united in a union of existence with non-existence. This definition is not 
made from reflection, but from memory.' 
     15. But that was written in 1911, and since then I have had an 
immense harvest of experience. I am inclined to say at this moment that 
Dhyana stands to Samadhi rather as the jumping about like a frog, 
described in a previous lecture, does to Levitation. In other words, 
Dhyana is an unbalanced or an impure approximation to Samadhi. 
Subject and object unite and disappear with ecstasy mounting to 
indifference, and so forth, but there is still a presentation of some kind in 
the new genus of consciousness. In this view Dhyana would be rather like 
an explosion of gunpowder carelessly mixed; most of it goes off with a 
bang, but there is some débris of the original components. 
     These discussions are not of very great importance in themselves, 
because the entire series of the three states of meditation proper is 
summed up in the word Samyama; you can translate it quite well for 
yourselves, since you already know that 'sam' means 'together,' and that 
'Yama' means 'control.' It represents the merging of minor individual acts 
of control into a single gesture, very much as all the separate cells, 
bones, veins, arteries, nerves, muscles and so forth, of the arm combine 
in unconscious unanimity to make a single stroke. 
     16. Now 
the 
practice 
of 
Pratyahara, 
properly 
speaking, 
is 
introspection, and the practice of Dharana, properly speaking, is the 
restraint of the thought to a single imaginary object. The former is a 
movement of the mind, the latter a cessation of all movement. And you 
are not likely to get much success in Pratyahara until you have made 
considerable advance in Dhyana, because by introspection we mean the 
exploration of the sub-strata of the consciousness which are only revealed 
when we have progressed a certain distance, and become aware of 
conditions which are utterly foreign to normal intellectual conception. The 
first law of normal thought is A is A: the law of identity, it is called. So we 
can divide the universe into A and not-A; there is no third thing possible. 
     Now, quite early in the meditation practices, the Yogi is likely to get as 
a direct experience the consciousness that these laws are not true in any 
ultimate way. He has reached a world where intellectual conceptions are 
no longer valid; they remain true for the ordinary affairs of life, but the 
normal laws of thought are seen to be no more than a mere mechanism. 
A code of conventions. 
     The students of higher mathematics and metaphysics have often a 
certain glimmering of these facts. They are compelled to use irrational 
conceptions for greater convenience in conducting their rational 
investigations. for example, the square root of 2, or the square root of 
minus 1, is not in itself capable of comprehension as such; it pertains to 
an order of thinking beyond the primitive man's invention of counting on 
his fingers. 
     17. It will be just as well then for the student to begin with the 
practices of Dharana. If he does so he will obtain as a by-product some of 
the results of Pratyahara, and he will also acquire considerable insight