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
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.
46. Shapeliness, beauty, force, the temper of the diamond: these are
the endowments of that body.
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.”
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.
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.
48. Thence comes the power swift as thought, independent of
instruments, and the mastery over matter.
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.
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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