<h2><SPAN name="chap06"></SPAN>BOOK III</h2>
<p class="p1">
1. The binding of the perceiving consciousness to a certain region is attention
(dharana).</p>
<p>Emerson quotes Sir Isaac Newton as saying that he made his great discoveries by
intending his mind on them. That is what is meant here. I read the page of a
book while inking of something else. At the end of he page, I have no idea of
what it is about, and read it again, still thinking of something else, with the
same result. Then I wake up, so to speak, make an effort of attention, fix my
thought on what I am reading, and easily take in its meaning. The act of will,
the effort of attention, the intending of the mind on each word and line of the
page, just as the eyes are focussed on each word and line, is the power here
contemplated. It is the power to focus the consciousness on a given spot, and
hold it there Attention is the first and indispensable step in all knowledge.
Attention to spiritual things is the first step to spiritual knowledge.</p>
<p class="p1">
2. A prolonged holding of the perceiving consciousness in that region is
meditation (dhyana).</p>
<p>This will apply equally to outer and inner things. I may for a moment fix my
attention on some visible object, in a single penetrating glance, or I may hold
the attention fixedly on it until it reveals far more of its nature than a
single glance could perceive. The first is the focussing of the searchlight of
consciousness upon the object. The other is the holding of the white beam of
light steadily and persistently on the object, until it yields up the secret of
its details. So for things within; one may fix the inner glance for a moment on
spiritual things, or one may hold the consciousness steadily upon them, until
what was in the dark slowly comes forth into the light, and yields up its
immortal secret. But this is possible only for the spiritual man, after the
Commandments and the Rules have been kept; for until this is done, the
thronging storms of psychical thoughts dissipate and distract the attention, so
that it will not remain fixed on spiritual things. The cares of this world, the
deceitfulness of riches, choke the word of the spiritual message.</p>
<p class="p1">
3. When the perceiving consciousness in this meditative is wholly given to
illuminating the essential meaning of the object contemplated, and is freed
from the sense of separateness and personality, this is contemplation
(samadhi).</p>
<p>Let us review the steps so far taken. First, the beam of perceiving
consciousness is focussed on a certain region or subject, through the effort of
attention. Then this attending consciousness is held on its object. Third,
there is the ardent will to know its meaning, to illumine it with comprehending
thought. Fourth, all personal bias—all desire merely to indorse a
previous opinion and so prove oneself right, and all desire for personal profit
or gratification must be quite put away. There must be a purely disinterested
love of truth for its own sake. Thus is the perceiving consciousness made void,
as it were, of all personality or sense of separateness. The personal
limitation stands aside and lets the All-consciousness come to bear upon the
problem. The Oversoul bends its ray upon the object, and illumines it with pure
light.</p>
<p class="p1">
4. When these three, Attention, Meditation Contemplation, are exercised at
once, this is perfectly concentrated Meditation (sanyama).</p>
<p>When the personal limitation of the perceiving consciousness stands aside, and
allows the All-conscious to come to bear upon the problem, then arises that
real knowledge which is called a flash of genius; that real knowledge which
makes discoveries, and without which no discovery can be made, however
painstaking the effort. For genius is the vision of the spiritual man, and that
vision is a question of growth rather than present effort; though right effort,
rightly continued, will in time infallibly lead to growth and vision. Through
the power thus to set aside personal limitation, to push aside petty concerns
and cares, and steady the whole nature and will in an ardent love of truth and
desire to know it; through the power thus to make way for the
All-consciousness, all great men make their discoveries. Newton, watching the
apple fall to the earth, was able to look beyond, to see the subtle waves of
force pulsating through apples and worlds and suns and galaxies, and thus to
perceive universal gravitation. The Oversoul, looking through his eyes,
recognized the universal force, one of its own children. Darwin, watching the
forms and motions of plants and animals, let the same august consciousness come
to bear on them, and saw infinite growth perfected through ceaseless struggle.
He perceived the superb process of evolution, the Oversoul once more
recognizing its own. Fraunhofer, noting the dark lines in the band of sunlight
in his spectroscope, divined their identity with the bright lines in the
spectra of incandescent iron, sodium and the rest, and so saw the oneness of
substance in the worlds and suns, the unity of the materials of the universe.
