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.
55. By the similarity of purity between the Sattva. and the Purusa conies Kaivalya.
When the soul realises that it depends on nothing in the universe, from gods to the lowest atom, that is called Kaivalya (isolation) and perfection. It is attained when this mixture of purity and impurity called mind has been made as pure as the Purusa Itself; then the Sattva, the mind, reflects only the unqualified essence of purity,, which is the Purusa.
CHAPTER IV.
INDEPENDENCE.
1. The Siddhis (powers) are attained by birth, chemical means, power of words, mortification or concentration.
Sometimes a man is born with the Siddhis, powers, of course from the exercise of powers he had in his previous birth. In this birth he is born, as it were, to enjoy the fruits of them. It is said of Kapila, the great father of the Sankhya Philosophy, that he was a born Siddha, which means, hterally, a man who has attained to success. The Yogis claim that these powers can be gained by chemical means. All of you know that chemistry originally began as alchemy ; men went in search of the philosopher's stone, and elixirs of life, and so forth. In India there was a sect called the Rasayanas. Their idea was that ideality, knowledge, spirituality and religion, were all very right, but that the body was the only instrument by which to attain to all these. If the body broke now and then it would take so much more time to attain to the goal. For instance, a man wants to practise Yoga, or wants to become spiritual. Before he has advanced very far he <Jies. Then he takes another body and begins again, then dies, and so on, and in this way much time will be lost in dying and being born again. If the body could be made strong and perfect, so that it would get rid of birth and death, we should have so much more time to become spiritual. So these Rasayanas say, first make the body very strong, and they claim that this body can be made immortal. Their idea is that if the mind is manufacturing the body, and if it be true that each mind is only one particular outlet to that infinite energy, and that there is no limit to each particular outlet getting any amount of power from outside, why is it impossible that we should keep our bodies all the time ? We shall have to manufacture all the bodies that we shall ever have. As soon as this body dies we shall have to manufacture another. If we can do that why cannot we do it just here and now, without getting out ? The theory is perfectly correct. If it is possible that we live after •death, and make other bodies, why is it impossible that we should have the power of making bodies here, without entirely dissolving this body, simply changing it continually ? They also thought that in mercury and in sulphur was hidden the most wonderful power, and that by certain preparations of these a man could keep the body as long as he hked. Others believed that certain drugs could bring powers, such as flying through the air, etc. Many of the most wonderful medicines of the present day we owe to the Rasayanas, notably the use of metals in medicine. Certain sects of Yogis claim that many of their principal teachers are still Hving in