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YOGA.
457
for liquor has become a habit with will ? Yoga has to get over not one or two of such habits alone, but over all those traits and tendencies and inclinations which lead in the wrong direction; and their number is legion. Few, indeed, there be who aspire to rise above the smoothrunning, though destructive, mechanism of habitude, and they alone are benefited by Yoga. For the rest, whose minds are steeped in the materialism of the world, neither Yoga' nor any other method can do anything. Hence, Yoga accepts only those disciples, in the first instance, in whom zeal and earnestness have been emancipated from the thraldom of slothfulness of habit, by viveka (discrimination), vairâgya (non-attachment), tyaga (renunciation) and faith. If we ponder over these last-named qualifications, we shall discover that without their aid it is not possible to enter upon the steep path of salvation. Obviously, there can be no desire for liberation unless there be present to the mind a keen sense of discrimination between the reality of the state of Nirvana and the transitory, shadowy nature of the world. Hence, the first essential is the discrimination between the Real and the unreal.' Next, it is also easy to see that unless the desire for liberation is intense enough to overcome all other desires which tend to prolong the bondage, it will be overpowered by them. Hence, unless the will of the Yogi is fortified by such powerful virtues, as non-attachmeut, renunciation and faith, it is not likely to overcome the weaknesses of flesh, or attain to any appreciable success. Therefore, no one who, having entered the path, looks behind at the world on which he has turned his back, is worthy of Yoga. It was for
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