Once again the Oversoul, looking with his eyes, recognized its own. So it is
with all true knowledge. But the mind must transcend its limitations, its
idiosyncrasies; there must be purity, for to the pure in heart is the promise,
that they shall see God.</p>
<p class="p1">
5. By mastering this perfectly concentrated Meditation, there comes the
illumination of perception.</p>
<p>The meaning of this is illustrated by what has been said before. When the
spiritual man is able to throw aside the trammels of emotional and mental
limitation, and to open his eyes, he sees clearly, he attains to illuminated
perception. A poet once said that Occultism is the conscious cultivation of
genius; and it is certain that the awakened spiritual man attains to the
perceptions of genius. Genius is the vision, the power, of the spiritual man,
whether its possessor recognizes this or not. All true knowledge is of the
spiritual man. The greatest in all ages have recognized this and put their
testimony on record. The great in wisdom who have not consciously recognized
it, have ever been full of the spirit of reverence, of selfless devotion to
truth, of humility, as was Darwin; and reverence and humility are the
unconscious recognition of the nearness of the Spirit, that Divinity which
broods over us, a Master o’er a slave.</p>
<p class="p1">
6. This power is distributed in ascending degrees.</p>
<p>It is to be attained step by step. It is a question, not of miracle, but of
evolution, of growth. Newton had to master the multiplication table, then the
four rules of arithmetic, then the rudiments of algebra, before he came to the
binomial theorem. At each point, there was attention, concentration, insight;
until these were attained, no progress to the next point was possible. So with
Darwin. He had to learn the form and use of leaf and flower, of bone and
muscle; the characteristics of genera and species; the distribution of plants
and animals, before he had in mind that nexus of knowledge on which the light
of his great idea was at last able to shine. So is it with all knowledge. So is
it with spiritual knowledge. Take the matter this way: The first subject for
the exercise of my spiritual insight is my day, with its circumstances, its
hindrances, its opportunities, its duties. I do what I can to solve it, to
fulfil its duties, to learn its lessons. I try to live my day with aspiration
and faith. That is the first step. By doing this, I gather a harvest for the
evening, I gain a deeper insight into life, in virtue of which I begin the next
day with a certain advantage, a certain spiritual advance and attainment. So
with all successive days. In faith and aspiration, we pass from day to day, in
growing knowledge and power, with never more than one day to solve at a time,
until all life becomes radiant and transparent.</p>
<p class="p1">
7. This threefold power, of Attention, Meditation, Contemplation, is more
interior than the means of growth previously described.</p>
<p>Very naturally so; because the means of growth previously described were
concerned with the extrication of the spiritual man from psychic bondages and
veils; while this threefold power is to be exercised by the spiritual man thus
extricated and standing on his feet, viewing life with open eyes.</p>
<p class="p1">
8. But this triad is still exterior to the soul vision which is unconditioned,
free from the seed of mental analyses.</p>
<p>The reason is this: The threefold power we have been considering, the triad of
Attention, Contemplation, Meditation is, so far as we have yet considered it,
the focussing of the beam of perceiving consciousness upon some form of
manifesting being, with a view of understanding it completely. There is a
higher stage, where the beam of consciousness is turned back upon itself, and
the individual consciousness enters into, and knows, the All consciousness.
This is a being, a being in immortality, rather than a knowing; it is free from
mental analysis or mental forms. It is not an activity of the higher mind, even
the mind of the spiritual man. It is an activity of the soul. Had Newton risen
to this higher stage, he would have known, not the laws of motion, but that
high Being, from whose Life comes eternal motion. Had Darwin risen to this, he
would have seen the Soul, whose graduated thought and being all evolution
expresses. There are, therefore, these two perceptions: that of living things,
and that of the Life; that of the Soul’s works, and that of the Soul
itself.</p>
<p class="p1">
9. One of the ascending degrees is the development of Control. First there is
the overcoming of the mind-impress of excitation. Then comes the manifestation
of the mind-impress of Control. Then the perceiving consciousness follows after
the moment of Control.</p>
<p>This is the development of Control. The meaning seems to be this: Some object
enters the field of observation, and at first violently excites the mind,
stirring up curiosity, fear, wonder; then the consciousness returns upon
itself, as it were, and takes the perception firmly in hand, steadying itself,
and viewing the matter calmly from above. This steadying effort of the will
upon the perceiving consciousness is Control, and immediately upon it follows
perception, understanding, insight.</p>
<p>Take a trite example. Supposing one is walking in an Indian forest. A charging
elephant suddenly appears. The man is excited by astonishment, and, perhaps,
terror. But he exercises an effort of will, perceives the situation in its true
bearings, and recognizes that a certain thing must be done; in this case,
probably, that he must get out of the way as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>Or a comet, unheralded, appears in the sky like a flaming sword. The beholder
is at first astonished, perhaps terror-stricken; but he takes himself in hand,
controls his thoughts, views the apparition calmly, and finally calculates its
orbit and its relation to meteor showers.</p>
<p>These are extreme illustrations; but with all knowledge the order of perception
is the same: first, the excitation of the mind by the new object impressed on
it; then the control of the mind from within; upon which follows the perception
of the nature of the object. Where the eyes of the spiritual man are open, this
will be a true and penetrating spiritual perception. In some such way do our
living experiences come to us; first, with a shock of pain; then the Soul
steadies itself and controls the pain; then the spirit perceives the lesson of
the event, and its bearing upon the progressive revelation of life.</p>
<p class="p1">
10. Through frequent repetition of this process, the mind becomes habituated to
it, and there arises an equable flow of perceiving consciousness.</p>
<p>Control of the mind by the Soul, like control of the muscles by the mind, comes
by practice, and constant voluntary repetition.</p>
<p>As an example of control of the muscles by the mind, take the ceaseless
practice by which a musician gains mastery over his instrument, or a fencer
gains skill with a rapier. Innumerable small efforts of attention will make a
result which seems well-nigh miraculous; which, for the novice, is really
miraculous. Then consider that far more wonderful instrument, the perceiving
mind, played on by that fine musician, the Soul. Here again, innumerable small
efforts of attention will accumulate into mastery, and a mastery worth winning.
