Indeed many facts have long since shown that apart from the knowledge contained in the ancient books of India, in its holy scriptures, legends, songs, poems, and myths, there exist certain other knowledge which cannot be drawn from books and which is not revealed openly, but traces of which are quite clearly seen.
It is impossible to deny that the philosophy and the religions of India contain inexhaustible sources of thought. European philosophy has made and is making wide use of these sources, but strangely enough it can never take from them what is most important and most essential in them.
This fact has been realised by many Europeans who have studied the religious and philosophical teachings of the East. They have felt that they receive from the books not all that the Indians know, and this feeling has strengthened the idea that besides the knowledge contained in books there exists another, a secret, knowledge, concealed from the "uninitiated"; or that besides the known books there are others, kept hidden, containing the "secret teaching". A great deal of energy and time has been spent on the search for the secret doctrine of the East. There is good ground for believing that in fact there exist not only one but many doctrines, unknown to the West, which grow from one general root.
But apart from doctrines, known and unknown, there exist also a number of systems of self-discipline which are known under the name of Yoga.
The word Yoga can be translated by the word unity or union or subjugation. In the first meaning it corresponds to the word "harnessing", from the Sanskrit word jug, to which corresponds the English word yoke.
One of the meanings of the word Yoga is "right action".
To follow Yoga means to subjugate to the control of one or another system of Yoga thought, feeling, internal and external movements, etc. that is, functions most of which ordinarily function without control.
There are many tales and beliefs about Yogis; sometimes they are said to be mystics leading a life of contemplation, indifferent to food and clothing; at other times, to be men possessing miraculous powers, able to see and hear at a distance, men whom wild beasts and the forces of nature obey. These powers and capacities are acquired by methods and exercises which constitute the secret of Yoga and which enable Yogis to understand people and to act rightly and expediently in all circumstances and on all occasions in life.
Yogis have nothing in common with "fakirs", that is, with men who endeavour to subjugate the physical body to the will by way of suffering, and who are very often ignorant fanatics torturing themselves in order to attain heavenly beatitude, or conjurors who for money perform "miracles" which are based upon skill, patience, and accustoming the body to assume incredible postures or to exercise its functions in an abnormal way.
These conjurors and fakirs often call themselves Yogis, but a true Yogi can always be recognised, for he can never have the fanaticism and frenzied sectarianism of fakirs; he will display nothing for payment; and above all he will possess knowledge surpassing the knowledge of ordinary men.
In connection with this the study of man in ancient India was on a level quite inconceivable to us. This can be explained only by the fact that the philosophical schools existing at the time were directly connected with esoteric schools.
Man was considered not as a completed entity but as containing in himself a multitude of latent powers. The idea was that in ordinary life and in ordinary man these powers are dormant but can be awakened and developed by means of a certain mode of life, by certain exercises, by certain work upon oneself. This is what is called Yoga. An acquaintance with the ideas of Yoga enables a man first to know himself better, to understand his latent capacities and inclinations, to find out and determine the direction in which they ought to be developed; and second, to awaken his latent capacities and learn how to use them in all paths of life.
"The science of Yogis", or, to put it more correctly, the cycle of the sciences of Yogis, consists in descriptions of these methods, adapted to men of different types and different activities in life, and also in the exposition of the theories connected with these methods.
Each of the "sciences" composing Yoga falls into two parts: the theoretical part and the practical part.
The theoretical part aims at setting forth the fundamental principles and general outline of the given subject as a complete and connected whole, without descending into unnecessary details.
The practical part teaches the methods and ways of the best training for the desired activity, the methods and means of development of latent powers and capacities.
As regards the practical part, very little of it can be expounded in writing. Consequently even if there are books containing attempts at an exposition of the practical methods of Yoga, they cannot possibly serve as a manual for practical and independent work.
In general, in speaking about Yoga it is necessary to point out that the relationship between practical and theoretical parts is analogous to the relationship between practical and theoretical sides in art. There exists a theory of painting, but the study of the theory of painting does not enable one to paint pictures. There exists a theory of music, but the study of the theory of music will not enable one to play any musical instrument.
In the practice of art as in the practice of Yoga, there is something which does not exist and cannot exist in the theory. Practice is not built up according to theory. Theory is derived from practice.
The sciences of Yoga in India were for a long time kept secret, and these methods, which increase the power of man in an almost miraculous way, were the privilege of special schools or the secret of ascetics and hermits who had completely renounced the world. In Indian temples (or in connection with them) there were schools where the pupils, Chelas, who had travelled a long path of tests and preparatory education, were initiated into the science of the Yogis by special teachers, Gurus. Europeans were unable to obtain any information about Yoga, and what was usually related by travellers concerning this question bore a purely fantastic character.
The first correct information about Yoga began to appear only in the second half of the 19th century, though many methods of Yogis were known in mystical societies much earlier.
But though Europeans had borrowed a great deal from the Yogis, they were nevertheless unable to understand and realise all the significance of the "sciences of Yogis" taken as a whole.
In reality, Yoga is the key to all the ancient wisdom of the East.
The ancient books of India cannot be comprehensible to Western scientists because all these books were written by Yogis, that is, by men possessing not merely a developed intellect, but powers and capacities infinitely surpassing the powers and capacities of an ordinary man.
At the same time Yoga increases the powers of man: first, for the struggle with life, that is, with all the physical conditions in which man is born and which are hostile to him; second, for the struggle with Nature, who always wishes to use man for her own ends; and third, for the struggle with the illusions of his own consciousness which, being not free but dependent on his limited psychic apparatus, creates an enormous number of mirages and delusions. Yoga helps man to struggle against the deception of words, shows him clearly that a thought expressed in words cannot be true, that there can be no truth in words, that at best they can only hint at truth, reveal it for a moment and then hide it. Yoga teaches the way to find the hidden truth concealed in things, in the actions of men, in the writings of great sages of all times and peoples.
The division of the five Yogas depends on the division of types of man, his capacities, preparation, and so on. One man can begin with contemplation, with the study of his own "I". Another needs the objective study of Nature. A third must first of all understand the rules of conduct in ordinary life. For a fourth, before anything else it is necessary to acquire control over the physical body. For a fifth, it is necessary to "learn to pray", to understand his religious feelings and to learn how to govern them.
Yoga teaches the way to do rightly everything that man does. Only by studying Yoga can man see how wrongly he has acted on all occasions in his life; how much of his strength he has spent quite uselessly, attaining only the poorest results with an enormous expenditure of energy.
Yoga teaches man the principles of the right economy of forces. It teaches him to be able to do whatever he does consciously, when this is necessary. This immeasurably increases man's powers and improves the results of his work.
