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

YOGA APHORISMS.

culty Avith mankind is that they forget the original meaning, and put the cart before the horse. It was men who made these places holy, and then the effect became the cause and made men holy. If the Avicked only were to go there it would become as bad as any other place. It is not the building, but the people, that make a church, and that is what we always forget. That is why sages and holy persons, who have so much of this Sattva quality, are emanating so much of it around them, and exerting a tremendous influence day and night on their surroundings. A man may become so pure that his purity will become tangible, as it were. The body has become pure, and in an intensely physical sense, no figurative idea, no poetical language, it emanates that purity wherever it goes. Whosoever comes in contact with that man becomes pure. Next "the indicated only" means the Buddhi, the intellect. " The indicated only " is the first manifestation of nature ; from it all other manifestations proceed. The last is " the signless." Here there seems to be a great fight between modern science and all religions. Every religion has this idea that this universe comes out of intelligence. Only some religions were more philosophical, and used scientific language. The very theory of God, taking it in its psychological significance, and apart from all ideas of personal God, is that intelligence is first in the order of creation, and that out of intelligence comes what we call gross matter. Modern philosophers say that intelligence is the last to come. They

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say that unintelligent things slowly evolve into animals, and from animals slowly evolve into men. They claim that instead of everything coming out of intelligence, intelligence is itself the last to come. Both the religious and the scientific statement, though seeming directly opposed to each other, are true. Take an infinite series, A — B — A — B — A — B, etc. The question is which is first, A or B. If you take the series as A — B, you will say that A is first, but if you take it as B — A you will say that B is first. It depends upon the way we are looking at it. Intelligence evolves, and becomes the gross matter, and this again involves as intelligence, and again evolves as matter once more. The Sankhyas, and all religionists, put intelligence first, and the series becomes intelligence then matter, intelligence then matter. The scientific man puts his finger on matter, and says matter then intelligence, matter then intelligence. But they are both indicating the same chain. Indian philosophy, however, goes beyond both intelligence and matter, and finds a Purusa, or Self, which is beyond all intelligence, and of which intelligence is but the borrowed light.

20. The seer is intelligence only, and though pure, sees through the colouring of the intellect.

This is again Sankhya philosophy. We have seen from this philosophy that from the lowest form up to intelligence all is nature, but beyond nature are Purusas (souls), and these have no qualities. Then how does the soul appear to be happy or unhappy ? By reflec-