Before going into the Yoga aphorisms I shall try to discuss one great question,
upon which rests the whole theory of religion for the Yogis. It seems the
consensus of opinion of the great minds of the world, and it has been nearly
demonstrated by researches into physical nature, that we are the outcome and
manifestation of an absolute condition, back of our present relative condition,
and are going forward, to return to that absolute. This being granted, the
question is: Which is better, the absolute or this state? There are not wanting
people who think that this manifested state is the highest state of man. Thinkers
of great calibre are of the opinion that we are manifestations of undifferentiated
being and the differentiated state is higher than the absolute. They imagine that
in the absolute there cannot be any quality; that it must be insensate, dull, and
lifeless; that only this life can be enjoyed, and, therefore, we must cling to it.
First of all we want to inquire into other solutions of life. There was an old
solution that man after death remained the same; that all his good sides, minus
his evil sides, remained for ever. Logically stated, this means that man's goal is
the world; this world carried a stage higher, and eliminated of its evils, is the
state they call heaven. This theory, on the face of it, is absurd and puerile,
because it cannot be. There cannot be good without evil, nor evil without good.
To live in a world where it is all good and no evil is what Sanskrit logicians
call a "dream in the air". Another theory in modern times has been presented by
several schools, that man's destiny is to go on always improving, always
struggling towards, but never reaching the goal. This statement, though
apparently very nice, is also absurd, because there is no such thing as motion in
a straight line. Every motion is in a circle. If you can take up a stone, and
project it into space, and then live long enough, that stone, if it meets with no
obstruction, will come back exactly to your hand. A straight line, infinitely
projected must end in a circle. Therefore, this idea that the destiny of man is
progressing ever forward and forward, and never stopping, is absurd. Although
extraneous to the subject, I may remark that this idea explains the ethical theory
that you must not hate, and must love. Because, just as in the case of electricity
the modern theory is that the power leaves the dynamo and completes the circle
back to the dynamo, so with hate and love; they must come back to the source.
Therefore do not hate anybody, because that hatred which comes out from you,
must, in the long run, come back to you. If you love, that love will come back
to you, completing the circle. It is as certain as can be, that every bit of hatred
that goes out of the heart of a man comes back to him in full force, nothing can
stop it; similarly every impulse of love comes back to him.
On other and practical grounds we see that the theory of eternal progression is
untenable, for destruction is the goal of everything earthly. All our struggles
and hopes and fears and joys, what will they lead to? We shall all end in death.
Nothing is so certain as this. Where, then, is this motion in a straight line —
this infinite progression? It is only going out to a distance, and coming back to
the centre from which it started. See how, from nebulae, the sun, moon, and
stars are produced; then they dissolve and go back to nebulae. The same is
being done everywhere. The plant takes material from the earth, dissolves, and
gives it back. Every form in this world is taken out of surrounding atoms and
goes back to these atoms. It cannot be that the same law acts differently in
different places. Law is uniform. Nothing is more certain than that. If this is the
law of nature, it also applies to thought. Thought will dissolve and go back to
its origin. Whether we will it or not, we shall have to return to our origin which
is called God or Absolute. We all came from God, and we are all bound to go
back to God. Call that by any name you like, God, Absolute, or Nature, the fact
remains the same. "From whom all this universe comes out, in whom all that is
born lives, and to whom all returns." This is one fact that is certain. Nature
works on the same plan; what is being worked out in one sphere is repeated in
millions of spheres. What you see with the planets, the same will it be with this
earth, with men, and with all. The huge wave is a mighty compound of small
waves, it may be of millions; the life of the whole world is a compound of
millions of little lives, and the death of the whole world is the compound of the
deaths of these millions of little beings.
Now the question arises: Is going back to God the higher state, or not? The
philosophers of the Yoga school emphatically answer that it is. They say that
man's present state is a degeneration. There is not one religion on the face of
the earth which says that man is an improvement. The idea is that his beginning
is perfect and pure, that he degenerates until he cannot degenerate further, and
that there must come a time when he shoots upward again to complete the
circle. The circle must be described. However low he may go, he must
ultimately take the upward bend and go back to the original source, which is
God. Man comes from God in the beginning, in the middle he becomes man,
and in the end he goes back to God. This is the method of putting it in the
dualistic form. The monistic form is that man is God, and goes back to Him
again If our present state is the higher one, then why is there so much horror
and misery, and why is there an end to it? If this is the higher state, why does it
end? That which corrupts and degenerates cannot be the highest state. Why
should it be so diabolical, so unsatisfying? It is only excusable, inasmuch as
through it we are taking a higher groove; we have to pass through it in order to
become regenerate again. Put a seed into the ground and it disintegrates,
dissolves after a time, and out of that dissolution comes the splendid tree.
Every soul must disintegrate to become God. So it follows that the sooner we
get out of this state we call "man" the better for us Is it by committing suicide
that we get out of this state? Not at all. That will be making it worse. Torturing
our. selves, or condemning the world, is not the way to get out. We have to
pass through the Slough of Despond, and the sooner we are through, the better.