For a concrete example, take the gradual conquest of each day, the effort to
live that day for the Soul. To him that is faithful unto death, the Master
gives the crown of life.</p>
<p class="p1">
11. The gradual conquest of the mind’s tendency to flit from one object
to another, and the power of one-pointedness, make the development of
Contemplation.</p>
<p>As an illustration of the mind’s tendency to flit from one object to
another, take a small boy, learning arithmetic. He begins: two ones are two;
three ones are three-and then he thinks of three coins in his pocket, which
will purchase so much candy, in the store down the street, next to the
toy-shop, where are base-balls, marbles and so on,—and then he comes back
with a jerk, to four ones are four. So with us also. We are seeking the meaning
of our task, but the mind takes advantage of a moment of slackened attention,
and flits off from one frivolous detail to another, till we suddenly come back
to consciousness after traversing leagues of space. We must learn to conquer
this, and to go back within ourselves into the beam of perceiving consciousness
itself, which is a beam of the Oversoul. This is the true onepointedness, the
bringing of our consciousness to a focus in the Soul.</p>
<p class="p1">
12. When, following this, the controlled manifold tendency and the aroused
one-pointedness are equally balanced parts of the perceiving consciousness, his
the development of one-pointedness.</p>
<p>This would seem to mean that the insight which is called one-pointedness has
two sides, equally balanced. There is, first, the manifold aspect of any
object, the sum of all its characteristics and properties. This is to be held
firmly in the mind. Then there is the perception of the object as a unity, as a
whole, the perception of its essence. First, the details must be clearly
perceived; then the essence must be comprehended. When the two processes are
equally balanced, the true onepointedness is attained. Everything has these two
sides, the side of difference and the side of unity; there is the individual
and there is the genus; the pole of matter and diversity, and the pole of
oneness and spirit. To see the object truly, we must see both.</p>
<p class="p1">
13. Through this, the inherent character, distinctive marks and conditions of
being and powers, according to their development, are made clear.</p>
<p>By the power defined in the preceding sutra, the inherent character,
distinctive marks and conditions of beings and powers are made clear. For
through this power, as defined, we get a twofold view of each object, seeing at
once all its individual characteristics and its essential character, species
and genus; we see it in relation to itself, and in relation to the Eternal.
Thus we see a rose as that particular flower, with its colour and scent, its
peculiar fold of each petal; but we also see in it the species, the family to
which it belongs, with its relation to all plants, to all life, to Life itself.
So in any day, we see events and circumstances; we also see in it the lesson
set for the soul by the Eternal.</p>
<p class="p1">
14. Every object has its characteristics which are already quiescent, those
which are active, and those which are not yet definable.</p>
<p>Every object has characteristics belonging to its past, its present and its
future. In a fir tree, for example, there are the stumps or scars of dead
branches, which once represented its foremost growth; there are the branches
with their needles spread out to the air; there are the buds at the end of each
branch and twig, which carry the still closely packed needles which are the
promise of the future. In like manner, the chrysalis has, as its past, the
caterpillar; as its future, the butterfly. The man has, in his past, the
animal; in his future, the angel. Both are visible even now in his face. So
with all things, for all things change and grow.</p>
<p class="p1">
15. Difference in stage is the cause of difference in development.</p>
<p>This but amplifies what has just been said. The first stage is the sapling, the
caterpillar, the animal. The second stage is the growing tree, the chrysalis,
the man. The third is the splendid pine, the butterfly, the angel. Difference
of stage is the cause of difference of development. So it is among men, and
among the races of men.</p>
<p class="p1">
16. Through perfectly concentrated Meditation on the three stages of
development comes a knowledge of past and future.</p>
<p>We have taken our illustrations from natural science, because, since every true
discovery in natural science is a divination of a law in nature, attained
through a flash of genius, such discoveries really represent acts of spiritual
perception, acts of perception by the spiritual man, even though they are
generally not so recognized. So we may once more use the same illustration.
Perfectly concentrated Meditation, perfect insight into the chrysalis, reveals
the caterpillar that it has been, the butterfly that it is destined to be. He
who knows the seed, knows the seed-pod or ear it has come from, and the plant
that is to come from it. So in like manner he who really knows today, and the
heart of to-day, knows its parent yesterday and its child tomorrow. Past,
present and future are all in the Eternal. He who dwells in the Eternal knows
all three.</p>
<p class="p1">
17. The sound and the object and the thought called up by a word are confounded
because they are all blurred together in the mind. By perfectly concentrated
Meditation on the distinction between them, there comes an understanding of the
sounds uttered by all beings.</p>
<p>It must be remembered that we are speaking of perception by the spiritual man.</p>
<p>Sound, like every force, is the expression of a power of the Eternal. Infinite
shades of this power are expressed in the infinitely varied tones of sound. He
who, having entry to the consciousness of the Eternal knows the essence of this
power, can divine the meanings of all sounds, from the voice of the insect to
the music of the spheres.</p>
<p>In like manner, he who has attained to spiritual vision can perceive the
mind-images in the thoughts of others, with the shade of feeling which goes
with them, thus reading their thoughts as easily as he hears their words. Every
one has the germ of this power, since difference of tone will give widely
differing meanings to the same words, meanings which are intuitively perceived
by everyone.</p>
<p class="p1">
18. When the mind-impressions become visible, there comes an understanding of
previous births.</p>
<p>This is simple enough if we grasp the truth of rebirth. The fine harvest of
past experiences is drawn into the spiritual nature, forming, indeed, the basis
of its development. When the consciousness has been raised to a point above
these fine subjective impressions, and can look down upon them from above, this
will in itself be a remembering of past births.</p>
<p class="p1">
19. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on mind-images is gained the
understanding of the thoughts of others.</p>
<p>Here, for those who can profit by it, is the secret of thought-reading. Take
the simplest case of intentional thought transference. It is the testimony of
those who have done this, that the perceiving mind must be stilled, before the
mind-image projected by the other mind can be seen. With it comes a sense of
the feeling and temper of the other mind and so on, in higher degrees.</p>
<p class="p1">
20. But since that on which the thought in the mind of another rests is not
objective to the thought-reader’s consciousness, he perceives the thought
only, and not also that on which the thought rests.</p>
<p>The meaning appears to be simple: One may be able to perceive the thoughts of
some one at a distance; one cannot, by that means alone, also perceive the
external surroundings of that person, which arouse these thoughts.</p>
<p class="p1">
21. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the form of the body, by arresting
the body’s perceptibility, and by inhibiting the eye’s power of
sight, there comes the power to make the body invisible.</p>
<p>There are many instances of the exercise of this power, by mesmerists,
hypnotists and the like; and we may simply call it an instance of the power of
suggestion. Shankara tells us that by this power the popular magicians of the
East perform their wonders, working on the mind-images of others, while
remaining invisible themselves. It is all a question of being able to see and
control the mind-images.</p>
<p class="p1">
22. The works which fill out the life-span may be either immediately or
gradually operative. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on these comes a
knowledge of the time of the end, as also through signs.</p>
<p>A garment which is wet, says the commentator, may be hung up to dry, and so dry
rapidly, or it may be rolled in a ball and dry slowly; so a fire may blaze or
smoulder. Thus it is with Karma, the works that fill out the life-span. By an
insight into the mental forms and forces which make up Karma, there comes a
knowledge of the rapidity or slowness of their development, and of the time
when the debt will be paid.</p>
<p class="p1">
23. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on sympathy, compassion and kindness,
is gained the power of interior union with others.</p>
<p>Unity is the reality; separateness the illusion. The nearer we come to reality,
the nearer we come to unity of heart. Sympathy, compassion, kindness are modes
of this unity of heart, whereby we rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep
with those who weep. These things are learned by desiring to learn them.</p>
<p class="p1">
24. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on power, even such power as that of
the elephant may be gained.</p>
<p>This is a pretty image. Elephants possess not only force, but poise and
fineness of control. They can lift a straw, a child, a tree with perfectly
judged control and effort. So the simile is a good one. By detachment, by
withdrawing into the soul’s reservoir of power, we can gain all these,
force and fineness and poise; the ability to handle with equal mastery things
small and great, concrete and abstract alike.</p>
<p class="p1">
25. By bending upon them the awakened inner light, there comes a knowledge of
things subtle, or concealed, or obscure.</p>
<p>As was said at the outset, each consciousness is related to all consciousness;
and, through it, has a potential consciousness of all things; whether subtle or
concealed or obscure. An understanding of this great truth will come with
practice. As one of the wise has said, we have no conception of the power of
Meditation.</p>
<p class="p1">
26. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the sun comes a knowledge of the
worlds.</p>
<p>This has several meanings: First, by a knowledge of the constitution of the
sun, astronomers can understand the kindred nature of the stars. And it is said
that there is a finer astronomy, where the spiritual man is the astronomer. But
the sun also means the Soul, and through knowledge of the Soul comes a
knowledge of the realms of life.</p>
<p class="p1">
27. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the moon comes a knowledge of the
lunar mansions.</p>
<p>Here again are different meanings. The moon is, first, the companion planet,
which, each day, passes backward through one mansion of the stars. By watching
the moon, the boundaries of the mansion are learned, with their succession in
the great time-dial of the sky. But the moon also symbolizes the analytic mind,
with its divided realms; and these, too, may be understood through perfectly
concentrated Meditation.</p>
<p class="p1">
28. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the fixed pole-star comes a
knowledge of the motions of the stars.</p>
<p>Addressing Duty, stern daughter of the Voice of God, Wordsworth finely said:</p>
<p class="poem">
Thou cost preserve the stars from wrong,<br/>
And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong—</p>
<p>thus suggesting a profound relation between the moral powers and the powers
that rule the worlds. So in this Sutra the fixed polestar is the eternal spirit
about which all things move, as well as the star toward which points the axis
of the earth. Deep mysteries attend both, and the veil of mystery is only to be
raised by Meditation, by open-eyed vision of the awakened spiritual man.</p>
<p class="p1">
29. Perfectly concentrated Meditation on the centre of force in the lower trunk
brings an understanding of the order of the bodily powers.</p>
<p>We are coming to a vitally important part of the teaching of Yoga: namely, the
spiritual man’s attainment of full self-consciousness, the awakening of
the spiritual man as a self-conscious individual, behind and above the natural
man. In this awakening, and in the process of gestation which precedes it,
there is a close relation with the powers of the natural man, which are, in a
certain sense, the projection, outward and downward, of the powers of the
spiritual man. This is notably true of that creative power of the spiritual man
which, when embodied in the natural man, becomes the power of generation. Not
only is this power the cause of the continuance of the bodily race of mankind,
but further, in the individual, it is the key to the dominance of the personal
life. Rising, as it were, through the life-channels of the body, it flushes the
personality with physical force, and maintains and colours the illusion that
the physical life is the dominant and all-important expression of life. In due
time, when the spiritual man has begun to take form, the creative force will be
drawn off, and become operative in building the body of the spiritual man, just
as it has been operative in the building of physical bodies, through generation
in the natural world.</p>
