A Series of Lessons in Raja YogaAtkinson, William Walker
Religion
A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga
Atkinson, William Walker
Yoga; Yoga, Raja
Each channel of sense impressions has an organ, or organs, peculiarly
adapted for the excitation of its substance by the particular kind of
vibrations through which it receives impressions. The eye is most
cunningly and carefully designed to receive the light-waves; and
sound-waves produce no effect upon it. And, likewise, the delicate
mechanism of the ear responds only to sound-waves; light-waves failing to
register upon it. Each set of sensations is entirely different, and the
organs and nerves designed to register each particular set are peculiarly
adapted to their own special work. The organs of sense, including their
special nervous systems, may be compared to a delicate instrument that
the mind has fashioned for itself, that it may investigate, examine and
obtain reports from the outside world.
We have become so accustomed to the workings of the senses that we take
them as a "matter of course," and fail to recognize them as the delicate
and wonderful instruments that they are--designed and perfected by the
mind for its own use. If we will think of the soul as designing,
manufacturing and using these instruments, we may begin to understand
their true relations to our lives, and, accordingly treat them with more
respect and consideration.
We are in the habit of thinking that we are aware of all the sensations
received by our mind. But this is very far from being correct. The
unconscious regions of the mind are incomparably larger than the small
conscious area that we generally think of when we say "my mind." In
future lessons we shall proceed to consider this wonderful area, and
examine what is to be found there. Taine has well said, "There is going
on within us a subterranean process of infinite extent; its products
alone are known to us, and are only known to us in the mass. As to
elements, and their elements, consciousness does not attain to them. They
are to sensations what secondary molecules and primitive molecules are to
bodies. We get a glance here and there at obscure and infinite worlds
extending beneath our distinct sensations. These are compounds and
wholes. For their elements to be perceptible to consciousness, it is
necessary for them to be added together, and so to acquire a certain bulk
and to occupy a certain time, for if the group does not attain this bulk,
and does not last this time, we observe no changes in our state.
Nevertheless, though it escapes us, there is one."
But we must postpone our consideration of this more than interesting
phase of the subject, until some future lesson, when we shall take a trip
into the regions of Mind, under and above Consciousness. And a most
wonderful trip many of us will find it, too.
For the present, we must pay our attention to the channels by which the
material for knowledge and thought enter our minds. For these sense
impressions, coming to us from without, are indeed "material" upon which
the mind works in order to manufacture the product called "Thought."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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