The Hindu System of Self-Culture of the Patanjala Yoga Shastra (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902. Excerpt: ... "Having restrained them all, he should sit harmonized, devoted wholly to me; for whose senses are mastered, of him the understanding is well-poised." (6i). "And among all yogis, he who with the innerself abideth in me, he is considered by me to be the most completely harmonized." (47). Section 4--The Three Stages Of Yoga In Relation To The Sankhya Philosophy. In the higher spheres of speculation nirodha, samadhi and ekagrata may be illustrated by the truths of the Sankhya philosophy. The Sankhya treats of three stages of human progress. First is the defacto state of ordinary humanity. In this state--the purusha or the experiences is in the state of bondage and the prakriti or the object of his experience is a combination, pulling purusha on three sides and continually agitating and bewildering him. In this state the experiencer is hardly able to claim experience to be his property. On the contrary--it is the experienced prakriti which claims him to be its--property. The experience of this stage is lower experience and is called aviveka or (ignorance) and is associated with misery. The second stage of progress according to the Sankhya, is realized when on the one hand, the experiencer or the purusha isolates himself from the objects of his experience i.e.. from the mixed action of the three-faced prakriti, and can take a stand unaffected by it as a passive onlooker; and then on the oher hand, prakriti ceases to pull him on three sides, and appears in that balanced state which is asserted by the definition of prakriti to be its proper condition. In the third stage the experiencer or the purusha is absolutely free and his experience is no more the lower experience called aviveka, but that higher experience called viveka, where he realizes the dependence of p...