The Basic Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali. Avneet Kumar Singla

is reached, so to speak, by mental and emotional energies, is a psychic state, just as the thought image of a stage with the actors on it is a psychic state or field. When the pure vision, like the poet, the philosopher, the Saint, fills the whole field, all smaller views and visions are displaced. This high consciousness displaces all lesser consciousness. But in a sense, what is considered a part even of the vision of a sage still has an element of illusion, a thin psychic veil, however pure and luminous that veil may be. It is the last and highest mental state.

      51. When this impression ceases, then, since all impressions have ceased, there arises pure spiritual consciousness, with no seed of separation.

      The last psychic veil is pulled aside, and the spiritual man stands with revealed vision, let alone.

INTRODUCTION TO BOOK 2

      The first book of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is called The Book of spiritual consciousness. The second book with which we now begin is the book of the means of soul growth. And we must remember that soul growth here is the growth of the realization of the spiritual people of means, or, to put it briefly to say, the growth of the spiritual man and the unraveling of the spiritual man from the wrappings, the veils, the disguises, the Ghost and the psychic-nature to him, wherein he is enmeshed, like a bird caught in a net is.

      The question arises: by what means can the spiritual man be freed from these psychic meshes and disguises, so that he stands above death in his radiant eternity and divine power? And the second book asks itself precisely to answer this question, and to detail the means in a way quite practical and very clear, so that the one who runs, can read, and who reads, can understand and practice.

      The second part of the second book deals with the practical spiritual training, i.e. with the earlier practical training of the spiritual man.

      The most striking thing about it is the emphasis on the commandments, which are exactly those of the last part of the Decalogue, along with obedience to the master. Our day and our generation tend a lot to the idea that there can be mystical life and growth on a different basis, on the basis of intellectual curiosity or psychic selfishness. In reality, on this latter Foundation the life of the spiritual man can never be built; nor, indeed, anything but a psychic falsification, a dangerous delusion.

      Therefore, like every great spiritual teacher, Patanjali asks the question: What do I have to do to be saved? with the ancient answer: keep the commandments. Only after the disciple can say: these I have kept, there can be the further and finer teaching of the spiritual rules.

      Therefore, it is important for us to realize that the Yoga system, like each true system of spiritual teaching, rests on this broad and firm Foundation of honesty, truth, cleanliness, and obedience. Without this there is no

      Salvation; and he who practices these, although he does not know spiritual things, lays up a treasure against the coming time.