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.
asked to live upon words ; can they do it ? If they could, I should not have the least regard for human nature. Man wants truth, wants to experience truth for himself, to grasp it, to realise it, to feel it within his heart of hearts ; then alone, declare the Vedas, will all doubts vanish, all darkness be scattered, and all crookedness be made straight. " Ye children of immortality, even those who live in the highest sphere, the way is found ; there is a way out of all this darkness, and that is by perceiving Him Who is beyond all darkness, and there is no other way."
The science of Raja Yoga proposes to put before humanity a practical and scientifically worked-out method of reaching this truth. In the first place, every science must have its own method of investigation. If you want to become an astronomer, and sit down and cry " Astronomy, astronomy ! " it will never come to you. The same with chemistry. A certain method must be followed. You must go to the laboratory, take the different substances, mix them up, compound them, experiment with them, and out of that will come a knowledge of chemistry. If you want to be an astronomer you must go the observatory, take a telescope, study the stars and planets, and then you will become an astronomer. Each science must have its own methods. I could preach you thousands of sermons, but they would not make you religious, until you first practised the method. These are the truths of the sages of all countries, of all ages, men pure and unselfish, who had no motive but to do good to the world. They all declare that they have found some truth higher than that the senses can bring to us, and they challenge verification. They say to you, take up the method and practise honestly, and then, if you do not find this higher truth, you will have the right to say there is no truth in the claim, but before you have done that, you are not rational in denying the truth of these assertions. So we must work faithfully, using the prescribed methods, and light will come.
In acquiring knowledge wc make use of generalisation, and generalisation is based upon observation. We first observe facts, and then we generalise, and then we draw our conclusions or principles. The knowledge of the mind, of the internal nature of man, of thought, can never 1)6 had until we have the power of first observing the
^ facts that are going on within. It is very easy to observe facts in the external world, and many thousand instruments have been invented to observe every point of nature, but in the internal world we find no instrument ^ to help us. Vet we know we must observe in order to have a real science. Without a proper analysis, any science will be hopeless, mere theorising, and that is
! why all the psychologists have been quarrelling among themselves since the beginning of time, except those few who found out the means of observation.
The science of Raja Yoga, in the first place, proposes
, to gi\e men such a means of observing the internal states, and the instrument is the mind itself. The power of attention of mind, when properly guided, and directed towards the internal world, will analyse the mind, and illumine facts for us. The powers of the mind are like rays of light being dissipated ; when they are concentrated they illumine everything. This is the only source of knowledge that we have. Everyone is using it, both in the external and the internal world, but, for the psycho- i logist, this minute observation which the scientific man can throv.- upon the external vvorld, will have to be thrown on the internal world, and this requires a great '■ deal of practice. From our childhood upwards we have j been taught only to pay attention to things external, never to pay attention to things internal, and most of us have nearly lost the faculty of observing the internal mechanism. To turn the mind, as it were, inside, stop it from going outside, and then to concentrate all its powers, and throw them upon the mind itself, in order that it^ ' may know its own nature, analyse itself, is ver)' hard } work. Yet that is the only way to anything which will be a scientific approach to the subject.