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Page 1 of 21939 · PDF PAGE 50
…idea of sequence. 12. Now it will be perfectly clear to all of you that this is all nonsense. In order to conceive the simplest possible object, we have to keep on inventing ideas, which even in the proud moment of invention are seen to be unreal. How are we to get away from the world of phantasmagoria to the common universe of sense? We shall require quite a lot more acts of imagination. We have got to endow our mathematical conceptions with three ideas which Hindu philosophers call Sat, Chit and Ananda, which are usually translated Being, Kno…
1939 · PDF PAGE 45
…can get out of the early practices is really a foreshadowing of the difficulties of doing it. 18. I began by taking a simple geometrical object in one colour, such as a yellow square. I will quote the official instructions in The Equinox. "DharanaControl of thought." "1. Constrain the mind to concentrate itself upon a single simple object imagined. The five tatwas are useful for this purpose; they are: a black oval; a blue disk; a silver crescent; a yellow square; a red triangle. "2. Proceed to combinations of single objects; e.g., a black ova…
1939 · PDF PAGE 43
…e idea of clarifying it or gaining a more comprehensive grasp of it, but the actual restraint of the consciousness to a single imaginary object chosen for the purpose. These two limbs of Yoga are therefore in a sense the two methods employed mentally by the Yogi. For, long after success in Samadhi has been attained, one has to conduct the most extensive explorations into the recesses of the mind. 12. The word Dhyana is difficult to define; it is used by many writers in quite contrary senses. The question is discussed at some length in Part I. o…
1939 · PDF PAGE 41
…analogy still serves us. Do you remember the Abbe in Browning? Asked to preside at the Court of Love, he gave the prize to the woman the object of whose passion was utterly worthless, in this admirable judgment: "The love which to one, and one only, has reference Seems terribly like what perhaps gains God's preference." It is a commonplace, and in some circumstances (such as constantly are found among foul-minded Anglo-Saxons) a sort of joke, that lovers are lunatics. Everything at their command is pressed into the service of their passion; eve…
1939 · PDF PAGE 10
Yoga is first of all the union of the subject and the object of consciousness: of the seer with the thing seen. (9) Now, there is nothing strange or wonderful about all this. The study of the principles of Yoga is very useful to the average man, if only to make him think about the nature of the world as he supposes that he knows it. Let us consider a piece of cheese. We say that this has certain qualities, shape, structure, colour, solidity, weight, taste, smell, consistency and the rest; but investigation has shown that this is all illusory. W…
1939 · PDF PAGE 9
… the elements which are united or to be united when this word is used in its common sense of a practice widely spread in Hindustan whose object is the emancipation of the individual who studies and practises it from the less pleasing features of his life on this planet? I say Hindustan, but I really mean anywhere on the earth; for research has shown that similar methods producing similar results are to be found in every country. The details vary, but the general structure is the same. Because all bodies, and so all minds, have identical Forms. …
1939 · PDF PAGE 30
…e; all that we have to do is to prevent change occurring. All change is conditioned by time and space and other categories; any existing object must be susceptible of description by means of a system of coordinate axes. On the terrasse of the Cafe des Deux Magots it was once necessary to proclaim the entire doctrine of Yoga in the fewest possible words 'with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.' St. Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians, the Fourth Chapter and the Sixteenth Verse. I did so. "Sit still. St…
1939 · PDF PAGE 44
…ed 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 en…
1939 · PDF PAGE 52
…ience with the nervous system as described by the anatomist. 21. At this point we may well be led to consider once more what we call the objective universe, and what we call our subjective experience. What is Nature? Immanuel Kant, who founded an epoch-making system of subjective idealism, is perhaps the first philosopher to demonstrate clearly that space, time, causality (in short, all conditions of existence) are really no more than conditions of thought. I have tried to put it more simply by defining all possible predicates as so many dimens…
1939 · PDF PAGE 40
…r, this does not concern us for the moment. 3. When we apply these symbols to Yoga, we find that fire represents the Yogi, and water the object of his meditation. ((You can, if you like, reverse these attributions. It makes no difference except to the metaphysician. And precious little to him!) The Yod and the He combine, the Father and Mother unite, to produce a son, Vau. This son is the exalted state of mind produced by the union of the subject and the object. This state of mind is called Samadhi in the Hindu terminology. It has many varietie…
1939 · PDF PAGE 65