<p>Perfectly concentrated Meditation on the nature of this force means, first,
that rising of the consciousness into the spiritual world, already described,
which gives the one sure foothold for Meditation; and then, from that spiritual
point of vantage, not only an insight into the creative force, in its spiritual
and physical aspects, but also a gradually attained control of this wonderful
force, which will mean its direction to the body of the spiritual man, and its
gradual withdrawal from the body of the natural man, until the over-pressure,
so general and such a fruitful source of misery in our day, is abated, and
purity takes the place of passion. This over pressure, which is the cause of so
many evils and so much of human shame, is an abnormal, not a natural,
condition. It is primarily due to spiritual blindness, to blindness regarding
the spiritual man, and ignorance even of his existence; for by this blind
ignorance are closed the channels through which, were they open, the creative
force could flow into the body of the spiritual man, there building up an
immortal vesture. There is no cure for blindness, with its consequent
over-pressure and attendant misery and shame, but spiritual vision, spiritual
aspiration, sacrifice, the new birth from above. There is no other way to
lighten the burden, to lift the misery and shame from human life. Therefore,
let us follow after sacrifice and aspiration, let us seek the light. In this
way only shall we gain that insight into the order of the bodily powers, and
that mastery of them, which this Sutra implies.</p>
<p class="p1">
30. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the centre of force in the well of
the throat, there comes the cessation of hunger and thirst.</p>
<p>We are continuing the study of the bodily powers and centres of force in their
relation to the powers and forces of the spiritual man. We have already
considered the dominant power of physical life, the creative power which
secures the continuance of physical life; and, further, the manner in which,
through aspiration and sacrifice, it is gradually raised and set to the work of
upbuilding the body of the spiritual man. We come now to the dominant psychic
force, the power which manifests itself in speech, and in virtue of which the
voice may carry so much of the personal magnetism, endowing the orator with a
tongue of fire, magical in its power to arouse and rule the emotions of his
hearers. This emotional power, this distinctively psychical force, is the cause
of “hunger and thirst,” the psychical hunger and thirst for
sensations, which is the source of our two-sided life of emotionalism, with its
hopes and fears, its expectations and memories, its desires and hates. The
source of this psychical power, or, perhaps we should say, its centre of
activity in the physical body is said to be in the cavity of the throat. Thus,
in the Taittiriya Upanishad it is written: “There is this shining ether
in the inner being. Therein is the spiritual man, formed through thought,
immortal, golden. Inward, in the palate, the organ that hangs down like a
nipple,-this is the womb of Indra. And there, where the dividing of the hair
turns, extending upward to the crown of the head.”</p>
<p>Indra is the name given to the creative power of which we have spoken, and
which, we are told, resides in “the organ which hangs down like a nipple,
inward, in the palate.”</p>
<p class="p1">
31. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the centre of force in the channel
called the “tortoise-formed,” comes steadfastness.</p>
<p>We are concerned now with the centre of nervous or psychical force below the
cavity of the throat, in the chest, in which is felt the sensation of fear; the
centre, the disturbance of which sets the heart beating miserably with dread,
or which produces that sense of terror through which the heart is said to stand
still.</p>
<p>When the truth concerning fear is thoroughly mastered, through spiritual
insight into the immortal, fearless life, then this force is perfectly
controlled; there is no more fear, just as, through the control of the psychic
power which works through the nerve-centre in the throat, there comes a
cessation of “hunger and thirst.” Thereafter, these forces, or
their spiritual prototypes, are turned to the building of the spiritual man.</p>
<p>Always, it must be remembered, the victory is first a spiritual one; only later
does it bring control of the bodily powers.</p>
<p class="p1">
32. Through perfectly concentrated Meditation on the light in the head comes
the vision of the Masters who have attained.</p>
<p>The tradition is, that there is a certain centre of force in the head, perhaps
the “pineal gland,” which some of our Western philosophers have
supposed to be the dwelling of the soul, a centre which is, as it were, the
door way between the natural and the spiritual man. It is the seat of that
better and wiser consciousness behind the outward looking consciousness in the
forward part of the head; that better and wiser consciousness of “the
back of the mind,” which views spiritual things, and seeks to impress the
spiritual view on the outward looking consciousness in the forward part of the
head. It is the spiritual man seeking to guide the natural man, seeking to
bring the natural man to concern himself with the things of his immortality.
This is suggested in the words of the Upanishad already quoted: “There,
where the dividing of the hair turns, extending upward to the crown of the
head”; all of which may sound very fantastical, until one comes to
understand it.</p>
<p>It is said that when this power is fully awakened, it brings a vision of the
great Companions of the spiritual man, those who have already attained,
crossing over to the further shore of the sea of death and rebirth. Perhaps it
is to this divine sight that the Master alluded, who is reported to have said:
“I counsel you to buy of me eye-salve, that you may see.” It is of
this same vision of the great Companions, the children of light, that a seer
wrote:</p>
<p class="poem">
“Though inland far we be,<br/>
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea<br/>
Which brought us hither,<br/>
Can in a moment travel thither,<br/>
And see the Children sport upon the shore<br/>
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.”</p>
<p class="p1">
33. Or through the divining power of tuition he knows all things.</p>
<p>This is really the supplement, the spiritual side, of the Sutra just
translated. Step by step, as the better consciousness, the spiritual view,
gains force in the back of the mind, so, in the same measure, the spiritual man
is gaining the power to see: learning to open the spiritual eyes. When the eyes
are fully opened, the spiritual man beholds the great Companions standing about
him; he has begun to “know all things.”</p>
<p>This divining power of intuition is the power which lies above and behind the
