Raja Yoga (the Yoga Sūtras with commentary) — trans. Swami Vivekananda (1896)
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The translator’s English as printed (Swami Vivekananda). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
adamant, and that with the help of this body you will cross this ocean of life. Freedom is never to be reached by the weak ; throw away all weakness ; tell your body that it is strong ; tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.
CHAPTER III.
PRANA.
PrAnAvama is not, as many think, something about the breath ; breath, indeed, has very little to do with it. if anything. Breathing is only one of the many exercises through which we get to the real Pranayima. Prinayama means the control of Prana.-* According to the philosophers of India, the whole universe is cotnposed of two materials, one of which they call Aka.sa. It is the omnipresent, all penetrating existence. Everything that has form, everything that is the result of compounds, is evolved out of this Akasa. It is the Aka.sa that becomes tlie air. that becomes the licjuids, that becomes the solids; it is the Akasa that becomes the sun, the earth, the moon, the stars, the comets; it is the Akasa that liecomes the body, the animal body, the plants, every form that we see, everything that can be sensed, everything that exists. It itself cannot be perceived ; it is so subtle that it is beyond all ordinary perception ; it can only be seen when it has become gross, has taken form. Ai the beginning of creation there is only this .\kasa ; at the end of the cycle the solids, the liquids, and the gases all
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melt into the Akasa again, and the next creation similarly proceeds out of this Akasa.
By what power is this Akasa manufactured into this universe ? By the power of Prana. Just as Akasa is the infinite omnipresent material of this universe, so is this Prana the infinite, omnipresent manifesting power of this universe. At the beginning and at the en^ of a cycle everything becomes Akasa, and all the forces that are in the universe resolve back into the Prana ; in the next cycle, out of this Prana is evolved everything that we call energy, everything that we call force. It is the Prana that is manifesting as motion ; it is the Prana that is manifesting as gravitation, as magnetism. It is the Prana that is manifesting as the actions of the body, as the nerve currents, as thought force. From thought, down to the lowest physical force, everything is but the manifestation of Prana. The sum-total of all force in the universe, mental or physical, w-hen resolved back to its original state, is called Prana. " When there w-as neither aught nor naught, when darkness was covering darkness, what existed then ? That Akasa existed w'ithout motion." The physical motion of the Prana was stopped, but it existed all the same. All the energies that are now displayed in the universe we know , by modern science, are unchangeable. The sum-total of the energies in the universe remains the same throughout, only, at the end of a cycle, these energies quiet down, become potential, and, at the beginning of the next cycle, they start up, strike upon the Akasa, and out of the Akasa evolve these various forms, and, as the Akasa chang^es, this Prana changes also into all these manifestations of energy. The knowledge and control of this Prana is really what is meant by Pranayama.