tell you that you cannot
demonstrate God by any argument or reasoning. He is above and beyond reasoning,
and although the reason may guide youon the way, it will not prove

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to demonstration. That God is theonly way you can know him is by
diving into yourself. There you willfind Him and know that He is without
as well as within you. Andyoga is a system that enables you to
get rid of everything from consciousness thatis not God, save that one wail

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of the nirvanic atom, and soto know that God is with an unshakable
certainty of conviction. To the Hindu, that inner conviction is the only thing
worthy to be called faith. Andthis gives you the reason why faith is
said to be beyond reason, andso is often confused with credulity. Faith

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is beyond reason, because it isthe testimony of the self to himself,
that conviction of existence as self,of which reason is only one of the
others manifestations. And the only truefaith is that inner conviction which no argument
can either strengthen or weaken, ofthe innermost self of you, that of

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which alone you are entirely sure.It is the aim of yoga to enable
you to reach that self constantly,not by a sudden glimpse of intuition,
but steadily, unshakably and unchangeably.And when that self is reached, then
the question is there a God cannever again come into the human mind.

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End of section eleven Section twelve ofan Introduction to Yoga by any bessant.
This LibriVox recording is in the publicdomain. Twelve Changes of consciousness and vibrations
of matter. It is necessary tounderstand something about that consciousness which is yourself,

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and about the matter, which isthe envelope of consciousness, but which
the self so often identifies with himself. The great characteristic of consciousness is change,
with the foundation of certainty that itis the consciousness of existence never changes.
But beyond this all is change,and only by the changes does consciousness

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become self consciousness. Consciousness is anever changing thing, circling round one idea
that never changes self existence. Theconsciousness itself is not changed by any change
of position or place. It onlychanges its states within itself. In matter,
every change of state is brought aboutby change of place. A change

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of consciousness is a change of astate. A change of matter is a
change of place. Moreover, everychange of state and consciousness is related to
vibrations of matter in its vehicle.When matter is examined, we find three
fundamental qualities rhythm, mobility, stability, satwa rugis thamas, satwa is rhythm

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vibration. It is more than rugisor mobility. It is a regulated movement,
a swinging from one side to theother over a definite distance, a
length of wave of vibration. Thequestion is often put, how can things
in such different categories as matter andspirit affect each other? Can we bridge

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that great gulf which some say cannever be crossed? Yes, the Indian
has crossed it, or rather hasshown that there is no gulf to the
Indian. Matter and spirit are notonly the two phases of the one,
but by a subtle analysis of therelation between consciousness and matter. He sees
that in every universe the logos imposesupon matter a certain definite relation of rhythms,

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every vibration of matter corresponding to achange in consciousness. There is no
change in consciousness, however, weresubtle that is not appropriated to it a
vibration in matter. There is novibration in matter, however, swift or
delicate, which is not correlated toit a certain change in consciousness. That

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is the first great work of theLogos, which the Hindu scriptures trace out
in the building of the atom,the tan matra, the measure of that,
the measure of consciousness. He whois consciousness imposes on his material the
answer to every change in consciousness,and that is an infinite number of vibrations,

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so that between the self and hissheets there is this invariable relation the
change in consciousness and the vibration ofmatter, and vice versa, that makes
it possible for the self to knowthe no self. These correspondences are utilized
in Raji yoga and Hatha yoga,the kingly yoga and the yoga of resolve.

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The Raja yoga seeks to control thechanges in consciousness and by this control
to rule the material vehicles. Thehathioga seeks to control the vibrations of matter,
and by this control to evoke thedesired changes in consciousness. The weak
point in hathioga is that action onthis line cannot reach beyond the astral plane,

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and the great strain imposed on thecomparatively intractable matter of the physical plane
sometimes leads to atrophy of the veryorgans, the activity of which is necessary
for effecting the changes in consciousness thatwould be useful. The Hatheogi gains control
over the bodily organs with which thewaking consciousness no longer concerns itself, having

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relinquished them to its lower part,the subconsciousness. This is often useful as
regards the prevention of disease, butserves no higher purpose. When he begins
to work on the brain centers connectedwith ordinary consciousness, and still more,
when he touches those connected with thesuper consciousness, he enters a dangerous region

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and is more likely to paralyze thanto evolve that relation alone. It is
which makes matter cognizable. The changein the thinker is answered by a change
outside and his answer to it,and the change in it that he makes,
by his answer rearrange again the matterof the body, which is his
envelope. Hence the rhythmic changes inmatter are rightly called its cognizibility. Matter

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may be known by consciousness. Becauseof this unchanging relation between the two sides
of the manifest logos, who isone and the self becomes aware of changes
within himself and thus of those ofthe external words to which those changes are
related. End of section twelve Sectionthirteen of an introduction to Yoga by anibssent.

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This LibriVox recording is in the publicdomain thirteen Mind. What is mind?
From the yogic standpoint, it issimply the individualized consciousness, the whole
of it, the whole of yourconsciousness, including your activities, which the
Western psychologist puts outside mind. Onlyon the basis of Eastern psychology is yoga

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possible. How shall we describe thisindividualized consciousness. First, it is aware
of things, becoming aware of them. It desires them, desiring them,
it tries to attain them. Sowe have the three aspects of consciousness,
intelligence, desire, activity. Onthe physical plane, activity predominates, although

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desire and thought are present. Onthe astral plane, desire predominates, and
thought and activity are subject to desire. On the mental plane, intelligence is
the dominant note desire and activity aresubject to it. Go to the Buddhik
plane and cognate as pure reason predominates, and so on. Each quality is

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present all the time, but onepredominates so with the matter that belongs to
them. In your combinations of matter, you get rhythmic, active or stable
ones, And according to the combinationsof matter in your bodies will be the
conditions of the activity of the wholeof these in consciousness. To practice yoga,
you must build your bodies of therhythmic combinations, with activity and inertia

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less apparent. The yogi wants tomake his body match his mind. End
of section thirteen section fourteen of anIntroduction to Yoga by Annie Besant. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Fourteen stages of mind. The mind

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has five stages. Patangeli tells usand we ask comments, that these stages
of mind are on every plane.The first stage is the stage in which
the mind is flung about the ship. The stage it is the butterfly mind,
the early stage of humanity, orin man, the mind of the

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child darting constantly from one object toanother. It corresponds to activity on the
physical plane. The next is theconfused stage Morha, equivalent to the stage
of the youth. Swayed by emotions, bewildered by them, he begins to
feel he is ignorant, a statebeyond the fickleness of the child, a

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characteristic state corresponding to activity in theastral world. Then comes the state of
preoccupation or infatuation, which ship thethe state of the man possessed by an
idea, love, ambition, orwhat not. He is no longer a
confused youth, but a man withthe clear aim, and an idea possesses

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him. It may be either thefixed idea of the madman or the fixed
idea which makes the hero or thesaint, But in any case he is
possessed by the idea. The qualityof the idea, its truth or falsehood,
makes the difference between the maniac andthe martyr. Maniac or martyr.

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He's under the spell of a fixedidea. No reasoning avails against it.
If he has assured himself that heis made of glass, no amount of
argument will convince him to the contrary. He will always regard himself as being
as brittle as glass. That isa fixed idea which is false. But

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there is a fixed idea which makesthe hero and the martyr for some great
truth dearer than life. Is everythingthrown aside. He is possessed by it,
dominated by it, and he goesto death gladly for it. That
state is said to be approaching you, for such a man is becoming concentrated,
even if only possessed by one idea. This stage corresponds to activity on

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the lower mental plane, where theman possesses the idea instead of being possessed
by it. That one pointed stateof the mind, called akagritha in Sanskrit,
is the fourth stage. He isa mature man ready for the true
life. When the man has gonethrough life dominated by one idea, then

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he's approaching yoga. He is gettingrid of the grip of the world and
is beyond its allurements. But whenhe possesses that which before possessed him,
then he has become fit for yogaand begins the training which makes his progress
rapid. This stage corresponds to activityon the higher mental plane. Out of

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this fourth stage, or Akagritha arisesthe fifth stage nirudda or self controlled,
when the man not only possesses oneidea, but rising above all ideas,
chooses as he wills, takes ordoes not take according to the illumined will.
Then he is self controlled and caneffectively practice yoga. This stage corresponds

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to activity on the buddhik plane inthe third stage, wikshipta, where he's
possessed by the idea he's learning viwakaor discrimination between the outer and the inner,
the real and the unreal. Whenhe has learned the lesson of viveka,
then he advances the stage forward andin a kagrata, he chooses one

(01:00:37):
idea, the inner life, andas he fixes his mind on that idea,
he learns viragya or dispassion. Herises above the desire to possess objects
of enjoyment belonging either to this orany other world. Then he advances towards
the fifth stage self controlled. Inorder to reach that he must practice the

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six endowments the shut sympathy. Thesesix endowments have to do with the will
aspect of consciousness, as the othertwo, Viveka and veragya have to do
with the cognition and activity aspects ofit. By a study of your own
mind, you can find out howfar you are ready to begin the definite

(01:01:21):
practice of yoga. Examine your mindin order to recognize these stages in yourself.
If you are in either of thetwo early stages, you are not
ready for yoga. The child andthe youth are not ready to become Yogi's
nor is the preoccupied man. Butif you find yourself possessed by a single
thought, you are nearly ready foryoga. It leads to the next stage

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of one pointedness, where you canchoose your idea and cling to it of
your own will. Short is thestep from that to the complete control,
which can inhibit all motions of themind. Having reached that stage, it
is comparatively easy to pass into samadhi. End of section fourteen Section fifteen of

(01:02:14):
an Introduction to Yoga by Annie Besant. This LibriVox recording is in the public
domain. Fifteen Inward and outward turnedconsciousness. Samadhi is of two kinds,
one turned outward, one turned inward. The outward turned consciousness is always first.

(01:02:36):
You're in the stage of samadi belongingto the outward turned waking consciousness,
when you can pass beyond the objectsto the principles which those objects manifest,
when through the form you catch aglimpse of the life. Darwin was in
this stage when he glimpsed the truthof evolution, that is, the outward
turned Samadhi of the physical body.This is technically the sum pragniata samadhi,

(01:03:01):
the samadhi with consciousness, but tobe better regarded I think as with consciousness
outward turned, that is, consciousof objects when the object disappears, that
is, when consciousness draws itself awayfrom the sheath by which those objects are
seen. Then comes the asam pragniatasamadhi, called the samadhi without consciousness.

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I prefer to call it the inwardturned consciousness, as it is by turning
away from the outer that this stageis reached. These two stages of samadi
follow each other on every plane.The intense concentration on objects in the first
stage and the piercing thereby through theouter form to the underlying principle are followed

(01:03:50):
by the turning away of the consciousnessfrom the sheath which has served its purpose,
and its withdrawal into itself, thatis, into a sheath not yet
recognized as a sheath. It isthen for a while conscious only of itself
and not of the outer world.Then comes the cloud, the dawning sense
again of an outer a dim sensingof something other than itself. That again

(01:04:15):
is followed by the functioning of thenigher sheath and the recognition of the objects
of the next higher plane corresponding tothat sheath. Hence, the complete cycle
is some pragnata samadhi, a somepragnata samadhi mega cloud, and then the
some pragnata samadi of the next plane, and so on. End of section

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fifteen. Section sixteen of an Introductionto Yoga by Annie Besant. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain.Sixteen. The cloud, this term in
full thermomega cloud of righteousness or ofreligion, is one which is very scantily

(01:05:02):
explained by the commentators. In fact, the only explanation they give is that
all the man's past karma of goodgathers over him and pours down upon him
a reign of blessing. Let ussee if we cannot find something more than
this meager interpretation. The term cloudis very often used in mystic literature of

(01:05:24):
the West. The cloud on themount, the cloud on the sanctuary,
the cloud on the mercy seat areexpressions familiar to the student, and the
experience which they indicate is familiar toall mystics in its lower phases, and
to some in its fullness. Inits lower phases. It is the experience

(01:05:45):
just noted, where the withdrawal ofthe consciousness into a sheath not yet recognized
as a sheath is followed by thebeginning of the functioning of that sheath,
the first indication of which is thedim sensing of an outer feel, as
though surrounded by a dense mist,conscious that you are not alone, but
unable to see. Be still,be patient, wait, let your consciousness

(01:06:11):
be in the attitude of suspense.Presently the cloud will thin, and,
first in glimpses, then in itsfull beauty, the vision of a higher
plane will dawn on your entranced site. This entrance into a higher plane will
repeat itself again and again, untilyour consciousness centered on the Buddhikh plane and

(01:06:32):
its splendorous having disappeared. As yourconsciousness withdraws even from that exquisite sheath,
you find yourself in the true cloud, the cloud on the sanctuary, the
cloud that veils the holiest, thathides the vision of the self. Then
comes what seems to be the drainingaway of the very life, the letting
go of the last hold on thetangible, the hanging in a void,

(01:06:57):
the horror of great darkness, lonelyiness, unspeakable endure, endure, everything must
go. Nothing out of the eternalcan help you. God only shines out
in the stillness, as says theHebrew, be still and know that I
am God. In that silence,a voice shall be heard, the voice

(01:07:18):
of the Self. In that stillness, a life shall be felt, the
life of the Self. In thatvoid, a fullness shall be revealed,
the fullness of the Self. Inthat darkness, a light shall be seen,
the glory of the Self. Thecloud shall vanish, and the shining
of the Self shall be made manifest. That which was a glimpse of a

(01:07:42):
far off majesty shall become a perpetualrealization. And knowing the Self and your
unity with it, you shall enterinto the peace that belongs to the Self
alone. End of section sixteen Sectionseventeen of an introduction to Yoga by Anibssant.

(01:08:05):
This LibriVox recording is in the publicdomain. Lecture two schools of thought.
In studying psychology, anyone who isacquainted with the Sanskrit tongue must know
how valuable that language is for preciseand scientific dealing with the subject. The
Sanskrit or the well made, theconstructed, the built together tongue is one

(01:08:29):
that lends itself better than any otherto the elucidation of psychological difficulties over and
over again, by the mere formof a word, a hint is given
and explanation or relation is suggested.The language is constructed in a fashion which
enables a large number of meanings tobe connoted by a single word, so

(01:08:50):
that you may trace all allied ideasor truths or facts by this verbal connection.
When you are speaking or using Sanskrit, it has a limited number of
important roots, and then an immensenumber of words constructed on those roots.
Now, the root of the wordyoga is a word that means to join

(01:09:12):
yuj, and that root appears inmany languages, such as the English,
of course, through the Latin,wherein you get yugare yunjaere to join,
and out of that a number ofEnglish words are derived and will at once
suggest themselves to you junction, conjunction, disjunction, and so on. The

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English word yoke again is derived fromthis same Sanskrit route, so that all
through the various words or thoughts orfacts connected with this one root, you're
able to gather the meaning of theword yoga, and to see how much
that word covers in the ordinary processesof the mind, and how suggestive many

(01:09:54):
of the words connected with it are, acting, so to speak, as
sign posts to direct you along theroad to the meaning. In other tongues,
as in French, we have aword like rapau used constantly in English,
being on rapport a French expression,but so Anglicized that it is continually

(01:10:14):
heard amongst ourselves. And that term, in some ways is the closest to
the meaning of the Sanskrit word yoga. To be in relation to, to
be connected with, to enter into, to merge in, and so on.
All these ideas are classified together underthe one head of yoga. When
you find Sri Krishna saying that yogais equilibrium in the Sanskrit, he's saying

(01:10:40):
a perfectly obvious thing, because yogaimplies balance, yoking, and the Sanskrit
of equilibrium is somewata togetherness, sothat it is a perfectly simple, straightforward
statement, not connoting anything very deep, but merely expressing one of the fundamental
meanings of the word he's using.And so with another word, a word

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used in the commentary on the SutraI quoted before, which conveys to the
Hindu a perfectly straightforward meaning, Yogais samadi to an only English knowing person
that does not convey any very definiteidea, each word needs explanation to a
Sanskrit knowing man. The two wordsare obviously related to one another. For

(01:11:24):
the word yoga we have seen meansyoked together, and samadi derived from the
root dha to place with the prepositionssome and are meaning completely together. Samadi
therefore literally means fully placing together,and its etymological equivalent in English would be

(01:11:45):
to compose. Com is equal tosome, posita is equal to place.
Samadi therefore means composing the mind,collecting it together, checking all distractions.
Thus, by failgical as well asby practical investigation, the two words yoga
and samadhi are inseparably linked together.And when Vyasa the commentator says yoga is

(01:12:11):
the composed mind. He's conveying aclear and significant idea as to what is
implied in yoga. Although Samadhi hascome to mean by a natural sequence of
ideas, the trans state which resultsfrom perfect composure, its original meaning should
not be lost sight of. Thus, in explaining yoga, one is often

(01:12:31):
at a loss for the English equivalentof the manifold meanings of the Sanskrit tongue.
And I earnestly advise those of youwho can do so at least to
acquaint yourselves sufficiently with this admirable languageto make the literature of yoga more intelligible
to you than it can be toa person who is completely ignorant of Sanskrit.

