The abuses he speaks of must be those of the arduous practices of the Hatha yoga, which have been in vogue with pseudo yogis of the later times, from their superstitious belief in bodily tortures as their best penance and only means, (as the author himself avows), “of their fancied attainment of extraordinary sanctity and supernatural powers.” (Ibid). But such practices as have degenerated to deceptive tricks in this country, and are carried on by the cheating and cheated fools under the false name of yoga, present their counterparts also in the trickeries of the fanatics and fakirs under every form of faith on earth, without affecting the true religion or creating any misconception of the yoga doctrine. [Sidenote: Sacrifice of the spirit.] In vindication of our spiritual yoga we have to say that it is no exoteric religion, and requires no bodily mortification or sacrifice in any shape whatever, as it is the usual practice of all forms of religion among mankind. The yoga is the speculative training of the human soul, and concerns the castigation of the spirit and not the mortification of flesh. It has nothing to do with the body which is of this earth, and which we have to leave here behind us. [Sidenote: Sacrifice of the Body.] The universal doom of death pronounced on the original guilt of man, is not to be averted by physical death or any deadly torture of the body, as it is commonly believed by the bulk of mankind, to consist in bodily mortifications and sacrifices; but in the contrition and penitence of the spirit, and sacrifice of the soul as the only sin-offering for the atonement of our original and actual transgressions. The _Purusha medha_ sacrifice of the Veda which is misunderstood for the offering of a _male-being_, a man, a horse, a bull or a he-goat or male of any animal, meant originally the sacrifice of the human soul, or self-immolation of the _purusha_ or embodied intelligence to the Supreme Spirit, by means of its concentration into the same through the instrumentality of yoga abstraction. Dr. K. M. Banerjia’s interpretation of the _Purusha medha_ as typical of the crucifixion of Christ, is more conformable with his Christian view of the mysticism, than the spiritual sense of _self-sacrifice_, in which it is generally understood by the speculative Yogi and the philosophical Vedantist. THE OM TAT SAT. [Sidenote: 1. Preamble of Om tat sat.]