The study of Yoga first of all shows man how greatly he has been mistaken about himself.
Man becomes convinced that he is far weaker and much less significant than he has considered himself to be, and at the same time that he can become stronger and more powerful than the strongest and most powerful man he can imagine.
He sees not only what he is, but what he may become. His conception of life, of man's place, rτle, and purpose in life, undergoes a complete change. He loses the feeling of separateness, and the feeling of the senseless and chaotic nature of life. He begins to understand his aim and to see that his pursuit of this aim brings him into contact with other people going in the same direction.
Yoga does not seek, as its primary object, to guide man. Yoga only increases his powers in any of the directions of his activity. But at the same time, in using the powers given by Yoga, man can follow one direction only. Should he change this direction, Yoga itself will turn against him, will stop him, deprive him of all powers, and may possibly even destroy him altogether. Yoga carries enormous power, but this power can be used only in a certain direction. This is a law which becomes clear to anyone who studies Yoga.
In everything it touches, Yoga teaches man to discriminate between the real and the false, and this capacity for proper discrimination helps man to find hidden truths where hitherto he had seen or supposed nothing hidden.
When a man studying Yoga takes up certain books which he thought he knew quite well, to his profound astonishment he suddenly finds in them an infinite amount that is new. Some hidden depth seems to be revealed to him in these books, and with surprise and awe he feels this depth and understands that until now he has seen nothing but the surface.
Such an effect is produced by many books belonging to the holy scriptures of India. There is no necessity for these books to be kept hidden. They may be accessible to all and yet hidden from all except those who know how to read them. Such books exist in all countries and among all peoples. One of the most occult books, the New Testament, is the most widely known. But of all books this is the one people least know how to read, the one they most distort in their understanding of it.
Yoga teaches how to search for truth and how to find truth in everything. It teaches that there is nothing that could not serve as a starting point for the finding of truth.
The limits of Yoga cannot be seen all at once or from a distance at the beginning of the way. For the man who studies Yoga new horizons open before him as he continues on his way. Each new step shows him something that he has not seen and could not have seen before. But a man cannot see very far ahead. At the beginning of the study of Yoga he cannot know all that this study will give. Yoga is an entirely new way, and on entering upon it it is impossible to know where it will lead.
To put it another way, Yoga cannot be defined as one can define what medicine is, what chemistry is, what mathematics is. In order to define what Yoga is, study and knowledge of Yoga are necessary.
Yoga is a closed door. Anyone can knock if he wishes to enter. But until he has entered he cannot know what he will find behind this door.
A man who enters the path of Yoga with the aim of reaching its summits must give himself up entirely to Yoga, give to Yoga all his time and all his energy, all his thoughts, feeling, and motives. He must endeavour to harmonise himself, to achieve an inner unity, to create in himself a permanent "I", to protect himself from continual strivings, moods, and desires which sway him now in one direction, now in another. He must compel all his powers to serve one aim. Yoga demands all this, but it also helps to attain it by showing the means and methods by which it can be reached. For every kind of activity there are special conditions which are favourable to it and which Yoga helps to define.
The study of Yoga is impossible in the scattered condition of thoughts, desires, and feeling amidst which an ordinary man lives. Yoga demands the whole of man, the whole of his time, all his energy, all his thoughts, all his feelings, the whole of his life. Only Karma Yoga allows man to remain in the conditions of his ordinary life. All the other Yogas demand immediate and complete withdrawal from life, even if only for a certain time. The study of Yogas, with the exception of Karma-Yoga, is impossible in life circumstances. Equally impossible is the study of Yoga without a teacher, without his constant and incessant watch over the pupil.
A man who hopes to know Yoga by reading a few books will be greatly disappointed. In a book, in written exposition, it is impossible to transmit to a man any practical knowledge everything depends on the work of the teacher upon him and on his own work upon himself.
The common aim of all the forms of Yoga is the changing of man, the broadening of his consciousness. At the basis of all the Yogas there lies one principle, which is that man as he is born and lives is an uncompleted and imperfect being, but one who can be altered and brought to the development possible to him by means of suitable instruction and training.
This refers first of all to man's inner world, to his consciousness, his psychic apparatus, his mental capacities, his knowledge. According to the teachings of Yoga, all these can be completely changed, freed from all the usual limitations, and strengthened to a degree surpassing all imagination. As a result, man acquires new possibilities of knowing the truth and new powers for surmounting obstacles on his way, no matter whence these obstacles arise. Further, it refers to the physical body of man, which is studied and gradually subjected to the control of mind and consciousness, even in those of its functions of which man is not usually aware in himself at all. The opening up of higher consciousness is the aim of all the Yogas. Following the way of Yoga, a man must reach the state of samadhi, that is, of ecstasy or enlightenment, in which alone truth can be understood.
According to the teaching of Yogis, a practical study of Hatha-Yoga gives man ideal health, lengthens his life, and gives him many new powers and capacities which an ordinary man does not possess and which seem almost miraculous.
Yogis affirm that a healthy and normally functioning body is more easily subjected to the control of consciousness and mind than a body which is sick, disordered, and unbalanced, and from which one never knows what is to be expected. Moreover, it is easier to disregard a healthy body, whereas a sick body subjects man to itself, makes him think too much of it, demands too much attention for itself.
Therefore the first aim of Hatha-Yoga is a healthy body.
At the same time, Hatha-Yoga prepares the physical body of man to bear all the hardships connected with the functioning in him of the higher psychic forces: higher consciousness, will, intense emotions, etc. These forces do not function in ordinary man. Their awakening and development produce terrific strain and pressure on the physical body. If the physical body is not trained and prepared by special exercises, if it is in its usual sickly condition, it is unable to withstand this pressure and cannot keep up with the unusually intensive work of the organs of perception and consciousness which is inevitably connected with the development of the higher forces and possibilities of man. In order to enable the heart, brain, and nervous system (and also other organs the rτle of which in the psychic life of man is little, if at all, known to Western science) to bear the pressure of new functions, the whole body must be well balanced, harmonised, purified, put in order, and prepared for the new and tremendously hard work which awaits it.
There are many rules evolved by Yogis with regard to the regulation and control of the activities of different organs of the body. Yogis assume that the body cannot be left to itself. Instincts do not guide its activity with sufficient vigour; the intervention of the intellect is imperative.
One of the fundamental ideas of Yogis regarding the body is that in its natural state the body can by no means be taken as the ideal apparatus it is often thought to be. Many functions are necessary only to preserve the existence of the body in various unfavourable conditions; and there are functions which are the result of other, wrong, functions.