(01:12:55):
One its relation to Indian philosophies.Let me ask you to think for
a while on the place of yogain its relation to two of the great
Hindu schools of philosophical thought. Forneither the westerner nor the non Sanskrit knowing
Indian can ever really understand the translationsof the chief Indian books now current here

(01:13:15):
and in the West, and theforce of all the allusions they make,
unless they acquaint themselves in some degreewith the outlines of these great schools of
philosophy, they being the very foundationon which these books are built up.
Take the Bagward Gheita. Probably thereare many who know that book fairly well,
who use it as the book tohelp in the spiritual life, who

(01:13:36):
are not familiar with most of itsprecepts. But you must always be more
or less in a fog in readingit unless you realize the fact that it
is founded on a particular Indian philosophy, and that the meaning of nearly all
the technical words in it is practicallylimited by their meaning in philosophy known as
the Sankhya. There are certain phrasesbelonging rather to the Veda, but the

(01:14:00):
great majority are sunken, and itis taken for granted that the people reading
or using the book are familiar withthe outline of the sunkin philosophy. I
do not want to take you intodetails, but I must give you the
leading ideas of the philosophy, forif you grasp these, you will not
only read your Bagworth Ghita with muchmore intelligence than before, but you will

(01:14:21):
be able to use it practically foryogic purposes in a way that without this
knowledge is almost impossible. Alike.In the bagward Gheita and in the Yoga
sutras of Pathangeli, the terms aresunkyung, and historically yoga is based on
the Sankhya. So far as itsphilosophy is concerned. Sankhya does not concern

(01:14:43):
itself with the existence of deity,but only with the becoming of a universe
the order of evolution. Hence itis often called near Huara Sankya, the
Sankhya without God. But so closelyis it bound up with the Yoga system
that the las is called Sheshwara Sankiawith God. For its understanding, therefore,

(01:15:04):
I must outline part of the Sankhaphilosophy, that part which deals with
the relation of spirit and matter.Note the difference from this of the Vedan
thick conception of self and not self, and then find the reconciliation in the
theosophic statement of the facts in nature. The directions which fall from the lips

(01:15:25):
of the Lord of Yoga in theGitha may sometimes seem to you opposed to
each other and contradictory, because theysometimes are phrased in the sunkyung and sometimes
in the Vedan thick terms starting fromdifferent standpoints, one looking at the world
from the standpoint of matter, theother from the standpoint of spirit. If

(01:15:45):
you are a student of theosophy,then the knowledge of the facts will enable
you to translate the different phrases thatreconciliation and understanding of these apparently contradictory phrases
is the object to which I wouldas your attention now. The sunk Young
School starts with the statement that theuniverse consists of two factors. The first

(01:16:08):
pair of opposites spirit and matter,or more accurately, spirits and matter.
The spirit is called parusha the man, and each spirit is an individual.
Parusha is a unit, a unitof consciousness. They are all of the
same nature, but distinct, everlastingly, the one from the other. Of
these units, there are many countlessPurushas are to be found in the world

(01:16:32):
of men. But while they arecountless in number, they are identical in
nature. They are homogeneous. Everyparusha has three characteristics, and these three
are alike in all. One characteristicis awareness. It will become cognition.
The second of the characteristics is lifeor prana. It will become activity.

(01:16:54):
The third characteristic is immutability, theessence of eternity, it will become will.
Eternity is not, as some mistakenlythink, everlasting time. Everlasting time
has nothing to do with eternity.Time and eternity are two altogether different things.
Eternity is changeless, immuurable, simultaneous. No succession in time, albeit

(01:17:20):
everlasting, if such could be,could give eternity. The fact that Purusha
has this attribute of immumeability tells usthat he is eternal, for changelessness is
the mark of the eternal. Suchare the three attributes of Parusha according to
this sankya. Though these are notthe same in nomenclature as the vedantik such

(01:17:44):
chit ananda, yet they are practicallyidentical. Awareness or cognition is chit,
life or force is set, andimmureability the essence of eternity is ananda.
Over against these prushas homogeneous units countlessin number, stands Procrithi matter the second

(01:18:05):
in the sunk Young duality. Procrithiis one. Purushas are many. Pracrithi
is a continuum. Purushas are discontinuous, being innumerable homogeneous units. Continuity is
the mark of Procrithi. Pause fora moment, on the name Procrithi,
let us investigate its root meaning thename indicates its essence. Pra means fourth

(01:18:31):
and cree is the root make Pracrithithus means fourth making. Matter is that
which enables the essence of being tobecome that which is being is tense becomes
x is tense out being by matter. And to describe matter as forth making

(01:18:51):
is to give its essence in asingle word, only by procrithiic and spirit
or Parusha forth make or manifest himself. Without the presence of Procrithi, Purusha
is helpless, a mere abstraction.Only by the presence of and in Pracrithi
can Purusha make manifest his powers.Prakriti has also three characteristics the well known

(01:19:15):
gunnas attributes or qualities. These arerhythm, mobility, and inertia. Rhythm
enables awareness to become cognition. Mobilityenables life to become activity. Inertia enables
immutability to become will Now. Theconception as to the relation of spirit to

(01:19:36):
matter is a very peculiar one,and confused ideas about it give rise to
many misconceptions. If you grasp it. The Bagward Ghita becomes illuminated, and
all the phrases about action and actorand the mistake of saying I act become
easy to understand as implying technical sunkenideas. The three qualities of Procrithi,

(01:20:00):
when Pracriti is thought of as awayfrom Parusha, are in equilibrium, motionless,
poised, the one against the other, counterbalancing and neutralizing each other,
so that matter is called Jeddah unconsciousdead. But in the presence of Parusha,
all is changed. When Parusha isin propinquity to matter, then there

(01:20:23):
is a change in matter, notoutside but in it. Parusha acts on
Procrithi by propinquity, says Viasa,it comes near Procriti, and Prakriti begins
to live. The coming near isa figure of speech, an adaptation to
our ideas of time and space,for we cannot posit nearness of that which

(01:20:45):
is timeless and spaceless spirit. Bythe word propinquity is indicated an influence exerted
by Parusha on Pracrithi. And this, where material objects are concerned, would
be brought about by the propinquity.If a magnet be brought near to a
piece of soft tyron or an electrifiedbody be brought near to a neutral one,

(01:21:08):
certain changes are wrought in the softtyron or in the neutral body.
By that bringing near the propinquity ofthe magnet makes the soft tyron a magnet.
The qualities of the magnet are producedin it. It manifests poles,
It attracts steel, It attracts orrepels the end of an electric needle.
In the presence of a positively electrifiedbody, the electricity in a neutral body

(01:21:31):
is rearranged and the positive retreats,while the negative gathers near the electrified body.
An internal change has occurred in bothcases from the propinquity of another object.
So with Porusha and Pracriti, Porushadoes nothing. But from Purusha there
comes out an influence. As inthe case of the magnetic influence, the

(01:21:54):
three gunnas, under this influence ofPurusha undergo a marvelous change. I do
not know what words to use inorder not to make a mistake in putting
it. You cannot say that Prakritiabsorbs the influence. You can hardly say
that it reflects the Parusha. Butthe presence of Purusha brings about certain internal

(01:22:14):
changes causes a difference in the equilibriumof the three gunas. In Prakriti,
the three gunnas were in a stateof equilibrium. No gunna was manifest,
one gunna was balanced against another.What happens when Parusha influences Prakriti. The
quality of awareness in Parusha is takenup by or reflected in the gunna called

(01:22:36):
Satwa rhythm, and it becomes cognition. In Pracrithi. The quality that we
call life in Parusha is taken upby or reflected in the gunna called rajas
mobility, and it becomes force energyactivity In Pracrithi. The quality that we
call immutability in Purusha is taken upby or reflected in the gunakord thamas inertia

(01:23:01):
and shows itself out as will ordesire in Procrithi, So that in that
balanced equilibrium of Procrithi, a changehas taken place by the mere propinquity of
or presence of the Parusha. TheParusha has lost nothing, but at the
same time a change has taken placein matter. Cognition has appeared in it,

(01:23:24):
activity, force has appeared in it, will or desire has appeared in
it. With this change in procriti, another change occurs. The three attributes
of porusha cannot be separated from eachother, nor can the three attributes of
procriti be separated each from each Hence, rhythm, while appropriating awareness, is

(01:23:46):
under the influence of the whole threein one parusha and cannot but also take
up subordinately life and immutability as activityand will, and so with mobility and
inertia. In combinations, one qualityor another may predominate, and we may
have combinations which show preponderantly awareness,rhythm or life, mobility or immutability inertia.

(01:24:13):
The combinations in which awareness, rhythmor cognition predominates become mind in nature,
the subject or subjective half of nature. Combinations in which either of the
other two predominates become the object orobjective half of nature, the force and
matter of the Western scientist. Beginningof footnote number seven, a friend notes

(01:24:36):
that the first is the shuldhasata ofthe Ramanuja school, and the second and
third the prakriti or spirit matter inthe lower sense of the same end of
footnote number seven, we have thusnature divided into two, the subject and
the object. We have now innature everything that is wanted for the manifestation

(01:24:58):
of activity, for the production offorms, and for the expression of consciousness.
We have mind, and we haveforce and matter. Porusha has nothing
more to do, for he hasinfused all powers into procriti and sits apart,
contemplating their interplay, himself remaining unchanged. The drama of existence is played

(01:25:19):
out within matter, and all thatspirit does is to look at it.
Porusha is the spectator before whom thedrama is played. He is not the
actor, but only a spectator.The actor is the subjective part of nature,
the mind, which is the reflexionof awareness in rhythmic matter that with

(01:25:40):
which it works. Objective nature isthe reflexion of the other qualities of Purusha,
life and immutability in the Gunnas,rajas and thamas. Thus we have
in nature everything that is wanted forthe production of the universe. The Porusha
only looks on when the drama isplayed before him. He's spectator, not
actor. This is the predominant noteof the bagwe Gheita. Nature does everything

(01:26:06):
the Gunas bring about the universe.The man who says I act is mistaken
and confused. The gunas act nothe. He is only the spectator and
looks on most of the Githa.Teaching is built upon this conception of the
sunkia, and unless that is clearin our minds, we can never discriminate

(01:26:27):
the meaning under the phrases of aparticular philosophy. Let us now turn to
the Vedantic idea. According to theVedantic view, the self is one,
omnipresent, all permeating, the onereality. Nothing exists except the Self,
that is the starting point in Vedanta, all permeating, all controlling, all

(01:26:47):
inspiring. The Self is everywhere present. As the ether permeates all matter,
so does the one Self permeate,restrain, support, vivify all. It
is written in the Githa that asthe air goes everywhere, so is the
Self everywhere in the infinite diversity ofobjects. As we try to follow the

(01:27:10):
outline of Vedantik thought, as wetry to grasp this idea of the one
universal Self, who is existence,consciousness, bliss such ananda, we find
that we are carried into a loftierregion of philosophy than that occupied by the
Sankya. The self is one,The self is everywhere conscious, The self

(01:27:33):
is everywhere existent. The self iseverywhere blissful. There is no division between
these qualities of the self everywhere,all embracing these qualities are found at every
point, in every place. Thereis no spot on which you can put
your finger and say the self isnot here. Where the self is and

(01:27:54):
he is everywhere, there is existence, There is consciousness, and there is
bliss The self being consciousness imagines limitation. Division. From that imagination of limitation
arises form diversity, manyness, fromthat thought of the self. From that
thought of limitation, all diversity ofthe many is born. Matter is the

(01:28:18):
limitation imposed upon the self by hisown will to limit himself. A koham
bahusham, I am one, Iwill to be many, Let me be
many, is the thought of theone, And in that thought the manifold
universe comes into existence. In thatlimitation, self created, he exists,

(01:28:41):
he is conscious, he is happy. In him arises the thought that he
is self existence. And behold,all existence becomes possible because in him is
the will to manifest. All manifestationat once comes into existence, because in
him is all blas. Therefore isthe law of life. The seeking for

(01:29:02):
happiness, the essential characteristic of everysentient creature. The universe appears by the
self limitation in thought of the self. The moment the self ceases to think
it, the universe is not itvanishes as a dream. That is the
fundamental idea of the Vedantha. Thenit accepts the spirits of the Sanchya the

(01:29:24):
Purushas, but it says that thesespirits are only reflections of the one Self,
emanated by the activity of the Self, and that they all reproduce him
in miniature, with the limitations whichthe universal Self has imposed upon them,
which are apparently portions of the universe, but are really identical with him.

(01:29:45):
It is the play of the supremeSelf that makes the limitations and thus reproduces
within limitations the qualities of the self. The consciousness of the self, of
the supreme Self becomes in the particularizedself cognition, the power to know,
and the existence of the self becomesactivity, the power to manifest, and

(01:30:09):
the bliss of the self becomes will. The deepest part of all the longing
for happiness, for bliss, theresolve to obtain it, is what we
call will. And so in thelimited the power to know and the power
to act, and the power towill. These are the reflections in the
particular self of the essential qualities ofthe universal self. Otherwise put, that

(01:30:34):
which was universal awareness becomes now cognitionin the separated self. That which in
the universal self was awareness of itselfbecomes in the limited self awareness of others,
the awareness of the whole becomes thecognition of the individual. So with
the existence of the self, theself existence of the universal self becomes in

(01:30:58):
the limited self activity preservation of existence. So does the bliss of the universal
self in the limited expression of theindividual self become the will that seeks for
happiness, the self determination of theself, the seeking for self realization,
that deepest essence of human life.The difference comes with limitation, with the

(01:31:23):
narrowing of the universal qualities into thespecific qualities of the limited self. Both
are the same in essence, thoughseeming different in manifestation. We have the
power to know, the power towill, and the power to act.
These are the three great powers ofthe self that show themselves in the separate

(01:31:43):
itself in every diversity of forms,from the minutest organism to the loftiest logos.
Then, just as in the Sunkia, if the Purusha the particular self
should identify himself with the matter inwhich he is reflected, and there is
delusion and bondage. So in theVedanta, if the self eternally free imagines

(01:32:05):
himself to be bound by matter,identifying himself with his limitations, he is
deluded. He's under the domain ofMaya, For maya is the self identification
of the self with his limitations.The eternally free can never be bound by
matter. The eternally pure can neverbe tainted by matter. The eternally knowing

(01:32:28):
can never be deluded by matter.The eternally self determined can never be ruled
by matter, save by his ownignorance. His own foolish fancy limits his
inherent powers. He is bound becausehe imagines himself bound. He is impure
because he imagines himself impure. Heis ignorant because he imagines himself ignorant.