so-called rational mind; the rational mind formulates a question and lays it
before the intuition, which gives a real answer, often immediately distorted by
the rational mind, yet always embodying a kernel of truth. It is by this
process, through which the rational mind brings questions to the intuition for
solution, that the truths of science are reached, the flashes of discovery and
genius. But this higher power need not work in subordination to the so-called
rational mind, it may act directly, as full illumination, “the vision and
the faculty divine.”</p>
<p class="p1">
34 By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the heart, the interior being, comes
the knowledge of consciousness.</p>
<p>The heart here seems to mean, as it so often does in the Upanishads, the
interior, spiritual nature, the consciousness of the spiritual man, which is
related to the heart, and to the wisdom of the heart. By steadily seeking
after, and finding, the consciousness of the spiritual man, by coming to
consciousness as the spiritual man, a perfect knowledge of consciousness will
be attained. For the consciousness of the spiritual man has this divine
quality: while being and remaining a truly individual consciousness, it at the
same time flows over, as it were, and blends with the Divine Consciousness
above and about it, the consciousness of the great Companions; and by showing
itself to be one with the Divine Consciousness, it reveals the nature of all
consciousness, the secret that all consciousness is One and Divine.</p>
<p class="p1">
35. The personal self seeks to feast on life, through a failure to perceive the
distinction between the personal self and the spiritual man. All personal
experience really exists for the sake of another: namely, the spiritual man. By
perfectly concentrated Meditation on experience for the sake of the Self, comes
a knowledge of the spiritual man.</p>
<p>The divine ray of the Higher Self, which is eternal, impersonal and abstract,
descends into life, and forms a personality, which, through the stress and
storm of life, is hammered into a definite and concrete self-conscious
individuality. The problem is, to blend these two powers, taking the eternal
and spiritual being of the first, and blending with it, transferring into it,
the self-conscious individuality of the second; and thus bringing to life a
third being, the spiritual man, who is heir to the immortality of his father,
the Higher Self, and yet has the self-conscious, concrete individuality of his
other parent, the personal self. This is the true immaculate conception, the
new birth from above, “conceived of the Holy Spirit.” Of this new
birth it is said: “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit: ye must be
born again.”</p>
<p>Rightly understood, therefore, the whole life of the personal man is for
another, not for himself. He exists only to render his very life and all his
experience for the building up of the spiritual man. Only through failure to
see this, does he seek enjoyment for himself, seek to secure the feasts of life
for himself; not understanding that he must live for the other, live
sacrificially, offering both feasts and his very being on the altar; giving
himself as a contribution for the building of the spiritual man. When he does
understand this, and lives for the Higher Self, setting his heart and thought
on the Higher Self, then his sacrifice bears divine fruit, the spiritual man is
built up, consciousness awakes in him, and he comes fully into being as a
divine and immortal individuality.</p>
<p class="p1">
36. Thereupon are born the divine power of intuition, and the hearing, the
touch, the vision, the taste and the power of smell of the spiritual man.</p>
<p>When, in virtue of the perpetual sacrifice of the personal man, daily and
hourly giving his life for his divine brother the spiritual man, and through
the radiance ever pouring down from the Higher Self, eternal in the Heavens,
the spiritual man comes to birth,-there awake in him those powers whose
physical counterparts we know in the personal man. The spiritual man begins to
see, to hear, to touch, to taste. And, besides the senses of the spiritual man,
there awakes his mind, that divine counterpart of the mind of the physical man,
the power of direct and immediate knowledge, the power of spiritual intuition,
of divination. This power, as we have seen, owes its virtue to the unity, the
continuity, of consciousness, whereby whatever is known to any consciousness,
is knowable by any other consciousness. Thus the consciousness of the spiritual
man, who lives above our narrow barriers of separateness, is in intimate touch
with the consciousness of the great Companions, and can draw on that vast
reservoir for all real needs. Thus arises within the spiritual man that certain
knowledge which is called intuition, divination, illumination.</p>
<p class="p1">
37. These powers stand in contradistinction to the highest spiritual vision. In
manifestation they are called magical powers.</p>
<p>The divine man is destined to supersede the spiritual man, as the spiritual man
supersedes the natural man. Then the disciple becomes a Master. The opened
powers of tile spiritual man, spiritual vision, hearing, and touch, stand,
therefore, in contradistinction to the higher divine power above them, and must
in no wise be regarded as the end of the way, for the path has no end, but
rises ever to higher and higher glories; the soul’s growth and splendour
have no limit. So that, if the spiritual powers we have been considering are
regarded as in any sense final, they are a hindrance, a barrier to the far
higher powers of the divine man. But viewed from below, from the standpoint of
normal physical experience, they are powers truly magical; as the powers
natural to a four-dimensional being will appear magical to a three-dimensional
being.</p>
<p class="p1">
38. Through the weakening of the causes of bondage, and by learning the method
of sassing, the consciousness is transferred to the other body.</p>
<p>In due time, after the spiritual man has been formed and grown stable through
the forces and virtues already enumerated, and after the senses of the
spiritual man have awaked, there comes the transfer of the dominant
consciousness, the sense of individuality, from the physical to the spiritual
man. Thereafter the physical man is felt to be a secondary, a subordinate, an
instrument through whom the spiritual man works; and the spiritual man is felt
to be the real individuality. This is, in a sense, the attainment to full
salvation and immortal life; yet it is not the final goal or resting place, but
only the beginning of the greater way.</p>
<p>The means for this transfer are described as the weakening of the causes of
bondage, and an understanding of the method of passing from the one
consciousness to the other. The first may also be described as detach meet, and
comes from the conquest of the delusion that the personal self is the real man.