Further, Yogis think that many of these unfavourable conditions have already disappeared, whereas the functions created by them continue to exist. Yogis affirm that by abolishing these needless functions it is possible greatly to increase the energy which can be used for useful work.
Again there are many functions which are in a rudimentary state but which may be developed to an inconceivable degree.
The body given by nature is from the Yogis' point of view only material. A man on his way to his highest aims can make use of this material and, after reshaping and remodelling it in a suitable way, can create for himself a weapon which will enable him to attain his aims. Yogis affirm that the possibilities latent in the body are enormous.
Yogis possess numerous methods and means for decreasing the useless functions of the body and for awakening and bringing to light the new powers and capacities which lie dormant in it.
Yogis say that only an insignificant proportion of the energy of the body in its natural state is used profitably (that is, in preserving the life of the body and in serving the higher aims of man). The greater part of the energy produced by the body is, in their opinion, spent quite uselessly.
But they consider it possible to make all the organs of the body work for a single aim, that is, to take all the energy created by the organs and make it serve the higher aims, which at present it only hinders.
Hatha-Yoga deals with the physical nature of man in the strictest sense of the word that is, with vegetable and animal functions. With regard to this physical nature Yogis have long known certain laws which have only in quite recent times been perceived by Western science: first, the extraordinary independence of the separate organs of the body and the absence of one common centre governing the life of the organism; and second, the capacity of one organ to a certain extent and in certain cases, to do the work of another.
In observing the independence of various organs and parts of the body, Yogis came to the conclusion that the life of the body consists of thousands of separate lives. Each such "life" presupposes a "soul" or a "consciousness". Yogis recognise these independent "lives" possessing separate "souls" not only in all the various organs, but also in all the tissues and in all the substances of the body. This is the "occult" side of Hatha-Yoga.
These "lives" and these "consciousnesses" are the "spirits" of the body. According to the theory of Hatha-Yoga, man is able to subordinate them to himself, to make them serve his aims.
Hatha-Yogis learn to control the breathing, the circulation of the blood, and nervous energy. They are said to be able, by holding the breath, almost to stop all the functions of the body, sink it into a lethargy in which a man can remain for any length of time without food or air, and without harm to himself. On the other hand, they are said to be able to intensify the breathing and by making it rhythmic with the beating of the heart to take in an enormous supply of vital force, and to use this force, for instance, for the treatment of diseases both their own and other people's. By an effort of will, Yogis are supposed to be able to suspend the circulation of the blood in any part of the body or, on the contrary, to direct to it an increased supply of fresh arterial blood and nervous energy. It is precisely on this that their method of treatment is based.
By learning to govern their own bodies, Yogis at the same time learn to govern the whole of the material universe.
The human body represents a universe in miniature. It contains everything from mineral to God. This is for them not a mere figure of speech, but the most real truth. Through this body man is in contact with the whole of the Universe and with everything in it. The water contained in the human body connects man with all the water contained in the water of the Earth and the atmosphere; the oxygen contained in the human body connects man with the oxygen in the whole Universe; the carbon with the carbon; the vital principle with everything living in the world.
It is quite clear why this must be so. The water entering into the composition of man's body is not separated from the water outside the body, but is only as if it flowed through man. It is the same with the air, and with all the chemical substances of the body; they all merely travel through the body.
By learning to control the various principles ("spirits" according to occult terminology) composing his body a man becomes able to control the same principles in the world, that is, "the spirits of nature".
At the same time a right understanding of the principles of Hatha-Yoga teaches a man to understand the laws of the Universe and his own place in the world.
Even an elementary acquaintance with the principles and methods of Hatha-Yoga shows the impossibility of studying Yoga without a teacher and without his constant supervision. The results attained by the methods of Hatha-Yoga are equally the work of the pupil himself and the work of the teacher on the pupil.
In other Yogas this may not be so clear. But in Hatha-Yoga there cannot be the slightest doubt about it, especially when the man who studies it has understood the principles of Asanas.
"Asanas" is the name given in Hatha-Yoga to certain special postures of the body which a Yogi must learn to assume. Many of these postures appear at first glance to be quite impossible. They look as if a man either must have no bones at all or else must break all his tendons. There already exists a sufficient number of photographic and even cinematographic pictures of the Asanas, and the difficulty of these postures is evident to anyone who has had the opportunity of seeing such pictures. Even the description of the Asanas which can be found in certain books of Hatha-Yoga shows their difficulty and their practical impossibility for the ordinary man. Nevertheless the Hatha-Yogis study these Asanas, that is, they train the body to assume all these incredible postures.
Everyone can try one of the easiest Asanas. This is the "posture of Buddha", so-called because the sitting Buddha is usually represented in this Asana. The simplest form of this Asana is when a Yogi sits cross-legged, not "Turkish fashion", but with one foot placed on the opposite knee and the other knee on the other foot, the legs being tightly pressed to the ground and to each other. Even this Asana, the simplest of all, is impossible without long and persistent training. But as a matter of fact the posture just described is not a complete Asana. If one looks closely at statues of the Buddha, it will be seen that both feet lie on the knees, heels upward. In such a position the legs are interwoven in a manner which looks quite impossible. But people who have been in India have seen and photographed this Asana in its complete form.
Apart from the outward Asanas there also exist inward Asanas, which consist in changing the functions of various internal organs, as for instance a slowing down or quickening of the action of the heart and the entire circulation of the blood. They further enable man to control a whole series of inner functions which ordinarily are not only outside the control of man, but in many cases are completely unknown to European science or only beginning to be suspected.
The meaning and ultimate aim of the outward Asanas is precisely the attainment of control over the inner functions.
Self-instruction in the Asanas presents insurmountable difficulties. There exist descriptions of over seventy Asanas. But even the most complete and detailed description does not give the order in which they should be studied. This order cannot be indicated in books because it depends on the physical type of a man.
That is to say that for every physical type a different order is necessary. For every man there exist one or several Asanas which he can learn and practise more easily than the others. But the man himself does not know his own physical type, and does not know which Asanas are the easier for him and with which he should begin. Moreover, he does not know the preparatory exercises, which are different for every Asana and for every physical type.
All this can be determined for him only by a teacher possessing complete knowledge of Hatha-Yoga.
After a certain period of observation and after certain trial exercises which he sets his pupil, the teacher determines his physical type and tells him with which of the Asanas he should begin. One pupil must begin with the seventeenth Asana, another with the thirty-fifth, a third with the fifty-seventh, a fourth with the first, and so on.