(01:32:50):
With the vanishing of delusion, hefinds that he is eternally pure, eternally
wise. Here is the great differencebetween the Sun and the Vedanta. According
to the Sankia, Purusha is thespectator and never the actor. According to
Vedanta, the self is the onlyactor. All else is maya. There

(01:33:11):
is no one else who acts butthe self. According to the Vedanta teaching,
as says the Upanishad, the selfwilled to see, and there were
eyes, the self willed to hear, and there were ears, the self
willed to think, and there wasmind. The eyes, the ears,
the mind exist because the Self haswilled them into existence. The self appropriates

(01:33:38):
matter in order that he may manifesthis powers through it. There is the
distinction between the Sanchia and the Vedanta. In the Sankia, the propinquity of
the Parusha brings out in matter orprocriti, all these characteristics. The Prakriti
acts and not the Purusha. Inthe Vedanta, self alone exists and self

(01:33:59):
alone acts. He imagines limitation andmatter appears. He appropriates that matter in
order that he may manifest his owncapacity. The Sankha is the view of
the universe of the scientist. TheVedanta is the view of the universe of
the metaphysician. Hakkil unconsciously expounded thesanky Young philosophy almost perfectly. So close

(01:34:21):
to the sankyan is his exposition thatanother idea would make it purely sunken.
He has not yet supplied that propinquityof consciousness, which the Sankhya postulates in
its ultimate duality. He has forceand matter, he has mind in matter,
but he has no parusha. Hislast book, criticized by Sir Oliver

(01:34:43):
Lodge, is thoroughly intelligible from theHindu standpoint as an almost accurate representation of
Sankhyam philosophy. It is the viewof the scientist, indifferent to the why
of the facts which he records.The Vedanta, as I said, is
the view of the metaphysician. Heseeks the unity in which all diversities are

(01:35:03):
rooted and into which they are resolved. Now what light does theosophy throw on
both these systems? Theosophy enables everythinker to reconcile the partial statements which are
apparently so contradictory. Theosophy, withthe Vedanta, proclaims the universal self.
All that the Vedanta says of theuniversal self and the self limitation, theosophy

(01:35:28):
repeats, we call these self limitedselfs monads, and we say, as
the vedantin says, that these monadsreproduce the nature of the universal Self,
whose portions they are, and henceyou find in them the three qualities which
you find in the supreme They areunits, and these represent the purushas of

(01:35:48):
the Sunkia, but with a verygreat difference, for they are not passive
watchers, but active agents in thedrama of the universe. Although being above
the fire fold universe, they areas spectators who pull the strings of the
players of the stage. The monadtakes to himself from the universe of matter

(01:36:09):
atoms which show out the qualities correspondingto his three qualities, and in these
he thinks, and wills and acts. He takes to himself rhythmic combinations and
shows his quality of cognition. Hetakes to himself combinations that are mobile.
Through those he shows out his activity. He takes the combinations that are inert

(01:36:30):
and shows out his quality of blissas the will to be happy. Now,
notice the difference of phrase and thoughtin the Sanchia. Matter changed to
reflect the spirit. In fact,the spirit appropriates portions of matter and through
those expresses his own characteristics an enormousdifference. He creates an actor for self

(01:36:53):
expression, and this actor is thespiritual man of the theosophical teaching the spiritual
triad the Atma Buddhi manas to whomwe shall return in a moment. The
monad remains ever beyond the fivefold universe, and in that sense is a spectator.
He dwells beyond the five planes ofmatter, beyond the aartmic or Akashik,

(01:37:16):
beyond the Buddhik plane, the planeof Yu, beyond the mental plane,
the plane of Agni, beyond theastral plane, the plane of Varuna,
beyond the physical plane, the planeof Kubeira. Beyond all these planes,
the monad the self stands, selfconscious and self determined. He reigns

(01:37:39):
in changeless peace, and lives ineternity. But as said above, he
appropriates matter. He takes to himselfan atom of the artic plane, and
in that he, as it were, incorporates his will, and that becomes
Atma. He appropriates an atom ofthe Buddhik plane and reflects in that his
aspect of cognition, and that becomesBuddhi. He appropriates an atom of the

(01:38:04):
manasic plane, and embodies, asit were, his activity in it,
and it becomes Manas. Thus weget Atma plus Buddhi plus Manas. That
triad is the reflexion in the fivefold universe of the monad beyond the five
fold universe. The terms of theosophycan be easily identified with those of other

(01:38:26):
schools. The monad of theosophy isthe Jiwatma of Indian philosophy, the Purusha
of the Sankhya, the particularized selfof the Vedantha. The threefold manifestation Atma
Buddhi Manas is the result of thePurusha's propinquity to Prakriti, the subject of
the sankhm philosophy, the self embodiedin the highest sheets. According to the

(01:38:49):
Vedantik teaching, in the one youhave this self and his sheets, and
in the other the subject a reflectionin matter of Parusha. Thus you can
readily see that you are dealing withthe same concepts, but they are looked
at from different standpoints. We arenearer to the Vedanta than to the Sankhya.
But if you know the principles,you can put the statements of the

(01:39:12):
two philosophies in their own niches andwill not be confused. Learn the principles
and you can explain all the theories. That is the value of the theosophical
teaching. It gives you the principlesand leads you to study the philosophies,
and you study them with a torchin your hand instead of in the dark.
Now, when we understand the natureof the spiritual man or triad,

(01:39:34):
what do we find with regard toall the manifestations of consciousness? That they
are dads spirit matter everywhere on everyplane of our fivefold universe. If you
are a scientist, you will callit spiritualized matter. If you are a
metaphysician, you will call it materializedspirit. Either phrase is equally true,

(01:39:57):
so long as you remember that bothare always present in every manifestation, that
what you see is not the playof matter alone, but the play of
spirit matter, inseparable through the periodof manifestation. Then when you come in
reading an ancient book to the statementmind is material, you will not be
confused. You will know that thewriter is only speaking on the sunkim line,

(01:40:20):
which speaks of matter everywhere, butalways implies that the spirit is looking
on and that this presence makes thework of matter possible. You will not,
when reading the constant statement in Indianphilosophies that mind is material, confuse
this with the opposite view of thematerialist, which says that mind is the
product of matter. A very differentthing. Although the sankim may use materialistic

(01:40:45):
terms, he always posits the vivifyinginfluence of spirit, while the materialist makes
spirit the product of matter. Reallya gulf divides them, although the language
they use may often be the same. And of section seventeen Section eighteen of

(01:41:10):
an Introduction to Yoga by any bessant. This libruvox recording is in the public
domain. Two. Mind Yoga isthe inhibition of the functions of the mind,
says Patangeli. The functions of themind must be suppressed. And in
order that we may be able tofollow out really what this means, we

(01:41:31):
must go more closely into what theIndian philosopher means by the word mind.
Mind in the wide sense of theterm, has three great properties or qualities,
cognition, desire or will activity.Now, yoga is not immediately concerned
with all these three, but onlywith one, cognition, the sunken subject.

(01:41:57):
But you cannot separate cognition, aswe have seen, completely from the
others, because consciousness is a unit. And although we are only concerned with
that part of consciousness which we specificallycall cognition, we cannot get cognition all
by itself. Hence, the Indianpsychologist investigating this property cognition, divides it

(01:42:19):
up into three, or, asthe Vedanta says, into four with all
submission. The vedantin here makes amistake. If you take up any Vedantik
book and read about mind, youwill find a particular word used for it,
which translated means internal organ This anthaha karana is the word always used

(01:42:42):
where in English we use mind,but it is only used in relation to
cognition, not in relation to activityand desire. It is said to be
fourfold, being made up of Manas, Buddhi, Ahankara and Chitta. But
this, this fourfold division, isa very curious division. We know what

(01:43:03):
Manas is, what Buddhi is,what Ahnkara is, but what is this
chitta? What is chitta outside manas, Buddhi and Ankara. Ask anyone you
like and record his answer. Youwill find that it is of the vagest
kind. Let us try to analyzeit for ourselves and see whether light will

(01:43:26):
come upon it. By using thetheosophic idea of a triplet summed up in
a fourth that is not really afourth, but the summation of the three
manas, Buddhi and Ahankara are thethree different sides of a triangle, which
triangle is called chitta. The chittais not a fourth, but the sum
of the three manus, Buddhi andAnkara. This is the old idea of

(01:43:51):
a trinity in unity. Over andover again. H. P. Blavatski
uses this summation as a fourth toher triplets, for she follows the old
methods. The fourth, which sumsup the three but is not other than
they, makes a unity out oftheir apparent diversity. Let us apply that

(01:44:14):
to antahkarana. Take cognition. Thoughin cognition that aspect of the self is
predominant, yet it cannot exist absolutelyalone. The whole self is there in
every act of cognition. Similarly withthe other two, one cannot exist separate
from the others. Where there iscognition, the other two are present,

(01:44:35):
though subordinate to it. The activityis there, the will is there.
Let us think of cognition as pureas it can be turned on itself,
reflected in itself, and we haveBudhi, the pure reason, the very
essence of cognition. This in theuniverse is represented by Vishnu, the sustaining

(01:44:58):
wisdom of the universe. Now letus think of cognition looking outwards and as
reflecting itself in activity its brother quality. And we have a mixture of cognition
and activity, which is called manasthe active mind. Cognition reflected in activity
is manas in man or Brahma,the creative mind in the universe. When

(01:45:21):
cognition similarly reflects itself in will,then it becomes Ankara. The I am
I in man represented by Mahadeva inthe universe. Thus we have found within
the limits of this cognition a tripledivision, making up the internal organ or
antaha karana Manas plus Buddhi plus Ankara. And we can find no foote.

(01:45:47):
What is then chetta? It isthe summation of the three, the three
taken together, the totality of thethree. Because of the old way of
counting these things, you get thisdivision of antahkarana into four. End of
section eighteen section nineteen of an Introductionto Yoga by Annie Besant. This LibriVox

(01:46:15):
recording is in the public domain.Three. The mental body. We must
now deal with the mental body,which is taken as equivalent to mind.
For practical purposes. The first thingfor a man to do in practical yoga
is to separate himself from the mentalbody, to draw away from that into

(01:46:38):
the sheath next above it. Andhere remember what I said previously that in
yoga the self is always the consciousnessplus the vehicle from which the consciousness is
unable to separate itself. All thatis above the body you cannot leave is
the self for practical purposes, andyour first attempt must be to draw away

(01:47:01):
from your mental body. Under theseconditions, manus must be identified with the
self and the spiritual triad, theAthma Wudhi. Manus is to be realized
as separate from the mental body.That is the first step. You must
be able to take up and laydown your mind as you do a tool.

(01:47:24):
Before it is of any use toconsider the further progress of the self
in getting rid of its envelopes.Hence, the mental body is taken as
the starting point. Suppress thought,quiet it, still it. Now,
what is the ordinary condition of themental body? As you look upon that

(01:47:44):
body from a higher plane, yousee constant changes of colors playing in it.
You find that they are sometimes initiatedfrom within, sometimes from without.
Sometimes a vibration from without has causeda change in consciousness and a corresponding change
in the colors in the mental body. If there is a change of consciousness

(01:48:06):
that causes vibration in the matter inwhich that consciousness is functioning, the mental
body is a body of ever changinghues and colors, never still, changing
color with swift rapidity throughout the wholeof it. Yoga is the stopping of
all these The inhibition of vibrations andchanges alike. Inhibition of the change of

(01:48:30):
consciousness stops the vibration of the mentalbody. The checking of the vibration of
the mental body checks the change inconsciousness. In the mental body of a
master, there is no change ofcolor save as initiated from within. No
outward stimulus can produce any answer,any vibration in that perfectly controlled mental body.

(01:48:54):
The color of the mental body ofa master is as moonlight on the
rippling ocean. Within that whiteness ofmoonlike refulgence lie all possibilities of color.
But nothing in the outer world canmake the faintest change of hue sweep over
its steady radiance. If a changeof consciousness occurs within, then the change

(01:49:17):
will send a wave of delicate huesover the mental body, which responds only
in color to changes initiated from within, and never to changes stimulated from without.
His mental body is never his self, but only his tool or instrument,
which he can take up or laydown at his will. It is

(01:49:41):
only an outer sheath that he useswhen he needs to communicate with the lower
world. By that idea of thestopping of all changes of color in the
mental body, you can realize whatis meant by inhibition. The functions of
mind are stopped. In yoga,you you have to begin with your mental
body. You have to learn howto stop the whole of those vibrations,

(01:50:05):
How to make the mental body colorless, still and quiet, responsive only to
the impulses that you choose to putupon it. How will you be able
to tell when the mind is reallycoming under control, when it is no
longer a part of yourself. Youwill begin to realize this when you find

(01:50:25):
that, by the action of yourwill you can check the current of thought
and hold the mind in perfect stillness. Sheath after sheath has to be transcended,
and the proof of transcending is thatit can no longer affect you.
You can affect it, but itcannot affect you. The moment that nothing

(01:50:45):
outside you can harass, you canstir the mind, the moment that the
mind does not respond to the outersave under your own impulse. Then can
you say of it, this isnot myself. It has become part of
the outer. It can no longerbe identified with the self. From this
you pass on to the conquest ofthe causal body. In a similar way,

(01:51:10):
when the conquering of the causal bodyis complete, then you go to
the conquering of the buddhig body.When mastery over the buddhig body is complete,
you pass on to the conquest ofthe artmic body. End of section
nineteen, section twenty of an Introductionto Yoga by anibssant. This liverri Wox

(01:51:38):
recording is in the public domain formind and self. You cannot be surprised
that under these conditions of continued disappearanceof functions, the unfortunate student asks what
becomes of the mind itself? Ifyou suppress all the functions, what is
left. In the Indian way ofteaching, when you come to a difficulty,

(01:52:02):
someone jumps up and asks a question, And in the commentaries, the
question which raises the difficulties always putthe answer of Pathangeli is then the spectator
remains in his own form. Theosophyanswers the monad remains. It is the
end of the human pilgrimage. Thatis the highest point to which humanity may

(01:52:27):
climb. To suppress all the reflectionsin the fivefold universe through which the monad
has manifested his powers, and thenfor the monad to realize himself enriched by
the experiences through which his manifested aspectshave passed. But to the sunken the
difficulties very great, for when hehas only his spectator left, when spectacle

(01:52:50):
ceases, the spectator himself almost vanishes. His only function was to look on
at the play of mind. Whenthe play of mind is gone, what
is left. He can no longerbe a spectator, since there is nothing
to see. The only answer ishe remains in his own form. He
is now out of manifestation. Theduality is transcended, and so the spirit

(01:53:15):
sinks back into latency, no longercapable of manifestation. There you come to
a very serious difference with the theosophicalview of the universe. For according to
that view of the universe, whenall these functions have been suppressed, then
the monad is ruler over matter andis prepared for a new cycle of activity,

(01:53:35):
no longer slave but master all.Analogy shows us that as the self
withdraws from sheath after sheath, hedoes not lose, but gains in self
realization. Self realization becomes more andmore vivid with each successive withdrawal, so
that as the self puts aside oneveil of matter after another recognizes in regular

(01:54:01):
succession that each body in turn isnot himself. By that process of withdrawal,
his sense of self reality becomes keener, not less keen. It is
important to remember that because often Westernreaders dealing with Eastern ideas, in consequence
of misunderstanding the meaning of the stateof liberation or the condition of nirvana,

(01:54:25):
identify it with nothingness or unconsciousness,an entirely mistaken idea which is apt to
color the whole of their thought whendealing with Yogic processes. Imagine the condition
of a man who identifies himself completelywith the body, so that he cannot,
even in thought, separate himself fromit, the state of the early

(01:54:46):
undeveloped man, and compare that withthe strength, vigor, and lucidity of
your own mental consciousness. The consciousnessof the early man, limited to the
physical body with occasional touches of dreamconsciousness, is very restricted in its range.
He has no idea of the sweepof your consciousness, of your abstract

(01:55:10):
thinking. But is that consciousness ofthe early man more vivid or less vivid
than yours? Certainly you will sayit is less vivid. You have largely
transcended his powers of consciousness. Yourconsciousness is astral rather than physical, but
has thereby increased its vividness. Asthe self withdraws himself from sheath after sheath,

(01:55:33):
he realizes himself more and more,not less and less. Self realization
becomes more intense as sheath after sheathis cast aside. The center grows more
powerful as the circumference becomes more permeable, and at last a stage is reached

(01:55:53):
when the center knows itself at everypoint of the circumference. When that is
accomplished, the circuit vanishes, butnot so the center. The center still
remains. Just as you are morevividly conscious than the early man. Just
as your consciousness is more alive,not less than that of an undeveloped man,

(01:56:15):
so it is as we climb upthe stairway of life and cast away
garment after garment, we become moreconscious of existence, more conscious of knowledge,
more conscious of self determined power.The faculties of the self shine out
more strongly as veil after wail fallsaway. By analogy, Then when we

(01:56:38):
touch the monad our consciousness should bemightier, more vivid, and more perfect.
As you learn to truly live,your powers and feelings grow in strength.
And remember that all control is exercisedover sheets, over portions of the
not self. You do not controlyourself. That is a misconception. You

(01:57:00):
control your not self. The selfis never controlled. He is the inner
ruler, immortal. He is thecontroller, not the controlled. As sheath
after sheath becomes subject to yourself,and body after body becomes the tool of
yourself. Then shall you realize thetruth of the saying of the Upanishad,
that you are the self, theinner ruler, the immortal. End of

(01:57:26):
section twenty Section twenty one of anintroduction to Yoga by Annie Besant. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Lecture three Yoga as Science. I
propose now to deal first with thetwo great methods of yoga one related to

(01:57:49):
the self and the other to thenot self. Let me remind you before
I begin, that we are dealingonly with the science of yoga, and
not with other means of a unionwith the divine. The scientific method,
following the old Indian conception, isthe one to which I am asking your
attention. I would remind you,however, that though I am only dealing

(01:58:13):
with this, they remain also theother two great ways of Bakhti and Karma.
The yoga we are studying specially concernsthe marga of nyanam, or knowledge,
and within that way, within thatmarga or path of knowledge, we
find that three subdivisions occur as everywherein nature. One methods of yoga.