It must always be remembered that man-state is not the highest state.
upon which rests the whole theory of religion for the Yogis. It seems the
consensus of opinion of the great minds of the world, and it has been nearly
demonstrated by researches into physical nature, that we are the outcome and
manifestation of an absolute condition, back of our present relative condition,
and are going forward, to return to that absolute. This being granted, the
question is: Which is better, the absolute or this state? There are not wanting
people who think that this manifested state is the highest state of man. Thinkers
of great calibre are of the opinion that we are manifestations of undifferentiated
being and the differentiated state is higher than the absolute. They imagine that
in the absolute there cannot be any quality; that it must be insensate, dull, and
lifeless; that only this life can be enjoyed, and, therefore, we must cling to it.
First of all we want to inquire into other solutions of life. There was an old
solution that man after death remained the same; that all his good sides, minus
his evil sides, remained for ever. Logically stated, this means that man's goal is
the world; this world carried a stage higher, and eliminated of its evils, is the
state they call heaven. This theory, on the face of it, is absurd and puerile,
because it cannot be. There cannot be good without evil, nor evil without good.
To live in a world where it is all good and no evil is what Sanskrit logicians
call a "dream in the air". Another theory in modern times has been presented by
several schools, that man's destiny is to go on always improving, always
struggling towards, but never reaching the goal. This statement, though
apparently very nice, is also absurd, because there is no such thing as motion in
a straight line. Every motion is in a circle. If you can take up a stone, and
project it into space, and then live long enough, that stone, if it meets with no
obstruction, will come back exactly to your hand. A straight line, infinitely
projected must end in a circle. Therefore, this idea that the destiny of man is
progressing ever forward and forward, and never stopping, is absurd. Although
extraneous to the subject, I may remark that this idea explains the ethical theory
that you must not hate, and must love. Because, just as in the case of electricity
the modern theory is that the power leaves the dynamo and completes the circle
back to the dynamo, so with hate and love; they must come back to the source.
Therefore do not hate anybody, because that hatred which comes out from you,
must, in the long run, come back to you. If you love, that love will come back
to you, completing the circle. It is as certain as can be, that every bit of hatred
that goes out of the heart of a man comes back to him in full force, nothing can
stop it; similarly every impulse of love comes back to him.
On other and practical grounds we see that the theory of eternal progression is
untenable, for destruction is the goal of everything earthly. All our struggles
and hopes and fears and joys, what will they lead to? We shall all end in death.
Nothing is so certain as this. Where, then, is this motion in a straight line —
this infinite progression? It is only going out to a distance, and coming back to
the centre from which it started. See how, from nebulae, the sun, moon, and
stars are produced; then they dissolve and go back to nebulae. The same is
being done everywhere. The plant takes material from the earth, dissolves, and
gives it back. Every form in this world is taken out of surrounding atoms and
goes back to these atoms. It cannot be that the same law acts differently in
different places. Law is uniform. Nothing is more certain than that. If this is the
law of nature, it also applies to thought. Thought will dissolve and go back to
its origin. Whether we will it or not, we shall have to return to our origin which
is called God or Absolute. We all came from God, and we are all bound to go
back to God. Call that by any name you like, God, Absolute, or Nature, the fact
remains the same. "From whom all this universe comes out, in whom all that is
born lives, and to whom all returns." This is one fact that is certain. Nature
works on the same plan; what is being worked out in one sphere is repeated in
millions of spheres. What you see with the planets, the same will it be with this
earth, with men, and with all. The huge wave is a mighty compound of small
waves, it may be of millions; the life of the whole world is a compound of
millions of little lives, and the death of the whole world is the compound of the
deaths of these millions of little beings.
Now the question arises: Is going back to God the higher state, or not? The
philosophers of the Yoga school emphatically answer that it is. They say that
man's present state is a degeneration. There is not one religion on the face of
the earth which says that man is an improvement. The idea is that his beginning
is perfect and pure, that he degenerates until he cannot degenerate further, and
that there must come a time when he shoots upward again to complete the
circle. The circle must be described. However low he may go, he must
ultimately take the upward bend and go back to the original source, which is
God. Man comes from God in the beginning, in the middle he becomes man,
and in the end he goes back to God. This is the method of putting it in the
dualistic form. The monistic form is that man is God, and goes back to Him
again If our present state is the higher one, then why is there so much horror
and misery, and why is there an end to it? If this is the higher state, why does it
end? That which corrupts and degenerates cannot be the highest state. Why
should it be so diabolical, so unsatisfying? It is only excusable, inasmuch as
through it we are taking a higher groove; we have to pass through it in order to
become regenerate again. Put a seed into the ground and it disintegrates,
dissolves after a time, and out of that dissolution comes the splendid tree.
Every soul must disintegrate to become God. So it follows that the sooner we
get out of this state we call "man" the better for us Is it by committing suicide
that we get out of this state? Not at all. That will be making it worse. Torturing
our. selves, or condemning the world, is not the way to get out. We have to
pass through the Slough of Despond, and the sooner we are through, the better.
It must always be remembered that man-state is not the highest state.
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