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.
changes comes the knowledge of past and future.
We must not lose sight of the first definition of Samyama. When the mind has attained to that state when it identifies itself with the internal impression of the object, leaving the external, and when, by long practice, that is retained by the mind, and the mind can get into that state in a moment, that is Samyama. If a man in that state wants to know the past and future he has to make a Samyama on the changes in the Samskaras. Some are working now at present, some have worked out, and some are waiting to work ; so by making a Samyama on these he knows the past and future.
17. By making Samyama on word, meaning, and knowledge, -which are ordinarily confused, comes the knowledge of all animal sounds.
The word represents the external cause, the meaning represents the internal vibration that travels to the brain through the channels of the Indriyas, conveying the external impression to the mind, and knowledge represents the reaction of the mind, with which comes per-
YOGA APHORISMS.
ception. These three confused, make our sense objects. Suppose I hear a word ; there is first the external vibration, next the internal sensation carried to the mind by the organ of hearing, then the mind reacts, and I know the word. The word I know is a mixture of the three, vibration, sensation, and reaction. Ordinarily these three are inseparable ; but by practice the Yogi can separate them. When a man has attained to this, if he makes a Samyama on any sound, he understands the meaning which that sound was intended to express, whether it was made by man or by any other animal.
18. By perceiving the impressions, knowledge of past life.
Each experience that we have comes in the form of a wave in the Chitta, and this subsides and becomes finer and finer, but is never lost. It remains there in minute form, and if we can bring this wave up again, it becomes memory. So, if the Yogi can make a Samyama on these past impressions in the mind, he will begin to remember all his past lives.
19. By making Samyama on the signs in another's body knowledge of that mind comes.
Suppose each man has particular signs on his body, which differentiate him from others ; when the Yogi makes a Samyama on these signs peculiar to a certain man he knows the nature of the mind of that person.
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20. But not its contents, that not being the object of the Samyama.
He would not know the contents of the mind by making a Samyama on the body. There would be required a twofold Samyama, first on the signs in the body, and then on the mind itself. The Yogi would then know everything that is in that mind, past, present, and future.
21. By making Samyama on the form of the body the power of perceiving forms being obstructed, the pov/er of manifestation in the eye being separated, the Yogi's body becomes unseen.
A Yogi standing in the midst of this room can apparently vanish. He does not really vanish, l)ul he will not be seen by anyone. The form and the body are, as it were, separated. You must remember that this can only be done when the Yogi has attained to that power of concentration when form and the thing formed have been separated. Then he makes a Samyama on that, and the power to perceive forms is obstructed, because the power of perceiving forms comes from the junction of form and the thing formed. By this the disappearance or concealment of words which are being spoken is also explained.
22. Karma is of two kinds, coon to be fructified, and late to be fructified. By making Samyama on that, or by the signs called Aristha, portents, the Yogis know the exact time of separation from their bodies.
YOGA APHORISMS.