(01:58:36):
With regard to what I have justcalled the two great methods in yoga,
we find that by one of thesea man treads the path of knowledge by
Buddhi the pure reason, and theother the same path by manus, the
concrete mind. You may remember thatin speaking yesterday of the subdivisions of Antahkarana,

(01:58:57):
I pointed out to you that therewe had a pros reflection of one
quality in another, and within thelimits of the cognitional aspect of the self.
You find Buddhi cognition reflected in cognition, and Ahankara cognition reflected in will,
and manus cognition reflected in activity.Bearing those three subdivisions in mind,

(01:59:21):
you will very readily be able tosee that these two methods of yoga fall
naturally under two of these heads.But what of the third? What of
the will of which Ankara is therepresentative in cognition? That certainly has its
road, but it can scarcely besaid to be a method. Will breaks

(01:59:42):
its way upwards by sheer, unflinchingdetermination, keeping its eyes fixed on the
end, and using either Buddhi ormanus indifferently as a means to that end.
Metaphysics is used to realize the self. Science is used to understand the
not, But either is grasped,either is thrown aside as it serves or

(02:00:05):
fails to serve the needs of themoment. Often, the man in whom
will is predominant does not know howhe gains the object he's aiming at.
It comes to his hands, butthe how is obscure to him. He
willed to have it, and naturegives it to him. This is also

(02:00:25):
seen in yoga. In the manof Ankara the sub type of will in
cognition. Just as in the manof Ankara, Buddhi and Manas are subordinate,
so in the man of Buddhi,Ahankara and Manas are not absent,
but are subordinate. And in theman of Manas, Ahankara and Buddhi are
present but play a subsidiary part.Both the metaphysician and the scientist must be

(02:00:51):
supported by ahnkara, that self determiningfaculty that deliberates setting of oneself to a
chosen end. That is necessary inall forms of yoga, whether a yogi
is going to follow the purely cognitionalway of Buddhi or whether he is going
to follow the more active path ofMannus. In both cases he needs the

(02:01:15):
self determining will in order to sustainhim in his arduous task. You remember
it is written in the Upanishad thatthe weak man cannot reach the self.
Strength is wanted, determination is wanted, perseverance is wanted. And you must
have in every successful yogi that intensedetermination, which is the very essence of

(02:01:39):
individuality. Now what are these twogreat methods? One of them may be
described as seeking the self by theself. The other may be described as
seeking the self by the not self. And if you will think of them
in that fashion, I think youwill find the idea illuminative. Those who
seek the self by the self seekhim through the faculty of Buddhi. They

(02:02:02):
turn ever inwards and turn away fromthe outer world. Those who seek the
self by the no self seek himthrough the active working manners. They are
outward turned, and by study ofthe north self they learn to realize the
self. The one is the pathof the metaphysician. The other is the

(02:02:24):
path of the scientist. End ofsection twenty one section twenty two of an
introduction to Yoga by Annie Besant.This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Two to the Self by the self. Let us look at this a

(02:02:45):
little more closely with its appropriate methods. The path on which the faculty of
Buddhis used predominantly is, as justsaid, the path of the metaphysician.
It is the path of the philosophy. He turns inwards ever, seeking to
find the self by diving into therecesses of his own nature. Knowing that

(02:03:08):
the self is within him, hetries to strip away Vesture after westure envelope
after envelope, and by a processof rejecting them, he reaches the glory
of the unveiled self. To beginthis, he must give up concrete thinking
and dwell amidst abstractions. His methodthen must be strenuous, long sustained,

(02:03:31):
patient meditation. Nothing else will servehis end. Strenuous hard thinking, by
which he rises away from the concreteinto the abstract regions of the mind.
Strenuous hard thinking further continued, bywhich he reaches from the abstract region of
the mind up to the region ofBuddhi, where unity is sensed. Still

(02:03:54):
by strenuous thinking, climbing yet further, until Buddhi, as it were,
opens out into Atmah, until theSelf is seen in his splendor with only
a film of atmic matter, theenvelope of Atma in the manifested fivefold world.
It is along that difficult and strenuouspath that the self must be found.

(02:04:16):
By way of the self. Sucha man must utterly disregard the no
self. He must shut his sensesagainst the outside world. The world must
no longer be able to touch him. The senses must be closed against all
the vibrations that come from without,and he must turn a deaf ear,

(02:04:38):
a blind eye to all the allurementsof matter, to all the diversity of
objects which make up the universe ofthe not self. Seclusion will help him
until he is strong enough to closehimself against the outer stimuli or allurements.
The contemplative orders in the Roman CatholicChurch offer a good environment for this path.

(02:05:00):
They put the outer world away asfar away as possible. It is
a snare, a temptation, ahindrance, always turning away from the world.
The Yogi must fix his thought,his attention upon the self. Hence,
for those who walk along this road, what are called the scythis are
direct obstacles and not helps. Butthat statement that you find so often that

(02:05:25):
the scithhis are things to be avoided, is far more sweeping than some of
our modern theosophists are apt to imagine. They declare that the scythis are to
be avoided, But forget that theIndian who says this also avoids the use
of the physical senses. He closesphysical eyes and ears as hindrances. But

(02:05:45):
some theosophists urge avoidance of all useof the astral senses and mental senses,
But they do not object to thefree use of the physical senses or dream
that they are hindrances. Why not, If the senses are obstacles in their
finer forms, there are also obstaclesin their grosser manifestations. To the man

(02:06:09):
who would find the self by theself, every sense is a hindrance and
an obstacle, And there is nologic, no reason in denouncing the subtler
senses only while forgetting the temptations ofthe physical senses impediments as much as the
other. No such division exists forthe man who tries to understand the universe

(02:06:29):
in which he is in the searchfor the self by the self. All
that is not self is an obstacle. Your eyes, your ears, everything
that puts you into contact with theouter world is just as much an obstacle
as the subtler forms of the samesenses, which put you into touch with
the subtler worlds of matter, whichyou call astral and mental. This exaggerated

(02:06:53):
fear of the Siddhies is only apassing reaction, not based on understanding,
but on lack of understanding, andthose who denounce the sidhis should rise to
the logical position of the Hindu Yogior of the Roman Catholic recluse, who
denounces all the senses and all theobjects of the senses as obstacles in the
way. Many theosophists here and morein the West, think that much is

(02:07:17):
gained by acuteness of the physical sensesand of the other faculties in the physical
brain. But the moment the sensesare acute enough to be astral or the
faculties begin to work in astral matter, they treat them as objects of denunciation.
That is not rational, It isnot logical. Obstacles, then,

(02:07:38):
are all the senses, whether youcall them scithis or not. In the
search for the self, by turningaway from the not self, it is
necessary for the man who seeks theself by the self to have the quality
which is called faith in the sensein which I defined it before the profound,
intense conviction that nothing can shake ofthe reality of the seine within you.

(02:08:01):
That is the one thing that isworthy to be dignified by the name
of faith. Truly, it isbeyond reason, for not by reason may
the self be known as real.Truly it is not based on argument,
for not by reasoning may the selfbe discovered. It is the witness of
the self within you to his ownsupreme reality. And that unshakable conviction,

(02:08:22):
which is Shradhah, is necessary forthe treading of this path. It is
necessary because without it, the humanmind would fail, the human courage would
be daunted, the human perceiverance wouldbreak with the difficulties of the seeking for
the self. Only that imperious convictionthat the self is only that can cheer

(02:08:43):
the pilgrim in the darkness that comesdown upon him, in the void that
he must cross before the life ofthe lower being thrown away the life of
the higher is realized. This imperiousfaith is to the yogi on this path,
what experience and knowledge are to theyogi on the other end of section

(02:09:03):
twenty two section twenty three of anIntroduction to Yoga by Annibasant, this LibriVox
recording is in the public domain.Three to the self through the not self,
Turn from him to the seeker forthe self through the not self.

(02:09:26):
This is the way of the scientist, of the man who uses the concrete
active manners in order scientifically to understandthe universe. He has to find the
real among the unreal. The eternalamong the changing the self amid the diversity
of forms. How is he todo it? By a close and rigorous
study of every changing form in whichthe self has wailed himself, by studying

(02:09:50):
the not self around him and inhim, by understanding his own nature,
by analyzing in order to understand,by studying nature in others as well as
in himself, by learning to knowhimself and to gain knowledge of others.
Slowly, gradually, step by step, plane after plane, he has to
climb upwards, rejecting one form ofmatter after another, finding not in these

(02:10:16):
the self he seeks. As helearns to conquer the physical plane, he
uses the keenest senses in order tounderstand, and finally to reject. He
says, this is not myself,This changing panorama, these obscurities, these
continual transformations, These are obviously theantithesis of the eternity, the lucidity,

(02:10:39):
the stability of the self. Thesecannot be myself, and thus he constantly
rejects them. He climbs onto theastral plane, and, using their the
finer astral senses, he studies theastral world, only to find that that
also is changing and manifests not thechangelessness of the self. After so the

(02:11:00):
astral world is conquered and rejected,he climbs on into the mental plane,
and there still studies the ever changingforms of that manasic world, only once
more to reject them. These arenot the self. Climbing still higher,
ever, following the track of forms, he goes from the mental to the
Buddhik plane, where the Self beginsto show his radiance and beauty in manifested

(02:11:24):
union. Thus, by studying diversity, he reaches the conception of unity and
is led into the understanding of theone to him. The realization of the
self comes through the study of thenott self, by the separation of the
not self from the self. Thushe does by knowledge and experience what the
other does by pure thinking and byfaith. In this path of finding the

(02:11:48):
self through the not self, theso called sidis are necessary. Just as
you cannot study the physical world withoutthe physical senses, so you cannot study
the astral world where without the astralsenses, nor the mental world without the
mental senses. Therefore, calmly chooseyour ends and then think out your means,

(02:12:09):
and you will not be in anydifficulty about the method you should employ
the path you should tread. Thuswe see that there are two methods,
and these must be kept separate inyour thought. Along the line of pure
thinking, the metaphysical line, youmay reach the self. So also along
the line of scientific observation and experiment, the physical line, in the widest

(02:12:31):
sense of the term physical, youmay reach the self. Both are ways
of yoga. Both are included inthe directions that you may read in the
Yoga sutras of Patangelei. Those directionswill cease to be self contradictory if you
will only separate in your thought thetwo methods Patangili has given in the later

(02:12:52):
part of his sutras, some henceas to the way in which the sidies
may be developed. Thus you mayfind your way to the supreme end of
section twenty three Section twenty four ofan introduction to Yoga by Annie Besant.
This Livery Woks recording is in thepublic domain. Four. Yoga and Morality.

(02:13:18):
The next point that I would pauseupon and ask you to realize is
the fact that yoga is a scienceof psychology. I want further to point
out to you that it is nota science of ethic. Though ethic is
certainly the foundation of it. Psychologyand ethic are not the same. The
science of psychology is the result ofthe study of mind. The science of

(02:13:39):
ethic is the result of the studyof conduct so as to bring about the
harmonious relation of one to another.Ethic is a science of life and not
an investigation into the nature of mindand the methods by which the powers of
the mind may be developed and evolved. I pause on this because of the
confusion that exists in many people asregards this point. If you understand the

(02:14:03):
scope of yoga aright, such aconfusion ought not to arise. The confused
idea makes people think that in yogathey ought to find necessarily what are called
precepts of morality ethic. Though Patangialigives the universal precepts of morality and right
conduct in the first two wangas ofyoga called Yama and Niama, yet they

(02:14:24):
are subsidiary to the main topic,are the foundation of it. As just
said, no practice of yoga ispossible unless you possess the ordinary moral attributes
summed up in Yama and Niama.That goes without saying, But you should
not expect to find moral precepts ina scientific textbook of psychology like yoga.

(02:14:46):
A man studying the science of electricityis not shocked if he does not find
in it moral precepts. Why then, should one study yoga as a science
of psychology expect to find moral preceptsin it. I do not say that
morality is unam important for the yogi. On the contrary, it is all
important. It is absolutely necessary inthe first stages of yoga for everyone.

(02:15:07):
But to a yogi who has masteredthese it is not necessary if he wants
to follow the left hand path.For you must remember that there is a
yoga of the left hand path aswell as a yoga of the right hand
path. Yoga is there also followed. And though asceticism is always found in
the early stages and sometimes in thelater, true morality is absent. The

(02:15:30):
black magician is often as rigid inhis morality as any brother of the white
lodge. Beginning of footnote number eight. Terms white and black as used here
have no relation to race or color. End off footnote number eight. Of
the disciples of the black and whitemagicians, the disciple of the black magician
is often the more ascetic. Hisobject is not the purification of life for

(02:15:56):
the sake of humanity, but thepurification of the vehicle that he may be
better able to acquire power. Thedifference between the white and the black magician
lies in the motive. You mighthave a white magician, a follower of
the right hand path, rejecting meatbecause the way of obtaining it is against
the law of compassion. The followerof the left hand path may also reject

(02:16:18):
meat, but for the reason thatyou would not be able to work so
well with his vehicle if it werefull of the Rajesic elements of meat.
The difference is in the motive.The outer action is the same. Both
men may be called moral if judgedby the outer action alone. The motive
marks the path, while the outeractions are often identical. It is a

(02:16:39):
moral thing to abstain from meat,because thereby you are lessening the infliction of
suffering. It is not a moralact to abstain from meat from the Yogi
standpoint, but only a means toan end. Some of the greatest Yogis
in Hindu literature were and are menwhom you would rightly call black magicians,
but still they are yogis. Oneof The greatest yogis of all was Ravana,

(02:17:03):
the anti Christ, the avatar ofevil, who summed up all the
evil of the world in his ownperson in order to oppose the avatar of
good. He was a great,a marvelous yogi, and by yoga he
gained his power. Ravana was atypical yogi of the left hand path,
a great destroyer, and he practicedyoga to obtain the power of destruction in

(02:17:26):
order to force from the hands ofthe planetary logos the boon that no man
should be able to kill him.You may say, what a strange thing
that a man can force from Godsuch a power. The laws of nature
are the expression of Divinity, andif a man follows the law of nature,
he reaps the result which that lawinevitably brings. The question whether he

(02:17:46):
is good or bad to his fellowmen does not touch this matter at all.
Whether some other law is or isnot obeyed is entirely outside the question.
It is a matter of dry actthat the scientific man may be moral
or immoral, provided that his immoralitydoes not upset his eyesight or nervous system.

(02:18:07):
It is the same with yoga.Morality. Matters profoundly, but it
does not affect these particular things.And if you think it does, you're
always getting into bogs and changing yourmoral standpoint, either lowering or making it
absurd. Try to understand. Thatis what the theosophist should do, and
when you understand, you will notfall into the blunders nor suffer the bewilderment

(02:18:31):
many do when you expect laws belongingto one region of the universe to bring
about results in another. The scientificman understands that he knows that a discovery
in chemistry does not depend upon hismorality, and he would not think of
doing an act of charity with aview to finding out a new element.
He will not fail in a wellwrought experiment, however wishes his private life

(02:18:56):
may be. The things are indifferent regions, and he does not confuse
the laws of the two. AsIshuara is absolutely just. The man who
obeys a law reaps the fruit ofthat law, whether there is actions in
any other fields are beneficial to manor not. If you sow rice,
you will reap rise. If yousow weeds, you will reap weeds.

