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.
I20 RAJA YOGA.
create ? It is itself a slave. On the other hand, what business has the soul that is free to create and manipulate all these things ? It has no desires, so cannot have any need to create. Secondly, it says the theory of God is an unnecessary one ; nature explains all. What is the use of any God ? But Kapila teaches that there are many souls, who, though nearly attaining perfection, fall short because they cannot perfectly renounce all powers. Their minds for a time merge in nature, to re-emerge as its masters. Such gods there are. We shall all become such gods, and, according to the Sankhyas, the God spoken of in the Vedas really means one of these free souls. Beyond them there is not an eternally free and blessed creator of the universe. On the other hand the Yogis say, *' Not so, there is a God ; there is one Soul separate from all other souls, and He is the eternal Master of all creation, the Ever Free, the Teacher of all teachers." The Yogis admit that those the Sankhyas call the merged in nature also exist. They are Yogis who have fallen short of perfection, and though, for a time, debarred from attaining the goal, remain as rulers of parts of the universe.
19. (This Samadhi, when not followed by extreme non-attachment) becomes the cause of the remanifestation of the gods and of those that become merged in nature.
The gods in the Indian systems represent certain high offices which are being filled successively by various souls. But none of them is perfect.
20. To others (this Samadhi) comes through faith, energy, memory, concentration, anddiscrimination of the real.
These are they who do not want the position of gods, or even that of rulers of cycles. They attain to liberation.
21. Success is speedy for the extremely energetic.
22. They again differ according as the means are mild, medium or supreme.
23. Or by devotion to Isvara.
24. Isvara (the Supreme Ruler) is a special
Purusa, untouched by misery, the results of actions, or desires.
We must again remember that this Patanjali Yoga Philosophy is based upon that of the Sankhyas, only that in the latter there is no place for God, while with the Yogis God has a place. The Yogis, howe^'er, avoid many ideas about God, such as creating. God as the Creator of the Universe is not meant by the Isvara of the Yogis, although, according to the Vedas, Isvara is the Creator of the universe. Seeing that the universe is harmonious, it must be the manifestation of one will. The Yogis and Sankhyas both avoid the question of creation. The Yogis want to establish a God, but carefully avoid this question, they do not raise it at all. Yet you will find that they arrive at God in a peculiar fashion of their own. They say :
25. In Him becomes infinite that all-kno-wingness which in others is (only) a germ.
The mind must always travel between two extremes. You can think of limited space, but the very idea of that gives you also unlimited space. Close your eyes and think of a little space, and at the same time that you perceive the little circle, you ha\e a circle round it of unlimited dimensions. It is the same with time. Try to tliink of a second, you will have, with the same act of perception, to think of time which is unlimited. So with knowledge. Knowledge is only a germ in man, but you will have to think of infinite knowledge around it, so that the very nature of our constitution shows us that there is unlimited knowledge, and the Yogis call that unlimited knowledge God.
2S. He is the teacher of even the ancient teachers, being not limited by time.
It is true that all knowledge is within ourselves, but this has to be called forth by another knowledge. Although the capacity to know is inside us, it must be called out, and that calling out of knowledge can only be got, a Yogi maintains, through another knowledge. Dead, insentient matter, never calls out knowledge, it is the action of knowledge that brings out knowledge. Knowing beings must be with us to call forth what is in us, so these teachers were always necessary. The world was never without them, and no knowledge can come without them. God is the Teacher of all teachers, because these teachers, however great they may have been — gods or angels — were
YOGA APHORISMS.