Having established which of the Asanas the pupil must try to master, the teacher gives him special and successive exercises which he demonstrates to him. These exercises gradually bring him to the desired Asana, that is, enable him to assume the requisite posture of the body and retain it for a certain time.
When the first Asana is attained, the teacher determines the next Asana which the pupil must try to attain, and again gives him exercises which in the course of time bring him to this Asana.
The study of a wrong Asana contains almost insurmountable difficulties. Moreover, as is quite definitely pointed out in books expounding the principles of Hatha-Yoga, "a wrong Asana kills a man".
All this taken together shows quite clearly that the study of Hatha-Yoga as well as the study of other Yogas is impossible without a teacher.
The chief method of Hatha-Yoga, the method which makes it possible to subordinate the physical body and even the "unconscious" physical functions to the will, is continuous work on overcoming pain.
Overcoming pain, overcoming fear of physical suffering, overcoming continual and incessant desire for quiet, ease, and comfort, create the force which transfers a Hatha-Yogi to another level of being.
In the literature, chiefly theosophical, relating to the history of the principles and methods of Yoga, there exists a difference of opinion which has a certain significance. There are authors who maintain that the study of Yoga must necessarily begin with Hatha-Yoga and that without Hatha-Yoga it cannot give any results. There are other authors who maintain that Hatha-Yoga may be studied after the other Yogas, especially after Raja-Yoga, when the pupil is already in possession of all the powers given by new consciousness.
The most correct solution of the question would be to assume that in this case, as well as in many other cases, the difference depends upon the type; that is, there are types of men who must necessarily begin with Hatha-Yoga, and there are types for whom paths through the other Yogas are possible.
In the scientific records of investigators on "Indian Asceticism" which exist in Western literature, Hatha-Yogis are unfortunately confused with "fakirs". The causes of such a confusion are easily understood. The investigators who observe external phenomena and do not understand the principle of Yoga cannot distinguish original phenomena from imitation. Fakirs imitate Hatha-Yogis. But what is done by Hatha-Yogis for the attainment of a definite aim which is clearly understood by them itself becomes the aim for fakirs. Fakirs therefore begin from the most difficult, from the extremes, and most from practices which injure the physical body. They hold their arms, or one arm, stretched upwards until the arms wither; they look at the fire or at the sun until they become blind; they deliver themselves to be eaten by insects, and the like. For a certain period of time, some of them in this way develop in themselves strange and supernormal capacities, but their way has nothing in common with the way of Hatha-Yoga.
In relation to the psychic world of man, to his self-consciousness, Raja-Yoga has the same meaning as Hatha-Yoga has in relation to the physical world. Hatha-Yoga is the Yoga of overcoming the body, acquiring control over the body and its functions; Raja-Yoga is the Yoga of overcoming the illusory and erroneous self-consciousness of man and of acquiring control over consciousness.
Raja-Yoga teaches man that which constitutes the basis of the philosophy of the whole world knowledge of himself.
Just as Hatha-Yoga regards the physical body as imperfect but capable of being changed for the better, so Raja-Yoga regards the psychic apparatus of man as being far from ideal, but capable of being set right and improved.
The task of Raja-Yoga is the "placing of consciousness", which is completely analogous to the "placing of the voice" in singing. Ordinary Western thought does not in the least realise the necessity of "placing the consciousness"; it finds in general that ordinary consciousness is quite sufficient, and that man can have nothing else.
Raja-Yoga established that consciousness, like a powerful voice, requires proper "placing", which would multiply its power and quality tenfold, increase its efficiency, make it "sound better", reproduce better, reconstruct the interrelation of ideas, embrace more at one time.
The first assertion of Raja-Yoga is that man does not know himself at all, has a completely false distorted idea of himself.
This lack of understanding of himself is man's chief difficulty on his way, the chief cause of his weakness. If we imagine a man who does not know his body, does not know the parts of his body, their number and relative position, does not know that he has two arms, two legs, one head, and so on, it will give an exact illustration of our position in relation to our psychic world.
From the point of Raja-Yoga, man's psychic apparatus is a system of darkened and crooked lenses through which his consciousness looks upon the world and upon itself, receiving a picture which in no way corresponds to the reality. The chief defect of the psychic apparatus is that it makes man accept as separate that which it shows as separate. A man who believes in his psychic apparatus is a man who believes in the field of view of the binoculars through which he looks, in the full conviction that what enters the field of view of his binoculars at that moment exists separately from that which does not enter it.
The new self-knowledge is attained in Raja-Yoga through a study of the principles of man's psychic world and through a long series of exercises of the consciousness.
A study of the principles of psychic life shows man the four states of consciousness possible for him, which in the usual Indian psychology are called:
After this follows the study of psychic functions thinking, feeling, sensing, and so on both separately and in their relation to each other: the study of dreams, the study of semi-conscious and unconscious psychic processes, the study of illusions and self-deceptions, the study of various forms of self-hypnosis and self-suggestion with the object of freeing oneself from them.
One of the first practical tasks set before a man who begins to study Raja-Yoga is the attainment of the ability to stop thoughts, the capacity not to think that is, entirely to stop the mind at will, to give a complete rest to the psychic apparatus.
This ability to stop thought is regarded as a necessary condition for awakening powers and possibilities latent within man, and as a necessary condition for subordinating the unconscious psychic processes to the will. Only when a man has created in himself this capacity for stopping the flow of thoughts can he approach the possibility of hearing the thoughts of other people, and all the voices which incessantly speak in nature: the voices of various "small lives" which are component parts of himself, and the voices of "big lives" of which he is a component part. Only when he has acquired the capacity to create a passive state of his mind can a man hope to hear the voice of the silence, which alone can reveal to him the truths and secrets hidden from him.
Moreover (and this is the first thing that is attained), in learning to stop thinking at will man acquires the power of reducing the useless expenditure of psychic energy consumed in unnecessary thinking. Unnecessary thinking is one of the chief evils of our inner life. How often it happens that some thought gets into our mind, and the mind, having no power to throw it out, turns the thought over and over endlessly, just as a stream turns a stone over and over in its bed.
This happens especially when a man is agitated or annoyed or hurt, is afraid of something, is suspicious of something, and so on. People do not realise what an enormous amount of energy is spent on this unnecessary turning over in the mind of the same thoughts, of the same words. People do not realise that a man, without noticing it, may repeat many thousands of times in an hour or two some silly sentence or fragment of verse which has stuck in his mind without any reason.