(02:19:18):
Rice for rice and weed for weed. The harvest is according to the sowing,
For this is a universe of law. By law we concur By law
we succeed. Where does morality comein? Then, when you are dealing
with the magician of the right handpath, the servant of the White Lodge,
their morality is an all important factor. Inasmuch as he is learning to

(02:19:39):
be a servant of humanity, hemust observe the highest morality, not merely
the morality of the world. Forthe white magician has to deal with helping
on harmonious relations between man and man. The white magician must be patient.
The black magician may quite well beharsh. The white magician must be compared.

(02:20:00):
Compassion widens out his nature, andhe's trying to make his consciousness include
the whole of humanity. But notso the black magician. He can afford
to ignore compassion. A white magicianmay strive for power, but when he
is striving for power, he seeksit that he may serve humanity and become
more useful to mankind, a moreeffective servant in the helping of the world.

(02:20:24):
But not so the brother of thedark side. When he strives for
power, he seeks it for himselfso that he may use it against the
whole world. He may be harshand cruel He wants to be isolated,
and harshness and cruelty tend to isolatehim. He wants power, and holding
that power for himself, he canput himself temporarily, as it were,

(02:20:46):
against the divine will in evolution.The end of the one is Nirwana,
where all separation has ceased. Theend of the other is Avichi, the
uttermost isolation, the kaivalia of theBlack Magician. Both are yogi's. Both
follow the signs of yoga, andeach gets the result of the law he

(02:21:07):
has followed. One the kivalia ofNirvana, the other the kivalie of Avichi.
End of section twenty four, Sectiontwenty five of an Introduction to Yoga
by Annie Besant. This libriworks recordingis in the public domain. Five composition

(02:21:31):
of States of the Mind. Letus pass now to the states of the
mind as they are called. Theword which is used for the states of
the mind by Patangili is WRITI.This admirably constructed language Sanskrit gives you in
that very word its own meaning.Withi's means the being of the mind,

(02:21:52):
the ways in which mind can exist, the modes of the mind, the
modes of mental existence, the waysof existing, that is the literal meaning
of this word. A subsidiary meaningis a turning around, a moving in
a circle. You have to stopin yoga every mode of existing in which

(02:22:13):
the mind manifests itself in order toguide you towards the power of stopping them,
for you cannot stop them till youunderstand them. You are told that
these modes of mind are fivefold intheir nature. They are pentads. The
sutra, as usually translated, saysthe widthis are fivefold punch ata yaha,

(02:22:35):
But pentad is a more accurate renderingof the word punch ata yaha in the
original than fivefold. The word pentadat once recalls to you the way in
which the chemist speaks of a monad, triad heptad when he deals with elements.
The elements with which the chemist isdealing are related to the unit element

(02:22:56):
in different ways. Some elements arerelated to it in one way only and
are called monads, others are relatedin two ways and are called two ads,
and so on. Is this applicableto the states of mind? Also
recall the shloka of the bagwad Ghita, in which It is said that the
Jiva goes out into the world,drawing round him the five senses and mind

(02:23:20):
as sixth that may throw a littlelight on the subject. You have five
senses, the five ways of knowing, the five nan andrias or organs of
knowing. Only by these five sensescan you know the outer world. Western
psychology says that nothing exists in thoughtthat does not exist in sensation. That

(02:23:41):
is not true universally. It isnot true of the abstract mind, nor
wholly of the concrete, but thereis a great deal of truth in it.
Every idea is a pentad. Itis made up of five elements.
Each element making up the idea comesfrom one of the senses, and of
these there are at present five.Later on every idea will be a heptad

(02:24:05):
made up of seven elements. Forthe present each has five qualities which build
up the idea. The mind unitesthe whole together into a single thought synthesizes
the five sensations. If you thinkof an orange and analyze your thought of
an orange, you will find init color which comes through the eye,

(02:24:26):
fragrance which comes through the nose,taste which comes through the tongue, roughness
or smoothness, which comes through thesense of touch, and you would hear
musical notes made by the vibrations ofthe molecules coming through the sense of hearing.
Were it keener, if you hada perfect sense of hearing, you
would hear the sound of the orange. Also, for wherever there is vibration,

(02:24:50):
there is sound. All this synthesizedby the mind into one idea is
an orange. That is the rootreason for the association of ideas. It
is not only that a fragrance recallsthe scene and the circumstances under which the
fragrance was observed, but because everyimpression is made through all the five senses,
and therefore when one is stimulated,the others are recalled. The mind

(02:25:15):
is like a prism. If youput a prism in the path of a
ray of white light, it willbreak it up into its seven constituent rays,
and seven colors will appear. Putanother prism in the path of these
seven rays, and as they passthrough the prism, the process is reversed
and the seven become one white light. The mind is like this second prism.

(02:25:37):
It takes in the five sensations thatenter through the senses, and combines
them into a single precept, asat the present stage of evolution the senses
are five only. It unites thefive sensations into one idea. What the
white rays to the seven colored light, that a thought or idea is to
the five fold sensation. That isthe meaning of the much controverted sutra with

(02:26:01):
Tayaha panchetayeher the with these or modesof the mind are pentads. If you
look at it in that way,the later teachings will be more clearly understood.
As I have already said that sentencethat nothing exists in thought which is
not in sensation is not the wholetruth manus. The sixth sense adds to

(02:26:24):
the sensations its own pure elemental nature. What is that nature that you find
thus added? It is the establishmentof a relation. That is really what
the mind adds. All thinking isthe establishment of relations. And the more
closely you look into that phrase,the more you will realize how it covers

(02:26:45):
all the varied processes of the mind. The very first process of the mind
is to become aware of an outsideworld. However dimly. At first,
we become aware of something outside ourselves. This is generally called perception. I
use the more general term establishing arelation, because that runs through the whole

(02:27:07):
of the mental processes, whereas perceptionis only a single thing. To use
a well known simile, when alittle baby feels a pin pricking it,
it is conscious of pain, butnot at first conscious of the pin,
nor yet conscious of where exactly thepin is. It does not recognize the
part of the body in which thepin is. There is no perception,

(02:27:30):
For perception is defined as relating asensation to the object which causes the sensation.
You only, technically speaking, perceivewhen you make a relation between the
object and yourself. That is thevery first of these mental processes, following
on the heels of sensation. Ofcourse, from the Eastern standpoint, sensation

(02:27:52):
is a mental function also, forthe senses are part of the cognitive faculty,
but they are unfortunately classed with feelingsin Western psychology. Now, having
established that relation between yourself and objectsoutside, what is the next process of
the mind? Reasoning? That is, the establishing of relations between different objects.

(02:28:13):
As perception is the establishment of yourrelation with a single object. When
you have perceived many objects, thenyou begin to reason in order to establish
relations between them. Reasoning is theestablishment of a new relation, which comes
out from the comparison of the differentobjects that by perception you have established in

(02:28:33):
relation with yourself, and the resultis a concept. This one phrase,
establishment of relations is true all round. The whole process of thinking is the
establishment of relations. And it isnatural that it should be so, because
the supreme thinker, by establishing arelation, brought matter into existence, just

(02:28:54):
as he, by establishing that primaryrelation between himself and the not self,
makes a universe possible. So dowe reflect his powers in ourselves, thinking
by the same method establishing relations andthus carrying out every intellectual process. End
of section twenty five Section twenty sixof an Introduction to Yoga by Annie Besant.

(02:29:26):
This LibriVox recording is in the publicdomain. Six Pleasure and pain.
Let us pass again from that toanother statement made by this great teacher of
yoga. Pentads are of two kinds, painful and non painful. Why did
he not say painful and pleasant?Because he was an accurate thinker, a

(02:29:48):
logical thinker, and he uses thelogical division that includes the whole universe of
discourse a and not a painful andnon painful. There has been much controversy
among psychologists as to a third kind, indifferent. Some psychologists divide all feelings

(02:30:09):
into three painful, pleasant, andindifferent. Feelings cannot be divided merely into
pain and pleasure. There is athird class called indifference, which is neither
painful nor pleasant. Other psychologists saythat indifference is merely pain or pleasure that
is not marked enough to be calledthe one or the other. Now,

(02:30:31):
this controversy and tangle into which psychologistshave fallen might be avoided if the primary
division of feelings were a logical divisiona and not a. That is the
only true and logical division. Pathangeleiis absolutely logical and right. In order
to avoid the quicksand into which themodern psychologists have fallen, he divides all

(02:30:52):
Writhe's modes of mind into painful andnon painful. There is, however,
a psychological reason why we should saypleasure and pain, although it is not
a logical division. The reason whythere should be that classification is that the
word pleasure and the word pain expressto fundamental states of difference, not in

(02:31:13):
the self, but in the vehiclesin which that self dwells. The self,
being by nature unlimited, is everpressing, so to say, against
any boundaries which seek to limit him. When these limitations give way a little
before the constant pressure of the self, we feel pleasure, and when they
resist or contract, we feel pain. They are not states of the self

(02:31:37):
so much as states of the vehiclesand states of certain changes in consciousness.
Pleasure and pain belong to the selfas a whole, and not to any
aspect of the self separately taken.When pleasure and pain are marked off as
belonging only to the desired nature,the objection arises well. But in the

(02:31:58):
exercise of the cognitive faculty, thereis an intense pleasure. When you use
the creative faculty of the mind,you're conscious of a profound joy in its
exercise. And yet that creative facultycan by no means be classed with desire.
The answer is pleasure belongs to theself as a whole, Where the
vehicles yield themselves to the self andpermit it to expand, as is its

(02:32:24):
eternal nature. Then what is calledpleasure is felt. It has been rightly
said, pleasure is a sense ofmoreness. Every time you feel pleasure,
you will find the word moreness coversthe case. It will cover the lowest
condition of pleasure, the pleasure ofeating. You are becoming more by appropriating

(02:32:46):
to yourself a part of the notself food. You will find it true
of the highest condition of bliss,union with the Supreme. You become more
by expanding yourself to his infinity.When you have a praise that can be
applied to the lowest and highest withwhich you are dealing, you may be
fairly sure it is all inclusive,and that therefore pleasure is Moreness is a

(02:33:09):
true statement. Similarly, pain islessness. If you understand these things,
your philosophy of life will become morepractical, and you will be able to
help more effectively. People who fallinto evil ways take drink. The real
attraction of drinking lies in the factthat in the first stages of it,

(02:33:31):
a more keen and vivid life isfelt. That stage is overstepped in the
case of the man who gets drunk, and then the attraction ceases. The
attraction lies in the first stages,and many people have experienced that. Who
would never dream of becoming drunk,watch people who are taking wine and see
how much more lively and talkative theybecome. There lies the attraction. The

(02:33:52):
danger. The real attraction in mostcoarse forms of excess is that they give
an addeds of life. And youwill never be able to redeem a man
from his excess unless you know whyhe does it. Understanding the attractiveness of
the first step, the increase oflife, then you will be able to
put your finger on the point oftemptation and meet that in your argument with

(02:34:16):
him, so that this sort ofmental analysis is not only interesting, but
practically useful to every helper of mankind. The more you know, the greater
is your power to help. Thenext question that arises is why does he
not divide all feelings into pleasurable andnot pleasurable, rather than into painful and
not painful. A Westerner will notbe at a loss to answer that.

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Oh, the Hindu is naturally sovery pessimistic that he naturally ignores pleasure and
speaks of painful and not painful theuniverse is full of pain. But that
would not be a true answer inthe first place. The Hindu is not
pessimistic. He is the most optimisticof men. He has not got one
solitary school of philosophy that does notput in its foreground that the object of

(02:35:03):
all philosophy is to put an endto pain. But he is profoundly reasonable.
He knows that we need not goabout seeking happiness. It is already
ours, for it is the essenceof our own nature. Do not the
Oponishites say the self is bliss.Happiness exists perennially within you. It is
your normal state. You have notto seek it. You will necessarily be

(02:35:26):
happy if you get rid of theobstacles called pain, which are in the
modes of mind. Happiness is nota secondary thing, but pain is,
and these painful things are obstacles tobe got rid of. When they are
stopped, you must be happy.Therefore, Patangili says, the writhis are
painful and non painful. Pain isan excrescence. It is a transitory thing.

(02:35:50):
The self, who is bliss,being the all permeating life of the
universe, Pain has no permanent placein it. Such is the Hindu position,
the most optimist in the world.Let us pause for a moment to
ask, why should there be painat all? If the self is bliss,
Just because the nature of the selfis bliss, it would be impossible
to make the self turn outward,come into manifestation. If only streams of

(02:36:15):
bliss flowed in on him. Hewould have remained unconscious of the streams.
To the infinity of bliss, nothingcould be added. If you had a
stream of water flowing unimpeded in itscourse, pouring more water into it would
cause no ruffling. The stream wouldgo on heedless of the addition. But
put an obstacle in the way,so that the free flow is checked,

(02:36:37):
and the stream will struggle and fumeagainst the obstacle, and make every endeavor
to sweep it away. That whichis contrary to it, that which will
check its current smooth flow, thatalone will cause effort. That is the
first function of pain. It isthe only thing that can rouse the self.
It is the only thing that canawaken his attention. When that peaceful,

(02:37:01):
happy, dreaming, interned self findsthe surge of pain beating against him,
he awakens, what is this?Contrary to my nature? Antagonistic and
repulsive? What is this? Itarouses him to the fact of a surrounding
universe, an outer world. Hence, in psychology, in yoga, always

(02:37:22):
basing itself on the ultimate analysis ofthe fact of nature, pain is the
thing that asserts itself as the mostimportant factor in self realization, that which
is other than the self will bestspur the self into activity. Therefore we
find our commentator, when dealing withpain, declares that the karmic receptacle,
the causal body, that in whichall the seeds of karma are gathered up,

(02:37:46):
has for its builder all painful experiences. And along that line of thought
we come to the great generalization.The first function of pain in the universe
is to arouse the self, toturn himself to the outer world, to
evoke his aspect of activity. Thenext function of pain is the organization of

(02:38:07):
the vehicles. Pain makes the manexert himself, and by that exertion,
the matter of his vehicles gradually becomesorganized. If you want to develop and
organize your muscles, you make efforts, you exercise them, and thus more
life flows into them and they becomestrong. Pain is necessary that the self
may force his vehicles into making effortswhich develop and organize them. Thus pain

(02:38:33):
not only awakens awareness, it alsoorganizes the vehicles. It has a third
function. Also, pain purifies.We try to get rid of that which
causes us pain. It is contraryto our nature, and we endeavor to
throw it away. All that isagainst the blissful nature of the self is
shaken by pain out of the vehicles. Slowly they become purified by suffering,

(02:38:58):
and in that way become ready forthe handling of the self. It has
a fourth function. Pain teaches allthe best lessons of life come from pain
rather than from joy. When oneis becoming old, as I am,
and I look on the long lifebehind me, a life of storm and
stress, of difficulties and efforts,I see something of the great lessons pain

(02:39:24):
can teach. Out of my life. Story could efface without regret everything that
it has had of joy and happiness. But not one pain would I let
go. For pain is the teacherof wisdom. It has a fifth function.
Pain gives power. Edward Carpenter saidin his splendid poem of Time and
Satan, after he had described thewrestlings and the overthrows, every pain that

(02:39:50):
I suffered in one body became apower which I wielded in the next.
Power is pain transmuted. Hence thewise man know owing these things does not
shrink from pain. It means purification, wisdom, power. It is true
that a man may suffer so muchpain that for this incarnation. He may

(02:40:11):
be numbed by it, rendered whollyor partially useless. Especially is this the
case when the pain has deluged inchildhood. But even then he shall reap
his harvest of good later. Byhis past he may have rendered present pain
inevitable. But nonetheless can he turnit into a golden opportunity by knowing and

(02:40:31):
utilizing its functions? You may say, what use then, of pleasure?
If pain is so splendid a thing. From pleasure comes illumination. Pleasure enables
the self to manifest. In pleasure, all the vehicles of the self are
made harmonious. They all vibrate together. The vibrations are rhythmical, not jangled,

(02:40:54):
as they are in pain. Andthose rhythmical vibrations permit that expansion of
the self of which I and thuslead up to illumination, the knowledge of
the self. And if that betrue, as it is true, you
will see that pleasure plays an immensepart in nature, being, of the
nature of the self belonging to him. When it harmonizes the vehicles of the

(02:41:16):
self from outside, it enables theself more readily to manifest himself through the
lower selves within us. Hence,happiness is a condition of illumination. That
is the explanation of the value ofthe rapture of the mystic. It is
an intense joy. A tremendous waveof bliss born of love triumphant, sweeps

(02:41:39):
over the whole of his being.And when that great wave of bliss sweeps
over him, it harmonizes the wholeof his vehicles subtle and grows alike,
and the glory of the Self ismade manifest, and he sees the face
of his God. Then comes thewonderful illumination, which for the time makes
him unconscious of all the low words. It is because for a moment the

(02:42:03):
self is realizing himself as divine,that it is possible for him to see
that divinity which is cognate to himself. So you should not fear joy any
more than you fear pain, assome unwise people do, dwarfed by a
mistaken religionism, that foolish thought whichyou often find in an ignorant religion.
That pleasure is rather to be dreaded, as though God grudged joy to his

(02:42:26):
children. Is one of the nightmaresborn of ignorance and terror. The father
of life is bliss, He whois joy cannot grudge himself to his children,
and every reflection of joy in theworld is a reflection of the divine
life and a manifestation of the selfin the midst of matter. Hence,
pleasure has its function as well aspain, and that also is welcome to

(02:42:48):
the wise, for he understands andutilizes it. You can easily see how
along this line pleasure and pain becomeequally welcome, identified with neither. The
wise man takes either as it comes, knowing its purpose. When we understand
the places of joy and of pain, then both lose their power to bind

(02:43:09):
or to upset us. If paincomes, we take it and utilize it.
If joy comes, we take itand utilize it. So we may
pass through life welcoming both pleasure andpain, content whichever may come to us,
and not wishing for that which isfor the moment absent. We use
both as means to a desired end, and thus we may rise to a

(02:43:31):
higher indifference than that of the stoic. To the true Vairagya, both pleasure
and pain are transcended, and theself remains who is bliss end of section
twenty six. Section twenty seven ofan introduction to yoga by any basant.

