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
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.
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.
30. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the centre of force in the
well of the throat, there comes the cessation of hunger and thirst.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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