When the "disciple" has learned not to think, he is taught to think to think of what he wants to think of, and not of anything that comes into his head. This is a method of concentration. Complete concentration of mind on one subject and the capacity for not thinking of anything else at the same time, the capacity for not being drawn aside by accidental associations, give a man enormous powers. He can then force himself not only to think, but also not to feel, not to hear, not to see anything happening around him; he can avoid having the sensation of any kind of physical discomfort, either of heat or of cold or of suffering; he is able by a single effort to make himself insensible to any pain, even the most terrible. This explains one of the theories that Hatha-Yoga becomes easy after Raja-Yoga.
The next step, the third, is meditation. The man who has studied concentration is taught to use it that is, to meditate: to enter deeply into a given question, to examine its different sides one after another, to find in it correlations and analogies with everything he knows, everything he has thought or heard before. Right meditation discloses to man an infinite amount that is new to him in things which he previously thought were known to him. It shows him depths about which it has never occurred to him to think and, above all, it brings him nearer the "new consciousness", flashes of which, like lightning, begin to illuminate his meditations, for a moment revealing infinitely remote horizons.
The next step, the fourth, is contemplation. Having placed before himself one or another question, man is taught to enter into it as deeply as possible without thinking; or, even without putting any question before himself, to enter deeply into an idea, a mental picture, landscape, phenomenon of nature, sound, number.
A man who has learned to contemplate awakens the higher faculties of his soul, lays himself open to influences which come from the higher spheres of the life of the world and, as it were, communes with the deepest mysteries of the Universe.
At the same time Raja-Yoga makes man's "I" the object of concentration, meditation, and contemplation. Having taught man to economise his normal mental powers and direct them at will, Raja-Yoga requires him to direct them upon self-knowledge of his real "I".
Altering man's self-consciousness and "self-feeling" is the principal aim of Raja-Yoga. Its object is to make man really feel and become conscious of the heights and depths in himself by which he comes into contact with eternity and infinity: that is, to make man feel that he is not a mortal, temporary, and finite speck of dust in the infinite Universe but an immortal, eternal, and infinite quantity equal to the whole Universe, a drop in the ocean of the spirit, but a drop which may contain the whole ocean. The broadening of the "I" according to the methods of Raja-Yoga is precisely this bringing together the self-consciousness of man with the self-consciousness of the world, transferring the focus of self-consciousness from a small separate unit into infinity. Raja-Yoga broadens man's "I" and reconstructs his view of himself and his feeling of himself.
As a result, man attains a state of extraordinary freedom and power. He not only controls himself but is able to control others. He can read the thoughts of other people whether they are near to him or at a distance; he can suggest to them his own thoughts and desires and subordinate them to himself. He can acquire clairvoyance, he can know the past and the future.
To a European reader, all this may appear fantastic and impossible; but much of the "miraculous" is in reality not at all as impossible as it seems at first glance. In the methods of Raja-Yoga, everything is based on the understanding of laws which are incomprehensible to us, and on the strictly consecutive and gradual character of work on oneself.
The idea of "separation of self", of "non-attachment", occupies a very important place in the practice of Raja-Yoga. After this follows the idea of the absence of permanency and unity in man and in his "I", and the idea of the non-existence of the separateness of man the absence of any division between man, humanity, and nature.
The study of Raja-Yoga is impossible without the constant and direct guidance of a teacher. Before the pupil begins to study himself he is studied by the teacher, who determines the way he must follow that is, the sequence of exercises he must do, since the exercises can never be the same for different men.
The aim of Raja-Yoga is to bring man nearer to higher consciousness, proving to him the possibility of a new state of consciousness similar to awakening after sleep. As long as a man does not know the taste and sensation of this awakening, as long as his mind is still asleep, Raja-Yoga aims at making the idea of awakening understandable to him by telling him of the people who have awakened, teaching him to recognise the fruits of their thought and activity, which are entirely different from the results of the activity of ordinary people.
Karma-Yoga teaches the right relation towards people and the right action in the ordinary circumstances of life. It teaches how to become a Yogi in life without going into the desert or entering a school of Yogis. Karma-Yoga is a necessary supplement to all other Yogas; only with the help of Karma-Yoga can a man always remember his aim and never lose sight of it. Without Karma-Yoga all other Yogas either give no results or degenerate into something opposite to themselves. Raja-Yoga and Hatha-Yoga degenerate into a search for external miracles, for the mysterious, for the terrible, that is, into pseudo-occultism. Bhakti-Yoga degenerates into pseudo-mysticism, into superstition, into a personal adoration or into a striving for personal salvation. Jnana-Yoga degenerates into scholasticism or at best into metaphysics.
Karma-Yoga is always connected with the aim of inner development, of inner improvement. It helps man not to fall asleep inwardly amidst the entangling influences of life, especially in the midst of the hypnotising influence of activity. It makes him remember that nothing external has any significance, that everything must be done without caring about results. Without Karma-Yoga, man becomes absorbed in the nearest, the visible, aims; he forgets the chief aim.
Karma-Yoga teaches man to change his fate, to direct it at will. According to the fundamental idea of Karma-Yoga, this is attained only by altering the inner attitude of man towards things and towards his own actions.
The same action can be performed differently; one and the same event can be lived through differently. If a man alters his attitude towards what happens to him, this will in the course of time inevitably change the character of the events which he encounters on his way.
Karma-Yoga teaches man to understand that when it seems to him that he himself is acting, in reality it is not him who acts but only a power passing through him. Karma-Yoga asserts that a man is not at all what he thinks himself to be, and teaches him to understand that only in very rare cases does he act of himself and independently, and that in most cases he acts only as a part of one or another great whole. This is the "occult" side of Karma-Yoga, the teaching concerning the forces and laws which govern man.
A man who understands the ideas of Karma-Yoga feels all the time that he is but a tiny screw or a tiny wheel in the big machine, and that the success or unsuccess of what he thinks he is doing depends very little on his own actions.
Acting and feeling in this way, a man can never meet with failure in anything, because the greatest failure, the greatest unsuccess, may further success in his inner work, in his struggle with himself, if he only finds the right attitude towards this unsuccess.
A life governed by the principles of Karma-Yoga differs greatly from an ordinary life. In ordinary life, no matter what the conditions may be, the chief aim of man consists in avoiding all unpleasantness, difficulties, and discomforts, so far as this is possible.
In a life governed by the principles of Karma-Yoga, a man does not seek to avoid unpleasantness or discomforts. On the contrary, he welcomes them, for they afford him a chance of overcoming them. From the point of view of Karma-Yoga, if life offered no difficulties it would be necessary to create them artificially. Therefore the difficulties which are met with in life are regarded not as something unpleasant which one must try to avoid, but as very useful conditions for the aims of inner work and inner development.
