Raja Yoga (the Yoga Sūtras with commentary) — trans. Swami Vivekananda (1896)

THE FIRST STEPS.

way, each part of the organism can be made to work at his bidding.

The result of this part of Yoga is to make men Hve long ; health is the chief idea, the one goal of the Hatha Yogi. He is determined not to fall sick, and he never does. He lives long ; a hundred years is nothing to him ; he is quite young and fresh when he is 150, without one hair turned grey. But that is all. A Banyan tree lives sometimes 5000 years, but it is a Banyan tree and nothing more. So, if a man lives long, he is only a healthy animal. One or two ordinary lessons of the Hatha Yogis are very useful. For instance, some of you will find it a good thing for headaches to drink cold water through the nose as soon as you get up ; the whole day your brain will be nice and cool, and you will never catch cold. It is very easy to do ; put your nose into the water, and make a pump action in the throat.

After one has learned to have a firm erect seat, he has to perform, according to certain schools, a practice called the purifying of the nerves. This part has been rejected by some as not belonging to Raja Yoga, but as so great an authority as the commentator, Sankaracharya, advises it, I think it fit that it should be mentioned, and I will quote his own directions from his commentary to the Svetasvatara Upanisad. " The mind whose dross has been cleared away by Pranayama, becomes fixed in Brahman ; therefore Pranayama is pointed out. First the nerves are to be purified, then comes the power to practise Pranayama. Stopping the right nostril with the ihuiiib, with the left nostril fill in air, according to one's capacity ; then, without any interval, throw the air out through the right nostril, closing the left one. Again inhaling through the right nostril eject through the left, according to capacity ; practising this three or five times at four intervals of the day, before dawn, during midday, in the evening, and at midnight, in fifteen days or a month purity of the nerves is attained ; then begins Pranayama."

Practice is absolutely necessary. Vou may sit down and listen to me by the hour every day, but, if you do not practise, you will not get one step further. It all depends on practice. We never understand these things until we experience them. We w ill have to see and feel them for ourselves. Simply listening to explanations and theories will not do. There are several obstructions to practice, '['he first obstruction is an unhealthy body ; if the bod) is not in a fit state, the practice will be obstructed. Therefore we have to keep the body in good health ; we have to take rare of w hat we eat and drink, and what we do ; always use .i mental eflbrt, what is usually adled " Christian Science," to keep the body strong. That is all ; nothing further of the body. We must not forget that health is only a means to an end. If health were the end we would be like animals; animals rarely become unhealthy.

The second obstruction is doubt ; we always feel iloubtful about things we do not see. Man cannot live upon words, however he may try. So, doubt comes to