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

Making the mind take the form of one object for some time will destroy these obstacles. This is general advice. In the following aphorisms it will be expanded and particularised. As one practice cannot suit everyone, various methods will be advanced, and everyone by actual experience will find out that which helps him most.

33. Friendship, mercy, gladness, indifference, being thought of in regard to subjects, happy, unhappy, good and evil respectively, pacify the Chitta.

We must have these four sorts of ideas. We must ■■. \\ have friendship for all; we must be merciful towards 1 those that are in misery ; when people are happy we ought to be happy, and to the wicked we must be in- j [ different. So with all subjects that come before us. If the subject is a good one, we shall feel friendly towards it ; if the subject of thought is one that is miserable we must be merciful towards the subject. If it is good we must be glad, if it is evil we must be indifferent. These

I

attitudes of the mind towards the different subjects that come before it will make the mind peaceful. Most of our difficulties in our daily lives come from being unable to hold our minds in this way. For instance, if a man does evil to us, instantly we want to react evil, and every reaction of evil shows that we are not able to hold the Chitta down ; it comes out in w-aves towards the object, and we lose our power. Every reaction in the form of hatred or evil is so much loss to the mind, and every evil thought or deed of hatred, or any thought of reaction, if it is controlled, will be laid in our favour. It is not that we lose by thus restraining ourselves ; we are gaining infinitely more than we suspect. Each time we suppress hatred, or a feeling of anger, it is so much good energy stored up in our favour ; that piece of energy will be converted into the higher powers.

34. By throwing out and restraining the Breath.

The word used is Prana. Prana is not exactly breath. It is the name for the energy that is in the universe. Whatever you see in the universe, whatever moves or works, or has life, is a manifestation of this Prana. The sum-total of the energy displayed in the universe is called Prana. This Prana, before a cycle begins, remains in an almost motionless state, and when the cycle begins this Prana begins to manifest itself. It is this Prana that is manifested as motion, as the nervous motion in human beings or animals, and the same Prana is mani-

YOGA APHORISMS.

festing as thought, and so on. The whole universe is a combination of Prana and Akasa ; so is the human body. Out of Akasa you get the different materials that you feel, and see, and out of Prana all the various forces. Now this throwing out and restraining the Prana is what is called Pranayama. Patanjali, the father of the Yoga Philosophy, does not give very many particular directions about Pranayama, but later on other Yogis found out various things about this Pranayama, and made of it a great science. With Patanjali it is one of the many ways, but he does not lay much stress on it. He means that you simply throw the air out, and draw it in, and hold it for some time, that is all, and by that, the mind will become a little calmer. But, later on, you will find that out of this is evolved a particular science called Pranayama. We will hear a little of what these later Yogis have to say. Some of this I have told you before, but a little repeiition will serve to fix it in your minds. First, you must remember that this Prana is not the breath. But that which causes the motion of the breath, that which is the vitality of the breath is the Prana. Again, the word Prana is used of all the senses; they are all called Pranas, the mind is called Prana ; and so we see that Prana is the name of a certain force. And yet we cannot call it force, because force is only the manifestation of it. It is that which manifests itself as force and everything else in the way of motion. The Chitta, the mind-stuff, is the engine which draws in the Prana from the surroundings, and manufactures out of