When a man realises this and feels it constantly, life itself becomes his teacher.
The chief principle of Karma-Yoga is non-attachment. A man who follows the methods of Karma-Yoga must practise non-attachment always and in everything, whether to good or to evil, to pleasure or to pain. Non-attachment does not mean indifference. It is a certain kind of separation of self from what happens or from what a man is doing. It is not coldness, nor is it the desire to shut oneself off from life. It is recognition of the constant realisation that everything is done according to certain laws and that everything in the world has its own fate.
From an ordinary point of view, following the principles of Karma-Yoga appears as fatalism. But it is not fatalism in the sense of accepting the exact and unalterable pre-ordination of everything without the possibility of any change whatever. On the contrary, Karma-Yoga teaches how to change the karma how to influence the karma: but from the point of view of Karma-Yoga, this is entirely an inner process. Karma-Yoga teaches that a man may change the people and events around him by changing his attitude towards them.
The idea of this is very clear. Every man is from his birth surrounded by a certain karma, by certain people and certain events. In accordance with his nature, education, tastes, and habits, he adopts a certain definite attitude towards things, people, and events. So long as his attitude remains unchanged, people, things, and events also remain unchanged, that is, corresponding to his karma. If he is not satisfied with his karma, if he wants something new and unknown, he must change his attitude towards what he has and then the new events will come.
Karma-Yoga is the only way possible for people who are tied to life, who are unable to free themselves from the external forms of life, for people who either through their birth or through their own powers and capacities are placed at the head of human communities or groups, for people who are connected with the progress of the life of humanity, for historical personages, for people whose personal life seems to be the expression of the life of an epoch or a nation. These people cannot change themselves visibly; they can change themselves only internally, while externally remaining the same as before, saying the same things, doing the same things, but without attachment, as actors on the stage. Having become such actors in relation to their own lives, they become Yogis in the midst of the most varied and intense activity. There can be peace in their souls whatever their troubles may be. Their thought can work without hindrance, independently of anything that may surround it.
Karma-Yoga gives freedom to the prisoner in a gaol and to the king on a throne if only they can feel that they are actors playing their rτles.
The Yogi Ramakrishna, who in the eighteen-eighties lived in the monastery of Dakshineswar, near Calcutta, and became known through the works of his disciples (Vivekananda, Abedananda, and others) was a Bhakti-Yogi. He recognised as equal all religions with all their dogmas, sacraments, and rituals. He himself belonged simultaneously to all religions. Twelve years of his life were spent in following over and over again the way of asceticism according to the rules of the great religions taken in turn. He always came to the same result, to the state of samadhi or ecstasy, which he became convinced constitutes the aim of all religions. Ramakrishna therefore used to say to his disciples that from personal experience he had arrived at the conclusion that all great religions are one, and was convinced that all of them lead alike to God, that is, to the highest knowledge.
In bringing man nearer to samadhi, Bhakti-Yoga, if practised separately from other Yogas, carries him away completely from the world. Man acquires enormous powers, but at the same time loses the capacity for using them (as well as the capacity for using his ordinary powers) for earthly purposes.
Ramakrishna told his disciples that after he had been several times in the state of samadhi, he began to feel that he was no longer able to take care of himself, and that he had once cried, thinking that he must die of starvation. This frightened him at first, until he became convinced that somebody was always taking care of him.
In the book The Gospel of Ramakrishna, a remarkable conversation is quoted between the sick Ramakrishna, who was already nearing death, and an Indian sage, a Pundit, who came to visit him:
Pundit Sashadhar came one day to pay his respects to Bhagavan Ramakrishna. Seeing his illness, he asked: "Bhagavan, why dost thou not concentrate thy mind upon the diseased part and thus cure thyself?"
The Bhagavan replied: "How can I fix my mind, which I have given to God, upon this cage of flesh and blood?"
Sashadhar said: "Why dost thou not pray to thy divine mother for cure of thine illness?"
The Bhagavan answered: "When I think of my mother the physical body vanishes and I am entirely out of it, so it is impossible for me to pray for anything concerning the body."
Thus all that man attains on this way has no value from the earthly point of view and cannot be used for the acquisition of earthly comforts.
The impossibility of proving by argument to another man the existence of what he does not himself feel emotionally caused Ramakrishna to teach that Bhakti-Yoga is the best of all ways of Yoga because it does not require proof. Bhakti-Yoga addresses itself directly to the feelings and brings together, not people who think alike, but people who feel alike.
Ramakrishna also considered Bhakti-Yoga the simplest and the easiest of all the ways because this way demands self-renunciation, the destruction of attachment to anything earthly, the giving up of one's will, and the unconditional surrender of oneself to God.
But since for many people precisely this may seem to be the most difficult, that alone shows that Bhakti-Yoga is a way for people of a certain definite type and of a certain mentality, and that Bhakti-Yoga cannot be considered a way accessible to all.
Bhakti-Yoga has much in common with Raja-Yoga. Like Raja-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga includes methods of concentration, meditation, and contemplation, but their object is not "I" but "God", that is, the All, in which the little spark of human consciousness completely vanishes.
The practical significance of Bhakti-Yoga lies in the emotional training. Bhakti-Yoga is a method of "breaking in" and "harnessing" emotions for those whose emotions are particularly strong but whose religious emotions, which ought to control other emotions, are scattered, not concentrated, carry them at once very far but produce strong reactions. At the same time it is a method for developing religious emotions for those in whom they are weak. Bhakti-Yoga is in a sense a supplement to any religion or an introduction to religion for a man of a non-religious type.
The ideas of Bhakti-Yoga are nearer and more intelligible for the West than the ideas of other Yogas, owing to the existence in Western literature of works on "religious practice" akin to Bhakti-Yoga in their spirit and meaning, although quite different in quality.
Works of such a kind in Protestant countries, for instance the books of the German mystics of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, are often interesting, but Protestantism cut itself off too thoroughly from tradition, and the authors of these works were obliged to seek, either openly or stealthily, for a support of their methods in "occultism" or in "theosophy" of one kind or another. Thus the Protestant works are not purely religious.
In Catholicism everything that had any life in it was probably killed in the times of the Inquisition, and Catholic works on religious practice, such as in the well-known book of Ignatius Loyola, are nothing but manuals for creating hallucinations of a definite and stereotyped character Jesus on the Cross, the Virgin Mary with the Infant, Saints, Martyrs, "Hell", "Heaven", and so on. In other words they teach the transference of dreams into certain definite images a process quite possible and called "clairvoyance" in pseudo-occultism. The very same methods for creating pseudo-clairvoyance exist and play a very important part in modern occultism.
