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

tion. Just as if a piece of pure crystal be put on a table and a red flower be put near it, the crystal appears to be red, so all these appearances of happiness or unhappiness are but reflections ; the soul itself has no sort of colouring. The soul is separate from nature ; nature is one thing, soul another, eternally separate. The Sankhyas say that intelligence is a compound, that it grows and wanes, that it changes, just as the body changes, and that its nature is nearly the same as that of the body. As a finger-nail is to the body, so is body to intelligence. The nail is a part of the body, but it can be pared off hundreds of times, and the body will still last. Similarly, the intelligence lasts aeons, while this body can be pared off, thrown ofl". Yet intelligence cannot be immortal, because it changes — growing and waning. Anything that changes cannot be immortal. Certainly intelligence is manufactured, and that very fact shows us that there must be something beyond that, because it cannot be free. Everything connected with matter is in nature, and therefore bound for ever. Who is free ? That free one must certainly be beyond cause and effect. If you say that the idea of freedom is a delusion, I will say that the idea of bondage is also a delusion. Two facts come into our consciousness, and stand or fall by each other. One is that we are bound. If we want to go through a wall, and our head bumps against that wall, we are limited by that wall. At the same time we find will, and think we can direct our will everywhere. At every step these contradictory ideas are coming to us.

I JO RAJA YOGA.

We have to believe that we are free, yet at every moment we find we are not free. If one idea is a delusion, the other is also a delusion, and if one is true, the other also is true, because both stand upon the same basis — consciousness. The Yogi says both are true ; that we are bound so far as intelligence goes, that we are free as far as the soul is concerned. It is the real nature of man, the Soul, the Purusa, which is beyond all law of causation. Its freedom is percolating through layers and layers of matter, in various forms of intelligence, and mind, and all these things. It is its light which is shining through all. Intelligence has no light of its own. Each organ has a particular centre in tiie brain ; it is not that all the organs have one centre ; each organ is separate. Why do all these perceptions harmonise, and where do they get their unity ? If it were in the brain there would be one centre only for the eyes, the nose, the ears, while we know for certain that there are different centres for each. But a man can see and hear at the same time, so a unity must be back of intelligence. Intelligence is eternally connected with the brain, but behind even intelligence stands the Purusa, the unit, where all these different sensations and perceptions join and become one. Soul itself is the centre where all the different organs converge and become unified, and that Soul is free, and it is its freedom that tells you every moment that you are free. But you mistake, and mingle that freedom every moment with intelligence and mind. You try to attribute that free-