…And how do we do this? By so ordering every thought, word and act, in such a way that the attention is constantly recalled to the chosen object. 6. Suppose I want to evoke the 'Intelligence' of Jupiter. I base my work upon the correspondences of Jupiter. I base my mathematics on the number 4 and its subservient numbers 16, 34, 136. I employ the square or rhombus. For my sacred animal I choose the eagle, or some other sacred to Jupiter. For my perfume, saffronfor my libation some preparation of opium or a generous yet sweet and powerful wine su…
1939 · PDF PAGE 29
…me on that divan which has no room for twain'a remarkable prophetic anticipation of the luxury flatlet. We are to unite the subject and object of consciousness in the ecstasy which soon turns, as we shall find later on, into the more sublime state of indifference, and then annihilate both the party of the first part aforesaid and the party of the second part aforesaid. This evidently results in further partiesone might almost say cocktail partiesconstantly increasing until we reach infinity, and annihilate that, thereby recovering our origin…
1939 · PDF PAGE 71
…practical curriculum. 24. You are expected to spend three months at least on the study of some of the classics on the subject. The chief object of this is not to instruct you, but to familiarise you with the ground work, and in particular to prevent you getting the idea that there is any right or wrong in matters of opinion. You pass an examination intended to make sure that your mind is well grounded in this matter, and you become a Probationer. Your reading will have given you some indication as to the sort of thing you are likely to be good …
1939 · PDF PAGE 54
…e mathematical detail.[4] You will see at once that these three words do describe a curved geometry; a sphere, for instance, is a finite object, yet you can go over the surface in any direction without ever coming to an end. I said above that Riemann's Geometry was not quite sufficient to explain the phenomena of nature. We have to postulate different kinds of curvature in different parts of the continuum. And even then we are not happy! 26. Now for a spot of Sullivan! 'The geometry is so general that it admits of different degrees of curvature…
1939 · PDF PAGE 23
…ways the opposite of Saturn; it represents expansion as Saturn represents contraction; it is the universal love, the selfless love whose object can be no less than the universe itself. This comes to reinforce the powers of Saturn when they agonise; success is not for self but for all; one might acquiesce in one's own failure, but one cannot be unworthy of the universe. Jupiter, too, represents the vital, creative, genial element of the cosmos. He has Ganymede and Hebe to his cupbearers. There is an immense and inaccessible joy in the Great Work…
1939 · PDF PAGE 27
…ssumptions underlying the acceptance of the fact any more than in the case of what is after all equally mysterious and unfathomable: any object of any of the senses. The fact is this; that one
1939 · PDF PAGE 11
…edge increaseth Sorrow.' The root of all this sorrow is in the sense of insufficiency; the need to unite, to lose oneself in the beloved object, is the manifest proof of this fact, and it is clear also that the satisfaction produces only a temporary relief, because the process expands indefinitely. The thirst increases with drinking. The only complete satisfaction conceivable would be the Yoga of the atom with the entire universe. This fact is easily perceived, and has been constantly expressed in the mystical philosophies of the West; the only…
1939 · PDF PAGE 61
… region of my observation by the practice of concentrating upon it. 12. The same sort of thing occurs with adequate concentration on any object. It is connected, curiously enough, with the phenomena of invisibility. When your mind has gone so deeply into itself that it is unconscious of itself and its surroundings, one of the most ordinary results is that the body becomes invisible to other people. I do not think that it would make any difference for a photograph, though I have no evidence for saying this; but it has happened to me on innumerab…
1939 · PDF PAGE 67
…rvation of any phenomenon, and men a little more advanced are almost certain to attain to a placid kind of speculation as to whether the objects of sense are not mere shadows on a screen. I take off my glasses. Now I cannot read my manuscript. I had two sets of lenses, one natural, one artificial. If I had been looking through a telescope of the old pattern I should have had three sets of lenses, two artificial. If I go and put on somebody else's glasses I shall get another kind of blur. As the lenses of my eyes change in the course of my life,…
1939 · PDF PAGE 31
There is something a little paradoxical in the situation. The object of the process of Yoga is to stop all processes, including itself. But it is not sufficient for the Yogi to shoot himself, because to do so would be to destroy the control, and so to release the pain-producing energies. We cannot enter into a metaphysical discussion as to what it is that controls, or before we know where we are we shall be moonstruck by hypotheses about the soul. 5. Let us forget all this rubbish, and decide what is to be done. We have seen that to stop existi…