A very amusing parody of these methods is to be found in Eliphas Lιvi's book Dogme et Ritual de la Haute Magie, where he describes an evocation of the devil. Unfortunately very few readers of Eliphas Lιvi understand that this is a parody.
Pseudo-clairvoyance, "dreams in a waking state", desired and expected hallucinations, are called "Beauty" in Orthodox mystic literature. ["Beauty" is the translation of a Greek word meaning temptation, seduction, or charm. It shows clearly the character of the experiences preferred in Catholic mysticism and in pseudo-occultism, that is, their external formal "beauty" as opposed to their inner meaning and content. - PDO] It is very characteristic of Orthodox mysticism that it warns people and cautions them precisely against what Catholic mysticism and pseudo-occultism advise and suggest.
The most interesting works of religious practice are to be found in the literature of the Eastern Orthodox church. First, there is a collection of writings in six volumes which contains descriptions of mystical experiences, statutes and regulations of monastic life, rules of prayer and contemplation, and descriptions of methods of Hatha-Yoga (adopted in Bhakti-Yoga), as for instance methods of breathing, of different postures and positions of the body, and so on.
There must also be noted a book by an unknown author which was sold in Russia in the third edition of 1884. This book is called The Sincere Narrations of a Pilgrim to his Spiritual Father. An acquaintance with this small book gives an exact idea of the character and the spirit of Bhakti-Yoga.
The Narrations of a Pilgrim is extremely interesting even from a literary point of view alone. It is one of the little known gems of Russian literature. Both the pilgrim himself and the people he met and spoke of are all living Russian types, many of whom have existed up to our own times and whom we who are living now have seen and met.
It is difficult to tell whether the pilgrim actually existed and his narrations were written down from his words by the Archimandrite Paissy, the author of the foreword to the book, or whether these narrations are Paissy's own or those of some other educated monk. Much in these narrations leads one to suspect the pen and the thought not only of an educated but of a highly educated and talented man. On the other hand those who know in what an extraordinarily artistic way some Russians such as this "pilgrim" can tell stories about themselves and everything else, will not think it impossible for the pilgrim to have been a real living person who was actually speaking about himself.
The Narrations of a Pilgrim contains a schematic explanation of the principles of a special exercise of Bhakti-Yoga, which is called constant or mental prayer, and a description of the results this prayer gives.
The "pilgrim" repeated his prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me", at first three thousand times consecutively in a day, then six thousand times, then twelve thousand, and finally without counting. When the prayer had become quite automatic in him, did not require any effort, and was repeated involuntarily, he began to "bring it into the heart", that is, to make it emotional, to connect a definite feeling with it. After a certain time the prayer began to evoke this feeling and to strengthen it, enriching it to an extraordinary degree of acuteness and intensity.
The Narrations of a Pilgrim cannot serve as a manual for the practical study of "mental prayer" because the description of the method of study contains a certain, probably intentional, incorrectness namely far too great an ease and rapidity in the pilgrim's study of "mental prayer". Nevertheless, this book gives a very clear idea of the principles of work upon self according to the methods of Bhakti-Yoga and is, in many respects, a unique production of its kind.
That these methods have not vanished from real life is shown by a very interesting, though unfortunately too short, description of Mount Athos by B Zaitseff which was published in Russian in Paris in 1928.
Zaitseff describes the everyday life and the character of the religious practice in the Russian monastery of St Panteleimon at Mount Athos. It can be seen from his description that "mental prayer" (the cell rule) plays a very important part in monastic life:
The basis of this life is the cutting off of the personal will and an absolute submission to the hierarchic authority. No monk may go out of the gates of the monastery without having received the "blessing" (permission) from the abbot. The abbot assigns to every monk his "obedience", that is, the particular work he has to do. Thus there are monks who are fishermen, wood-cutters, kitchen-gardeners, agricultural labourers, vineyard workers, sawyers, and more intellectual workers monk-librarians, "grammarians", icon-painters, photographers, and so on. At present the monastery of St Panteleimon contains about five hundred brothers.
...
The arrangement of the day in the monastery is fixed once for all and everything moves in obedience only to the hands of the clock. But as everything is unusual at Mount Athos, so time also is astonishing. To the day of my departure I could not get used to it. It is the ancient East. At sunset the hand of the clock is moved to midnight. The whole system changes according to the time of the year, and one must move with the seasons and adapt oneself to the sunset. In May the difference between Mount Athos and European time amounts to about five hours.
Thus Matins in St Panteleimon's monastery began, while I was there, at six o'clock in the morning (one in the morning by our time). Matins continue until four or four-thirty in the morning. (In this case and afterwards I give the European time). After Matins there follows immediately the Mass (liturgy), which continues until six in the morning; thus almost the whole night is spent in church services; this is a characteristic feature of Mount Athos. Then everybody rests till seven. From seven to nine is "obedience" [the daily work given to each monk by the abbot PDO] for nearly everyone. Even the oldest monks come out to work if they are even relatively in good health (they go to the forest, to vineyards, to kitchen-gardens; they load oxen with timber and mules with hay and firewood). The first meal is at nine o'clock, then "obedience" again till one. At one o'clock tea and rest till three; then "obedience" till six o'clock.
From five-thirty to six-thirty Vespers are said in the churches. Very few monks attend these day services, for most of them are at work. But Vespers are read for them at their work. At six in the evening there is the second meal, if it is not a fast day. If it is Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, instead of a meal they have only bread and tea. After the second meal the church-bells ring for Complines, which continue from seven till eight o'clock. Then follows "cell-rule", that is, prayer with bowings in the cell. After each short prayer [such as the Jesus prayer, Ave Maria, prayer for the dead, prayer for the living, etc. PDO] the monk moves one bead of his rosary and makes a bow from the waist. At the eleventh bead, a large one, he bows to the ground. Thus a cassocked monk (the lowest monastic degree) makes six hundred bows from the waist; a "mantled" monk makes about a thousand; and a monk invested with a schema makes about fifteen hundred (not counting corresponding bows to the ground). In the case of a cassocked monk it takes about an hour and a half; in the case of a monk of the highest rank it takes from three to three and a half hours. Consequently a cassocked monk is free about ten o'clock and the others about eleven. Till one o'clock, when Matins begin, is the monks' sleeping-time (two to three hours). To this is sometimes added an hour in the morning and, perhaps, an hour in the afternoon, after tea. But as every monk has his own small things to do which take time, it may be supposed that the monks sleep not more than four hours, or even less.
