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Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, an ancient Yoga Source-Book
The author: Patanjali
The translator: Charles Johnston, a Dublin University Sanskrit prizeman etc.
The book: A very terse and rich source in maturing yoga.
First English edition 1949. The translation is in the public domain.
I The Book of Spiritual Consciousness:
1 ◊ OM: Here follows Instruction in Union.
2 ◊
Union, spiritual consciousness, is gained through control of the versatile psychic nature.
3 ◊
Then the Seer comes to consciousness in his proper nature.
Ie, as he really is. You can say he knows himself or herself on the taller level of reality. TK]
4 ◊
Heretofore the Seer has been enmeshed in the activities of the psychic nature.
5 ◊
The psychic activities are five; they are either subject or not subject to the five hindrances
6 ◊
These activities are: Sound intellection, unsound intellection, predication, sleep, memory.
7 ◊
The elements of sound intellection are: direct observation, inductive reason, and trustworthy testimony.
The right kinds of knowledge are: direct perception, inference and scriptural testimony. [Pranabananda and
Isherwood]
8 ◊
Unsound intellection is false understanding, not resting on a perception of the true nature of things.
9 ◊
Predication is carried on through words or thoughts not resting on an object perceived.
10 ◊
Sleep is the psychic condition which rests on mind states, all material things being absent.
11 ◊
Memory is holding to mind-images of things perceived, without modifying them.
12 ◊
The control of these psychic activities comes through the right use of the will, and through ceasing from
self- indulgence.
13 ◊
The right use of the will is the steady, effort to stand in spiritual being.
14 ◊
This becomes a firm resting-place, when followed long, persistently, with earnestness.
15 ◊
Ceasing from self-indulgence is conscious mastery over the thirst for sensuous pleasure here or hereafter.
16 ◊
The consummation of this is freedom from thirst for any mode of psychical activity, through the establishment
of the spiritual man.
17 ◊
Meditation with an object follows these stages: first, exterior examining, then interior judicial action,
then joy, then realization of individual being.
18 ◊
After the exercise of the will has stilled the psychic activities, meditation rests only on the fruit of
former meditations.
19 ◊
Subjective consciousness arising from a natural cause is possessed by those who have laid aside their bodies
and been absorbed into subjective nature.
20 ◊
For the others, there is spiritual consciousness, led up to by faith, valor right mindfulness, one- pointed-ness,
perception.
21 ◊
Spiritual consciousness is nearest to those of keen, intense will.
22 ◊
The will may be weak, or of middle strength, or intense.
23 ◊
Or spiritual consciousness may be gained by ardent service of the Master.
24 ◊
The Master is the spiritual man, who s free from hindrances, bondage to works, and the fruition and seed
of works.
25 ◊
In the Master is the perfect seed of Omniscience.
26 ◊
He is the Teacher of all who have gone before, since he is not limited by Time.
27 ◊
His word is OM.
28 ◊
Let there be soundless repetition of OM and meditation thereon.
29 ◊
Thence come the awakening of interior consciousness, and the removal of barriers.
30 ◊
The barriers to interior consciousness, which drive the psychic nature this way and that, are these: sickness,
inertia, doubt, light mindedness, laziness, intemperance, false notions, inability to reach a stage of meditation,
or to hold it when reached.
31 ◊
Grieving, despondency, bodily restlessness, the drawing in and sending forth of the life-breath also contribute
to drive the psychic nature to and fro.
32 ◊
Steady application to a principle is the way to put a stop to these.
33 ◊
By sympathy with the happy, compassion for the sorrowful, delight in the holy, disregard of the unholy, the
psychic nature moves to gracious peace.
34 ◊
Or peace may be reached by the even sending forth and control of the life-breath.
35 ◊
Faithful, persistent application to any object, if completely attained, will bind the mind to steadiness.
36 ◊
As also will a joyful, radiant spirit.
37 ◊
Or the purging of self-indulgence from the psychic nature.
38 ◊
Or a pondering on the perceptions gained in dreams and dreamless sleep.
39 ◊
Or meditative brooding on what is dearest to the heart.
40 ◊
Thus he masters all, from the atom to the Infinite.
41 ◊
When the perturbations of the psychic nature have all been stilled, then the consciousness, like a pure crystal,
takes the color of what it rests on, whether that be the perceiver, perceiving, or the thing perceived.
42 ◊
When the consciousness, poised in perceiving, blends together the name, the object dwelt on and the idea,
this is perception with exterior consideration.
43 ◊
When the object dwells in the mind, clear of memory-pictures, uncolored by the mind, as a pure luminous
idea, this is perception without exterior or consideration.
44 ◊
The same two steps, when referring to things of finer substance, are said to be with, or without, judicial
action of the mind.
45 ◊
Subtle substance rises in ascending degrees, to that pure nature which has no distinguishing mark.
46 ◊
The above are the degrees of limited and conditioned spiritual consciousness, still containing the seed of
separateness.
47 ◊
When pure perception without judicial action of the mind is reached, there follows the gracious peace of
the inner self.
48 ◊
In that peace, perception is unfailingly true.
49 ◊
The object of this perception is other than what is learned from the sacred books, or by sound inference,
since this perception is particular.
50 ◊
The impress on the consciousness springing from this perception supersedes all previous impressions.
51 ◊
When this impression ceases, then, since all impressions have ceased, there arises pure spiritual consciousness,
with no seed of separateness left.
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