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.
able feeling is the nature of the Sattva. Everything is pleasurable to the Sattvika man, and when this comes, know that you are progressing in Yoga. All pain is caused by Tamas, so you must get rid of that ; moroseness is one of the results of Tamas. The strong, the well-knit, the young, the healthy, the daring alone are fit to be Yogis. To the Yogi everything is bliss, every human face that he sees brings cheerfulness to him. That is the sign of a virtuous man. Misery is caused by sin, and by no other cause. What business have you with clouded faces; it is terrible. If you have a clouded face do not go out that day, shut yourself up in your room. What right have you to carry this disease out into the world ? When your mind has become controlled you will have control over the whole body ; instead of being a slave to this machine, the machine will be your slave. Instead of this machine being able to drag the soul down it will be its greatest helpmate.
42. From contentment comes superlative happiness.
43. The result of mortification is bringing powers to the organs and the body, by destroying the impurity.
The results of mortification are seen immediately, sometimes by heightened powers of vision, and so on, hearing things at a distance, etc.
44. By repetition of the mantram comes the realisation of the intended deity.
The higher the beings that you want to get the harder is the practice.
45. By sacrificing all to Iswara comes Samadhi.
By resignation to the Lord, Samadhi becomes perfect.
46. Posture is that which is firm and pleasant.
Now comes Asana, posture. Until you can get a firm seat you cannot practise the breathing and other exercises. The seat being firm means that you do not feel the body at all ; then alone it has become firm. But, in the ordinary way, you will find that as soon as you sit for a few minutes all sorts of disturbances come into the body ; but when you have got beyond the idea of a concrete body you will lose all sense of the body. You will feel neither pleasure nor pain. And when you take your body up again it will feel so rested ; it is the only perfect rest that you can give to the body. When you have succeeded in conquering the body and keeping it firm, your practice will remain firm, but while you are disturbed by the body your nerves become disturbed, and you cannot concentrate the mind. We can make the seat firm by thinking of the infinite. We cannot think of the Absolute Infinite, but we can think of the infinite sky.
47. By slight effort and meditating on the unlimited (posture becomes firm and pleasant).
Light and darkness, pleasure and pain, will not then disturb you.
48. Seat being conquered, the dualities do not obstruct.
The dualities are good and bad, heat and cold, and all the pairs of opposites.
49. Controlling the motion of the exhalation and the inhalation follows after this.
When the posture has been conquered, then this motion is to be broken and controlled, and thus we come to Pranayama ; the controlling of the vital forces of the body. Prana is not breath, though it is usually so translated. It is the sum-total of the cosmic energy. It is the energy that is in each body, and its most apparent manifestation is the motion of the lungs. This motion is caused by Prana drawing in the breath, and it is what we seek to control in Pranayama. We begin by controlling the breath, as the easiest way of getting control of the Prana.
60. Its modifications are either external or internal, or motionless, regulated by place, time, and number, either long or short.
The three sorts of motion of this Pranayama are, onep. 85 by which we draw the breath in, another by which we throAv it out, and the third action is when the breath is held in the lungs, or stopped from entering the lungs. These, again, are varied by place and time. By space is meant that the Prana is held to some particular part of the body. By time is meant how long the Prana should be confined to a certain place, and so we are told how many seconds to keep one motion, and how many seconds to keep another. The result of this Pranayama is Udghata, awakening the Kundalim.
51. The fourth is restraining the Prana by directing it either to the external or internal objects.
This is a fourth sort of Pranayama. Prana can be directed either inside or outside.
52. From that, the covering to the light of the