YOGA FOR YAHOOS 
  
SECOND LECTURE.     YAMA. 
  
      Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 
     Stars and placental amniotes! And ye inhabitants of the ten thousand 
worlds! The conclusion of our researches last week was that the ultimate 
Yoga which gives emancipation, which destroys the sense of separateness 
which is the root of Desire, is to be made by the concentration of every 
element of one's being, and annihilating it by intimate combustion with 
the universe itself. 
     I might here note, in parenthesis, that one of the difficulties of doing 
this is that all the elements of the Yogi increase in every way exactly as 
he progresses, and by reason of that progress. However, it is no use 
crossing our bridges until we come to them, and we shall find that by 
laying down serious scientific principles based on universal experience 
they will serve us faithfully through every stage of the journey. 
     2. When I first undertook the investigation of Yoga, I was fortunately 
equipped with a very sound training in the fundamental principles of 
modern science. I saw immediately that if we were to put any common 
sense into the business (science is nothing but instructed common sense), 
the first thing to do was to make a comparative study of the different 
systems of mysticism. It was immediately apparent that the results all 
over the world were identical. They were masked by sectarian theories. 
The methods all over the world were identical; this was masked by 
religious prejudice and local custom. But in their quiddity—identical! This 
simple principle proved quite sufficient to disentangle the subject from the 
extraordinary complexities which have confused its expression. 
     3. When it came to the point of preparing a simple analysis of the 
matter, the question arose: what terms shall we use? The mysticisms of 
Europe are hopelessly muddled; the theories have entirely overlaid the 
methods. The Chinese system is perhaps the most sublime and the most 
simple; but, unless one is born a Chinese, the symbols are of really 
unclimbable difficulty. The Buddhist system is in some ways the most 
complete, but it is also the most recondite. The words are excessive in 
length and difficult to commit to memory; and generally speaking, one 
cannot see the wood for the trees. But from the Indian system, 
overloaded though it is by accretions of every kind, it is comparatively 
easy to extract a method which is free from unnecessary and undesirable 
implications, and to make an interpretation of it intelligible to, and 
acceptable by, European minds. It is this system, and this interpretation 
of it, which I propose to put before you. 
     4. The great classic of Sanskrit literature is the Aphorisms of Patanjali. 
He is at least mercifully brief, and not more than ninety or ninety-five