When that delusion abates and is held in check, the finer consciousness of the
spiritual man begins to shine in the background of the mind. The transfer of
the sense of individuality to this finer consciousness, and thus to the
spiritual man, then becomes a matter of recollection, of attention; primarily,
a matter of taking a deeper interest in the life and doings of the spiritual
man, than in the pleasures or occupations of the personality. Therefore it is
said: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and
rust cloth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust cloth corrupt, and
where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also.”</p>
<p class="p1">
39. Through mastery of the upward-life comes freedom from the dangers of water,
morass, and thorny places, and the power of ascension is gained.</p>
<p>Here is one of the sentences, so characteristic of this author, and, indeed, of
the Eastern spirit, in which there is an obvious exterior meaning, and, within
this, a clear interior meaning, not quite so obvious, but far more vital.</p>
<p>The surface meaning is, that by mastery of a certain power, called here the
upward-life, and akin to levitation, there comes the ability to walk on water,
or to pass over thorny places without wounding the feet.</p>
<p>But there is a deeper meaning. When we speak of the disciple’s path as a
path of thorns, we use a symbol; and the same symbol is used here. The
upward-life means something more than the power, often manifested in abnormal
psychical experiences, of levitating the physical body, or near-by physical
objects. It means the strong power of aspiration, of upward will, which first
builds, and then awakes the spiritual man, and finally transfers the conscious
individuality to him; for it is he who passes safely over the waters of death
and rebirth, and is not pierced by the thorns in the path. Therefore it is said
that he who would tread the path of power must look for a home in the air, and
afterwards in the ether.</p>
<p>Of the upward-life, this is written in the Katha Upanishad: “A hundred
and one are the heart’s channels; of these one passes to the crown. Going
up this, he comes to the immortal.” This is the power of ascension spoken
of in the Sutra.</p>
<p class="p1">
40. By mastery of the binding-life comes radiance.</p>
<p>In the Upanishads, it is said that this binding-life unites the upward-life to
the downward-life, and these lives have their analogies in the “vital
breaths” in the body. The thought in the text seems to be, that, when the
personality is brought thoroughly under control of the spiritual man, through
the life-currents which bind them together, the personality is endowed with a
new force, a strong personal magnetism, one might call it, such as is often an
appanage of genius.</p>
<p>But the text seems to mean more than this and to have in view the
“vesture of the colour of the sun” attributed by the Upanishads to
the spiritual man; that vesture which a disciple has thus described: “The
Lord shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his
glorious body”; perhaps “body of radiance” would better
translate the Greek.</p>
<p>In both these passages, the teaching seems to be, that the body of the
full-grown spiritual man is radiant or luminous,-for those at least, who have
anointed their eyes wit! eye-salve, so that they see.</p>
<p class="p1">
41. From perfectly concentrated Meditation on the correlation of hearing and
the ether, comes the power of spiritual hearing.</p>
<p>Physical sound, we are told, is carried by the air, or by water, iron, or some
medium on the same plane of substance. But then is a finer hearing, whose
medium of transmission would seem to be the ether; perhaps no that ether which
carries light, heat and magnetic waves, but, it may be, the far finer ether
through which the power of gravity works. For, while light or heat or magnetic
waves, travelling from the sun to the earth, take eight minutes for the
journey, it is mathematically certain that the pull of gravitation does not
take as much as eight seconds, or even the eighth of a second. The pull of
gravitation travels, it would seem “as quick as thought”; so it may
well be that, in thought transference or telepathy, the thoughts travel by the
same way, carried by the same “thought-swift” medium.</p>
<p>The transfer of a word by telepathy is the simplest and earliest form of the
“divine hearing” of the spiritual man; as that power grows, and as,
through perfectly concentrated Meditation, the spiritual man comes into more
complete mastery of it, he grows able to hear and clearly distinguish the
speech of the great Companions, who counsel and comfort him on his way. They
may speak to him either in wordless thoughts, or in perfectly definite words
and sentences.</p>
<p class="p1">
42. By perfectly concentrated Meditation em the correlation of the body with
the ether, and by thinking of it as light as thistle-down, will come the power
to traverse the ether.</p>
<p>It has been said that he who would tread the path of power must look for a home
in the air, and afterwards in the ether. This would seem to mean, besides the
constant injunction to detachment, that he must be prepared to inhabit first a
psychic, and then an etheric body; the former being the body of dreams; the
latter, the body of the spiritual man, when he wakes up on the other side of
dreamland. The gradual accustoming of the consciousness to its new etheric
vesture, its gradual acclimatization, so to speak, in the etheric body of the
spiritual man, is what our text seems to contemplate.</p>
<p class="p1">
43. When that condition of consciousness is reached, which is far-reaching and
not confined to the body, which is outside the body and not conditioned by it,
then the veil which conceals the light is worn away.</p>
<p>Perhaps the best comment on this is afforded by the words of Paul: “I
knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot
tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such a one
caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or
out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) how that he was caught up into
paradise, and heard unspeakable [or, unspoken] words, which it is not lawful
for a man to utter.”</p>
<p>The condition is, briefly, that of the awakened spiritual man, who sees and
hears beyond the veil.</p>
<p class="p1">
44. Mastery of the elements comes from perfectly concentrated Meditation on
their five forms: the gross, the elemental, the subtle, the inherent, the
purposive.</p>
<p>These five forms are analogous to those recognized by modern physics: solid,
liquid, gaseous, radiant and ionic. When the piercing vision of the awakened
spiritual man is directed to the forms of matter, from within, as it were, from
behind the scenes, then perfect mastery over the “beggarly
elements” is attained. This is, perhaps, equivalent to the injunction:
“Inquire of the earth, the air, and the water, of the secrets they hold
for you. The development of your inner senses will enable you to do
this.”</p>
<p class="p1">
45. Thereupon will come the manifestation of the atomic and other powers, which
are the endowment of the body, together with its unassailable force.</p>
<p>The body in question is, of course, the etheric body of the spiritual man. He
is said to possess eight powers: the atomic, the power of assimilating himself
with the nature of the atom, which will, perhaps, involve the power to
disintegrate material forms; the power of levitation; the power of limitless
extension; the power of boundless reach, so that, as the commentator says,