(02:43:56):
This LibriVox recording is in the publicdomain Lecture four Yoga as Practice. In
dealing with the third section of thesubject, I drew your attention to the
states of mind and pointed out toyou that, according to the subscript word
writhi, those states of mind shouldbe regarded as ways in which the mind
exists, or, to use thephilosophical phrase of the West, they are

(02:44:22):
modes of mind, modes of mentalexistence. These are the states which are
to be inhibited, put an endto abolished, reduced into absolute quiet sense.
The reason for this inhibition is theproduction of a state which allows the
higher mind to pour itself into thelower To put it in another way,

(02:44:43):
the lower mind, unruffled, waveless, reflects the higher as a waveless lake
reflects the stars. You will rememberthe phrase used in the Upanishad, which
puts it less technically and scientifically,but more beautifully, and declares that in
the quietude of the mind and thetranquility of the senses, a man may

(02:45:03):
behold the majesty of the self.The method of producing disquietude is what we
have now to consider. One inhibitionof states of mind. Two ways and
two ways only there are of inhibitingthese modes, these ways of existence of
the mind. They were given byShri Krishna in the bagward Gita. When

(02:45:26):
Arjuna complained that the mind was impetuous, strong, difficult to bend, hard
to curb as the wind, hisanswer was definite, without doubt, almighty
armed. The mind is hard tocurb and restless, but it may be
curbed by constant practice abiaza and bydispassion via raghiya. Beginning of footnote number

(02:45:50):
nine lock Sit six thirty five thirtyfive and of footnote number nine. These
are the two methods, the onlytwo methods by which this restless, storm
tossed mind can be reduced to peaceand quietude. Viragia and abiasa. They
are the only two methods, butwhen steadily practiced, they inevitably bring about

(02:46:13):
the result. Let us consider whatthese two familiar words imply. Viragia or
dispassion has as its main idea theclearing away of all passion for attraction to
the objects of the senses, thebonds which are made by desire between man
and the objects around him. Ragais passion addiction, that which binds a

(02:46:35):
man to things. The prefix whychanging to why by a grammatical rule means
without or in opposition to. Hence, viragia is non passion, absence of
passion, not bound, tied,or related to any of these outside objects.

(02:46:56):
Remembering that thinking is the establishing ofrelations, we see that the getting
rid of relations will impose on themind the stillness that is yoga. All
raga must be entirely put aside.We must separate ourselves from it. We
must acquire the opposite condition, whereevery passion is stilled, where no attraction
for the objects of desire remains,where all the bonds that unite the man

(02:47:20):
to surrounding objects are broken. Whenthe bonds of the heart are broken,
then the man becomes immortal. Howshall this dispassion be brought about? There
is only one right way of doingit, by slowly and gradually drawing ourselves
away from outer objects through the morepotent attraction of the self. The self

(02:47:41):
is ever attracted to the self.That attraction alone can turn these vehicles away
from the alluring and repulsive objects thatsurround them, Free from all raga,
no more establishing relations with objects,the separated itself finds himself liberated and free,
and union with the one self becomesthe sole object of desire. But

(02:48:03):
not instantly by one supreme effort,by one endeavor, can this great quality
of dispassion become the characteristic of theman bent on yoga. He must practice
dispassion constantly and steadfastly. That isimplied in the word joined with dispassion abiaza
or practice. The practice must beconstant, continual, and unbroken. Practice

(02:48:28):
does not mean only meditation, thoughthis is the sense in which the word
is generally used. It means thedeliberate, unbroken carrying out of dispassion in
the very midst of the objects thatattract. In order that you may acquire
dispassion, you must practice it inthe every day things of life. I
have said that many confine abiasa tomeditation. That is why so few people

(02:48:52):
attain to yoga. Another error isto wait for some big opportunity. People
prepare themselves for some tremend this sacrifice, and forget the little things of everyday
life, in which the mind isknitted to objects by a myriad of tiny
threads. These things, by theirpettiness, fail to attract attention, and

(02:49:13):
in waiting for the large thing whichdoes not come. People lose the daily
practice of dispassion towards the little thingsthat are around them. By curbing desire
at every moment, we become indifferentto all the objects that surround us.
Then when the great opportunity comes,we seize it while scarce, aware that
it is upon us every day,all day long. Practice. That is

(02:49:37):
what is demanded from the aspirant toyoga, for only on that line can
success come. And it is thewearisomeness of this strenuous, continued endeavor that
tires out the majority of aspirants.I must here warn you of a danger.
There is a rough and ready wayof quickly bringing about dispassion. Some
say to you, kill out orlove and affection hard in your hearts,

(02:50:01):
become cold to all around you.Desert your wife and children, your father
and mother, and fly to thedesert or the jungle. Put a wall
between yourself and all objects of desire. Then dispassion will be yours. It
is true that it is comparatively easyto acquire dispassion in that way, but
by that you kill more than desire. You put round the self who is

(02:50:24):
love a barrier through which he isunable to pierce. You cramp yourself by
encircling yourself with a thick shell,and you cannot break through it. You
harden yourself where you out to besoftened. You isolate yourself where you out
to be embracing others. You killlove, and not only desire forgetting that
love clings to the self and seeksthe self, while desire clings to the

(02:50:50):
sheaths of the self, the bodiesin which the self is clothed. Love
is the desire of the separate itselffor union with all other separated self.
Dispassion is the non attraction to matter, a very different thing. You must
guard love, for it is thevery self of the self. In your
anxiety to acquire dispassion, do notkill out love. Love is the life

(02:51:13):
in every one of us, separateitselves. It draws every separate itself to
the other self. Each one ofus is a part of one mighty whole.
A face desire as regards the vehiclesthat clothe the self, but do
not efface love as regards the self, that never dying force which draws self
to self in this great upclimbing.It is far better to suffer from love

(02:51:39):
rather than to reject it, andto harden your hearts against all ties and
claims of affection. Suffer for love, even though the suffering be bitter love,
even though the love be an avenueof pain. The pain shall pass
away, but the love shall continueto grow. And in the unity of
the Self, you who shall finallydiscover that love is the great attracting force

(02:52:03):
which makes all things one. Manypeople, in trying to kill out love,
only throw themselves back, becoming lesshuman, not superhuman, by their
mistaken attempts. It is by andthrough human ties of love and sympathy that
the Self unfolds. It is saidof the masters that they love all humanity

(02:52:24):
as a mother loves her first bornson. Their love is not love watered
down to coolness, but love forall, raised to the heat of the
highest. Particular loves of smaller souls. Always mistrust the teacher who tells you
to kill out love, to beindifferent to human affections. That is the
way which leads to the left handpath. End of section twenty seven Section

(02:52:54):
twenty eight of an Introduction to Yogaby Anibssant. This LibriVox recording is in
the public domain. Two meditation withand without seed. The next step is
our method of meditation. What dowe mean by meditation. Meditation cannot be
the same for every man, Thoughthe same in principle, namely the steadying

(02:53:16):
of the mind, the method mustvary with the temperament of the practitioner.
Suppose that you are a strong mindedand intelligent man, fond of reasoning.
Suppose that connected links of thought andargument have been to you the only exercise
of the mind. Utilize that pasttraining. Do not imagine that you can

(02:53:37):
make your mind still by a singleeffort. Follow a logical chain of reasoning,
step by step, link after link. Do not allow the mind to
swerve a hair's breadth from it.Do not allow the mind to go aside
to other lines of thought. Keepit rigidly along a single line, and
steadiness will gradually result. Then,when you have worked up to your highest

(02:54:01):
point of reasoning and reached the lastlink of your chain of argument, and
your mind will carry you no further, and beyond that you can see nothing,
Then stop at that highest point ofthinking, cling desperately to the last
link of the chain, and therekeep the mind poised in steadiness and strenuous
quiet, waiting for what may comeafter a while, you will be able

(02:54:26):
to maintain this attitude for a considerabletime. For one in whom imagination is
stronger than the reasoning faculty, themethod by devotion, rather than by reasoning,
is the method. Let him callimagination to his help. He should
picture some scene in which the objectof his devotion forms the central figure,

(02:54:46):
building it up bit by bit,as a painter paints a picture, putting
in it gradually all the elements ofthe scene. He must work at it
as a painter works on his canvas, line by life, his brush the
brush of imagination. At first,the work will be very slow, but
the picture soon begins to present itselfat call. Over and over, he

(02:55:11):
should picture the scene, dwelling lessand less on the surrounding objects, and
more and more on the central figure, which is the object of his heart's
devotion. The drawing of the mindto a point in this way brings it
under control and steadies it. Andthus, gradually, by this use of
the imagination, he brings the mindunder command. The object of devotion will

(02:55:35):
be according to the man's religion.Suppose, as is the case with many
of you, that his object ofdevotion is Sri Krishna. Picture him in
any scene of his earthly life,as in the battle of Kurukshetra. Imagine
the armies arrayed for battle on bothsides. Imagine Arjuna on the floor of
the chariot, despondent, despairing.Then come to Shri Krishna, the chariator,

(02:55:58):
the friend and teacher. Then,fixing your mind on the central figure,
let your heart go out to himwith one pointed devotion resting on him.
Poise yourself in silence, and asbefore, wait for what may come.
This is what is called meditation withseed, the central figure or the

(02:56:20):
last link in reasoning, that isthe seed. You have gradually made the
vagrant mind steady by this process ofslow and gradual curbing, and at last
you are fixed on the central thoughtor the central figure, and there you
are poised. Now let even thatgo, drop the central thought, the
idea, the seed of meditation.Let everything go, but keep the mind

(02:56:45):
in the position gained, the highestpoint, reached, vigorous and alert.
This is meditation without a seed.Remain poised and wait in the silence and
the void. You are in thecloud before described, and pass through the
condition before sketched. Suddenly there willbe a change, a change unmistakable,

(02:57:07):
stupendous, incredible. In that silence, as said, a voice shall be
heard. In that void, aform shall reveal itself. In that empty
sky, a sun shall rise.And in the light of that sun you
shall realize your own identity with it, and know that that which is empty
to the eye of sense is fullto the eye of spirit, that that

(02:57:31):
which is silence to the ear ofsense is full of music to the ear
of spirit. Along such lines youcan learn to bring into control your mind,
to discipline your vagrant thought, andthus to reach illumination. One word
of warning, you cannot do thiswhile you are trying meditation with the seed,
until you are able to cling toyour seed definitely for a considerable time

(02:57:54):
and maintain throughout an alert attention.It is the emptiness of alert expectation,
not the emptiness of impending sleep.If your mind be not in that condition,
its mere emptiness is dangerous. Itleads to mediumship, to possession,
to obsession. You can wisely aimat emptiness only when you have so disciplined

(02:58:18):
the mind that it can hold fora considerable time to a single point and
remain alert when that point is dropped. The question is sometimes asked, suppose
that I do this and succeed inbecoming unconscious of the body. Suppose that
I do rise into a higher region. Is it quite sure that I shall
come back again to the body?Having left the body? Shall I be

(02:58:39):
certain to return? The idea ofnon return makes a man nervous. Even
if he says that matter is nothingand spirit is everything. He yet does
not like to lose touch with hisbody, and losing that touch by sheer
fear, he drops back to theearth after having taken so much trouble to
leave it. You should, however, have no such fear. That which

(02:59:03):
will draw you back again is thetrace of your past, which remains under
all these conditions. The question isof the same kind as why should a
state of preleaya ever come to anend and a new state of manwantara begin?
And the answer is the same fromthe Hindu psychological standpoint, because although

(02:59:24):
you have dropped the very seed ofthought, you cannot destroy the traces which
that thought has left. And thattrace is a germ, and it tends
to draw again to itself matter thatit may express itself once more. This
trace is what is called the privationof matter some skara. Far as you
may soar beyond the concrete mind,that trace left in the thinking principle of

(02:59:48):
what you have thought and have known, that remains and will inevitably draw you
back. You cannot escape your past, and until your life period is over
that some skara will bring you back. It is this also which, at
the close of the heavenly life,brings a man back to rebirth. It
is the expression of the law ofrhythm in light on the path that wonderful

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occult treatise. This state is spokenof, and the disciple is pictured as
in the silence. The writer goeson to say, out of the silence
that is peace, a resonant voiceshall arise, and this voice will say
it is not well. Thou hastreaped, now thou must so, And,
knowing this voice to be the silenceitself, thou wilt obey. What

(03:00:37):
is the meaning of that phrase,thou hast reaped now thou must so?
It refers to the great law ofrhythm, which rules even the logos the
ishuaras the law of the mighty breath, the outbreathing and the in breathing,
which compels every fragment which is separatedfor a time. A logos may leave

(03:00:58):
his universe, and it may dropaway when he turns his gaze inward,
for it was he who gave realityto it. He may plunge into the
infinite depths of being. But eventhen there is the sumscara of the past
universe, the shadowy, latent memory, the germ of Maya from which he
cannot escape. To escape from itwould be to cease to be ishua and

(03:01:22):
to become Brahma Nirguna. There isno ishwarra without maya. There is no
Maya without ishwara. Even in Pralaya. A time comes when the rest is
over and the inner life again demandsmanifestation. Then the outward turning begins and
a new universe comes forth. Suchis the law of rest and activity,

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Activity followed by rest, rest followedagain by the desire for activity. And
so the ceaseless wheel of the universe, as well as of human lives,
goes on. For in the eternalboth rest and activity are ever present,
and in that which we call time, they follow each other, although in
eternity they be simultaneous and ever existing. End of section twenty eight Section twenty

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nine of an Introduction to Yoga byAnibsant. This LibriVox recording is in the
public domain. Three the use ofmantras. Let us see how far we
can help ourselves in this difficult work. I will draw your attention to one
fact which is of enormous help tothe beginner. Your vehicles are ever restless.

