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

street, and a man comes and takes my watch. That is my own experience. I see it myself, and it immediately throws my Chitta into a wave, taking the form of anger. Allow not that to come. If you cannot prevent that, you are nothing ; if you can, you have Vairagyam. Similarly, the experience of the worldly-minded teaches us that sense enjoyments are the highest ideal. These are tremendous temptations. To deny them, and not allow the mind to come into a wave form with regard to them, is renunciation ; to control the twofold motive powers arising from my own experience, and from the experience of others, and thus prevent the Chitta from being governed by them, is Vairagyam. These should be controlled by me, and not I by them. This sort of mental strength is called renunciation. This Vairagyam is the only way to freedom.

16. That extreme non-attachment, giving up even the qualities, shovifs (the real nature of) the Purusa.

It is the highest manifestation of power when it takes away even our attraction towards the qualities. We have first to understand what the Purusa, the Self, is, and what are the qualities. According to Yoga philosophy the whole of nature consists of three qualities ; one is called Tamas, another Rajas, and the third Sattva. These three qualities manifest themselves in the physical world as attraction, repulsion, and control. Everything that is in nature, all

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these manifestations, are combinations and recombinations of these three forces. This nature has been divided into various categories by the Sankhyas ; the Self of man is beyond all these, beyond nature, is effulgent by Its very nature. It is pure and perfect. Whatever of intelligence we see in nature is but the reflection from this Self upon nature. Nature itself is insentient. You must remember that the word nature also includes the mind ; mind is in nature ; thought is in nature ; from thought, down to the grossest form of matter, everything is in nature, the manifestation of nature. This nature has covered the Self of man, and when nature takes away the covering the Self becomes unveiled, and appears in Its own glory. This non-attachment, as it is described in Aphorism 15 (as being control of nature) is the greatest help towards manifesting the Self. The next Aphorism defines Samadhi, perfect concentration, which is the goal of the Yogi.

17. The concentration called right knowledge is that which is followed by reasoning, discrimination, bliss, unqualified ego.

This Samadhi is divided into two varieties. One is called the Samprajnata, and the other the Asamprajniita. The Samprajnata is of four varieties. In this Samadhi come all the powers of controlling nature. The first variety is called the Savitarka, when the mind meditates upon an object again and again, by isolating it from other objects. There are two sorts of objects for

YOGA APHORISMS.

meditation, the categories of nature, and the Purusa. Again, the categories are of two varieties ; the twentyfour categories are insentient, and the one sentient is the Purusa. When the mind thinks of the elements of nature by thinking of their beginning and their end, this is one sort of Savitarka. The words require explanation. This part of Yoga is based entirely on Sankhya Philosophy, about which I have already told you. As you will remember, egoism and will, and mind, have a common basis, and that common basis is called the Chitta, the mind-stuff, out of which they are all manufactured. This mind-stuff takes in the forces of nature, and projects them as thought. There must be something, again, where both force and matter are one. This is called Avyaktam, the unmanifested state of nature, before creation, and to w^hich, after the end of a cycle, the whole of nature returns, to again come out after another period. Beyond that is the Purusa, the essence of intelligence. There is no liberation in getting powers. It is a worldly search after enjoyments, and there is no enjoyment in this life ; all search for enjoyment is vain ; this is the old, old lesson which man finds it so hard to learn. When he does learn it, he gets out of the universe and becomes free. The possession of what are called occult powers is only intensifying the world, and in the end, intensifying suffering. Though, as a scientist, Patanjali is bound to point out the possibilities of this science, he never misses an opportunity to warn us against these powers. Knowledge is power,