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

The Yogi teaches that the mind itself has a higher state of existence, beyond reason, a super-conscious state, and when the mind gets to that higher state, then this knowledge, beyond reasoning, comes to a man, metaphysical knowledge, beyond all physical knowledge. Metaphysical and transcendental knowledge comes to that man, and this state of going beyond reason, transcending ordinary human nature, sometimes may come by chance to a man who does not understand its science ; he, as it were, stumbles into it. When he stumbles into it, he generally interprets it as from outside. So this explains why an inspiration, or this transcendental knowledge, may be the same in different countries, but in one country it will seem to come through an angel, and in another through a Deva, and in another through God. What does it mean ? It means that the mind brought the knowledge by its own nature, and that the finding of the knowledge was interpreted according to the beliefs and education of the person through whom it came. The real fact is that these various men, as it were, stumbled into this super-conscious state.

The Yogi says there is a great danger in stumbling

8o RAJA YOGA.

into this state. In a good many cases there is the danger of the brain being destroyed, and, as a rule, you will find that all those men, however great they were, who have stumbled into this super-conscious state, without understanding it, grope in the dark, and generally have, along with their knowledge, some quaint superstition. They open themselves to hallucinations. Mohammed claimed that the Angel Gabriel came to him in a cave one day and took him on the heavenly horse, Harak, and he visited the heavens. But, with all that, Mohammed spoke some wonderful truths. If you read the Qur'an, you find the most wonderful truths mixed with these superstitions. How will you explain it ? That man was inspired, no doubt, but that inspiration was, as it were, stumbled upon. He was not a trained Yogi, and did not know the reason of what he was doing. Think of the good Mohammed did to the world, and think of the great evil that has been done through his fanaticism ! Think of the millions massacred through his teachings, mothers bereft of their children, children made orphans, whole countries destroyed, millions upon millions of people killed !

So we see in studying the lives of all these great teachers that there was this danger. Yet we find, at the same time, that they were all inspired. Somehow or other they got into the super-conscious state, only, whenever a prophet got into that state by simple force of emotion, just by heightening his emotional nature, he brought away from that state some truths, but also some

DHYANA AND SAMADHI. 8l