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Every vibration in the vehicle produces acorresponding change in consciousness. Is there
any way to check these vibrations tosteady the vehicle so that consciousness may be
still? One method is the repeatingof a mantra. A mantra is a
mechanical way of checking vibration. Insteadof using the powers of the will and

(03:02:58):
of imagine, you save these forother purposes and use the mechanical resource of
a mantra. A mantra is adefinite succession of sounds. Those sounds,
repeated rhythmically over and over again insuccession synchronize the vibrations of the vehicles into
unity with themselves. Hence, amantra cannot be translated. Translation alters the

(03:03:24):
sounds not only in Hinduism, butin Buddhism. In Roman Catholicism. In
Islam and among the Parsis, mantrasare found, and they are never translated.
For when you have changed the successionand order of the sounds, the
mantra ceases to be a mantra.If you translate the words, you may
have a very beautiful prayer, butnot a mantra. Your translation may be

(03:03:48):
beautiful inspired poetry, but it isnot a living mantra. It will no
longer harmonize the vibrations of the surroundingsheets and thus enable the consciousness to become
the poetry, the inspired prayer.These are mentally translatable, but a manthra
is unique and untranslatable. Poetry isa great thing. It is often an

(03:04:11):
inspirer of the soul. It givesgratification to the ear, and it may
be sublime and beautiful, but itis not a mantra. End of section
twenty nine, section thirty of anIntroduction to Yoga by Annie Besant. This

(03:04:33):
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Four attention, Let us consider concentration.
You ask a man if he canconcentrate, he at once says,
oh, it is very difficult.I have often tried and failed, but
put the same question in a differentway and ask him, can you pay

(03:04:54):
attention to a thing? He willat once say yes, I can do
that. Concentration is attention, thefixed attitude of attention. That is concentration.
If you pay attention to what youdo, your mind will be concentrated.
Many sit down for meditation and wonderwhy they do not succeed. How

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can you suppose that half an hourof meditation and twenty three and a half
hours of scattering of thought throughout theday and night will enable you to concentrate
during the half hour you have undoneduring the day and night what you did
in the morning. As Penelope unraveledthe web she wove to become a yogi.
You must be attentive all the time. You must practice concentration every hour

(03:05:41):
of your active life. Now youscatter your thoughts for many hours, and
you wonder that you do not succeed. The wonder would be if you did.
You must pay attention every day toeverything you do. That is no
doubt hard to do, and youmay make it easier in the first stages
by choosing out of your day's worka portion only and doing that portion with

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perfect unflagging attention. Do not letyour mind wander from the thing before you.
It does not matter what the thingis. It may be the adding
up of a column of figures,or the reading of a book. Anything
will do. It is the attitudeof the mind that is important, and
not the object before it. Thisis the only way of learning concentration.

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Fix your mind rigidly on the workbefore you for the time being, and
when you have done with it,drop it. Practice steadily in this way
for a few months, and youwill be surprised to find how easy it
becomes to concentrate the mind. Moreover, the body will soon learn to do
many things automatically. If you forceit to do a thing regularly, it

(03:06:52):
will begin to do it after atime of its own accord, and then
you find that you can manage todo two or three things at the same
time. In England, for instance, women are very fond of knitting.
When a girl first learns to knit, she is obliged to be very intent
on her fingers. Her attention mustnot wander from her fingers for a moment,

(03:07:15):
or she will make a mistake.She goes on doing that day after
day, and presently her fingers havelearnt to pay attention to the work without
her supervision, and they may beleft to do the knitting while she employs
the conscious mind on something else.It is further possible to train your mind,
as the girl has trained her fingers. The mind. Also the mental

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body can be so trained as todo a little thing automatically. At last,
your highest consciousness can always remain fixedon the Supreme, while the lower
consciousness in the body will do thethings of the body and do them perfectly
because perfectly trained. These are practicallessons of yoga of this sort builds up

(03:08:01):
the qualities you want, and youbecome stronger and better and fit to go
on to the definite study of yoga. End off section thirty section thirty one
of an introduction to Yoga by AnnieBesant. This LibriVox recording is in the

(03:08:22):
public domain. Five obstacles to Yoga. Before considering the capacity is needed for
this definite practice, let us runover the obstacles to yoga as laid down
by Pathangeli. The obstacles to yogaare very inclusive. First, disease.
If you are diseased, you cannotpractice yoga. It demands sound health for

(03:08:46):
the physical strain entailed by it isgreat. Then languor of mind. You
must be alert, energetic in yourthought. Then doubt you must have decision
of will, must be able tomake up your mind. Then carelessness.
This is one of the greatest difficultieswith beginners. They read a thing carelessly,

(03:09:09):
they are inaccurate sloth. A lazyman cannot be a yogi. One
who is inert, who lacks thepower and the will to exert himself,
how shall he make the desperate exertionswanted. Along this line, the next
worldly mindedness is obviously an obstacle.Mistaken ideas is another great obstacle, thinking

(03:09:33):
wrongly about things. One of thegreat qualifications for yoga is right notion.
Right notion means that the thought shallcorrespond with the outside truth, That a
man shall be fundamentally true, sothat his thought corresponds to fact. Unless
there is truth in a man,yoga is for him impossible, missing the

(03:09:54):
point, illogical, stupid, makingthe important un important, and vice versa.
Lastly, instability, which makes yogaimpossible, and even a small amount
of which makes yoga futile. Theunstable man cannot be a yogi. End
off Section thirty one section thirty twoof an Introduction to Yoga by Annie Besant.

(03:10:24):
This LibriVox recording is in the publicdomain. Six capacities of Yoga.
Can everybody practice yoga? No,but every well educated person can prepare for
its future practice. For rapid progress, you must have special capacities. As
for anything else in any of thesciences, a man may study without being

(03:10:50):
the possessor of very special capacity,although he cannot attain eminence therein. And
so it is with yoga. Anybodywith a fair intelligence may learns something from
yoga, which he may advantageously practice, but he cannot hope unless he starts
with certain capacities to be a successin yoga in this life. It is

(03:11:11):
only right to say that, forif any special science needs particular capacities in
order to attain eminence therein, thescience of sciences certainly cannot fall behind the
ordinary sciences in the demands that itmakes on its students. Suppose I am
asked can I become a great mathematician? What must be my answer? You

(03:11:33):
must have a natural aptitude and capacityfor mathematics to be a great mathematician.
If you have not that capacity,you cannot be a great mathematician in this
life. But this does not meanthat you cannot learn any mathematics. To
be a great mathematician, you mustbe born with a special capacity for mathematics.

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To be born with such a specialcapacity means that you have practiced it
in very many lives, and nowyou are born with it ready made.
It is the same with yoga.Every man can learn a little of it,
but to be a great yogi meanslives of practice. If these are
behind you, you will have beenborn with the necessary faculties in the present

(03:12:16):
birth. There are three faculties whichone must have to obtain success in yoga.
The first is a strong desire,desire ardently. Such a desire is
needed to break the strong links ofdesire which knit you to the outer world.
Moreover, without that strong desire,you will never go through all the

(03:12:37):
difficulties that bat your way. Youmust have the conviction that you will ultimately
succeed, and the resolution to goon until you do succeed. It must
be a desire so ardent and sofirmly rooted that obstacles only make it more
keen. To such a man.An obstacle is like fuel that you throw

(03:12:58):
on a fire, it burns,but the more strongly as it catches hold
of it and finds it fuel forthe burning. So difficulties and obstacles are
but fuel to feed the fire ofthe yogi's resolute desire. He only becomes
the more firmly fixed because he findsthe difficulties. If you have not this
strong desire, its absence shows thatyou are new to the work, but

(03:13:22):
you can begin to prepare for it. In this life. You can create
desire by thought. You cannot createdesire by desire. Out of the desire
nature, the training of the desirenature cannot come. What is it in
us that calls out desire? Lookinto your own mind and you will find
that memory and imagination are the twothings that evoke desire most strongly. Hence,

(03:13:48):
thought is the means whereby all thechanges in desire can be brought about.
Thought. Imagination is the only creativepower in you, and by imagination
your powers are to be unfolded.The more you think of a desirable object,
the stronger becomes the desire for it. Then think of yoga as desirable.

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If you want to desire yoga,think about the results of yoga and
what it means for the world whenyou have become a yogi, and you
will find your desire becoming stronger andstronger. For it is only by thought
that you can manage desire. Youcan do nothing with it by itself.
You want the thing or you donot want it, and within the limits

(03:14:31):
of the desire nature you are helplessin its grasp. As Jest said,
you cannot change desire by desire.You must go into another region of your
being, the region of thought.And by thought you can make yourself desire
or not desire, exactly as youlike, if only you will use the
right means. And those means,after all, are fairly simple. Why

(03:14:56):
is it you desire to possess athing because you think it will make you
happier. But suppose you know bypast experience that in the long run it
does not make you happier, butbrings you sorrow, trouble, distress.
You have at once ready to yourhands the way to get rid of that
desire. Think of the ultimate results. Let your mind dwell carefully on all

(03:15:20):
the painful things, jump over themomentary pleasure, and fix your thoughts steadily
on the pain which follows the gratificationof that desire. And when you have
done that for a month or so, the very sight of those objects of
desire will repel you. You willhave associated it in your mind with suffering
and will recoil from it instinctively.You will not want it. You have

(03:15:45):
changed the want, and have changedit by your power of imagination. There
is no more effective way of destroyinga vice than by deliberately picturing the ultimate
results of its indulgence. Persuade ayoung man who is inclined to be profligate
to keep in his mind the imageof an old profligate. Show him the
profligate, worn out, desiring withoutthe power to gratify. And if you

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can get him to think in thatway unconsciously, he will begin to shrink
from that which before attracted him.The very hideousness of the results frightens away
the man from clinging to the objectof desire, and the would be Yogi
has to use his thought to markout the desires he will permit, and
the desires that he's determined to slay. The next thing after a strong desire

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is a strong will. Will isdesire transmuted. Its directing is changed from
without to within. If your willis weak, you must strengthen it.
Deal with it as you do withother weak things. Strengthen it by practice.
If a boy knows that he hasweak arms, he says, my

(03:16:56):
arms are weak, but I shallpractice jimna sticks work on the parallel bars.
Thus my arms will grow strong.It is the same with the will.
Practice will make strong the little weakwill that you have at present.
Resolve, for example, saying Iwill do such and such thing every morning,

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and do it one thing at atime is enough for a feeble will
make yourself a promise to do suchand such a thing at such a time,
and you will soon find that youwill be ashamed to break your promise.
When you have kept such a promiseto yourself for a day, make
it for a week, then fora fortnight. Having succeeded, you can

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choose a harder thing to do,and so on. By this forcing of
action you strengthen the will. Dayafter day, it grows greater in power,
and you find your inner strength increases. First have a strong desire,
then transmute it into a strong will. The third requisite for yoga is a

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keen and broad intelligence. You cannotcontrol your mind unless you have a mind
to control. Therefore you must developyour mind. You must study by study.
I do not mean the reading ofbooks. I mean thinking. You
may read a dozen books and yourmind may be as feeble as in the

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beginning. But if you have readone serious book properly, then by slow
reading and much thinking, your intelligencewill be nurtured and your mind grow strong.
These are the things you want,a strong desire and indomitable will,
a keen intelligence. Those are thecapacities that you must unfold in order that

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the practice of yoga may be possibleto you. If your mind is very
unsteady, if it is a butterflymind like a child's, you must make
it steady. That comes by closestudy and thinking. You must unfold the
mind by which you are to work. And of section thirty two section thirty

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three of an Introduction to Yoga byAnnie Besant. This LibriVox recording is in
the public domain. Seven forth Goingand Returning. It will help you in
doing this and in changing your desireif you realize that the great evolution of
humanity goes on along two paths,the path of forthgoing and the path of

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return. On the path or margaof pravythi forthgoing on, which are the
vast majority of human beings. Desiresare necessary and useful on that path.
The more desire a man has,the better for his evolution. They are
the motives that prompt to activity.Without these, he stagnates. He is

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inert. Why should Ishwara have filledthe worlds with desirable objects if he did
not intend that desire should be aningredient in evolution. He deals with humanity
as a sensible mother deals with herchild. She does not give lectures to
the child on the advantages of walking, nor explain to it learnedly the mechanism

(03:20:16):
of the muscles of the leg.She holds a bright, glittering toy before
the child and says, come andget it. Desire awakens, and the
child begins to crawl, and soit learns to walk. So e Ishvara
has put toys around us, butalways just out of our reach, And
he says, come, children,take these. Hear our love, money,

(03:20:41):
fame, social consideration, Come andget them, walk, make efforts
for them, And we, likechildren, make great efforts and struggle along
to snatch these toys. When weseize the toy, it breaks into pieces
and is of no use. Peoplefive and struggle and toil for wealth,

(03:21:01):
and when they become multimillionaires, theyask, how shall we spend this wealth?
I read of a millionaire in Americawho was walking on foot from city
to city in order to distribute thevast wealth which he accumulated. He learned
his lesson. Never in another lifewill that man be induced to put forth

(03:21:22):
efforts for the toy of wealth.Love of fame, love of power stimulate
men to most strenuous effort. Butwhen they are grasped and held in the
hand, wariness is the result.The mighty statesman, the leader of the
nation, the man idolized by millions. Follow him home, and there you

(03:21:45):
will see the wariness of power,the satiety that Kloi's passion does. Then,
God mock us with all the objects. No, the object has been
to bring out the power of theself, to develop the capacity latent in
man, and in the development ofhuman faculty. The result of the great

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Leela may be seen. That isthe way in which we learn to unfold
the God within us. That isthe result of the play of the divine
Father with his children. But sometimesthe desire for objects is lost too early.
And the lesson is but half learned. That is one of the difficulties

(03:22:28):
in the India of today. Youhave a mighty spiritual philosophy, which was
the natural expression for the souls whowere born centuries ago. They were ready
to throw away the fruit of actionand to work for the Supreme to carry
out his will. But the lessonfor India at the present time is to
wake up the desire. It maylook like going back, but it is

(03:22:50):
really a going forward. The philosophyis true, but it belonged to those
older souls who were ready for it, and the younger soul roles now being
born into the people are not readyfor that philosophy. They repeat it by
rote, they are hypnotized by it, and they sink down into inertia because

(03:23:11):
there is nothing they desire enough toforce them to exertion. The consequence is
that the nation as a whole isgoing downhill. The old lesson of putting
different objects before souls of different agesis forgotten, and everyone is now nominally
aiming at ideal perfection, which canonly be reached when the preliminary steps have

(03:23:35):
been successfully mounted. It is thesame as with the Sermon on the Mount
in Christian countries. But there thepractical common sense of the people bows to
it and ignores it. No nationtries to live by the sermon on the
mount. It is not meant forordinary men and women, but for the
Saint. For all those who areon the path of forthgoing, desire is

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necessary for progress. What is thepath of NIVERRETHI? It is the path
of return. Their desire must cease, and the self determined will must take
its place. The last object ofdesire in a person commencing the path of
return is the desire to work withthe will of the Supreme He harmonizes his

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will with the supreme will, renouncesall separate desires, and thus works to
turn the wheel of life as longas such turning is needed by the law
of life. Desire on the pathof forthgoing becomes will. On the path
of return, the soul, inharmony with the divine, works with the

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law. Thought on the path offorthgoing is ever alert, lighty, and
changing. It becomes reason. Onthe path of return, the yoke of
reason is placed on the neck ofthe lower mind, and reason guides the
bull work. Activity on the pathof forthgoing is restless action by which the

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ordinary man is bound on the pathof return, work becomes sacrifice, and
thus its binding force is broken.These are then the manifestations of three aspects
as shown on the paths of forthgoingand return. Bliss manifested as desire is

(03:25:24):
changed into will, Wisdom manifested asthought is changed into reason, activity manifested
as work is changed into sacrifice.People very often ask with regard to this,
why is will placed in the humanbeing as the correspondence of bliss in
the divine? The three great divinequalities are chit or consciousness, Ananda or

(03:25:50):
bliss, seth or existence. Nowit is quite clear that the consciousness is
reflected in intelligence in man, thesame quality only in miniature. It is
equally clear that existence and activity belongto each other. You can only exist
as you act outwards. The veryform of the word shows it x out

(03:26:15):
of it is manifested life that leavesthe third bliss to correspond with will.
And some people are rather puzzled withthat, and they ask what is the
correspondence between bliss and will? Butif you come down to desire and the
objects of desire, you will beable to solve the riddle. The nature

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of the self is bliss. Throwthat nature down into matter, and what
will be the expression of the blissnature desire for happiness, the seeking after
desirable objects which it imagines will giveit the happiness which is of its own
essential nature, and which it iscontinually seeking to realize amid the obstacles of

(03:26:58):
the world. This nature being bliss, it seeks for happiness, and that
desire for happiness is to be transmutedinto will. All these correspondents have a
profound meaning if you will only lookinto them, and that universal will to
live translates itself as the desire forhappiness that you find in every man and

(03:27:20):
woman, in every sentient creature.Has it ever struck you, how surely
you are justifying that analysis of yourown nature by the way you accept happiness
as you're right, and resent miseryand ask what you have done to deserve
it. You do not ask thesame about happiness, which is the natural

(03:27:41):
result of your own nature. Thething that has to be explained is not
happiness, but pain, the thingsthat are against the nature of the self
that is bliss. And so lookinginto this we see how desire and will
are both the determination to be happybut the one is ignorant, drawn out
by outer objects. The other isself conscious, initiated and ruled from within.