To us laymen who have seen this life, the essence of which is that the monks pray through the night, work through the day, and have very little sleep and very poor food, it is a mystery how they can stand it. And yet they live, and live to a very old age (at present the majority of them are old men). Moreover, the commonest type of Mount Athos monk seems to me a healthy, calm, and balanced type.
B. Zaitseff: Athos, YMCA Press (in Russian), Paris. (1928)
Monastic life, whatever severity and difficulties it may involve, is certainly not Bhakti-Yoga. Bhakti-Yoga can be applied to every religion (of course to a real religion, not an invented one); this means that Bhakti-Yoga includes all religions and recognises no difference between them. Moreover, Bhakti-Yoga, as well as all the other Yogas, does not require a final abandonment of life, but only temporary withdrawal from life for the attainment of a definite aim. When the aim is attained, the Yoga becomes unnecessary. Also, the Yoga requires more initiative and more understanding. Yoga is a more active way. Monastic life is a more passive way.
Nevertheless the study of monastic life and of monastic asceticism is of great interest from the psychological point of view, because here many ideas of Yoga can be seen in practical application, though possibly in a setting different from true Yoga.
As well as in Orthodox monasteries, the ideas of Bhakti-Yoga occupy a very important place in Mohammedan monasteries of Sufis and Dervishes, and also in Buddhist monasteries especially in Ceylon, where Buddhism has been preserved in its purest form.
Ramakrishna, whom I have mentioned, was both a Yogi and a monk at the same time, but more a monk than a Yogi. His followers, so far as can be judged by information to be found in literature, have gone partly in a religious, partly in a philosophical direction, although they call it Yoga. In reality the school of Ramakrishna has not left behind any ways to a practical Yoga, having deviated into theoretical descriptions of these ways.
Jnana-Yoga uses all the methods of Raja-Yoga. It starts from the affirmation that the weak human mind, brought up in contemplation of illusions, will never solve the enigmas of life, and that this demands a better instrument specially adapted for the task. Therefore, together with study of the principles lying at the base of things, Jnana-Yoga requires the special work of educating the mind. The mind is trained for contemplation, for concentration, for thinking in new and unaccustomed directions and on new planes connected not with the outward aspect of things but with their fundamental principles. Above all, the mind is trained to think quickly and exactly, always focussed on the essential and wasting no time on external and unimportant details.
Jnana-Yoga starts from the fact that the chief cause of human misfortunes and disasters is Avidya Ignorance. The object of Jnana-Yoga is to overcome Avidya and bring man nearer to what is called Brahma-vidya, divine knowledge.
The aim of Jnana-Yoga is the liberation of the human mind from these limiting conditions of knowledge in which it is placed by the forms of sense perception and by thinking based on the logic of opposites. From the point of view of Jnana-Yoga, a man must first of all learn right thinking. Right thinking and the broadening of ideas and conceptions must lead to the broadening of perception, while the broadening of perception must finally lead to a change in sensations, that is, to the abolition of all false and illusory sensations.
Indian teachers (Gurus) do not in the least aim at making their disciples accumulate as much miscellaneous knowledge as possible. On the contrary, they want their disciples to see in everything they study, however small it may be, the principles that lie at the basis of everything. Usually, the disciple is given for meditation either some verse from ancient scriptures or some symbol, and he meditates for a year, two years, possibly for ten years, from time to time bringing to his teacher the results of his meditations. This seems strange to a Western mind, which always aims at going ever forward, but possibly it is the right method for penetrating to the root of ideas instead of acquiring a superficial acquaintance with their external side by making enormous mental collections of words and facts.
In studying Jnana-Yoga man sees clearly that Yoga cannot be only a method. A right method must necessarily lead to certain truths, and in expounding a method it is impossible not to touch on these truths. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that in its nature Yoga cannot be a doctrine and that there can therefore be no synopsis or general outline of the ideas of Jnana-Yoga. In using Yoga as a method, man must himself find, feel, and realise the truths which form the content of the philosophy of the Yogis. The same truths received in the form of a doctrine from another person or from books will not have the same effect upon the mind and soul as truths which man has found for himself, truths that he has long sought for and long struggled with before accepting them.
Jnana-Yoga teaches that the truth for a man can only be that which he has felt as truth. Moreover, it teaches man to verify one truth by another, to ascend slowly towards the summit of knowledge, never losing sight of the point of departure and constantly returning to it, in order to preserve a right orientation.
Jnana-Yoga teaches man to distrust himself, to distrust his sensations, mental images, concepts, ideas, thoughts, and words; above all to distrust words, to verify everything and always to look round at every step, to demand that everything that has been found should accord with the testimony of experience and with fundamental principles.
The ideas of Jnana-Yoga have been transmitted up to now in a symbolical form only. The images of Indian gods and the figures of Indian mythology contain many ideas of Jnana-Yoga, but the understanding of them requires oral explanations and commentaries.
The study of Jnana-Yoga from books is impossible because there exists a whole series of principles which have never been expounded in writing. Indications of these, and even some definition of them, can be found in books, but these indications are intelligible only to those who have already received direct tuition. The difficulty of understanding these principles is especially great because it is not enough to understand them intellectually; it is necessary to learn to apply and use them for the division and classification not only of abstract ideas, but also the concrete things and occurrences which man meets in life.
The idea of Dharma in one of its meanings in Indian philosophy is an introduction to the study of one of these principles, which may be called the principle of relativity.
The principle of relativity in the science of Yogis has nothing in common with the principle of relativity in modern physics, and is studied not in its application to one class of phenomena only, but in relation to all the phenomena of the Universe on all planes and levels, and thus, by penetrating everything, it connects everything into one single whole.
But in order to understand rightly the meaning and significance of the different Yogas it is necessary to realise clearly that all five Yogas, that is, each one separately, are an abbreviation and adaptation for different types of people of one and the same general system. This system is taught orally in particular schools, which differ from the Yogis' schools as much as the Yogis' schools differ from monasteries.
This system has no name and has never been made public; allusions to it are only rarely met with in Eastern writings. Much of what has been ascribed to Yoga belongs in reality to this system. At the same time the system cannot be regarded simply as a combination of the five Yogas. All the Yogas have originated from this system; each of the Yogas is in a sense a one-sided understanding of it. One is wider, another is narrower, but all of them expound one and the same system. The combination of all five Yogas does not reconstruct it because it contains many ideas, principles, and methods which do not enter into any of the Yogas.
Fragments of this system, so far as the author has succeeded in becoming acquainted with them, will be set forth in the book The Unknown Doctrine.
1912-1929.