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THE YOGA PHILOSOPHY
1. Much has been written and said on the mystic philosophy of ancient nations of the Egyptians, Greeks and Hindus. But I doubt whether it has been rightly understood. The advocates of modern science, some of them base the science of ethics on expediency, others on utility, while there are many to whom moral code is a commandment from a superior to an inferior. Thou shalt commit no murder. Why? The theologian would say-Because that is the commandment of God. The materialist will say-Because that is the command of the ruling authority of the state. But why should God and the sovereign issue commands? There is no rational reply. A system of ethics not based on the rational demonstration of the universe is of no practical value. It is only a system of the ethics of individual opinions and individual convenience. It has no solidity and therefore no strength. The aim of human existence is happiness, progress; and all ethics teach how to attain one and achieve the other. The question however remains-What is happiness and what is progress? Those are issues not yet solved in any satisfactory manner in the West by the known systems of ethics. The reason is not far to seek. The modern tendency is to separate ethics from physics or rational demonstration of the universe and thus make it a science resting on nothing but the irregular whims and caprices of individuals and nations.
In India ethics has ever been associated with religion. Religion has ever been an attempt to solve the mystery of nature, to understand the phenomena of nature and to realize the place of man in nature. Every religion has its philosophical as well as ethical
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