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forms the mind will remain calm. This is called Pratyahara.
Thence arises supreme control of the organs.
When the Yogi has succeeded in preventing the organs
from taking the forms of external objects, and in making
them remain one with the mind-stuff, then comes perfect
control of the organs, and when the orgns are perfectly under
control, every muscle and nerve will be under control,
because the organs are the centres of all the senstations, and
of all actions. These organs are divided into organs of work
and organs of sensation. When the organs are controlled the
Yogi can control all feeling and doing; the whole of the body
will be under his control. Then alone one begins to feel joy
in being born; then one can truthfully say,  Blessed am I that
I was born.  When that control of the organs is obtained,
we feel how wonderful this body really is.
CHAPTER III.
THE CHAPTER OF POWERS
We have now come to the chapter which is called the
Chapter of Powers.
1. Dharana is holding the mind on to some
particular object.
Dharana (concentration) is when the mind holds on to some
object, either in the body, or outside the body, and keeps
itself in that state.
2. An unbroken flow of knowledge to that
object is Dhyana.
The mind tries to think of one object, to hold itself to one
particular spot, as the top of the head, the heart, etc., and if
the mind succeeds in receiving the sensations only through
that part of the body, and through no other part, that would
be Dharana, and when the mind succeeds in keeping itself in
that state for some time it is called Dhyana (meditation).
3. When that, giving up all forms, reflects
only the meaning, it is Samadhi.
That is, when in meditation all forms are given up. Suppose
I were meditating on a book, and that I have gradually
succeeded in concentrating the mind on it, and perceiving
only the internal sensations, the meaning, unexpressed in any
form, that state of Dhyana is called Samadhi.
4. (These) three (when practised) in regard to
one object is Samyama.
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YOGA APHORISMS: POWERS
When a man can direct his mind to any particular object and
fix it there, and then keep it there for a long time, separating
the object from the internal part, this is Samyama; or
Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi, one following the other,
and making one. The form of the thing has vanished, and
only its meaning remains in the mind.
5. By the conquest of that comes light of
knowledge.
When one has succeeded in making this Samyama, all
powers come under his control. This is the great instrument
of the Yogi. The object of knowledge are infinite, and they
are divided into the gross, grosser, grossest, and the fine,
finer, finest, and so on. This Samyama should be first
applied to gross things, when when you begin to get
knowledge of the gross, slowly, by stages, it should be
brought to finer things.
6. That should be employed in stages.
This is a note of warning not to attempt to go too fast.
7. These three are nearer than those that
precede.
Before these we had the Pranayama, the Asana, the Yama
and Niyama; these are external parts of these three
Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi. Yet these latter even are
external to the seedless Samadhi. When a man has attained
to them he may attain to omniscience and omnipresence, but
that would not be salvation. These three would not make the
mind Nirvikalpa, changeless, but would leave the seeds for
getting bodies again; only when the seeds are, as the Yogi
says,  fried, do they lose the possibility of producing
further plants. These powers cannot fry the seed.
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RAJA YOGA
8. But even they are external to the seedless
(Samadhi).
Compared with that seedless Samadhi, therefore, even these
are external. We have not yet reached the real Samadhi, the
highest, but to a lower stage, in which this universe still
exists as we see it, and in which are all these power.
9. By the suppression of the disturbed modi-
fications of the mind, and by the rise of
modifications of control, the mind is said to
attain the controlling modifications  fol-
lowing the controlling powers of the mind.
That is to say, in this first state of Samadhi, the modi-
fications of the mind have been controlled, but not perfectly,
because if they were, there would be no modifications. If
there is a modification which impels the mind to rush out
through the senses, and the Yogi tries to control it, that very
control itself will be a modification. One wave will be
checked by another wave, so it will not be real Samadhi,
when all the waves have subsided, as control itself will be a
wave. Yet this lower Samadhi is very much nearer to the
higher Samadhi than when the mind comes bubbling out.
10. Its flow becomes steady by habit.
The flow of this continuous control of the mind becomes
steady when practices day after day and the mind obtains the
faculty of constant concentration.
11. Taking in all sorts of objects and
concentrating upon one object, these two
powers being destroyed and manifested
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YOGA APHORISMS: POWERS
respectively, the Chitta gets the modifi-
cation called Samadhi.
The mind is taking up various objects, running into all sorts
of things and then there is a higher state of the mind, when it
takes up one object and excludes all others. Samadhi is the
result of that.
12. The one-pointedness of the Chitta is when
it grasps in one, the past and present.
How are we to know that the mind has become
concentrated? Because time will vanish. The more time
vanishes the more concentrated we are. In common life we
see that when were are interested in a book we do not note
the time at all, and when we leave the book we are often
surprised to find how many hours have passed. All time will
have the tendency to come and stand in the one present. So
the definition is given, when the past and present come and
stand in one, the more concentrated the mind.
13. By this is explained the threefold
transformations of form, time and state, in
fine or gross matter, and in the organs.
By this the threefold changes in the mind-stuff as to form,
time, and state are explained. The mind-stuff is changing
into Vrttis, this is change as to form. To be able to hold the
changes to the present time is change as to time. To be able
to make the mind-stuff go to the past forms giving up the
present even, is change as to state. The concentrations
taught in the preceding aphorisms were to give the Yogi a
voluntary control over the transformations of his mind-stuff
which alone will enable him to make the Samyama before
named.
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RAJA YOGA
14. That which is acted upon by
transformations, either past, present or yet
to be manifested, is the qualified.
That is to say, the qualified is the substance which is being
acted upon by time and by the Samskaras, and getting
changed and being manifested all the time.
15. The succession of changes is the cause of
manifold evolution.
16. By making Samyama on the three sorts of
changes comes the knowledge of past and
future.
We must not lose sight of the first definition of Samyama. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]