The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: The Book of the Spiritual ManPatañjali
Religion
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: The Book of the Spiritual Man
Patañjali
Yoga -- Early works to 1800
Now as to the more direct application. To conquer a sin, let heart and
mind rest, not on the sin, but on the contrary virtue. Let the sin be
forced out by positive growth in the true direction, not by direct
opposition. Turn away from the sin and go forward courageously,
constructively, creatively, in well-doing. In this way the whole nature
will gradually be drawn up to the higher level, on which the sin does
not even exist. The conquest of a sin is a matter of growth and
evolution, rather than of opposition.
34. Transgressions are injury, falsehood, theft, incontinence, envy;
whether committed, or caused, or assented to, through greed, wrath, or
infatuation; whether faint, or middling, or excessive; bearing endless,
fruit of ignorance and pain. Therefore must the weight be cast on the
other side.
Here are the causes of sin: greed, wrath, infatuation, with their
effects, ignorance and pain. The causes are to be cured by better
wisdom, by a truer understanding of the Self, of Life. For greed cannot
endure before the realization that the whole world belongs to the Self,
which Self we are; nor can we hold wrath against one who is one with
the Self, and therefore with ourselves; nor can infatuation, which is
the seeking for the happiness of the All in some limited part of it,
survive the knowledge that we are heirs of the All. Therefore let
thought and imagination, mind and heart, throw their weight on the
other side; the side, not of the world, but of the Self.
35. Where non-injury is perfected, all enmity ceases in the presence of
him who possesses it.
We come now to the spiritual powers which result from keeping the
Commandments; from the obedience to spiritual law which is the keeping
of the Commandments. Where the heart is full of kindness which seeks no
injury to another, either in act or thought or wish, this full love
creates an atmosphere of harmony, whose benign power touches with
healing all who come within its influence. Peace in the heart radiates
peace to other hearts, even more surely than contention breeds
contention.
36. When he is perfected in truth, all acts and their fruits depend on
him.
The commentator thus explains: If he who has attained should say to a
man, Become righteous! the man becomes righteous. If he should say,
Gain heaven! the man gains heaven. His word is not in vain.
Exactly the same doctrine was taught by the Master who said to his
disciples: Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit they
are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are
retained.
37. Where cessation from theft is perfected, all treasures present
themselves to him who possesses it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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