A Series of Lessons in Raja YogaAtkinson, William Walker
Religion
A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga
Atkinson, William Walker
Yoga; Yoga, Raja
And now we come to the plane of mind known to us as Intellect or the
Reasoning Faculties. Webster defines the word Intellect as follows: The
part or faculty of the human soul by which it knows, as distinguished
from the power to feel and to will; the thinking faculty; the
understanding. The same authority defines the word Reason as follows:
"The faculty or capacity of the human mind by which it is distinguished
from the intelligence of the inferior animals." We shall not attempt to
go into a consideration of the conscious Intellect, for to do so we
would be compelled to take up the space of the remaining lessons of the
course, and besides, the student may find extended information on this
subject in any of the text books on psychology. Instead we will consider
other faculties and planes of mind which the said text books pass by
rapidly, or perhaps deny. And one of these planes is that of Unconscious
Reasoning, or Intellect. To many this term will seem paradoxical, but
students of the unconscious will understand just what is meant.
Reasoning is not necessarily conscious in its operations, in fact, a
greater part of the reasoning processes are performed below or above the
conscious field. In our last lesson we have given a number of examples
proving this fact, but a few more remarks may not be out of place, nor
without interest to the student.
In our last lesson you will see many instances stated in which the
sub-conscious field of the Intellect worked out problems, and then after
a time handed to the conscious reason the solution of the matter. This
has occurred to many of us, if not indeed to all of us. Who has not
endeavored to solve a problem or question of some sort and after "giving
it up" has had it suddenly answered and flashed into consciousness when
least expected. The experience is common to the race. While the majority
of us have noticed these things, we have regarded them as exceptional and
out of the general rule. Not so, however, with students of the mental
planes. The latter have recognized these planes of reason, and have
availed themselves of their knowledge by setting these unconscious
faculties to work for them. In our next lesson we will give directions to
our students regarding this accomplishment, which may prove of the
greatest importance to those who will take the trouble to practice the
directions given. It is a plan that is known to the majority of men who
have "done things" in the world, the majority of them, however, having
discovered the plan for themselves as the result of a need or demand upon
the inner powers of mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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