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Desire is evoked and directed from outside, and when the same aspect rules
from within, it is will.There is no difference in their nature.
Hence, desire on the path offorthgoing becomes will on the path of return.
When desire, thought, and workare changed into will, reason,

(03:28:28):
and sacrifice, then the man isturning homewards. Then he lives by renunciation.
When a man has really renounced,a strange change takes place on the
path of forthgoing. You must fightfor everything you want to get. On
the path of return. Nature poursher treasures at your feet. When a

(03:28:50):
man has ceased to desire them,then all treasures pour down upon him,
for he has become a channel throughwhich all good gifts flow to those around
him. Seek the good, giveup grasping, and then everything will be
yours. Cease to ask that yourown little water tank may be filled,

(03:29:11):
and you will become a pipe joinedto the living source of all waters,
the source which never runs dry,the waters which spring up unfailingly. Renunciation
means the power of unceasing work forthe good of all work which cannot fail
because wrought by the Supreme Worker throughhis servant. If you are engaged in

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any true work of charity and yourmeans are limited, and the wealth does
not flow into your hands, whatdoes it mean. It means that you
have not yet learned the true renunciation. You are clinging to the visible,
to the fruit of action, andso the wealth does not pour through your
hands. End of section thirty threesection thirty four of an Introduction to Yoga

(03:30:05):
by Ani Besant. This LibriVox recordingis in the public domain. Eight.
Purification of bodies the unfolding of powersbelongs to the side of consciousness. Purification
of bodies belongs to the side ofmatter. You must purify each of your
three working bodies, mental, astral, and physical. Without that purification,

(03:30:30):
you had better leave yoga alone.First of all, how shall you purify
the thought body by right thinking?Then you must use imagination, your great
creative tool once more. Imagine thingsand imagining them, you will form your
thought body into the organization that youdesire. Imagine something strongly, as the

(03:30:52):
painter imagines when he is going topaint, Visualize an object. If you
have the power of visualization at allif you have not try to make it.
It is an artistic faculty, ofcourse, but most people have it
more or less. See how faryou can reproduce perfectly a face you see
daily. By such practice, youwill be strengthening your imagination. And by

(03:31:16):
strengthening your imagination, you will bemaking the great tool with which you have
to practice in yoga. There isanother use of the imagination, which is
very valuable. If you will imaginein your thought body the presence of the
qualities that you desire to have andthe absence of those which you desire not
to have, you're halfway to havingand not having them. Also, many

(03:31:39):
of the troubles of your life mightbe weakened if you would imagine them on
right lines before you have to gothrough them. Why do you wait helplessly
until you meet them in the physicalworld. If you thought of your coming
trouble in the morning, and thoughtof yourself as acting perfectly in the midst
of it, you should never scrupleto imagine yourself perfer effect, when the

(03:32:01):
thing turned up in the day,it would have lost its power, and
you would no longer feel the stingto the same extent. Now, each
of you must have in your lifesomething that troubles you. Think of yourself
as facing that trouble and not mindingit, and when it comes you will
be what you've been thinking. Youmight get rid of half your troubles in
your faults, if you would dealwith them through your imagination. As the

(03:32:24):
thought body becomes purified in this way, you must turn to the astral body.
The astral body is purified by rightdesire, desire nobly, and the
astral body will evolve the organs ofgood desires instead of the organs of evil
ones. The secret of all progressis to think and desire the highest,

(03:32:46):
never dwelling on the fault, theweakness, the error, but always on
the perfected power. And slowly inthat way you will be able to build
up perfection in yourself. Think anddesire, then, in order to purify
the thought body and the astral body. And how shall you purify the physical
body? You must regulate it inall its activities, in sleep, in

(03:33:09):
food, in exercise, in everything. You cannot have a pure physical body
with impure mental and astral bodies.So that the work of imagination helps also
in the purification of the physical.But you must also regulate the physical body
in all its activities. Take,for instance food. The Indian says truly
that every sort of food has adominant quality in it, either rhythm or

(03:33:33):
activity or inertia, and that allfoods fall under one of these heads.
Now, the man who is tobe a Yogi must not touch any food
which is on the way to decay. Those things belong to the thamasik foods.
All foods, for instance, ofthe nature of game of venison,
All food which is showing signs ofdecay. All alcohol is a product of

(03:33:56):
decay, are to be avoided.Flesh foods come under the quality of activity.
All flesh foods are really stimulants.All forms in the animal kingdom are
built up to express animal desires andanimal activities. The yogi cannot afford to
use these in a body meant forthe higher processes of thought vitality. Yes

(03:34:18):
they will give that strength which doesnot last. They will give that as
sudden spurs of energy. Yes,meat will give that. But those are
not the things which the Yogi wants. So he puts aside all those foods
is not available for the work hedesires, and chooses his food out of
the most highly vitalized products. Allthe foods which tend to growth. Those

(03:34:41):
are the most highly vitalized. Grainout of which the new plant will grow
is packed full of the most nutritioussubstances. Fruits, all those things which
have growth as their next stage inthe life cycle. Those are the rhythmic
foods, full of life and buildingup a body sensitive and strong at the

(03:35:03):
same time. End of section thirtyfour section thirty five of an Introduction to
Yoga by Annie Besant. This LibriVoxrecording is in the public domain. Nine
dwellers. On the threshold of thesethere are many kinds. First elementals.

(03:35:28):
They try to bar the astral planeagainst Man, and naturally so because they
are concerned with the building up ofthe lower kingdoms. These elementals of form
the rupa they was, and tothem, Man is a really hateful creature
because of his destructive properties. Thatis why they dislike him so much.

(03:35:52):
He spoils their work wherever he goes, tramples down vegetable things and kills animals,
so that the whole of that greatkingdom of nature hates the name of
Man. They banned themselves together tostop the one who is just taking his
first conscious steps on the astral planeand try to frighten him, for they

(03:36:13):
fear that he is bringing destructiveness intothe new world. They cannot do anything
if you do not mind them.When that rush of elemental force comes against
the man entering on the astral plane, he must remain quiet, indifferent,
taking up the position I am ahigher product of evolution than you are.

(03:36:33):
You can do nothing to me.I am your friend, not your enemy.
Peace. If he be strong enoughto take up that position, the
great wave of elemental force will rollaside and let him through. The seemingly
causeless fears which some feel at nightare largely due to this hostility. You

(03:36:54):
are at night more sensitive to theastral plane than during the day, and
the dis like of the beings onthe plane for man is felt more strongly.
But when the elementals find you arenot destructive, not an embodiment of
ruin, they become as friendly toyou as they were before hostile. That
is the first form of the dwelleron the threshold. Here again the importance

(03:37:18):
of pure and rhythmic food comes in, because if you use meat and alcohol,
you attract the lower elementals of theplane, those that take pleasure in
the scent of blood and spirits,and they will inevitably prevent your seeing and
understanding things. Clearly. They willsurge around you, impress their thoughts upon

(03:37:39):
you, force their impressions on yourastral body, so that you may have
a kind of shell of objectionable hangerson to your aura, who will much
obstruct you in your efforts to seeand hear correctly. That is the chief
reason why everyone who is teaching yogaon the right hand path absolutely forbid indulgence

(03:38:00):
in meat and alcohol. The secondform of the dweller on the threshold is
the thought forms of our own past, those forms growing out of the evil
of lives that lie behind us,thought forms of wickedness of all kinds,
those faces when we first come intotouch with the astral plane, really belonging

(03:38:22):
to us, but appearing as outsideforms, as objects, and they try
to scare back their creator. Youcan only conquer them by sternly repudiating them.
You are no longer mine. Youbelong to my past and not to
my present. I will give younone of my life. Thus you will
gradually exhaust and finally annihilate them.This is perhaps one of the most painful

(03:38:48):
difficulties that one has to face intreading the astral plane in consciousness for the
first time. Of course, wherea person has in any way been mixed
up with objectionable thought forms of thestronger kind, such as those brought about
by practicing black magic, there thisparticular form of the dweller will be much
stronger and more dangerous and often desperate. Is the struggle between the neophyight and

(03:39:13):
these dwellers from his past, backedup by the masters of the black side.
Now we come to one of themost terrible forms of the dwellers on
the threshold. Suppose a case inwhich a man during the past has steadily
identified himself with the lower part ofhis nature, and has gone against the
higher paralyzing himself using higher powers forlower purposes, degrading his mind to be

(03:39:37):
the mere slave of his lower desires. A curious change takes place in him.
The life which belongs to the egoin him is taken up by the
physical body and assimilated with the lowerlives of which the body is composed.
Instead of serving the purposes of thespirit, it is dragged away for tile
purposes of the lower and beca Itcomes part of the animal life belonging to

(03:40:01):
the lower bodies, so that theego and his higher bodies are weakened and
the animal life of the lower isstrengthened. Now under those conditions, the
ego will sometimes become so disgusted withhis vehicles that when death relieves him of
the physical body, he will castthe others quite aside, and even sometimes

(03:40:22):
during physical life he will leave thedesecrated temple now after death. In these
cases, the man generally reincarnates veryquickly, for having torn himself away from
his astral and mental bodies, hehas no bodies with which to live in
the astral and mental worlds, andhe must quickly form new ones and come

(03:40:43):
again to rebirth here. Under theseconditions, the old astral and mental bodies
are not disintegrated. When the newmental and astral bodies are formed and born
into the world, and the affinitybetween the old and the new, both
having had the same owner, thethe same tenant asserts itself, and the
highly vitalized old astral and mental bodieswill attach themselves to the new astral and

(03:41:07):
mental bodies and become the most terribleform of the dweller on the threshold.
These are the various forms which thedweller may assume, and all are spoken
of in books dealing with these particularsubjects, though I do not know that
you will find anywhere in the singlebook a definite classification like the above.
In addition to these, there areof course the direct attacks of the dart

(03:41:31):
brothers, taking up various forms andaspects. And the most common form they
will take is the form of somevirtue which is a little bit in excess
in the Yogi. The Yogi isnot attacked through his vices, but through
his virtues. For a virtue inexcess becomes a vice. It is the
extremes which are ever the vices.The golden mean is the virtue, and

(03:41:54):
thus virtues become tempters in the difficultregions of the astral and mental worlds,
and are utilized by the brothers ofthe Shadow in order to entrap the unwary.
I am not here speaking of thefour ordinary ordeals of the astral plane,
the audiles by earth, water,fire, and air. Those are

(03:42:16):
mere trifles, hardly worth considering.When speaking of these more serious difficulties,
of course, you have to learnthat you are entirely master of astral matter,
that Earth cannot crush you, norwater drown you, et cetera.
Those are, so to speak,very easy lessons. Those who belong to
a Masonic body will recognize these ordilesas parts of the language they are familiar

(03:42:41):
with in their Masonic ritual. Thereis one other danger also, you may
injure yourself by repercussion. If onthe astral plane you are threatened with the
danger which belongs to the physical,but are unwise enough to think it can
injure you, it will injure yourphysical body. You may get a wound
or a bl ruse, and soon out of astral experiences. I once

(03:43:03):
made a fool of myself in thisway. I was in a ship going
down, and as I was busythere, I saw that the mast of
the ship was going to fall,and in a moment's forgetfulness, thought that
mast will fall on me. Thatmomentary thought had its result, for when
I came back to the body inthe morning, I had a large physical
bruise where the mast fell. Thatis a frequent phenomenon until you have corrected

(03:43:28):
the fault of the mind, whichthinks instinctively the things which it is accustomed
to think down here one protection youcan make for yourself as you become more
sensitive. Be rigorously truthful in thought, in word. Indeed, every thought,
every desire takes form in the higherworld. If you are careless of

(03:43:50):
truth here, you are creating awhole host of terrifying and deluding forms.
Think truth, speak truth, livetruth, and then you shall be free
from the illusions of the astral world. End of section thirty five section thirty

(03:44:11):
six of an Introduction to Yoga byAnnie Besant. This LibriVox recording is in
the public domain. Ten preparation foryoga. People say that I put the
ideal of discipleship so very high thatnobody can hope to become a disciple.
But I have not said that noone can become a disciple who does not

(03:44:33):
reproduce the description that is given ofthe perfect disciple. One may, but
we do it at our own peril. A man may be thoroughly capable along
one line, but have a seriousfault along another. The serious fault will
not prevent him from becoming a disciple, but he must suffer for it.
The initiate pays for his faults tentimes the prize he would have had to

(03:44:56):
pay for them as a man ofthe world. That tis why I have
put the ideal so high. Ihave never said that a person must come
utterly up to the ideal before becominga disciple. But I have said that
the risks of becoming a disciple withoutthese qualifications are enormous. It is the
duty of those who have seen theresults of going through the gateway with faults

(03:45:18):
in character to point out that itis well to get rid of these faults
first. Every fault you carry throughthe gateway with you becomes a dagger to
stab you on the other side.Therefore, it is well to purify yourself
as much as you can before youare sufficiently evolved on any line to have
the right to say I will passthrough that gateway. That is what I

(03:45:41):
intended to be understood when I spokeof qualifications for discipleship. I have followed
along the ancient road which lays downthese qualifications which the disciple should bring with
him. And if he comes withoutthem, then the word of Jesus is
true that he will be beaten withmany stripes. For a man can afford
to do in the outer world withsmall result, what will bring terrible results

(03:46:05):
upon him when once he's treading thepath. End of section thirty six Section
thirty seven of an Introduction to Yogaby Annie Besant. This LibriVox recording is
in the public domain. Eleven Theend. What is to be the end

(03:46:28):
of this long struggle? What isthe goal of the upward climbing, the
prize of the great battle? Whatdoes the yogi reach at last? He
reaches unity? Sometimes I'm not surethat large numbers of people, if they
realized what unity means, would reallydesire to reach it. There are many
virtues of your ordinary life which willdrop entirely away from you when you reach

(03:46:54):
unity. Many things you admire willbe no longer helps, but hinderances.
When the sense of unity begins todawn, All those qualities so useful in
ordinary life, such as moral indignation, repulsion from evil, judgment of others,
have no room where unity is realized. When you feel repulsion from evil,

(03:47:20):
it is a sign that your higherself is beginning to awaken. Is
seeing the dangers of evil, hedrags the body forcibly away from it.
That is the beginning of the consciousmoral life. Hatred of evil is better
at that stage than indifference to evil. It is a necessary stage, But
repulsion cannot be felt when a manhas realized unity, when he sees God

(03:47:45):
made manifest in man. A manwho knows unity cannot judge another. I
judge no man, said the Christ. He cannot be repelled by anyone.
The sinner is himself, and howshall he be repelled from himself? For
him, there is no I orthe For we are one. This is

(03:48:07):
not a thing that many honestly wish, for it is not a thing that
many honestly desire. The man whohas realized unity knows no difference between himself
and the wilest wretch that walks theearth. He sees only the God that
walks in the sinner, and knowsthat the sin is not in the God,
but in the sheath. The differenceis only there. He who has

(03:48:30):
realized the inner greatness of the selfnever pronounces judgment upon another. Knows that
other as himself, and he himselfas that other. That is unity.
We talk brotherhood, but how manyof us really practice it? And even
that is not the thing the Yogiaims at. Greater than brotherhood are identity

(03:48:52):
and realization of the self as one. The sixth root race will carry brotherhood
to the highest point. The seventh, through trace, will know identity,
will realize the unity of the humanrace. To catch a glimpse of the
beauty of that high conception, thegreatness of the unity in which I and
mine, you and yours have vanished, in which we are all one life.

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Even to do that lifts the wholenature towards divinity. And those who
can even see that unity is fair, they are the nearer to the realization
of the beauty that is God.End of section thirty seven read by Ritu
Canada. End of an introduction toYoga by Annie Besant