“he can touch the moon with the tip of his finger”; the power to
accomplish his will; the power of gravitation, the correlative of levitation;
the power of command; the power of creative will. These are the endowments of
the spiritual man. Further, the spiritual body is unassailable. Fire burns it
not, water wets it not, the sword cleaves it not, dry winds parch it not. And,
it is said, the spiritual man can impart something of this quality and temper
to his bodily vesture.</p>
<p class="p1">
46. Shapeliness, beauty, force, the temper of the diamond: these are the
endowments of that body.</p>
<p>The spiritual man is shapely, beautiful strong, firm as the diamond. Therefore
it is written: “These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like
unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass: He that overcometh and
keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and
he shall rule them with a rod of iron; and I will give him the morning
star.”</p>
<p class="p1">
47. Mastery over the powers of perception and action comes through perfectly
concentrated Meditation on their fivefold forms; namely, their power to grasp
their distinctive nature, the element of self-consciousness in them, their
inherence, and their purposiveness.</p>
<p>Take, for example, sight. This possesses, first, the power to grasp, apprehend,
perceive; second, it has its distinctive form of perception; that is, visual
perception; third, it always carries with its operations self-consciousness,
the thought: “I perceive”; fourth sight has the power of extension
through the whole field of vision, even to the utmost star; fifth, it is used
for the purposes of the Seer. So with the other senses. Perfectly concentrated
Meditation on each sense, a viewing it from behind and within, as is possible
for the spiritual man, brings a mastery of the scope and true character of each
sense, and of the world on which they report collectively.</p>
<p class="p1">
48. Thence comes the power swift as thought, independent of instruments, and
the mastery over matter.</p>
<p>We are further enumerating the endowments of the spiritual man. Among these is
the power to traverse space with the swiftness of thought, so that whatever
place the spiritual man thinks of, to that he goes, in that place he already
is. Thought has now become his means of locomotion. He is, therefore,
independent of instruments, and can bring his force to bear directly, wherever
he wills.</p>
<p class="p1">
49. When the spiritual man is perfectly disentangled from the psychic body, he
attains to mastery over all things and to a knowledge of all.</p>
<p>The spiritual man is enmeshed in the web of the emotions; desire, fear,
ambition, passion; and impeded by the mental forms of separateness and
materialism. When these meshes are sundered, these obstacles completely
overcome, then the spiritual man stands forth in his own wide world, strong,
mighty, wise. He uses divine powers, with a divine scope and energy, working
together with divine Companions. To such a one it is said: “Thou art now
a disciple, able to stand, able to hear, able to see, able to speak, thou hast
conquered desire and attained to self-knowledge, thou hast seen thy soul in its
bloom and recognized it, and heard the voice of the silence.”</p>
<p class="p1">
50. By absence of all self-indulgence at this point, when the seeds of bondage
to sorrow are destroyed, pure spiritual being is attained.</p>
<p>The seeking of indulgence for the personal self, whether through passion or
ambition, sows the seed of future sorrow. For this self indulgence of the
personality is a double sin against the real; a sin against the cleanness of
life, and a sin against the universal being, which permits no exclusive
particular good, since, in the real, all spiritual possessions are held in
common. This twofold sin brings its reacting punishment, its confining bondage
to sorrow. But ceasing from self-indulgence brings purity, liberation,
spiritual life.</p>
<p class="p1">
51. There should be complete overcoming of allurement or pride in the
invitations of the different realms of life, lest attachment to things evil
arise once more.</p>
<p>The commentator tells us that disciples, seekers for union, are of four
degrees: first, those who are entering the path; second, those who are in the
realm of allurements; third, those who have won the victory over matter and the
senses; fourth, those who stand firm in pure spiritual life. To the second,
especially, the caution in the text is addressed. More modern teachers would
express the same truth by a warning against the delusions and fascinations of
the psychic realm, which open around the disciple, as he breaks through into
the unseen worlds. These are the dangers of the anteroom. Safety lies in
passing on swiftly into the inner chamber. “Him that overcometh will I
make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.”</p>
<p class="p1">
52. From perfectly concentrated Meditation on the divisions of time and their
succession comes that wisdom which is born of discernment.</p>
<p>The Upanishads say of the liberated that “he has passed beyond the triad
of time”; he no longer sees life as projected into past, present and
future, since these are forms of the mind; but beholds all things spread out in
the quiet light of the Eternal. This would seem to be the same thought, and to
point to that clear-eyed spiritual perception which is above time; that wisdom
born of the unveiling of Time’s delusion. Then shall the disciple live
neither in the present nor the future, but in the Eternal.</p>
<p class="p1">
53. Hence comes discernment between things which are of like nature, not
distinguished by difference of kind, character or position.</p>
<p>Here, as also in the preceding Sutra, we are close to the doctrine that
distinctions of order, time and space are creations of the mind; the threefold
prism through which the real object appears to us distorted and refracted. When
the prism is withdrawn, the object returns to its primal unity, no longer
distinguishable by the mind, yet clearly knowable by that high power of
spiritual discernment, of illumination, which is above the mind.</p>
<p class="p1">
54. The wisdom which is born of discernment is starlike; it discerns all
things, and all conditions of things, it discerns without succession:
simultaneously.</p>
<p>That wisdom, that intuitive, divining power is starlike, says the commentator,
because it shines with its own light, because it rises on high, and illumines
all things. Nought is hid from it, whether things past, things present, or
things to come; for it is beyond the threefold form of time, so that all things
are spread before it together, in the single light of the divine. This power
has been beautifully described by Columba: “Some there are, though very
few, to whom Divine grace has granted this: that they can clearly and most
distinctly see, at one and the same moment, as though under one ray of the sun,
even the entire circuit of the whole world with its surroundings of ocean and
sky, the inmost part of their mind being marvellously enlarged.”</p>
<p class="p1">
55. When the vesture and the spiritual man are alike pure, then perfect
spiritual life is attained.</p>
<p>The vesture, says the commentator, must first be washed pure of all stains of
passion and darkness, and the seeds of future sorrow must be burned up utterly.
Then, both the vesture and the wearer of the vesture being alike pure, the
spiritual man enters into perfect spiritual life.</p>
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